Prompt: Just a little character study comparing Asta and Noelle, and how Black Clover could've been subtly different if hints of romance (both ways) leaked throughout the series.
—
Asta bore a heavy fate—or perhaps no fate at all.
For he was magicless.
Magicless in a world where magic was everything.
Magicless in a world where magic was interwoven into every breath, every heartbeat, every flicker of existence.
The world began with magic. Thrived on magic. And, one day, it would end with magic.
Magic was the soul of the land and its people, the invisible force that propelled civilizations forward or ground them to dust.
It was mundane. Expected. So much so that its absence was unthinkable.
And yet, Asta existed.
A walking contradiction. A reality that shouldn't be.
How could someone live without mana? How could they think, feel, exist without it?
Even the lowest of creatures carried a flicker of magic within them. Asta had nothing. No spark, no presence, no connection to the force that governed the world.
Scholars—even the brightest—could not explain him.
Some theorized that his mother, Lichita, had drained his mana in the womb. But that theory collapsed under scrutiny.
If that were true, then Asta should have been stillborn.
If he had ever possessed even the faintest glimmer of magic, how had Lichita carried him to Hage without killing him?
No one had an answer.
Asta made no sense.
Even those without conventional magic—like Ryu Ryudo, the Shogun of the Land of the Rising Sun—still had something.
Ryu had yoryoku. Mana by another name. He simply concentrated it all into his Tengentsu, his all-seeing eye.
Even Liebe, a devil born without magic, wielded anti-magic. A power tied to his soul.
But Asta?
Nothing.
No latent energy. No hidden reserve. No divine curse or blessing.
Just emptiness.
Maybe Lucius was right, Asta thought bitterly.
Maybe I really am a flaw.
A bug in the system.
His existence challenged the natural order, defied every established law of the world.
Was that why he had been abandoned?
Asta bore a heavy fate—or perhaps he was fateless.
In all the countless timelines Lucius had glimpsed, Asta did not exist.
No variations. No echoes of his life.
It was as if the universe itself had never accounted for him.
He hadn't been denied magic because the gods disfavored him.
No, it was worse than that.
They never even noticed me.
To this day, he wondered.
Did the heavens see him at all?
Had they heard his pleas? His screams? His desperate cries for just one ounce of mana?
Had his voice ever reached them?
Or had it always been swallowed by the void?
Asta Staria.
Brother of the Lost Prince of Spade.
The so-called Prince of Stars.
And yet—
A black star.
One that did not shine in the night sky.
One that did not connect celestial bodies.
One that did not inspire poets or lovers.
A star that simply drifted. Unseen. Forgotten.
It did not burn. It did not pulse with life.
It was hollow. Empty to its core—
Just like Asta.
A misshapen, fractured amalgamation of rocky debris.
Rough. Uneven. Deformed.
Impish. Unworthy of a first glance—let alone a second.
Because he was never meant to be seen.
Asta was an asteroid.
Asta was fateless.
—
Noelle Silva bore a cruel fate.
From the moment she was born, the weight of expectation crushed her tiny shoulders.
She was the youngest daughter of Acier Silva—the Dancing Princess of the Battlefield—a near-perfect mirror of her mother's striking beauty.
The kingdom rejoiced.
Another legend had been born, they believed.
But fate had other plans.
Little more than two weeks after her birth, Acier fell deathly ill.
For nearly a year, the kingdom watched in horror as their beloved warrior-princess withered away.
Until finally, she was gone.
No explanations. No justice.
Only silence—and then, whispers.
Nasty, venomous whispers.
It was the baby's fault.
The child drained her mother's life.
Acier Silva—the Pride of House Silva, the kingdom's brightest star—had been stolen away by a helpless infant.
No one in House Silva denied the rumors.
No one defended her.
And so, the lies became truth.
Before Noelle could even take her first step, she was hated.
But this was a world where magic meant everything—where strength dictated worth.
As a royal, she was given chances to redeem herself. Opportunities to prove she was more than a curse.
Some even romanticized her misfortune, spinning tales that the heavens had been jealous.
That two Aciers could not exist at once.
That Noelle was destined to become the new Dancing Princess.
But she didn't.
Or perhaps—she couldn't.
Noelle had her mother's face.
She had her mother's vast, crushing mana.
But she did not have her talent.
Her control.
Her effortless genius.
Magic—the birthright of every noble—slipped through her fingers like water.
Even the lowest peasant could command their power with basic discipline—yet Noelle failed.
She trained, sweat and blood staining her robes, while other royals mastered spells with arrogant ease.
Still, her magic raged wild, untamed.
The scorn grew sharper.
She failed as a woman, too.
Noble ladies were not expected to cook, yet they all knew the art.
Noelle burned bread.
They were meant to sing like angels; her voice cracked under pressure.
And dancing—dancing—
The one thing tied to her mother's legacy.
The skill that should have been in her blood—
She stumbled.
The Dancing Princess's daughter couldn't dance.
How laughable.
How pathetic.
She couldn't control her magic.
Couldn't cook.
Couldn't clean.
Couldn't dance.
What good was she?
Not only had she stolen Acier's life—
She hadn't even inherited her talent.
A hollow imitation.
A disgrace.
The shame of House Silva.
The shame of royalty.
The shame of the nobility.
And so, like garbage, she was discarded—tossed into the lowest squad in the kingdom, where eyes wouldn't have to linger on her failure.
Noelle Silva was Christmas without joy.
Noelle Silva was ill-fated.
—
Perhaps it was romantic, in a tragic sort of way—
That the boy without a fate and the girl cursed by one found themselves in the same squad, at the same time—
Both fifteen.
Both broken in ways no one else could see.
One had a foster brother who shone brighter than the sun.
The other had a cousin hailed as the perfect royal.
Yuno and Mimosa—their brilliance only made Asta and Noelle's flaws burn harsher in comparison.
And while the two prodigies soared into the Golden Dawn, the kingdom's most elite squad—
Asta and Noelle were left behind, discarded like mistakes.
Asta—who had no magic at all.
Noelle—who had too much to control.
On the surface, they were nothing alike.
One was an uneducated peasant who had slept on dirt floors and gone hungry more nights than not.
The other was a princess who had never wanted for material comforts—
Only warmth.
Only love.
Yet their lives mirrored each other in cruel symmetry.
Both knew the sting of ridicule before they could even defend themselves.
Both had spent their childhoods alone, fists clenched, teeth gritted, desperately training for a power that never came easily.
Both had been measured against someone else their entire lives—
Why can't you be like Yuno?
If it were Mimosa, she'd have mastered this already.
Asta had been blessed with a family's unconditional love—
Something Noelle would have traded all her silks and jewels for in a heartbeat.
But where Noelle faltered under the weight of expectation—
Asta charged forward, brash and unbreakable, even when the world told him he was nothing.
Noelle trembled with frustration, drowning in self-doubt—
While Asta refused to bend, no matter how many times he was knocked down.
They stood on opposite ends of the spectrum—
One with nothing.
One with everything but the things that truly mattered.
And yet—
In their loneliness, in their defiance, in the way the world had tried and failed to erase them—
They were the same.
Few wanted anything to do with either of them.
Yet despite the world's indifference—or outright scorn—
They never stopped trying.
They clawed for progress, for validation, for something to prove they weren't the worthless burdens everyone claimed they were.
At their cores, they were compassionate souls.
They ached for others' pain, wept for strangers' suffering, and saw people not as titles or statuses, but as human.
Asta didn't care about crowns or crests.
To him, a person was just a person—no more, no less.
A noble could be kind or cruel—but that said nothing about nobility as a whole.
He judged individuals, not bloodlines.
And Noelle—
After only a few days with the Black Bulls—
Shed the haughty royal facade she'd worn like armor.
The pretense of superiority had been her shield—
Against hurt.
Against insecurity.
Against the crushing weight of failure.
But here—
It was unnecessary.
When Sosshi Village came under attack—
She didn't flee.
Like Magna, like Asta—she stood her ground.
A Silva, defending peasants?
Unthinkable.
Royals fought for royals. Nobles bled for nobles.
Yet she risked her life for people her family would've deemed beneath notice.
Asta had been euphoric upon arriving at the Black Bulls' base—
A room of his own.
A bed of his own.
To him, it was a palace.
Noelle, meanwhile, had been horrified.
The base was the filthiest place she'd ever seen—a hovel no noble would dare enter.
Yet she moved in without complaint.
She never admitted it aloud, but—
For the first time, she had a room that was truly hers.
No unexpected visits from tormenting siblings.
No vandalized belongings.
No violation of privacy.
Ironically, the so-called criminals and degenerates of the Black Bulls respected personal boundaries better than high society ever had.
Her new room was minuscule—smaller than her old closet in Castle Silva.
But where her gilded chambers had felt like a gilded cage—
This cramped space made her feel… free.
Warm.
Safe.
Both of them adored Charmy's cooking.
Neither had ever tasted anything so delicious.
Asta was used to splitting meager portions with his siblings—
Smiling through his hunger, then sneaking into the woods later to scavenge berries—
Hoping they weren't poisonous this time.
Noelle was used to Solid and Nebra ruining her meals—
Leaving her to starve.
But now?
They ate until they were full.
When the Bulls squabbled over food, it was playful, lighthearted—
A battle of laughter, not desperation.
Charmy made sure no one left the table hungry.
For the first time in their lives—
They belonged.
Asta and Noelle felt at home in this chaotic place—
Never expecting to find a second family—
One that loved to bust their heads and torment them with their quirks—
But would bleed for them without a second thought.
One that stitched their clothes and quilts without being asked.
One that warped over to check on them if they were gone too long.
One that rearranged the halls to help them get somewhere faster in an emergency.
One that learned their favorite dishes without needing to ask.
But more than their beloved squadmates—
Asta and Noelle found each other.
They were drawn to each other.
They had been on countless missions together.
Asta never judged Noelle for her failures, and even though she had said some hurtful things to him when they first met, not once had she ever stooped to the typical insults about his lack of magic.
Nor had she ever tolerated it when someone slandered him for his disability.
Until now, Yuno had been the only person Asta had ever known to stand up for him like that. But even with Yuno's defense, Asta could never quite tell if his foster brother was truly defending him or subtly mocking him.
Reading Yuno was like trying to decipher a book in a language Asta didn't understand—too difficult.
Noelle, on the other hand, was just as loud and passionate as he was, never hiding her displeasure when something didn't sit right.
And even when her words said one thing, her expressions always gave her away—showing when she was concerned about him, or silently appreciative of something he'd done.
When Mars impaled Noelle during the dungeon raid, Asta nearly lost it. But her calm voice cut through the panic in his mind, grounding him—reminding him not to let his emotions take over, because there was still a job to do.
In Asta's eyes, Noelle was amazing. He couldn't understand how anyone could dislike her or be so cruel. And he made that known when he stood by her during the conferment ceremony, shielding her from her siblings' abuse.
When the capital came under attack, and Asta fought Rades and the others, Noelle did her best to support him from behind—protecting and evacuating civilians so he could go all out, without hesitation.
And when Asta was kidnapped—Noelle nearly had a heart attack. The relief she felt when the Wizard King returned him, safe and sound, was vaster than the ocean itself.
But when the children were kidnapped in Nairn, she had never felt more powerless. She wanted nothing more than to join Asta and Gauche in the rescue mission. Instead, she had to stay behind, calling Captain Yami from the safety of Rebecca's home, waiting for good news like some useless princess locked in a tower.
After that, Noelle trained harder than ever—not just to fight alongside Asta, but to stand in front of him if the day ever came when he needed her to.
When their squad was deep in the Seabed Temple, Noelle had stepped forward to fight Vetto. And when she ran out of mana, Asta was the one to pick up where she left off.
When Asta's arms broke and despair threatened to swallow him whole, it wasn't anyone else's words that truly reached him. It was Noelle—her passionate confession to Finral that she wanted to help him, that she would find a way to fix his arms.
That moment touched him deeper than anything else.
For the first time in a long time, Asta cried—not from comedic joy, but from something far more raw.
And at the Witches' Forest, he had never been prouder of Noelle. No longer hiding behind others, she stepped up, taking the lead against Fana, the Diamond Kingdom, and the Eye of the Midnight Sun invaders.
But when Asta fell under the Witch Queen's control, it was Noelle he struck down. And that terrified him more than anything he had ever felt before. The moment Vanessa freed him, the emotional toll crushed him, and he collapsed unconscious.
The nightmares followed him night after night—blurry, fragmented visions of that moment. Of how wrong it all could have gone. If Noelle hadn't called his name, if he hadn't managed to hold himself back, if Vanessa hadn't seized fate in time…
Asta didn't even want to think about what could have happened.
Because in that moment, losing Noelle had been his greatest fear.
Asta didn't really understand what Kahono was asking him at the Star Festival when he answered that he liked Noelle.
Of course he liked her—she was strong, compassionate, kind, hardworking, and beautiful...
But maybe, deep down, he did understand.
Because when Noelle froze up and turned redder than a tomato, his heart did something strange. Even now, just recalling her expression from that moment made his chest feel tight—before she promptly shot him far away.
Asta had been disappointed when he wasn't placed on Noelle's team for the Royal Knights selection exam. She had felt the same.
He had been disappointed again when he failed to reach the finals—not just because he wanted to face Yuno, but because he had wanted to face her. And Noelle had wanted that too.
She had wanted to fight him—to show him how far she had come. And Asta had wanted to know what it felt like to stand opposite Noelle Silva as her opponent, as her enemy.
To know what it felt like to be blasted by that same attack that had torn a chunk out of that beast who spoke of despair.
When they stormed the Midnight Sun's base, and everything spiraled out of control with the elves' reincarnations, Asta had been most relieved that Noelle wasn't turned or injured.
And Noelle had felt the same about him.
She shouldn't have thought this way, but despite its evident devilish nature, Noelle found Asta's black form... charming. Impressive, even.
Just as Asta had been mesmerized the first time he saw her in her Valkyrie Dress.
When Asta went to face Zagred and Noelle went after Fana, neither of them felt fear for the other—only confidence in each other's victory and anticipation for their reunion.
But when Noelle learned that the nobility planned to use Asta as a scapegoat for the entire elves' fiasco, she had been angrier than she had been in a very long time.
So much so that it was her who all but demanded Nozel and Fuegoleon do something about it. And the moment Asta and Nero disappeared, she forced her captain and squadmates to get off their asses and go rescue their idiot.
Her idiot.
Not that they cared for the nobility's opinions to begin with—they had already decided they were going to act—but it was Noelle who coaxed Henry into transforming the base into the Raging Bull and blowing a hole straight through the magical parliament's ceiling.
Asta, who had been fighting a losing battle against Damnatio Kira—not in power, but in politics, reason, and morality—was deeply moved by his second family's rescue.
But more than anything, his eyes lingered on a certain silver-haired princess. His ears tuned mostly to her voice.
Because above all else, in that moment, she stood out to him the most.
During his and the Bulls' exile—how they ended up in the Heart Kingdom—Asta had been most pleased that Noelle would be training there with him and the others. And she had felt the same.
Noelle would never admit it, but she really liked how Asta packed on muscle over those six months, wearing clothes that all but flaunted them.
More than once, she had to physically restrain herself from reaching out to trail her fingers over his six-pack... or from outright drooling.
Thankfully, training to face the devil who had killed her mother helped keep most of those improper thoughts at bay.
But then there were moments—like when Asta had handed her those two simple purple ribbons—that made it incredibly difficult to stay professional. To stay focused.
When Asta left to return to base before the battle began, their goodbye had been simple. A quick exchange, a promise to meet again.
And then came the fight.
As Asta battled Dante and Noelle faced Vanica, both hopelessly overpowered, both painfully out of their depth, they each felt the same regret.
Not for failing to train harder.
But for how casual their last words to each other had been.
Because there was so much more they had wanted to say—needed to say.
So, they did the only thing they could.
They pushed past their limits, fought through the overwhelming might of the Devil Hosts, and survived to see another day.
They trained harder than ever. Noelle in Elysia—to save Lolopechka and end Vanica and Megicula once and for all. Asta with Nacht—to rescue Captain Yami and put an end to the devil and otherworldly madness once and for all.
And then, they met again.
Asta, catching Lolopechka as he freed her from Megicula's control, looked at Noelle—on the dregs of her Saint Stage, barely standing—and for the first time in so long, he felt relief.
He smiled his broadest smile since Zenon had taken Yami and said,
"Didn't I say so, Noelle? We'd meet again just fine."
And right then and there, Noelle Silva finally accepted the truth.
She loved Asta.
But now wasn't the time for confessions.
This was a battlefield. They were still in the middle of a war.
So she waited.
And waited.
No matter how much it hurt to stand on the sidelines, watching Asta and the others struggle against Lucifero while she remained helpless.
No matter how much she pleaded, Undine was out of mana. There was nothing more the water spirit could do.
Charmy tried feeding Undine, but it was meaningless.
Once again, Noelle was forced to stew in her own frustration, unable to do the one thing she wanted most—fight by Asta's side.
She watched Yuno and Nacht protect him from the King of Devils. She watched Mimosa heal him.
And she could do nothing.
Nothing for the man she had finally come to terms with loving.
And in that moment, Noelle felt unworthy of him.
So, instead of confessing after the war, she trained. And trained.
Because if she was going to lay her heart out to Asta, she wanted to be able to look into his eyes as his equal.
With respect. With authority. With confidence.
And then, when the time was right, she would finally tell him everything.
But then, over a year later, she watched him confess to that damn nun again.
Watched him get rejected again.
Him finally accepting it should have been a silver lining, but it barely even registered. Because at that moment, everything came crashing down.
Lucius Zogratis came and went—killing Asta, taking away his nun—like it was nothing more than a morning walk.
And that was it.
He was gone.
Pulverized. Annihilated.
Right in front of her eyes.
All she could do was scream. Cry. Break down. Helpless. Weak. Again.
To the very end, she had never been able to do anything for him. Had never even been given the chance to tell him what made him more special than anyone else in her world.
The only thing that kept her from shattering completely was the fact that, as a Magic Knight, she still had a job to do—preparing for Judgment Day.
And Nacht's words.
The infinitesimally small hope that, somehow, someway, Asta might still be alive.
That he was just... somewhere very, very far away.
Still, Noelle wept.
She ran, disappearing to a place where no one would find her. A place tied to one of her greatest turning points in magic.
Raque.
The beach town where Asta had cheered her on, where he had pushed her to learn how to control her power—where she had first carried them all to the Seabed Temple.
The memories made it bitter. Sweet.
They made her choke up. Tremble.
And then she wept all over again.
But she didn't stay like that for long.
Because Noelle knew—Asta would be disappointed in her.
So she gathered her resolve.
And through some cruel twist of fate—the same divine providence that had always seemed so merciless to her—she was finally granted a sliver of fortune.
In the form of a certain Sea God.
And at last, at last, Noelle had power.
Power to fight.
Power to change things.
Power to finally play a role in odds and stakes that made the Spade Kingdom and its devils seem like a cakewalk.
And as she fought her mother—now turned Paladin—pushed to the losing end, something flickered in the corner of her eye.
A presence.
And then she knew.
He was back.
Her heart settled. Her focus sharpened.
She was steady.
And in that moment, she found it in herself to forgive her siblings.
To work with them.
To set her mother free.
It was about an hour later when they met again—for the first time in over a week.
Noelle was out of mana. Asta was out of anti-magic.
Both of their clothes were torn, bloodied, scraped, and bruised from head to toe.
But in each other's eyes, they were the most beautiful thing that had ever existed.
And so, Noelle no longer hesitated.
She didn't care about her surroundings, the people, the stares.
Didn't care about the thoughts of others.
Not even Mimosa's.
She loved her cousin, but right now? Right now, she didn't care.
Because Noelle Silva did what she wanted.
And right then and there—she wanted Asta.
With a shaky, tearful smile, she leapt into his arms, buried her face in his chest, and sobbed.
Half fearful. Half relieved.
And not a moment later, she felt it—Asta's broad arms wrapping around her back, pulling her closer.
Holding her tight.
He didn't say a word.
Didn't need to.
Because as she rested against his chest, as she felt his heartbeat pounding just as wildly as her own—that was her answer.
The answer to her questions, her doubts, her fears.
The way she felt… the way he felt.
All those sleepless nights, spent pining for him, yearning to see him, to touch him… They weren't nights she had endured alone.
It was mutual.
They were partners.
Maybe they never quite got the chance to fight side by side the way she had always dreamed, but after everything—after battles, after wars of planetary scale and stakes—they had a shared understanding.
They didn't need words.
Their conversation was in the way they held each other tighter.
In the way their foreheads pressed together.
In the way they buried their faces in each other's shoulders, weeping, trembling.
In the way they felt each other's heartbeat.
It was in the way they moved—silently, instinctively—to somewhere secluded, somewhere private, without a word or a second thought.
It was in that first kiss.
Swollen. Bloody. Dry.
Lip against lip.
The way they inhaled, the way they tasted each other—like the most intoxicating drug in the world.
That was the final piece.
That was their conversation complete.
As day faded into night, they lay together beneath the stars.
Admiring the sky.
Admiring each other.
No words.
Only smiles in place of speech.
Only kisses in place of conversation.
Only actions—ones that said everything they ever needed to say.
Asta had no fate. He was a flaw.
Noelle was ill-fated, an enormous disappointment.
Two souls, born into entirely different worlds, yet walking eerily similar paths—paths that led them to become something incredible.
Asta defied the very logic of the world. In a place where he should have been weakest, he became the strongest.
And Noelle?
She more than lived up to the legacy of Acier Silva's daughter.
Neither was perfect.
Far from it.
Asta, though literate, struggled with reading and writing.
Noelle still couldn't cook. Or sing. Or dance.
Asta's personality needed work if he truly wanted to become Wizard King. He had to learn politics, diplomacy, and—most terrifyingly—how to do paperwork properly.
Noelle still used a wand.
Asta had to get more creative with his anti-magic if he didn't want to be left in Yuno's dust again.
Noelle, for someone who fought mostly in close range, could benefit from learning actual hand-to-hand combat. Maybe putting on some muscle, too.
They had flaws. Gaps.
Ones that wouldn't simply disappear just because they were together.
But they had each other to fill them.
To teach each other. Push each other.
So what if fate gave them nothing?
So what if the world tried to beat them down at every turn?
Screw fate.
They would give each other what the world refused them.
Love.Happiness.
A shoulder to cry on. A hand to hold. A partner to rely on.
They would complete each other. Guide each other.
Continue to push each other—just as they always had—to become the best versions of themselves.
The star never given light, and the Christmas never blessed with joy—collided.
And they mixed.
Seamlessly. Perfectly.
Two souls from opposite spectrums, coming together to create versions of themselves neither could have ever predicted.
And they relished it.
They were meant to be cold, empty, hollow, despairing.
Yet together, they shone brighter than anyone else in the world.
Asta and Noelle.
Together at last.
And the heavens could do nothing about it.