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It’s quiet after Izuku fades away. It’s always quiet, here. In front of her, the sky stretches into infinity, an endless mass of shifting constellations. Beneath, shallow waters do the same, those very stars reflected on them like a mirror.
Nana traces the line between one star and another in the water next to her. There’s a slight ripple as she disrupts the surface, but when the line inevitably warps and she lifts her finger, it’s bone dry. She sighs and lets herself fall back with barely a sound, water lapping at her jaw and collarbones, arms stretched out to the sides like it could trick her mind into thinking she’s floating. Maybe she is. She wouldn’t know. Decades here within her received and gifted Quirk, and she still hasn’t figured out quite what it is.
Here’s one thing she does know, though: if one looks closely enough at the shifting constellations, as she does, as she is doing now, they will see things among them. Images. Silhouettes. Glimpses of memories from wielders past and present, a living, unliving tapestry of this power’s history.
At the point she’s focused on, she can make out—Three, maybe, by themself, staring at their own hands. Then it shifts to a shaky image of Four, blood gushing down the side of her face. And so on.
It must know she’s in a bad mood. No images of her own past, her own failures, show up, no matter where she looks.
It doesn’t matter. Kotarou is always on her mind. And this time—
Tenko is too.
Nana closes her eyes, some childish fear rising in her throat, like by just thinking the name she might see that face looking back at her in the shadow of a star. But now she just sees him on the backs of her eyelids instead, cracked skin, limp locks of grey hair, a smile to unsettle even the most sturdy of heroes—her grandson. One of her grandsons.
Your efforts are futile, the memories carved not on the sky but in the recesses of her mind whisper, that phantom of a hand inside of her chest twisting, always. You will die knowing everything you have done was a waste. I live on, and your legacy is nothing but ash on the open breeze.
Turns out he was right, in a way. Her legacy is ash. Ash, and green.
A laugh almost bubbles out of her wilted lungs. How is it possible to be this tired in the afterlife? She pushes her head back against the ground, until the water laps over her closed eyes, at the corners of her mouth.
“My brother really is an ass, isn’t he?”
Even death can’t erase pro hero reflexes. One moment she’s in the water, the next she’s standing, fists up in a fighting position. And the moment after, she’s dropping them, because—well, first of all, she’s pretty sure she can’t be killed twice, and because the person standing in front of her isn’t an enemy.
“Understatement of the century,” Nana says shakily, blowing a loose lock of hair out of her face.
One laughs. “Probably.”
It should be eerie, the way he looks at her. He is in death as he was at the end of his life: lanky locks of white-blonde hair hanging over his face, baggy clothes, skin that hasn’t seen a drop of sunlight in ages. And his eyes—they’re the same as his brother’s. The only difference is, where All for One’s gaze was steel, hard and forged, a blade waiting to strike, One’s is soft. Warm. Understanding.
Nana sinks back to the ground, crossing her legs, and One follows, kneeling. “You know, then?” she asks, even though she knows the answer. They all just know, somehow, knowledge immediately passed through the strange bond of One for All. She hopes the twisted snake coiled in the bottom of her gut doesn’t get passed through too, but luck has never quite been on her side.
He nods, polite as ever. “I’m sorry, Shimura.”
“Nana’s fine,” she says, waving a hand. She almost expects him to offer a name in return, but he just smiles. Does he even remember his name? How much of him is wrapped up in this twisted fate of theirs?
“How are you doing?” he says, earnest, and then cringes back. “Sorry. That’s a bit of a useless question, isn’t it?”
“Pretty sure all questions are useless at this point.” She scoffs, and looks down, at the reflection of the ever-shifting constellations, as her fingers tap out a soft beat on her knees. “Lying probably is, too. Shit sucks.”
A brief pause, and then: “Understandable,” One says quietly. “But at least there’s a bright side.”
“Yeah.” For a moment, in the water before her, she catches a glimpse of green curls. “He’s a good kid.”
“He is. The right heir, too. Yagi chose well.”
“That he did,” she says with a small smile.
“So did you.”
A breath hitches in her throat as Nana looks up. One is smiling, head tilted, but she— “If today’s shown anything, it’s that that might’ve been my only good choice.”
The smile fades. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“Isn’t it?” The laugh that drips from her mouth is half-hearted. Flat. Not enough, never enough, to show the guilt weighted in her bones like iron. “Everything with Kotarou—with Tenko—it’s my fault.”
“You are not responsible for the things my brother has done,” One says, and there’s a century of practice and guilt hiding behind those words. And it’s true for him—she’s seen the pieces over the years, the memories hidden in the stars—but for her…
She’s quiet for a few moments, trying to figure out how to put the whirling storm inside of her into words. “You know, when I was preparing to walk into that battle, I made sure things were taken care of. Kotarou. Toshinori. There were plans for them. Because I knew it would be my last.” She takes a deep breath. “Most people, they’d be fucking terrified by that. The thought of walking into their own death.
“But me? I mean, I was scared, sure, but I- I was relieved. To be—to be done with this.” She shakes her head. “I was a selfish fool.”
“It is not selfish to want to relieve yourself of a burden,” One says, gentle, with wisdom carved from decades of his life and others’, but—he doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. This is her fault.
“It is when that burden is dropping onto somebody else’s shoulders,” Nana argues. “I thought Toshinori would be okay with Sorahiko. And that as long as he was away from me, Kotarou would be okay, too. I thought that I had outrun the bindings of fate. Removed myself from the tapestry, or whatever.” With one hand and a bitter half-smile, she gestures at the sky. “But it always catches up with us. I should’ve known. ”
One stares at her, eyes wide, lips tight, and then bows his head. “I understand, but Nana, I cannot agree. Fate...it is not some tapestry outside of us. It is us—the result of our choices, of who we are. These are things you cannot outrun. Some of your choices have led us here, yes, but the alternatives could have been worse,” he says, each word carefully chosen, carefully given. “Had you not protected Toshinori, One for All might have met its end there. Had you not sent Kotarou away, my brother might not have found Tenko, but we might also not have Izuku here. There might be many more dead as a result. And so, I believe we are where we need to be, thanks in part to you.”
Fate is us. Everything he’s said settles over her skin like a spring mist—cold, at first, but just enough to clear the senses. Nana bites her lip, ignoring the phantom wetness welling in her eyes, the way her bones feel just a bit lighter, and glances at the water. For a brief second, she sees a past version of herself among the constellations, flashing a smile.
“Y’know, you would’ve been a good teacher,” she says after a moment, with a quiet laugh. She doesn’t tell him how she wishes she’d heard that earlier. How she wishes she had been able to say that to Toshinori. But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? A dozen regrets can’t outweigh the flowers that have sprouted in her wake. “Philosopher, maybe.”
He smiles. “I thought about it a few times. In another life, maybe, but for now, I think all of this is close enough.”
“Yeah.” She meets his eyes, and gives him a nod. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” One says, nodding in return. He glances up, then, at the stars around them. “All we can do now is trust our successors to carry this mission through.”
Nana looks up too. In the wisps of starlight, she catches another glance of green, but not just curls this time. Green lightning, illuminating one of the most determined expressions she’s ever seen. “Gotta feeling that won’t be hard.”