Chapter Text
“Is it true?”
It's a fucking rhetorical question; the chances of it being a lie are nil. First of all, although All Might had surprised everyone with his ability to evade the truth, when the moment came, his honesty was brutal. No blatant lies. Evasions? Without hesitation. Half-truths? Candy for the man. But a lie? Fabricated words and malicious deception? No, none of that, it's not All Might's style; it's not who Yagi is.
Second, Yagi wouldn't lie about this, not about him.
Midoriya.
Izuku.
His boy, as the man had so affectionately referred to him since Shōta had been aware of it.
Yagi wasn't going to lie about Midoriya Izuku — not about what the boy meant to him, nor about whatever this was.
He slams the book against the desk, the abruptness shaking the metal and the hard cover of the book making a sharp, thudding sound. The image on the cover is innocent — just a tree — but Shōta recognizes it. Who would have thought that the retired Symbol of Peace knew so much about such strange things. One of the longest-living trees. Shōta should have expected there to be something more hidden in the old man's usual chatter. He did not. Yagi chattered away, and after all the pain of the last few years, no one was about to put a stop to his ramblings anytime soon. Yagi had given everything, every part of his body and soul, to defend peace. Every limb, every day of his life, even his — even his boy.
The image was one that Shōta was familiar with too. He remembered Yagi showing him the photo, happy to explain how he came to have it. Some fascinated explanation about the United States, the American dream, longevity, time, life… The usual.
(I met young Midoriya on a spring day. Admittedly, it wasn't a pleasant moment but being the amazing and kind boy that he is, he never held a grudge against me — even though he would have had every reason to.)
They stare at each other, the book between them burning like a bonfire, its printed title even more fiery and poignant.
One for All: A Legacy Story.
The name below is just the tip of the iceberg. At this point, one would have to be a complete recluse to not know All Might's civilian identity, but for Shōta, they will never be the same. All Might is… All Might. Powerful, unattainable. The undisputed number one hero. More of a concept than a person.
But Toshinori Yagi is human, so human. He bleeds and suffers and is permanently confined to a wheelchair. It is not All Might who has written, it is Yagi, the man. It is an important distinction. All Might is the celebrity, a name that even now continues to carry the weight of all heroes past and future. The legend. The one and only. Yagi… Yagi is personal. He is not a celebrity, nor is he a quasi-sanctified being. What Yagi is, is a mere mortal who loves and loves deeply.
Shōta likes Yagi better.
With his gnarled and trembling fingers, Yagi turns the book over. He is reverent, extremely careful. Not like an artist before his work, but something more human. On the back, there is a clear photograph of a boy with green curls next to a terrifyingly emaciated man — it's a good photo, if only for that spark of happiness in both their eyes that Shōta hasn't seen in a long time.
Tense silence between them, like a string waiting to snap with the most agonizing sound possible. All the hustle and bustle around them has stopped, their colleagues watching them with intense, heavy stares, frozen in their movements. They are not subtle, they never are, even though they have the skills to be. And although the last few years have taken their toll, and more than one has become more cynical, more distrustful, the U.A. is still their home, still a place where they can let their guard down a little and not jump at the slightest sign of danger.
“How dare you hide something like this from us?” It is as much an accusation as it is an admission of betrayal. It's just his feelings speaking over reason. But he feels it — he feels it to his bones. Everything that was hidden from them, every secret that Shōta wonders if revealing them was worth the pain.
By now, Shōta would have expected someone else to have done the honors already. Shōta isn't the only one who's been deceived, Shōta isn't the only one who's become friendly with Yagi. It can't be just Shōta who feels so insulted not only by the fact that such monumental secrets have been kept from him, but also that he has been made aware of them along with the rest of the damn civilian population.
Damn Yagi. Damn All Might. Nezu, Recovery Girl, Sir Nighteye, the Hero Commission, Hawks, Endeavor. Damn them all for keeping that secret until the end of their stupid lives. What did they think they achieved by hiding it? Did they distrust everyone below them to that extent? Was this secret worth more than the lives of Shōta's students?
That last one is a personal affront, blown out of proportion to unrealistic limits. If he is objective, and Shōta is objective, then he knows the answer.
Yes.
There are secrets worth the lives of his students.
But Shōta is their teacher for a reason. His job is to assess those risks and send them to hell, prioritizing the safety of his students above all else, with the same urgency with which he prioritizes the lives of the civilians he protects.
It fills his blood with something boiling and poisonous. They knew. They knew. And yet… Why say it now? What's the point now?
But if anyone had the right to keep it and say it, wasn't it Yagi?
(At that moment, when that child without a quirk asked me if he could be a hero, the answer came so naturally to me. The cruelty of the truth. I saw myself in that child, and what a grotesque reflection it was. I too had been a child without a quirk, and only fate had propelled me further — but my dream had never been to be just a hero. I wanted more, I needed it. And in my frankness, I missed that same burning fire in young Midoriya. To me, he was just a child without a quirk whose dreams were childish. The good thing is that fate once again proved me wrong, and that same afternoon Izuku slapped me back with my own truths.
Reality was no impediment to Izuku; my words only dimmed his flames, they did not extinguish them. Because like me, Izuku had a dream that was too big, impossible, and fanciful. He wanted to be more than just a hero, although perhaps he hadn't realized it.
And when his body moved on its own, despite the tricks biology had played on him, I saw it: a true hero. Like the ones in those comics I once read that inspired me. But more, much more. My words were so wrong and obtuse. Of course young Midoriya could be a hero, quirk or no quirk. My experiences had distorted me, but I was able to rectify myself. It was never about the quirk. There are too many heroes out there with powerful quirks, but what is power without kindness?
You, my boy, have kindness. A hero not by title, but by purpose. Yes, I know that now. Even without a quirk, you would have been the greatest hero of all. And that's why I didn't hesitate to offer you this quirk. I knew you would see in it the opportunity to help more people. You didn't want to be a hero for yourself; you wanted to be one for them.)
Yagi brings a handkerchief to his mouth and coughs. There is blood on the cloth and on his lips. Shōta is used to it, but now more than ever he must hide the slight shudder that runs through him when he sees the blood on the green cloth, embroidered with frogs and leaves.
Yagi, Shōta remembers. Not All Might. Not All Might anymore. Here he is, seeking answers from a walking corpse.
“Why?” he asks with greater compassion, “Why now?”
Yagi's blue eyes darken, and he looks down, perhaps ashamed. “I'm dying,” he says, with nothing but brutal honesty about something everyone already knows and has been expecting for a while. The thing is, Yagi has lived longer than anyone would have bet on, and after reading this revealing book, Shōta is clearer than ever about the odds that have been stacked against the man. "I can feel it, once again I can feel imminent death breathing down on me, and now… I don't think there's anything I can do to escape it once more. It's not that I want to… The point is, young Aizawa, I'm going to die soon, and then who would know? Who would know about my boy and all those who came before him to bring us to this moment?"
He almost sounds regretful, almost sounds pitiful. Almost. There is a slight sound of pride accompanying it. Shōta can feel nothing but pity at that. How much regret must Yagi carry, to force himself to find pride in all his tragedy.
Shōta's shoulders relax, that armor of tension melting a little. It doesn't hurt him to hear the older man talk about his impending death, but there is something in the words he uses, the worn resignation that colors his words in a cloudy gray tone, that does the trick, and the burning fury that forced him to burst into the office slowly fades away.
A flame of it still remains, for Shōta is known to be a man who holds a grudge, although the years have taught him to show some compassion, especially towards those who will not give it to themselves. And all night long, Shōta had been feeding that anger, cultivating it with every word his tired brain had forced itself to process until it finally overflowed.
Everyone had been taken by surprise with the release of this book in bookstores across the country. There had been no prior notice, much less from the man who wrote it. One day, suddenly, the book arrived at every available bookstore (which, after the war, weren't many — reconstruction could be a slow process), and, as one might expect from the man who held the top spot in the hero rankings for just over thirty years, it only took a few hours for the title to spread like wildfire and flood the media with an explosion. God, only All Might can have that kind of power, right?
One for All: A Legacy Story.
With such a pretentious title, the public can't be blamed for thinking it was some kind of fiction book. Perhaps the former number one hero had decided to devote himself to creative writing in his retirement years. He wouldn't be the first celebrity to take up a hobby to kill his old age.
But it's not a fiction book, even though the beginning could be misleading. The whole story of the two brothers, and then the guerrilla fighter and his second-in-command, the quasi-monk who secluded himself in the mountains… Fiction, until the stories become too close and real, and suddenly the name Shimura Nana is thrown into the mix, and Shōta knows who she is, as Yagi has often spoken of his mentor. It took Shōta to reach that chapter to straighten up and devour the rest of the pages, but for the rest of the population it wasn't clear until the name All Might appeared as the next chapter.
It's a chronicle, narrated by none other than Yagi Toshinori, known worldwide by his hero name: All Might.
So here is Shōta, just twenty-five hours after the book went on sale and twelve hours after a copy came into his hands from none other than Hizashi. Even though Shōta likes to portray himself as someone who is above celebrity gossip, his curiosity could be his undoing. His plan had been to buy a copy of the book and read it over the weekend, but Hizashi had gotten there first (like everyone else at U.A.) and, with a very serious expression, had given him the book and instructed him to read it. Now Shōta understands the urgency and seriousness.
It's not fiction, it's a chronicle. About the best-kept secret of heroic society and the century-old battle that was brewing behind the scenes. How could something like this have been kept hidden until now? Each chapter had been extensive in its narration. Yes, it was a secret revealed, but it was also a tribute to every person who had taken up the baton to face the fearsome villain. An account of the last century and its conclusion in the form of a selfless teenager with a heart too big for his own good.
Oh, my. Shōta had been outraged when he got to that part, even though, truthfully, he had expected that ending. Because Yagi's chapter had been short compared to the others, and who else could the man talk about for fifty pages? Who could succeed All Might in his moral mission?
(But it was never my intention for young Izuku to inherit this burden. I thought that the goal for One For All had finally been cultivated and had reached its conclusion. I just hoped to help Izuku achieve his own goals and dreams of becoming the best hero possible, of helping people and inspiring them to be better. That wasn't the case, and instead, I cursed my boy with such a heavy burden, which he took on with determination.)
And he wishes he could throw all his frustration and anger at the man, berate him for his idiocy in keeping something like this quiet for so long. Shōta could question him for his reasons, except that Yagi has already given them all. Without a doubt, Shōta feels insulted by the mistrust Yagi held against all of them, their fellow heroes, the U.A. staff, their own students. But his mistrust had not been entirely unfounded; they had had traitors among them. It had been foolish, even so. And he was already paying the price for his stubbornness.
If Shōta were someone else, someone petty, he would throw it all back at Yagi. Everything. He would stab him with the knowledge that, if he had revealed the truth to them at the time, then his boy might not have died. But it's a maybe, and only a maybe. Shōta won't torture the man by saying it, when Yagi surely already thinks it.
"To begin with, it was never young Midoriya's intention to keep it a secret. Both of us — we had talked about revealing it at some point in the future, when All for One was finally defeated. Young Izuku believed that revealing his quirkless status to everyone could force something in our society. You know, Aizawa-kun, everyone knows, the society we have built so far is not one we can be proud of. Too much prejudice, discrimination, violence. Izuku knew this better than anyone, and he — he just wanted to change it."
(Born into a small family, young Izuku was raised exclusively by his mother. His father had been an intelligent man who had carved out an opportunity for himself abroad. However, by the time Izuku was four years old, life threw him his first curveball: quirkless. Doctors quickly diagnosed him as part of the small percentage of people in the world without a Quirk. And, as if that weren't aggravating enough, Mr. Midoriya vanished into thin air, across the sea. It would not be until a couple of years later, as my research has revealed, that Hisashi Midoriya would be officially declared dead by the US authorities, but at the time, the Midoriyas were unaware of this fact, and the uncertainty of what had happened to Mr. Midoriya only made things more difficult for the small family.
Meanwhile, for Izuku, everything went downhill. Although his mother, Inko Midoriya, had been a resilient and loving woman, there was little she could do to save her son from the appalling cruelty of Izuku's young peers and schoolmates, who quickly turned against him, ridiculing and belittling him for his lack of a Quirk.
Midoriya's school life was hard, too hard. The society we now live in was a far cry from the one I had grown up in. As someone without a Quirk, I was certainly also the subject of ridicule by my peers, but the cruelty with which Izuku was treated was something that overwhelmed me. Unbeknownst to me, engrossed in my mission to defeat the great villain, I had lost sight of the shape our society was taking and the dark path it was stuck on. I thought that by becoming a Symbol, I had managed to bring peace and hope for a better future, but now I wonder if I brought something else instead.)
Yes, Midoriya definitely knew a thing or two about the rottenness of their society. Shōta takes a deep breath, trying to distance himself from that dark mound. He can't, not entirely. It has been gnawing at his thoughts all night, flooding him with questions and observations.
How could he not have seen it?
Shōta is - he is not - he is not incompetent. It may sound egotistical, but he's not a bad hero. Quite the opposite, at least when compared to his colleagues who only chose this profession out of a need for recognition. Shōta knows how to do his job, and he does it well. As an underground hero, he learned to spot the warning signs easily. Recognizing when a woman is in an abusive relationship, when a minor lives in a violent home, when someone is under threat. It's almost second nature — a sixth sense really.
He looks back in hindsight, and if he could, he would kick himself. He would. Because it was all there. That passive personality that Shōta had interpreted as introversion. The nervous tics he attributed to a lack of confidence. Empathy for circumstances that were anything but common, even towards villains. A natural connection with victims. Disinterest to the point of breaking bones. At the time, Shōta had interpreted it as the qualities of a good prospect for a hero student.
After that first test of quirks — and damn, that moment alone was already changing in this new light — Shōta was certain that Midoriya would be an incredible hero, he just needed some training and a firm hand to take his training seriously.
He didn't - he got distracted. At that moment, he was much more concerned about students like Todoroki who had the marks (literally) all over his face from an abusive home. Concerned about Uraraka and her sad lunches that barely gave her enough energy for class. Concerned about Shoji and the scars that marked his limbs. That's no excuse, right? He forgot that the most important part of trauma is that it doesn't always have a physical representation to tell you where to look, and that not all children who have been through a violent environment necessarily come out of it with equally violent personality traits. Sometimes the scars are hidden too well under clothing, and those people can be the kindest, like the violence never touched them.
It never crossed his mind that Midoriya might have acquired his quirk until the damn day of the damn entrance exam. It never occurred to him to investigate where Mr. Midoriya was during all the chaos in the dorms and his son's many, many injuries. Shit, fuck. He just… he just dismissed Midoriya as lazy and, without knowing it, burned any bridge of trust between them. He was content for Mr. Midoriya to keep in touch by mail and messages, without inquiring further about the man's whereabouts.
He was just another teacher Midoriya couldn't trust.
(As is often the case with young people without quirks, the teasing soon turned into real insults. And when that wasn't enough, it escalated to physical violence. During the next few years of his school life after being diagnosed as quirkless, there was not a day when young Izuku was not the target of bullies, and as the children grew older, so did their attacks.
Jokes, teasing, insults.
Pushing, bruises, scrapes.
Destruction of property, spider lilies, incitement to suicide.
Fortunately, young Izuku found support in internet forums. While his teachers preferred to turn a blind eye to what was happening, some even becoming active agents of intolerance against Izuku, in internet forums my boy was able to find people who, like him, suffered day after day at the hands of their peers and superiors. To those people, whom Izuku once spoke to me about with genuine affection, I express my deepest gratitude. Because of you, my boy found the strength to pursue his dreams and not be intimidated.)
What a shitty hero. Shōta knows he's not perfect, not even the damn All Might was, but they're heroes, and yes, they’re going to screw up: let some criminal get away, follow the wrong leads, or make mistakes that cost the city a lot in repairs. They’ll realize a witness lied to them seven nights later, when they’ve finally slept for more than thirty minutes. It's part of their job to make those mistakes, dust themselves off, and move on. Today we couldn't save someone, right, so tomorrow they'll have to save twice as many as usual. In this career, you learn from your mistakes and let them rest. That, or your career ends prematurely, consumed by the guilt of the “what ifs” and the “should haves.” And everyone you could have helped will now be left without help.
You save every name, remember every case. You learn and commemorate, but you don't drown in guilt. That's selfish, and heroes can't be selfish.
Shōta, the hero Eraserhead, swallows his regrets and learns from them. But what about Shōta, the teacher? He became a hero to protect the unfortunate. To be there in the shadows where the light of the heroes of the day cannot reach. That wasn't enough for him, and Shōta became a teacher to make sure no child has to die crushed under the weight of dreams they weren't meant for.
And he had been doing so well. His expulsion rate is feared, but not unfounded. His tough, direct teaching has helped him mold promising students into prudent heroes. And then — then Izuku dies, and Shōta has spent every day since wondering if he has been wrong in his ways. If perhaps he is not the right person to protect these children.
He closes his eyes and dreams of every case that has gone wrong. He remembers the parents he had to break the news to that their child did not make it. The times the rescue teams arrived late to a scene, and he had to sit next to a collapsed building, reassuring the trapped people until the severity of their injuries killed them. Every time he doesn't arrive in time to stop that scum from laying their filthy hands on a defenseless person. They are tragedies, his or not, tragedies nonetheless. The work of a hero is made of them. You can't save everyone, but god, how he wishes he could.
He dreams of Midoriya Izuku, the smile on his young face that made him look like he was asleep.
Always wondering: where did it go wrong? How did he let his student die so soon?
Was there no other way?
Two years. It took Shōta two years to work through all those painful thoughts, and although he was far from overcoming them anytime soon, he was definitely getting somewhere.
Class 1-A (now 3-A) never recovered from the loss of Midoriya. Something about that boy had given them something, a loving unity, hope. The unity was still there, but it was also clear that Midoriya's loss was still very much present for his students. But unlike Shōta, his students moved forward every day, determined to become the heroes Midoriya knew they could be and needed to be. Perhaps it was their youth that allowed them to fuel the idealistic hope Midoriya had instilled in them.
The whole society had mourned the tragic death of the young student. A martyr of a disastrous war, who, along with a good number of other heroes, had put himself on the front line without anyone asking him to.
Midoriya Izuku was so present in so many different ways, and Shōta was already beginning to shape how he wanted his student's death to change him.
Then Yagi throws this pile of secrets at them, and Shōta returns to step one, only now he knows the answers to his questions, and he knows the questions to his answers.
“I will die soon,” Yagi repeats, a pitiful smile on his face. “At least now, when that time comes, the world will know. That Midoriya Izuku was truly the greatest hero among us.”
It happens a few months later, in mid-September, when the last of summer bids farewell and the leaves on the trees turn orange.
The ceremony is private, but outside the funeral home, people gather en masse. Their mournful cries almost pierce the silence of the premises, but they are easily ignored. For someone who had no close family, Toshinori Yagi has a good turnout to pay their respects, and flowers of different shapes and species flood the foot of the coffin, creating a peaceful image, gentle on sore eyes.
The ceremony is coming to an end, and the attendees are slowly leaving, leaving behind the smell of burning incense. Standing until the end, Shōta silently says goodbye to those he knows, keeping his face impassive. Through the hallway door, he notes that the donation box is nearly overflowing with an impressive number of thick, generous envelopes. The funeral is being paid for by the government — what remains of the Heroes Commission — and there is no family that can claim the money, but it will all go to a good place. A couple of suicide prevention associations, the reconstruction groups that continue to work, and, of course, Yagi's foundation against quirk discrimination.
The day has finally arrived. Shōta is not surprised by the slight apathy he feels about the whole thing, nor is he surprised that those in attendance also share some degree of that same apathy. If there is crying, then it is slight. If there is sadness, then it is measured. Yagi's death is neither loud nor surprising; they have seen it coming since the man's condition was revealed years ago. There might even have been more tears when that cursed fight lit up everyone's screens than there are now.
Now, it's mere formality. Those who were close to Yagi came to say goodbye to the man in time. Some even had the privilege of being there when the machine made its last sound and the last breath was exhaled.
It is very Yagi, even so, that he decided to dedicate the last moment of his existence to continuing to help others. Shōta has already left his own envelope, a large part of his retirement savings offered without hesitation. The general public has also been encouraged to help within their means to promote all the causes that Yagi defended until the end. He understands that money is not everything when it comes to driving the structural changes that Yagi dreamed of, but it is something, and, although he is not surprised, after the whole One for All and All for One issue became public, the public's reaction has become more nuanced and the discussions have definitely become interesting.
Shōta doesn't have social media to know, but his students are very excited about it and constantly update him on the latest hot topic. At first, the public's reception was mixed. What Yagi made public was almost as polarizing as when Endeavor's family situation came to light, but, just like that, little by little, people are reaching a consensus on the state of today's society and the changes that are urgently needed. It is an ongoing discussion, with both heroes and former villains contributing their part, including Shōta's students.
Shōta has his doubts as to whether he will live to see such changes, but the mere possibility that something like this could happen at some point in the future brings him peace of mind.
The last person leaves. Shōta recognizes him as one of Yagi's friends from his time abroad, and the man pats him on the shoulder as he passes by. It's a friendly gesture, and Shōta is already used to it. They've bumped into each other during his visits to the hospital. David, if he remembers correctly. Foreign names tend to get a little mixed up.
In the end, Shōta is the last person present. The next step is to take Yagi's body to the crematorium, but first the crowd outside has to be dispersed, so that will take some time. In the meantime, Shōta offered to guard the room. You never know with hero fans, and Shōta could only trust himself to do this task. After all, he is one of the few who knows what will become of Yagi's ashes. Always an extravagant man, of course he would not choose a traditional resting place.
Ah, but it certainly sounds peaceful, scattering his ashes in a distant, green field.
There in death, Shōta thinks, Toshinori Yagi will finally be able to rest, and who knows, maybe he'll be able to meet his boy. With how emotional those two were, if it rained on them for the next week, it wouldn't be surprising.
Without realizing it, he ends up walking down the aisle leading to the casket, boredly observing the white blanket covering the wooden lid — the sweet smell of flowers permeates the air, tickling his nose with its cloying notes. He likes flowers; Shōta believes they are one of the best gifts anyone can give to someone. When he was a child and his mother fell ill, Shōta visited her every day with a poor bouquet of street flowers he picked on his way to the hospital. She seemed happy with them, very happy — and she kept every little flower in a jar. Like coins. Her funeral was also overflowing with flowers, and so is her grave; Shōta and his father made sure of that.
“I guess it's just you and me for now, huh?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. With a sigh, he takes a few steps back and plops down in one of the chairs. The metal creaks a little under his weight, and Shōta puts his head between his legs. He's so tired. Too tired to keep losing people. Two years after the end of that bloody battle, and Shōta is still losing people. Will it ever end? How far will the consequences go? The number of available heroes is already in the red, and the new wave of graduates has definitely brought some relief, but they are still young and inexperienced. They are not Hawks, they are not Endeavor, they are not Miruko or Best Jeanist. They are kids who have already been through a lot and still have a lot more to go through.
Yagi's body is there, stiff and cold and definitely motionless. It is a never-ending path of death. Lately, Shōta wonders if he has already given everything he could give, if he is not next on the list of the dead. Saving people — he clenches his hands, and his fingers crack. Until the last breath, he says in the stillness of his mind. That's how things are, right, Yagi? Heroes are people too, they also get disillusioned and disappointed. He understands better than ever his former comrades who left the profession long ago, even now there are still heroes who give up their capes and weapons. Maybe Shōta is no longer cut out for field work; maybe it's time to retire and embark on a new, equally heroic path. Being a hero is more than just a spandex suit, isn't it, Midoriya? Yagi?
Were he and Yagi friends? Shōta thinks so. Who would have thought that Shōta had despised the man during their early days as fellow teachers, only to end up having a certain affection for him. Yagi had been such an idiot at first, inexperienced in any basic teaching techniques. But he wasn't the number one hero for nothing, and although it took him a while, Yagi got his act together and became a good teacher, a good colleague, and, finally, a good friend.
He never would have expected it. Just another example of everything out there that Shōta doesn't know about. Transferable quirks and unexpected friends.
The familiar dull pain under his right knee stings, but Shōta doesn’t flinch. He has already grown used to that sting, just as he has grown used to seeing with only one eye. He doesn’t even remember the difference. It’s for the best; adapting so quickly allowed him to continue working underground, but he would be lying if he said it was the same. He is slower, his acrobatics have diminished significantly, but he has compensated with harder impact blows. His quirk is a tool he can hardly use anymore, and he must play with his opportunities to get the most benefit out of the little time he gets to use it. All in all, he has not fallen behind in his work as a hero, but the wear and tear is accumulating. Not only is he no longer young, but he has had to compensate with extremely strenuous effort to maintain his not-so-strict work standards.
There are times, when he is on patrol, with the night air hitting his uncovered face, that Shōta finds himself wishing he could run across the rooftops, jumping and vaulting, spinning in the air. He can't do that with the prosthesis. Or he could, if, you know, he didn’t have to be careful not to strain the metal too much and end up in a bad position during an important situation. The engineers in the U.A. support department swear he doesn't have to worry about it, but they also tell him that it doesn't hurt to think twice before dropping from the fifth floor to the third if it's not absolutely necessary for him to do so. Also, although they haven't told him directly, he knows from a reliable source that the guys in the support department are working to improve the prosthetics for the heroes, although, still suffering the repercussions of the war, materials must be prioritized for other types of equipment.
Shōta is the first to judge those heroes and hero students who use their quirks to have a laugh during work. God, how many times has he scolded Bakugō for using his quirk every time he loses his temper in the field, wasting the sweat he could be storing up in favor of a mini-scene. Ah, but Shōta misses it. His therapist says it's not bad to miss it, but encourages him to look for activities outside of work, in a recreational setting, where he can get that adrenaline rush. Yagi was of the same opinion.
As has been the case in recent months, Shōta thinks of Yagi, and inevitably the path leads him back to Midoriya.
They have a statue of the boy on the school grounds. Shōta doesn't usually visit it, not when there are students there to see him. But when the sun goes down and he has to set off on his patrol route, no one needs to know if Shōta stops there for a moment to contemplate Izuku's young face. Carved in stone, his features are harder. It makes him look older, and Shōta could convince himself that Midoriya died closer to his twenties than the mere fifteen-year-old boy he was.
But Shōta remembers. He has a perfect memory. Midoriya was a child, with round, childish features — green eyes full of hope and hands scarred by the iron will to turn that hope into reality. He had dreams and a whole life still waiting to be revealed. And here Shōta stands in front of Yagi’s corpse, a pang of resentment throbbing in his chest against that foolish, stubborn man who unwittingly placed such a heavy burden on a child. Yagi had no intention of doing that to his boy, but he did. He did, and Shōta’s vicious side rejoices cruelly that the man died with guilt suffocating him.
Shōta is here alone, though. Any guilt, he bears alone now.
(To young Midoriya Izuku, and all of them who fought for a better world. Know that I have not forgotten you, and I hope that by writing this, you will never be forgotten. Until soon.
—Toshinori Yagi.)
The commotion outside has died down, he realizes, and Shōta prepares to receive the logistics team that will transport the coffin to the crematorium. They are reaching the final act. Fire and ashes. Dust. That is what All Might will become — the same fate as any mortal. He knew, of course, the mortality underlying the suit. It is, then, a mere understanding. Ah, he sighs, not even you.
What were the words of that David? No one more human than you, no one more unreal. The era of All Might is coming to an end, the era of powerful, perfect heroes. No one should rejoice at the death of someone they call a friend; if Shōta does, then that is his secret. He hopes that the next chapter will allow them to follow another path. An era where heroes are less gods and more people. Imperfect, bleeding, and so, so honest. More like Yagi — no longer All Might.
Aizawa-san.
He lifts his head abruptly, the snap of his neck serving to put him on alert. He listens—his eye darting to every dark corner, scanning behind every chair and object that could serve as cover. Not a soul in sight. He reaches for the capture weapon wrapped comfortably around his neck. Maybe Hizashi was right — he is paranoid as hell. Bringing his weapon to a wake, for crying out loud, and now he's hearing things.
The door at the end is closed. The coffin is closed, thank God, because if Yagi has indeed evaded death once again, Shōta is going to send him to that place of blue skies and green meadows by force.
Aizawa-san.
Shōta turns around and — there's a little light in the hallway. Pretty, no doubt. A small white fire that emits flashes of color. Shōta takes a step back, closer to the casket, ready to protect it because it wouldn't be out of the question if someone actually managed to sneak into the room and now plans to steal the corpse of the former number one hero. Damn it, Yagi, why couldn't you have normal fans? Did you see Endeavor's fans trying to steal the man's body?
Aizawa-san.
Is he supposed to say something? Hell no. He has plenty of experience with quirks that activate in response to interaction, and he’s always telling his students to be cautious and not jump into anything until they have a halfway decent idea of what their opponent can do. Has that meant that battle simulations sometimes take a few minutes to get started? Of course. But it has also saved his students from falling into a villain’s trap, so points to Shōta. It took Vlad’s students longer to learn that lesson.
Aizawa-san. The voice comes from the light, but it’s not direct. It comes out wavy — if that makes sense — and distorted. Low and high-pitched. Feminine, but mostly masculine. Aizawa-san, you — could you help us?
Shōta sharpens his gaze, watching the fire suspiciously. There's no one else around, so it could be a long-range quirk, or even some kind of mutation or transformation. Illusions too. Or, you know, Shōta could be imagining it. Out of all the crazy things he's imagined while awake, this does not rank near the top.
Probably sensing his reluctance, the fire flickers, and Shōta is faced with a row of eight flames of different colors. As if the fire were solidifying, each flame stretches, bends, and warps, slowly taking on humanoid forms distinguishable from one another. They are mostly shadows, with the fire illuminating their centers, but Shōta can make out human features beneath the darkness.
“Aizawa-san,” calls the central figure, in a tone so soft that it reminds Shōta of his dead student. “We're sorry we scared you. We had resisted inside Yagi's body as long as possible, waiting for an opportunity to emerge, but achieving a form like this has been more difficult than we expected.”
“Inside?” he asks, already getting an idea of what this is and, with that, letting his guard down a little. At the end of the line is a form more deformed than the others, but Shōta recognizes those spikes on its head and that golden glow.
This was definitely not in Yagi's book.
“Within every user who has carried One For All, tiny remnants of the quirk persist,” explains the third figure on the left, with a green light and gentle words. “Even when Toshinori-san passed on the quirk and gradually lost the embers left within him, his prolonged use of One For All left an indelible mark.”
“Now, however, we will disappear,” interjects another figure, female, with the firm cadence of someone used to authority. “As we should have done when Izuku-kun fell in his last battle. However, during our time stored inside Toshinori, we realized… some peculiarities we did not know about One For All.”
“You wouldn't be the first,” replied Shōta, still resentful of the darkness Yagi had kept them in.
The fifth figure laughed, the orange fire illuminating him spreading, and for a moment Shōta could see a square jaw and yellow glasses like the ones he usually wears. “One For All is a very strange quirk, don’t you think, Aizawa-dono? Although I would like to tell you everything about this quirk, we don’t have enough time — and besides, as you have already seen, there is much we did not know. We didn’t even get to see everything the quirk could do until the boy Midoriya arrived.”
“Ninth was quite clever; he figured out many things about One for All, and it is only because of that that we were able to realize one special thing about this quirk,” the first figure on the left spoke, sounding harsh, too firm in contrast to its vaporous form. “There is… a gap.”
“An entry point,” interjected the second form, his words with a slight foreign accent at the end of the syllables, which made the pronunciation heavy. “This isn't the first time the Eighth has died, you know? Years ago, we saw him die and almost join us, although he was resurrected. But he died, he did.”
“We believe that created a leak,” explained the man in the middle, a certain emotion beginning to surge in his tone and form, causing the white to glisten. “A passageway through which One for All surely tried to find a carrier before it could disappear and become extinct.”
“Like a parasite?” asked Shōta, visibly bewildered by the nonsense all these figures were preaching.
“… that's one way of looking at it,” spoke the purple-light form softly. It was young, in its early twenties. “The One for All is a transferable peculiarity, but, in essence, it can behave like a parasite that feeds off its carrier and may refuse to leave them.”
“Its parasitic nature, as you so eloquently put it, Aizawa-kun, is what allowed us to fight and resist All for One,” said the woman. Nana, Shōta forced himself to call her. Shimura Nana, seventh carrier of One for All and Yagi’s mentor. “But more than that, One for All has always been more.”
“Aizawa-san,” said the figure of white light — Shigaraki Yoichi, if Shōta had to guess. “We have found a passageway to a moment in Toshinori-kun’s life, but we have no physical forms, and merely traversing the passageway would consume all of our remaining energy. Toshinori-kun’s residue is also too weak; his connection to us is weaker than ours to him. In this form, we are parasites and he was the host — we couldn’t make the trip successfully. We need a living vessel that can transfer its consciousness to that moment. Do you understand?”
Honestly? Like, really honestly? No — Shōta doesn’t understand anything, because so far the only thing he’s been able to grasp is that Yagi’s damn quirk is a parasitic entity that can reside in a corpse and, apparently, connect to the times Yagi has been dead (which have been more than the average person). He assumes One For All is exactly like Yagi in that sense: a cockroach that refuses to die.
And that thing was inside Midoriya, and of course Midoriya would be the one to discover the deepest possible secrets of that parasite and tame it. Speaking of Midoriya, shouldn't he be here? That is — it's good that he's not, Shōta supposes, because he's sure he would suffer a real anxiety attack if he saw the nebulous form of his dead student. Currently, he is only holding up so well through sheer willpower and a certain selective disconnection that allows him to think, hey, this could well be a hallucination induced by lack of sleep and his pain medication.
“We… weren't fair to Izuku-kun.” Shigaraki Yoichi continues, hesitating. Stumbling over his explanations to the point that Shōta, although he doesn't understand, has no intention of interrupting him. "We put too much pressure on him, and we entrusted him with all our dreams and desires. In that sense, maybe, no, definitely, I-I was no better than my brother. We isolated him, believing it was for the best. That was how every successor of One For All had fought: alone. But we believe we can change that. With your help, of course—if you’re willing. It’s… something that hurts you too, isn’t it? It is hard when the ones we’re meant to protect end up doing the work for us."
Hard is an understatement. It's suffocating.
It doesn’t happen often — it’s very rare — but when Shōta is on the streets as Eraserhead, between a rock and a hard place, a civilian steps in to protect him. It has happened on very few occasions, twice perhaps, if he needs to say one number. It is more common for it to happen to Shōta the teacher. The times Shōta needed to protect his students, there was always at least one of them who would jump into action and take the villain’s attack for him.
Suffocating.
That's not how things should be. Until they graduate — even after that day — his students are his responsibility. It should never be the other way around. Never. His obligation, his responsibility.
What hurts him most about Midoriya's death is that the boy was his student. His responsibility. He should never have been there alone facing a homicidal maniac. That boy could protect all the civilians who crossed his path, but Shōta, his teacher, should never have been included on his list of people to protect. Shōta couldn't even give him the help he needed to control his quirk. As a teacher and as a professional, he failed.
He doesn't see their eyes; he doesn't see their faces. They are shadows, but they see through each other. They, too, were something like Midoriya's teachers. They, too. Shōta didn't see it; he was too busy holding back the groups of villains trying to cross the walls of U.A. He didn't know until Yagi returned to school, carrying the boy's body in his arms. Broken and bleeding. These shadows saw it. And if they felt even the slightest bit of responsibility for Midoriya that Shōta feels, then it must have hurt.
They sent him to die, but even slaughterers can feel guilt for killing sheep.
"We don't want to rush you or anything, Aizawa-dono, but if you could hurry up a little and decide right now, that would be great. You see, this is a once-in-a-million opportunity with an expiration date," and as if to make his point, the square-jawed figure pointed to the end of the row of will-o'-the-wisps that were slowly losing their color.
Shōta sighed, a headache beginning to form behind his eyes. “I'm not sure I understand exactly what you want me to decide.”
“Time travel,” explained the youngest of them, “to put it crudely. It's… a partial transfer of the One for All, which would allow you to go back a few years in the past.”
Now, that was— “Can you do that?”
“It's mostly a theory,” the second figure spoke, "but from what we've learned about the One for All, a very feasible one. In the worst case, we vanish and you're left with a terrible headache. At best, we join you and burn our signatures to send you back, taking advantage of the gap that has been created in those moments of the Eighth's death."
“But you have to choose now, Aizawa-kun,” Shimura-san insisted, her flame waving in the pink tones of dawn. "I know we must seem selfish; we are selfish. Doing all this to save Izuku-kun… In a way, it's like belittling his sacrifice, isn't it? But we made a lot of mistakes, you know about them. There are many things I regret, Aizawa-kun, but letting a child take responsibility for my mistakes and fight my battles alone is high on the list. If I could go back much further and prevent that — my son… Now I know that leaving him wasn't the right thing to do. It wasn't heroic, it was cowardly. But I can do this. The most selfish thing in my entire life, and yet…"
She sounded tired, devastated. Shōta understood. He too was tired, devastated. The young teenager with dreams of saving everyone, of protecting the helpless and fighting evil. The boy who believed that with enough determination he could defeat the villain who made his mom sick. When was the last time he made a selfish decision? Heroes give everything to save, but who saves the heroes?
It must be his brain, clouded by fatigue, medication, and silent resentment after Yagi’s death. The distant echo of a mixture of sadness and spite toward the man for leaving, for not continuing to fight one last time. The most selfish decision of Toshinori Yagi, hero name All Might, was to welcome death, eager to be reunited with his precious boy.
“It’s a one-way ticket,” explains the first shadow, the one with the serious voice and stiff posture. “You go back and make everything a better future. Prepare the Ninth. Give him time to grow up and assimilate One For All better. Fewer broken bones, less agony. He is what you call a hero — there is no way he is going to stand aside — and, in the end, this is his quirk. It’s only because of him that we could get this far. He deserves to… he deserves to have it.”
“He always did,” the second man asserted, "You'll find that some of us refused to accept him at first, but we know better now. Ninth, Izuku, we truly could not have found a better successor."
The square-jawed man snorted, “Though it didn't take all of us that long to accept it, Aizawa-dono, just so you know.”
“Even the boy didn't hold as much resentment as you do for that, Fourth.” retorted the second shadow, his flame burning with what could only be called annoyance.
“To be fair, Izuku-kun held very little resentment,” the younger one explained. “Too little.”
On that, Shōta more than agreed. It would have done the boy wonders to be somewhat mean to those who were mean to him. Although, with all the people who had been mean to the boy, holding on to it would have led him down a dark and destructive path. It is a miracle, a true miracle, that Midoriya would not hold on to all the bad that had happened to him and instead, gave back with twice as much kindness what little good had been given to him. Shōta is aware that this is only a consequence of a traumatic response that Midoriya must have developed in order not to succumb under the weight of bullying and discrimination, but also much of it must be a product of the child's own selfless nature.
He has really put a lot of his time into unraveling every memory he has of the child and analyzing it under the magnifying glass of a professional hero. Well, if the child isn't going to hold grudges, at least Shōta knows a lot about that subject…
“Time is short,” croons the square-jawed man. “Decision now, please.”
Oh, fuck it. Either way, this is a coerced decision, they're literally holding him up with a countdown clock to make up his mind.
“Yeah, okay, whatever.”
The fires cheer, Shōta has no other way to describe it. They glow and congregate into one another again. A white flame with colorful reflections.
Thank you, Aizawa-san. Tenth honorary user.
And that thing crashes into his chest, burns in a very literal sense, leaving in its wake the wisps of smoke and the smell of burning flesh. He brings his hand to his chest, his fingers tangled with a golden thread that is sickeningly familiar.
Eat it, whisper the voices from within. What a fantastic way.
He almost doubts it. Of course he doubts it. It’s definitely gross to have to eat this magic hair that looks suspiciously like Yagi’s hair. But then again, is he really going to jeopardize such a close chance at victory for what — a guilty conscience, the wishes of a group of dead people, most of whom are younger than he is?
He thinks of how the Japanese civilian population was reduced by sixty percent. Of all the heroes who died in grotesque and violent ways. Of his students who protected civilians at the cost of their own limbs and still wake up from nightmares about it. Of the students who lost their parents before they could even reach the shelter of U.A. Of the quarantine status imposed by other countries until a year after Midoriya defeated Shigaraki Tomura.
Everyone and their mother wants to see the glass half full, but Shōta is, first and foremost, a pessimist at heart. He knows things are fucking bad. They lost too much, and what they gained feels more like a consolation prize than a real victory.
If only — and here it’s more his ego talking — Shōta manages to do a better job than fucking All Might.
That does the trick.
He rolls the hair into a ball, places it on his tongue, and swallows.
His insides burn. His bones grow heavy. He gets dizzy. Exactly what you’d expect as a reaction to consuming a magic hair handed to you by the ghosts of Christmas past.
It hurts.
It burns.
And then — nothing.
He faints and bangs his head against Yagi’s coffin.
Then, he wakes up.
Two eyes open.