Archive of Our Own ^beta

“And Pro Hero Bakugou Katsuki defeats the bad guy with only one punch!” Kacchan declares. He throws his fist into a figure built out of twigs and sticks. It instantly falls apart, the sticks scattering onto the pavement with a clatter.

“Wow, Kacchan!” Izuku says, eyes wide with excitement. “You really did it in one punch!”

Kacchan puffs his chest out at the praise. “Course I did! I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Right! Kacchan did say so, so of course he could do it! Kacchan’s amazing!” Izuku says, nodding wildly. After all, Kacchan can do the monkey bars longer than anyone, even after Izuku’s hands get red and start to hurt. Kacchan can climb to the very tippy top of the jungle gym quicker than anyone, without slipping once. Kacchan even already knows kanji, even though they’ve only started learning kana. Kacchan is amazing because he defeated the stick villain with one punch, just like he said he would — so of course Kacchan is going to be the Number One Hero, just like he said he would.

“And don’t ever forget it!” Kacchan declares. “’Cuz I’m gonna be the Number One Hero!”

“Yeah!” Izuku cheers. “And I’ll be Number One, too!”

Kacchan flicks Izuku on the forehead.

“Ow, Kacchan!”

“Don’t be a dummy. I’m gonna be Number One. You can be second.”

“Why do I have to be second?”

“There can’t be two Number Ones,” Kacchan huffs. “Everyone knows that.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cuz it’s Number One, duh! For there to be a Number One, someone has to be second.”

Izuku frowns. “But I wanna be Number One, too.”

“Well, I’m gonna be Number One, so you can’t have it,” Kacchan says, crossing his arms with the declaration. “Besides, how can you be Number One if you can’t even do the monkey bars as fast as me?”

Izuku flushes. “I — I’ll get better!”

Kacchan snorts. “You have to get a lot better. Or there’s no way you’ll even be Number Two,” Kacchan tells him, bumping him on the shoulder. “That’s okay, though. I’m the best, so I’m gonna be Number One, just like All Might. But you can be Number Two. I don’t mind.”

“But… Number Two is Ehn-deh-ver.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But… I don’t wanna be Ehn-deh-ver,” Izuku says, pulling a face. “I still don’t get why there can’t be two Number Ones.”

“It’s just how it is,” Kacchan says with a shrug, and goes to pick up the sticks that fell to the ground. “For someone to be Number One, someone else has to be second. Remember that, nerd!”

Izuku frowns. That sounds too simple. What if there’s a tie? That happens sometimes on kana tests.

“Anyway,” Kacchan adds, “There’s no way you’ll be a hero if you can’t even keep up with me.”

Izuku frowns more, and his throat feels tight. Izuku can never beat Kacchan at races, or tag. He can’t do the monkey bars as long as Kacchan or climb to the top of the jungle gym as quick as Kacchan. He can never seem to keep up enough with Kacchan. Izuku’s cheeks feel hot and wet.

“Oi, oi!” Kacchan calls out. His armful of sticks tumbles back to the ground as he lays his hands on Izuku’s shoulders and shakes. “What’re you crying for?”

Izuku hiccups. “K-Kacchan thinks… He thinks, I c-can’t be a hero?”

“What?”

“‘Cuz, ‘cuz I can’t, k-keep up with Kacchan, so that means —“

Kacchan lifts his hands from Izuku’s shoulders, and slaps Izuku on the cheeks. “Deku, you dummy. I never said that.”

“B-but, I — D-deku?”

“Yeah, ‘cuz you’re acting useless like a Deku,” Kacchan tells him. “I never said you couldn’t be a hero.”

Izuku only swallows and blinks back.

“I said you can’t be a hero if you can’t keep up with me. You’ll never be in front of me, ‘cuz I’m the best. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep up,” Kacchan explains impatiently.

“Wh-what?” Izuku stammers. Kacchan huffs in response and tugs at Izuku’s cheeks.

“Kacch- owwww!”

“You’re way too soft to be a hero. So that means you gotta work hard. You think you can be a hero just by being a crybaby? No way,” Kacchan declares. He grabs one of the sticks from the ground, then points it at Izuku like a sword. “You gotta practice. What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?”

Izuku stares down at the stick pointed at him like a weapon. “Kacchan… thinks I can be a hero?”

“Duh! You just gotta be strong and work hard for it. Nothing else matters.”

Izuku sniffles. “You mean… We’ll be heroes together? Promise?”

Kacchan scoffs. “Course we’re gonna be heroes together! Once we get our quirks, we’ll be the best heroes in the whole world. Even better than All Might!” Kacchan declares, taking one of the twigs in his hands and jabbing it up at the sky, piercing the sun like dango on a stick.

Izuku feels himself caught up in Kacchan’s conviction. “Yeah!” he shouts back. His heart feels light as the air, and his chest bubbles as he pumps his own fist in the sky. Kacchan said that Izuku can be a hero. Kacchan said they can be heroes together. Kacchan said those things like he said he would do the monkey bars the longest or climb the jungle gym the fastest or beat a stick villain in a single punch.

“So you better work hard. I won’t accept anything less from you!”

“R-right! Even if I’m Number Two, it’ll be fun, because it’ll be with Kacchan!”

“Heh, don’t worry. It ain’t so bad, being second,” Kacchan grins, taking one stick in his hands, and shoving the other into Izuku’s. Izuku holds it tight like a promise. “Now get ready!”

Izuku thinks back to that moment often. He thinks back to it when Kacchan gets his quirk, sparks shining from his hands and the neighborhood kids gathered around him with wide eyes and open mouths. He thinks back to it when Kacchan, soaked to the bone and lying prone in a rushing river bottom, slaps Izuku’s hand away like a dirty thing, eyes shadowed for the first time by a wall. He thinks back to it when, after a doctor’s visit and a crying fit and a confession, Izuku stops being Deku some of the time and starts being Deku all of the time.

The promise to be the best heroes. The promise to be Number One and Number Two. The promise to be heroes, together. It’s something Izuku dreams about, every time he sees Kacchan’s back in the chair in front of him. Something he feels shatter a little inside his chest every time he’s taunted or shoved or bruised. Something he can’t help but hope for the moment All Might stands in front of him to declare that he can be a hero.

And after everything, Izuku remembers that moment when Kacchan shoves Izuku to the side. He remembers that moment when a black spike runs straight through Kacchan’s body. He remembers that moment when Kacchan slumps to the ground in his own blood.

Izuku remembers that moment when he whirls to face down Shigaraki. He doesn’t remember much, after that.

The vestige dream is gray, this time. There is no land and no sky, no horizon line to tell them apart. Izuku is standing on nothing, waiting for something he can't put a name to. The nothingness is nearly tangible enough for Izuku to reach out a hand and take it between his fingers like sand. It is a thing at once as solid as concrete and as fluid as mercury, as if even the dream itself does not yet know what it will be — directionless and inchoate.

After a long while, a shadow forms from the void. It is Nana. She waves to him with a smile, because she is a hero and heroes always save with a smile, even when there is no shine in their eyes. Her hair is tied in a messy ponytail. Streaks of water pour down her face and her hair looks damp. Izuku gazes upward. Flecks of white float in the air and fall onto his face.

"Oh. Is it snowing?” Izuku realizes.

"It's snowing,” Nana confirms, and the two of them say nothing else. The snow drifts down around them in specks and spatters, and Izuku watches as the snow falls from somewhere up above and continues falling beneath his feet, until it fades into the distance and he cannot see it anymore. The snowflakes surround them, drifting like leaves, each of them fragile and fleeting.

"Are you ready?" Nana asks. For what, she does not say; and yet, Izuku somehow knows what she means.

"I don't know," he confesses. The snow falls around them, soundless, landing on nothing. The silence stretches but does not snap. The dreamscape goes on and on into the distance, beyond the limits of what Izuku can see. He has never fully understood it, not entirely; not when it rearranges its foundations beneath his feet; not when objects appear as if they’ve always been there and then disappear as if they’ve never been. In some ways, Izuku thinks he may never truly understand it, even as he has made One For All his own. Each vestige dream is like a grain of sand on Dagobah Beach, at once familiar and something that can be washed away beneath his feet.

But Izuku has stood on Dagobah Beach even when nobody else had; has stood against the power of All For One even when nobody else was left to stand. And here, now, his stance is firm. He looks Nana in the eyes. “I may not be ready now. But I will be,” he says, the declaration filling the empty space.

"You will be," Nana agrees. Around him, Izuku abruptly realizes the snowfall has stopped. He looks to where the sky would be, and he cannot tell if it is whiter or blacker than before.

Nana hums, as though coming to a conclusion. "Follow me," she says, and walks away into the plane of infinite gray.

Izuku does. It is a silent march, the two of them keeping pace with each other's steps. The endless expanse seems to stretch even further, and with no landmarks to measure distance, no changing light to measure time, Izuku only follows her, his footsteps silent as they walk upon nothing. At some point, something shifts, and the grayness seems less incorporeal, something more solid, like slate-gray stone, and Izuku’s feet begin to echo. He and Nana walk, on and on, through a long, dark corridor, that at last opens up into a square room with a hard floor and austere walls that stretch from the floor up until they vanish into the blackness above.

"Welcome, Ninth Bearer of One For All," a familiar voice greets him. Izuku has not had cause to hear the voice much before, but something deep within him resonates like a plucked string. In the middle of the room, the First Bearer stands. Nana is gone. The walls rise up to surround the two of them, as if the first and last bearers of One For All are the only people in the world.

“You’re the First Bearer,” Izuku acknowledges him.

The First Bearer bows his head, and his body trembles at the effort. “It is good to see you once again,” he answers back, “Midoriya Izuku.” His voice is a whisper, but his words are weighty.

“Thank you,” Izuku answers, inclining his head back at him. “For earlier — for lending me your strength to save everyone. For protecting One For All from Shigaraki.”

The First Bearer’s mouth ghosts into a smile, wrinkles at his lips like frayed thread. “I merely assisted,” he replies. “It was your willpower that kept One For All safe. It was your determination to make it your own.”

The First Bearer approaches Izuku with shaky steps. His fingers tremor as if trying to clutch at smoke. “But even so, I must ask. You’ve now seen the power that All For One has,” he says. His face is worn, even more than before, and his hair falls to his shoulders like tangled string. And yet, his voice is resolute. "Knowing the power he bears, will you still choose to face him?"

The question is asked with the heaviness of a mountain; with the hidden meaning of a riddle. It is asked as if either "yes" or "no" are equally acceptable answers. It is a question asked as if Izuku had never heard its promise when he accepted One For All; as if Izuku had never heard it in murmured whispers and jeering laughter ever since he turned four.

Izuku looks the First Bearer in the eyes. "The answer has always been yes."

The First Bearer hums thoughtfully. He turns, and lowers himself shakily into a chair with a high back, its frame gilded with golden curlicues and embellished with intricate carvings. It seems designed to clash with the emptiness of the room as much as possible, and whether it has been there the entire time or has only just appeared, Izuku cannot begin to know. There are seven chairs in total, arranged in a semi-circle. Five of the chairs are occupied, with the First Bearer seated at the head, facing Izuku.

"Your resolve is admirable, Midoriya Izuku. A resolve that will require the full power of One For All," the First Bearer finally says, and waves his hand out in a broad gesture toward the room.

The man with the scarred face inclines his head. "I am Shinomori Hikage, Fourth Bearer."

"Name's Banjo Daigoro, Fifth Bearer!" the heavyset man grins. "Good to be formally introduced and all that."

"En. Number Six," says the man with the high collar.

Nana smiles at him. "Shimura Nana, Seventh Bearer. Toshinori was right to choose you, Midoriya."

"You already know who I am, but please allow me this formality," the First Bearer tells him. "I am Shigaraki Yoichi. Please call me Yoichi." He smiles, and even as the rest of his body shakes, his smile does not. "You, Midoriya Izuku, are the Ninth Bearer of One For All, and you alone are the one who will unlock its true potential. Even if you stand by yourself when you face All For One, you will not be alone, for we as your predecessors are here to lend you our strength. I know that you, the Ninth Bearer, will be the one to defeat All For One. And we will help you use One For All’s full power.”

"You better be ready to use all six of our quirks!" Banjo declares.

"We will do what we can to assist you," Shinomori assures him.

"Of course, you have quite a good handle on Float already," Nana laughs.

Yoichi stands. "This is a power that has been passed down from Torchbearer to Torchbearer, from generation to generation. Each of us by ourselves may only be small rivers, but we all flow in the same direction, until we join together as One For All. I did not have the power to stand up to my brother — but you, with the power of all who have come before you — you have the power to succeed."

Izuku looks to each of the five of them in turn, those who have cultivated the embers of One For All and borne both its light and its weight into the future; and the grayness of the room seems to brighten, like morning’s light, full of infinite possibilities.

Izuku gives them a determined nod. "Right. Everyone is relying on me, so I can’t fail,” he promises to each of them. “I’m going to be a hero. A hero who saves everyone!"

In that moment, the very air seems to solidify like slate-gray stone, nearly heavy enough to crush Izuku beneath its weight. His body goes taut, and whether it is the dream rearranging itself around him or Izuku’s vision tunneling, he finds his eyes locked onto the two chairs that flank the First Bearer’s like totems. They are empty.

“Please… Work with us,” Yoichi’s voice pleads. Izuku follows the sound. There are two figures, standing alone in the shadow, and they would seem almost translucent in the gray light were it not for the fact that their backs are to him, as immovable and solid as twin mountains.

“He needs your help to unleash his full power,” Yoichi continues, taking another tottering step toward them, even as Izuku and the other two Bearers do not move. “One For All is not complete without you.”

The man to Izuku’s right shakes his head. “You know we lived through the harshest era. The height of All For One’s prosperity,” he says. His form flickers with light, briefly, and for an instant, Izuku watches as long, straight hair spills out from underneath a black bandana. Still, the man does not turn.

“I know,” Yoichi reassures him. “I lived through that era with you.”

The second man answers. “Then you know how I sought to bring down your brother and extinguished so many lives in the process. Because in our battle, victory meant life and defeat meant death. And you tell us to devote our efforts to one who wants to save our mortal enemy? A boy holding onto such a ridiculous delusion?” All Izuku can see of him is a shadow against a shadow; his voice is an echo of an echo. The words are said to the wall, as if they are meant to be a secret, and yet they seem to fill the room.

Yoichi gives a hollow laugh. “A ridiculous delusion? Such a sad way to see it.” The other Bearers seem to fade away; the room shrinks without moving at all. It is just the First and Last Bearers, and a pair of silhouettes more solid than any shadow. Yoichi whispers into the space between them. “Then tell me this… Why, on that day, knowing full well of my ties to your ‘mortal enemy’… did you reach out to me?”

The second man does not respond. His head dips lower and his shoulders slump, as if from the weight of the memory.

“Our battle never could’ve begun if you hadn’t taken me from this room on that day,” Yoichi continues, voice soft and knowing, and somehow, Izuku can see the hopeful expression on the First Bearer’s face, even as his gaze is fixed away from Izuku and onto the two silhouettes. “You know that. Which is why you’ve chosen to appear here in the first place, right?”

The question lingers in the air, waiting for an answer. The man to the right tilts his head toward his companion, as if looking to him for guidance, and Izuku catches a glimpse of a sharp nose and sharper eyes. The man to the left only stands with his back still to Izuku and does not respond. His form remains still like a statue, but to Izuku it seems fleeting, as if he could burst into smoke at any moment.

At last, the second man speaks. “…You think he can really bring an end to all of this?” he says, barely more than a whisper, but Izuku can hear him clearly.

“Yes,” Yoichi answers without pause. “One For All emerged from the will to resist my brother. But the moment you reached your hand out to me… That’s when One For All was truly born.”

Izuku is surprised when the second man barks a laugh in response. “Don’t I know it,” comes the second man’s answer. The tone of his voice is a strange sound: something fond but humorless, at once full of hope and resignation. It sounds to Izuku like a broken bell.

“So you will help him? Help us stop All For One?” Yoichi ventures.

The Second Bearer is silent for a long while — but at last his figure nods in silent approval. In response, the Third Bearer gives a nod of his own. And as if by their agreement, the walls of the room fall away like the unfolding of a box. The regal chairs vanish into the air and the ground fades beneath Izuku’s feet. Izuku feels the strange sensation of being pulled up through the air by a hook, suddenly weightless and floating, the familiar feeling of waking up. Awareness creeps up on him like the sunrise; and his eyes open to gaze out over the city and the people he has sworn himself to save. Izuku knows what he must do; what he alone can do.

Out of all of them, it is the Second Bearer who speaks. “You better be ready. Because from here on out, it’s full steam ahead,” he declares, and at his words, Izuku feels power well up from deep inside him, power from all of the Torchbearers standing together for the first time. A flame bursts in Izuku’s chest, and he feels One For All run through his veins. He feels the warmth of the eight Torchbearers who have come before him; can see the flickers of the rainbow that stand at his side. There is the Seventh Bearer’s sincere smile, and the Fifth Bearer’s mischievous grin; there is the Sixth Bearer’s stoic silence, and the Fourth Bearer’s calm confidence. He can feel the gentle light of the First Bearer; he can hear the Eighth Bearer’s promise that he, too, can be a hero. Even the Third Bearer turns flinty eyes toward him, his expression at once assessing and assuring, before acknowledging Izuku in support.

But even as the warmth of One For All crackles near Izuku’s heart, even as he can feel the strength of each of the Torchbearers pooling inside him, even as Izuku steps forward into the night, the Second Bearer does not look at Izuku once. Izuku never sees his face.

Life is different, not having a bed to return to every night. Izuku’s days are spent roaming from place to place in an endless search for All For One’s forces; his nights are spent leaping from rooftop to rooftop in an eternal vigil. Sleep is found in fits and starts, tucked away in secret attics and abandoned buildings, with the vestiges of One For All keeping watch and Danger Sense always primed on a hair trigger. Beds are rare and showers are rarer. Out of everything, he finds that warm meals are the thing he misses the most — it reminds him too much of coming home to his mother, who insisted on home-cooked dinners with Izuku no matter how busy Izuku was with class or how tight money was that month.

But the past does not matter, not now. Memories of shared class lunches and dorm room antics are as much childish fantasies as the hero cartoons Izuku watched growing up. They all seem quaint as fairytales, now, with All For One’s shadow eclipsing everything. All that is left is protecting as many people as Izuku can, and with the target on his own back, he cannot allow others to be placed at risk. He will be a hero who protects everyone, even if that means he must do so with only One For All at his side. And when Izuku has already lived nearly a decade of his life by himself, what are days and weeks and months when compared to a lifetime?

And so, Izuku journeys alone. It is enough to cut down villains who intend to do harm. He is content to rescue civilians, even if he cannot save them. He buries his childhood dreams, because dreams are a luxury when the world is falling apart around him. It is all Izuku can do to catch the pieces in his hands, and he busies himself with putting the parts back together — for when he does so, he can dismiss the parts of himself he has tried to wedge into the empty spaces; he can ignore how his own body feels frayed and torn. He carries on, dispatching villains like clockwork, one after another, the way time always marches forward, even if the second hand starts to stagger and the gears begin to catch. He repeats to himself that he is fine, because he must be fine; and because he must be fine, he is fine.

He does not know how long he continues, until —

“I’m sorry for everything.”

The driving rain pelts Kacchan’s back as he bows in front of Izuku. His gaze is curtained by the water running from his hair down his face. Droplets bead on the surface of his gauntlets, sliding down to his wrists before tumbling to the ground like falling stars. A pool of water sits at Kacchan’s feet, steam rising up and wisping around his ankles from the lingering heat of Kacchan’s explosions.

From behind the veil of rain surrounding the two of them, Izuku’s classmates flicker like silhouettes from a candle about to be blown out. Uraraka’s eyes are wide and round and full of emotion; Iida stands as a stalwart wall. The rain has soaked through Kaminari’s hero costume and Todoroki’s bangs are plastered to his forehead. But if they say anything, it is swallowed as much by the torrent of rain as by the silence after Kacchan’s words; if they make to move, Izuku does not register it as much as Kacchan’s unmoving form, his back bent and head down and vision fixed upon the ring of water at his feet as if it is a bottomless wishing well.

Izuku does not know what to say; what to do. And after spending so long running, exhaustion seems to catch up with him all at once. He hardly feels the heavy raindrops that land in matted hair and rush down his grime-streaked face. He is too tired for adrenaline to mask the soreness in his calves or hide the ache in his bones. His hero costume is frayed and ripped, water snaking its way underneath the tatters like slime and clinging to his skin. It is all Izuku can do to allow the rain to fall over him; to watch as Kacchan lets the rain fall across his own body until his entire figure seems to shimmer like the water at his feet.

Kacchan, who with all his other classmates asked Izuku to come back with them; who reminded Izuku that his dream was never to be a hero, alone — but to be heroes, together.

A hand reaches out to him. And Izuku lets himself fall.

When Izuku returns to U.A., it feels like coming home. The sight of the familiar front gate causes Izuku’s throat to choke up as much as the teary embrace he immediately shares with his mother. He’s guided into the common room as if the guest of honor in a victory celebration. For the first time in weeks, he luxuriates in the warm water of the baths, and equally relishes the scent of freshly cooked katsudon. Kirishima gives him a hearty slap on the back and Kaminari fills the room with his banter. Dark Shadow steals an apple from the kitchen when nobody is looking, and Tsuyu’s rumbling ribbits are a comforting white noise. Kouta throws his arms around Izuku’s waist and clings to him as if Izuku might disappear (and when after fifteen minutes Iida makes a gentle attempt to pull him away, Kouta lands a punch that makes Izuku wince in sympathy).

Izuku can’t help his smile. They are all the people he’d tried to save by leaving behind — only for them to save him, instead. They are the people he will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with as heroes. They are his friends. And when tiredness tugs at his limbs and exhaustion pulls his eyes shut, Izuku at last falls asleep on the common room couch, and for once the battle against All For One does not seem so bleak. 

The Third Bearer is the one to appear before him, this time. The both of them are standing atop a wide grassy plateau. It is nighttime, and even though the stars are pinpricks and the moon is a thin sickle, it is bright enough for Izuku to see clearly. A patch of grass rings the mountaintop, the blades tall enough to graze halfway to Izuku’s knees, rippling in the wind like ocean waves. The two of them face each other, and for the first time Izuku can fully take in the Third Bearer’s pointed jaw and snakelike eyes. He regards Izuku quietly, as if waiting for the answer to a question that hasn’t yet been asked.

Izuku says nothing, but the Third Bearer seems to find his answer anyway, because he at last allows the smallest of nods. “You have good friends,” he says. The words carry on the wind.

“I do,” Izuku says in response, because it’s the truth.

The Third Bearer hums. He seems to look past Izuku and toward the horizon. Izuku turns to follow his gaze, but there is nothing but a wide, dark sky.

“Then tell me,” the Third Bearer eventually says, “What you will do when they die.”

Izuku startles. He turns, wide-eyed.

The Third Bearer spares him a glance. “You are about to go to war against All For One. Casualties are inevitable. You know this — you have already seen it. Some of them may be your friends. So I ask you again: What will you do, then?”

The two of them hold each other’s gazes. The sky is quiet, listening.

“…I was born quirkless,” Izuku finally says. He drops his eyes to the tall grass, watching as it waves back and forth at the whim of the wind. “All my life, I’ve been told what I can and can’t do. Doors closed before I could even reach for them. Even All Might once told me that I needed to be realistic.”

Izuku turns his head back up and meets the Third Bearer’s gaze. “But I didn’t get to where I am today by accepting that. I made a promise to be a hero — to be the Number One Hero. And to me, that means being a hero who works with my partners — who works to save everyone. My friends reminded me of that. For their sake, I won’t let them fall. I will fight for all of us, and no matter what happens, as long as there is a chance of victory, I will keep on fighting.”

The Third Bearer is quiet for a long while. The stars blink down at them from the sky above, silent but watchful.

“That is a strong answer,” the Third Bearer eventually says. He gives a considering nod. “But it is foolish. What you speak of — saving everyone — is a dream.”

“Maybe a dream is all it is. But without it, what is there left to fight for?” Izuku says. Above them, the Milky Way spills out into the sky in ribbons and curls. The constellations glimmer down upon them like fairy lights. “Even if we defeat All For One — if we give up on our dreams, then he has won.”

The Third Bearer lets out a low laugh, rough as if made from sandpaper. “He was right. You are too soft.”

Izuku blinks. “Who…?”

The Third Bearer dismisses the question with a wave of a hand. “I cannot say that I see things the same way as you. You talk of possibilities — of whether or not All For One can win,” he says, and shakes his head. “I come from a time when that question was settled. All For One had already won.”

He turns away from Izuku and toward the crescent of the moon. The stars seem to fade until all that is left is the moon in the night sky, dangling as if held only by a string. “Everything you talk about fighting for… Those are all things that people in my time could not even imagine. Dreams were worth as much as you paid for them. Friends — true friends — were few and far between. If you did not learn those lessons, you died. That was all anyone had known. That was all I had known.”

The Third Bearer shakes his head slowly back and forth, like a door come loose. When he turns back to Izuku, the sharpness in his gaze has worn away, gone dull like an old knife, and the wind carries his sigh. “I simply cannot believe in the world you dream of, Midoriya. I don’t know how.”

The crescent moon looms over them, its curve bright and sharp. Izuku’s chest goes tight.

“But,” the Third Bearer says, “maybe that’s why you’re the one who can at last win this fight. You can see something I cannot — something that was to me more unbelievable than a fantasy. You have things I could hardly dream of: countless people willing to stand with you, true friends at your side. Your battle against All For One has not yet been lost. I may not be able to believe in the future you dream of, but I can believe in your determination to achieve it. That’s why the power of Fa Jin is yours.”

Izuku feels the power of the quirk well up from within him, an energy rippling, dormant, just underneath the water’s surface. Each of the quirks of One For All are like rivers: some still and some choppy; some churn with white foam and some are dark with their depth. But all of them flow in the same direction, pooling into One For All like tributaries, all of them except —

Izuku looks away into the night. “Then why doesn’t the Second Bearer trust me with his?”

The Third Bearer raises an eyebrow. “Is that what he told you?”

“…No. I mean — he said that when his quirk merged with One For All, it became something dangerous. He told me not to use it, unless it was a last resort. It’s not that I don’t believe him, but…” Izuku trails off, biting his lip. “It’s hard to know what to think. He doesn’t really talk to me. I don’t think he likes me that much.”

The Third Bearer laughs humorlessly. “He doesn’t like most people much.”

“He’s the one who told you that I’m too soft, isn’t he,” Izuku laughs humorlessly back.

“He’s always thought you’re too soft.”

Izuku has gotten used to the stones thrown his way, but this rebuke stings more than most. It is like standing on the rooftop, seeing All Might’s gaunt form for the first time all over again, watching his dreams slip through his fingers.  “…I see. I guess I’m still not good enough.”

The Third Bearer says nothing for a long while. Eventually, he heaves a deep, heavy sigh, and with it, the mountaintop is wiped away; the grass peeled from underneath them like the turning of a page. All that is left are the two of them, surrounded by a sea of stars, floating underneath the shadow of the new moon. “I already told you this, but in my time, we did not dream. We could not afford to, not when dreams could be deadly. It is why I cannot understand you.”

The Third Bearer pauses in thought. He and Izuku are drifting in the abyss, weightless as if they are merely apparations, and at last he turns to face Izuku again. “And yet, you are not the first to speak to me of dreams. Do you know who the first was?”

Izuku can only shake his head.

The stars gleam brightly above them, as if each is a memory from a lifetime ago. “The Second Bearer talked about dreams. He was the first I ever heard do so. It was probably why I joined him,” the Third Bearer continues. There is a smile on his face, something so small and tentative that it would vanish if seen. “He was the only one who dared to imagine a time after All For One, when none of us could even give it a passing thought. He was the one who believed we could build a better future, when it was all any of us could do to live in the present. The resistance would have never been brought together were it not for him. One For All as we know it would have never existed — the fight would have been lost before it had even begun. I would have lived my entire life, not knowing what living truly was. In his way, he gave us hope. He was a hero.”

The Third Bearer goes quiet. The air around them is still. Izuku holds his breath.

“But even then, it was never for himself. Only for those who would come after.”

Izuku’s voice is a whisper. “What are you trying to tell me?”

The Third Bearer’s expression lifts into a wry smile. “I do not think the Second Bearer distrusts you. If anything, you are more alike than you think. You share a dream.”

“Then… why —?”

“Do not worry, Midoriya. You already have five quirks under your belt. The power will come to you when you need it. I am sure you will know what to do with it. And I know you will fight hard not just for your dream, but for everyone’s. That determination is your strength. Hold onto it tight.”

Around them, the stars are snuffed out. Darkness descends; but it is a bright blackness, as if it is a darkness that could generate its own light; and Izuku sees it refracted in the Third Bearer’s eyes, shining like shattered glass.

“But if it is all you hold onto, then you will break when you lose it,” the Third Bearer warns. “Not all dreams are won without losing something else.”

“…What have you lost?” Izuku ventures.

“I’ve lost many things.”

“And the Second Bearer…?” Izuku dares to ask.

Everything but the Third Bearer vanishes. His smile turns rueful. “He’s lost more than I’ve ever had.”

Shadow swallows up the last of Izuku’s vision, and the Third Bearer disappears. It is not like the night, where the darkness is merely the absence of light. It is something more solid and corporeal than that, as if it could be picked up and placed in a box. There are no more stars, no more moon, no more wind. There is nothing but the interminable black.

“I’ve seen too many people fall and break when they lose something,” the Third Bearer warns in a final whisper. “Do not let that be you.”

Izuku comes to on the common room couch. His eyelids are heavy and his head feels stuffed with cotton. All Might-patterned fuzzy fabric slips down his shoulders, and Izuku takes several moments before realizing that someone must have covered him with a blanket while he was asleep. Shadows curl up in the corners and linger by the walls. Only the yellow light atop the landing glows through the gloam. Everything is completely still, the kind of stillness that is not even broken by the rustle of branches in the wind, only when the entire world has gone to sleep.

But even half-awake and in the dim light, Izuku can make out Kacchan standing at the foot of the stairwell. His arms are crossed, and his shoulder is leaned up against the wall. His figure is so still that Izuku could nearly mistake him for a portrait, shrouded in shadow like the rest of the room. But his eyes are sharp, seeming to pierce the penumbra that covers the room like curtain folds, and they are fixed on Izuku as if he is the only person alive. Izuku does not know how long they watch each other; but the silence does not smother, and the darkness stays still and does not step between them.

It is Izuku who breaks the silence. “Kacchan…?” he murmurs, voice still thick with sleep.

It is as if the single word starts time again. Kacchan blinks, then pushes himself off the wall without a sound. He glides across the carpet toward the couch with silent steps. Even his breaths come quiet, as if muffled by the twilight. When he at last alights behind the back of the couch, he only gazes down at Izuku and holds his silence, like a ghost. The lamplight glows behind him, framing his body in chiaroscuro.

“You awake, Deku?” Kacchan at last says, voice rumbling low like a receding rainstorm. The blanket is pulled back up over him, and Izuku sinks a little bit further into its warmth.

“Mmmmm,” he mumbles, reshuffling himself on the couch. Even with Kacchan blocking the light with his body, everything seems altogether far too bright, and Izuku gives up on keeping his eyes open. His thoughts drift, formless like fog, from One For All to quirks to heroes, and settle, at last, on a promise rekindled in the rain, made long ago by two boys with sticks in their hands and All Might keychains in their pockets. 

“Kacchan…” Izuku eventually manages, curling up into the darkness and warmth. “Remember our promise?”

The question fades into the silence like an echo into the snow. From beyond the darkness, Kacchan’s voice comes, soft. “…Course I remember.”

“Mmmm,” Izuku says, or thinks he says. Izuku’s words are like sand, slipping through his fingers; but quiet as they are, Kacchan’s words are more solid than any stone — for after everything, Kacchan keeps his promises; after everything with All For One is said and done, in the end, they are still the same two boys with wide, eager eyes, who pledged to be Number One and Number Two.

“Promise, Kacchan?” Izuku manages to murmur through the velvet black, drifting away; and as he surrenders himself to slumber and consciousness escapes him; as the waking world disappears like a coin dropped into a well; he cannot be sure whether he hears a voice whisper back, “Sleep, Deku.”

When the war started, Shigaraki had seemed larger than life. His power had grown so exponentially, his influence so drastically, that he appeared even more sinister than All For One at the height of his power. He had succeeded so well in his ambition to become a villain that his name became synonymous with the greatest villain Japan had ever known. He had already thrown all of Japan into chaos, and was on the precipice of building a twisted new structure on its ashes. It was a far cry from when he had first emerged from a portal, still shaky in his own shoes, with a grudge greater than his own power. Now, nobody could dispute the mark he would leave on history.

And yet, in defeat, all Izuku can see is a small, broken man.

“It’s over, Shigaraki,” Izuku tells him. His hair is clotted with congealed blood; his left arm dangles at his side, broken. But still, he stands.

In front of him, Shigaraki kneels on the floor. He clutches a hand to his side, where crimson seeps through the fabric, wet and red. His face is even more pale than usual, damp with exhaustion and sweat, and his entire body heaves with short, quick breaths. His eyes are fixed on the floor. Izuku wonders whether there is anything left in them at all.

“You gonna go quiet or are you gonna be a pain in the ass?” Kacchan demands, just a few paces from Izuku’s side. All of his weight is on his left leg; a bloody gash crosses his face that has begun to clot, even as traces of blood trickle down his face.

Shigaraki manages a pair of weak laughs in between gasps of air. He does not look up at them. “Why… would I cooperate… with heroes?”

Kacchan clicks his tongue. “Pain in the ass to the end.”

Izuku takes a step toward him. “Shigaraki, I know we don’t see eye-to-eye on hero society. But that doesn’t mean I want to see you dead.”

Another laugh wracks Shigaraki’s body. “Ha. You don’t… want to see me dead? You heroes… who gave up on the forgotten… and let people in the shadows disappear — and you say you want me to live?” He hacks out a cough. “What bullshit.”

“I know more than anyone that there are people who fall through the cracks. I was one of them,” Izuku continues. “I know what it’s like to be treated different. I lost count of the times I was told to give up on my dreams. But I still found my way into the light. You don’t have to stay in the shadows, Shigaraki.”

“Aren’t you… just a precious Golden Boy. Blessed by… His All Mightiness,” Shigaraki sneers. “And… for every one of you… there’s still a hundred more left to suffer.”

“Save the spiel, Deku; he ain’t gonna listen to you. You’re preaching to the head priest of high bastardry.”

Shigaraki’s smile twists even more. “And even more Kacchans… grinding someone beneath their boot.”

Kacchan snarls. “Yeah, fuckwads like you!”

Izuku quiets him with his good hand. “You’re right, Shigaraki. Too many people are suffering for things to continue they way they are. But if we tear everything down, people will suffer too. That’s exactly why I have to do better — why we have to do better. We have to build a future for everyone, where nobody is left behind. Something built by all of us, for all of us.” Izuku takes a breath. “That means you, too, Shigaraki.”

“What future is waiting for me in Tartarus?”

“You can’t escape responsibility for the crimes you’ve committed,” Izuku tells him. “But you can stay alive to see a better future, a future that is better for everyone. I promise to make it happen — to work for a world where someone holds out a hand to Shimura Tenko.”

“Shimura Tenko is dead,” Shigaraki spits.

“But Shigaraki doesn’t have to be. You can still have a future.”

“The only future I’m interested in… is one where hero society finally rots to the ground,” Shigaraki retorts. With a hissed cry, he clutches his bleeding wound tighter. “You say you know what it’s like… to live in the shadows… But you’re just as sanctimonious as the rest of the damn heroes.”

“Like you ain’t already preaching hot garbage, Handsy.”

“Then if you’re so sure that hero society will collapse under its own weight,” Izuku dares him, “Why not stay alive long enough to see it?”

Shigaraki does not answer. He slumps farther forward, before catching himself. His breaths come frantic like dragonfly wings.

“If you truly believe yourself — if hero society is as rotten as you say — then it will fall no matter what I do, with or without you to help it along. You can watch it happen and prove me wrong,” Izuku continues. “But if I can keep my promise — if we can work together to build a world for everyone, no matter who they are, or where they’re from — then I’ll prove to you that hero society is something worth saving. That we can be better. That we don’t have to live in a world of heroes versus villains, of humans or superhumans — just people.”

Izuku’s words are met with silence. The only sound is of labored breaths and dripping blood.

“So… is it a dare, then?” Shigaraki finally breathes.

“Not a dare. A deal,” Izuku answers. “A promise from me that I’ll work for a better world. And a promise for you to be alive to see it.”

“Heh. That really is… sanctimonious garbage,” Shigaraki says. He steadies himself on the hand that isn’t pressed to his wound. “You’ll see… your dream is worthless. The day that happens… I want to see the defeat on your face.”

“Do we have a deal, Shigaraki?”

Shigaraki huffs a laugh. “We have a deal, little hero.”

Izuku allows himself a smile. It is not a happy one or a sad one; it is a smile of determination. It is his hero smile, the one that promises that everything will be okay, the one that wins and saves, the one that matches the shine in his eyes.

He approaches Shigaraki. “I won’t lose. I promise to show you my dream.”

“And I,” Shigaraki whispers, “promise to show you mine.”

Shigaraki lifts his gaze to meet Izuku’s. His eyes are empty.

Danger Sense blares.

“Deku!”

Something slams into Izuku’s side, and he tumbles onto the ground with a thump. He lands on his broken arm, and cries out as the bone shifts and pain lances through him. With a cough, he turns himself over onto his other side, and stills at what he sees.

Kacchan is frozen mid-leap, floating just a foot off the ground as if encased in amber. His arms are stretched out toward Izuku, palms open-faced, reaching. His eyes are wide, unblinking; his mouth caught open in a silent scream. And then, the very air around him seems to compress, falling in on itself like a collapsing star, Kacchan and the ring of air around him shrinking and shrinking, until in the span of no more than a few seconds, Kacchan and the air around him vanish entirely into the ether altogether. All that is left is a pair of ripples drifting through the air, as if from a stone dropped into a lake; and after a few moments, they, too, disappear. It is as if Kacchan never was.

Izuku whirls on Shigaraki. “What did you do?”

Shigaraki laughs. It is weak and hoarse, but mocking all the same. “I was only… keeping my promise.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you… already forget, little hero?” Shigaraki smirks. Blood shows on his teeth. “I told you I would show you… your dream is worthless.”

Izuku stalks toward him. The throbbing in his abdomen is shoved aside; the flare of pain in his arm is locked away. “What did you do with Kacchan?”

Shigaraki coughs again. He puts more weight on his arm.

Izuku doesn’t care. “Answer me!”

“This quirk,” he rasps, “sends people far, far away.”

“Then bring him back!”

“Oh, you misunderstand.” Shigaraki’s smile twists into something sinister in its glee. “They don’t come back, little hero.”

Izuku clenches his jaw, even as sparks of pain shoot up and down his cheekbone from the motion. “You lie.”

“Maybe,” Shigaraki taunts him. “But even if I was… What would you do about it?”

Izuku seethes. “You bastard.”

Shigaraki’s smile stretches further. “The head priest, in fact.”

Izuku screams in fury. Blackwhip launches itself from his body, its tendrils wrapping around Shigaraki’s limbs and hanging him in the air by a ribbon. But Shigaraki does not struggle. He only keeps his gaze on Izuku, eyes sharp and smile nearly serpentine.

“It was… supposed to be you,” Shigaraki continues. He hacks out an ugly sound that is halfway between a cough and a laugh. “But… I guess this works, too. After all… I did want to see… utter defeat on your face.”

“Tell me where Kacchan is,” Izuku demands, “or I break you.”

“Break me? You think that… a threat?” Even at the mercy of Blackwhip, Shigaraki still smiles, sinister and bloody. “Little hero. I am already broken. If I am to die… it will be on my terms.”

“I gave you a chance!”

“As if I ever wanted… a chance from you.”

“You’d die just to prove yourself right?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Shigaraki’s face finally contorts into a sneer. “Where is… all that talk about dreams, now? About saving… about the future. Is that all it takes… for you to abandon them? One lost little Kacchan?”

“Don’t you dare say his name!” Izuku shouts. Blackwhip tightens; Shigaraki chokes out a strangled gasp. When he manages to catch his breath, his breathing comes only in fits and starts.

“Oh, the look… on your face,” Shigaraki crows. “I knew I wanted… to see defeat there. How does it feel? Do you still think… hero society can save everyone?”

“I’m not the defeated one,” Izuku retorts. “Face it: you’ve lost, Shigaraki.”

Shigaraki’s body trembles in Blackwhip’s hold. His voice does not. “Hero society has won today,” he announces with a taunting smile. “But it is not me who has lost.”

Izuku clenches his jaw. “Weak words from a weak man about to die.”

Shigaraki laughs a spiteful laugh. “Then why don’t I give you one last parting gift, little hero?” Shigaraki says, and even held firm in Blackwhip’s grip, lunges toward Izuku in a last, desperate attack. Izuku coils Blackwhip so tight that he hears something crack; and with a bang, smoke explodes all around them. The battlefield vanishes behind a wall of thick white haze. Shigaraki’s body becomes a silhouette. There is the sound of a strangled grunt; in the distance, a crash. Something shatters. Izuku cannot say what. His vision tunnels. White noise rushes in. The world fades away behind the smoke; nothingness is its replacement.

Izuku can only stand in the endless expanse of white. Eventually, something flickers. One by one, the threads of One For All unfurl and appear before him. They waver in the air like spider’s silk.

And then, the void splits into Shigaraki’s grin. “I’ll be taking back what’s mine, now.”

The threads of One For All are yanked away from him, tugged from someplace deep within his chest, and Izuku leaps forward to grip One For All before it slips from his grasp, tugging back with all his might.

“I won’t let you!” Izuku shouts. He digs in his heels, even as there is nothing to dig them into; he takes the threads of One For All in his hands and curls them together until he can hold them tight in a fist.

“You won’t let me?” Shigaraki’s voice retorts. “You should ask your Kacchan what you will and won’t let me do.”

Izuku holds tight. “His name isn’t yours to speak. This quirk isn’t yours to use!”

“You say that as if it is yours. But it is just a quirk of fate, isn’t it? It was never yours to begin with.”

“One For All was always someone else’s to begin with. But it changes with every Bearer — that doesn’t make it any less mine. I’ve made it my own!”

“And what have you done with all that power? Let your allies slip through your fingers?”

“Don’t talk like you’re not responsible.”

“But that’s what I do — I’m a villain. And you — you’re supposed to be a little hero. A little hero who saves everyone — right?”

Izuku grits his teeth. “Shut up.”

“How will you save everyone when you can’t save the person next to you?”

“Shut up!”

“How will you save all of hero society when you can’t even use your power to save one single person?”

“I said, shut up!” Izuku shouts, wrenching One For All toward him with all of his power. It draws close toward him, and Izuku can feel the familiar flame warm within his chest.

“Or maybe,” Shigaraki’s voice says, coiling around Izuku like a snake, “You were never meant to be a hero.”

Izuku flinches. One For All slips from his fingers. Its heat disappears like water down a drain; one by one, each of its threads of power are pulled away from him into an invisible abyss.

“No — no!” Izuku leaps for the last thread of One For All before it can disappear. His heart jackhammers in his chest; electricity courses like water up and down his body; a frantic popping echoes in his ears. He reaches out, the last, thin ribbon of blue so close he can nearly take it in his open hands.

Shigaraki’s voice is a sneer. “It’s too late. One For All is —“

“Deku, you moron, get your shit together!”

An explosion tears through Shigaraki’s words. Izuku is flung backward like a ragdoll, and the vast white emptiness itself disappears behind a thick cloud of smoke. Izuku’s body tumbles through the air and across the ground until finally coming to a stop. He is bruised and bleeding all over, and when he tries to get to his feet afterward, he staggers and shouts in pain. He slumps back onto the ground.

And yet — the distinctive voice and customary curse words, the smell of burnt sugar and singed fabric, the sheer power of the explosion: Izuku recognizes them all. And though his entire body radiates pain, he can’t help but feel hope well up within him.

“I leave you alone for one fucking minute and this is what happens?”

“Kacchan!” Izuku cries out, and despite his broken bones, despite his heaving breaths, despite the aches and exhaustion, he at last manages to pull himself from the ground. Kacchan’s voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere in the smoke — but it is Kacchan’s. He takes a stumbling step forward, and searches through the smoke for Kacchan’s familiar form.

“Oi, eyes in front of you,” Kacchan warns him, from somewhere. “Handsy’s not finished just yet.”

As if by his words, the thick smoke begins to clear. Shigaraki is collapsed on his back on the ground. Blood still oozes from the gash in his side, the crimson color bright against the shadow. He no longer attempts to staunch the flow with his hand; instead, it lays over his heart, pale. His clothes have been burned away, and his skin is mottled by scars and angry red burns. His chest still rises and falls, but only just. When Shigaraki at last lifts his head, his wide eyes fix on Izuku’s. But for once, there is no sneer on his face; for once, there is something other than emptiness in his eyes. For once, Shigaraki looks afraid.

“How — how?” Shigaraki’s voice is a trembling whisper. “How do… you still…?”

Izuku trudges toward him. Deep within him, the flames of One For All burn bright; Izuku can hear the harmonizing hum of the Torchbearers’ voices. “I told you last time,” Izuku says. His steps are shaky, but he takes one step forward, then another. “One For All chooses its Bearer. And as long as I want it — as long as the Torchbearers will it — One For All will stay with me.”

“But —” Shigaraki coughs once, and again; it is a weak, wet noise, wracking his entire body. But he does not break his gaze from Izuku’s. “The… explosion…”

Izuku’s hands are clammy and tremble with exertion. His steps are shaky and his feet feel like bricks. But he continues onward, until he at last stands before Shigaraki’s prone form. From here, Izuku can see the whites of his eyes. His face is drained of color. “Kacchan and I made a promise — and Kacchan’s the most stubborn person I know. He’d find a way to come back from the dead just to keep it,” Izuku says. “Now, it’s time for me to keep mine.”

Shigaraki’s eyes drop from Izuku’s face. “It… can’t be…”

“Oh, it can.” Izuku hears the predatory grin in Kacchan’s voice.

“I wish things didn’t have to end this way.” Izuku’s vision begins to go blurry around the edges, but even still, he manages to give Shigaraki one last look. “Farewell, Shigaraki.”

One For All pulses like a supernova in his blood; electricity arcs and sizzles and burns across his skin. At the same time, Izuku sees sparks begin to dance and pop; smells the heady scent of nitroglycerin filling the air. And as if by a wordless signal, the quirks go off at once in a tremendous burst of light and a cascade of hellfire. In an instant, exhaustion overcomes him. He crumples onto the ground, eyesight fading and ears ringing. The moments blur. Heat and fire. A single body, unmoving and still. Dull pain long gone numb. Silence. Darkness. And then nothing.

The sky is pale, cerulean blue. Small, creampuff clouds speckle the sky. The birds are still waking, and the air is cool and still, as if holding its breath, waiting for the day to begin. 

Izuku sits on the swing. Around him, the rest of the park is empty. His grip on the chain is loose; his legs dangle in the air. He absently kicks his feet, and the swing creaks softly. The crisp morning air brushes through his hair as Izuku rocks forward and backward on the swing, like a tired pendulum in an old grandfather clock, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

The park is familiar, like finding the well-loved stuffed All Might toy from when he was a toddler. The toy is now tucked away in a box in the attic, dusty and worn, filled with memories and many more forgotten; but the park still stands, a watchful gatekeeper, as if it has been frozen in time. He recognizes the jungle gym and the monkey bars and the see-saw that teeters slightly more on one side. The stillness is only broken by the swing set's soft squeaking as Izuku rocks in the air, gazing at the empty jungle gym that stands silently in the middle of the playground like a memorial.

With one last kick, Izuku hops down from the swing. The wood chips crinkle on his landing, the sound seeming to echo infinitely in the silence. He brushes his hands on his shorts thoughtlessly, and watches as the swing slows to a halt. Without Izuku's momentum to power it, it seems as much a forgotten relic as the rest of the park itself. Izuku turns from the playground and walks away. The wood chips crunch underneath his sneakers, loud like crinkling paper, until Izuku makes it to the grass and the sound fades away beneath his feet, hushing itself to a whisper.

The park of his childhood had stood next to a leafy wood. The two had been separated only by a ramshackle chain-link fence, short and brittle and with a portion that had split apart with age and weather, leaving a small opening that permitted passage to the forest beyond. Izuku and the neighborhood kids had squeezed their way through it countless times, in search of the adventure that waited in the woods like a promise. It had felt like sneaking into the rooms at school where only grown-ups were allowed, like a secret treehouse with no adults allowed, only bigger, excitement and danger and curiosity all rolling together in Izuku's chest. It had felt like being a hero.

The fence is just as rickety as Izuku remembers, and the small tear in the metal that had been the gateway to exploration and adventure still hangs open like an invitation. Izuku picks his way through the opening without hesitation and with little effort. The woods welcome him like a long-lost friend. He wanders, and wanders some more. The breeze ruffles through his hair, and Izuku remembers fireflies dancing in the dusk; twigs snap beneath his feet, and Izuku thinks of chasing other kids in hard-fought games of freeze tag. Even after Izuku turned four, even after Izuku's world changed in a doctor's office, even after the word Deku stopped being a child's innocent teasing and instead became something wielded like a knife, the forest, at least, remained the same. Away from home, away from school, away from the adults who told him that he couldn't and the kids who tried their hardest to prove it, anything had felt possible, even dreams. Shielded by the canopy and held aloft by sturdy tree branches, for a long time, Izuku could still be Izuku.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a small ravine appears from behind the trees, and even though Izuku cannot yet fully see it, he can hear the water murmuring to him from the riverbank. Izuku feels himself drawn closer. The river is smaller than he remembers. Instead of water rushing over rocks and turning to foam, the river only wanders its way through the ravine, clear and featureless like glass, broken only here and there by gurgling riffles. It is unremarkable and unassuming; it could be a river from anywhere in the world. Izuku doesn't doubt that the kids he grew up with have all but forgotten about it, leaving the nameless river in the woods far behind in the past.

But Izuku remembers the trickling creek that cut the forest in two; the mossy log bridge too slick for a child's small feet to navigate. Looking at it now, over ten years on, Izuku can't help but be struck by how something so small had changed so many things.

He suspects, if ever pressed, that Kacchan remembers it, too.

"Oi, nerd!"

A hand catches Izuku’s wrist. He stops, foot still raised mid-step, poised to take that first step on the fallen trunk and across the river to the unknown, and turns to see small fingers curled around his own.

"Kacchan?" he wonders.

"Who else?" Kacchan answers back. He rolls his eyes, childishly large. His face is smoother and rounder; his bangs cover his forehead in the way they once did when they were kids. His hand stays caught on Izuku's, his palm still soft as though over a decade of combat training had been wiped away; his fingers still uncalloused as though Explosion was a lifetime yet into the future. He's wearing an All Might T-shirt, the last one Izuku remembers him ever wearing.

"What are you doing here?" Izuku can't help but wonder.

Kacchan nods his head at the log bridge behind him. "Don't go that way," he tells Izuku firmly.

"Why not?"

"'Cuz Auntie Inko asked me to fetch you, dummy.”

"Mom? What for?"

"She wants you to come home for dinner. That's why I came to get you."

Izuku frowns. "For dinner? But Kacchan, it's still morning."

Kacchan frowns back. "Hah? The sun's going down. How long have you been out, nerd?"

Izuku tilts his head up and gazes through the canopy. The light is warm and heavy, and now that he is looking, the shadows of the trees reach toward him, long like claws. "…Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Kacchan huffs irritably. "Now come on, already."

Izuku turns back to the log bridge and looks beyond the river to the opposite bank, rife with dark stands of dense trees and leaves that have fallen to the forest floor. Kacchan's hand remains on Izuku's wrist, not tightening, not loosening — just there.

"…Okay," Izuku eventually says, and allows himself to be pulled away from the riverbank. He steps toward Kacchan, and now that they are closer,  there is no question that Izuku is standing before a very young version of Kacchan — a Kacchan from when they had promised to become heroes, together. Izuku glances down at himself, and is unsurprised to find that the scars that once marked his skin are gone; fingers that would later become aching and crooked are still soft and small. He's also wearing an All Might T-shirt, one that Izuku distantly recognizes as a birthday gift from Kacchan, back when Izuku still celebrated birthdays with Kacchan.

"Is this a dream?" Izuku asks.

Kacchan frowns at him. "You hit your head or something, nerd?"

"No, it's just…" Izuku trails off with a shake of his head.

"Oi, you gonna keep Auntie waiting?" Kacchan demands with a rough squeeze of Izuku's hand. He waves into the distance with the other. "Exit's that way. Get a move on, already!"

Izuku shakes himself, then glances down at their interlocked hands. "Eh? But Kacchan always leads."

Kacchan flicks him on the forehead. "It's your home, stupid. How are you ever gonna be a hero if you can't find your own way back? I won't be around to babysit you all the time."

"But Kacchan, we promised to be heroes together."

"Exactly — I'm gonna be a hero, not your babysitter. So stop standing around and let's go."

Izuku feels his hand curl into Kacchan's. "…Okay," he says, and then the two of them are walking off through the forest, leaves rustling under their feet, flickers of shadow and sunlight flecking their faces, as Izuku walks in front of Kacchan, their fingers still twined together like a tapestry.

"How did you know I was here, Kacchan?"

"Saw your dumb self from the other side of the river," Kacchan says with a snort. He smirks. "Figures you'd get so lost in your own head that you'd get actually lost, nerd."

"I just wanted to see what the other side was like!"

Kacchan shrugs. "It's a fat lot of nothing. Boring as all get out.”

"Then why were you there?"

“So that I can save dumb nerds who get lost in the woods."

"Hey!" Izuku protests. "I can find my own way back!"

"Yeah, after I showed you," Kacchan retorts gleefully, and in spite of the insult, Izuku can't find it in himself to be mad — not when the interaction reminds Izuku of times spent adventuring in the forest so long ago; not when Kacchan still holds Izuku's hand tight, even as they duck under branches and hop over roots and brush away leaves. It's like something at once from a memory and from a dream, something so simple yet sentimental. Izuku leads them through the forest, and keeps finding his gaze wandering to their interlaced fingers, again and again.

Kacchan is eagle-eyed as always. "If you got something to say, then say it," Kacchan demands.

Izuku slows to a stop. The trees have thinned, somewhat, and the sun drapes over both of them as if they are still children playing make-believe in a blanket fort. Izuku swings their hands back and forth; and though Kacchan doesn't initiate the motion, he doesn't resist.

"Is this how things could have been?" Izuku finally asks, their hands gently coming to a stop. "If we had stayed friends."

The sun shadows Kacchan's eyes. His fingers twitch in Izuku's hand, but he doesn't let go. "…I don't know," he confesses, after a pause. "A lot of things would have been different."

"What do you mean?"

Kacchan turns his gaze up to the sky, as if the rustling boughs and drifting clouds know the answer. His expression is lost behind the leaves, too faraway for the four-year-old face it inhabits. "Maybe you were born with a quirk. Maybe I learned earlier that being a hero is about saving as much as it's about winning. Maybe I took your hand in the river that day. I would've been a different person. So would you."

Izuku frowns. "That doesn't matter. Kacchan is Kacchan."

Kacchan shakes his head. "It would have changed a lot of things."

"It would have changed everything," Izuku insists. "Because we would've been friends, Kacchan."

Kacchan looks to Izuku, at that. Sunlight sluices through the trees above them, forcing Izuku to squint, and it pours through Kacchan's figure as if he's made of stained glass. "Things would have been different," Kacchan agrees, his smile small like a secret. "Remember that, nerd," he says, the words whispered in a promise, the sunlight drenching everything in bright light, and Izuku is forced to guard his eyes with his arm as everything goes white.

He's standing on a rooftop when he opens his eyes again. The scene feels vaguely familiar, like hearing a story about yourself so often your brain convinces itself that it remembers the events. But there is no wind whipping against his face; no low rumble of traffic reverberating up from the streets. The clouds are colored in as if from crayon and the buildings crisscrossing the cityscape are dull, blank boxes. It is like watching a half-made movie on mute.

Movement in the corner of Izuku's eye catches his attention. Far, in the distance, he sees pinpricks of color that might be people, bursts of light that might be explosions. Izuku feels a flicker in his memory and a tug in his chest, and he instinctively reaches forward, as if pulled by an invisible string.

"There's nothing you can do."

Kacchan's voice pulls Izuku back, and Izuku turns. Kacchan is standing next to him on the rooftop, hands hidden away deep within his pockets. He's wearing his middle-school uniform, entirely black from head-to-toe and surely stiflingly hot in the sunlight, but Kacchan doesn't make any mention of it.

"Kacchan?" Izuku can't help but ask.

Kacchan huffs a laugh. "Don't wear it out, nerd."

Izuku frowns. "But…" he trails off, and looks back to the flickers of dancing light and flame in the distance.

"It's a memory, nerd," Kacchan shrugs from next to him. "Or something like that, anyway."

"Huh," Izuku murmurs to himself. "Yours? Or mine?"

"What does it matter?"

"Well, if it's my memory then it's weird because Kacchan shouldn't be here, he should be there, so this Kacchan has to be a manifestation of — my subconscious, maybe? Or maybe this is a dream instead? Or wait, if this is Kacchan's dream, then am I the manifestation of his subconscious, maybe I'm not even real, that's —"

Izuku's rambling is cut off by Kacchan's barking laugh. Izuku blinks and turns to look at him. Kacchan's expression has smoothed into soft lines; and for just a moment, his whole mien seems to ease into something languid like water. It is a far cry from Izuku's memory of middle-school Kacchan, who had been all cruel words and flashes of fire. But there is none of that here, now. If there are explosions, they are all happening below the surface, like a star.

"Still a nerd, after all this time," Kacchan chides him with a shake of his head and another barked laugh. 

"It hasn't been that long."

"And you stayed a nerd every last second of it," Kacchan says with a flicker of a grin. Izuku is struck again by how different it feels; an aching reminder of how things could have been. What-ifs are the weightiest things of all, chains Izuku has carried for his entire life. And yet, for all the weight tied around Izuku's ankles, it is Kacchan's head that is bowed; Kacchan’s shoulders that are hunched.

"All Might was wrong, you know."

The change in topic catches Izuku off-guard. "Huh?"

"He was wrong," Kacchan repeats, with a careless shrug. His eyes flick from the skyline, then to Izuku. He gestures with his head to the rooftop behind them. Izuku's eyes follow the motion, and he jumps as he recognizes All Might's emaciated figure. All Might stands stock-still, unmoving. His eyes are missing the depth that Izuku has come to recognize after so many training sessions, and the glimmer in his gaze is absent. It is as if he is little more than a cardboard cutout, childishly drawn and half-remembered; as if he is simply part of the scenery like the buildings and the sky and the clouds.

"All Might…?" Izuku wonders aloud.

"You were already a quirkless hero," Kacchan carries on, heedless of Izuku's confusion as he continues to stare at All Might's frozen figure. Kacchan turns away from the both of them, fixing his attention again on the soundless scuffle happening below the horizon. Izuku watches the All Might statue for a moment longer, before rejoining Kacchan at the overlook. In the streets below, the silent explosions have stopped. Fire laps at the nearby buildings, but there is no smoke. The colors in the crowd are faded and dull, as though long forgotten — until there is a bright, vibrant flash of green.

"Don't get me wrong," Kacchan says into the silence, the two of them watching as everything except for the moment seems to disappear. "You were breathtakingly stupid, jumping in front of that sludgy shitlord like that. Don't you dare ever think that you wouldn't have bitten it, if All Might hadn't come swooping in at the last second to save your ass."

There's a flash of light; a soundless shout. Izuku could see what happens next in his sleep; sometimes, he has. 

"But then again, I would've bitten it, too." Even in the unnatural silence, Kacchan's voice is almost inaudible. 

The words come to Izuku as naturally as the sunrise. "I just did what it felt right to do."

"I know," Kacchan agrees. "You'd save anybody, even the person who made your life a living hell."

"Kacchan…" Izuku murmurs. He instinctively reaches out for Kacchan's hand, still tucked away in his pocket. A look of surprise flits by on Kacchan's face, but after a moment his gaze flattens, and he allows the gesture. "You apologized," Izuku reminds him.

"Not yet, I hadn't," Kacchan reminds Izuku right back. "You've always been too soft."

Izuku frowns, curling his fingers closer around Kacchan's. "I've heard that one before."

"I know that, too," Kacchan says, with an amused curl of his lip. "The stray cats you fed near our house never stopped reminding me."

"Kacchan!"

Kacchan huffs another laugh, and with another careless shrug of his shoulders, his hand slips out of Izuku's like water. Izuku's fingers twitch, as if to reclaim it. "It's the same thing All Might saw in you."

All the thoughts in Izuku's head come to a screeching halt.

Kacchan spots the lost expression on Izuku's face. He clicks his tongue. "I saw it, too — the same thing that All Might saw in you. It's the same thing that made you reach out your hand in the river — the same thing that made you throw a backpack at a pile of slime."

"Then why…?"

Kacchan crosses his arms; his eyes are overtaken by the same faraway gaze that doesn't quite fit on Kacchan's middle-school face. He turns to look into the distance, as though a sentinel, keeping watch for something Izuku does not know. The sun has drifted far enough down the sky to cradle Kacchan's head.

"…I thought it made you soft. Too soft to be a hero," Kacchan finally says, the words smooth but well-worn, like a washed-out stone. "But I could never admit it, not for a long time. That it also made you strong."

Izuku stares at Kacchan's shadow. Behind him, the facsimile of All Might has vanished into the ether; beneath him, the memory of a hastily thrown backpack has dissipated. It is just Deku and Kacchan, standing atop the world, heroes together as they always said they would be.

"That's why you have One for All," Kacchan tells him, tucking his hands back in his pockets with a tilt of his head and a half-smile. Behind him, a splash of blackness the size of a pebble evanesces out of thin air, dark and viscous like ink, swelling and growing until it stands out like an archway against the sunset, bleeding black. Kacchan gives Izuku a last, lingering look. "Remember that, nerd," he smirks, retreating backward into the void.

Memories surface like oil from water. Izuku’s heart lurches. “Wait!” he calls out, and leaps into the portal after Kacchan's vanishing form. The world goes entirely black around him, light having been swallowed up as if in a black hole. Izuku feels as if he is in weightless free-fall, balance off-center, floating idly in a void without a single point of reference to cling to. It is all he can do to clutch at air, to grasp for purchase on something, and when he feels his fingers blindly brush against Kacchan's clothes, Izuku grips on like a life raft in a storm.

He is deposited with a thud that he feels reverberate in his body more than he hears in the air. Kacchan is pinned beneath him, arms spread wide, as if beckoning. His eyes are calm but assessing, and his body seems somehow bright against the dark earth. Atop him, Izuku forces deep breaths; wills his pulse to slow.

"I told you not to come, and you did anyway," Kacchan observes, as if making a note of the weather. His voice is still and deep like a lake. While Izuku scrabbles for breath, Kacchan does not even sound winded; and yet, Izuku cannot bring his grip on Kacchan's shirt to slacken, not when Kacchan's form is solid and there and real. "You never did listen much to me."

"Me? Listen to you?" Izuku retorts, rasping out a laugh. "You never listened to me."

"I have a policy of not listening to muttering shitnerds."

"Rude."

"Have we met?"

Izuku's breath finally steadies. He picks himself up into a kneeling position, freeing Kacchan from his position on the ground, but Kacchan makes no attempt to get up. His arms are splayed out against the ground, outstretched, and his high school uniform is rumpled but unmuddied despite the wet ground beneath them. There is a soft, diaphanous mist in the air that Izuku belatedly recognizes as a gentle drizzle.

"Huh," Izuku says.

"Fuck is it."

"It's raining."

"No shit."

"But I'm not wet.” Izuku looks Kacchan's uniform up and down. "Neither are you."

"Get to the point, nerd."

"Isn't that weird?"

Kacchan scowls at him. "That's what you're getting hung up on? Not the timeskips or the strange-ass geography, but the damn weather?"

"Rain is supposed to be wet!" Izuku protests.

"Dreams are supposed to be weird, nerd."

"So this is a dream.” Izuku frowns, in thought. "You said this was a memory."

"Or something like that," Kacchan corrects him. "How the hell am I supposed to know, it's your dream."

Izuku's frown deepens. Kacchan's face is veiled behind the rain, falling in thin, translucent sheets. The ground is dark and slick with moisture. The earth smells damp and there is the faint background pitter-patter of raindrops tap-tap-tapping on the pavement. The buildings of Ground Beta seem as faraway as a river from long ago; as foreign as a country an ocean away.

"If this is my dream," Izuku finally says. He leans closer to Kacchan's form, struck by the strange sensation that Kacchan could disappear in an instant. "Then who are you?"

Kacchan looks incredibly unimpressed. "I've known you your entire life and I still don't have a fucking clue how your nerd brain works."

"It's just — if this is a dream, then are you really Kacchan? Are you just what my mind wants Kacchan to be?" Izuku studies Kacchan's form as if picking through the pieces of a puzzle. "Sometimes you seem like Kacchan. And sometimes you don't seem much like Kacchan at all."

Kacchan cracks a smile. "Weren't you the one who said Kacchan was Kacchan?" he taunts, looking very much amused at Izuku's suffering; and that, at least, is the same. "It's a dream, nerd. It doesn't have to mean anything."

Wisps of mist drift between them. In the distance, shadowy structures turn to smoke and silk, stretching and bending impossibly until vanishing altogether. Kacchan's gaze is patient, waiting. "…But what if I want it to?" Izuku at last ventures.

"Then it means something," Kacchan answers, simply. "Like I said, it's your dream, nerd. You can decide what it means, if it means anything at all."

Izuku turns Kacchan's words over in his head, like a precious stone. "I don't want it to be a dream," Izuku decides. "I want it to be real. All I ever wanted growing up was to have a friend. To be Kacchan's friend."

Kacchan laughs a hollow laugh. "Why on earth would you want that."

"Why wouldn't I?" Izuku answers with a laugh of his own. "Ever since we promised to be heroes together, even after everyone started treating me different because I was quirkless — I never stopped wanting to be heroes with Kacchan. I never stopped wanting to be Kacchan's friend."

Kacchan raises himself up off the ground to level Izuku with a flat stare. "You're all kinds of fucked up."

"As you've told me many times."

"Obviously it wasn't enough. I can't believe I forgot how much of a moron you are."

Izuku quirks an eyebrow. "I can't believe you forgot, either. You told me literally as we were fighting Shigaraki together."

Kacchan doesn't respond for a long moment. "…Yeah," he finally says. There is something solemn in his voice. "I did."

"How did you get back, anyway?" Izuku wonders aloud. "When Shigaraki hit you with that quirk and you just disappeared — it almost didn't seem real. It was just like the training camp. Except this time Shigaraki said that the people who get hit with that quirk never come back." Izuku watches the rain puddle onto the ground; watches as reflections of Kacchan appear and disappear: dragged into a shadow in a moonlit forest, drowned beneath sludge in a bright city street, stabbed through the stomach with a jet-black spike, vanished like a ripple into thin air.

Kacchan gazes out into the rain, saying nothing.

Izuku breathes a sigh. "But then there were those explosions," he says. The two of them are sitting next to each other now, somehow without either of them moving at all. "And I could tell right away — that was you, wasn't it?"

Kacchan clicks his tongue. "Of course you'd recognize my quirk on sight, you damn stalker."

"I can't help it. If anyone could figure out a way around whatever Shigaraki did, of course it would be Kacchan."

"Yeah," Kacchan answers, voice low. His smirk is crooked. "I've never been able to get away from you, Deku."

Izuku huffs in amusement. “Not even in dreams, huh?” Izuku teases, but Kacchan does not answer. He is quiet, silent for so long that Izuku turns to make sure he hasn't vanished. Kacchan is staring out into the distance, into the flowing shadows that swirl like water around their protective bubble and curl at Kacchan's feet. His figure is curtained by the rain, his profile like a projection. Izuku feels himself shuffle closer. Kacchan's back is hunched. He gazes beyond his open palms at something Izuku cannot see, and Izuku impulsively reaches out to take one of Kacchan's hands in his.

For so long, the two of them just sit there in the shadowy silence, until Izuku feels Kacchan's palm squeeze against his, once. Izuku turns up to look at him. Kacchan's gaze is distant, again.

"I'd do it again," Kacchan says to the rain.

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't take your hand that time. But I swore to myself that I would never make that mistake again. I swore that I wouldn't have any more regrets."

There is something so definitive, so final, in Kacchan's words that Izuku's breath catches. "Kacchan… Why are you telling me this?"

Kacchan turns to him, eyes burning like wildfire. "I'd tell you as many times as it takes.”

"But —"

“I wouldn’t change anything. You would've done the same thing for me,” Kacchan says, suddenly standing as if he had been the whole time, Izuku's hand empty as if Kacchan was a ghost. Kacchan turns to walk away, his back retreating away through the rain.

Izuku leaps to his feet. "Kacchan, what are you talking about? Wait!"

"In fact, you already have — you always have," Kacchan tells him. Izuku races after him, but no matter how fast Izuku runs, the distance between them only seems to grow, until all that Izuku can see is Kacchan's reflection, walking away from him atop the water's surface. Kacchan's reflection looks over his shoulder to toss Izuku a smile that is proud and wistful and fleeting like falling autumn leaves. "Remember that, nerd," Kacchan says in a voice barely above a murmur — and then vanishes in a wave and a ripple.

"Kacchan? Kacchan!" Izuku calls out, running ahead with no destination and nothing to guide him. He calls out again and again, until his voice is choked and hoarse, but receives no answer except for the falling rain and the water splashing at his feet. The shadowy structures of Ground Beta have long since faded away, leaving behind a featureless ground and a featureless sky and no way to tell them apart. Kacchan is gone, and it is just Izuku and the rain, again.

Izuku at last comes to a stop, his breath staggered more by emotion than exertion. He takes in a deep breath before throwing his head back and screaming toward the heavens. Izuku clenches his fists; lets the rain fall like a cloak atop his shoulders.

"Why is it always like this," Izuku chokes out, through the wetness streaking down his face. "How can I be a hero who saves everyone when I can't even save the person standing right in front of me!"

The sky does not answer.

"Every time. Every time, and I still feel so powerless. A quirk passed down from eight Bearers before me, and for what? What good is it when I'm just useless Deku all over again?"

The sky does not answer.

"…All I ever wanted was to be a hero. To help people," Izuku murmurs. "But how can I be a hero when I can’t even save Kacchan?”

"What kind of loser talk is that?"

Izuku jolts. He whirls around, but there is only an endless expanse of black. "Kacchan?"

"Weren't you supposed to be the Deku who never gives up?" Kacchan's voice comes from Izuku's left; Izuku spins on his heel, but there is nothing there.

"Weren't you supposed to be the Deku who saves everyone?" Kacchan's voice taunts, whispering past Izuku's right side now, and just as invisible as before.

"Weren't you the one who reclaimed the name Deku for your own? The one who decided that it meant you can do it?" Kacchan continues, the sound seeming to come from one place in one moment and from another the very next. Izuku's eyes dart around the inscrutable blackness, searching for something to tether the voice to, and finding nothing.

“Well, maybe I was wrong!” Izuku snaps. He stares dead ahead into the darkness, as if his words will pull the shadow away like a curtain. “Maybe Deku is the name of the hero who can’t!”

Kacchan’s voice twists. “That’s not the Deku I saw and shoved down into the dirt," he sneers. "That's not the Deku who always got back up. Who said, ‘No matter what, I’m going to be a hero, Kacchan!’”

“Maybe I said it because Kacchan’s the reason I became a hero!” Izuku shouts into the void, the words ringing in the nothingness like a bell. Kacchan’s voice goes silent.

"Growing up, we saw heroes all the time. They were everywhere — on the TV, in comic books, on the Internet. All Might books taught me the alphabet and I learned my colors from Best Jeanist,” Izuku says, plowing ahead, listening as his words are swallowed up by the shadow. “But they were all so far away, trapped behind a television screen or the pages of a book. I could watch tv shows all I wanted, but it was never real.

“But Kacchan… Kacchan was a real-life hero. He was a hero who I could climb trees and catch fireflies with. He was a hero who could use explosions and who could beat up the bad guys and who knew the most kana out of everyone. Even after I found out I was quirkless and everything changed — even after you stopped standing with me and started putting yourself above me — I always knew that Kacchan was going to keep his promise and be a hero. It meant I had to keep my promise to be a hero, too,” Izuku says, determination welling up deep inside his chest. “I could never have been a hero without Kacchan.”

“That’s bullshit,” Kacchan growls, materializing in front of Izuku as if a switch was flicked. His expression is contorted in anger; his lip curled in a snarl. The stylized flares at the edges of his eye mask look sharp enough to cut; the grenade gauntlets on his arms gleam like a threat. “You don’t need me. You never needed me.”

Izuku grits his teeth. “What happened to promising to be heroes together?”

Kacchan bares his own. “What happened to you being your own goddamn hero, standing on your own two goddamn feet?”

“Because I’m stronger with you and everyone standing right next to me!” Izuku shouts. “You’re the one who showed me that, when I had forgotten! Kacchan, I need —!“

A pair of explosions erupt from Kacchan’s palms. The roar carries on forever in the silence.

“That’s a lie,” Kacchan snarls. He stands only a footstep away; his eyes are ablaze. “You don’t need me to be a hero — it’s about fucking time you started acting like it!”

“But I want to, Kacchan!” Izuku snaps back. He grabs Kacchan’s hand. Kacchan jerks back, but Izuku refuses to let go. “I want to stand side-by-side with you on the battlefield. I want to take down the villains and rescue people together. I want to be heroes together — for us to compete and work together, for us to be Number One heroes, just like we always said we would.

“I already told you. I don’t want this to be a dream. I want it to be real. We’ve spent long enough burning bridges. We’ve been through too much to leave things unsaid. I don’t want to wake up and have everything go back to the way it was before,” Izuku says, still gripping Kacchan’s hand through their gloves. He looks up and meets Kacchan’s gaze through his mask.

“…I just want us to be friends again,” Izuku pleads, just barely a whisper.

Something breaks in Kacchan’s expression.  "…It's too late for that, nerd,” Kacchan says, turning his head away from Izuku and to an invisible horizon.

“No, it’s not. It’s never too late.”

“The things I’ve done — I can’t undo them, Izuku. Not ever.”

“So what?” Izuku protests. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends again.”

Kacchan shakes his head. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“I know enough,” Izuku insists. “And I know you can’t change the past. Nobody can.”

“Then —“

Izuku steps in front of Kacchan and forces him to meet his gaze. “So let’s change the future,” he declares.

The blackness around them shatters like glass. Shards of onyx and obsidian crack and cleave away from the background and disappear down into the abyss. The ground shakes and trembles. There’s a flash of light, then another. And yet, even as the world falls apart around them, even as the ground rumbles beneath his feet, Izuku does not stagger. He stands tall, eyes level with Kacchan, and keeps Kacchan’s hand in his own like a promise. They keep each other’s gaze for so long that even in this space where time seems to mean nothing, the seconds go still and the hours hold their breath.

Kacchan says nothing for a long moment. Then, finally, a whisper of a smile crawls up his mouth; a ghost of a laugh leaves his lips. “…There’s the shitty Deku I remember,” he finally says, and gazes at Izuku as if he is a long-forgotten photograph. It is an expression that Izuku has never seen on Kacchan’s face before, and Izuku startles at the sudden thought that the person he’s known his entire life suddenly seems like a stranger.

“You’re right, nerd. You can’t change the past,” Kacchan says. He reaches out to their intertwined hands and gently separates them, but Kacchan’s eyes never once leave Izuku’s form, tracing over his body as if Izuku is the one who might disappear. He pulls his hand away. “So focus on the future. Your future. You have the power to do it — remember that, Deku.”

As if only waiting on Kacchan’s words, color spills out around them like ink from a jar. Swathes of grassy green race past Izuku’s feet like water rushing into a dry riverbed. Splotches of gray grow into cement and asphalt, and the sidewalks bloom with messy chalk drawings of hopscotch squares and doodles of heroes. Houses and trees and streetlights sprout from the ground, one after the other, as if from a pop-up book; and Izuku recognizes the mustard yellow awning of the corner market by his house; the firetruck red of the jungle gym in the park far in the distance. The colors keep spreading out in a ceaseless flow, seeping up into the sky, until it is a clear vibrant blue, the way Izuku remembers it looks after the rain ends and the sun brushes away the last of the clouds.

Izuku’s breath catches. “This is…”

“Home,” Kacchan answers, taking Izuku by the shoulders and turning him around. He’s greeted by the sight of a house he has for so long seen only in glimpses during restless dreams on the run. There is the familiar tawny door, and the familiar short stepping-stone path, and the familiar box of potted geraniums draped from the windowsill that his mom had cared for since before Izuku was born.

“…Why are you showing me this, Kacchan?” Izuku wonders. His voice warbles, and he turns back to Kacchan, only to find that in the moment he looked away, Kacchan has suddenly become four again. 

Kacchan wrinkles his nose. “Did you forget already, dumb Deku? Auntie Inko asked me to fetch you for dinner.”

“But that…” Izuku trails off, not knowing what to say.

“What, you think I couldn’t do it? I said I would, didn’t I?” Kacchan huffs, and on his young face, it comes out as a pout.

Izuku can’t help the sentimental smile. “…You did,” he says. “Thank you, Kacchan.”

In a blink, four-year-old Kacchan is gone. Middle-school Kacchan stands in his place. “Shove your thanks,” he growls. “You can thank me by finding your own damn way next time.”

“I promise,” Izuku reassures him.

“I bet you’ll fuck it up anyway,” Kacchan scoffs, before judging Izuku with a skeptical eye. “The hell are you still standing here for? Go on, fuck off.”

“Stay for dinner,” Izuku demands.

“Hah?” Kacchan sputters. The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and in an instant, the black of the Aldera uniform transforms into U.A.’s gray and navy blue. “The fuck are you on about?”

“You should stay for dinner,” Izuku repeats.

Kacchan narrows his eyes. “Where do you get off, thinking we’re all buddy-buddy now?”

“Where do you get off, thinking we aren’t?”

“Shut up,” Kacchan scowls. “Besides, I’ve already spent an entire fucking lifetime hanging around your dumb face. Hard pass.”

“Then next time?”

“Good god, even in a dream, you’re a stubborn fucker. Ask me again when you’re the Number One Hero.”

The sun seems to shine brighter. Izuku feels himself shine along with it. “So — next time, then, Kacchan?”

“You fucker,” Kacchan retorts with another roll of his eyes. A ray of sunlight drapes between them; when it fades, he’s in the familiar orange and black of his hero costume. “Don’t think this changes anything, nerd. There can’t be two Number Ones, so you better be ready to work your ass off if you want to be the Number One Hero.”

“As if you would have it any other way,” Izuku laughs, a real laugh, something that draws itself up from inside him like water from a spring. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way, either.”

“Damn straight. I wouldn’t accept anything less from you, Deku.”

“And it wouldn’t be any fun being the Number One Hero without beating you for it, Kacchan.”

“Heh. Don’t worry, nerd,” Kacchan says, mouth at last lifting into a smirk. The sun douses him in so much light that his entire body seems to glow, the houses and trees and sky fading behind a curtain of sunlight, everything growing brighter and brighter until all that is left is Izuku, Kacchan, and endless white. Izuku feels his focus slipping; feels his eyes tugged shut. The ground vanishes underneath his feet and Izuku again feels as if he is floating, wrapped in the warmth of the sun. And perhaps it is another mystery of the dream or a trick of the light, but for a flicker of an instant, Izuku imagines that Kacchan looks taller, older; for a fleeting second, Izuku thinks he sees a jagged scar that matches the jagged smirk on Kacchan’s face; for one last moment of Izuku’s consciousness, he dreams he hears Kacchan’s voice.

“It ain’t so bad, being Second.”

Then whiteness envelops everything, and there is nothing.

Izuku wakes in a hospital bed. Everything is light. The floor gleams white like alabaster; and the sun streams through the silvery gossamer pinned at the window, before finally settling on the floor at Izuku’s bedside like a cat. The air circulation unit in the corner sighs in a soft breeze, and even the rhythmic beeping of hospital equipment that Izuku has grown accustomed to seems muffled, as if obeying an unspoken agreement for silence. The blankets tucked around him are downy and warm. The one on top is All Might-patterned, brought from home. Izuku traces a hand across the familiar stitching, and is suddenly overcome by a strange, hollow sensation, as if something close to his heart has suddenly gone missing. A memory flickers in his mind, or perhaps a dream; like a light that has always been left on at last blinking out. Izuku gazes down at the blanket in wonder, taking a corner in his hand, rubbing it between his fingers like a prayer.

A choked gasp comes from his side, drawing Izuku’s attention. It is All Might. His face looks more gaunt than Izuku remembers, his eyes darker, and seeming to have retreated farther back into his skull. Everything about him is thin, from his hair that falls down to frame his face, to his legs, spilling out of his chair and bent awkwardly at the knee, still much too long to fit in his chair. He is slumped against the back of the chair in exhaustion.

And yet, he is smiling. 

Izuku’s throat goes tight. “Yagi-sensei,” he chokes out.

“Oh, Midoriya, my boy,” he says, as if saying the words for the very first time all over again. “You did it.”

Izuku bursts into tears. Yagi draws his chair up close. He tucks Izuku up against him, arms wrapped around Izuku’s torso as Izuku clutches him back, and allows Izuku to sob into the hollow of his chest. Yagi does not say anything about Izuku’s crying; just as Izuku says nothing if he feels wetness prick the top of his head from above. There is nothing left to say between the two of them — two Torchbearers who have finally borne the light of One For All into the future, and fulfilled its destiny.

Izuku does not know how long has passed when his shoulders stop shaking; cannot tell when the wet streaks running down his face have started to dry. He finally pulls away with a sniffle. His eyes are still wet and red; his chest still burns with phantom fire.

Yagi looks back at him, his own sunken eyes as full of emotion as Izuku’s. When he finally speaks again, it is a rasp. “It is finally over, Midoriya.”

“You mean… All For One…?”

“Is no more.”

“The League?”

“We offered to take each of them into custody. Some agreed. Some, unfortunately, refused to the end.”

Izuku bites his lip. “…And Shigaraki?”

Yagi sighs. “Also, gone.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands overlaid at his chin. His eyes are dark and well with sympathy. “I know you wished to save him, my boy. And knowing what I know now of his history, I cannot say that I am wholly of a different mind. But sometimes you cannot save people who do not wish to be saved. All we can do is extend a hand — we cannot decide whether the other will take it.”

Izuku thinks back to a long-ago time, a time of trading cards and action figures; of pinkie-promises and dreams so real you could take them in your hands like clay. “I know. It’s, just. I hoped that…”

Yagi smiles, kind and tired. “I understand. And your determination to save — some may disagree, but it is your keenest strength.” He shakes his head. “I can tell that you are placing the burden of this outcome upon your own shoulders — a poor trait of mine that I fear I have passed on to you. But you are not the only one who made choices in that moment, Midoriya. Shigaraki made his choices, too. Perhaps we may consider things to do differently in the future, but there is no use lingering on possibilities that have already passed us by. Nothing good comes from walking that path.”

Izuku stares down at the blanket, absently rubbing it between his thumbs. You cannot change the past, so all that is left is to focus on the future. The words are at once a comfort and a cross; familiar like remembering the words of a final farewell. Izuku feels that he knows the words, knows he has been told this somewhere before; but he cannot find the memory, as if the bridge to it had fallen away, and all that remains beyond the edge of the crevasse is a black void.

“So let us not dwell on things we cannot change, Young — no,” Yagi says; and his voice draws Izuku back toward him in time to see him give another shake his head. When he stops, there is a fond smile on his lips, and pride in his eyes. “You are hardly young anymore, Midoriya.”

Izuku feels his throat constrict again. “Y-Yagi-sensei…”

Yagi gives a laugh of his own. It is something more hoarse and tired than the loud, booming laugh he had before the war — but it is a laugh all the same. “Oh, come, my boy. It is time to be through with tears.”

Izuku half-laughs a sob, or half-cries a laugh. “Yagi-sensei, I think you can forgive me just this once.”

“Very well. But just this once,” Yagi says, warm like the sun on a winter day.

Izuku finally trails off into silence. He curls his fingers around the blanket atop his body, as if not fully convinced it is still there. “…I can hardly believe it,” he confesses. “I’ve had One For All for less than a year, and it’s been even less than that since everything with All For One started. And somehow, it feels like it’s been an entire lifetime.” He manages a hoarse laugh. “Is that strange?”

Yagi shakes his head. “No, I do not think it is strange at all. In fact, I would wager the other Bearers are just as overcome as you,” Yagi says. His bony fingers cross in his lap. “After all, this battle has not been a year, Midoriya. It has been much longer than that. It has lasted nine lifetimes. And while you may have been the final link in the chain, you did not succeed because you are the Ninth Bearer of One For All. You succeeded because you are Midoriya Izuku, and you, too, could be a hero. In fact — I daresay, the Number One Hero.”

Even as Izuku feels tears again prick his eyes at the declaration, his heart feels full. “Thank you, Yagi-sensei,” he says. “For trusting in me, and believing that I could be a hero and save people.”

“You did it all on your own, my boy. I merely gave you a bit of a nudge.”

“I did it with everyone’s help,” Izuku insists. “That’s why I could be a hero, just like I promised Kacchan.”

The mirth drains from Yagi’s eyes; the cheer fades along with his smile. And Yagi, whose expression had been tired but warm, suddenly only looks tired. In that moment, All Might’s eyes look so much like his mentor’s — like when Izuku saw the shine in Nana’s eyes go out.

Izuku clutches the blanket tight. “Yagi-sensei…? What’s wrong?”

Yagi attempts to hide his grimace behind his left hand and a cough. But his posture has gone stiff, and when he returns his hands to his lap, his fingers drum in an anxious rhythm.

“You need not worry about me,” he reassures him.

“Then what do I need to worry about?”

Yagi waves a bony hand. “You need not worry about anything, Midoriya — you have been out for four days. You must focus on regaining your strength.”

Izuku feels his heart catch in his throat. “Is it Kacchan?”

Yagi hesitates for only a moment — but it is enough.

“What’s wrong? All Might, please,” Izuku begs him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Yagi slumps back in his chair, suddenly seeming to age another fifty years. The fight drains out of him, like water through a broken vase. He heaves another weary sigh, until at last his face contorts into something like grim determination.

“First of all, none of your classmates are dead. Some have sustained permanent injuries, and some may no longer be able to pursue the path of a hero. But they are not at risk of losing their lives.”

Yagi pauses, as if gathering the courage for what comes next. “As for Bakugou…” Yagi trails off. “Well, Bakugou has gone missing.”

Izuku stares at him, as the remnants of Shigaraki’s words crawl down his throat. “Missing?” Izuku repeats, helpless like a baby bird, and the plaintive sound resonates, trapped, in the newly empty hollow in his chest.

Yagi’s face is set in a grim line. “Just so. When we arrived at your location, the battlefield was in ruins. Shigaraki had already been defeated, and you had passed out. But there was no trace of Bakugou.”

Izuku cannot forget Shigaraki’s twisted smirk. “This quirk sends people far, far away.” He hears again his hissed promise. “They don’t come back, little hero.”

“But that can’t be,” Izuku says, shaking his head, as if he could shake off the whispered words along with it. “Kacchan was there. Where could he have gone?”

“We were hoping you could tell us. Nobody has seen him since. As far as we can tell, you’re the last person to have seen Bakugou at all,” Yagi answers. He leans forward. “If you feel able… what exactly happened during that battle, Midoriya?”

Izuku traces the stitching on the blanket, again and again, a tired metronome. “We… were fighting Shigaraki. Everything was going well. Well enough, at least. We thought Shigaraki was going to surrender. And then… Shigaraki used a quirk.”

Yagi’s eyebrows furrow. “A quirk? Not Decay?”

“No. It wasn’t Decay. All he said was that people who are hit by it go away and never come back. Kacchan got hit by it, and — and then he disappeared. Just like Shigaraki said.”

Yagi frowns, but does not interrupt.

“That’s when Shigaraki tried to take One For All again. He said… a lot of things. But then… Kacchan stopped him. Even Shigaraki was really surprised. I don’t know how he came back, but out of everyone of course Kacchan would find a way,” Izuku chuckles weakly.

Izuku pauses to swallow the tightness in his throat. “That’s when Kacchan and I used our quirks together to take down Shigaraki. There was a huge explosion. I remember seeing Shigaraki collapse, and then…” Izuku trails off, straining to recover memories from nothing. “And then I must have blacked out. So I don’t know what happened after that.” He shakes his head, then turns to Yagi. “But Kacchan came back. He must have.”

Yagi is quiet. His hands are clasped together in front of his mouth, as if to guard his expression.

Izuku’s heart sinks. “You don’t believe me.”

Yagi raises a placating hand. “No, that is not it at all. I have no reason to disbelieve you. It is just… strange. From our admittedly faraway and after-the-fact perspective, well…” He trails off with a sigh. He refolds his hands in his lap, deep in thought. “From the evidence we were able to find, we had thought the blast came from you, Midoriya.”

Izuku blinks. “From — me?”

Yagi nods, as if forced by an invisible weight. “Indeed. It was quite large — the kind of power that comes from One For All. Furthermore, when we arrived on the scene, we found you at the epicenter of the explosion, as if to suggest you were there when it went off.”

“But I was there. Why would that be strange?”

“Because although Shigaraki’s body was riddled with burn wounds, you, Midoriya, had none. Or at least, far fewer than one would expect for being at the center of an explosion. Naturally, we assumed you were the source.”

Izuku’s hands feel clammy. “But —“

“What does match with your story is the fact that Bakugou’s signal disappeared before the explosion. But unlike your telling, his signal did not return. Again, why we had thought the blast to have originated with you.”

“His tracker could have been disabled,” Izuku reasons.

“That could have been a possibility,” Yagi muses. “But the tracker itself was quirk-powered. Only a quirk suppressant would have been able to turn it off. So if Bakugou was the target of such a suppressant, then he should not have been able to use his own quirk, either.”

“But it was Kacchan’s quirk!” Izuku insists. The words are already out of his mouth before he realizes his voice has nearly risen to a shout. He takes a pair of shaky breaths, and uncurls hands that have unconsciously balled into fists. “It was Kacchan’s quirk. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

“And you saw Bakugou use it?”

“Who else could it have been?” Izuku bursts out. “There was nobody else there but the three of us. I’m certain it was Kacchan’s quirk. Shigaraki couldn’t have taken it, because then I’d be wherever Shigaraki is right now, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. And it couldn’t have been me, because in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have an explosion quirk!”

Yagi goes quiet. When he speaks again, his words are halting. “There is… one possible way you could have acquired an explosion quirk.”

The gravity of Yagi’s voice snuffs out Izuku’s anger like a lit fuse. Yagi slumps deeper in his chair as he looks Izuku in the eye, somehow seeming even more defeated than after Kamino.

Izuku’s voice wavers when he speaks. “All Might. What do you mean?”

There is a suffocating pause before Yagi answers him. “Well, as you know, One For All is a stockpiling quirk. It is possible that the explosion was a result of you manifesting one of the previous Bearers’ quirks.”

“It’s not possible,” Izuku states. “It wasn’t just an explosion quirk, it was Kacchan’s quirk.”

“Please humor me, if only for a moment,” Yagi pleads. “What were the other Torchbearers’ quirks?”

“Besides One For All — which doesn’t itself cause explosions — you know there’s Shimura-san’s quirk, Float. Then Smokescreen. Blackwhip. Danger Sense. Fa Jin. And…” Izuku trails off.

“Midoriya…?”

Izuku curls his hands into the blanket; holds it tight like a lifeline. “The Second Bearer… never told me his quirk.”

“Midoriya…” Yagi breathes, a sad, pitying sound; and Izuku can tell from that one word alone that Yagi has come to his conclusion. For perhaps the only time in his life, Izuku thinks he understands why Kacchan never wanted help — not if it sounded like this. “You —“

“That doesn’t matter,” Izuku interrupts, cutting off Yagi’s words with a knife. He keeps his gaze resolutely in front of him and refuses to look Yagi in the eyes; refuses to see the sadness welling there. “Even if the Second Bearer never told me his quirk, that doesn’t change a thing. That explosion was from Kacchan. It couldn’t have been anyone else. I grew up with his quirk — I’ve written entire notebooks about it. It was Kacchan’s quirk.”

“I don’t deny that you, out of everyone, would be most familiar with Bakugou’s quirk,” Yagi says, slowly, carefully, as though Izuku is a precious glass heirloom sat high on a shelf, so fragile that even a breath could cause him to fall and shatter. Izuku is not normally bothered by carefully considered words — but now, the telegraphed tiptoeing sets everything in Izuku’s body on edge; the sotto voce causes adrenaline and perspiration to pump up and down his body. “But in the heat of battle, sometimes stress clouds our memory. Even I have been known to make mistakes, and —“

“So, what — you’re just giving up?” Izuku demands. “That’s not the All Might I grew up admiring. That’s not the All Might I looked up to!”

Yagi visibly recoils at Izuku’s words. “We are not giving up. Yet the fact remains that Bakugou is unaccounted for. I am only presenting this to you as… a possibility. One that you should be aware of, should the time come.”

“Should the time come?” Izuku parrots incredulously. His voice climbs high and teeters precariously on the precipice; his entire body feels frayed like snagged thread. “I told you what happened, but you’ve already made up your mind!”

Yagi strains to calm him. “I have only ever said that it is but a possibility. I simply do not wish to blind you to the facts on the ground.”

Izuku snaps. “You’re the one who’s blind! I know what I saw!”

“Midoriya —“

“I saw Kacchan’s quirk. I heard his voice!”

Yagi flinches. “You heard — his voice?”

“And if I’m the only one who believes that Kacchan will keep his promise, then I’ll be the one to find him!” he promises, and without further hesitation rips a set of wires from his chest. Izuku is familiar enough with hospitals to know that in the background the soft rhythmic beeping of medical equipment has gone loud and frantic, but he hardly hears it, not over the roar of his own heartbeat.

Yagi’s eyes are wide. “Please, Midoriya —“

“If you’re not looking for him, then I will. Don’t try to stop me,” he warns Yagi. He pulls himself upright on the bed. He misses his grip on the rail on the first attempt, his hands slick with sweat, but the second attempt strikes true, and Izuku holds onto it for all he’s worth.

“You’ve only just woken up — you need rest —“

Izuku ignores him, making to hoist himself down on the floor on shaky legs — but Yagi steps in front of him and traps him on the bed by his hands.

Izuku glares up at him. “Move.”

Yagi mournfully shakes his head. “You are in no condition to do anything but rest. I can’t let you leave in good conscience.”

“I’m going to find Kacchan,” Izuku insists. His jaw is set; his eyes are sharp. “So All Might, please move before I make you.”

“Midoriya, you do not need to do this. There is nothing you need to prove.”

“I’ll prove it anyway,” Izuku declares. A burst of heat flares across his fingers. His blood burns as if set ablaze. An explosion erupts from his hands.

Yagi recoils. He stumbles backward into the wall with a crash. Machines beep and blare; the scent of charred fabric fills the room. The railing has been blackened and bent; soot has fallen onto alabaster floors. Yagi’s eyes have gone wide, and his shoulders are slumped. But Izuku does not hear the electronic beeping, not when the blast echoes endlessly in his ears like a memory. He does not notice the charred fabric in his lap, not when the smell of burnt sugar hangs in the air as a reminder. Izuku does not see the railing that has been blackened and bent, or the soot that has fallen onto alabaster floors. He does not see Yagi’s eyes, gone wide with shock and realization, or his shoulders, slumped as if even hope is too much of a burden to bear.

All Izuku sees is his own two open palms, sparks shimmering from his fingertips like stardust.

Yagi’s voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Midoriya… Where did Shigaraki say this quirk sent people?”

Izuku can only stare down at his hands — familiar and yet he sees them as if for the first time. “…He didn’t. Only that they… They don’t come back.”

“But for you to have Bakugou’s quirk, that means Bakugou would — the Second Bearer would have to be…” Yagi trails off. His eyes fill with grief. “Oh, Midoriya. My boy.”

And as Izuku watches the stars in his hands go dim and disappear, he cannot help but think back to that moment, long ago, when Kacchan had first said that they would be heroes together — said it like he said he would do the monkey bars or climb the jungle gym or beat a stick villain in a single punch. He thinks back to it as he recalls Shigaraki’s last twisted grin, the one that did not care of death and wanted only to see Izuku break. He thinks back to it as he remembers the Third Bearer’s sorrowful smile, the one that spoke of things long since lost and dreams long since broken. He thinks back to it as he watches, over and over, Kacchan’s retreating back as he goes somewhere that Izuku, for once, cannot follow.

The promise to be the best heroes. The promise to be Number One and Number Two. The promise to be heroes, together. It’s something Izuku dreamed about, during their secret spars that honed One For All. Something he felt shatter a little inside his chest when Kacchan’s body moved on its own and was torn through. Something he couldn’t help but hope for after Kacchan held out his hand to Izuku for the first time in the rain.

And after everything, Izuku remembers that moment now as he hears the memory of Kacchan’s voice. He remembers that moment as he sees in his mind the vestige of Kacchan’s form. He remembers that moment as he watches Kacchan’s quirk spark from his hands like a memento.

Izuku remembers that moment as he breaks and sobs into All Might’s chest. He doesn’t remember much, after that.

Two young boys make a promise: to become heroes, together. One wins to save and the other saves to win. One brings victory and the other brings hope. One holds sparks of light in his hands, and the other carries them into the future.

And in the end, when at last the battle with All For One is over, one is the Number One Hero, and the other is Second.