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Izuku could feel the very moment it happened. The very moment the flame of life flickered and burnt out, leaving an empty whisp of a promise about what the comforting warmth of what that life used to feel like.
He could pick the very second that it happened out of the couple of hours he’d been lying on his bedroom floor grappling at the tiny little flicker of the flame he could feel at the back of his mind, trying to nurture it with shaking scarred hands but no fuel in sight.
It was a strange feeling really, the feeling of the flame disappearing in a large gust of wind leaving him gasping for breath like he was the one to have stopped breathing. A cold bucket of water thrown over his head shocking his entire system.
You never really think about what it would be like to feel someone else die, especially when you aren’t one of the incredible few with healing quirks. The ones who’d been slaving over that flickering flame with fuel rather than trying to protect it with flimsy hands.
And then, all at once the flame exploded back into life, a raging forest fire in comparison to the dying little flicker. Not because the quirks had saved his life and got his heart pumping again but because he was now embarking a new life, hidden away in the corner of a child’s mind due to the quirk he’d been gifted.
OFA seemed to burst to life as All Might appeared on the vestige plane. It ran through his veins, burning in a way only describable too molten lava being poured through them. It wasn’t the usual comforting warmth that OFA brought, the reminder that it sat snuggly in the back of his mind with 7 people chattering away in their timeless expanse.
It hurt. It burned and it scolded, and it moulded its way through his body and created itself anew. Stronger now that there was only one user alive to use it. Stronger now that 8th, the Symbol of Peace, All Might, was now unable to use it.
It wasn’t fair that Izuku was having to sit on the floor and try to regulate his breathing to prevent the feeling of being burnt alive get to his head as his body accustomed himself to the quirk, he shouldn’t have to do that all over again.
Despite his attempt to regulate his breathing he couldn’t help but prevent the silently salty tears leading a way for the panic attack to grab hold of his body, strangling the life out of him as his body continued to burn away to ash under the touch of this quirk.
Everything was much too loud and bright despite his UA dormitory being soundproof and all the lights being turned off. It wasn’t fair that he was being left alone while he was so young, All Might had at least been given until the middle of his 3rd year before Nana died. He was halfway through his first year.
He was barely managing to grapple with the power he had while with All Might – while OFA was spread across 2 bodies and its strength was shared equally. Now he was doubled over as wave after wave of this new level of power sent shocks through his system and held his nerves in a choke hold.
Despite his own pain Izuku couldn’t help but allow his mind to filter to what would be happening in the surgery room of Tokyo hospital, a room tens of miles away. What would the doctors be thinking?
Would they be mad with themselves? Upset that they weren’t good enough? Angry that All Might hadn’t been brought to them sooner? Worried about how they were going to explain it to the waiting room of heroes, detectives, and reporters who the hero knew personally?
Or maybe that was just him again. He definitely felt all those things. If he wasn’t here, if All Might hadn’t given him his quirk, he would have been stronger so the fight would have been easier – he might have survived in that case. If he’d stepped in while All Might was fighting All For One maybe they could have defeated him together and then All Might would have survived.
And how would he be able to look anyone All Might knew in the face again? How would he be able to tell the teachers who had gotten to know the person outside the suit, Yagi Toshinori, that their friend was no longer around because he didn’t help fight? How would he be able to look at Melissa and her father at the funeral and tell them it would be OK when they both knew he had All Might’s quirk and had weakened him.
The silent tears weren’t silent anymore, he was choaking on his breath and blabbering absolute nonsense as he wrapped his fingers amongst the curls of his hair and yanked over and over, trying to find a way to ground himself outside of the breathing he’d already tried.
There would be absolute panic within the hospital, bone deep panic that seemed to suck you down to the core of the Earth and left you so shocked you didn’t seem to have it in you to do anything other than crumple to the ground and cry.
The doctors would have told those in the waiting room by now. Someone might still be trying to use their quirk to revive him, someone might be giving him CPR, someone might be trying to shock All Might’s heart into restarting. But everybody knew it was the end now. They didn’t need to have felt the flickering flame take its last breath.
The pro heroes would probably be panicking now, not because of the upset over losing their friend and colleague, even though that was probably at the forefront of their minds, they’d be panicking because once this went live. Once a news reporter had their camera guy hit go and they started blabbering off about the fall of societies light, the fall of the Symbol of Peace. Talking as if there was no hope against the darkness now that All Might was gone.
And that would give villains the boost they needed, sliding out the cracks of societies darkest points to try take their claim now that the number 1 villain and his group of villains were in thick quirk cancellers and being shipped off too Tartarus. They would run rampant across the cities of Japan and heroes would have to be fighting 24/7 to try regaining the composure of the country again.
And the press and reporters who started the panic would flock for more information, to root their names in history of being those reporting the fall of All Might and inevitably the hero commission.
They would want up close with the doctors who’d been on reception in the hospital, the ones who’d been working in the surgery room, the ones who were watching All Might’s monitors, the ones who were to clean up the room where All Might had once lay.
They would want to find out how the heroes felt with no thought to the fact they were interviewing friends and chosen family. Once you became a hero you were a symbol, even if not a great a symbol as All Might but a symbol none the less, and reporters didn’t really view you as much more than a weapon for society. Seagulls pouncing on their prey so that they could have the juiciest story.
And after they’d been turned away by hospital security and pushed away by the pro heroes, they’d turn on the students who had been seen present at the attack, the students who’d had the wonderous time of being taught by All Might during the past half year. They would ask how it would affect them and how they’d feel.
Izuku didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t know what emotions were bubbling under his skin when they only thing he could focus on was the ever present burning of OFA and the panic that just seemed to be slowly creeping further and further up his throat, seizing up his muscles and making mush of his mind.
His hands had migrated their way down from his head and onto the opposite arms where he was know sticking his nails in as deep as possible, scratching trenches into his arms so that when the blood bubbled up hopefully it would drag away some of the emotions that were making this whole shit show run with it. Just like how it had worked in middle school, maybe it would work again.
It didn’t help because in comparison to now being upset about middle school seemed like a petty thought – a stupid reason to be carving trenches into his arms and legs, pulling apart the skin to allow rivers of blood flow onto whatever surface he was sitting on and mix into the fabrics of his clothes.
He was only 15. He was still less than a year out of middle school, less than a year into hero school, less than a year into his training that would allow for him to properly control OFA and be able to use it without fearing he was going to blow off his limbs.
Yet he was 15 and now he needed to pick up the slack and get his head into the game because he needed to be the next symbol of peace. This quirk expected him to become the next symbol of peace because that was what it was created for, to take down the controlling evil and protect the citizens of Japan.
The only person who truly new about OFA was Gran Torino and he wouldn’t want to spend the rest of his retirement having to train someone like Izuku. Someone who couldn’t use the quirk without shattering his bones, someone who didn’t know a proper fighting style or training routine that would benefit their quirk.
All Might had been going to start on that next month. They were going to watch a handful of different videos about different fighting styles and then he was going to try them out and see which worked best for himself.
Now All Might was dead, and they’d never do that. They’d never do the tiring training that left the exhaustion in his body seeping into his bones but left him feeling victorious because they’d got somewhere for once. They’d never get to finish training early because it started raining and run into All Might’s office where he’d make them hot chocolates and hand out the bento boxes he’d brought.
He was on his own and he didn’t know how to do all those things properly. He could copy the training regimes, sure. But when he improved? What was he supposed to do then? What was he supposed to do when the training regimes became too easy and the weights in the gym became too light – just as All Might predicted they would by the end of the first year.
He couldn’t explain that to anyone. He couldn’t even bare considering having to go up to Aizawa and tell him he didn’t know how to edit his training to suit his quirk because he’d never got to sit in on those lessons in middle school. He was never taught how to nurture your quirk and when to tell that you needed to take a break and focus more on your body.
The teachers would ridicule him, his classmates would ridicule him, his mother would probably ridicule him. The useless Deku who claims he knows loads about quirks, who gives his classmates tidbits of analysis and helps them improve their own quirk doesn’t even know how to control or cultivate his own quirk.
How could he have allowed himself to be tricked into thinking anything else? Into thinking that he could be anything other than the useless, quirkless Deku that he tried to leave behind in middle school.
One for All was bubbling at his fingers tips as the scratches became more forceful, tearing deeper down into the skin and causing those trenches to slowly move further and further down.
It didn’t burn anymore or thrum with the excess energy and was instead back to its usual warmth and hum, but it didn’t stop the panic in his stomach to continue reaching up his throat and wrapping its grimy claws around his heart because that meant All Might had settled. All Might had accepted his death and stopped fighting, his angry burning back to a calm and controlled flame.
And that maybe hurt more than him dying, even though it had been half an hour, even if there was no chance of his heart starting to beat, All Might stopped fighting his death and accepted it. He accepted it despite knowing how much he was needed by the world, by Japan, by UA, by Izuku.
It hurt how much he still needed the man. How much he relied on him because although he’d let him down at first, he was still the only person to have truly looked at the quirkless Deku and said he could be a hero. He was the first person to help him even try and attempt to reach his dream.
And now he had left him and who would look at him that way now? Who would look at him and know what he’d been through and how much work he’d had to do to get here when All Might was the only one who knew. He was the only one who could even consider fathoming the weight that was now on his shoulders.
Exhaustion seemed to be the only reason he started fizzing back into reality, his body felt weightless from the activities of the day, from parading around to save Kacchan, from sobbing at All Might’s fight, from running back to the dorms and shutting himself away while refusing to go to the hospital with Kacchan, from crying and crying without a proper stop to breath for the past hour, from the panic gripping his lungs that prevented him from getting air in when the tears and choaking sobs did stop, and from the blood pouring from his arms.
He hadn’t gone this far before, deeper sure, but his arms were shredded like he’d decided to take a fight with one of the feral street cats that lived in the streets behind his mother’s apartment and would scratch their claws into anything that moved. Blood dripped onto his Present Mic disguise and soaked into the fabric, eventually patches becoming logged and leading to the pile of blood that was forming in between his crossed legs.
Dehydration had caught up to him now and the self-depreciating tears had stopped flowing, leaving his face just as sticky as his arms were. The lack of tears didn’t stop the strangled sobbing sounds he was making though, nor did it stop the slimy prongs of panic to continue rooting themselves in his lungs, the self-harming grounding method not having done any good this time around.
It was of course now that someone was to start knocking on his bedroom door, fist rapping against the hard-oak door that Mina had just helped him cover with painted pansys – his mother’s favourite flower. Someone was outside, likely wanting to come in or wanting him to come out and he was in this state blood dripping down and eyes splotchy red from crying as he continued to grapple for breath.
Of course, it would be now that someone had to arrive and knowing what had caused his entire state, he already knew the topic of whoever behind the door wanted to talk about. How would he be able to hide this and then fake a second reaction to finding out the news? To pretend he couldn’t feel All Might’s soul wandering around the vestige plane somewhere off behind him. Nana probably giving him a tour of the unlimited world they created.
--
Shouta didn’t do well with death or comforting people or seeing his students upset or breaking bad news to people, but that was exactly what this experience was going to be.
Plodding home in the bucketing rain with a trembling hand holding an umbrella just as tattered looking as his hero costume over his head. He didn’t get in the car with Yamada or Kayama, who were both heading back to the UA dorms to inform their respective homeroom classes of the unfortunate news.
He couldn’t bear listening to their silence and muffled sobs as they navigated their way through Tokyo’s traffic back towards UA where he’d then have to do the exact same when breaking the news to his students.
His students who were probably back in the dorms celebrating having gotten their classmate back, a table full of Sato’s baking and for once Aoyama’s cooking instead of Bakugo’s because they wouldn’t want him to be lifting a finger, perhaps watching a new film that’s come out or maybe watching more episodes to the TV series they’d all decided on just the week before Bakugo’s disappearance – though they were watching it over zoom calls then rather than in person.
At least they’d have each other, Nezu had going to be putting off having the dorms put in place until a later date but arguments from all the teachers about student safety had them instated 4 days ago.
Bakugo’s first day in the dorms would be tainted by All Might’s death. They would always remember that the day Bakugo moved into the dorms, the day Bakugo had been saved by some of their brave but incredibly stupid classmates, was the day All Might took his final breaths with his colleagues and a group of friends who’d managed to make it in, sitting only a few rooms over.
How could you even tell students such a thing? Students who listened to the man fumble over his words and carry a ‘Teaching For Dummies’ book under his arm as he tried to tell them the basics of heroics. They’d grown up with All Might being the forefront of every hero advertisement, every big villain fight, every new spotlight documentary.
How would the students who went out to save Bakugo today react? The guilt that you’d been on a battlefield with someone but left was all consuming – something Shouta greatly related to and knew how it affected him. They’d run off with Bakugo between them, shouting thanks to the hero as he took up a fighting stance – childish belief that he was making it off the battlefield behind them because All Might had never lost a fight before. Not that anyone readily knew of at least.
Bakugo’s reaction would be one he’d have to worry about too. The boy already carried to much weight on his shoulders, obviously pressuring himself into being the best of the best with no thought about how it was going to affect him in the long run. To know you were the reason All Might was on the battlefield, you were the one being saved. He didn’t really want to think about how the boy was going to react.
And Midoriya. Kami the problem child. How would he break this to him? There was obviously some deeper relationship between the two of them, even if neither had ever admitted something like that to anyone. Whenever the teachers teased All Might about his fondness of Midoriya while in the private staff room he’d brush off the claims with flailing hands and fumbled excuses.
A mentorship relationship most likely, All Might often pulled Midoriya away from lunch so they could chat or could be found catching up with him at the end of the day as they slowly wandered towards one of the many gyms that UA owned.
He’d have to talk to Hound Dog about getting them all in for therapy, not just for the most recent villain attack but to talk through and process the pain of having lost their teacher. A teacher who they all so obviously loved because his laid-back teaching style contrasted so harshly with Shouta’s own – giving them a break from every second heroics lessons with himself.
The question on how he was supposed to break the news to them still plagued his mind as UA finally loomed in the distance, the harsh rain drops that seemed so fitting for this day slowing to a trickle. He wasn’t good at this kind of thing; this was Yamada or Kayama’s area of expertise – it was the reason he was friends with them and the reason he took up underground hero work instead of spotlight.
Should you just rip off the band aid or lower it on them? Gather them all round the table of food that was likely half empty and ask Shoji to pause the TV (they’d already decided on that dynamic because he could hold the remote high out of Mina’s grasp who turned the volume up to high and Sero’s grip who turned it down too low just to annoy his pink-skinned friend).
He was glad they had each other to lean on. People they could cry into the shoulders of and cuddle up together as they processed their emotions. Opening themselves up to each other would be their saviours through this experience, although they may be experiencing different emotions, they were all going through the same situation.
Class 1-A’s dormitory block was in front of him all too quickly, the free hand clutching his master-access card trembling just as much as the hand holding the umbrella. They were all in the dorms, Nezu had been keeping an eye on everything from his office to make sure no villains attacked while the majority of the teachers were crowded in that sweaty waiting room that Shouta had spent too much of his life in.
The TV could faintly be heard from out here alongside the faint murmuring that was his class chatting with each other over the top of the TV. If it was a horror film, they would be discussing if the situation was possible and whether or not they could solve it. A romance film would have everyone laughing at Mina who was screeching about how being cupioromantic was the bain of her existence – something he’d checked up on her for to ensure she was actually OK when he’d heard it last night.
He couldn’t keep delaying this any longer though, standing as the final droplets of rain splattered onto the concrete and the dark clouds above started to roll away. If he wasn’t to inform them soon, they’d be getting notifications on their phones, reading some article that had probably twisted All Might’s death in some way to get the most reactions.
They didn’t deserve to find out about their teacher’s death that way.
Scanning his card and pushing open the door led to the silencing of the conversation in the living area, the TV quickly being turned off in anticipation of what they believed would be being told off for being up past their curfew. According to Nezu the group that’d taken Bakugo to the hospital to get checked out had only arrived back at 9pm, an hour before lights out so their party hadn’t really been going long. Just 2 hours.
2 hours were they thought everything was OK.
“Is that you, sensei?” Iida’s voice broke the silence just as Shouta shook the water off from his umbrella and allowed the door to swing closed as he threw the tattered material haphazardly into one of the random umbrella stands at the door.
“Yes.” He could tell, even from the singular word sentence, that his voice didn’t fit its usual monotone but instead wavered with the tears that he’d let shed just an hour ago when they found out. However, nobody in the class mentioned it, staying silent and seated as he pulled off his sodden boots and finally made his way towards the bend that’d lead him into the living area.
It was just as he expected, the coffee table had been extended out to encompass all the food and baked goods that’d been placed out, yet even then it still spilled onto the floor – a pizza here and there cradled in a student’s lap, bowls of crisps left on the floor or wedged between people on the couch.
However, the TV was paused halfway through a random episode of a show he was certain wasn’t the one Denki and Sero spoke too loudly about watching on zoom with the rest of the class, something he hadn’t expected.
“Where’s Midoriya? I need to talk to you.” 19 heads were counted around the couches, chairs, beanbags, and floor – fluffy green hair that Shouta always picked out first, because he hadn’t earned the title of number one problem child for no reason, completely missing from the room.
“He went straight to his room instead of coming with us to the hospital. I did try persuading him to come down and watch the show with us or even just get some food, but I didn’t get any answer. So, I made up a plate of a couple things and left it at his door. I didn’t want to intrude.” Momo had a rather sad look on her face as she spoke, obviously still fighting with herself on whether she should have pushed more to get her classmate to answer the knocking at the door and to come down and socialise with them.
That must be why they weren’t watching their usual show, they couldn’t get their classmate out of his room to watch with them and didn’t want to tell him he’d have to catch up without them. It was slightly worrying that Midoriya chose not to answer, he was known within the class for being the one person who answered any knocking on his door – Jiro having come downstairs in stitches of laughter the first night because he’d answered the door to her while sitting on the floor intently trying to decide where his hero merch would go.
Despite the want to inform the class together of the news, especially the group who’d been out today and would probably require more support, something in his gut told him to leave Midoriya till last and inform him separately. And he didn’t earn the title as the best in the underground for ignoring his initial gut instinct.
“I’m going to be front with this because I feel it would be cruel to stretch it out or fumble over some way to let you all down easily, especially in a line of work such as you are going into. As I am sure you are aware from news reports on the recent villain attack between All Might and AFO, All Might was seen severely injured at the end of the fight and taken off into an ambulance almost instantly.” He paused for a moment, trying to formulate his words and swallow the sadness at the back of his throat that wanted him to silently sliver off and wallow by himself as it always did when he lost another friend, even one who wasn’t as close just like All Might was.
Some of the students seemed to get where he was going though, hands raising to their mouths, biting their lips, tears welling in their eyes, or their hands ringing in their laps to name a few signs he could spot. Meaning he couldn’t take his time with this; they were smart and were figuring it out.
“All Might unfortunately did not survive the surgeries he received after the fight. He passed away peacefully while under the anaesthesia.” The wobbling of lips started and the flood gates opened as the class reeled with the information that had been placed on them, turning to hug their friends and cry together or in some cases shuffle away slightly so they could try reel in their emotions – but they didn’t last long and even Bakugo found himself folded into Kirishima’s side as he tried to scrub away his tear ducts.
“I’m sorry for your loss, I understand the pain of losing people to hero work so if you ever need to talk my door is always open for you. And if you don’t want to talk to me, I can assure you every other teacher and staff’s door is open to.” He was still reeling with how to say such things, how to be open enough that he could show his class that he would be there for them no matter what – and if he wasn’t good enough at showing that, his colleagues definitely were.
The sobs faded slightly as he made his way upstairs, lightly shaking his head towards Todoroki who seemed to be planning to break the news to his friend. He’d usually have allowed it, the friendship between the two had them attached at the hip – but his gut was rearing its ugly head and telling him he needed to be the one to inform Midoriya.
He couldn’t hear anything from Midoriya’s room as he finally made his way up all the stairs and stood in front of the decorated door, he hadn’t expected too. When they’d been making the rooms, they decided for privacy reasons they should be soundproofed, blocking all noise from going in and all noise from going out. It worked in his favour most of the time, but now, trying to work out if Midoriya was alright or not, it did not.
The plate Momo had stacked high with the baked goods and savoury foods was still at the threshold of the door, a plate that was once probably steaming from the recently cooked pizza and fresh out the oven dumplings now sat stagnant at the door.
Despite having the ability to just swipe his master card and gain access to the room, he knocked, bending down to pick up the plate while he waited for the muffled shout of ‘come in’ or for Midoriya to pull open the door and grant him access.
He knocked a second time upon standing up, grimacing at the cracking of his knees that was caused by him sitting stiffly in the hospital chairs for the past hours. Wanting and willing Midoriya to do something to confirm he was inside the room.
No such reaction came, and the reeling of his gut mitigated the thought that he had just decided to fall asleep. They’d only been in the dorms for a few days, but he’d already found Midoriya down in the common room making himself a cup of tea past midnight every night.
The swipe of the access card would make a beeping sound inside the room, forewarning Midoriya that someone was going to enter his room – a teacher because nobody else had access. Either way he still spoke up before pushing the door fully open with his foot “Midoriya, I’m coming in.”
There was scrambling in the room, harsh laboured breaths that Shouta shouldn’t be able to hear and some shout that sounded similar to ‘Wait’ but broke off with a hacking cough that sounded like Midoriya’s throat was drier than the desert. He didn’t wait though, already following through with the action of pushing the door fully open allowing the light of the corridor to pour into the room.
Midoriya had his curtains pulled tightly shut and all the, many, lights in his room turned off so the light spilling in and Shouta’s better than most’s ability to see in dimmer lights was the only reason he spotted the boy curled up against the far corner of his room, wide eyes staring back at him.
Even with all that it took a moment for his eyes to properly adjust and notice the dark staining on the child’s arms wasn’t one of the creams Chiyo had recommended to help with the pain in his muscles but blood. Blood that had pooled on the floor in front of Midoriya, showing that the scuffling sound had been him moving further away in hope he wouldn’t notice.
“Shit.” The plate and access card were immediately discarded on a table Midoriya had decided could go besides his door, before he used his foot to push the door shut as he turned on the light before making quick strides towards the boy – freezing just a few paces away when the situation seemed to catch up with the boy and he curled himself into an impossibly tighter ball tucking his arms away from view.
It was then that the shock of seeing his problem child seemed to fade as well, realisation dawning on him that this rather obviously wasn’t injuries that went unreported but self-inflicted wounds that the boy was trying so desperately to hide from view.
How had he been so stupid as to miss this? To miss the signs that Midoriya was doing this or had even been considering such a thing if this was his first time doing so. There had obviously had to have been signs that he could have caught, and yet he didn’t, and he’d failed his student.
‘Focus Shouta. No time to think about that now’ Making sure his movements were impossibly slow as to not scare the boy any further he lowered himself to the floor and onto his knees with his hands splayed in front of him to show that he meant no harm.
It didn’t seem to mean much to Midoriya though, now focused on the panic that he’d been caught doing something he probably viewed as unimaginable or unheroic or whatever the heroic social medias were telling people they were nowadays for doing such a thing.
“Midoriya, kiddo, do you think I can come closer to you? You look pretty injured, and I’ve got some medical supplies that I can use to help.” He’d delt with plenty of self-harm cases in his line of work, underground heroes experienced a 148% increase in mental health cases compared to spotlight heroes. That didn’t make this any less easy, seeing his own student cower away from him as if he was going to be one of those people who shout and scream when they find you in such a position.
There was a question if Midoriya had actually heard him through his haze of panic before, after 20 gruelling seconds, he finally nodded. His green curls bobbing up and down with the movement of his head making him seem younger than he actually was.
Taking that permission, he slowly shuffled forwards, ignoring the protest in his knees at being pushed into the ground as he moved, his hands raising from their stature position in the air to his capture scarf where there was always a medical kit hidden away. You never knew when you’d need one when training the future generation of heroes and being a hero yourself.
This wasn’t when he wanted to need it.
“Do you think you can give me your arms kid?” The medical kit was quickly unzipped and placed on the floor between the two of them as he patiently waited for the bloodied arms, he’d only caught a glimpse of before to be taken out from where they were firmly placed between Midoriya’s knees and chest.
It was worse to see up close. The first thing being noticed was the fact underneath all Midoriya’s nails was pools of blood that dripped down his fingertips and moved around the callouses of his hands. Although it was worse to see up close, the blood seemingly never stopping as it poured onto Shouta’s lap as he gingerly held one arm over himself as he cleaned it up in order to bandage it, it wasn’t as bad as he had feared it would be.
The amount of blood had made him fear an artery or vein had been punctured but in reality, it was more so Midoriya had just taken so much skin off that there was blood coming from everywhere and not just a few deep wounds. Which wasn’t much better but at least he didn’t need to worry about him bleeding out.
Midoriya was deathly silent as he cleaned and bandaged his arms, his usual bubbly commentary that seemingly never ended having, well, ended. He just stared down at his arms with a mixed look of horror and worry – maybe having not believed he’d done as much as he had or maybe because he hadn’t expected to be caught.
Shouta wanted to talk, to fill the silence that was dragging over the two of them and calm the boy who was obviously panicking about this situation in front of him, but every time he decided on what he would say it clogged his throat and the reminder he was supposed to be up here to pass the news to Midoriya of All Might’s passing, and suddenly, the comment seemed to have disappeared.
“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean too.” It felt wrong that Midoriya was apologising for this, that the boy who was now clutching two freshly bandages arms in blood covered hands was apologising to Shouta for what had happened.
“Please don’t apologise kid. I should have been here for you. I should have noticed something was wrong before it got this far.” Midoriya seemed to be fighting his emotions and his thoughts as he stared at Shouta, trying to decide if this was actually real, before suddenly flinging himself forwards into Shouta’s arms – giving him very little time to position himself so he didn’t fall onto his back before the boy was choking on sobs with no tears.
“Shhh, shhh, you’re ok kid. You’re OK, I’m here. Take some deep breaths with me, OK? In for 7, hold for 8, out for 4. In for 7, hold for 8, out for 4.” Now that Midoriya was in his arms, sobbing his eyes out, it seemed easier to forget about All Might. Now that there was a confirmation that his student needed him and wasn’t going to ask for the number 1 hero instead and then he’d have to explain to a student not in the right headspace why the person he wanted to speak to couldn’t come see him.
It took what felt like hours but in reality, was probably around 20 minutes the problem child’s sobs turned into sniffles and then eventually silenced all together as the boy finally decided to pull himself away, his face reddened in embarrassment as he stared down at his bandaged arms.
The blood was starting to leak into the bandages slightly meaning he should probably get the boy to Chiyo soon as they weren’t a proper solution and would need proper cleaning and wrapping to ensure they didn’t get infected, but Midoriya still seemed to need a moment, still seemed to be mulling his mind over.
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The embarrassment that was rushing through his veins was greater than the thrumming of OFA that still hadn’t stopped, his face most likely vibrant red as he stared at the white bandages that were starting to show splotches or red.
He’d just hugged Aizawa-sensei for nearly half an hour as he sobbed, now the teacher was not only going to be annoyed at him for hurting himself but then wasting his time having to sit with him as he cried himself out – again.
As stupid as it was going to be, as reckless and against every rule All Might ever gave him about keeping the quirk between just users, Izuku wanted to tell Aizawa-sensei. Because as long as he didn’t look at him with disgust and hatred at the fact he used to be quirkless, Izuku didn’t care what anyone else’s reactions were.
Nana had been allowed to tell Gran Torino because he helped her train when her mentor died. Aizawa-sensei helped him train all the time (sure it wasn’t with his quirk), so that must be similar reasoning behind telling someone.
“Kiddo, do you think you can explain to me what led to this? I can promise I won’t get mad or judge you.” Aizawa-sensei was staring down at him with a soft smile, not his usual creepy forced smile but a natural smile that seemed to soften his features, obviously noticing the internal conflict that he couldn’t come to a conclusion with.
“All Might was my mentor…” Aizawa-sensei obviously caught onto the use of the past tense in his sentence, eyes widening and unable to catch himself as he crumpled ever so slightly at the knowledge of his student having somehow finding out on his own. He didn’t interrupt though and instead schooled his expression and nodded for Izuku to continue, the soft and encouraging smile making its way back onto his face.
“Not in the way everyone assumes, not really… He uh, he gave me his quirk. And, fuck, I sound crazy already, don’t I?” He scrubbed furiously at his eyes, an automatic reaction to dry the tears that usually fell but instead was left scrubbing now dry skin. Aizawa-sensei, to his credit, didn’t let him see his reaction as much this time keeping his features set on the smile.
“I said I wouldn’t judge you. That was a promise. So, whether you say something I didn’t think possible or not, I’m not going to call you crazy kid.” Nobody had ever made such a promise before and stood by it when Izuku started making his stupid rambles that made absolutely no sense to anybody but himself. If he had tears left to cry, he was certain they’d be falling down his face as the choked noises made their way up from the back of his throat.
“It’s been passed down nine generations now, I’m the ninth. The… The past users live within their quirk. Aizawa-sensei… You can feel them within the quirk. You can feel them join the quirk.” He didn’t need to say much more for the look of understanding to flow onto the teacher’s face, he may not understand how any of that is even possible but what Midoriya was saying was unlikely to be a lie.
It was completely possible such a quirk could exist and be past down through choice rather than genetics – mutating as it went. Quirks outside the rules of physics existed with absolutely no explanation to why or how they were possible, so this seemed tame for that even if it hadn’t been heard of. So, it didn’t make much sense for Aizawa-sensei to question it anyway.
“You felt when he died.” Some darker realisation pooled onto the teacher’s face as he looked between the bandages and Midoriya’s face, who was now focusing back down on the bandages again instead of having to look at Aizawa-sensei in case of the possibility this was all just a lie, and he was waiting to lure him into a false sense of security to trick him.
‘Aizawa-sensei’s not like that…’
“All the users are interconnected and I-… I’m supposed to be the symbol of peace now. I am supposed to take All Might’s mantle after he dies and he’s dead and I’m only 15. I can’t be the symbol of peace Aizawa-sensei. I’m not good enough yet I can’t even control this bloody quirk!” Unexpectedly Aizawa pulled him into his chest again, soft hands wrapping around his back and slowly rubbing small circular motions into his spine in a calming manner that reminded him of how his mother used to comfort him while he was having a panic attack.
He hadn’t noticed how worked up he was getting until Aizawa pulled him into his chest, ear placed just above his heart and deep breaths able to be heard over his own short and shallow pants.
“Take some deep breaths with me kid. In for 7, hold for 8, out for 4. You’re going to be OK. Nobody is expecting you to become the new symbol of peace anytime soon, or at all if you don’t want to be. And I am certain I can say for all the other teachers, not only myself, that we will fight for you to just remain a student. To have your own autonomy in how you chose to use your quirk. Because it is your quirk, not his. Isn’t that what you told Todoroki? Can’t have double standards in my class now, can we?” Izuku allowed a choked laugh out at Aizawa’s final comment, before his mind filtered back to the rest of the statement. Back to the comments about how the teachers would keep him out of having to be the symbol of peace until he was ready. Until he wanted to be.
All Might had never given the option to chose where he’d be going with the quirk, how he would get to use it when he got around to graduating from UA. Because it was their quirk at that point in time, it was All Might’s quirk before it was Izuku’s quirk – it wasn’t the same situation as Todoroki’s, but it was similar enough. And now All Might was dead, it was completely his quirk, and he should be allowed to choose – right?
Realistically, All Might had probably thought the same way. All Might wanted him to be the best hero he could be – not a carbon copy because the pro hero himself had made mistakes; he was missing the majority of his stomach because he made mistakes.
“I don’t think All Might ever planned to put this much pressure on you. But All Might has always been more of a hero than a teacher and he doesn’t know when a student needs brought out of their heads rather than taken training.” Aizawa gently flicked his forehead as he spoke, eliciting another laugh out of Izuku which had the teacher smiling again, content that he’d managed to calm the boy further.
“I’m sorry I never noticed you were struggling problem child; you shouldn’t have had to deal with this all alone. You have my promise as not only a pro hero but a teacher that I will do whatever I can to help you.” The teacher in front of him spoke with such a genuine tone, a tone that no teacher before UA had ever spoken to him with, with a statement that only in his pitiful middle school dreams had he heard.
He had someone who knew everything (other than All Might), and they were in his corner, he was supporting him and promising to be there for him. He knew and wasn’t looking at him in disgust because he was recently quirkless, because he couldn’t control his quirk, he wasn’t looking angrily at him because he could have saved All Might if he’d joined in on the fight.
Aizawa-sensei just continued looking at him like he was a student, a child, someone who had been flung into a war who had gone on too long. His view of his student hadn’t changed since the day before.
The only difference was now the teacher knew and was going to do what he always did. Protect his students.
“Now come on, we need to get you to Recovery Girl. We’ll need to get your arms properly cleaned and tended to. We can talk about all of this after you’ve been properly bandaged up and you’ve had a rest. – That talk will be involving Hound Dog, but if you don’t want him to know about your quirk, we don’t have to talk about that in front of him.”
“Could I… Could I stay with you for the night? I don’t want to be alone…”
“Of course, kid. I’m here whenever you need it.”