Chapter Text
The fall wasn’t too high, in all honesty. It was only three stories, and Izuku had fallen from much higher before. The difference was that he could barely move right now, and could already see the darkness in his vision growing.
He could see the ground getting closer, though.
And so, mustering the last remaining strength in his bones, he reached into the deep recesses of his soul for One for All. He gripped the warm and weightless presence of Float, letting the Quirk wrap around him.
His descent was slowed, but not stopped. Thankfully, before he could find out if it would be enough to avoid splattering on the pavement, large arms caught him from the air. He couldn’t find the will to wonder if the arms belonged to a villain. They were warm, cradling him like something fragile, something he hadn’t felt in forever, and Izuku was tired. He was so tired.
Against any conscious wish, he closed his eyes.
There had already been first responders on the scene when it happened. Toshinori had originally been on patrol around his agency, using the rooftops to avoid the crowds of Tokyo’s streets and the flocks of fans following him. The villain in question hadn’t been anything special, just a purse snatcher that hadn’t known All Might roamed these streets.
But they’d had a very destructive Quirk, smashing through surrounding buildings and causing the road to crumble, so Toshinori had made sure to make the fight quick.
He had stayed behind to make sure that the road was blocked off and that everyone who had been in the collateral zone was seen by a paramedic.
He was just about to leave when the sky suddenly darkened… The air itself had stilled and the wind seemed to freeze. Everyone turned their gazes upward to a spot just by the roof of an office building. Reality blipped and warped. The world lost focus. A boom shook the Earth, deafening and ground shaking.
Screams rang out from the crowded civilians, and car alarms went off throughout the street. Glass shattered from nearby buildings and rained down in glittering shards.
Toshinori used his arms to block the onslaught of the blast. He looked back up just in time to see a body fall from where the site of the blip. Its acceleration was slowed, but still plummeting fast. With a powerful kick of his legs, he flew forward, meeting them halfway. He gathered them in his arms and carefully touched back down.
It was a man. Well, boy was more accurate. Childhood lingered on his face despite the grime that clung to his skin and the tension in his brow. But he wore the tattered remains of a costume, a metal mouth guard hanging from his neck. Toshinori’s eyes immediately clocked on his scarf next. It was covered in dirt and was rough around every edge, and its green buttons were nearly cracked, but it still carried a very familiar yellow.
Gran Torino!
Toshinori studied the boy again, unconscious and limp. He seemed injured all over, and a steady trickle of red dripped from his forehead, smearing Toshinori’s costume.
It could just be a coincidence. Maybe a newer hero who was a fan of the veterans and had decided to incorporate a part of his teacher’s costume? But his teacher wasn’t a popular limelight hero, he thought, and this scarf almost stands out among the primary colors of green, red, and black on his costume.
He brought the boy to the first responders as police tried to dismantle the crowd that was beginning to swarm. It seemed no one had been injured as they took the unconscious body from his arms.
“Will he be okay?” Toshinori asked with concern he didn’t normally allow.
“We’ll have to take him to the hospital to find out, but we’ll start an IV of fluids just in case.” A paramedic strapped him down to the gurney and began to clean the cut on his forehead. “Yumiko-san, check for a medical ID or a hero license.”
Toshinori was ushered away as the ambulance was loaded up. He watched it disappear down the street behind the wall of cameras with an uneasy pit in his stomach, and he fought to keep his smile on his face for the smiling fans screaming for his attention. He only stayed with the reporters for about a minute or so, answering their questions simply before politely departing. Or, as politely as he could when he could only go up.
As much as he wanted to follow the ambulance to the hospital, he didn’t. First, he landed somewhere secluded and pulled out his phone. He was proud of himself when he finally clicked the contact; he only hesitated for ten seconds this time, and his fearful shaking was only in his legs. Much better than usual. But he still paced a hole into the concrete by the time the line picked up. “Hello?” An old voice grumbled from the other side. “Did you need something, Toshi?”
“Ah! Uh, n-no, not really,” Toshinori stammered.
“What do ya want?”
“Nothing really. Just… wanted to touch in… y’know?”
“No, I don’t. Why are you really calling me?”
Toshinori bit his lip, throwing his head back. Drain pipes ran along the sides of the tight alleyway he’d found himself in. Some potted plants balanced precariously from fire escapes and balconies, reaching up desperately for the sunlight that trickled through the buildings. The skies had cleared. “I just… I saw something today that made me think of you, I guess?”
There was a non confirmative grunt of which he took as the silent ask to continue that it was.
“There was this guy. He looked like he was wearing a hero costume, but I guess he’s new because of how young he was; I don’t know, he was pretty roughed up, though.” Toshinori rubbed his free hand against his thigh restlessly. He knew he was rambling. He couldn’t help it. “He just appeared. Out of nowhere. From thin air. He looked like hell, but what caught my attention most was that he was wearing your cape as a scarf; or at least, it looked like your cape. But, to be honest, I think I’d recognize your cape from anywhere, and I was wondering if maybe you gave it away or something without telling anyone, and-”
“Toshi.”
“Yes?”
“Breathe.”
“Yes sir.”
“No, I didn’t give my cape off to some kid,” His mentor sighed deeply. “Is it possible it was a coincidence? You don’t usually get this worked up over things like this.”
“It’s possible,” Toshinori conceded. “I’m wondering if maybe he was a fan of yours or something.”
“I never had many fans, least of all nowadays.”
Toshinori leaned against the wall behind him, glancing towards the open street where the occasional person would walk by. It really could have just been nothing. In a world full of strange powers and superheroes, it wasn’t abnormal for strange coincidences to happen, especially some heroes having similar outfits. His tension eased some, and was replaced by concern and distant curiosity.
“I wonder what kind of power that boy had,” He wondered aloud. “Would a warp Quirk be able to cause that much chaos from just one use? And why in the middle of the street, just after a villain fight? What had he been doing beforehand that caused him to be so injured?”
“Sounds like you’re really interested in him.”
“You didn’t see it. His very appearance shattered windows and set off car alarms. Would an average teleportation Quirk cause that much damage to its surroundings? He didn’t look all that powerful; just some kid.” Toshinori couldn’t deny his interest. As a hero, it was his job to ensure peoples safety. And as the Symbol of Peace, it was his responsibility to ensure the peace of the world.
“Maybe you should talk to that Nighteye friend of yours? Or that UA principal? Or Tsukauchi? Or anyone that would be able to actually help you?”
“Maybe I will,” Toshinori said. “I know a guy I can send to the hospital to check on him or find out more.”
“Sounds like you have a plan. Operation ‘nosy pants’ is a go.”
“Hey!” Toshinori chuckled. “Meddling when you don’t have to is the essence of being a hero!”
“Yeah, yeah, just call me back when you actually have something.”
His old teacher hung up without waiting for a response, and Toshinori had to remind himself, once again, that the man wasn’t angry, just aloof.
So without any more thought, he scrolled through his – admittedly short – contact list.
This time, the wait was considerably shorter.
“Hello?”
“Tsukauchi? I need a favor.”
Naomasa stepped out of his car with an empty case folder and a full cup of coffee. He predicted that those two things would be switching by the end of this. It could just be simple and easy, like Toshinori had said, but knowing Toshinori, nothing with him was ever simple and easy.
He hadn’t expected his friend to call him in the middle of his shift. Usually, it meant something was terribly wrong. He felt grateful that it was just about a personal interest. The police would have been brought in eventually, anyway, for some reason or another, but he was glad that he had a head start, too.
Still, he waited until later in the evening so he could finish his current paperwork. The drive from Musutafu to Tokyo took a while and he didn’t think he’d have made it back in time to finish.
The receptionist let him in easily enough once he showed his police ID and his letter of request from All Might (kept on hand in cases like this). Actually, once they saw the request, they started kissing up to him. It was usually typical when it was brought up that he knew All Might personally, but he sighed anyway as he signed in. “Were you able to catch the guy’s name?” He asked.
“He had a national hero’s license,” A nurse told him, slightly uncomfortably, “but it was…”
“What?” He asked with a frown.
“The date was weird,” She said. His Quirk was silent.
“What do you mean?”
“It says it was registered, like, eight years in the future.” The nurse gave him a constipated look. “Which could have just been a paperwork error, but we thought you should know.” Another truth.
Naomasa made a quick note in the file.
“Is he awake?” He asked.
The nurse started leading him down the more secluded halls, and Naomasa internally thanked her. “Not exactly. He woke up a few hours ago and panicked, trying to escape out the window screaming. We had to get at least fifteen people in there to restrain and sedate him, even with Quirks. He didn’t seem to understand where he was or what was going on, and then he tried attacking the doctors holding him down.”
“Oh dear…”
Hospital personnel walked through the brightly lit corridors beside them, noses stuffed in their patient files. Occasionally, they passed a wandering patient who smiled sweetly at him.
“That wasn’t the weirdest part,” She frowned. “The weirdest part was that he used at least three different Quirks before we could get some suppressors in him.”
Naomasa’s steps faltered and his blood ran cold.
It couldn’t be.
The rest of the walk, and subsequent elevator ride, was mostly spent in silence. He managed to get the name of the boy off the nurse, as well as his hero name. Midoriya Izuku, Codename name: Deku. When they made it to the room, separate and in the Heroes ward of the hospital, a doctor met them there and gave Naomasa everything that the nurse already had, as well as a plastic bag of Midoriya’s personal effects.
The doctor continued, handing him a folder, “There are photos taken from some preliminary wellness exams. We couldn’t do many tests since he’s not lucid enough to consent, but they’re worth checking out. Most of his injuries were old and caused permanent damage to his right hand and arms. Even without the x-rays, it looked like he’d had multiple breaks in a very short period of time. Just talking current injuries though, he has some broken ribs and a few minor fractures that should heal up in a few weeks. When he’s lucid, we want to test him for a concussion due to the injury to his forehead. Healing might take a while, though; he’s malnourished and beat up. Like he came straight from a warzone.” She folded her arms, seemingly winded by her own explanation.
“But he’ll recover?” Because Naomasa had to ask.
She sighed. “Physically, he should make a full recovery given enough time. He’ll still have his previous chronic injuries, but nothing new will leave a lasting impact. Psychologically? I recommend a good shrink. He barely looks older than eighteen. Who knows what could have happened to him that made him like that.”
Naomasa flipped through the photos and medical reports sadly. A printed x-ray made him pause.
“By the way,” The doctor started, seeing his confusion, “his x-rays came back. He’s medically Quirkless.”
Naomasa didn’t remember walking inside. He didn’t remember sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed. He didn’t remember pulling the individual photos out and studying them, tracing each and every scar that was documented. Words he remembered hearing in his high school history class started to swirl in his mind with all the words the doctor had said.
“Back when Quirks were less than a decade-old phenomena,” His teacher had droned, “there were many studies and experiments done to find the source of these occurrences, as well as how they related to the human body.”
The photo on top was of Midoriya’s side and part of his back. His skin was raised with burn scars and old lacerations. As if he’d been stabbed multiple times.
“These studies found that Quirks were inherently connected with a person’s physiology, and could not be permanently erased with the science they currently had. Subsequently, they found that there was a chance, however low, that a Quirkless person could develop a Quirk later in life, but only after going through extensive physical stress. These Quirks were called ‘trauma Quirks’.”
He held the printed x-ray between his hands as if it would disappear.
“Now, it’s common knowledge that the probability of a person developing a Quirk has been linked to the presence of a second joint in the fifth toe. Can anyone tell me the others?”
He opened the plastic bag of Midoriya’s effects, pulling out his hero's license and scarf. The license photo featured a young man with a nervous smile, and as the nurse had said, was dated almost a decade in the future, and according to the date of birth, Midoriya should be seven or eight at most. It was different from the current license design, and Naomasa reminded himself that they typically changed the design every five years. It was to make it easier to tell how long a hero had been in the field from a glance, and to prevent fake copies from being made.
As for the scarf, Naomasa could understand what Toshinori had meant. It certainly looked like Gran Torino’s old cape. The major difference lied in how brutally tattered it was, but he could still recognize the buttons on the front. Gently, he slipped it back into the bag.
And as Naomasa thought for a moment, a new idea in the background that contradicted the last ones began to burrow. His brow furrowed as he stared at the still unconscious boy. An All for One Quirk? A trauma Quirk? Or maybe…
But that was impossible.
(Again, nothing with Toshinori could ever be simple. He downed his coffee in seconds.)
The rest of the costume was just average hero costume things: a utility belt with basic first aid supplies, standard police-grade handcuffs, small objects like caltrops and pop-its that could potentially be used as long range weapons or dangerous projectiles, and a small radio that was slipped in next to a smartphone. He ignored the braces and arm wraps, pushing them to the side to grab the main outfit. It was a bodysuit in dark green and black, and it was just as ruined as the scarf. Inside of it though, he found hidden pockets that held some small polaroid photos, a tiny notebook with a letter stuffed in the back, a few collapsable knives, and a worn out UA student ID.
He laid the new findings on the bedside table. The notebook was full of ramblings and useless commentary. Sprinkled in were the occasional analyses that left Naomasa both impressed and slightly terrified. Mostly, it was just full of the concerns and stresses of a kid with too much weight on his shoulders, too many people to protect, and too big of a legacy to live up to.
And to confirm that very nagging thought that had crept into his mind, there were the very damning mentions of One for All and All for One.
The polaroid photos showed a younger Midoriya clad in a UA uniform with a thin blonde old man that looked suspiciously like a skeletal malnourished All Might. Both of them grinned at the camera. In Midoriya’s hands was a provisional hero’s license. In another photo, there were a group of teens also in UA uniforms. Standing off to the side was a very familiar underground hero. Written in the white space underneath was a simple “Class 1-A”.
There were others in different photos, people who he didn’t recognize at all, but obviously meant a lot to the boy in the bed next to him.
After studying the UA student ID (also dated in the future with a very happy, if anxious, looking Midoriya), he picked up the letter he had ignored.
For a moment, he considered if he should stop. He’d already read a very private notebook, and if he had been anyone else, he would have stumbled upon a secret that he had no business with. He thanked any god that was listening that he had been the cop they sent to see about this kid. He didn’t know what any of his colleges would think about all of this, or of the connections they might have made.
There had to be a limit to the breach of privacy, right?
But the small peaks of the letter he could see were in Toshinori’s handwriting, and the pressing curiosity was too great for him to avoid, especially knowing that there was no way for his friend to have written it.
He unfolded the paper carefully, taking great care of the delicacy in its creases.
It was short.
It was also ominous.
Young Midoriya,
You’ve come a long way in your journey to being a hero. I’m glad I was given the chance to see how far you would go. From the scrawny timid boy I talked to on a roof to the Symbol of Hope you are now. I never once doubted you. I only hope that, someday, you’ll learn to stop doubting yourself.
People need you!
Now, more than ever, people need a hero. They need a symbol. I’m sorry that this is the legacy I’m leaving you. A broken Symbol of Peace and the end of an era. I’m confident, however, that you will be able to lead the heroes through this war, and become something far more than I ever was. You and your classmates are everyone’s last hope. I know that you will succeed.
The road ahead is bleak, and Shigaraki’s army may seemingly be advancing, but have faith. You have allies . You have One for All.
It’s comfortable here. I can feel my strength waning as I write this. I’m sorry, my boy, that I couldn’t say this to you in person – I only hope this gets to you while you’re on the front lines – but this might be the last you hear from me. I think I’m ready. I’ve taught you all I could. I’m out of time.
You’ll win. I’m full of hope.
Much fondness,
Yagi Toshinori
All Might
A soft groan from the cot made Naomasa flinch, and he rushed to fold the paper back up and slip it into the notebook. He slid all the personal belongings back into the bag and quietly closed the folder, placing them on the floor next to him.
Midoriya was blinking blearily, his eyes foggy and distant with the sedatives. The hospital staff had decided against physically restraining the boy to the bed, but he guessed he was so drugged up that he couldn’t fight even if he tried. The thought kind of saddened him.
“Hey,” Naomasa said as gently as he could.
He smiled when a pair of sleepy green eyes turned toward him. His hair was smushed under the bandages on his head, still dirty and unkempt, but somehow fluffy around his shoulders. Midoriya stared at him blankly, somewhat confused. “Tsuka,” He mumbled.
Naomasa tilted his head. He’d never told Midoriya his name, though he supposed it would make sense if he already knew it.
“Hi,” He greeted again.
“Tsuka?” Midoriya frowned. “Aren’t you dead?”
His Quirk was silent.
Naomasa tried not to tense up or react too harshly. This kid was in a war if that letter is to be believed, He reminded himself. Wars have casualties. The future can still change.
“Maybe when you last saw me, but not anymore. This is probably very confusing for you, huh?”
“Did I die?”
“Certainly seems like you tried, but no. None of us are dead.”
Midoriya didn’t seem to comprehend any of the words that he had said, and was still just staring at him.
But then his eyes filled with tears. “Tsuka-san, I missed you.”
Truth.
Naomasa smiled more kindly. “I appreciate it, but I don’t think we’ve met yet.”
A knock on the door silenced anything that Midoriya had to say in response, and a different nurse walked in. “Hello! Just checking in, don’t mean to interrupt.”
“No worries. I need to step out and make a phone call, anyway. He’s still a bit sleepy.” Naomasa stood up and sent another soft look toward the dizzy boy in the hospital bed. The ninth holder of One for All. All Might’s successor.
He let the nurse take his place and closed the door behind him, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
When the line connected, there was an immediate question. “Well? What did you find?”
“You’re not gonna believe this.”