Chapter Text
Todoroki Shouto died the day All for One was defeated.
“Please say your name and describe your quirk for the camera.”
“Todoroki Shouto.” The boy straightened. “My quirk lets me produce ice on the right side of my body and fire on the left.”
“Can you show us please.”
He raised his right hand, and a small obelisk of ice wrapped around his fingers. He didn’t look down.
“And your fire?”
“I won’t be using that half to be a hero.”
“This is just a demonstration so your classmates can get to know you before you meet them. It helps to get to know one another if they already have your face and quirk figured out.”
“I don’t care about that. I’m here to learn, not make friends.”
There’s something hollow in the way the sun hangs at a greater distance on some days over others. How when it seems like the world needs light the most, it staggers away, allowing dust, smog, and debris to cover it entirely, appearing only as a white, distant disk, nothing more, nothing less.
Red bleeds into frame. A distant halo of white to give it shape. Izuku’s eyes trace around the sun. Watching, feeling, it move. There’s a sort of acceptance in the act. The belief that when he closes his eyes again, he’ll never wake up.
Only—“Midoriya. It’ll be okay. Help will come. I got you. I got you.”—Izuku had already shut his eyes, preparing for death. He wasn’t supposed to wake up. He wasn’t supposed to feel his lungs, constraining with the effort to keep himself breathing. And almost certainly, he wasn’t supposed to see Shouto above him, clutching him to his chest while he rocked.
Only one person had gone in. Izuku was destined to die with that choice.
“Name and quirk?”
“Midoriya Izuku, and my quirk is.” The boy shakes his hands, well, shakes altogether. “My quirk is err.”
“Come on kid we don’t have all day.”
“It’s a—you see,” he said, “it’s a strengthening quirk.”
“Demonstrate for the camera please.”
The boy rubbed the back of his neck, “I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“I can’t control it yet, but that’s why I’m here.” Both of his hands' clench. “So, I can master it so I can become the greatest hero.”
“If you are unwilling to demonstrate your quirk, let’s move on to the next set of questions.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like it.” The newscaster says. A blinking record button on the top of the screen. “It was incredible.”
“I agree, but what’s really incredible is their ages,” the other broadcaster says. “The winner, Bakugou Katsuki, turned sixteen a month ago. However, the real star, who everyone is bound to keep watching after such an impressive display is the Number Two Hero, Endeavor's son, Shouto. I can see why his father has kept him out of the spotlight until now, to have a debut such as that? He’s going to be an amazing hero.”
“As are the other students. What was the name of the kid he fought during the third round?”
“Iida Tenya, another hero family, helping to secure the future.”
“No, the one before that, the other one who broke his fingers. Something Midori?”
While the anchors fail to get the name right, the screen shifts to show the moment the boy used his flames. The moment the air collapsed in on itself. The brief moment it was quiet in that stadium of thousands, and everything rigid and hard and terrible, no longer mattered.
Hey Shouto! Mom and I were super concerned. Don’t you ever do something so stupid again. You had us worried sick. We wish we could see you, but the heroes said you had to get debriefed before you moved into your new home. I’m happy for you, nee-san. Promise me you’ll make lots of friends. Okay? Text me sometime. I miss you.
Whenever Izuku wakes up after injury, it’s always his hearing that comes first. He hears the flight of the heart monitor and nurses, mumbling to themselves as they check his vitals. He hears the leaky sink in the attached bathroom that always drips no matter where he is brought to. He hears his mom’s quiet tears and All Might’s gentle encouragement.
Now, Izuku only hears labored breathing, and the insistent mantra of you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay.
It’s the voice, not the words, that gets Izuku to open his eyes. The sun, having abandoned him to dip below the city skyline, leaves the sky grey pale, not yet ready to surrender to night. His chest hurts. It rattles when he breathes. His arms, dead weight, one dangling, one overlaying his chest. He thinks, perhaps, he can feel his toes, and that’s a relief, all things considered. He closes his eyes and sees All for One. Impossible to defeat without death. But based on the pain alone, Izuku managed to do it—he had survived.
“You’ll be okay.”
Izuku refocuses and stares up at his savior. Todoroki Shouto doesn’t fit the narrative. He can’t fit it because Shouto left in the rain to disappear and never came back. He didn’t come back. Even being held against his chest, while the other moves away from the epicenter of destruction, moves to safety, moves back towards society, Izuku can’t help but think that it’s wrong. Thinks that the one moment he closes his eyes, Shouto will be gone again.
But still, “Shouto-kun?”
Shouto doesn’t stop, at first, it doesn’t even appear that he had heard him, but after two steady breaths that Izuku feels against his right shoulder, Shouto says, “you should rest. We’re almost there, I can see the flare now.”
With a lot of effort, Izuku turns his head to see where they are headed. In the distance, a red stain of smoke trails up the grey sky.
“What happens when we get there?”
Shouto’s response is not the answer Izuku is searching for.
“Welcome to Class-A’s illegal fights to the death. I’m Kaminari Denki your host—”
“And I’m Mina! The better, cuter, and flashier host!”
Somewhere beyond the camera, there is a groan.
“Today, All Might gave us the super important job of recording heroes in action to see how moves translate onto screen—
“—and to know how it feels like to fight while knowing people are watching and recording you,” Kaminari finishes.
There’s an orange inferno behind them. The pair jump in unison, turning around just in time for Bakugou to laugh in the center of it all, to his back Todoroki is fending off Midoriya, who seemed unprepared for a coordinated attack. The commentators fall silent at the display and watch the trio shift back and forth between attack and protect. Protect and attack. Attack—but at least they are having fun. Children playing make-believe.
Midoriya seems to ignore the camera, focusing on the person behind it. He is wearing a t-shirt. It’s baggy. It makes him appear sickly. A note on the date in the corner makes it easy to forgive the occurrence. Midoriya picks at his fingers in his lap. At last, the therapist asks,
“Do you regret coming back to UA?”
Midoriya’s eyes do not waver. His voice does not shake.
“I regret not saving everyone,” he says.
Notice to Pro Hero Eraser Head:
Possible sighting of a new vigilante. Proceed with caution. Unknown quirk. Unknown motivation. No current network.
Priority: low.
“What are you doing up here, Todoroki-kun?”
The camera jostles as Midoriya takes his final step onto the graveled roof of Alliance Heights. Todoroki turns to him, from his seated position on the edge of the roof. His knees are to his chest.
He says, “Hello, Midoriya.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Midoriya says, waving the camera around, “and really, I could go elsewhere Ashido-san wanted me to record her dancing, I think, for the project, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. So, if you rather I leave.”
“You can stay,” Todoroki says, returning to face the sky. “I don’t mind the camera. I know how important your grades are to you.”
Midoriya continues across the roof. Gravel crunches underneath his boots. He sets his phone down, still rolling, and sits beside Todoroki.
“Honestly, I can’t believe I had to draw the short stick and record what I do every day. I’d much rather take notes like you and Uraraka-kun are doing.”
“Isn’t the point of the exercise to point out what we forget in our day-to-day lives. You already take notes, it wouldn’t be much of a training exercise then.”
“No,” Midoriya says, “I suppose it would not. Anyways, stargazing?”
Todoroki drops his head from the sky, looking at Midoriya. “I’m watching the moon.”
(In a couple of days when Izuku has to edit his findings down, he will cut this out. He will assume that the class will laugh at the statement. No one watches the moon. No one cares about it. Izuku will keep the recording, regardless.)
“The moon?”
“The moon,” Todoroki confirms. “My mother used to tell me a story about a boy being trapped on the moon. I don’t remember if he ever escaped, but when I was younger, I used to think he and I could be friends. It’s a little silly. I don’t know how I would’ve ever gotten there to see him—and I doubt really, anyone would have wanted to be friends with me back then.”
Todoroki's gaze is back up high, so he misses when Izuku frowns. When the light seemingly always bright in his eyes, dims, ever-so-slightly under the stars.
(The real reason Izuku does not share this with the others)
Somewhere between promising he would not fall unconscious again and hearing the distinct sound of sirens, Izuku wakes up. This time nobody is there to keep him warm, only the jostling of cool plastic as he is raised. There is panicked shouting. A respiratory mask is placed over his face. There is the taste of bile mixed with blood.
“He’s waking up,” someone shouts.
“Someone start pumping morphine into him.”
“His oxygen levels are decreasing.”
It turns to buzz eventually, as rising anxiety is quelled over a concoction meant to save his life. He cannot ask where the other has gone, only stare at the sky as he is lifted into the ambulance.
There is one star. It watches over Izuku. It curses him.
Todoroki glares at the camera. He doesn’t pretend to act like he is watching the therapist behind it. After five minutes of tense silence, the therapist starts with,
“Our conversation is confidential; the recording is only a precautionary measure in case I forget something.”
Nothing.
She clears her voice. “I understand that Deku-kun was brought back to UA and that you were part of the effort to bring him back. I understand this isn’t the first time you’ve volunteered to rescue a classmate; how does this repeated task make you feel?”
Slightly (if you’re watching for it), Todoroki flinches. His eyes get darker.
“My brother tried to kill me, wouldn’t you rather unpack that?”
“I think it’s important for us to focus on achievable goals. I understand that you and Midoriya were friends, being left in the dark and being scared is something a lot of your classmates are also feeling right now. You’re not alone in being frustrated with him and coming up at a loss for what to say to him. We can take that hurt and craft questions and topics you may want to discuss with him.”
“It wasn’t the first time he tried to kill me either.” Todoroki says, raising his chin. Defiant. “It was the first time someone hugged me and actually meant something by it, though.”
The therapist sighs, refocusing the conversation on the eldest Todoroki sibling.
In a police station in Musutafu, overworked and understaffed, a random secretary will take a stack of papers and begin pegging them to a board. People went missing all the time before. In the after, it’s somehow worse. Between a picture of a toddler and a picture of a wanted criminal, Todoroki Shouto’s school photo is unsmiling. At the bottom it affirms, missing.
“We’re splitting into two teams, with heavy hitters on either side. While it’s important to be cautious of a trap, it seems likely that All for One planned it so that our forces would be split,” Hawks says to the group. It’s comprised of the strongest remaining heroes, as well as the important figures called out by the villains—mere children, but in the wake of utter chaos, some of the best fighters.
Regardless, the camera keeps moving, uncaring while Todoroki leans over into Bakugou’s personal space, asking something of him that the camera can’t pick up. Midoriya hears it though, harshly whispering something to only the pair, but Bakugou brings it to the table’s attention.
“The teams aren’t balanced.”
Best Jeanist and Hawks share a look, but it is Endeavor who speaks. “We feel it’s necessary to stack our deck on both sides of the fight. If we don’t anticipate the worst—
“Touya doesn’t want to share the spotlight,” Todoroki says, “even if All for One demands it. He’d rather go rogue. Bakugou’s right, you're not sending Midoriya enough support.”
Midoriya bites his tongue. The older heroes talk amongst themselves. Eventually, it is decided. The teams are re-split.
VIGILANTE #MS2987
CODE NAME: Wraith Phantom Sunrise Yokai (*note this is unofficial and according to - CLASSIFIED -)
AGE: 18-21
GENDER: Male
AFFILIATIONS: CLASSIFIED and Falling Sun
QUIRK: Unknown
LAST LOCATION: Tokyo
“We think it’s your kid,” a detective says on the other end of the call.
“Do not approach him. I am on my way,” the hero says.
“Police are already in pursuit. If it is your kid, he’s in a world of—
There is an explosion on the other end. A distant roar from someone else. Not much later, the phone line goes dead.
It’s rather grainy. The video footage is nearly impossible to see due to the rain. People spend weeks going over it. They try to piece together the puzzle and find clues that will lead them to answer the question of what happened that night.
In the video, they watch as Endeavor falls from the sky. A burning meteor as he craters into the cement. In seconds the youngest Todoroki rushes toward him. He falls to the ground and shakes him. His back is to the security camera from across the street.
The villain Dabi is slow to make his approach. Leisurely, walking over with his hands in his pocket, unconcerned with the way the rain pummels his skin. He says something to his brother that gets him to stop. He smiles, all knives, and raises his arms. In both hands, sparks of blue, even in the downpour.
The young hero is trembling. He is shaking his head.
They piece together the villain giving his brother a choice. They do not know what that choice is.
The child stumbles away from his dead father. The villain laughs. It is only once they are gone—15 minutes later—that Hawks flies in, collapses next to Endeavor, and wails. It is fruitless to watch the recording any longer. It makes no sense to watch other children bear to witness this type of destruction.
UNDERGROUND HERO REGISTRATION
HERO #3334
STATUS: ACTIVE
CIVILIAN NAME: SHINSOU HITOSHI
AGE: 18
QUIRK: BRAINWASHING
HAIR COLOR: PURPLE
EYE COLOR: PURPLE
GRADUATING CLASS: UA CLASS A YEAR XXXX
AFFILIATIONS: ERASER HEAD AND ERRORerrorErrOR
HERO NAME: PSYCHOSIS
Before he wakes, Izuku has a dream. He sees Shouto throwing up his arm and shielding him with a wall of ice as All for One disintegrates into nothing. After that the image shifts. Instead of collapsing on a battlefield, he’s with Shouto in a field of red poppies. He can hear the ocean in the distance and wonders if he approaches the cliffside, he’ll get to see it.
Shouto is saying something, but Izuku cannot make sense of it. Words without prose, without meaning. He asks why Shouto is leaving. Why he’s leaving again?
Shouto looks as sad as he did when they started school.
He tells Izuku goodbye.
He walks away.
No matter how hard Izuku runs he will never catch him. He will never drag Shouto back and convince him to stay. He can only watch as Shouto disappears into the horizon in a flash of light.
He will have the dream again.
Detective Naomasa, after a hard day of work, will be the one to stop in front of the missing poster sign. He will stare at the child in the photo while his companions celebrate the defeat of All for One. They will cheer. The city will be overjoyed. It will celebrate for days.
In the autopsy room in the basement, a new file has been created. It reads like all the others. On the day All for One was defeated, the heroes lost none. A correct story on a technicality alone.
In the morning All Might will come to accept the body, in the place of the family. They will come, one last visit to Japan, before they abandon it for good. In a year no one will remember what had happened. In a year, the only Todoroki worth discussing would be the villain still at large.
Naomasa takes down the poster. Inside his desk, the case file reads: closed.
Izuku comes to a couple of times in the hospital. Each time frantic voices call out to him. Each time he tries to wake up fully and fails. He dreams of winter snow and heterochromia. Of a hero who others claimed no longer was.
On the fourth day, he wakes up for good. Bakugou and Uraraka are there. They are bickering. It’s soothing in its familiarity. Uraraka notices he’s awake first. She bounds to his side, grabbing a cup off a table, and handing it to him. He’s grateful for the water.
“You ever pull this shit again. I’ll kill you for real.” Bakugou says, approaching, but keeping his distance.
“Everyone’s glad you’re okay, Deku-kun,” Uraraka says, “We were all worried when you went in alone, but of course, you managed to drag your body to the nearest ambulance.”
Izuku’s brows furrow.
“I didn’t,” he tries but his voice is scratchy even after the water. Uraraka places her hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to push yourself,” she says, “you did good.”
“Where is he?”
Uraraka glances to Bakugou. He rolls his eyes.
“All for One’s dead. Once you were evacuated a team went in. All that was left of him was his legs. A fucking miracle you didn’t go with him.”
It isn’t a miracle. It was a shield. A sparkling structure of ice, and a warm hand there to tug him back the moment the world exploded. It was Shouto.
Izuku shakes his head. “Where is Todoroki-kun? He saved my life.”
Uraraka’s eyes glisten. She squeezes his shoulder again, dropping her gaze. Bakugou makes a noise, glaring at the wall.
“Guys?” Izuku asks, “I know it’s weird, and he might not be the most liked person right now, but I need to thank him. If he wasn’t there, I would have died.”
“Deku-kun.”
“I know. I know. Last time was bad. It was bad on all of us. But maybe we can get some closure now? Maybe we can stay in touch. I mean graduation is only weeks away and just because we’re Pros, and he isn’t, doesn’t mean we can’t all hang out. We all miss him. I miss him.” He drops his gaze to his lap. “It’ll be better. I know it’ll be better. Why else would he save me?”
“Stop it.” Bakugou all but growls. He pulls Uraraka back, who has started to shake. “Half n’ half didn’t save you.”
“Yes, he did,” Izuku insists. “He carried me through the rubble to the paramedics. If it wasn’t for him—”
“Stop.” Bakugou’s voice breaks. It is so unfamiliar sounding that Izuku stares. Bakugou rubs his face. “Fuck. One of those stupid nurses must have said something when you were being taken into surgery.”
“Bakugou,” Uraraka warns. “We were told to wait.”
He glares at her. “I didn’t say shit.”
Izuku stares between the two of them. “What happened?”
Uraraka sighs, trying to force a smile. It makes him more apprehensive. He knows he won’t get anywhere with her. He turns back to Bakugou, who has never been gentle with his feelings.
“What happened,” he asks again.
Bakugou crosses his arms.
Before he speaks Uraraka states, “It’s not your fault.”
He doesn’t believe her. Bakugou grounds his teeth and clears his voice.
“Half n’ half’s dead. They found his body the morning of the attack.”
“But I,” Izuku shakes his head, laughter blossoming out of his chest. “He held me. I saw him. He saved me. I remember. His ice shielded us. He was there. He was.”
Uraraka wears sympathy; Bakugou contempt.
His laughter turns to tears. “You have to believe me.”
But neither of his friends meet his gaze.
It takes eight minutes for the light of the sun to reach Earth. It may take a millennium for that same light to reach even the smallest pinprick of stars. Past, present, and future all rolled into one indistinct light. It is there, in that darkness, which carries light forward, neither coming nor going, the true key to immortality. A deathless night. Eternity.
In a rolling headline, playing while the meteorologist discusses the upcoming weather, “Todoroki Rei and family land in Japan for Private Funeral.”
Izuku thinks in that short time between graduation and becoming a full hero that the world is wrong. He believes it so much that All Might is forced to bring him to the precinct because he’s not sleeping. He’s not sleeping so he can run through the night on some half-formed plan he considers a patrol, constantly searching. Detective Naomasa looks decades older than when Izuku last saw him, he has the case file ready for Izuku to see, as well as the autopsy report.
Izuku reads it. Then rereads it. Somewhere between gunshot wound, self-inflicted, and quirk enhancer, he loses his ability to read. It doesn’t matter much. Izuku learns to lie afterward. He begins to pretend that he is okay.
He tells his family, his friends, that Todoroki Shouto is dead.
It will take time for them to believe him.
It will take far longer for Izuku to believe himself.
In hopes of sharing some positivity and showcasing how much stronger the world is after All for One’s demise, UA’s graduation is broadcast to the nation. People will note that previous graduations were also broadcast, but it will be hard to ignore that this one is played on every major network. It will be harder to ignore, how most everyone tuned in to see the savior of Japan walk across the stage to receive his diploma, all smiles.
In the future, they will call him the next Symbol of Peace. They will call him All Might. They will call him the greatest hero. For now, he is only Midoriya Izuku, Hero Alias: Deku, age 18. The person who saved the world and sacrificed no one, not even himself.
It is Underground Hero Eraser Head who reads off the list of the graduating class. He reads through everyone. No hesitation in his voice with little inflection while the crowd cheers as their family member crosses the stage. Midoriya Inko is shown when her son passes. There are tears in her eyes.
The only moment the hero pauses is after reading Tokoyami Fumikage, who crosses the stage with no problem. The hero clears his throat before he reads out loud,
“Todoroki Shouto.”
Though there is no one to accept the achievement, the crowd, the kids, clap thoroughly anyways.
Izuku stands on a beach, dress pants rolled to his ankles, shoes abandoned on the sidewalk. The ocean is still cold this time of year. It manages to burn slightly, around the edges of his toes. Easy to ignore. Far away his classmates are already going home, moving on, Izuku will too, in the morning. Leave Musutafu for good to take his place under the current Number One Hero. All Might will be there, his lip quivering, eyes proud. Izuku will have trouble shaking his hand.
Right now, however, he is watching the moon. A crescent of light between stars. The waves lull beside him. Weeks prior, the Hero Commission asked him how long it was going to take—they thought themselves generous letting him complete school—Izuku does not know.
Selfishly he wants to hit restart. Risk All for One winning if it meant this reality ceases to exist. But, Izuku’s quirk does not allow him to bend the fabric of time. All he has is this. A nation of people clamoring for him to write the rest of his story, but if he cannot change time, he can at least do this, take a momentary respite from the chaos of the world. If he's allowed anything, he takes this reprieve.
Once he's back at the parking lot, he looks back. There in the sand, a lie. Two sets of footprints, side-by-side to the ocean shore. A bittersweet reality he turns away from. His one steadfast choice. He does not grieve. He does not cry.
UNDERGROUND HERO REGISTRATION
HERO #3335
STATUS: ACTIVE
CIVILIAN NA— file corrupt
aGE:
QuiRK:
H IR CO R:
Y CO :
G G SS:
S:
HERO NAME : GHOST