At long last God has returned in the form of a Google Doc ported onto Microsoft Word and translated again to the internet.

My apologies on just how late an update to this story is coming, but if you've been here long enough it's not like it's the one waiting for a chapter to be added. Shit bothers me every day I don't just hit send. But life is life, and as we in the States know it's not like 2020 is a real year for us. I, specifically, have been putting in 40 hours a week as an essential worker so my energy just found itself drained the start of this mess. Took this past week off for vacation so I could finally finish the other half of this chapter. Hell is Hell, what can I say?

Next chapter is the next day, class president and all that and for those who do not enjoy the fact these past three chaps are all the same day, understand the OG plan was these three were all one chapter because they were the one day. That's how my mind and planning works, sorry to say. Hopefully the next chapter is long enough to warrant just the one while still covering everything of the day so pacing can go by better. Lots of things I want to touch to make sure I'm setting things up for the future. Too many plans, too little time.

Have fun, everyone, and stay safe.

It was a bright, late afternoon in Japan. Crime was on a relative low, citizens were in an undisturbed hustle all over the region and the heroes were out and about and as bright as ever. Toshinori remembered the day very well, given all that had happened in it. He had taken down a pretty tricky criminal with a slime-like transformation, returning a stolen purse and rescuing a few children from its clutches. It was the day that publicly marked his return to Japan, following an over-the-phone call with the principal of Yuei with an offer to teach at his school. Atop that, his old sidekick-turned-pro-hero had reached out to him, digging up old wounds between them with an offer to rebuild burned bridges and give the number one hero a proud legacy to follow after him in the world of heroics.

Toshinori remembered it most vividly as the day he acted as a gutless coward, despite having lost most of that five years earlier.

"Without power, can one become a hero?" Toshinori swallowed the blood he felt rising in his throat before it could spray out. "No, I should think not."

He dreams of this day every now and again, watching from the sidelines as his past body limps against the railing, keeping him from plummeting a dozen stories to the pavement below. Across stands a boy, young in his teen years, clutching to his backpack and the chest of his school uniform with nothing but a dead stare at the stone beneath their feet. He knows he saw the light die from the boy's eyes, and yet each rewatch he sees them dimmer more and more.

"If you desire to help people," emancipated him continued, struggling to his feet, "becoming a police officer is always an option. Those villain custody officers are often mocked, but that too is admirable work."

The boy wasn't listening to him, not by the looks of it. Words of encouragement never entered either ear, the child frozen stiff as a statue. His naivety to keep talking was nothing but salt on the wound. That wasn't how Toshinori saw it back then, no; back then, his mind was working like the engine of a bullet train.

Here he is, five years outliving a hole in his chest, stalking around the public as nothing more than a skeleton with a coat and tugging at the scars each time his body plumes with the power of One For All. Here he is, a once quirkless teenager blessed with a quirk over a hundred years old, left to build his position as the greatest hero in Japan and the whole world around them with his own efforts; assisted by others, yes, but with himself at the reigns of his glorious chariot.

Here he is, left alone on a rooftop with a child pouring his heart and soul out to him, and his first, knee-jerk reaction is to rip off a strand of hair and offer it to the boy then and there. To give the quirkless child the power his master had given to a quirkless him.

But then he stutters and thinks and it all falls apart. There's a wound across his body that has rendered him weak and limits his use of One For All to only three hours a day. He's parted ways from his old teacher for almost as long as he's been wounded and treads thin ice to remedy the connection and partnership he and his previous sidekick once shared. According to that same sidekick, he's left with only a year or two before he kicks the bucket and leaves the world behind to face his master once more (Mirai had never been wrong about the future he saw before and Toshinori did not doubt his fate was already sealed.) He was assigned to teach at Yuei High School for heroics and has been promised a fine student and protégé to pass One For All too before it leaves him for good. As lucky as he has been and as perfect as the world seems to be going for him, he knows he lives in a house of cards threatening to fall over at even the slightest wrong movement; that if he bridges off for even a moment, even to do just one thing, it could and will come tumbling down upon his head.

"It's not wrong to dream. However, you need to be realistic, kid."

So he tells the quirkless boy to give up his dream of heroics.

Back then, when he left the rooftop and closed the door behind him, he thought his actions were heroic. Dragging him into a dangerous world and a dangerous life on such a short notice, spending months to a whole year just to build the boy's body enough to accept the power of One For All before being the only one in the world with it only a year later. Two years weren't enough time to train the boy he saw in front of him, not for the world of heroics, not alone as Nighteye would definitely leave him by turning down his words and guidance a second time. It wasn't heroic to thrust power and responsibility in a young boy's arms and then leave him to learn it alone, and he hadn't the slightest clue how to teach any of that to the boy.

Now, in his dreams, standing beside the boy he left behind weak in the knees and on the verge of tears with a message of, "Give up," left with him, Toshinori knew he was nothing more than a coward turning down the boy's hope, unable to face a death with regrets of what he would leave behind.

Funny how he'd done nothing but regret that day.

Izuku couldn't say he was used to a pristine white ceiling. Hospitals weren't exactly common for him growing up, since his mom knew medical training and he got to learn some of the basics through her. But this was also the third time in four months he had been in a hospital bed and it felt worse every time. He nearly died from blood loss the first time, spent his second visit disappointed in himself and angry at the world around him, and for the third he sat around contemplating what was wrong with himself; mentally and physically.

There was a quiet, repetitive beep across the room that kept him awake since he got there, reminding Izuku of the unconscious and almost melted form of Katsuki still recovering from their fight. Izuku had done that to him, and in the moment of the fight had seen it as nothing more than a fitting look for the blond boy. He couldn't smile from that thought. Not even being in the same room as a worldwide famous heroine could revive his good spirits.

"...Didn't you used to be taller?"

"That's the first thing you ask me?" Recovery Girl turned her stool with the rest of her body to look at the green-haired boy lying down and staring at the ceiling in his hospital bed. "All that rest and healing and the first thing you do is insult me?"

"I'm not insulting you," Izuku defended himself. "I just...remember you being as tall as my mom back when I was four and saw you on the news. I don't remember seeing you in the news now being as tall as me when I was four until I saw you at the entrance exam. Also it's been like an hour; I haven't slept at all. I just didn't want to bother you while you were working."

"Watching me work in silence for almost an hour doesn't sound like a better pass time," the healing heroine grumbled before turning back to her computer. "And I've been this tall for years, almost coming on either this summer. I blame the stress of having to heal all these hard-headed kids throwing themselves into walls, or walls into each other. You kids today aren't the worst I've seen."

That, Izuku could partially believe. Being buried under a collapsed ceiling wasn't the most uncommon disaster Izuku had heard off the news. Hell, he had heard worse off the news, thinking back a year. "What's the worst you've had to heal?"

"That which couldn't be fully," was the heroine's sharp answer that cut Izuku off from digging further. He wondered if she even knew about the hole in All-Might's stomach.

He looked across the room to Katsuki, sleeping soundly in his own bed. It took what was left of his energy to heal what Recovery Girl could, and even then she had spent the next hour with a called-in assistant to work on what remained with universal medical procedures. Izuku had stayed silent during it all, eyes kept closed but the sounds of snipping scissors and creaking casts that kept him awake through it all. He was surprised to find any sympathy at all for the blond boy in his current state.

A voice in Izuku actually wanted to gloat in Katsuki's face, had the blond boy been awake. He had stayed conscious throughout the fight, won thanks to his teammate and trust in Uraraka and could hold both other Katsuki's head for being on the opposing team. A second voice yelled for the former to back down and curled Izuku's face into a frown. Making that match all about the win itself; that just sounded like something Katsuki would do. That wasn't Izuku. He wouldn't let it be.

"He's going to be fine, don't worry," Recovery Girl informed him, finding the green-haired teen watching the blond boy sleep. "Give him a few more hours of resting and I can use my quirk again to speed up his healing. Though his gauntlets exploded on his arm, the support departments were smart enough to double down on padding. They looked no worse than your own."

Then why didn't they heal like his own? If Katsuki's arms were less wounded in the fight then why were Izuku's so easy to heal in one go of the heroine's quirk and a simple checkup?

"Ah, good, you're awake," a gruff voice sounded, as the door to the office clicked open and in stepped the lanky blond form of All-Might. The hero-in-disguise surveyed the room — thought really only the three people present — before settling to look at Recovery Girl. "Thank you for healing them both, Chiyo. This school is blessed to have you on its staff list—Ah!"

The healing heroine whacked the man in the leg with her cane. "Don't bother sugar coating me, Toshi," the older lady hissed. "Togata told me you let the match go on a minute too long, so this is your fault!"

"It wasn't like I meant for them to nearly blow each other apart—Ow!" The lanky hero seethed between his teeth and hobbled around Izuku's bed, away from the shorter hero. "Stop hitting my knees! I barely have enough cartilage as is!"

Izuku watched the exchange quietly, Recovery Girl berating All-Might just a little longer as the number one hero plopped down on a chair and scooted it further away from the older lady. "All-Might," he interrupted weakly, "what are you doing here?"

The hero's attention was drawn to him, and the man clapped after an expression of recognition passed over him. "I'm here to check up on you and Bakugou, actually," the man explained with a faint smile. Izuku didn't return it. "Class ended a few minutes ago, and since none of your classmates faced even quite the same level of injuries the two of you did, I pardoned them to leave and change back into their school uniforms. They might still be there now. So" — All-Might leaned forward in his chair, his smile dipping in the motion — "how are you, Young Midoriya? It looks like Chiyo was successful in healing your arms back to the way they were before."

"Well they're in one piece," Izuku simply replied, rolling his arms over in his lap. He couldn't help but lean in his chair, away from the hero arched towards him. "And they move just fine. Skin still feels a bit soft though; it's like I'm wearing surgical gloves."

"Give them a proper wash in the shower or a sink and they'll feel normal," Recovery Girl piped up from her desk. "Had you told me you were awake earlier I would have sent you off to wash up."

The lanky blond nodded and looked to Bakugou across the room. "And what of Young Bakugou?"

"Worse for wear but nothing that can't be healed. The boy just needs to regain a bit more of his energy so I can finish the rest of him and have him good as new before the day ends." Recovery Girl clicked a few keys on her keyboard. "And since you're here and you're awake" — she pointed at Izuku when emphasizing him — "let me do some last minute checkups so I can send you both on your way. This is a nursing office, not a nursing home."

Izuku agreed to the checkups without complaint, allowing the short heroine to jump on a stool by his bed and run him through a few physical tests. All-Might graciously backed away and looked over Bakugou's sleeping body silently, and Izuku gave a silent thanks for the distance with new information floating around his head as Recovery Girl tested his nerves' response time. Had the hero actually let the fight between him and Bakugou go on longer than it was supposed to?

Izuku finished the physical tests before he could settle on which answer he would prefer to be true, the short heroine setting him off with a clean batch of the school's uniform to change into behind a curtain before he was discharged from the room, All-Might kicked out with him. The situation left an awkward silence between the two, standing outside the nurse's office and staring ahead out the window of a wall to the afternoon sun. Instead of finding something to say, Izuku simply nodded and turned away to leave and collect his belongings from the locker room.

"Young Midoriya." All-Might had stopped him not even a step in, and after a long breath the boy turned around to the lanky form of the number one hero. "Would you mind accompanying me to my office, just a moment?"

Izuku stared a minute at the man supposed to be his teacher — a fact he was still struggling to accept — before he responded, "May I ask why, sir?" He tried, really hard, to keep his tone polite. "I would like to grab my stuff from my locker; my phone's kinda still in there and I don't want to go home without it. And I'm pretty sure this is a school uniform for a third-year student."

The lanky man seemed to struggle with his words before nodding. "Fair point. It would be best your belongings don't end up misplaced. But, after you have, could you come to my office? Nedzu gave me a room on the same floor as your homeroom, just down the hall past 1-C and down the left hallway. With…what happened during the exercise, I want to make sure you're all right and ask some other questions I probably shouldn't in an open setting."

Izuku noted the fact the hallway was barren down both ends until they stopped and the closest door to them hid two people who already knew more about him than most of his class, and he also really didn't want to go over his fight with Katsuki again, but he wasn't positive the man or the school would take no for an answer. "Sure, fine. I'll be there."

"Thank you," the man bowed his head. "I'll let you be on your way and meet you there. It'll be labeled with my actual name, Toshinori Yagi, so you…know where I'll be. See you there, Young Midoriya."

Izuku didn't wave goodbye to the man as they parted ways, nor did he give the man any other words as he turned back down the hall and trudged away. He really didn't want to talk with All-Might about anything, but he doubted he could walk away and not be questioned after a fight like that. Now he was going to be alone in a room with the man who told him to give up.

The fuck did he ever do to deserve this?

Denki didn't have a problem staying behind at the locker rooms even after he changed back to his uniform. Just straggling around changing and chatting with the rest of the guys present was enough to make first impressions of and with everyone; get to know his class and let his class know him. There were still the girls he had to introduce himself to, and he'd get to them all soon enough. But first he had to wait for the brunette of the class to come on out.

He spent maybe ten minutes sitting around, playing his costume's suitcase like a drum set and greeting the rest of his classmates as they changed and headed back to class, or in the case of three of them rushed the opposite direction, before Uraraka walked out as the last student to get back into uniform. The shorter girl didn't notice him as she sulked by, and Denki almost missed her while checking his Twitter, but the electric-summoning teen fumbled like a madman to his feet and nearly scared the girl out of her shoes as he caught up by her side.

"Sorry 'bout that, Uraraka," Denki apologized with a bow. "Forgot where I was for a second. Didn't mean to scare ya' like that."

"N-no, it's alright," the girl pardoned him as she patted down her clothes and collected herself. "What-uh-what are you doing here still, Kaminari? Still waiting on someone?"

"Yeah; you, actually." His reply startled the girl while he threw his costume's case over his shoulder. "Everyone else has already gone back to class, I think. I saw Yaoyorozu and some others run the other way" - he pointed down the other end of the hall over his shoulder - "but they'll probably be with everyone else too. Was hoping to talk with ya' for a bit."

There was a mix of nervousness and confusion across Uraraka's face. "Really? W-well, thanks." She smiled at him as they ascended up a flight of stairs. "I'm actually not around from here and I haven't seen a single face from home, so everyone is someone new to me. Thank you for accepting me here."

She didn't sound like a foreigner to him. Denki assumed she was just from another prefecture. "Nah, don't worry about it. I'm just from up north, the Saitama prefecture. Don't know anyone in our class either, so I've been trying to learn everyone's names. Memory problems and all that."

"Oh no," Uraraka groaned with worry, jumping on her heels around the yellow-haired boy. "That sounds terrible to live with. How bad is it?"

"Eh, it's not that bad." Denki waved away at her worry. His memory loss problems weren't a case of genetics - unless he considered his quirk as a part of that conversation. Electricity fizzing out his brain and killing cells and deleting small bits was something he was used to after a decade of blanking out on the spot. It was a good thing his body would give out before he could delete a save file's worth of his life's memory, or else he would have never been able to try for heroics. "Little things like names and faces but nothing like forgetting my parents or where I'm at. Just short term stuff is lost when I short circuit."

His dismissal of her concern worked just enough to stop her bouncing and get her to walk beside him normally, even if her expression stayed the same. He really didn't need her pity over the problems with his quirk - it was nothing he hadn't heard before from his peers. He still took grace in not hearing her make a joke about it; too many kids in junior high made enough to last him to the grave with digs and insults to his powers.

It sucked having such a major whiplash to his quirk. He could generate over a million volts naturally, without sticking to a circuit or socket to draw power from another source, but it wasn't like his body was built to control it. He could tank the shock better than those he hit with it - he felt sympathetic to the actual American foreigner of the class and how he greeted her with a few hundred volts - and yet he would still paralyze himself from his best output alone. Maybe with Yuei and its resources he would find a means to dictate and govern his own power as he should have been able to when he first got it. Least he hoped so, anyways.

"Well," the brunette by his side drew out as they turned a corner to their class, "I guess we have something in common, then? I still get nauseous using my quirk, even though I've practiced flying with it for the past five years. The upside to it is that rainbows come up instead of my lunch, but other than that it still kinda sucks not to have it down yet…"

Denki tried to imagine that in his head, spewing rainbows instead of barf, and in place of a trashcan all he could envision was a gold cauldron. "Yeah that does sound pretty bad. Does it at least leave a Lucky Charms aftertaste?" Without even a cup of water, Denki was able to get her to spew out in laughter. He didn't think it was that funny but he stopped by Uraraka's side as she held the wall for support.

"I" - Uraraka pounded on her chest to bring air back into it - "have never thought about it like that. I wish it did, now; would be a lot less embarrassing-"

"It doesn't smell like Lucky Charms either."

Denki would have found it funny to watch how fast Uraraka was to 180 from gut-busting laughter to horror movie screaming had she not jumped ten feet in the air and landed in his arms quivering like a leaf. Standing where she stood before was their green-haired classmates Midoriya, dressed in their school's uniform and lugging a bag under each arm, hero uniform under his left and a large, yellow camping bag under his right. Their previously injured classmate blinked in surprise in their direction before letting a low hum resonate from his throat. "That is the highest I've seen a person jump without using their quirk. I'm impressed."

"That's probably because you gave her a heart attack!" Denki shouted back, dropping to his knees to lower and catatonic Uraraka to the ground, spirals dancing in her eyes. "She's been teetering on her feet enough as is - wait, where did you come from?" The blonde boy turned his eyes on the still standing Midoriya while placing his own hand on Uraraka's chest, just above her heart, to jolt her awake. "Aren't you supposed to be strapped down in the nurse's office? I thought Bakugou almost burned your arms down to the bone."

The greenette shook his head and twisted his arms in front of him. "Recovery Girl healed them up pretty quickly, actually. I think the deepest opening just went to the muscle and nothing lower. Just been napping in her office until she gave me a que to leave. Probably could have done that an hour ago." Izuku hummed as he dropped his arms. "So, how did the other matches go—"

"MIDORIYA!" Both boys jumped in place as Uraraka bolted off the floor and tackled the green-haired teen, gripping his arms and inspecting them herself. "Oh my god you're still alive! What are you doing up? You should still be resting! Have your arms even fully heale—"

Midoriya was quick to rip his arms out of her grasp, holding them up to his shoulders and staring at the brunette in front of him with a blank expression. The action and look shut the girl up quick, and Denki didn't dare interrupt the silence himself as he rose back to his feet. The hallways stayed silent with the three teens many seconds longer than the electricity user thought it would; Uraraka had screamed twice just outside of their classroom and no one was opening the door to check if she was being murdered? Did everyone just go home? Was Denki walking back to the classroom for nothing?

Oh right his stuff was still at his desk.

"I'm fine," Midoriya finally answered, and quickly too, nearly melding his words together. "Recovery Girl isn't the top doctor in the world for nothing. I'll be able to keep using them. I can write normally." Whatever light humor was in his eyes after sending Uraraka to another hero franchise was long gone now, Denki noticed. "And I just grabbed my stuff from my locker" — Midoriya pointed back over his shoulder where Denki and Uraraka had come from — "and I gotta go to someone's office now. A...teacher wants to talk with me to make sure I'm doing alright and can go home and shit. I'm just heading to their office."

Denki watched on quietly as Uraraka responded and the two teens went back and forth about their teachers and briefly how the rest of the class did in their trials. It was the first good look he got of Midoriya Izuku, the kid who had topped the entrance exam, was exempt from the physical examination of the class a day ago and the only one who carried a weapon in their class (he discounted Yaoyorozu from that classification.) The guy was a meek and quiet kid their first day at school but then he follows it up lounging about in class and at lunch before nearly bashing in a classmate's head during a mock villain fight. Denki could say with confidence that he hadn't a clue what to think of the guy who writes in a notebook every other class and takes a blast worth fifty sticks of dynamite, other than maybe fear. Not to mention, what kind of hero fights people with a baseball bat; it's a tad too violent than what Denki thought heroes were about. Midoriya would probably break his nose if he said that out loud.

Though he seemed really friendly with Uraraka and Yaoyorozu and some of the guys so maybe that crack-your-nose-into-your-brain aura was just a front. Or his smile was. It was a coin flip, really.

"Tell everyone else I'll be late," Midoriya asked the two teens as he walked past them, waving over his shoulder as he sped down the hall. "Don't know how long I'll be so don't wait up for me if you got places to be. Tell 'em I'm proud of how they did in their fights. Enjoy your date or whatever it was you two were talking about."

And the coin landed sideways. Midoriya was just a cheeky little shit.

"W-wait a minute!" Uraraka shouted after him, hands flailing wildly after Midoriya's retreating form. "That isn't what we were talking about! We were just being friendly, that's all! We said nothing about dating or anything like that!" Her cries fell on deaf ears as Midoriya didn't bother to look back and rounded the next corner down the hall. Denki could still hear the girl behind him repeat her pleas quietly like a broken record after the green-haired boy had disappeared from sight and the electric user could only hang his head and sigh. This was the third time he had tried being friendly to a girl in his class only for someone to come by and erase it like he was looking to land a girl. Why couldn't he just make friends?

Beside them, the door to their classroom slides open and the head of a boy in their class peaks out, his triangle mouth bent at a low angle. "Everything good out here? Heard something about a date?"

"Okay so you don't come out when Uraraka's screaming for her life but you come out to bully me? Is it something I did? Is this my fault?"

All-Might's office was a lot emptier than Izuku was expecting it to be. It was far more spacious than any of the staff at his junior high had for an office but it wasn't as decorated as those were. For someone as large as the number-one hero in stature and popularity, the man hung no accolades, no rewards, no pictures; nothing to even give away the man's true identity. It made sense, Izuku admitted, given the door was labeled with what must have been the man's real name as he had told the teenager earlier: Toshinori Yagi. Not a name he had ever once heard in his life, and plenty of heroes had their real names released to the public given they were paid, working people just like anyone else. Then again, up until a year ago he had never seen All-Might's true and lanky form, and he still questioned what kind of life the man lived when he wasn't being a hero. Apparently that life was being an education staff member of Japan's more renowned high school that toted the fact All-Might graduated beneath their teachings.

It didn't make it any less awkward to sit across from the man separated only by a coffee table as they sipped tea in silence, but they were going to be details Izuku kept in mind anyways.

The number one hero, sitting across from Izuku in his lanky form, clattered his tea cup between his fingers with a shuddering cough. Oh great, the green-haired teen thought, I'm not the only one on edge. God forbid someone here has it together. "So, Midoriya," the older man began, "I assume you have quite a lot to ask. Other than your health and...I really have nothing else to ask you in return, other than that. Is there anything you would like to know first?"

Aren't you the one who asked me to come here—whatever. Izuku sighed out his nose and dropped his cup into his lap. "Uh, sure...how'd the other fights go? Uraraka told me a bit about them when I passed her outside, but just an. 'Oh yeah it was cool and all,' kinda summary. She also looked spaced out; is she okay?" The image of her he had passed in the hallway flickered in his mind; the girl an almost ghostly pale color when he had spoken up and a shivering leaf while they talked. He doubted it was his surprise appearance that had changed her so sharply from the bright personality he remembered meeting at the exam.

"Young Uraraka is fine," the hero assured him. "From what my aide told me, the battle trial was more than her young was prepared to engage in. I had done my best to indirectly console her with my statement on what made her the MVP of your matchup, while the rest of your friends were quick to be more direct with their support for her. It's good you few are already bonding so well so early. Or most of you, at least."

"Did you mean it?" Izuku was quick to question, lifting an eyebrow from the lanky hero. "Her being the MVP of our exercise. Did you actually mean it or was it just said to make her feel better?"

All-Might looked legitimately offended by Izuku's question when he leaned back on his sofa. "Of course I meant it. Out of you four, Young Uraraka's performance on the field was the one most outstanding, both as her own motivator and as your partner in trusting your plans. The Iida heir had tried to slip into the role of a villain but from what I understood over their comms, the boy was too off-put being paired alongside Bakugou for the exercise."

The Midoriya child scoffed to himself, clenching his tea cup harshly. All he had let the taller boy know about the blond was apparently enough to hinder his friend in the exercise just by being on the same team. Of course that was going to hurt his performance.

"Speaking of, it seems I do have more than just the one question for you, if you're alright with me digging." The hero hadn't waited for Izuku's consent before he continued: "Is there more between you and Bakugou than we've been made aware of? Your fight in the exercise leaned more on the real side of fighting than just acting."

"Does it matter?" Izuku countered. "You already know...whatever it is you know about Katsuki before I enrolled. The principal talked with me about him already. What more do you need?"

"More than a, 'My son seems to be growing an unhealthy competitive relationship with another boy from his school enrolling at your institution, please do your best to drill it into his skull what actual competition is like and keep him from going over the edge.' From what I saw today, I think it's safe to say he's already gone off that ledge. Did something happen between you two these past few months to escalate the tension between you two to this level?"

Izuku hoped All-Might didn't hear the snap of the cup handle between his fingers. Was that it? Was that really all the school knew about Katsuki? "Nothing out of the ordinary," Izuku reported to the hero. "He acted like I've always known him to. That was Katsuki to a T."

"And I assume using his name over his family's isn't a form of formality and friendship?"

Friendship; about a decade too late between Izuku and Katsuki. It was respectful to call someone through their family's name and supposed to be more intimate and showing off a bond when using their individual name; Izuku already had that drilled in his head when he used to call the blond boy by a nickname in their young elementary years. A blatant and intended use of Katsuki's name over other options wasn't a sign of respect.

It wasn't Izuku's original intent when switching up his dialect, but it wasn't like Katsuki was all that deserving of kindness. Not from him.

"Never has been." Izuku set the cup on the table between them, not even remotely trying to be discrete as he placed the broken handle beside his drink. "Not sure why I should show him anything like that. He isn't exactly a pinnacle of good faith."

"I'll...keep note of that." All-Might placed his own cup across from Izuku's, eyeing the tattered state of the chinaware in front of the boy. "Eraserhead is going to give the video recordings we have of your match when he comes back, and he'll no doubt wring me dry of everything I can give him for his own judgement."

Izuku stared at his teacher befuddled. "Eraserhead?" He was familiar with the name of the hero, given it was basically the only bit of information about him out on the web. There were dozens of police reports and news articles Izuku could read online mentioning the man among a sea of other hero names to update his hero notebooks, with the underground hero being the most frequently named in said articles. "Why would he do anything? Doesn't he work on criminal cases? Katsuki's an" — Izuku bit his tongue before committing to his voice— "ass, sure, but I don't think that much action is needed against him."

All-Might stared blankly at Izuku a few moments before responding; "I'm not sure which to answer first on that. Well, Eraserhead is your homeroom teacher, Young Midoriya. Aizawa isn't the most open of people about his life but I don't think I've seen him wearing anything other than his hero uniform." Wait, Aizawa was Eraserhead? Their teacher was an underground hero? He was working as a school teacher? Does he sleep? Izuku's brain twisted questions around silently as the hero continued. "And I'm not calling Bakugou a criminal; that would be unprofessional of me. That doesn't mean his actions in the battle trial are going to be swept under the rug, either. He should be reprimanded for his actions and will undoubtedly face punishment too."

Izuku took All-Might's promise for action with continuing silence. A (technically, though he still couldn't believe it to be true) school official vowing to exact punishment on Katsuki for his actions and behavior? That was a first to his ears. It almost sounded too good to be true, but with the principal's promise yesterday and his homeroom teacher's impassive attitude to his quirklessness Izuku thought he had good reason to give them the benefit of the doubt if only for the day. There was only one small piece to the puzzle missing, sitting before him.

All-Might was a paragon of power and hope in Izuku's eyes growing up. He was the man Izuku always wanted to be. It took nearly fifteen years of his own life but he was finally able to meet the man, in person, in his own home country. And after ten years living under scolding teachers and manipulative classmates and an abusive friend, Izuku finally got to ask All-Might the question he had been holding onto for this very day: Could a kid like him without power of his own become a hero like him?

All-Might never looked more pathetic, draped against a steel fence, shrunken and wheezing and coughing up blood, and telling Izuku, "No."

"If you desire to help people," the lanky form of the number one hero, Izuku's childhood idol, spoke as he climbed to his feet, "becoming a police officer is always an option. Those villain custody officers are often mocked, but that too is admirable work."

This was supposed to be All-Might, the symbol of peace. The greatest hero around the world who so many children and adults looked up to and cheered on every time he fought against villainy. He was the pinnacle of perfection to strive to be, every kid's dream of becoming in their own futures. He was supposed to be the man who gave people hope, so why did he only bring Izuku hopelessness and despair? Why him?

He wanted to be a hero, he wanted to be a great hero. A man who gave people hope the way his hero gave him hope; hope he could still be someone — something — despite having nothing special like everyone else did. He didn't want to settle for less, he didn't want to give up his dreams, and he didn't want to cave in to Kacchan's persistence and words. So why was he being told no?

"It's not wrong to dream," All-Might continued as he walked past Izuku, opening the door to the roof they stood on and exiting down the following stairwell. "However, you need to be realistic, kid."

Izuku knew what realism was. He knew, deep in his heart, the door closing between him and the man who had given him hope was realistically how it was always going to go.

But that was why he held onto hope.

He still held on to All-Might.

He could never rid himself of his hero figurines or posters, his Miruko slippers or his graphic shirts, his All-Might keychain or his Hero Notebooks for the Future. He had never moved on from his hero fascination, despite the countless heroes who discouraged him early on, because why would he? Gang Orca had congratulated and vowed to recommend him to Yuei because of what Izuku had done at the mall. His friends didn't shun him out because of his quirklessness and the school of his dreams accepted him despite it. Despite everything he was told growing up, one change in his direction — his own choice to put in the effort on his own when no one else was helping him — had the world around him all but encouraging his career plan.

The only real ones not behind him were Katsuki and the man sitting across from him.

"Speaking of the battle trial, I wanted to go over your performance," All-Might continued, barely smiling as he talked. "Aside from Bakugou's brutal actions and the dangerous choice you made in letting him use his second gauntlet on the ceiling over your heads, every other action and performance was quite spectacular. Despite showing the least amount of combat today, Young Uraraka worked quite well with her quirk strategically to win you two the round at the last second. And your plan at the start to split up and keep Bakugou away from the weapon and deal with him before he could be a trouble and have Iida's speed assisting him in combating you and Uraraka both was extremely dangerous but pretty clever. Given how well you held your own against Young Bakugou's strength and used the terrain to your advantage to take the win with your partner, I'd say your mission went excelle-"

"Do you not remember me?" Izuku's interjection cut All-Might's rant quickly. The older man's voice drawled on weakly as he stared at the boy who all but glared back. "It's kinda weird that you keep talking to me like you didn't tell me to give up on being a hero while you continue to praise me for what I'm doing in a heroics class. Do you not remember meeting me? Like the slime villain criminal or the, 'Give up on being a hero,' speech? Was it really just that easy to say no and delete the whole day from your mind, because if so then I'd like to do that too. I wouldn't mind forgetting the day I met you. But I can't. So what gives?"

All-Might drummed his hands together and brought them under his mouth. His leg bounced under his elbow and his fingers clutched and struggled under each other; Izuku could tell the man was nervous. He had but caught the man in the act of "sweeping the problem under the rug." What a hypocrite.

"I have not forgotten about you, Midoriya; about the day we met. I remember all of it, yes."

"Alright then, so what the fuck?" Izuku lazed himself back into the couch and threw his arms up towards All-Might. "So were you, like, not planning on saying anything? Was I supposed to catch on and not bring it up ever, just ignore the fact one of the heroes I'm supposed to be learning under has already told me I'm not going to amount to shit anyways?"

The lanky man had the gall to look offended. "I never said that about you, Midoriya."

"Really? You didn't exactly leave me on the rooftop with open interpretation about your words. Not sure what else I was to take away from, 'You can't be a hero.' Sounds pretty definitive, if you ask me."

"I never said you couldn't be a hero, Midoriya," All-Might sighed as he arched forward. "I said that without power, I did not think you could. And yet here you are—"

"Yeah, here I-fucking-am!" Izuku shouted back. "Got in without a quirk of my own. Did exactly what you said I couldn't do. Does that not grate on you, that you were wrong?"

"Is the fact that you are here supposed to bother me?"

"It bothers me! Everything you said back there has been bothering me to this day! I haven't forgotten shit! What else am I supposed to feel when the last person I had left to turn to gave up on me? That the only thing I could be happy doing was impossible according to the fraud I looked up to?"

"I" — the man's composure broke and his lips dipped in a frown —"had no intention to hurt you like that, my boy. I only—"

"No!" Izuku's foot went flying up into the table between them as he screamed, kicking it off the ground only a second but just enough to send both cups sprawling over and spilling what tea they had left. He pointed a threatening finger at the silent and shocked All-Might across from him. "You do not get to call me that. I am not your boy." He gripped his knee near the point of bleeding as he held his glare at the number one hero. "Only my dad gets to call me that; you do not."

Izuku barely composed himself as he pulled back and breathed. It took a few more seconds to dawn on him that he had just screamed in the number one pro heroes face without any hesitation. He was actually ready to throw hands with a man whose punches could stir up a hurricane. What in the fuck was he doing?

"Midoriya," All-Might — the most powerful hero in the world — spoke softly, "I promise you on everything I stand for I never meant to make you feel purposeless. I...I did not think before I spoke and that is on me. My words were meant to discourage you from being a hero, not from becoming anything or making a name for yourself in a field going forward."

Izuku couldn't hold back the biting comment, "And yet here I am—"

"And yet here you are," the hero agreed hastily. "In under a year you went from a boy made out of twigs to plowing through Yuei's entrance exam and gaining admittance to the school's heroics program." The lanky man hung his head with a sigh. "You've changed from when we met that day, in more ways than one. I never would have imagined the meek young boy I met would only take a year to transform the way you have. I am sorry the first thing I did was doubt you when we met. You've only shown yourself capable of becoming a hero since I've seen you again."

That...was an apology. That was an actual apology coming from All-Might's mouth. Izuku knew he heard it. He couldn't process it, but he was aware it had just been said. The final recognition of the words blew a flurry of thoughts through Izuku's head; he wanted to bow and say thank you; he humored the idea to scoff and tell the number one hero to shove up his apology; he felt an urge to break down and cry hearing the man he idolized as a child tell him, to his face and with sincerity, that he could be a hero.

He didn't do any of that. He couldn't accept the apology after a year of conditioning himself that the number one hero's opinion didn't matter to his dream. He withheld himself from blowing off more steam and acting like an asshole to the hero before him. He composed himself fast enough to stop the verge of tears instead of bawling then and there. Izuku could only tell himself the man's words were meaningless, even if his emotions tried to tell him otherwise.

"An apology's not gonna change a lot, ya' know." There wasn't enough volume of Izuku's voice to get across the dismissal intent of his words. "I chose not to believe your words back then, just hearing more from you doesn't prove anything about you — about us — has changed."

"Then I'll prove myself with my actions," All-Might responded without hesitation. "I came to Japan to be a teacher. You applied to Yuei to be a student. I'll do everything in my power and my position so you're treated equal to your classmates, especially from me. I am proud to see that you fought your way into this school, Young Midoriya; I don't plan to undermine your efforts in any way, I swear to you."

Izuku didn't know if he trusted the pro hero to do that either. The last action the hero took was turning a blind eye as the heroes on the scene of the slime villain incident reprimanded the green teen for trying to save Katsuki. But there had to be some credence to the saying, "Actions speak louder than words," or Izuku wouldn't have heard it recited to death.

So he gave the man the benefit of the doubt. "Fine," he agreed. "It's not like I can really do anything other than leave, and I'm not giving this up." A smile spread across the hero's face, one more cheery than Izuku was expecting the man to make. "Can I go now?"

All-Might snapped his head towards his desk, his sunken holes for eyes enlarging at the clock behind his office chair. "Ah, yes. I think I've held you back long enough. I'm sure most of your classmates are waiting around to hound you about the match; your performance had the class quite lively even till the end of the exercise."

Oh, right, his friends. Ojiro and Iida were going to rip into him for his actions, and Yaoyorozu and Uraraka would probably admonish him too; Uraraka more so given his teasing to lighten the mood before he left All-Might probably didn't work. He'd have to apologize to Kaminari for the joke, too. He bowed to All-Might as he got up and took his leave, apologizing for the mess of tea he made; the hero just brushed it aside and that he'd ask janitorial for help since it was a carpet floor anyways.

"Midoriya," All-Might called to him, pausing the boy at the now open doorway. "There's...my apologies for taking your time any more, but there's one more question I wish to ask you."

The green teen nearly closed the door then and there, but he held back his reflex. One more question wouldn't hurt, and if All-Might was going to uphold his promise of actually being a teacher to him, Izuku should have no problem humoring the man. So he responded, "Fine."

And All-Might asked, "What kind of hero do you want to be?" Izuku stiffed and gripped the frame of the door tightly. "What is it you are setting out to achieve, so I know just how to help you accomplish your goals?"

What was his hope to be as a hero? Izuku did have one dream; to be a hero who could calm and fill people with hope just by the sight of his smile. Key words: 'did have.' That fantasy went flying out the window after the day he met All-Might. He was never going to be a hero like that, ones whose presence would be enough to change the world and the people around him. Then again...

"I don't want to be a hero like you." Izuku's answer was cold on delivery, directing his glare to the ground instead of the man behind him. "I'm never going to be someone like you, a guy who can inspire people and who everyone looks up to because he makes them feel safe. But I don't want to be a hero who puts power before anything, who thinks it matters more than anything else. I don't want to be someone who tells people a quirk is what makes them important."

Izuku could hear the man behind him shuffle on the carpet floor, but he didn't sound any closer. "Well at least we see eye to eye on how dumb my words were then," the hero muttered. "Then, may I ask, what of the entrance exam? To fight robots almost five times your size and being the only student these past four years to challenge the zero-pointer head on. The latter especially took strength to stop in its tracks, and confrontations with villains out of our leagues are common in the real world. What did it take then, to go out there and confront the enemy?"

Izuku could hear the sobs of the girl crying for her father as bullets hailed above them, the gasps of pain from his classmate struggling to run as buildings fell around them, and the sight of his best friend bleeding from the head and out like a light as a colossus stormed their way. "Heart," he replied to All-Might, "and determination. I didn't...I don't fight because I'm strong and want to prove my strength. I fought because someone needed saving, not because I needed to prove something to anyone. That's not why heroes fight."

It was the most he had figured out, in truth. Izuku knew admitting there was a pinch of spite fueling his drive would probably not end well-received. Aside from that and his understanding of how important being a hero for other people was, he had no real idea of what kind of hero he wanted to be. Fighting villains and saving lives were basic heroism requirements, but most every hero aspired to be remembered for a purpose they stood for or a hobby they transformed into helping the public outside of fighting crime. He was still lost on—

"With a mind like that, I have no doubt in my mind you're going to become a great hero," All-Might interrupted Izuku's internal ramblings. It was a statement that jolted the boy completely, stunning his brain from further thoughts and left only to give the doorframe a death grip. "Best of luck, young hero."

Izuku didn't dare turn around to face the man. He could barely feel himself control his body after holding back so many more times between his outbursts. He choked down water and swiped his arm across his eyes before muttering a, "Thank you," back and leaving the room, heading to his belongings and his waiting classmates down the hall.

He wasn't going to say it out loud to the man he was on the fence about, to his mother who knew there was a strain on Izuku's old affinity for the hero or to his classmates who didn't know about the rocky relationship between the two, but Izuku could at least admit in his heart it felt damn good to hear the man call himself wrong.

Toshinori was alone in his office for barely a minute before a knock rang from his door. The lanky man took a sharp inhale and began to inflate before the voice of his apprentice called through, "It's me, sensei. May I enter?"

The hero deflated back with a sigh. "The door is unlocked, Togata. Come on in."

Instead of doing just that, the boy's head permeated through the door, a big toothy grin presenting itself to the hero. "Thanks sensei," he announced before the rest of his body phased through the wooden entrance, his hero costume still spread across his body. "Saw the green kid walk out of here just a moment ago, thought I could finally drop by without interrupting anything."

"Well" — Toshinori spared a glance at the tea-soaked towel in one hand and the broken cups in the other — "that was probably for the best. A bit more private of a conversation, anyways."

Togata was instantly by his side, assisting the old hero in collecting the shards of the torn tea cup and handing them over. "I only caught the end of it, and it sounded pretty awesome from what I heard," the blond boy admitted as he wiped away the tea stain on the table. "Little guy's got a good sense of heroism. If he was here a year earlier I might have had competition."

"If he was here a year earlier he'd still be a grade behind you; it'd be hard for him to challenge you for a place in your class. And why are you still dressed in your costume? I thought you would have changed back by now."

Togata just laughed and slapped the million logo on his chest. "The principal called me over right after you and the other kids took off to the changing rooms, just some class schedule stuff for next week's classes." The teen plopped down on one of the couches as All-Might took a seat at his desk. "And I don't mean Midoriya being in my class. The way he was talking about heroes back there, I think he would have given me a run for my money in getting One For All from you."

Ah, Toshinori realized soberly as he fiddled with the papers on his desk, that. The irony behind Mirio's prediction was not something the pro hero had informed anyone other than Nedzu about. "He might have," the blond man admitted, "but I'm not sure he would have accepted it, the way he spoke today. You heard the end of our conversation; give him a year already attended here with a mindset like that and he might have convinced himself he wouldn't need it."

"Probably not with the power he has now." Togata crossed his arms. "Did you ask him about that? I wouldn't have believed you guys something was up after his fight with Bakugou."

The hero shook his head. "I did not. Nedzu is uncertain how to approach Midoriya's strength until he is certain the boy's attending here with his surface intentions. After what Young Midoriya shared with me today and showed during the battle trial, I'm beginning to lean on his side and trust the boy that he truly is here to be a hero. That and it may have slipped my mind while he and I were talking." Toshinori could only chuckle and rub the back of his head as his apprentice shook his own head. He really had put Midoriya's abnormal strength at the back of his mind as the boy did his own verbal best to shoot down the reliance on strength alone in the concoction of heroism. It did nothing to clearly answer Midoriya's strengths or the boy's own thoughts about it but the boy didn't try to deny his strengths either, so whatever the truth was Midoriya's power he wasn't afraid to show it off.

"I'm just surprised none of his classmates decided to question it," Togata commented. "I guess they all have faith in one another, for the most part, aside from Midoriya's cover up about a quirk. He would probably be fine admitting to his classmates that he doesn't have one, since he hasn't done anything out of the ordinary in his classes." Given four of his homeroom classmates had seen him in the entrance exam, Toshinori doubted Midoriya could get away without questions beyond why he hid the truth. "Other than holding off against Bakugou with burns like that, too. Whatever he's capable of, taking wounds like that don't seem to do as they're supposed to with everyone else."

"That was concerning," Toshinori admitted with a heavy sigh. "Young Midoriya's strength is quite peculiar but even I wasn't expecting him to be so resilient to the explosion of Bakugou's gauntlets. Only because Midoriya had elaborated a plan and had picked himself afterwards, and hoping a threat would be enough to keep Bakugou from worsening the situation, that I let the exercise finish. The note the Bakugou household had given us about their boy didn't encapsulate an attitude like this; I'll be bringing this up to Nedzu and Shota later tonight—"

The ringing of his phone cut Toshinori off; not his office's phone, his mobile one. The hero dug into his pocket to pull out his red-and-yellow-clad smartphone before answering the number he saw on screen. "Ah, Mirai, this is unexpected. What can I do for you?"

"I thought the boy was quirkless." His old sidekick was quick to talk, without a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

"Midoriya?" All-Might furrowed his brows and shared a look with his successor. "Yes, that's what we've been able to deduce. Why are you bringing him—"

"Nedzu sent me a copy of the entrance exam recording upon my request. I've already sent a follow up to the principal on coming to the school myself and checking the boy's future to determine whether or not the boy is a threat. I expect to see you at my agency later tonight."

"Wait, Mirai, what—" The call ended before Toshinori could finish his question. Togata let out a small chuckle watching the man slump against his desk.

"Did Sir have a good joke he wanted to make before the moment was gone?"

Toshinori wished that was the case. Mirai was quick to offer the use of his own quirk to interrogate Midoriya on the school's behalf, but after the boy's words today the number one hero would rather let the boy prove his statements of heroism than be doubted so quickly when Toshinori was making his own promises. It still left the question of how Midoriya obtained such power unanswered, though, so he wasn't sure Nedzu was going to approve of Nighteye's request.

"I wish it was a joke," Toshinori mumbled into his desk. "Prepare yourself for the next few days, Young Togata. I feel things may become hectic here soon enough."