"Don't forget you have another appointment with Dr. Song after school."

Four days had elapsed. Four days of grey haze. Four days of staring in his algebra textbook and the clock slowly ticking onward. Four days of sleeping pills that deadened his dreams. And finally he had woken to Monday morning.

"I know," Izuku said.

His mom took a pot of boiled tea from the stove and turned to eye him. "I boxed some leftover katsudon for your lunch."

"Mhm."

She shook her head and poured tea into Izuku's mug. The black liquid wafted scents of caramel and raisin as it splashed against the rim. "If you start feeling panicky or sick, call me and I'll get you permission to leave early, okay? Don't force yourself to be at 100%."

Izuku grimaced as he reached for the steaming cup. "It's fine. I'll be fine." He sipped his tea dully.

He knew his eyes were red, and his hair was mussed, but despite the Triazolam he couldn't sleep through the fatigue. Blurry bright subway beams lurked behind his eyelids. If not for a dormant Quirk, he'd be a smeared paste of blood and bone.

All Might and I could've had matching closed casket funerals, he thought darkly.

He gulped the last of his tea and shrugged on a winter jacket. Slung his scuffed backpack over his shoulders. "I'm heading out. Love you."

"Izuku ..." Inko's face creased with worry. "The first train doesn't arrive for another hour."

"Doesn't matter. I'm riding my bike."

His mom stared at him. "It's December. You can't ride your bike."

Sometimes Izuku didn't understand her. Ice-slicked streets could bloody his palms or bruise his knees, but it couldn't kill him. He'd willingly endure the freezing temperatures if it meant avoiding a subway platform crowded with morning commuters.

He didn't hear what else his mom had to say because he walked out the door, unchained his bicycle, and pedaled hard, taking Marutamachi Street down to Sanjo to get to Fourth. He didn't want to pass Kacchan's house. Snow caked the sidewalks, but he rode on the street in the tracks left by passing cars. His breath fogged the air.

The moon hadn't yet set, spilling silver across snowdrifts which had taken on the hard glint of ice as Tokyo temperatures continued to plummet. Snowcapped pine trees showed as shadows against the Milky Way. The silent beauty of it unsettled him – he had forgotten everything outside that world of sorrow and screaming subways.

Izuku flew past sleeping neighborhoods wreathed in Christmas lights, past shivering students trudging to school. He reveled in the cold blistering his cheeks, in the fire in his lungs and panting breath. The moon sunk lower in the sky and he was one more morning away – one morning farther from All Might. Aldera Junior High loomed.

He studied in the library until minutes before the first bell, and slunk into classroom 2-B hoping Kacchan wouldn't jeer at him. The scattered desks and dark-uniformed students were washed in the overcast greys of a December morning, and if there was warmth to it, Izuku couldn't tell.

Warily, he edged towards his desk. Huddled students muttered about All Might's upcoming funeral at the National Hero Cemetery. Traded homework answers. But their chatter died as Izuku passed them.

He was once invisible. Izuku Midoriya, the Quirkless kid, the shadow, the afterthought. But now his classmates all stared at him. They giggled. They pointed and whispered.

It's the newspaper article, Izuku realized. His gawky yearbook photo and story of his "rescue" had been printed in the national papers for all their families to read. He slumped into his chair with a sigh. He could foresee the misery he'd endure in the weeks ahead, the jokes about Quirkless deadweights that fell in front of subways and wasted Mt. Lady's time. The Aldera rumor mill had a cruel streak.

Kacchan glanced up while his friends – Daisuke Kihara and Jun Takagi – snickered at a video on Takagi's phone. Locked eyes with him. Izuku didn't know how long they stared at each other, but the hatred burning in Kacchan's red eyes was undeniable. His ex-friend scowled, and Izuku swallowed, wishing they were four years-old again and catching fireflies in jars and staring wide-eyed at All Might's rescue footage.

Do you miss those lighter days too? Izuku searched his ex-friend's face for signs of grief. But he no longer knew the bristling boy, couldn't decipher the subtle twitches in his expression.

Nothing in his life seemed to survive the shudder of time. All Might. His dad. The loyal friends he had as a child. They were once his universe, pillars he was certain would last forever. But those pillars had crumbled to dust, and Izuku was left lonelier and lonelier, with wounds that had scarred but never quite healed.

Kacchan isn't gone though. Not yet.

Izuku inhaled shakily. "Kacchan, I – "

"Can it, Deku! I'll throw you in front of a subway myself if I have to listen to your whining," Kacchan snarled, explosive heat flaring in in palm. Takagi and Kihara blinked up from their video. "Why the fuck are you the one still breathing?"

"I-I only wanted to ask if you were okay ..." Izuku croaked. He stared at the floor, his face hot. "I know how much you loved All Might."

Quick as a cobra, Kacchan lunged. "You – " He slammed Izuku against the wall, driving the air from his lungs. His face was a mask of rage. "You asking to get hurt or something, Deku?"

Izuku's breath rasped out of him, drying the words from his tongue.

"I don't want to hear your shit sympathies, and I'm sick of an ass-licking extra like you acting like you'll ever be in the same league as All Might! You're not my friend! You never were." Kacchan's lips curled in disgust as Izuku flinched. "Give up on the hero shit and disappear somewhere you don't make everyone want to slit their wrists."

Scoffing, Kacchan let go of him; Izuku collapsed to the floor. He let his head roll back against the wall as the other boy stalked back to his desk. Takagi and Kihara laughed and lightly cuffed Kacchan on the shoulder, cajoling him to watch their video. Their words were distorted garble in Izuku's ears.

What if he's not wrong?

Izuku shuddered at the thought. He exhaled, and it almost came out as a sob.

Takagi looked over. Izuku kept his face blank, but inside, his stomach roiled and heaved. He choked down the bile that rose up in his throat, held himself rigid to keep from shaking. I'm sick of this too, Kacchan.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Counted backwards, wondering if he could turn everything around if he wished hard enough, but it was hopeless.

Some things couldn't be saved.

–O–

All Might's face stared at Izuku from the side of a building.

The man was four stories tall, his blue eyes staring down at him through the frost-laced window of Dr. Song's office. He had a proud grin and crinkles in his face that suggested he spent much of his life laughing. But it was his eyes, bright and hopeful, that held Izuku. All Might seemed to inhabit his mural, seemed alive within those eyes, and seemed to watch over him.

"... Midoriya? Did you hear me?"

Izuku's own eyes snapped back to Dr. Song. He grimaced. "Sorry."

The elderly Chinese man's features remained inscrutable. Dr. Song never frowned, never even raised his voice when Izuku argued with him. It was as if he existed on a separate plane of equations and genetic helixes – staring through Izuku instead of at him, a string of DNA sequences to contemplate rather than humanize.

In a strange sense Izuku was grateful for it. If he was legally mandated to endure Quirk counseling, if he had to suffer headaches in a waiting room of pudgy five year-olds and shrill mothers, then at least he was spared from saccharine sympathies and empty babble. These days he preferred to keep conversations clinical.

These days he preferred Triazolam to the waking world.

"That All Might mural is eye-catching, considering it wasn't there yesterday," Dr. Song mused. "Someone must have painted it in the dark of night ... and teetering on a ladder in the snowstorm no less. But let's try to remain focused. I was asking if you'd completed the Quirk exercises I assigned during our last session."

"Oh. Yeah, they were easier than I thought they'd be." Izuku drew in a breath, and the air shimmered above his palm. "It's still ... surreal to see it for myself. Proof I really do have a Quirk."

The shimmering air glittered with streaks of silvery green light. Glowed with its own cold, internal fires. Its diameter measured no greater than a postcard – unimpressive on a technical level – yet nevertheless the sight sent a rush of cocktail ecstasy through Izuku's veins.

Sometimes that high could make him forget there was no Symbol of Peace, if only for a few heartbeats. Then he would notice his mom's chewed nails and remember her whispered calls about the Nikkei Index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange crashing to 13,609, or receive a mass text from his school about their upcoming villain evacuation drills.

Izuku was a self-admitted fanboy, but in the end no one was spared the shadows left in All Might's wake.

"Magnificent progress, Midoriya. The visual data from seeing your Quirk firsthand already lends more credence to my hypothesis," Dr. Song said.

Izuku blinked. "You mean when you said I might have a barrier Quirk? It is one of the more common Quirk subtypes ..."

Dr. Song held up a hand. "Hastening to conclusions is an unwise venture, and one I'd rather not indulge in. Based on the Quirk's visual indicators and your genetic history, I believe you indeed have a barrier Quirk, but there are some irregularities I can't dismiss."

"Irregularities?" Izuku's fingers twitched against the top button of his parka, suppressing a sudden spike of paranoia. The world seemed a broken mirror in the foggy days since All Might's death – a thousand shards of shattered glass that sliced and bled him as he tried to pick up the pieces. "What do you mean, irregularities?"

"No need to be on edge. There's nothing wrong with you; I only meant your Quirk is unique." The doctor paused, considering his next words. "I find it strange that you could stop a subway train the first time your Quirk manifested. Most barrier Quirks must be trained to their upper limits before they can endure that degree of force."

Izuku swallowed, remembering the silver-sharp glint of the subway seconds before it would've crushed him. "Lucky I don't have the typical barrier Quirk then. "

"There's a second anomaly as well. I rarely see barriers that are ... airy enough to float above one's palm. That suggests you have an ability to manipulate your barriers in a way that isn't possible for standard variations within the subtype, like EMB7s and TRAB4s." Dr. Song shuffled through his medical charts. "I have some records from your childhood GP here. Your mother's Quirk is listed as Telekinesis, but I don't see any mention of your father."

Izuku's voice became bitter. "The GP you're talking about is Dr. Tsubasa. I don't know why he would've bothered to write down one Quirk but not the other. I do know he called me Quirkless even after he failed to find that vestigial toe joint in my x-rays. Said about 20% of Quirkless individuals don't have it – that I was one of the lucky few to lack a Quirk or a spare joint."

"He couldn't have known you had Delayed Trigger Syndrome," Dr. Song said. "Tragically, we lack the understanding necessary to detect it. The disorder is characterized by slow Quirk development, effectively making an individual's Quirk 'invisible' until the body reaches adulthood. Pro-hero Midnight is a well-publicized example, but the diagnosis is discouraged in medical circles, since it's statistically rare and risks giving Quirkless individuals false hope."

"Trust me, I know all about DTS," Izuku said wearily, thinking back to all the library shelves and genetic records and internet forums he'd scoured for Quirkless research, to the 30,000¥ medical textbooks he'd pleaded with his mom and dad to gift him for his birthday. "You don't need an official diagnosis to have false hope."

"Ah. Of course." A rare note of sympathy lingered in Dr. Song's voice.

Izuku stared out the window at the All Might mural. The snow was falling faster now, white feathered flakes that gathered on window sills and skeletal trees. He wondered what his younger self would have done if he'd known that within a decade his deepest dreams and darkest nightmares would all unfold. Maybe he wouldn't have been quite as obsessed with his studies, and instead cheered on his dad's shoulders at Kisiwada Danjiri parades, memorized the dark-haired man's rich laughter, his proud smiles whenever he introduced Izuku to his business friends.

"My dad's Quirk was named Ward. He could summon unbreakable barriers – though wards are what he called them – that remained so long as his concentration didn't slip," Izuku offered quietly. "From what you've told me, I'm thinking I have a telekinetic version of his Quirk, except with a different drawback. I haven't noticed a dependency on concentration."

"Unbreakable telekinetic wards, hmm? That would explain a great deal. We'll have to confirm that theory and draw up the paperwork for the registry in our next session." Dr. Song shifted his attention to scribbling notes. The appointment had come to its end.

Izuku stood. Buttoned his dark green parka and headed for the door. "I have to determine what my Quirk's main limitation is in the days to come – all Quirks have one. I won't understand my true capabilities until I figure that out."

"See that you do. In the meantime, also think about what you'd like to name that Quirk of yours. We'll need it for the registry."

Izuku's hand paused on the doorknob. "Dr. Song?"

The elderly man blinked up at him, pen halting mid-scribble.

"With my Quirk, do you think I could ..." Izuku grimaced, the words suddenly stuck in his throat. "Never mind." He pulled open the door, leaving the doctor behind for the shadows of the hall. Dozens of questions had been answered that evening, mysteries of subway crashes and DNA, and none of it quelled the sickness in his heart.

–O–

Katsuki Bakugou chalked an expression from their algebra homework on the blackboard, (6x + 8)(5x - 8). Five days after All Might's death, blizzard winds howled outside the classroom windows, and snowflakes whirled in the dark as they slowly suffocated the world in white. Izuku hunched at his desk, pencil in a pale-knuckled grip, praying for the lunch bell to ring and spare him from the sharp, scornful lecture of the boy he had once called a friend.

Grief cuts to the bone, but it has a way of carving out self-deception too, the lovely little lies people tell themselves to avoid new hurts while clinging to the old. Izuku had awoken that morning with an ice in his veins, a cold fury that – unknowing what to do with – he turned on himself. Cruel thoughts echoed in his head, the kind of knife-edged clarity that surfaces only when one's too drained for denial: I'm a decade behind the others, there's zero chance U.A. would accept a deadweight like me. Or, recalling the twisted ugliness on Kacchan's face yesterday: I was so pathetic for thinking he cares.

Kacchan slashed at the blackboard with his chalk, simplifying the algebra expression with irate strokes. He finished his chain of calculations and spun on his heel to glower at the class. "... and that's why any idiot would know this shit simplifies down to 30x squared minus 8x minus 64."

"That's correct. Excellent work as always, Bakugou," Yamauchi-Sensei said.

"Whatever." Kacchan stalked back to his desk, ignoring a high-five from Daisuke Kihara. Lately no one was an exception to his simmering rage – not Kihara and Takagi, not the school faculty, and obviously not Izuku. If Izuku hadn't waited amid the snowy arctic winds until the final bell this morning, he was certain Kacchan would've scorched and shredded his homework.

Yamauchi paged through his algebra textbook for another example problem, and in the lull, wind rattled the windows and whispers echoed. Izuku stiffened in his seat as he listened to the hushed comments.

" – solved that problem so fast! There's no justice in the world if one guy can get a badass Quirk and all the brains."

"You think he's going to be the next All Might? I mean, someone's gotta fill the void and none of the current pros – "

"Obviously Mitsuru's way hotter than that girl in – "

" – good as All Might?"

Izuku scowled at the notebook on his desk, grinding the tip of his pencil into graphite dust. Kacchan doesn't deserve to be the next All Might, he thought viciously. He tried telling himself it was unfair to let his howling grief bleed into thoughts on Kacchan, but there was nothing fair about their one-sided relationship, was there?

"Why the fuck are you the one still breathing?"

He knew dwelling on the raw hurt of those words was wrong, that he should pretend separation from the darkness that hissed in his ears. But it was harder and harder to muster empathy when he'd forgotten how to sleep without Triazolam and stared at his bag-eyed reflection in the mirror each morning.

Kacchan had told him to give up on his dreams. But it occurred to Izuku that he could give up on something else.

He didn't need to cheer with the rest of the class when Kacchan scored point after point in P.E. matches against 2-C, didn't need to take notes for him when he was missing from class, didn't need to admire him even as he ripped Izuku's homework and left him wiping away tears in a bathroom stall, hating himself for the wobble in his voice. Didn't need to hear him mock his Quirk and kill the little hope Izuku had left.

I'm done trying, he thought. I can't do it anymore.

For years now Izuku had believed many things about Katsuki Bakugou – that he had an amazing Quirk, that his inner fire was virtually unrivaled, that he'd blaze a path as the first U.A. student from Aldera. But he could no longer convince himself that deep down he was sorry.

The lunch bell chimed. Izuku watched his classmates scatter from their desks, gathering up spiral notebooks and algebra worksheets, keeping himself still so he didn't betray his thoughts. Laughter faded as students streamed from the classroom. Kacc – Bakugou – was the final straggler, scowling at Izuku from the doorway as he left.

Izuku waited for the footsteps in the hallway to vanish, then made his own escape, ignoring the pang in his stomach as he took the stairs down to Aldera's west exit. Sacrificing lunch was necessary if he had a hope of attending U.A. He sighed and ducked out the door.

Snow slashed sideways, feathered ice falling like ghosts in the blizzard dark. Snowdrifts piled against the school walls, and amid gusts of snow Izuku glimpsed the million tiny lights of the metropolis – Tokyo and Musutafu and Yokohama glittering in the blackness. He was a lone silhouette in the winter howl, jacket billowing with the wind.

Izuku shivered. The blizzard soaked his clothes, cold enough to steal his breath. He crossed his arms, longing for the numbing heat inside yet unwilling to retreat. Snowflakes dusted his hair.

Finally he steeled himself. A ward formed in his mind – the ethereal power he sought to master. Izuku mentally held the ward, fixed it in time, and let it flow from his head to his hand, down his fingertips and into the air itself. The air shimmer flickered, then bloomed iridescent blues and greens as it crystallized into a ward.

Out here in the snowy dark, it reminded Izuku of an aurora.

Last night he had practiced as the clocks chimed the slipping hours, summoning wards over and over until he could will them forth without erratic wavering or fumbled discipline. The motions had become cathartic. Honing his Quirk couldn't change the tragedy of December 11th. But it made the grief bearable. It distracted him enough that tear tracks dried on his cheeks, and somehow he kept on walking.

Now he stood amid the snowstorm to test his abilities. He eyed the snow-lashed ward, frozen midair in spite of the whistling winds.

Izuku circled the ward contemplatively. Reaching out, he touched it as it glistened blue. Drew in a sharp breath at the glacial cold in his fingertips. He pressed his weight into the ward, and nearly stumbled as it drifted away, lighter than air. The ward froze again as soon as he ceased touching it.

Seems I'm the only one that can move them.

Useful intel. He quieted thoughts of all the implications for later, resolving to document them in Quirk Analysis For the Future No. 1 during English.

Izuku waved a hand at the ward and watched it dissipate into glittering dust. Blizzard gales swirled the remains until they were lost in the black of the storm. He wiped snowflake-melt from his eyes and scanned the dark classroom windows, reassured that this wing of Aldera Junior High was emptied for lunch. The next Quirk experiment he had in mind could create a light show.

Years of hero analysis had taught Izuku that all Quirks possessed unique limitations. Sir Nighteye's Foresight could only be used once per day, whereas Endeavor's Hellflame could induce hyperthermia if he overextended himself. Izuku suspected his own Quirk had limitations akin to the latter hero – the dozens of wards he'd summoned yesterday proved he lacked a hard limit like Sir Nighteye. Summoning his wards wasn't free, but until he strained his Quirk the cost would remain a mystery.

Izuku inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Formed a ward in his mind. A well-familiar ritual yet with a crucial difference: in his mental image, the crystalline wall thrust into the snow clouds of the heavens. Staggeringly vast.

With a dizzy rush the ward flowed from his fingers. For a fleeting, false moment the skies shimmered. Millions of swirling snowflakes glittered iridescent green.

Then Izuku felt his throat constrict, and the blizzard plunged back into darkness.

His blood was on fire. His breaths hurt. His lungs screamed the agony of someone hacking at them with a handsaw, and Izuku was choking, choking for air. He started to cough with panic, the coughs deepening to dry heaves.

Knees buckled beneath him. He curled up in the snow, still coughing, the ice stinging feverish skin. Sucked air – every breath a sweet mercy. At long last the agony stopped. His ribs ached.

He lay on his side, staring motionless at the silent snowfall. His mind raced through possibilities. The pain evoked blurred memories of smoking subway wreckage and the awakening of his Quirk. On that day he'd blacked out ...

"Oxygen," Izuku whispered. "Using the wards costs oxygen."

Relief flooded him. Though he lacked the oxygen to sustain the sky-piercer ward for longer than a second, the weakness didn't overshadow his Quirk's potential. He exhaled slowly, overcome with disbelief.

Deep down Izuku had never trusted his Quirk was hero worthy. Hadn't dared. He'd armored himself in cynicism, resigning himself to the crippling weaknesses that inevitably lurked just beyond his knowledge. Immobility, IQ loss, draining his lifespan – visions of the worst had danced behind his eyelids. To dream otherwise was hope, and it was far saner to choose cynicism that a hope long dead.

But now Izuku felt his heart beat faster. An ember of hope stirred in his chest.

He just prayed that ember wouldn't blacken to ash.

–O–

TV talk droned through the walls.

Izuku slumped over his bowl of beef-and-onion donburi, unable to tune out the NKT reporters' voices as they drifted to the dinner table. He sighed and glanced at the blizzard dark out their window, but all he could see was his own reflection in the candlelight. His mom plucked at her rice with chopsticks.

"Can't we turn it off?" he asked. "It's depressing ..."

Inko shook her head. "You know I feel safer with the news on. Just the other day a woman was assaulted on Sanjo Street. If there's villains roaming the neighborhood I don't want to be caught unawares."

Izuku grimaced and set down his chopsticks, a coin-sized ward flickering into existence at his fingertips. Absently, he fiddled with it, tossing the ward into the air and willing it to freeze midmotion. The recently developed habit soothed his nerves.

He half-listened to the somber narration of the nightly news. The Daily Hero Bulletin and NKT Network and Tokyo FM had all devoted their air time to wall-to-wall All Might tributes. But it wasn't just them. Present Mic had foregone his music hour in favor of a Forever #1 in Our Memories special where All Might's former U.A. classmates told cherished school stories; Daikaku Miyagi solemnly held heart-to-hearts with Best Jeanist and Ryukyu on his cable show, both heroes wearing spangled gold ribbons pinned to their chests; the Hero Public Safety Commission declared that the next Billboard Chart JP announcement would be held live as the first public ranking ceremony in history.

And amid the memorials, grim-faced reporters told of nationwide crime spikes. Eulogizing the Golden Age. Dreading the Fallen Age that dawned upon them.

Izuku was once a news addict, listening to the Flaming Sidekickers' podcast in the mornings and refreshing Twitter for minute-to-minute updates at school. In dark nights of solitude he'd finish homework while sprawled in front of the television. But these days it was too much for him. He didn't understand how his mom could suffer it without prickling tears of rage.

He felt if he watched too long, the tsunami crash of Japan's grief would drown him.

"... Might Tower clarified that although the funeral will be a private ceremony for All Might's friends and colleagues, the eulogy will be streamed live to the nation." Lonely dog howls drifted from the television, and Izuku guessed the reporter was at the National Hero Cemetery. "Later that evening, thousands of candlelight vigils are expected to ... Hold, what was that? We've just received breaking news: pro-hero Mt. Lady has been rushed by ambulance to Jikei Hospital! Clinically dead for half a minute, she responded to treatment from EMTs and will likely pull through. It seems tonight the nation is left with prayers for this rookie hero, though mercifully only prayers for a swift recovery. We're now cutting to footage of her stand against the Fullmoon Titan."

Thundering booms echoed from the television. The rumble of falling rubble. Screaming. And in an instant Izuku was back on the freezing subway rails, All Might newly dead, clawing for survival to a symphony of screams and wails. Ice shot through his veins; the sour retch of bile flooded his mouth.

"Turn it off."

"Izuku –"

"Turn it off." His voice cracked.

The TV fell silent. Inko set down the remote, green eyes studying him with worry. "I'm sorry. I didn't think someone we knew would ..."

Izuku shut his eyes, trying to slow the thudding of his heart. He gripped his mug of matcha tea. Breathing in its curling steam anchored him to reality. Subway trains couldn't harm him – not with his wards – and Yu still breathed. He was panicking over nothing.

"Not even a week since her debut and Mt. Lady's already suffered clinical death," his mom murmured. "So many awful reports and bloodied hero corpses on TV."

"The crime rate won't keep rising forever. Theoretically we're seeing the worst right now." Izuku swallowed. "I don't want you worrying about it, Mom."

Inko sighed. "Moms are meant to worry. I take it All Might's death hasn't altered your dream?"

"I ..." He averted his eyes from her, staring instead at shadows flickering in the candlelight. "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I won't let my dreams die with him."

"Oh Izuku." His mom closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. "I hope you understand how scared I am of losing a husband and a son. Is it worth it to be accepted into one of the middling hero academies like Ketsubutsu or Seijin?"

"You don't believe I can get accepted into UA? Or even Shiketsu?"

"Do you?"

Izuku flinched, glad the darkness hid his expression. "I don't know," he whispered. "I was hoping you'd tell me I was good enough."

For as long as Izuku could remember, he'd believed UA would be within reach if only he had a Quirk. Yet still somehow the sum of his efforts felt too small, too hollow. His field research on pro-heroes, his new Quirk training, the blood and tears he'd shed to achieve national test scores in the 99th percentile ... none of it could convince him he was a serious hero candidate.

He remembered the half-smile on his dad's lips as he smoked a cigarette in the April rain, shooed to the porch by Inko. "You can be a hero same as those other kids, Tiger," he'd said. "Don't forget you're smarter than the lot of them." And then he strolled off to his business dinner, a nonchalant grey-suited ghost, the orange glow of his cigarette the last to vanish in the downpour.

Six years had elapsed since that night but still Izuku remembered every detail of their final conversation in the rain, fallen cherry blossom petals drifting like tiny boats in the puddles. He ached to return to that moment and cling to his dad's leg, refusing to let him go.

It was the last time someone had said to him, You can do it instead of Give up.

Izuku sighed, shaking his head. "Guess that was stupid for me to say. Dad was the only person that ever thought I was UA material."

"Izuku ..." His mom sagged in her chair, cradling her head in her hands. She looked old suddenly. Old and weary and broken. Izuku felt a pang of guilt.

He stared into the winking candlelight while he sipped his matcha, thoughts troubled, waiting for his mom to say something. But the silence only thickened. Minutes ticked into oblivion and his tea went cold. The words he wanted to say died on his lips.

"I ... need to go check for updates on Yu," he said finally.

He slipped into the darkness. Cast a last lingering glance at his hunched mother. She'd started crying again these past few nights, sobs carrying down the hallway long past midnight, and he hated that all he knew to do was pretend he never heard. He shut himself in the cold of his bedroom, chest tight with grim emotion.

His bedroom was draftier than it once was – stripped of its All Might posters and figurines and strewn star-spangled t-shirts. Izuku wrapped himself in a blanket and huddled on his bed. He wondered how long misery would dwell inside him like a soul-sucking parasite, stealing his sleep and turning food to ash. Heroes sometimes lost; invincible men could turn up as bloated corpses and valiant women could be dragged into ambulances half-dead. Izuku understood that now. But no matter how his blood turned to ice when he read the rumors that All Might's killer still lurked in the shadows, no matter how he sometimes had nightmares of his mom leaving white lilies at his tombstone, he was more terrified of remaining helpless as Japan slowly crumbled around him.

He scrolled through the hero forums on his cell phone, squinting at its blinding glow. No updates on Yu's condition. It seemed most hero fans were only now learning of her debut, commenting with stunned and sympathetic reactions to the battle footage of Mt. Lady vs. the Fullmoon Titan. She didn't have a fansite yet like the other pro-heroes either – only an agency address for mail and deliveries.

His eyes strayed to the silver-glossed card on his nightstand. Remembered Yu slipping it to him at the hospital, and the smeared note jotted within: Take care of yourself, Midoriya. Today was hard but I'm glad I got to spend it with another All Might fan.

Izuku swallowed. Imagined Yu lying unconscious in a hospital bed, eyes lidded shut and respirator rasping as she breathed. How long did it take to recover from thirty seconds of clinical death? Would she remember her seemingly final moments bleeding out on the asphalt, EMTs crowding and shouting as her brain shut down? He shuddered to think of it.

He ripped a sheet of unlined paper from a notebook – he had dozens stacked beside the floor of his bed – and considered what to write. Myriads of possibilities flitted through his mind before he scrawled a message of his own:

Yu,

It was nightmarish to see you on the news tonight; I really thought for a moment you were dead. I know more than a few great heroes have lost their lives in the wake of All Might's death, but after him I think knowing you were dead would be the worst. If you're right that All Might's killer still lives, he's far past the point of redemption – I don't think there can be justice in this world until he's gone from it.

I'm working on mastering my Quirk now. The tentative name is Aether Ward and it lets me control telekinetic barriers. I'd like to use it to defend people like you did tonight, but I don't know if I can honestly compete with kids like my neighbor that have had powerful Quirks their whole lives.

Try to get some rest if you can.

– Midoriya

It was a little note, lonely on the whiteness of the page. Yet there was no guarantee Yu would read a complete letter. Izuku frowned at the volume of white space left and decided to sketch a little cartoon of Silver Age All Might to compensate. For a time he detailed and shaded while snowflakes tumbled beyond his window, the faint light of his desk lamp a golden glow against the storm that raged outside.

Then he reviewed the pages of Dr. Song's Quirk training textbook, and got to work.

Author's Note: Sorry if that was overly depressing. It was an excruciating experience to write, but if I treated All Might's death lightly, that would be doing a disservice to the massive importance his character had in canon – on both a national level, and an interpersonal one.

And while I'm a strict believer in making sure all important story elements are conveyed in the chapters rather than my end notes, I'll clarify Izuku's Quirk a bit here for those of you too curious to find out over the next few chapters:

Yes, when they say "unbreakable" wards, they do literally mean that absolutely nothing can destroy them. Izuku's Quirk training won't be focused on strengthening his wards, but rather developing the skill and stamina to wield them without passing out mid-battle from oxygen deprivation. There's also the telekinetic component that he hasn't really explored yet.

I get the feeling I'm going to get both people who say his Quirk is weak, and people who say it's OP. It's meant to be a powerful Quirk, yes, but also uniquely one where it'll take a clever character like Izuku to maximize its potential.

But there's more than his Quirk that's been developed in this chapter, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Grief leads to further division among Izuku and Bakugou rather than reconciliation; Mt. Lady sneaks her way back into the plot (and to be super clear, this is not and never will be an Izuku/Yu story); the world reacts to the loss of the Symbol of Peace.

And before I leave you for next time, I'd like to give a shout out to the Traveler fans that have clearly been reading this story, haha. You guys have good taste.