Chapter 45

Izuku isn't sure why he stays after the day's training is done. He isn't planning on telling—not yet. It's been a lot already, telling Todoroki and coming clean with Iida, and he doesn't regret it, but he needs time, still. He needs to think this through.

But All-Might is still acting off, and it's not in Izuku's nature to leave things be.

His friends pause to wait for him as the class exits the training facility for the day, but Izuku waves them on. Uraraka waves back, Todoroki gives him a nod, and Iida's gentle grip lingers on his shoulder for a moment before he moves on with Tensei trailing him. Izuku marches in place a bit until the last stragglers (Kaminari and Sero) leave him behind, and slips back to where he last saw All-Might. The teachers are gathered in discussion—Aizawa-sensei, Cementoss, Ectoplasm, and All-Might—and Izuku lets his steps fall audibly. All-Might sees him approach first.

The cast on his arm is still in place, but the sling is gone and the rest of his bandages have been removed. Physically he's been improving, but the loss of bandages doesn't take away the shadows on his face or the curve to his spine. Nana hovers over him, silently worrying, as if she's afraid he'll keel over at any moment.

As Izuku approaches, Aizawa-sensei looks up and sees All-Might staring. His homeroom teacher follows his gaze until he spots Izuku as well, and his face shifts briefly into something that Izuku can't quite read at this distance. Aizawa glances toward All-Might as if expecting something, then rolls his eyes and gives him a light shove in Izuku's direction. All-Might's steps stumble a bit toward Izuku's approach, and he glances back at the other teachers with a bewildered look on his face, but they're already moving off.

When he turns back to Izuku, the shadows have shifted, and now he looks a bit more shamefaced than simply miserable.

"What was that about?" Izuku asks as he joins his mentor in the rapidly emptying facility.

"Oh, nothing," All-Might says. "Aizawa was simply pushing me to do something I've been putting off." He hesitates, picking at the edge of the bandage wrapping on his arm. "Ah. Talking to you, to be exact." Pausing again, he heaves a brief sigh. "I'm sorry, my boy. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about this so much sooner."

"A-about what, exactly?" Izuku asks, with a fearful look at Rei and Nana. He can't account for the instinctive fear that rises within him, because there's absolutely no way for All-Might to know about that, but he also can't help spooking a little anyway.

"About your—your imprisonment," All-Might answers, as his hands twist together in agitation. "We saw each other on the beach afterward, but—well, we didn't really talk. You didn't have the chance to, and… considering what you saw, and what you went through, with All For One… are you all right, my boy?"

"Are you kidding me?" slips out before Izuku can stop it, and he simply gawks at All-Might for a second. "That's what I've been wanting to ask you."

"Ah, well, there's really no need to—"

"I know it's been hard," Izuku blurts out, then pulls back. This is dangerous territory he's headed for. If he says too much, he might make things worse. "I know it's—I mean, you lost the last of your quirk, and you've been forced to retire, and—and I use the internet, you know? I see what some people say, whether they're mean and critical or just scared, but…" He swallows painfully. "You've been acting off ever since. I'm worried about you."

All-Might blinks at him, clearly taken aback, then shakes his head. "I was afraid of this. It's all backwards—I'm the one who's supposed to be worrying about you, my boy, not the other way around."

"Fine, it runs both ways. But… All-Might, I left before you took him down, and I know he kept talking to you while I was gone." He searches All-Might's face, then glances to Nana's. "Did he say something?"

"Plenty," All-Might rasps. "In fact, he said plenty while you were still there, remember?" He pauses. "You were with them for three days. Have you talked to anyone about it?"

Izuku's throat begins to close, and he shrugs. "There's nothing to talk about. He's dead, so it doesn't matter. He doesn't matter." All-Might's still looking at him, and the weight of his gaze makes Izuku want to grind his teeth against his own words. "He lied a lot. He said some things that were true, but it was all twisted to try and push me to his side. He tried to get me to feel bad about myself, and blame myself or you or heroes or the world for things that were mostly his fault." A realization strikes, and he barks out a quiet laugh. "Holy—he spent three days negging me, what a creep."

All-Might huffs out an attempt at a laugh, and his hand falls upon Izuku's shoulder and only trembles a little.

"Yeah, he does that," Nana murmurs. "He has a knack for finding the right buttons to push."

"It might've worked," Izuku says quietly. "I think if—if I'd been alone…" If the ghosts hadn't been with me. If One For All hadn't been with me. If no one had been there, not even Bakugou. Rei slips her hand into his, and he squeezes it. "I knew he was wrong. I knew he was just playing me. But it was like I needed a constant reminder, or I'd forget, and…" His voice caught in his throat. "And that last day, when—when he had Ragdoll's quirk? It threw him off, and I could just barely slip past him. I don't know if I could've gotten through that by myself. I like to think I could've. But I don't know."

"You could have," All-Might says gently. "I have faith in you. I saw how you stood up to him. It—it terrified me, seeing you so close to him, speaking that way. But I could see in your face—he had no hold on you at all."

"I was angry," Izuku whispers. He's staring downward, away from All-Might's face. "I think I was more angry than I've ever been, in my whole life."

The hand on his shoulder squeezes lightly. "I know. I could tell. And… there was something I wanted to ask you. It's fine if you don't want to answer, but…" He purses his lips, seeming to brace himself. "You said something to him, before you ran. That he shouldn't have killed her. I was alarmed when you said that, because I thought it meant the worst for Ragdoll, but when I learned that she was all right, I was relieved but… confused. Were you talking about someone else?"

The truth hovers at the back of his throat, bracing itself to spring forward and fly free. He glances to the side, at Rei, and then at Nana. Rei watches him with steady black eyes, but Nana…

Nana's eyes are closed, and even from here Izuku can see her trembling. She looks scared. She looks anything but ready.

"I… had this friend, when I was younger," Izuku says. His throat feels every bit as rough and dry as sandpaper. Rei's hands are cold, but they don't shake. "I-I met her when I was five. I've always thought of her like my sister. But… but something happened to her, and I never knew what, until Kamino. Because when I escaped, I… I found a file on her, in that place. I found—I found out what happened, and I was always wondering, but—"

The hand on his shoulder becomes a hug, and Izuku squeezes back and swallows his guilt over his own cowardice. It's the truth. Not a single word of that was false, but a lie by omission is still a lie.

Tell him, he thinks, but he's tired. He told the truth to Todoroki and it ended better than he could have hoped, but it still left him shaky. His conversation with Iida this morning left him drained.

I'll tell him tomorrow, he thinks, and wonders bitterly if he'll ever let that tomorrow become a today.

Exhaustion hits him in a wave as he finally makes his way back to the dorm common room. His costume is stowed away, his clothes are loose and comfortable, and his hair is damp from the shower he took at the training facility but mostly dried from the walk back. Once inside, he kicks off his shoes and makes a beeline for the couch to flop down on it. The action sends him sprawling limply across Todoroki's lap, and his friend shifts a little and rests the book he's reading between Izuku's shoulder blades.

"Workin' hard or hardly workin', Midoriya?" Kirishima chuckles. Izuku mumbles wordlessly in response.

"Did somebody say Midoriya?" Kaminari calls from another room. There's a flurry of footsteps—multiple people heading toward him—and Izuku raises his head to see Kaminari, Sero, and Ashido scrambling in with Kaminari in the lead. "Midoriya we need a fav—oh." He stops short, and while Ashido manages to swerve to avoid crashing into him, Sero isn't as quick. "Wait. You and Todoroki—you guys said you weren't a thing, right? Did that change?"

"Nothing changed," Todoroki says, without looking up from his book.

"We're not dating," Izuku says flatly. "We had a conversation and everything."

"Really?" Sero looks skeptical. "'Cause, no offense, but you guys are kinda touchy-feely right now. And, y'know, all the time."

Izuku levels a glare at him. "The girls are 'touchy-feely' with each other all the time, and I've never seen anyone accuse them of dating."

Ashido snickers. "He's got you there, Sero."

"Right, whatever, point taken," Kaminari cuts in, before the conversation can derail entirely. "Anyway—" He turns back to Izuku and clasps his hands together. "We wanted to ask you a favor. Could we borrow your cat? And if not, what could we pay you to borrow your cat?"

"Depends on what you're borrowing her for," Izuku answers. "If it's for emotional support, that's free. For anything else, it's negotiable in litterbox duty."

Sero pulls a face, but Ashido and Kaminari brighten. "I'm good with that!" Kaminari says, nodding vigorously. "But seriously, we just need to borrow her for some, uh… experiments." At Izuku's frown, he waves his hands. "It's nothing bad! We just need to check out some things…"

Bakugou, passing by to head toward the kitchen, makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat.

"Oh, come on, Bakugou, you're just stubborn!" Ashido calls after him, and gets a middle finger in response.

"I'm with Bakugou on this, it's dumb," Jirou deadpans from the other couch.

"It's not dumb!" Kaminari retorts. "If you'd just pay attention to the evidence, you'd know—"

"There is no evidence!" Jirou almost yells, clearly exasperated to the end of her patience. "I'm telling you, all this quirk training is messing with your brain!"

"You're a skeptic, Jirou!" Ashido shoots back, and Izuku starts to notice the dull squeezing pain of a tension headache.

"Hey guys, can we play a game?" he asks. "It's a fun game. It's called the Let's pretend Izuku doesn't know what we're talking about Game. Because I'm lost."

"The dorms are haunted," Ashido answers promptly.

"Pretty much." Kaminari's hands go from clasped to almost twisted together. "We were hoping to borrow your cat so we could, like, take her around to all the problem areas, you know? See if she reacts to anything."

Izuku stares at him, blinking slowly. On the other couch he sees Uraraka and Iida sitting across from Jirou. Uraraka fidgets and avoids looking at anyone. Iida becomes thoroughly absorbed in his English textbook. Tensei looks bewildered. Rei looks far too pleased with herself. Somewhere out of his range of vision, he can hear Hino stifling a snicker.

"So—" He starts, then second-guesses himself. "You guys want to use my cat as a ghost detector."

Sero groans. "I knew he wouldn't believe us. I told you."

"Ghosts aren't real, you dumb fucks!" Bakugou bellows from the kitchen.

Izuku feels Todoroki tense, and sighs heavily. "You know what? Fine. Go ahead. She'll have fun."

Kaminari brightens. "Awesome! Where is she?"

"I dunno, somewhere." Izuku shuts his eyes. "Go find her. Don't grab her too hard. She's really easygoing about everything, so if she scratches you then it's your fault."

The boys look like they're about to complain, but Ashido hooks arms with both of them and drags them off, shouting a cheery "Thanks, Midoriya!" over her shoulder.

Jirou blows a raspberry. "Haunted. These dorms were built, like yesterday. All this training must be scrambling their brains."

"It's silly, but it's not completely out of nowhere," Yaoyorozu remarks. "It gets drafty from time to time in odd places, and the building is new enough that I hear it settling from very now and then."

"It is the end of summer," Iida offers, ever helpful. "The weather is beginning to change. Buildings often make noise in response to temperature changes."

"Cool," Jirou remarks. "Hey Todoroki, quit messing with the building, you'll give Kaminari nightmares."

"Okay," Todoroki answers, turning a page.

Things quiet after that, and Izuku slips into a light doze. He isn't quite asleep, still distantly aware of things happening around him, but he isn't nearly awake enough to hold any of it in his mind before it slips out again. People chat quietly around him, but he only registers the noise, not the meaning. Eventually, a light shake to his shoulder rouses him.

"Almost everyone's gone to bed," Todoroki informs him. "It's probably more comfortable upstairs."

Izuku's jaw cracks as he yawns. "Don't sell yourself short," he says, and dawdles on moving until his friend stands up and nearly dumps him off the couch entirely.

"Sorry," Todoroki says, but there's a bit of humor hovering in his face as Izuku scrambles to salvage some level of balance and dignity. "My legs were falling asleep."

A high-pitched laugh tells him Uraraka is still here. Izuku looks over to find that she and Iida are the only other students who haven't left yet. Warmth rises within him unbidden—it's nice to wake up surrounded by friends.

"Er, Midoriya," Iida speaks up. Izuku glances over, and for once he doesn't feel self-conscious about shooting a grin at Tensei over his friend's shoulder. "I… have an awkward question." His eyes flicker to the side, toward Todoroki. "It can wait, though."

Izuku blinks, confused, then almost smacks himself in the forehead. He's been so euphoric and giddy about telling people that he's forgotten to keep them in the loop about who knows. "It's fine, Iida," he says. "Everyone in the room knows."

"Oh!" Iida's eyebrows shoot upward, and he turns to stare at Todoroki more openly.

"He told me last night," Todoroki explains. "You haven't missed much."

"We sort of found out by accident, when we went to visit Deku's mom," Uraraka says. "It was actually, um… remember how, when we got back, we sort of bullied the rest of you into going to Kamino instead of the new location Momo found out about?"

"I wouldn't call it bullying," Iida says hesitantly.

"It was ghosts," Uraraka says. "Ghosts told us. Wrote it all out on a dusty mirror."

"Oh," Todoroki says, in the tone of voice of someone who is re-processing a great deal of things previously thought to be facts. "And—wait, at Kamino, when we were searching for Midoriya, and you ran off—"

"Ghosts again," she says. "Maybe the same ghost? She kept vanishing, and I was ahead of you, so you didn't see her."

Todoroki looks back to Izuku now. "I thought only you could see them?"

"That's… a new development," Izuku says. "I'm sort of working on it."

"And speaking of developments, it doesn't quite account for your strength," Iida adds, and Izuku shuts his eyes. "I'm aware that quirks can combine in odd ways—Todoroki is proof of that. But at least his opposing sides both deal in temperature and elements. How does your strength relate to, well… seeing the dead?"

"That… is… an excellent question," Izuku says slowly. He tries not to look at Todoroki. He remembers his friend's first guess at his connection to All-Might, and he has no idea what he must think now. "Um. There is a clear and coherent answer to it, I promise, but… I can't really say?" He sighs. "I'm sorry, guys, but it's not just my secret, so I can't answer that. I promise it's nothing bad, but that's not something I can really, um, talk about. I know it doesn't make sense, but—"

"It's fine," Todoroki says bluntly. "It's not like we're going to force you to talk."

"If it's nothing bad, then I don't see the harm," Iida says, a bit reluctantly. Uraraka gives him a thumbs-up, and Izuku sighs with relief.

"Thanks. Oh, sorry, Iida, was there something else you wanted to ask?"

To his surprise, Iida's face turns a little pink. "Right! Well, er. Considering the earlier conversation… I mean, it's a far more valid question than Jirou and the others seem to think, but… are the dormitories haunted?"

The question catches Izuku on an exhale, so his bark of laughter comes out as an almost squeaky wheeze. Izuku looks to a grinning Tensei, then a thoroughly amused Rei, and purses his lips to keep from laughing again.

"Define 'haunted'," he says.

"How many ghosts are there right now?" Uraraka asks.

"Two," he says, with a cautious glance at Iida. They've had their conversation, but he's not sure how willing Iida is to be open about it.

His friend's face softens into a smile; it turns out he has nothing to worry about. "One of them's Tensei, isn't it?" Uraraka gasps sharply, and Todoroki's weight shifts with tension.

"Yeah. And one of them's Rei—she's a friend of mine. Sometimes there's a third one, but…" His voice trails off as he looks around, but Hino is nowhere in sight.

"Is he a friend of yours, too?" Uraraka asks, still shooting odd glances at Iida.

"No, actually, he's kind of a dick," Izuku answers. Tensei snorts loudly, and Rei laughs so hard the light flickers. "I first met him at the Sports Festival, knocking drinks out of Endeavor's hands." It's Todoroki's turn to stifle a laugh, this time.

They do head back to their rooms, soon after. Izuku's path takes him close by the laundry room, and he hears voices from within. There's a sharp thud, like a door slamming shut, followed by three startled yelps. Rei darts inside, looking more excited than alarmed, and Izuku peeks in out of curiosity.

Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero are huddled together—or rather, Ashido and Kaminari are huddled behind Sero. The latter holds Mika out in front of him Lion-King Style, as if his unruffled one-eyed cat is supposed to shield them all. Before them, the door of one of the cupboards above the washing machines is swinging on its hinges, banging each time it swings shut.

Hino's sitting on the washing machine beneath it, looking bored as he does the swinging.

Ashido catches sight of him first. "You see this, right?" she splutters, and that's the moment Hino stops playing with the cupboard door. When Ashido sees it stop moving, just in time for a witness's arrival, she almost screams in frustration.

Hino takes one look at Izuku's face and shrugs, thoroughly unapologetic. "What? I'm giving the kids what they want."

It's too late for this. Izuku is tired enough that he's going to sleep perfectly well alone in the dark of his own room. "We have training tomorrow," he tells his classmates. "Ghosts will still be here in the morning." He turns on his heel, ignoring Kaminari's shout of "That's the problem!" as he heads for the stairs.

He almost wakes up a little later when his bedroom door opens a crack. But it closes a moment later, leaving him with soft footsteps, a quietly jingling collar, and a warm, vibrating weight against his side for the rest of the night.

His alarm wakes him the next morning, and Izuku blinks awake with a feeling of vague satisfaction at having slept through the night. Fumbling, he turns off the alarm, sits up, and nearly falls out of bed.

"Sorry," Nana says, though she doesn't put as much inflection behind it as she could. "I didn't mean to spook you, but… we need to talk."

The dregs of sleep vanish, and Izuku slips out of bed, fully alert. Nana has a history of clamming up about things she honestly shouldn't, so hearing those four words out of her mouth means it's something huge, or she's finally living up to her vow to do better. In Izuku's experience, ghosts don't change easily—death tends to stagnate a lot of things.

With his eyes still clearing, he tries to search her face for some clue about what's troubling her. She was quiet yesterday when he talked to All-Might. Did it have something to do with that?

He shakes his head. There's no point in guessing when she's about to speak anyway. "What's going on? Is All-Might okay?" He keeps his voice low. Todoroki won't think much of him talking to thin air, now that he knows, but he can't say the same for the others on their floor.

"No," she answers, and Izuku's heart leaps to his throat. "I mean—it's nothing immediate. But—" She sighs harshly. "You've seen him, sprout. He's not doing well. And… honestly I don't know know if you, by yourself, can fix it. But you deserve to know what started this at least." She faces him, the worry stark on her face. "That's assuming you don't already know. Did One For All tell you about—about Shigaraki?"

"Um…" Izuku frowns, wracking his brain. "No. Aside from where he was and what he was doing, if I needed to know."

"Right," Nana murmurs. "Okay." She speaks half to herself, as if bracing for what she's about to say. "He found me, when you sent him out looking for Rei. The first holder of One For All—I only met him once, right after my death. I went to find Toshi, he stayed with his brother, and that was the last I saw of him until he came to lead Rei to you. He told me—well, he thought I already knew, and I don't blame him because—damn it, I should have known. I should never have—" She stops, pressing her lips together until they turn white. "I might've kept it to myself for good, but then All For One told Toshi, after you escaped. He was trying everything by then, just to force him into despair like—like he did to me. I'm not sure he didn't succeed."

"Ms. Nana," Izuku says gravely. "Please tell me what they said."

"I had a family," Nana blurts out, as if forcing the words out before she can lose her nerve. "A husband, and a son, and—and I couldn't protect them."

Dread creeps over Izuku's heart like grasping vines.

"I made enemies," Nana continues. "Every hero does, but—my enemies found my family. They killed my husband, and I knew—it was just a matter of time before they found Teru, too, and I couldn't raise him alone, not with my duties as a hero and a successor to train and All For One still alive, so… I gave him up." Her voice only breaks a little. "I pulled every resource I had to find him a foster family, far away from me. I didn't even let them tell me where, because I didn't trust myself to lose heart and go after him. I made Toshi and Gran Torino swear to me that they would never go looking for him. I haven't seen him since. When I died, I tried to search for him, but I didn't even know where to start looking, so I told myself he had a life of his own and I wasn't a part of it anymore, and I stopped looking. And—" She stops again, lets her head drop into her hands, twists her fingers into her hair. "I just found out he had a child, Izuku. He had a son of his own. Tenko, Shimura Tenko, my grandson. And All For One found him, and turned him into Shigaraki Tomura."

Izuku feels his blood turn to ice, swift and devastating as Todoroki's quirk. For a moment, he can't even breathe. Mika's twining around his ankles but he can barely feel her.

"It was my failure that started it," Nana continues. "I should have kept tabs on him, I should have let Gran Torino or Toshi keep tabs on him, but I didn't. It was my failure, mine, but Toshi thinks it's his, and I can't stand by and watch that fester inside of him anymore."

"Has he—has he talked to Gran Torino?" Izuku rasps. He's sitting on his bed again, his legs all but giving out beneath him.

"Some," Nana says. "Not as much as he should. Just to pass the news, but nothing beyond surface level." She sits down beside him, just tangible enough for the bed to dip. "Gran's helping spearhead the hunt for the rest of All For One's operation. He won't let Toshi help, and Toshi wants to help so badly it's eating him up inside. He won't talk to Gran about it because neither of them know how to talk about things like that. He won't talk to any of his colleagues, either because he can't without revealing the secret of One For All, or he thinks they're too busy and he'll be a burden."

"So no one knows what's wrong but you," Izuku murmurs. "And I'm the only one you can ask for help."

"It doesn't have to be you," she says softly. "You could ask for help yourself. You could pass it along to someone—Gran, or Recovery Girl. Maybe even that detective, Tsukauchi, he always knows what to say to calm Toshi down."

"No," Izuku says. "I mean—maybe. If I'm not enough, then I will." He stops, then tries again. "I mean, if we're not enough. Then I will."

Nana goes quiet. "We," she says softly. "Then, you mean—"

"It's time," Izuku tells her. "I should've told him long ago, Ms. Nana. You know that."

"Yes," She says, closing her eyes.

"I'm gonna need you in my corner," Izuku says. "You know that, right? No vanishing, no clamming up."

Her hand is cold as it squeezes his shoulder. "You can count on me," she says, and there's a steadiness in her face that tells him she means it.

[From: Young Midoriya]

[7:49 AM]

I need to talk to you today, after training. Somewhere private? It's important and I don't want anyone to overhear.

Toshinori has seen this room many times before. It's a small meeting-and-rec room in UA's halls, soundproofed to the outside, devoid of any recording devices, for private discussions that must not be overheard. It's been the perfect place to discuss One For All and all it entails, and now, in a bit of a twist on their normal arrangement, it's young Izuku who has invited him to talk.

His fault, of course, Toshinori thinks with no small amount of guilt. There have been so many things on his mind lately—or just one thing that takes up all the space available. He's doing his best not to neglect his students, not to neglect his successor, but so much has changed, and it's left him floundering to keep his head above water.

It's evening now. Izuku is done with training, freshly showered and dressed comfortably in street clothes. Toshinori has lost a bit of bandaging every time he's seen his young student—at this point, the cast on his arm is all that's left. At some point Ashido convinced him to let her sign it; even from across the room, he can see Izuku eyeing the bright purple kanji and flowers.

He focuses on that for a few seconds. It's a nice bit of silliness to seep through the guilt and regret and frustration that fester within him.

Toshinori is sitting down, two cups of tea laid out on the table in front of him, like always. For a moment he thinks Izuku is going to stay on his feet, but eventually the boy sits next to him. He takes the cup of tea that Toshinori slides toward him, and drinks from it without speaking.

The silence gets to Toshinori embarrassingly quickly. "I've worried you," he says, shamefaced. "Haven't I?"

"It's not your fault," Izuku tells him solemnly. "It's All For One's. He knew exactly what he was doing, when he said what he did. He wanted to hurt you as much as he could, before he went down."

It's a brutally sensible thing to say. "That doesn't mean it wasn't true," Toshinori says quietly.

"It means it doesn't matter if it was true," Izuku says. "When—when I was with him, he talked to me a few times. At least once a day, sometimes twice. I hated it, because I always left feeling like I forgot which way was up, and I'd have to remind myself all over again. But what helped was—" He hesitates, as if his momentum has carried him farther forward than he intended. "What helped was knowing that he was doing it all on purpose. He started off by lying to me and then promising to tell me the truth, and it didn't matter if he was lying or not because everything he said and everything he did was to get me to do what he wanted me to do and think what he wanted me to think, and when I kept that in my head, I could shut out the rest."

When did his successor get so wise? "I…" Toshinori glances briefly at him, then turns back with a sigh. "I think I see your point, my boy," he says. "And I'm grateful. But you don't know what he said to me, after you left."

The silence that follows is enough to make him nervous.

"I do, actually," Izuku says. Toshinori stifles a cough, tasting blood in the back of his throat. "And before you ask… no, it's not because he told me too. He didn't breathe a word of it to me. He probably didn't think it'd matter to me. Maybe he thought I didn't know about her at all."

Toshinori swallows blood and bile, and composes himself with a deep and shaky breath. "Nana," he murmurs. "Gran Torino told you about her, didn't he."

"He told me because I asked him," Izuku says. "But that's not why I know her."

And that's—odd. The way he worded that is odd, saying I know her in the present tense, as if he's met her before. But that's impossible, because he's only just turned sixteen, and she died decades ago. Toshinori shakes his head. "This isn't an easy thing to talk about, my boy," he says.

"Important things never are." There's an almost world-weary note to it, and that doesn't belong in a teenager's voice. "Sometimes not being ready for something just isn't a good excuse anymore, and… I think we both forget that a lot. Like—right now, with you, sort of."

Toshinori looks at him, confused.

"You've been avoiding this, because it hurts." Izuku won't look at him. His hands curl into fists in his lap, and his eyes are fixed on the tea in front of him. "Because you're ashamed, and you're afraid of what people will think of you. Maybe you blame yourself and you think everyone else is going to blame you too, so you don't talk about it even when you need to. Even if it might help if they knew." He grits his teeth. "She does that too, all the time, and I told you not to copy her."

Toshinori goes dead still. This doesn't make any sense. His student has always been an odd one, but this is the first time he's ever said something that made no sense at all. "Midoriya—"

"But I can't really hold that against you," Izuku says, and his knuckles are white against his knees. "Because I do it too. I hide things, and I lie, because it's easier that way even if it's not right anymore. Like with you. I've been lying to you, but I have to stop now, because I can't tell you what you need to hear unless you know the truth first."

"The truth about what? Midoriya—"

"What happened to Shimura Tenko wasn't your fault," Izuku says, and Toshinori forgets the word he was about to say next.

"You—you don't know that," he says. He can't possibly know, because Gran Torino never told him that Nana had a child—

"I do," Izuku says. "What were you supposed to do? How were you supposed to find him? She hid him so well even she didn't know where to start looking. She told you not to look, she told you her son would be safer far away from you where villains would never find him. You argued with Gran Torino about it, but in the end you both wanted to honor her wishes."

This is wrong. This is all wrong. Toshinori's hands tremble so badly that he has to put his cup down and fight to keep his voice steady. "Izuku," he says softly, the name slipping from his wavering tongue. "You're scaring me."

"That's okay," his student whispers. "I scare me too, sometimes."

"You shouldn't know this," Toshinori says. "You shouldn't know any of this, because I know for a fact that Gran Torino wouldn't have told you—"

"He didn't tell me," Izuku says. "He didn't tell me about Nana. He didn't tell me that All For One killed her. You did, but you weren't the first, because—because she was."

His mind goes blank. "…What did you say?"

"I know because she told me." The words spill from his student in a rush. "Ms. Nana—she told me. She told me everything."

"You—she—" Toshinori faces him, dumbfounded. He recovers himself, but only barely. "Young Midoriya, she—she died. It would've been years before you were born, when—it happened when I was younger than you."

"I know," Izuku says. "But she—she's still here. She's here, and I can see her, and I can see others like her, because—,"

"Young Midoriya," Toshinori's voice trembles.

"—that's what I was lying to you about, I lied about being quirkless because no one ever believed me about the ghosts before then, but—but she's here, and you deserve to know—"

"Midoriya." He can feel it in every inch of himself, from his mind to his heart to every nerve ending in his body, the overwhelming urge to push back and push away. Because this—this is unheard of, it's absurd, and he can't—it's not true. It can't be. It's impossible.

His student watches him from a few feet away, eyes wide and fists trembling, and Toshinori has to look away.

"I—I owe you an apology," he says, fighting to keep his voice steady. "I've worried you, and it's—you didn't have to go this far, Midoriya."

"N-no, All-Might, wait—" but Toshinori shakes his head and forges on.

"I understand that you're afraid for me, after everything you've been through, but this is cruel," His voice cracks on the last word. "It's a cruel thing to claim. You understand why, don't you?"

"I'm not—it's the truth, All-Might, this is my quirk! I see ghosts, I see her, she's here right now—"

"That's enough, Midoriya." It's the closest he's come to raising his voice since that night—since he faced All For One for the last time. He rises to his feet, wondering how he'll make it back to the safety of his room when his balance feels so utterly shattered. "I'll think about what you've said, but you go too far—"

"You don't get to say that to me!"

Toshinori goes still, words of denial dying in his throat. His student is on his feet, staring up at him with tears overflowing in his bright, desperate eyes. His fists are so tight that Toshinori wonders if his nails have broken skin.

"You don't get to say that to me," Izuku almost seethes through his tears, but he doesn't look angry, just desperate and hurt and halfway to panic. "You came to me when I was nobody, and you told me your secrets. You told me about your scar, and your weakness, and your power and everything it meant to you. You told me all of that and I listened! I've always listened, and I've always kept your secrets, and you don't get to turn around and call me a liar when I try to tell you mine!"

Toshinori grinds his teeth. It's—it's not true, it can't be true. "Midoriya—"

"I know it's hard! I know you're not ready! I'm not either, and we're never going to be ready!" Izuku's eyes well up with fresh tears that he doesn't bother drying. "But I can't keep this in anymore, and she doesn't want me to. She wants you to know, All-Might, she wants you to know she's still here and she's always been here—"

"She's gone, Midoriya!" His shout is every bit as weak and frail as the rest of him, a kitten's mewl to the roar it once was, but it still breaks through his student's words. "I accepted that years ago. She's gone. She's been gone a long time. I lost her, and it's cruel to wield her memory this way when you only know her by what you've been told—"

"You gave me her words on the beach," the boy cuts him off, and yet again the grief and anger and denial on the tip of Toshinori's tongue go no further. "When you gave me One For All. You told me it wasn't a gift or luck, it was something I earned with my effort, but those weren't your words, they were hers. They were the only thing she had time to give you, and you passed them to me because you remembered how much they meant to you." Izuku meets his gaze squarely, for all that his eyes still leak. "Did you know she did the same for you?"

"Midoriya—" Denial makes a strong shield, a rigid barrier between his heart and whatever pain lies beyond it. Already he feels a spiderweb of cracks.

"She says she's sorry for always teasing you about your hair," his student continues, ruthless even in his tears. "She says she did it once when you were having a bad day, because she was trying to make you smile. But you cried instead, and you were worried she'd think you wouldn't deserve her power if you cried, and she never got around to apologizing for it. She's sorry she left you and she's sorry she couldn't teach you more. She's sorry for so many things, but she's not sorry she picked you. She's never been sorry for that."

The spreading cracks turn to crumbling. He tries to fight it, he really does, but—he knows his student. He knows Midoriya Izuku, and Midoriya Izuku would not lie like this. Never like this.

"And she—" His student's voice breaks. "She says—you visit her, whenever things get bad, whenever it's so lonely that you don't know what else to do. You go to the place where they buried her, whenever you feel lost, and you ask her a question. Do you want to know what the answer is?"

Toshinori stares at him, fighting a losing battle against the burn behind his eyes.

"She says it's 'every day,'" Izuku tells him. "'Every day, Toshi, every damn day of your life.'"

It's Izuku's voice, but he can hear the words in hers, as clear as if she were standing in the room next to him. Toshinori can't see his student anymore. Everything is a watery haze. One hand pressed against his mouth isn't nearly enough to keep back the flood.

"She won't tell me what your question is," Izuku tells him. "You don't have to, if you don't want to."

"It was—" Toshinori chokes on the words, on the memory, on the blood in his throat. "I-I asked if—"

He moves his hand from his mouth, but he can barely speak even then. Izuku watches him, now calm and patient through the tears.

"Do—" Toshinori can only look helplessly at his student. "Do I make her proud?"

Izuku purses his lips as if holding back a sob, but it does nothing for the flood of fresh tears. "That's why she stayed, you know," he says, once he can pull his crumbling voice back together. "Sh-she thinks you were the one thing she did right, a-and she can't stand the thought of leaving without you, and—and sometimes you're so bright she can't look away."

His student is in his arms before Toshinori even realizes he's moved. Izuku gasps in shock as Toshinori pulls him into a tight hug, but it's only a moment before the boy's arms are around him.

"I'm sorry," Toshinori says hoarsely. "I'm sorry, my boy, I'm so sorry." If he could take back his harsh words, pluck them out of the air and swallow them back down, he would.

"She—we don't want you blaming yourself for everything," Izuku says, his voice muffled against Toshinori's bony shoulder. "We don't want you thinking everything you did was worthless, because it wasn't, it'll never be worthless. It meant everything, and you've done so much, and if I end up half the hero you are then it'll be worth it."

Toshinori manages a watery chuckle. He can barely speak, barely think—it's as if the world has opened into something so much bigger and stranger than he ever realized. But there's still one constant. One thing he's sure of.

"My boy," he whispers through tears. "You're going to be ten times the hero I ever was."