Physical therapy was draining.
Everything was draining, really, including breathing and walking and crying into a hug from his mother for the first time in so long, but Izuku held a special hatred for physical therapy, for the way it highlighted how weak he'd gotten. It was a stark contrast to the strength he'd had in-game, far more than he'd ever have in the real world, and he wasn't sure yet if he missed it.
(There were some things he was never going to miss about SAO.)
His inability to do something left him adrift in a way he hadn't often experienced in the last two years, though, because he'd always been able to just move – move on to the next town, the next job, the next fight, clawing his way forward with single-minded determination and laser focus.
Here he was limited by the shaking of his legs when he tried to stand. The way he couldn't eat anything solid after two years of his body living on an IV. The way he didn't know how to talk to his mother, how to fill in the gaps for the years she'd missed. The way the hospital staff treated them all with something between pity and disgust, spoke to them like the slightest thing would make them crack.
It doesn't take long for the survivors to learn why; of the fifty thousand people who had been trapped, only thirty thousand survived. Twenty thousand people had died over the course of the … game. Izuku hesitated to call it that, even in his head. It hadn't felt like a game.
The news had nearly caused a riot in the hospital, would have if they hadn't all been in such poor health. Far too many had clung to the hope that people weren't dying IRL when they died in SAO. Some of those people had killed believing that.
It made the disgust some of the staff felt a little more understandable, though no easier to bear.
A day after waking up Izuku was told about the schools that had been set up for the children who had been trapped, about how it would help to catch him up to where he needed to be. He smiled awkwardly and did his best to look agreeable. As soon as he was alone again he started to plan ways to avoid it; perhaps homeschooling would be an acceptable alternative.
He'd seen how other kids reacted to his quirklessness. He'd seen how other SAO players had reacted to reacted to beta testers, and how they'd reacted to him, the solo beater of the front lines. He'd seen how medical professionals were treating them, people who were supposed to be impartial in their care, and he could guess how being in a school like that would go.
His mother had been surprised, but more than willing to give him the schoolbooks he asked for. If anything, she seemed relieved that she could do something he asked of her, eager to help. The next week in the hospital passed with Izuku dividing his time between studying, eating, physical exercises he'd been given to help him regain the muscle mass he'd lost and answering the questions of the government people.
They seemed most interested in what he'd learned about Kayaba when he'd exposed the man, and in how people within the game had reacted to being trapped, but they'd also taken a description of what he'd done over the last two years. It had been a long conversation.
At least he'd been kept busy. They were allowed out of bed – it was encouraged for them to walk around, even, to help them recover – and of course the first thing everyone did was start to gossip. It was hard to ignore the subdued whispers from people who didn't know what they were going to do now, what had happened to their families or their homes while they were away? The uncertainty was swamping the residents of the hospital and it was all Izuku could do to not let himself be affected by it.
It came as a relief when he was discharged at the end of the week. Inko had been uncertain that leaving hospital was the best thing for him when he was still thin enough for his ribs to be plainly visible and he wasn't yet capable of keeping down solid foods, he was as healthy as could be expected and if anything went wrong the medical bracelet attached to his wrist would call an ambulance for him. There was nothing more the hospital could do for him since the only thing that would help him recover was time and the strict eating and exercising schedule he'd been given by a stern-faced doctor.
The first step outside, into the fresh air and past crowds of people who were free of the tension and fear he'd grown used to seeing everywhere he went was surreal.
They got the bus back home, which something of a novelty given that the closest thing in SAO was a cart and horse, and Izuku just kept being surprised by the sheer variety of people. There hadn't been any children younger than seven in SAO, and middle-aged and old people combined had been vastly outnumbered by the teenagers and young adults simply because that was the demographic SAO had been designed for.
Izuku had already counted six pensioners getting on and off the bus and there were currently two children seated at the front – one baby asleep in a puchchair and a young girl with blonde hair and a small balloon bobbing over her head from where it was tied around her wrist.
He made an effort not to stare, but it was probably a losing battle. Getting used to SAO had been an adjustment, had been learning how to work around the rules of the system they were in to get the most back.
It was harder to unlearn those instincts than he remembered it being to learn them.
He was tense by the time they finally stepped off the bus, the light breeze a relief against his face after the stuffy heat caused by too many people packed too close together, and he followed his mother without complaint as she led the way home.
If the first step out of the hospital had felt surreal, then being back in his old apartment felt like stepping back in time.
"Welcome home, Izuku." Midoriya Inko said tearfully, wringing a tea towel in her hands.
Izuku tries not to show how odd he finds being called that name after so long answering to Kirito, especially in this place from his childhood memories.
"It's good to be back." He tells her, and he's only lying a little bit. She smiles through her tears so despite the minor deception he calls it a win.
He walks to his room quietly while she busied herself in the kitchen, running his fingers over half-remembered mementos as he goes, more details coming to mind as the familiar surroundings jogged his memory.
He remembers how fiercely he'd followed heroes before, how happily he'd collected any form of memorabilia he could get his hands on, so he knows what to expect when he cracks open the door of his room and sidles inside, feeling very much like the intruder here.
Even expecting it, the room is a riot of colour to his eyes, hero posters designed to be bold and bright plastering the walls and shelves full of figurines and packs of trading cards, lovingly arranged by the hero they belong to. Almost three entire shelves and half a wall is devoted to All Might alone. Izuku isn't at all surprised.
Despite how full the room is, every available surface in use, the whole place feels empty. Clean, not covered in inch thick dust, but ... untouched. Unchanged. Like the person who lived here had just popped out, and time in this room had paused until he came back.
It's the room of someone who is dedicated to following heroes, tracking their actions and abilities and quirks. It's the room of someone who wants to be a hero.
Izuku can't remember the last time he dreamed of being a hero, but he's sure it was before he decided that some people were worth killing if it meant more got to live.
He feels nauseous, abruptly, surrounded by his childhood things. Things untouched by the blood and death he'd waded through to get here, things he'd treasured when he'd still thought that he could be good. He felt like he was defiling them somehow, standing here with blood on his hands.
Everyone at the hospital, every doctor and psychologist, had insisted that despite what had happened, despite the horrors forced on them and the independence he'd learned, he was still a child. Well, maybe he was by law, but he'd never felt less like a child than now, with the difference in his past and present self so stark.
Digging out some boxes, Izuku sets about finding out what colour the walls are underneath all the posters.
Izuku touches base with other SAO survivors regularly.
He knows it worries his mother, knows she thinks that he's stuck in the past and honestly, it is nice to talk to people who were there like they were still fighting together, still relying on them to watch out for each other, even if it's not life or death any more. Trading life and death concerns for remembering how to fit in and move on from what they experienced was no easy switch, and they understood how hard it was like no-one else, no matter how hard his mother tried.
But it's also nice just to make sure they're all right, to support one another and offer suggestions to help each other along. These are people he has trusted with his life and they have trusted him with theirs in turn, dancing into battle together with a plan as precise as the tip of a blade. Trusting one another to be there at the right moment, counting on each other not to make a mistake because the price for miscalculation was death.
Perhaps the only bright spot in SAO had been the friends he'd made, and he had no intention of pushing them away now they were in the 'real' world. He'd continue looking out for them here, as they would for him. Maybe that wouldn't meaning grinding to reach the next level or strategizing for boss fights any more, but they could study together and trade workout tricks and tips for physiotherapy.
It gets easier to move around as time goes by. Extended periods of activity still leave him exhausted and shaking, but as he starts to move from protein jelly packets to actual food and his ribs stop being visible through his clothing it feels more like he's making progress.
As he starts to regain his strength, Izuku feels more and more trapped spending most of his time at the apartment. He doubts he'd stayed in one place this long during the entirety of his time in SAO. He'd put up with staying still when he'd been barely strong enough to walk across the room, but now that he's capable of moving choosing not to leaving makes restless energy buzz uncomfortably beneath his skin. On the worst days, Izuku paces restlessly around the empty apartment while his mother is at work, wishing he had the space to just move.
His solution is to take increasingly long walks outside the apartment, enjoying the freedom to wander the streets and enjoying the sight of so many perfectly happy people far more than he'd ever admit.
On one of those walks he rediscovers Dagobah beach, piled high with trash, and it only takes one conversation with his mother before she talks to an environmentalist friend of hers who volunteers to run all the trash Izuku picks up at the beach to the dump. From then on, Izuku relocates his physiotherapy to the beach – if he's going to have to haul around metal to rebuild his muscles, then he might as well be useful doing it. It's easier to motivate himself this way, too – he's not the sort to enjoy exercise for the sake of it, but this way he's actually achieving something.
The beach gets a (very little) bit clearer every day, despite his limitations. He's mostly stuck moving the small things, leaving the abandoned fridges and ovens and sofas where they are, but he's managed to clear a small area where he can actually see the sand and walk over it barefoot without risking tetanus. It's a good place to fall over and stare at the sky when his muscles burn with exertion and he needs to stop to relearn how to breath. The piles of trash around him aren't very pretty to look at, but he figures he'll get around to them eventually. He's got time.
He's got time.
It's a funny thing, what your brain does to you under extreme stress. Your whole focus narrows down to surviving the next challenge, the next fight. There wasn't room for thoughts about your future because you might not have one, and the more you wasted your time thinking about things you didn't have, the less likely you were to survive.
It was a sad way to live, moving only from one fight to the next. Happy moments came few and far between, especially on the front lines. It made the calm moments all the more vivid and when he had the time, he'd often just lie down on a patch of grass somewhere and soak in the summer sunshine.
Much like he was doing now. With his eyes closed and his nose accustomed to the smell of wet, rusting metal, it was almost a nice place to be. The sun was a soothing warmth on his skin, the sound of the sea was peaceful, and he was alone.
… No, he wasn't.
He could hear someone approaching. Jogging, from the sound of the footsteps, which was unusual – joggers tended to avoid Dagobah because it was an eyesore. About the only benefit to the place was how deserted it usually was. Someone who was self-conscious then?
Izuku prayed silently that they wouldn't come his way, but naturally he wasn't so lucky; the footsteps slowed as their owner approached his little cleared out hollow. With any luck they wouldn't notice him, but –
The footsteps rounded the corner, and he heard an alarmed gasp followed by what sounded like a nasty coughing fit.
– If they jogged here regularly, they'd notice that the trash had moved. Dammit.
"Young man, are you all right?" The man splutters out between hacking coughs. Izuku raises a hand to shield his eyes from the sun before he opens them, tilting his head to look at the man watching him worriedly.
Izuku's first impression of him is tall; partly that's because he's practically looming over Izuku on the ground despite still standing a couple of meters away, but partly it's because of how thin he is, skin stretched over bone dwarfed by his clothes and an explosion of blonde hair, wild and untamed, like those things can distract from his obvious poor health. Izuku might have been onto something when he guessed that the jogger was self-conscious.
Izuku raises a dubious eyebrow. "I think I should be asking you that." The man looks worse than he did straight after waking up from SAO.
His expression turns a little sheepish, body relaxing now he knows that Izuku hadn't collapsed or something. "Ah, yes. It's nothing to worry about, I promise." He aims a bright, reassuring smile at Izuku.
Izuku's second impression of this man is that he's either unfailingly kind or really, really stupid, because it's blatantly obvious that he's smiling solely for Izuku's benefit despite the fact that the man doesn't even know his name. Izuku decides to withhold judgment for now.
"Uh huh." Izuku says doubtfully, but he doesn't pry where he isn't wanted. "Anyway, I'm fine. Just resting."
"You've been clearing the beach." He sounded surprised but pleased, keen blue eyes flickering over the clear patch of sand.
Izuku hummed in agreement, hauling himself to his feet and shaking the sand out of his hair. "Yeah. I can't lift too much yet, so I'm mostly stuck shifting the smaller pieces, but it'll get better with time."
"Ah, you're training to get stronger, then?" The man perks up, looking interested. Izuku snorts.
"More like training to get back to where I was." He shrugged carelessly. "I figured, my physiotherapist said I had to haul around metal to build my muscles back up, but there was no reason to pay for a gym membership when there were piles of trash that needed to be hauled to the dump right here."
"Your physiotherapist?" The blonde man asked, eyebrows shooting up. "Were you injured?"
Izuku shoots him a wary look, but he was mostly resigned to this happening as soon as he opened his mouth. At least he could probably take the stick man in a fight if he didn't react well; he looked like a strong breeze would knock him over. "I was in a coma for two years. Muscle atrophy comes with the territory."
"Ah." The man nods in understanding, but there's no flicker of realisation in his gaze. Does this man live under a rock, or does he really not care to the point that he barely even notices what Izuku is telling him?
Izuku looks at him and raises an eyebrow, half expectant and half disbelieving, while the man looks back, face a picture of confusion. "What?"
"Have you been living under a rock for the last couple of years?" Izuku asks, exasperated. "Or perhaps as a hermit?" Without waiting for a reply he extends his left arm, yanking up the sleeve to reveal a slim medical bracelet.
It was a requirement for all the SAO players, given their precarious health. Nobody wanted to report more dead SAO players. Izuku even agreed with their reasoning. What he didn't agree with was giving the SAO survivors a medical bracelet that was visibly different from the norm. It made them too easily identified, and too easily set apart from everyone else. As far as he was concerned it was no better than a brand.
Even this man seemed to know what it meant, his whole body softening and turning sorrowful.
"Not that much of a hermit then." Izuku says, falsely nonchalant.
"No, not really." The man says, and there's so much pity in his eyes that Izuku has to swallow back his anger.
"Don't do that." Izuku says, voice a little too sharp. When the blonde man glances at him, he continues. "Don't pity us. It was our life, for two years. It wasn't always a nice life, but we lived it as well as we could. Don't pity us for surviving it!"
The man blinks at him, surprise clear in his blue eyes before it fractures into warmth. "No." He agrees softly. "You're right. No one should be pitied for living." His hand flutters to his abdomen for a moment before dropping back to his side. "It occurs to me that I haven't yet introduced myself. My name is Yagi Toshinori."
Izuku watches him for a second, but there isn't a hint of ill-will in the man and he's usually pretty good at spotting dangerous people. "Midoriya Izuku." He reluctantly offers back.
Yagi's smile is as bright as the sun. "It's nice to meet you, Midoriya."
Izuku snorts and looks away but doesn't ignore him. "And you, Yagi-san."
Yagi can't be bothered by his reticence because his smile doesn't even dim. "Allow me to offer my assistance. Between the two of us we should be able to move some of the heavier things you've been having trouble with."
There has to be some ulterior motive in the offer – no one offers to haul trash for no reason – but Izuku doubts Yagi wants to hurt him, doubts Yagi could hurt him, and besides, free labour is free labour. It'll make Izuku's life a lot easier, getting some help with the bulkier things.
"Sure." He shrugs. "It's your time."
It doesn't take much for the pair of them to fall into a rhythm, steadily widening the area of clear sand, carrying together what is too heavy or too big for them to manage alone. Izuku has to take more breaks than he really enjoys, but he knows better than to push himself and set his recovery back. It is surprising that Yagi isn't resting as much as he is, given that the older man looks even worse off.
It isn't any of his business, so he doesn't ask.
The truck is filled up after a couple hours of work, and Izuku is honestly surprised at how much they managed to do. It's the first time he's managed to fill it in one go since he started. Slumping against the vehicle, he pulls out a couple of protein bars and tosses one to Yagi, who fumbles as he catches it.
"You need to eat." Izuku says around a mouthful of his own bar when Yagi shoots him a startled expression.
"I couldn't possibly –" Yagi begins protesting, but Izuku cuts him off with a deadpan stare.
"You absolutely can, you just spent a couple of hours helping me haul trash and you looked like you were about to keel over before we started." Izuku rolled his eyes. Stupid, the man was definitely stupid. "It's just a protein bar, so eat already."
Yagi chuckled ruefully and conceded, the two of them sharing food in comfortable silence.
There were worse ways to spend an afternoon.
Toshinori's first impression of the boy – once he realises that the boy is resting, not injured, and his heart stops trying to tear itself from his chest – is that he's withdrawn. Not necessarily in his manner, but with his thoughts and emotions, yes. It showed in the way he had been drawn tense and ready when he'd shown Toshinori his medical bracelet, prepared to fight or flee from rejection, the way his bright green eyes had gone cold and calculating when Yagi had offered help.
It was the look of someone who didn't trust kindness when it was offered to them. Toshinori had seen it often, as a hero who was called to the worst crime scenes to capture the most dangerous villains. He hadn't expected to see that look on a boy barely halfway through his teens.
How old had Midoriya been when Kayaba trapped them in that horrible game? Judging by how young he still was now, he couldn't have been older than thirteen.
When Toshinori had been thirteen he'd still been striving hopelessly towards being a hero. He'd not long met Nana Shimura, but she hadn't yet told him of her quirk or offered to pass it on to him, so he was left to suffer the scorn of his peers with only his own determination to buoy him.
He hadn't yet thrown his first punch, let alone faced his first villain. Yet this boy had done so, had faced evil and if not fought, then survived. That was a victory in its' own way, if one that always left a mark. It had certainly changed this boy, who Yagi would believe to be a cold and suspicious person if not for his self-imposed community service in clearing the beach, the way he offered Yagi food – if offered was the right word, considering that he'd given Yagi no chance to decline.
It didn't change his stilted behaviour, uncaring but watchful. It did change his reasons, and that gave Toshinori hope. With all that young Midoriya must have seen, and lived through, despite surviving whatever happened to him in SAO that taught him other people would always believe the worst, he was still capable of being kind. To someone that he'd exchanged barely a few sentences with no less, a husk of a man that most people would cross the street to avoid.
Midoriya hadn't been afraid of him. Midoriya hadn't been afraid at all. His words still rang in Toshinori's ear, sharp enough to cut.
It wasn't always a nice life, but we lived it as well as we could. Don't pity us for surviving it!
Perhaps he should jog near Dagobah more often. His time as All Might was limited, so he couldn't be a hero all the time; but he could still help, even in small ways.
If that meant he could keep an eye on the boy, well. Young Midoriya could hurt himself if he wasn't careful, so someone should watch out for him.