Hello everyone, I didn't think I'd be posting on this story again but I got a bunch of requests for an additional epilogue that addressed Inko. So here you go, I hope you all enjoy it.
Inko had grown content with her life. It had taken many years and lots of therapy, but she was starting to feel ok again. Her son had died nearly ten years ago, and it had taken a lot to work through that pain. At this point she knew the stages of grief like the back of her hand.
She had held out hope that he would come home for nearly a year after they found a pile of dust with his arm next to it. After all, that wasn't his body. That dust could have been something else, and the arm might have been a fake no matter what the DNA test said. There was nothing anyone could say that would convince her that her little boy wasn't out there. She'd thought he was dead before only for him to show up ten months later with four quirks and memory loss. So it took her over four years to move into a smaller apartment since she barely used half the space she was paying for. After all, they had chosen the house with three people in mind, not one.
Then came the anger and the need to know who was at fault. Who could she blame for her child's death? She blamed the League of Villains and had always felt rage for what they had done. But it was hard to stay mad at corpses. She hated the heroes for turning on her son and forcing him to flee. She hated all of his (now dead) friends that enabled his vigilantism. But she hated herself the most.
She had helped him with his escape from the hospital by giving him that earpiece. If she hadn't done that maybe she would be seeing her son on the weekends visiting him at prison. That was the reason she had called the police when Izuku reached out to her with the walkie-talkie. She was scared that he would die out there and would rather he be in prison than dead. But in the end it didn't matter, when she helped him run from the law he became a murderous vigilante and when she tried to turn him in for his crimes he got killed anyways. No matter what she did he only got hurt, and she absolutely hated that she never seemed to do right by her son.
But if she couldn't do right by her child in life, maybe she could make up for it after his death. She needed a way to make it right. So whenever a reporter asked for an interview she always said yes and did everything she could to shift how people saw her little boy. She needed them to understand that he was a good son and was never a monster, he was just hurt and scared. She needed everyone to know that she loved Izuku even though he made mistakes.
Who was she though without her child? She had defined herself as a mother before everything else for fifteen years, and before that it was all she wanted to be. She felt like she didn't have a purpose without a child to raise. She couldn't do anything without thinking of her failures and the little boy who wasn't around anymore. All she could see were the things she could have done better. She had gotten a job as a nurse not long after Hisashi had died because she needed to provide for her son. So why go to work if she had no bright eyed boy to support? Why get out of bed if there was no one to make breakfast for? Why do anything?
But over time things got better. There were still days where it was difficult, but she had made progress. She accepted that she did the best that she could with the information she had. Maybe things would have been different if she didn't call the police, but that didn't mean it was the wrong choice. Her son was killing people, calling the police was the morally right choice even if it was hard to admit. She loved her son and always would, and she knew he would want her to be happy, so that's what she tried to do.
She spent her days helping people and got the needed qualifications to transfer to the psychiatric ward of the hospital working with teenagers and doing everything she could to save them when she couldn't save her son. She had lost her Izuku, but she could learn from that pain and help make sure no one else felt that way. She focused on the kids who everyone said were going to be villains. Most of the time they just needed someone to believe in them, one voice to tell them that they aren't evil or wrong and that they can do amazing things.
One day in particular she was working through paperwork for one of the patients that she had worked with for about a month now. A boy who had thought he was quirkless, but apparently he just had a quirk with very specific activation requirements. The boy already had a lot going on in his life and he really didn't need the extra stress of suddenly discovering a quirk.
Not only that, but it was a dangerous quirk, which added another layer of problems for the boy. He had gone his entire life without breaking a single bone, but yesterday he dropped something on his foot and they found out what his quirk was. Apparently, he had sentient bone marrow that destroys everything around him when it is able to escape through a crack in his bones.
It made her think of that hero with the living shadow, Tsukuyomi, except living bone marrow is admittedly grosser than a living shadow.
They technically have a quirk counsellor on staff, but he is certainly not qualified for something like this. So they set up a meeting with a specialist to see if he would be a good alternative. She cared about her patients and could easily admit that she gets attached to everyone she works with, so she volunteered to meet with this Dr. Endo herself. So far she'd only heard great things about the man, but she wanted to make sure before trusting his ability.
As she made her way to the quaint looking office, she realized that he probably didn't know who he was going to be talking to, just that they worked with the hospital. Well, she's here now and hopefully he's as skilled and kind as she's heard, she doesn't plan on entrusting her patients to just anyone.
The moment she steps into the office and hears the little bell on the door chime, everything seems to freeze.
Sitting at the desk behind the nameplate reading Endo Kenji: Quirk Counselor is her son.
Izuku really hadn't done much to change his appearance. There were very few people who would possibly recognize him as his green haired and human shaped self. Everyone was looking for him as a nomu, so it really wasn't important.
But then he looked up from his desk and saw the person he thought he'd never talk to again.
For a moment he holds out hope that she won't recognize him, it's been a decade and she has no reason to think he's no longer a nomu. Maybe the missing arm will help throw her off from thinking he's her (supposably) dead son.
That possibility is thrown out the window the moment he sees how she looks at him.
With tears in her eyes and every emotion you can imagine in her voice she speaks at just above a whisper, "Izuku. You're alive. How… No, that doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're here and you're alive."
He starts to cry too as she hugs him tight. "How… How did you find me?"
She shakes her head and laughs through the tears, "I didn't. I was just here to talk about a patient. We can talk about that some other time. Please, tell me everything. What happened?"
He paused for a moment and looked at her hesitantly "You're not going to turn us in?"
He can tell that the question hurts her, but he needs to know.
"No, I wouldn't dare do that to you. I… I know I broke your trust when I called that detective, but I didn't know what the right thing to do was. There's not exactly a guidebook on what to do if your son starts killing criminals." She held his face gently in her hands "I need you to know that I never stopped loving you for even a second."
He started to cry even more. "Thank you… I was so scared you hated me."
"Of course not" Then she paused, as if realizing something. "Wait, when I asked about you I heard that you worked with your wife."
He gave her a massive smile and nodded before pressing the button on his desk for the intercom to the workshop. "Fumi, come out front, there's someone you need to talk to."
The heavy door to the workshop opens up and in walks a girl in her mid twenties with short black hair, grease covered overalls, and a welder's mask.
"What's so important, you know I'm working on that exoskeleton for the sea-slug kid… Ohhh, I can see how this is very important."
His mother spoke tentatively, "Mei? Is that you? It's hard to tell under the mask and everything."
The mask came off and she was greeted with a bright smile. "What? You thought I'd let anyone else marry your son, I staked my claim a long time ago."
Inko laughed a little "I suppose you did." She hesitated and her expression grew darker, "did… did the others make it?"
"Yeah, we all made it out. The other two work together at a construction company and are doing well. The only real casualty was my left arm, which is definitely problematic at times, but it all worked out I guess."
She nodded slowly, "Right, speaking of your limbs. I could help but notice you're walking on two legs again?"
Mei brought some much needed tissues over, "Remember how the last big thing we did was rescue a little girl from some villains? Well, turns out that the little cutie had a time reversing quirk. She still lives with Hayato, oh, I mean Iida, we only really use our new names."
Inko started to look sad and the tears flowed again, "How come you never gave me a sign you were still alive. I lost you once, and you let me think you were dead a second time. Do you even want me here?"
"Mom, of course I wanted to reach out. But we couldn't risk it. We were finally safe and there's no one chasing us anymore. But if anyone outside of our very small group knew we were all alive it would all be over. I was so tempted to after I saw those interviews you did, but it wasn't just my own safety on the line."
"I'm sorry, I get it. It's just hard to know you were actually out there all this time. But enough of that, I want to hear everything that I missed."
The night was filled with many more tears as they shared stories and Biruda made sure she got plenty of hugs.
"Hey mom, there's something kind of difficult I think I need to bring up."
She looked at him with a bit of worry in her eye, "Oh?"
"Well… I'm not sure we can really see each other in person much… We can still talk to each other on the phone and stuff, but if anyone saw us together it wouldn't really take a genius to figure out."
She sighed and hugged him, "I sort of figured it would be like that. But you better not disappear on me again, because I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."