After the 'incident' with Hitoshi's control the teen was more like his old self than Shouta and Hizashi would like. Scared of his quirk leaking once again Hitoshi was only signing when he spoke to them and point blank refusing to ask questions. It was a couple of steps back for him but the two pros hoped that once he was back on his feet and recovered that his voice would naturally come back to him as his gained some confidence once again.

It would only be two more days before Hitoshi was discharged from hospital and the three of them couldn't be happier to be heading home. Masaru and Mitsuki had been round to the Nighteye Agency to collect everything Hitoshi and Zuku had left in the lockers prior to the raid meaning that once they were back at the house Hitoshi would finally be reunited with his signature Hawks hoodie that he'd missed so much during his time in hospital.

They'd arrived back to the house to find Zuku and Kacchan sat on the wall at the end of the driveway with duffel bags beside their feet, the two teens waved as they pulled up.

"They're going to be staying with us for a while."

Hitoshi smiled at the news.

"Toshi!" Zuku rushed over and gave Hitoshi a hug the second he climbed out from the car.

Kacchan walked up behind and offered a smile.

"I'm glad you're okay."

Hitoshi nodded.

"Oy, make yourselves useful and get the door open." Shouta took the house keys from his pocket and threw them to his brothers. "The cats will need fed too."

"Okay."

Hitoshi followed after them, not being able to help the soft exhale as he walked through the front door into the house.

It was good to finally be home.

The house had become somewhere he truly felt safe and being away for even a week was way too long.

"Get off me furballs!" Kacchan exclaimed as he was swarmed by Jelly and Cream, the two cats nearly tripping him over as they vied for his attention. "Deku has your food you morons."

'NOT BE MEAN TO MY CATS' Hitoshi signed as he leant down and scooped up Cream into his arms.

Jelly, clearly feeling left out, began to rub against his leg.

Hitoshi giggled as he collected the other cat into his arms as they both came to rest their heads against his chest.

Kacchan snapped a photo on his phone.

Hizashi's laughter could be heard as he walked inside.

"Look at those two."

The embrace was short-lived however as the second Shouta walked through the door the two cats kicked and squirmed to be down from his hold. Letting them go Hitoshi walked as Jelly and Cream sprinted across the room to Dad.

'FAVOURITISM'

"It's definitely favouritism." Hizashi translated.

Shouta smirked, crouching down to stroke them.

He turned to Zuku.

'YOU OKAY?'

His cousin nodded.

"I'm probably about as okay as you are."

Hitoshi knew exactly what he meant; knowing that Sir was gone…

He didn't want to think about it.

Shouta had mentioned that the funeral was coming up soon but not much more had been said about it, he'd overheard Hizashi reminding someone in the corridor that they were just kids and after that no one had brought it up again. He hadn't seen Eiichi since that day either. Hitoshi wasn't even sure he could look him in the eye after everything that he'd done and the idea of having to talk to him was enough to bring him to the brink of a panic attack.

Despite Dad and Papa, and even Sir. Nighteye himself telling him that it wasn't his fault he still failed to understand their logic. The bullet was heading for him, granted the intended target was Eri, the shot still wouldn't have struck her due to the poor aim of the gunman therefore meaning it was almost assured that he would be the recipient of the bullet, all he needed to have done was turn his back to the bullet and Eri would never have been in danger. However, his indecision and lack of clear vision of the bullet meant that he was too late to react and Mirio-senpai jumped in to save both him and Eri by taking the bullet himself. Mirio-senpai losing him quirk meant that he wasn't able to escape the subsequent attacks launched by Overhaul which led to Sir. jumping into the firing line to protect Mirio-senpai when he was down.

If he had simply just turned quicker than the chain reaction of events that followed would never have come to pass. Mirio-senpai would still have his quirk; he wouldn't have been down on the ground and a perfect target for Overhaul, and Sir. would never have had to snap to action without any prior plan. In short, Sir. would never have needed to take the blow he did and therefore would never have ended up with a hole in his stomach which ultimately left him with less than an hour to live.

And he still smiled.

He still held on long enough to get the chance to speak to them before he passed.

Sir. was truly an incredible hero and mentor and now he was…

He was…

"Toshi?"

The soft voice of Dad pulled him from his thoughts, the erasure hero crouching down in front of him and placing a hand on his shoulder.

He nodded.

'OKAY ME'

"It's okay to not be okay, Tosh, especially after everything that's happened." Hizashi replied softly.

Hitoshi took a deep breath.

"Did you bring your sleeping bag, Zuku?" Shouta asked.

"Yep."

"Is it the All Might one?" He teased.

"Hey, Uncle Zashi bought us those for Christmas one year and they're amazing!"

Hizashi smiled.

"Do you still have yours?"

"Probably, it'll be somewhere at home." Kacchan replied.

"Hitoshi's room is pretty big so you shouldn't struggle for space."

"This is hardly our first time sharing, and we've slept on the couches in the common room before, I think we could probably sleep anywhere after that."

"Yeah they're not the comfiest." Zuku added.

"Well I should probably start on dinner, what do you kids want?"

"I'm not fussy."

"Anything's fine for me."

'CARE NOT' Before motioning to himself. 'CARE NOT ME'

"Don't hang around down here on our account, go and have fun." Shouta smiled. "We'll shout up when it's ready."

"Thank you!"

"Oh, we could watch some more All Might Adventures!" Zuku grinned.

"Eijirou's been wanting to watch these as well, is it okay if I invited him over too?"

Hitoshi looked to Dad and Papa.

"'Course."

"The more the merrier."


After they'd ate Kacchan sent Kirishima a text inviting him over. The three of them were camped out on the bed as they spotted their friend heading down the driveway.

"He's here."

They walked out onto the balcony and waved.

"Hey!"

With his arm that wasn't in the sling Kirishima waved back with a smile.

"Hey guys."


Considering Kirishima was still the most injured out of the three of them who took part in the raid, he'd been given a spot upright against the headboard with Hitoshi giving up his spot to Kacchan so the two lovebirds could be next to each other; he was instead sat at the bottom of the bed with Zuku as they worked their way through the boxes of Pocky Inko had sent him along with.

Each of the selection were branded with a different hero with some pretty cool box art, the flavours though seemed to have very little correlation to the pro featured. There were; Wash Sea Salt, Hawks Strawberry Cheesecake, All Might Red Bean, Mount Lady Sakura Mochi, Fat Gum Raspberry Ripple, Endeavour Cinnamon, Edgeshot Mint, and of course, because Hitoshi couldn't seem to ever escape them, a surprise flavour game pack featuring The Wild Wild Pussycats.

Hitoshi picked up the Endeavour box.

"Throw it out the window." Kacchan spoke up.

He laughed.

Zuku offered him one from the All Might box.

'THANK YOU'

He then passed them back to Kacchan and Kirishima.

Kirishima began to cough.

"Ugh."

He reached for his drink and took a long gulp.

Kacchan smirked.

"Which one did you try?"

"The sea salt one; oh my god." He coughed once again.

"Is it just salt?"

"Pretty much."

"Did you find the damn episode yet, fanboy?!" Kacchan taunted, throwing a snapped end of a Pocky stick at his cousin's head.

Zuku threw it straight back.

"It's loading!"

A few seconds later the episode appeared on the wall projected from his phone.

"YOU TOO CAN BECOME A HERO!" All Might's voice thundered.

"All Might Adventures!" Zuku, Kacchan, and Kirishima sang in tandem before they began to hum along to the guitar riff as the theme song began.

"Who's the Symbol of Peace? ALL MIGHT. Who's the Number One Hero? ALL MIGHT."

"Enemies and foes stay clear, because they know... I AM HERE!"

"Teaming up and fighting crime, All Might's always got the time."

"With a… DETROIT SMASH! He'll save the day, rounding up criminals who need to pay."

"So come along and enjoy the show, and remember… YOU TOO CAN BECOME A HERO!"

"All Might Adventures!"

The guitar riff ended before the title card appeared.

'EPISODE 23'

"Terror in Tatooin – A Mysterious Hero Joins the Fight!"

"We need to ask All Might about this show at some point, I wonder if he remembers anything about making it?"

"Well he voiced himself in like what, three hundred episodes, he must remember something."

"The animation style is so cool; I wish they still drew cartoons like that."

"Have you seen all of these?" Kirishima asked.

"Me and Deku watched these all the time when we were younger but I'm not sure that we watched every single one."

"Did you decide to watch from the start?"

"Yeah, we were just picking episodes before that but with Toshi not having seen any we thought it would be cool to work our way through them." Zuku replied before popping another Pocky into his mouth.

"It's cool seeing a really early one; the ones you put on in the common room look way different."

Zuku smiled.

"I think you're gonna' like this episode."

A few minutes later and Kirishima found out why.

"Hey All Might!"

The hardening hero's eyes widened.

Crimson Riot jumped down from the top level of the station and walked over to the Number One hero.

"You look like you could use some help my friend."

"Crimson Riot, it's been a while."

"He's so cool!" Kirishima exclaimed.


Later that night after Kirishima had returned to the dorms and Zuku had conked out in his All Might sleeping bag, Kacchan climbed into bed next to his cousin, the whole thing seeming very familiar even after the short hiatus. He pulled the covers over himself with a deep exhaled before turning to Hitoshi.

"Are you really doing okay Tosh?"

His cousin nodded.

"Because you're not even talking anymore, which is fine, you don't have to if you don't want to, no one is gonna' make you, but… I don't know, I just don't like seeing you like this."

Hitoshi smiled softly.

'OKAY ME'

"I know I shouldn't have been eavesdropping but I needed to know; I heard Shouza mention that you had a pretty bad nightmare at the hospital, are they back?"

His cousin's gaze lowered as he began to fiddle with the material of the sheets.

"Was it Shigaraki?"

Hitoshi shook his head.

"Takahashi?"

He stilled, body freezing as his eyes were wild.

'HOW?'

"I spent too long in that facility with you to not see something was wrong, you weren't the same person after you had his treatments."

Hitoshi screwed his eyes closed.

"That time on the balcony, you coped with seeing Shigaraki but the second you thought you saw Takahashi you were prepared to fall from a height like that rather than be taken by him. Shouza tried to hold you down and you were barely breathing you were that scared. I even asked you about the medical lab once in the cell and you disassociated; I think there's something that you're not telling us about that you've been hiding for a while."

His cousin buried himself against his pillow.

'NOT MATTER'

Kacchan had to hold back a growl.

"Of course it matters, you matter!"

'NOT MAKE DIFFERENCE. WHATEVER HE DID HAS NO CONSEQUENCE'

"Everything has a consequence."

'HE HARDLY GET TRIAL HE ALREADY VILLAIN'

"I don't care about him, Toshi, I care about the way it affected you."

Hitoshi's eyes widened.

"If he hurt you then you shouldn't have to deal with all that crap alone." Kacchan explained. "Does Touya know?"

His cousin shook his head furiously, his signing erratic.

'NO NOT GOING TO KNOW'

"Toshi…"

'FAULT NOT TOUYA. TOUYA LOVE ME. TOUYA DID BEST HE COULD. WOULD BREAK HIM. HE BLAME SELF'

"And what about you?"

Hitoshi furrowed an eyebrow.

'MEAN WHAT?'

"Where do your feelings fit into all this?"

He received a shrug in reply.

"You need to tell your therapist about this."

Hitoshi's lip quivered as his hands shook.

"Hey…" Kacchan began softly as he opened his arms slightly as an invitation which his cousin quickly accepted. He pulled Toshi close against him in comfort.

"We can keep this between us for now if you want, and I won't even ask you any more details about it, but once you're feeling better and you've got your voice back, you need to either talk to your therapist or tell Shouza and Zashi, preferably both. Deal?"

He nodded.

'DEAL'

Kacchan sighed.

"He's never going to touch you again though, Toshi, I can promise you that."