"This really is quite the school..." Tsukauchi looked out the wide expanse of glass onto the grounds below. The detective was all conservative attire and polite attitude, a stark contrast to the extravagance of the U.A. campus, where everything was showy and larger-than life. "I can see how this place helped create someone like you."

Toshinori laughed. It was definitely true, whether or not it was supposed to be a compliment. "It's exactly the same as it was. Some things look different, but nothing's changed at all."

There were only a handful of people who knew about his unique circumstances, and only one of those people was on the force. So when anything even vaguely police-related came up that involved his odd secret, Tsukauchi was always the poor soul who wound up on speed dial. Luckily, the man had the patience of a saint and the willingness to do all sorts of tasks that technically didn't fall under his job description. (Plus, Toshinori suspected he got a kick out of hearing the Symbol of Peace grovel for help in his voicemail inbox.)

Today, Tsukauchi's unconventional duties had involved accompanying Toshinori to U.A. to discuss security concerns with the principal. Having All Might on staff next year could cause any number of issues for the school, and they still had to decide which faculty members were going to be part of the skeleton's-real-identity club.

(So far, it looked like they would need to include the entire Hero Studies department, which made Toshinori want to drink himself straight into the emergency room. Still, it couldn't be helped. He'd survive that staff meeting when he got to it.)

Both of them jumped as a loud thump sounded from outside, down near the entry walkway, and a colorful spinning explosion sent a student with knee-length blue hair cartwheeling several meters above the treeline. She shrieked in delight and shot more spiraling fireworks of energy from her hands and feet, which were probably supposed to stabilize her flight but only sent her even further off-kilter. Below, her friends raced along in a gray-clad pack, apparently competing to see who could catch her when she fell, and even further behind ran a lone adult, halfheartedly shouting something at them with the listless resignation of someone who had mentally checked out hours, possibly days ago.

His smile slipped a bit. Yes, this hadn't changed either. He remembered exactly what it was like to be a student here, gleefully working alongside his classmates to push his poor, overworked teachers right to the brink of their sanity. Now, decades later, the tables would finally be turned back on him. He'd never felt such a strong sense of impending doom.

"It really is quite the school..." he said. "I still don't know what Nezu is thinking, asking me to teach here. I can barely handle a single Quirkless kid."

That caught Tsukauchi's attention. "That one boy? You're still meeting with him?"

"Ah, occasionally..." He turned down a stairwell, and Tsukauchi followed. The school layout was also the same as it had been, though there were now a few more accommodations for differently-bodied students. "He picks things up so fast, he doesn't need me hovering anymore. But his mother seems to like when I supervise. The only thing I have left to teach him is that going out to ramen as soon as we leave the gym completely undoes all the hard work he just put in, but I don't think that's a lesson he wants to learn."

Tsukauchi gave a contemplative smile. "And to think, you said this was only going to be a couple of emails. Just answering some questions, you said. Nothing more, you said... and now you're going out to dinner like an actual human being."

"I, I mean," he coughed. "It's not like that. They asked if I was busy afterwards, and I wasn't. I can't just lie."

Tsukauchi's smile got bigger. "Ah, of course not. You wouldn't want to mislead them in any way."

Toshinori let out a breath through his nose. That wasn't fair. Well, perhaps it was. But he was a grown adult, and he could go get ramen with whoever he felt like, whenever he felt like, without having to reveal national secrets in the process.

"I'm just surprised, that's all," Tsukauchi relented, as they made their way towards the wide arches of the building entrance. "You've always been so private. I've never seen you take to someone like this before. But then again, he doesn't seem like an ordinary kid."

"He's... no, he certainly isn't." He laughed. "He said he's trying to teach himself combat moves now. Apparently he's practicing at the beach when his mother doesn't have time to take him to the sports center. He's insatiable!"

God, he was an astounding child. A little terrifying with his encyclopedic All Might knowledge, but still astounding. Would all the kids at U.A. be like him? Somehow Toshinori doubted it.

They stepped out of the building and out onto the wide brick path that led off the grounds. Tsukauchi fell silent, and it was clear there was something he wanted to say.

"If it's not too forward to ask..." Tsukauchi paused, and glanced around for possible young prying ears. "...Are you considering him? For... well. The thing I thought you were coming here to find."

A rock settled into the place where Toshinori's stomach used to be. It would be easy to answer that question. Just one word. One syllable.

But somehow, he couldn't say that syllable. "...His body isn't conditioned enough," he said instead. "It would instantly kill him if he tried to use it right now. He wouldn't even be able to take it for months, maybe a year."

He looked away from the detective as they walked, gazed out at the students who had stopped pinwheeling themselves into the air and were quietly grinning through a lecture from their harangued teacher. "And even if he could take it... he would still need years of hero training on top of that, before he could do what he needs to. Given... how long I have left, now... he just wouldn't be ready in time to take my place."

He hadn't told Tsukauchi about the Foresight. He didn't plan to. Just his steadily-eroding time limit was enough of a concern. That was part of the reason he was teaching, after all: to distract people from his declining work hours. Even if he did end up picking a youngster instead of an adult to take his Quirk, there was no way that anyone with less experience than a third-year would be able to fill his shoes in time to shoulder the pillar he held up, not before he lost his grip on it completely.

Ahead of them, the looming wall of the U.A. barrier rose up in an imposing arc. He turned back to Tsukauchi. "You know how fragile society is. They need a smooth succession." He had spent years building up that pillar of security. He couldn't let it go crashing to the ground. Please agree that it would be a bad idea.

His friend had a knowing, slightly sad expression. "It does seem like it would be risky," he said. Carefully chosen words, delivered to someone who laughed at risk. Toshinori sighed. The detective had learned a long time ago that trying to talk sense into him when he had his mind wrapped around a bad idea was, by and large, pointless. So nowadays, he didn't try, even when Toshinori quietly wished he would.

"Yes, it would be..." he said. "Thank you again for taking the time to come out here. I don't know what I would do without your help."

Tsukauchi suddenly raised a finger. "Wait, before I go," he said. "This reminds me. I wanted to ask." He looked out past the U.A. barrier, where cars and people were bustling back and forth, then retreated a few steps back the way they came, to the edge of the quieter, more private walkway. Toshinori followed.

Once they had a little more distance between themselves and the outside world, Tsukauchi spoke up. "Do you remember the suspect you were chasing the first day you got here? The person with the slime Quirk?"

How could he forget? "I'd say he's a little more than a suspect, but yes... what about him? Has he reappeared?"

"That's what I wanted to ask you. Have you seen any signs of him since then? Even small ones, ones you wouldn't report."

"...No. Not a glimpse. I haven't heard anything from the locals, either." Not that he talked with them very often, but still.

Tsukauchi let out a sigh. "That figures."

Toshinori paused for a moment. "...If I'm correct," he ventured, "this is the part of the conversation where you say you're technically not supposed to share what you're about to tell me."

That got a chuckle out of the detective. "All right," he said. "I'd feel better if you knew, anyway. I didn't bring this up earlier with Nezu, because it's all still conjecture right now."

They paused for a moment as the pack of students from before made their way past, laughing and chatting amongst themselves. A few of them glanced over at the two adults on the edge of the walkway, then they turned back to their much more interesting teenage gossip.

Tsukauchi watched them make their way off the grounds, then continued. His expression had gone serious, all business. "As you probably know, the fight with that suspect was televised."

"Yes," Toshinori said. "It made me worried he wouldn't resurface at all... which seems to be exactly what happened." Getting caught on camera was a bad situation for any person on the run. Even though they had escaped, their face and Quirk were now all over the news. Other villains labeled them a liability. Vigilantes had an easy mark. If those people weren't found and arrested right away, they often simply disappeared, forever.

"Right. Well, there's a superintendent up in Sapporo who was convinced they had a vigilante group going after their televised runners. So last week, they had an undercover agent stage a flashy prime-time fight with a hero and then 'escape,' to see if they could draw out anyone after him."

"That must have been fun to coordinate. Did it work?"

His friend looked somber. "You could say that. Two days ago, he disappeared."

Toshinori frowned. That wasn't a word that the detective ever used. Was assaulted or escaped custody or missed a pickup, perhaps... not magic-trick terms. "Disappeared? What do you mean?"

"He was walking to the convenience store late in the evening. First, there was some kind of electrical interference through the whole block. Then his security detail said it was like he just stepped into a shadow and never stepped back out. One of them said they saw something like mist, but they can't corroborate, because there's no footage, because everything got knocked out by the electrical pulse. They don't have any leads on who took him or where he is."

The words hung in the air, heavy. "...That seems too coordinated for any vigilante groups I've heard of," Toshinori finally said. Too coordinated for anything they'd heard of, not for years. The scene Tsukauchi described would've had to have been either the work of several Quirks, or a Quirk plus sophisticated support items. Either way, it seemed too elaborate for exacting revenge on petty criminals from the 5-o'-clock news.

"We can only hope it's a vigilante group," Tsukauchi replied, "but I don't think it is. They would've taken credit. Sapporo's been pulling records on local blackouts, and so far they've found two that happened near the homes of people reported missing shortly afterwards. I'm sure other districts will find more."

He felt a sudden sense of the old days, back when they had no idea what was going on in the criminal world, back when heroes and police alike were just struggling to keep their heads above water, tossed around on the whims of forces much stronger than they were. He had made sure those times were a thing of the past, or he thought he did.

"It might all be a coincidence," Tsukauchi continued. "We don't know enough yet to say for sure." But it wasn't a coincidence, not if Tsukauchi thought it was worth telling him about.

That nervous feeling kept rising in his chest. This had nothing to do with the old days. And yet...

"These missing people..." Toshinori said. "Did they have Quirks?"

Tsukauchi paused. "I'm not sure about the two other missing persons cases, but I do know the Sapporo agent has one. His Quirk lets him absorb heavy impacts... like a built-in bullet vest."

Something cold settled in his gut. What a useful, versatile skill.

His phone pinged. It was the sound of a text message, and only one person texted him nowadays. Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow. "Did you finally change your obnoxious ringtone?" he asked. Then a smile broke out on his face. "Wait, is that him?"

Toshinori frowned. "First, my ringtones are not obnoxious, they're charming. Second, you make an awful lot of assumptions."

That got an outright laugh from the detective. "It's not an assumption, it's a deduction," Tsukauchi replied, "because your face lit up when you heard it, the same way it does whenever you talk about him."

Toshinori coughed. God, there was no hiding anything from this man. He never should have made friends with a detective.

Tsukauchi gave him a fond smile. "It's not a bad thing. You seem happier lately. It's nice to see."

Then the detective's phone chimed. He pulled it out and looked down. "Hm, seems like duty calls for both of us," he said. He glanced back up. "I'm sorry to end this on a low note. Don't worry too much about the missing persons cases. I'll keep you informed. You just keep doing what you do best."

That was easier said than done. Both of those things. "All right," he replied. "Thank you, my friend."

Tsukauchi grinned, and headed through the U.A. barrier, which gave a loud beep as it scanned his guest tag on the way out.

Toshinori watched him go. God, he was grateful to call the man a friend. Letting his identity slip in front of the detective was one of the best things that could have happened to him.

He took one look back at the campus, then pulled out his phone and brought up Midoriya's text.

Izuku 3:42 pm: Do you know how to deal with muscle cramps?

Toshinori frowned and looked up at the cloudless sky, with the bright sun directly overhead. He thrived in this kind of weather, since he could never hold onto enough warmth nowadays, but it was fairly hot by normal-person standards. Was that computer-tanned, AC-coddled boy out exercising in this heat?

He fumbled over the little keyboard. Are you out at thjr—backspace—the beacvh—

He finally sighed and hit the call button. He already spent enough time every day subduing villains; he didn't need to battle against miniscule phone screens too.

Midoriya picked up right away. "Hey," he said. He sounded tired. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you call..."

"It's all right. Are you okay? Where are you right now?"

"I'm at the beach... I was practicing breakfalls and then my leg seized up."

Breakfalls... that was a smart place to start. He really was a clever kid. Well... clever, but with zero practical experience. He probably thought he could Plus Ultra right through his body's warning signs, and now he was paying the price. "Cramps usually happen when you're too hot and haven't been drinking enough. Did you bring water with you? Can you ask someone else to give you some?"

"Um, there's no one else here, that's kind of the point... and I mean... I don't feel thirsty... I just feel kind of nauseous..."

No one else on a public beach on a sunny day after school? He frowned, feeling a prickle of unease. Nausea wasn't good, either.

A sigh rang over the speaker. "I think I'm just going to rest in the shade until it stops hurting..."

Then Toshinori realized the obvious. "Wait, why are you going to sit in the shade?" he asked. "Sit in the water! Cool off!"

"Um..." Midoriya mumbled, in that voice he used when he was hedging. The prickle escalated to a thrum of worry. There shouldn't need to be a reason to hedge over something like that, unless...

"Midoriya, are you able to get up?"

There was a long pause. "I... I'm just a little dizzy right now," the boy murmured.

Good god. Zero practical experience. What he was describing was dangerous, even more so if he was alone. "You said this beach is by your home, right? I'm nearby, I can bring you something. Can you drop your location pin in the chat?" He was technically telling the truth—with his Quirk, anywhere could be "nearby" within the span of a minute or so.

"Oh, no, no..." Midoriya stammered, "You don't have to come over here, I'm fine..."

Of course he was. He would insist he was fine right up until his dying breath. This astounding, clever, staggeringly reckless child.

Toshinori scanned the street in front of the school grounds. It was crammed with vending machines trying to tempt the students that walked past each day, just like it had been back when he attended. Most of the vending machines were filled with candy and other sugary garbage (just like they had been back when he attended), but he finally spotted one that was offering sports drinks.

"Well, even if you're fine, would it be all right if I just stopped by?" he asked. "I wouldn't mind visiting the beach."

"Um, it's not that kind of beach..." Midoriya murmured.

What? "Well, I'd still like to see what you're up to. I'm intrigued." Doubly intrigued now.

Midoriya gave a harried little sigh. "Um... okay..." he said. "It... would be nice to have something to drink. Thank you." A few seconds later, there was a ping as a new text message came in. Good kid.

He reached down and grabbed the sports drink as it thunked down into the bottom compartment. "I'll be there in a moment," he said. "I need to set down my phone for a minute, but don't hang up, all right?"

"Mmkay."

Toshinori hit the mute button as he pulled up the location. The little ringtone-savant didn't need to hear any odd sounds that he could overanalyze while Toshinori made his way over. He hurried down the street, glancing about, and it didn't take long to find a small entryway that led to an isolated loading area, quiet and empty at this time of day. After a quick sweep for cameras, he thanked himself for being rude enough to wear baggy clothes to the U.A. meeting, pulled out One For All, and shot off.

It took about two seconds before the coastline came into view. Most of it was just seawall butting up against concrete, no beach to speak of. The spot Midoriya sent did open up into a sandy stretch of coast, but it looked like it was strewn with... boulders? Enormous piles of seaweed?

He frowned. Wait, what the hell?

He touched down on a rooftop near the beach walkway, then hopped behind the building and released his Quirk. After some coughing, he rubbed his eyes, hoping he'd seen wrong as he was coming in, then doubled over in another coughing fit when he walked out from behind the building and realized that no, he'd seen perfectly right.

He wiped his mouth and unmuted his phone. "Midoriya?" he asked.

"Hey," the boy murmured.

"I'm near your pin. What on earth are you doing in a place like this?"

"The sand's soft, and I can practice in private... nobody comes around here."

"Goodness, I wonder why not!"

He gazed over the area in mortified awe. The section of coastline was a public beach in the same way that a festering sewer drain was a water feature. A forlorn NO DUMPING sign stood framed by lopsided mountains of discarded appliances, paint cans, and broken bottles. Heaps upon mounds of refuse, smothering an otherwise nice-looking pier and spilling out onto the walkway and into the ocean.

This was that one illegal dump site, wasn't it? He heard about it when he came to this city, but hadn't bothered to come investigate before now. It was even worse than he imagined. He felt like he was getting tetanus just by looking at it.

Midoriya was talking, sounding worryingly sleepy. "If you, um, go down the walkway steps and turn right, there's a kind of trail, almost... there's a washing machine by it."

Ah, yes, broken washing machines... the classic trailhead marker. What the absolute hell, kid. "Okay, I see it," he said, walking hesitantly into the twisted winding valley that cut between the looming junkyard piles. It was like venturing into a totally different, very dirty planet. Toshinori looked around at the towers of rust and peeling paint, skirting around a jagged section of piping half-buried in the ground. The bright sun glared off the few patches of sand that weren't buried in trash, and the hot piles of metal and plastic shimmered under the afternoon heat.

He rounded a tangle of old filing cabinets and rotting tires and emerged into an area that was relatively clear of debris, a little cove of sand among the mountains of refuse. In the shadow of a rusted-out car, he spotted the telltale bright red of Midoriya's oversized shoes. The boy was slouched against the back tire, pale and sweaty with his phone in his lap and his eyes closed.

Something panicky clawed through his gut at the sight, and he did an internal double take. Really? He pulled people from burning buildings and rescued hostages without batting an eye, but a kid goofing off in the sun was what made him lose his composure?

He hung up his phone. "Midoriya," he called, and the boy's green eyes flew open, any fatigue immediately consumed by that vaguely panicked guilty look that always overtook him whenever someone focused the slightest shred of attention on him.

Toshinori put on a smile. "This is quite the training ground," he said, coming over to kneel next to the boy. Midoriya's guilty expression deepened as he looked at Toshinori.

"I-I'm so sorry, you were working, weren't you, I should've—"

Oh, because he was wearing slacks and a dress shirt from the meeting. "No, you didn't interrupt me." He held out the drink. "Here, take a few sips. Not too much at once."

Midoriya obediently took a few gulps, then pressed the cold side of the bottle against his cheek. Toshinori held out a hand. "Let's get you up, my boy."

"Thanks..." Midoriya said, looking sheepish. The boy stood shakily, then swayed a little, then sank back to his knees. "I... I think I need to sit down a while longer..."

Toshinori crouched down next to him. "You'll feel better once you cool off. Here, can you put your arms around my neck?" he asked. Midoriya looked up at him with abject shame written all over his face. "It's all right. This kind of thing happens all the time when people exercise out in the sun."

Midoriya sighed and reached out his arms, and Toshinori hefted him onto his back. The boy's leg pressed on his scar, and he shuddered, but it wasn't unbearable.

"It's not even that hot..." Midoriya murmured, more sigh than voice at this point, head resting heavily on Toshinori's shoulder. "This is so... stupid... I felt like I could handle it just fine... but then I cramped up and all of a sudden I was too dizzy to get up again..."

Toshinori chuckled. "That's what happens, yes... it sneaks up on you. You feel fine right up until you don't." Which is why you shouldn't horse around in terrifying garbage dumps without a buddy, he thought, but didn't say it.

He rounded one last pile of trash and emerged onto wet sand. The blue ocean stretched out in front of them, choked with garbage like the rest of this awful place, but with a few clear patches of water, at least.

"Here, hand me your phone? And kick off your shoes." The fun thing to do would be to chuck the boy over his shoulder into the ocean and watch him splutter in shock, but that kind of roughhousing was only for kids who weren't feeling miserable. Plus, he had no idea what kinds of jagged surprises lurked under the surface. So instead, he waded out a bit and slowly lowered the kid down, chuckling when Midoriya's eyes went dinnerplate-wide at the cool water.

"O-oh..." Midoriya shivered. "Oh, that feels nice."

He sat down in the shallow water next to the boy. "Here, drink a little more. Then just float for a while. Take your time." Midoriya nodded, then sank down and let himself bob on his back while Toshinori made sure his head didn't go under completely. The boy sighed and closed his eyes with a blissful look as the water lapped around his face.

"Thanks..." Midoriya finally said, not opening his eyes, "for coming... I was going to call 119 if I didn't start feeling better, but... I really didn't want to."

A responsible adult would probably chide him right now, explain how heat exhaustion was dangerous, how even young people got organ damage or died from it every year because they didn't bother to pay attention to the warning signs. But Midoriya already looked ashamed enough. There would be time to lecture him later.

"I'm glad you messaged me," he replied instead. "...Does your mother know you're out here?"

Midoriya's sideways glance gave him his answer. "She, uh, thinks I come home late because of club activities... I mean, I'm technically in a club, because you have to be, but they never seem to care that I don't show up..."

Classic teenager. God... this all just went to show what he said to Tsukauchi earlier. He could barely keep one quiet, polite, eager-to-please child from sneaking off and trying to kill himself. He could not even imagine being put in charge of 20 of them at once. The first day of school would be a bloodbath.

Midoriya apparently took his brief silence as a guilty verdict. "...she'd just worry and tell me not to come here, even though it's so convenient..." he blurted out, "it's a lot closer than the sports center, and I have my phone with me, and it's not like it's dangerous... I mean..." He frowned, seeming to realize how that sentence sounded considering his current predicament. "I just, don't want to, to... flail around like a weirdo trying to figure out combat stuff in front of everyone in the whole gym..."

"Well, maybe later we can ask them if they have any empty rooms for you to practice in." He couldn't be upset at the kid right now. He couldn't even be teasing, even though it was astounding that the kid would rather hide in a landfill than face the mild judgment of a few gym-goers.

He watched the kid float, and a chill went through him, despite the heat. Midoriya really could have died out here, if he hadn't sent that shy text message, if he tried to wait for it to get "bad enough" to justify calling an ambulance. For all his cleverness and hero trivia, he clearly didn't understand that getting too hot didn't just mean feeling miserable and tired—that without hydration, your body's cooling methods failed and your temperature just kept rising, and that the first organ to fail was the brain and its ability to think clearly enough to call for help. Once you crossed that line, having a phone meant nothing.

Hundreds of people died that way every year. He could have been one of them, and nobody would have known where to look for his body, and he would have become just another statistic.

It was just... so easy for people to die. He saw that every day. A single flawed decision, a moment of oversight, a poorly planned trip to the beach. Or doing nothing wrong at all, just being at a bad place at a bad time.

A lot of times, it was so easy to live, too. Sometimes all it took was a bottle of water and a shove into the ocean. So little effort, and yet so many times it didn't happen. It almost didn't happen here. People felt like they had nobody they could turn to, even for something so small, so simple, and then the world lost something precious, forever.

Midoriya's submerged skin was finally starting to go from pale to red-flushed as his body realized that there was plenty of cold to wick away the heat now. His shoulders and chest seemed to be having trouble figuring it out, though. They looked oddly blotchy, patches of pink interspersed between bars and smudges of paler skin.

Toshinori frowned. He'd dismissed it before, the way he sometimes noticed little mottled areas appear near the boy's collar and shirt sleeves during a hard workout. He figured that people's bodies sometimes reacted strangely when they really exerted themselves. But being able to see it more clearly now through the kid's soaked white shirt, it was obviously not normal.

He gently touched the boy's upper arm, near his sleeve. The pale areas felt different too, a little rougher than the skin around them. Four narrow stripes, almost parallel but not quite, splayed out like—

He realized what they were the same moment that Midoriya's eyes flew open and he jerked his arm away with a frantic splash.

The boy shied away, glanced up at his face with a look of horror. "T-that's nothing," he said, drawing his arms around himself and shrinking down into the water to try and hide the marks.

Something molten coursed through him as the puzzle pieces fell into place. Midoriya's deliberately vague stories, the way he always jumped out of his skin whenever Toshinori accidentally bumped into him, his sheer terror at being reminded of the aggressive, confrontational boy who channeled white-hot explosions through his palms...

"Young Midoriya, that is a handprint."

Midoriya looked stricken. "It... was a long time ago... it was an accident..."

The marks clearly didn't come from a one-time mistake. They were layered over each other, which was why he hadn't recognized what they were at first. Some were barely visible, some stark white. How long had this been happening?

"These are from that boy you rescued." His voice was flat. Toshinori wasn't one to feel anger, even towards criminals, much less towards children. But it was hard not to be angry right now.

"Please," Midoriya said, pleading. "You can't say anything. It's... it's not a big deal. It's not happening anymore, I promise. I wasn't lying when I said it stopped."

The boy was acting like he was the one who had been branding children. Like he would be punished for allowing Toshinori to notice that something had happened to him. Probably the same attitude that drove him to nearly die of heatstroke rather than ask for help.

Toshinori clearly had to switch tactics. "Is he doing this to other people?" he asked. Surely Midoriya would stand up for others, even if he wouldn't stand up for himself.

But Midoriya's expression went dark at the question. "...No. Not to anyone else."

"What!? Why only you?"

There was a long pause, and Toshinori suddenly realized the answer. "...Why do you think?" the boy muttered, hunching up in the water.

Of course. The thing that made him different. Quirkless.

Midoriya was curled up, turned away a little, not looking at him. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and kneaded one temple with the palm of his hand. He probably had a headache, too, on top of the fatigue and nausea. He didn't need someone practically yelling at him.

"I'm sorry," Toshinori said. "I shouldn't pressure you when you're not feeling well." He had no idea what to say, but it didn't feel like he should just let it go. "I just... don't understand why you're trying to brush this off. This is physical assault."

Midoriya winced, like it was painful to hear it described with real words. He didn't answer, just stayed curled up in that tense little ball, his wet curls poking out at odd angles, the burns on his shoulders and back shining blotchy pink-and-white in the bright sun.

Toshinori had seen the outlines of this; he should've known. The signs were easy to overlook when Midoriya always acted so bright, so excited, leaping towards the future with everything he had, but Toshinori should have understood that too, because he'd been the same way. You either kept smiling and moving forward, or you broke.

He never should have assumed it would be any easier for Midoriya, not in this generation, where standardized tests now unthinkingly had essay questions like describe how your Quirk affects your personality, where all the TV shows and comic books just assumed by default, and the only Quirkless characters were trotted out as tragic oddities that usually quickly died for pity points. A slow, smothering riptide that flowed through everything in their society: isn't that so sad... they're missing something so important, those poor under-evolved folks. Such a pity.

When Midoriya spoke again, it was so soft that it barely carried over the quiet sounds of the waves. "I guess, I've always thought... if my body didn't want to get handprints, then maybe it shouldn't have been born wrong."

Oh, god. Kid. His breath caught, then tore, and he choked down a cough. "Th—that's... Midoriya, that's not how any of this works—"

"I know," Midoriya rubbed at his eyes, "I know, I'm sorry..." As if he was a bad person for admitting that he was suffering.

"It's just," Midoriya continued, "i-it's hard, when I've spent so much effort, getting good at analyzing Quirks, and cataloguing heroes, and reading situations, and documenting things... and nobody even cares, it doesn't mean anything, because the only part of me that matters is the part I never had any control over..."

In that moment, everything else faded away. His own future didn't matter, ensuring a smooth succession didn't matter, none of it mattered at all. All that mattered was that this astounding child was trapped, suffering, and he held the key in his hand. He could open a door for the boy that nobody else could, and lift him out of all this pain. He could fix a horrible injustice that Midoriya never deserved to suffer through.

That's what heroes were for, right? That was the whole reason he existed. Why had he ever questioned whether it was the right thing to do?

He had no idea how to go about it. There was no guidebook for something like this. What did Nana say to him when they had this conversation, so long ago? It had been the most important moment of his life, but he couldn't even remember her words. Just the feeling of reality crumbling under his feet as she offered him a future that was supposed to be impossible.

He cleared his throat. He still wasn't sure how to start, but he did know the words he wished someone had told him at this age.

"Midoriya, I should have been more forthright about this when we first met," he began. The boy glanced up at him with one eye, then lifted his head, expression unreadable, looking at him keenly. He felt a little hoarse.

"I was born Quirkless, too." he said. "It's one of the reasons I first found your ideas so compelling. You remind me quite a bit of myself, when I was your age... though you're certainly much smarter."

Midoriya's eyes got wider; he straightened, silent, transfixed, mouth opening slightly.

"So please, don't apologize... I know what it's like to have people take all the good in you and put it on something you didn't get to choose. It would be more surprising if you didn't feel hurt."

Midoriya still didn't speak, like there were too many words in his head and they were getting jammed on the way to his mouth. He finally ducked his head, and his eyes filled with tears.

"Do... do you know what it's like," he asked, in a tiny, wavering voice, "to feel like... your own body is the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

Oh, kid. "That's a bit of an understatement, my boy..." he smiled ruefully. "When I was your age, I was furious at my body. I felt like it betrayed me. I didn't want anything to do with it." he chuckled. "I was a dramatic kid."

Midoriya didn't look up, though Toshinori could see tears running down his cheeks and plinking into the ocean water. But it was okay, because then I met my mentor, and she changed my life. Just like yours can change. He had to find some way to explain this that wouldn't cause the poor child to spontaneously combust.

But before he could say anything, Midoriya spoke again.

"How did you forgive it?" he whispered. "How did you stop hating yourself?"

Toshinori opened his mouth, and no words came out.

He... met Nana. He was given a promise.

And... he only started training after that, didn't he? He only put time and effort into his body after he believed that it could be made into something different than it was... that it could be fixed. And then he clung to that fix, that borrowed power, and refused to let go, even after losing an armful of internal organs, even when it meant pushing through near-starvation and blood-covered pillowcases every single day.

Was that really the answer he was going to give? My old self was a mistake, so I fixed it with a pretty Quirk. And now, you can do the same.

He looked down at his hands. Paper over bone.

"It's... a complicated thing," he finally said. "I—ha—I'm sorry... I just said that I shouldn't bring up stressful topics when you're not well."

God, what was he even doing? He couldn't anvil-drop one of the biggest secrets in the world onto the head of this exhausted, vulnerable child who was soaked in seawater and still loopy from overexertion. It was not the place or the time. Besides, he was clearly much less ready for this conversation than he thought. How on earth did he expect to become a teacher?

He offered the bottle to Midoriya again, and the boy took it. "How are you feeling? Do you want to try heading out?"

Midoriya looked at him quietly for a moment, a strange look on his face. But then he glanced down. "Sure..." he said. "I feel a little better. I'm not dizzy anymore."

The boy finished off the drink, then looked around at the nearby islands of garbage as he held the empty plastic container.

"...I'm pretty sure nobody would notice if I added one more piece of litter," he murmured, "but I'd feel bad doing it anyway."

Toshinori smiled. Oh, what a good kid he was.

They made their way off the beach without impaling themselves on anything sharp, then took the short walk to Midoriya's apartment complex, sticking to the shady side of the streets. The boy ran out of steam about halfway there, so Toshinori carried him the rest of the way. He did have the strength to heft the twiggy little kid without tapping into One For All, but he usually didn't exert himself anywhere near this much when he wasn't using his Quirk to prop himself up. By the time he made it up all the goddamn flights of stairs hauling the dead weight of a wet 14-year-old, his side ached sharply and his lung was starting to feel a bit like ground hamburger. This alter ego business had a laundry list of downsides.

Outside the apartment door, Midoriya clamored to be let down, and practically transformed as soon as he touched the ground. He bounced through the door like he had just gotten ten hours of sleep and a double espresso instead of being barely able to stay on his feet a moment before. It was only belied by the way he swayed a little as he walked.

"Mom, I'm home!" he chirped. "Mr. Yagi's with me, is it ok if he comes inside?" Toshinori looked on in baffled amazement at the impeccable acting job. This child was frighteningly skilled at hiding weakness. He really would make a good hero.

"What?" Ms. Midoriya's voice echoed from further inside. Then she peeked her head around the end of the hallway. "Oh! Hello! Come in! ...Izuku, why are you all wet?"

Toshinori raised a hand and took a step back. "Oh, no, it's fine," he replied. "I just wanted to make sure he got back safely." Then the inside of his ribcage erupted in pinprick jolts of pain like he'd just swallowed a porcupine, and he winced and coughed despite himself.

"Are you sure?" Ms. Midoriya asked. "You don't want to rest a moment?"

It suddenly occurred to him that he really had no idea what kind of social rules applied here. As All Might, visiting people's homes on a whim was absolutely out of the question. The last time he had casually hung out at someone's place was... decades ago, and in California. He had a strange feeling that Los Angeles frat boy manners would not translate well to the quiet domestic Musutafu life.

But then Midoriya piped up. "You should come in and drink some water, at least!" he said in a very dutiful tone, his face poker-straight. "It's important to hydrate on hot days!"

Wow. "Why, yes, that's very important, isn't it, Midoriya?" he replied, and Midoriya grinned impishly. So he smiled, and rolled his eyes, and came in. Look at him, acting like an actual human being. Hopefully he wouldn't commit some awful social faux pas.

It was a modest apartment, clean and tidy and fairly roomy for the two of them (he assumed? He had never heard anything about the boy's father.) As he went down the hall, he couldn't help but notice the All Might posters that seemed to cluster around a door with a rabbit-eared name plate on it, like there had just been too many of them to fit inside so they had spilled out into the hall. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what was on the other side of that door.

Toshinori couldn't bring himself to lie to the boy's mother, even though Midoriya had begged him to please not tell her. He explained the basics: that Midoriya thought to use the beach to practice movement techniques, but lost track of time and forgot to bring water, so Toshinori came over with some, and they ended up cooling off in the ocean, which is why they were all wet. Combined with the way that Midoriya was acting perfectly bright and chipper, it all came off as much less perilous than it actually had been, and Ms. Midoriya laughed and told her son to text her where he was going next time if he decided to go back. The boy audibly sagged in relief.

Midoriya kept up the peppy act until his mother went off to the kitchen to tend to dinner. As soon as she was out of sight, he promptly melted into a boneless heap on the couch. Toshinori took his glass of water and followed him over, sitting on the edge of the couch, and Midoriya blinked blearily up at him.

"You sure did find your second wind as soon as you got inside," he commented. "I should've made you walk up the stairs yourself if you had all this energy tucked away."

Midoriya glanced over towards the kitchen with a worried frown. "Shh," he hissed. "I just, I don't want to worry Mom..."

The boy wasn't flushed anymore, and the marks on his skin were barely visible now, just a slightly different texture in the light, mostly concealed by the dry shirt he'd changed into. Safely hidden away, just like every other part of him that was hurting.

Toshinori felt a pang go through him. He didn't know how to have this discussion, because he was a terrible excuse for a teacher, but he couldn't just let the topic sit in the ugly place they'd left it.

"About what we were discussing, earlier..." he said quietly, and Midoriya's eyes widened.

"Sorry. For bringing it up," he muttered.

Toshinori sighed. "You don't need to be. I just wanted to say..." He fidgeted with the glass in his hands, feeling the condensation squeak on his fingers. "I'm sure you know this, already. But... your body didn't decide to be the way it is. You don't need to try and punish it. And if you hear any group, or religion, saying that someone's Quirk has something to do with how much they're worth as a person... they're wrong. It doesn't say any more about you than the color of your hair. I know that can be hard to believe sometimes, but please, try to remember that."

Midoriya didn't respond right away. He looked up at the ceiling with an expression that seemed too serious to be on the face of such a young kid.

Finally, he replied. "I didn't ever think about it this way before now, but... I never got to control what kind of mind I was born with, either," he said. "I'm definitely not a super-genius. I just made a decision to work with what I had, and I made it into something I'm proud of..."

"I'm making that decision again now, with all this training stuff. And... I dunno, maybe..." He squeezed his eyes shut briefly. "Like... did you know that 23% of Quirks aren't even useful in a fight? I'm already just as good as a fourth of people out there. If I keep training, I'll be even better."

He shifted, turning on his side, curling in on himself. "So... maybe, if I do what I did before... if work with what I have, even though it's not perfect... m-maybe, if I do that, I can make the rest of me into something I'm proud of, too..."

The boy was shaking a little, and wiped his eyes, and Toshinori's heart felt like it was going to burst. Midoriya was so much smarter than he'd been, at this age.

"I definitely think you can," he said, and the boy gave a wobbly smile.

Midoriya couldn't handle the Quirk right now anyway. If he told the boy now, he would just careen straight down the same path Toshinori had taken such a long time ago. Why go through the hard work of learning to love something when you could just replace it with a better version?

Maybe, if he waited... Midoriya could escape that fate. He could learn to be proud of himself, his real self. If he kept up with his training, and got strong enough to handle the Quirk, and the stars aligned... then perhaps, down the line, Toshinori could have an important conversation with him. The Quirk could be a tool, instead of an identity. And maybe, when the time came for Midoriya to pass it on, he wouldn't need to cling to it so desperately, wouldn't feel like he was losing everything, that there would be nothing left for him when it was gone.

Maybe... maybe Toshinori was just making excuses to avoid a difficult conversation. Or maybe he was displaying some common sense, because it was still an absolutely awful idea to even think about giving One For All to a random untrained kid when the whole nation's future could be at stake. Especially with the hair-raising news Tsukauchi shared earlier today.

He didn't know. He had no idea. He'd think about it later. Right now, he was just so glad that the boy was okay, that he'd trusted Toshinori enough to ask for help when he needed it.

That did strange things to his chest, too. Midoriya didn't reach out to his mother, or an ambulance, or a hero agency. He reached out to Toshinori. Even though Midoriya only knew the sad, frail, used-up part of him, the husk left behind after all the good parts had vanished. Something still made the boy feel like he could go to him when he couldn't go anywhere else.

He couldn't understand why. But he was glad. For all the ways their friendship was a dishonest, selfish, risky thing to indulge in, that made it all worth it.

Notes:

1) 119 is what you dial in Japan to connect to emergency fire/ambulance services.