And Suddenly, I've Become a Part of Your Past; I'm Becoming the Part That Don't Last (I'm Losing You and It's Effortless)

"Without a sound, we lose sight of the ground in the throw around. Never thought that you wanted to bring it down. I won't let it go down 'til we torch it ourselves…"

('Over My Head (Cable Car)' covered by 'A Day to Remember')

Screaming.

Someone is screaming, yelling, pounding; it sounds like pounding on glass, shattering slowly, like someone is taking their sweet time to break a window centimeter by centimeter. But they are pounding, pounding, pounding and it grates against his mind and against the fabric of reality itself, why is it so loud?

Then a more familiar voice: Father.

You should learn to mind your betters, insolent child. You can deny me for as long as you like but I am inevitability.

But he can't hear Father very well over the pound, pound, pound. It's distant, muted, muffled, yet it's also right in his ears. Usually, his vivid, lucid dreams are silent save for Father's thoughts mixing with his own in the infinite blackness but tonight the pounding is loud.

Sometimes he can hear the pounding when he's awake and it's always accompanied by a woman's voice. She is so anguished and her voice is like horror and agony as she screams-

"She was important! You needed her!"

But it's so far away and he wonders, why? Why can he hear her so clearly, when the dream is so silent? How could she have been important to him, when he doesn't know who she is? She says 'she,' so maybe it's another she? The world is upside down and inside out and his thought before waking up is:

I wonder if I am always dreaming or if the dreams that don't feel like dreams are the memories I missed.

Mikumo woke up and groaned.

His whole body hurt like he'd been through a tumble dryer but that really wasn't anything new. Groggily, he reached up to his head with his red gloved hand and found dried blood; he was hurt? No, he remembered: he had been hurt but that was a few hours ago.

He checked his holographic watch built into his suit; it was half-past one in the afternoon now but it had been… twelve? Eleven-thirty? When he woke the first time.

He didn't wake up alone. The thought was sharp and quick and he turned to find Uraraka, passed out and with her legs propped on his own. She was bleeding slowly and his eyes went wide at the sight. How long had he been asleep?

Mikumo grit his teeth. He had to heal her now, there was no other option. It was almost certainly going to make him sick and in his… He panicked, he remembered now. He had a panic attack and destroyed the quirk-suppressing handcuffs, so now it was even more dangerous. If he healed her, even in her weakened state, she could almost certainly kill him or, at least, restrain him.

He wasn't quite precisely sure which would be worse. Death was scary, in a distant, theoretical sense; spending eternity in Tartarus, on the other hand… was possibly even less appealing.

Death, at least, would stop the voice from his Father. Would that be the worst thing in the world? He wasn't convinced it would be but then, he'd always had terrible intrusive thoughts since his Father whisked him away to be his successor.

To be his new vessel, when Tomura proved to be too wild and full of hate to be controlled properly. Father had complained secretly to Mikumo that Tomura's hate was too much like wildfire, without direction or purpose. Mikumo's hate, by contrast, was like a sharpened sword, polished and focused, so he had been chosen as the successor, instead.

Tomura never got over that. They were trained and beaten and molded into shape together, they had their names and appearances taken and replaced, and now they were supposed to be the ones who watched the world burn in Father's stead.

His only real failure, truly, had been his miscalculations. He had believed that Tomura and Mikumo were too powerful for the Heroes to hope to challenge them, yet Tomura now sat in Tartarus for eternity.

And he had believed that Mikumo would be an easy will to break; if his pathetic elementary school bullies, as Father called them, could break Mikumo, why couldn't Father, too? It should have been easy, yet Mikumo's will was far stronger than Father had really anticipated, even if it degraded over time as Mikumo held his father's vestige back.

Giving Mikumo All for One was one of the more entertaining mistakes Father ever made - right behind allowing Mikumo to design his own villain outfit, with him choosing to use his imagined Hero costume from childhood as a base out of spite - and it ended poorly for him.

Mostly. The vestige of All for One followed Mikumo around all the time now and waited for just the right moment to strike like an eternal, inky black shadow on the face of his world. Between his pre-existing mental health issues and All for One trying to possess him with his haunted quirk, Mikumo didn't sleep or eat very much, basically just enough to keep functioning.

But… that was fine. Little Izuku Midoriya was dead - murdered, perhaps - and in his place stood Mikumo Akatani. Just as little Tenko Shimura had been murdered, taken, destroyed and left only Tomura Shigaraki and, together, they had been the men who would be kings.

Now, Mikumo was alone. Except, perhaps, for Uraraka, as he looked at the rebar in her leg and winced.

He should let her die. He should've let her die before. She was the Ninth Bearer of One for All and it was her duty - her destiny, even, Sir Nighteye probably would say - to kill Mikumo Akatani, All for One, and the man who would be king. Mikumo squinted around at the dark hole they were stuck in and, for a moment, he heard the pounding again.

You don't have to be the man who would be king, Izuku. Please… You needed her… Help her!

Mikumo blinked slowly at the darkness, thinking about why that voice seemed so familiar, like a phantom memory he could never reach, yet he had never heard her in his life. Who was she… and why was she important?

Why did he need her?

No matter.

His hand hovered around the rebar in Uraraka's leg, centimeters from contact, and he hesitated. It would be easy to kill her and he could kill her painfully. To use his strength to tear the metal from her skin and watch her bleed out, then she would die with eyes wide open as she watched All for One watch her die. But that was… He didn't want to do that.

Of course, Father had his opinions-

Kill her now. Accept your birthright.

-but that was a secondary concern. Ochako Uraraka was one of the singularly most Heroic and kindhearted people Mikumo had ever had the privilege of knowing and his only regret was that she only knew him as the devil she played angel to. She was thoughtful and hard-working, she had saved countless people as the Ninth Bearer of One for All, and she was beautiful-

That was not a relevant thought, so he slammed the door on it.

He took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. This would be unpleasant for her.

He closed his grip around the rebar.

Turning his head, Mikumo watched Uraraka's eyes fly open and she hissed out a long, incoherent sound of pain that turned into a groan. She glared at him, now wide awake, and he let out the breath he was holding.

"This is not going to be pleasant," Mikumo said matter-of-factly, largely for her benefit. Her eyes went even wider as she caught up with the reality that he had his hand on the rebar and seemed to be about to really hurt her. She opened her mouth, probably to protest or maybe even beg for mercy and Mikumo did not ever want to hear Ochako Uraraka beg for mercy-

That is your destiny as All for One, to hear One for All beg.

-so, before she could say anything, he disintegrated the rebar with Overhaul. Her words died in a sharp gasp - the effect was probably very painful as her body abruptly adjusted for the removal of the rebar's mass in her thigh - and he set his fingers down around the hole in her thigh. There was a glow, red and green mixed together like Christmas, except this wasn't a present anyone would really want, and the wound closed.

Healing people with All for One was not a nice feeling. It didn't hurt, necessarily, but it made one's skin crawl, like awful little spider legs dancing on the surface. Most of the time, he was too out of it - too injured - to really care but, from the disgusted look on her face, it was all she could feel at the moment.

Mikumo frowned at her, trying to be apologetic - he wasn't used to doing 'normal people' expressions anymore - and she just stared at him with huge eyes and mute horror.

He looked down at her thigh again. It wasn't a pretty job - there would be an unpleasant scar where the entrance and exit wounds had been - but it was done, at least. She would probably need to be checked for internal damage - he healed her ribs the best he could at the same time as her thigh and he was working blind on that - but it was what he could do for that moment.

Mikumo withdrew his hand and tried to stand up. He got halfway there, then promptly fell over as his body gave out from exhaustion. He only barely caught himself with one hand and was very close to losing what little was in his stomach. Pain shot up his arm when his hand hit the ground but he grit his teeth and tried to ignore how his whole body hurt.

"A-akatani?" Uraraka stuttered, roused from her shock by his movement. Mikumo couldn't quite stifle the chuckle that left his lips; it was still funny to hear her use his name, even if it wasn't the name he really wanted her to use. He thought about how nice it would be to hear her call him 'Mikumo,' then banished the thought just as quickly. "I thought you said you couldn't do it…"

"I probably didn't," Mikumo admitted, watching his world spin as he stared holes in the floor. "You need to see a doctor, eventually. But you won't die from blood loss anymore… hopefully."

That last word he said under his breath, thinking she wouldn't catch it. But it was quiet in the tunnel, save for the drip, drip, drip of a leaking pipe, and he looked over through his hair and saw she was frowning at him now. He blew on his hair, trying to get it out of his face, and it didn't work.

Accepting defeat and his own feeling of being absolutely pathetic in that moment, he elected to just… collapse and embrace the chill of the air.

"You can't stay like that," Uraraka pointed out, entirely correct. "You'll freeze."

"'S alright, I'll just… deal," Mikumo replied, feeling stubborn. He helped her because she was worth helping. He wasn't worth helping, so he would try and wave her off.

That was the way the world worked. Other people had always been worth helping - it was why he wanted to be a Hero or so he told himself - but never him. He was the worthless, useless Deku, a name and memory engraved in his mind like a brand.

Nobody ever came to save him when he needed it.

Mikumo closed his eyes, trying to feel content. It was hard when the ground was uncomfortable slightly damp and, more importantly, frigid. His eyes flew open when he felt a sudden warmth near him, so familiar that it shocked him out of his daze, and he realized that One for All was sparking bright pink around him because Uraraka had picked him up by the back of his collar like a cat.

"Don't be stupid," Uraraka said flatly. She began to carry him back towards the platform, where the ground was more even and flat because the ceiling hadn't collapsed as badly over there. Mikumo grunted out a protest but nothing that could pass for coherent language and, by the time he tried flailing, she had him at the edge. He grabbed the edge with his hands and hoisted himself up.

A moment later, Uraraka also hopped up. She almost fell over, her leg and body still weak, and he caught her shoulder to steady her. She hesitated like that, turning to look at him with an indecipherable expression through her bangs, then he let go like he'd been burned.

"S-sorry…" He mumbled, and she blinked slowly at him. He was such an idiot; he'd never been good at reading her but this was the last context he'd expected it to matter in.

It was so much easier when she was trying to kill him. All was right in the world then or so he had believed. But there was the pounding again and Mikumo took two steps before the voice returned and she screamed in his mind-

You needed her, Izuku. And… you needed me. So I helped you. We chose you. Don't forget, now.

He stopped and furrowed his brows, not understanding. Then he turned back to Uraraka, only to find her looking right at him with wide eyes and a pale face, like he had stepped out of an open grave as a ghost. Her expression slowly shifted, becoming questioning as she arched her brow, and Mikumo wasn't really sure what to say at all. He decided there was nothing to be said, so he didn't.

Mikumo began to walk towards a little hallway, planning to collapse against the wall, sink to the ground, and will the earth to swallow him. He was tired and he just needed to rest and hope that somehow he would figure a way out of all this. Preferably without dying, going to jail, or having to kill or hurt Uraraka; that was his rough descending priority list, at any rate.

"Have you ever wondered if there was something off with the world, Izuku?" Uraraka whispered in a voice that didn't quite sound right, and he stopped dead again, feeling like he was suddenly in a haze.

"I… What?" He said, feeling the sting of a phantom memory that wasn't his at all, but Uraraka just looked at him like she hadn't said anything, as if daring him to challenge her on that. Then she brushed past him, walking towards where he had been walking towards, and he stared after her in awe and wonder and confusion and horror.

He didn't know what he wanted to do in this situation. Not what he was 'supposed to' do or what Father wanted him to do-

You should take back what is yours.

-but what he wanted to do. He knew there were things that he wished he could say - how he didn't want to fight, how he didn't want to run, how he wished that he and Uraraka could be friends, and how he wished he could have been normal - but it was too late for that.

It was too late for little Izuku, so only Mikumo remained.

Uraraka sank to the ground and pulled her knees up, then he realized she was crying. He didn't understand why - he didn't understand her reactions in general to him, especially in the last few hours - but he felt an instinctual urge to help. He was, on balance, the worst person to help but then there was no other choice, was there?

He sat down slowly next to her, biting back a groan at how much everything ached as he pulled his legs close to himself. She glared at him from the corner of her eye but it was more like she was looking through him, so he was silent for a moment. He pursed his lips, thinking carefully.

Mikumo had never been good with other people, even when he was little Izuku, the quirkless boy who wanted to be a Hero. He'd never gone on a date, he hadn't hung out with any friends in a way that didn't involve bullying since he was at least five or six, and he didn't have any real social skills. All of his socialization since he'd turned ten was with villains - with people like Tomura, Kurogiri, Chizome, or Shuichi - people who were now in jail.

He was all alone in the world and the thought hit him like a train as he looked at Uraraka and searched for the right words to say, knowing he probably wouldn't find them. After all, he never could find them before, when it had mattered… When it had meant the whole world.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out, and it seemed to surprise her because she blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry for all of it. I wish I had gotten a choice. I wouldn't… have chosen this."

"I know you wouldn't have," Uraraka whispered, and now it was his turn to be confused. "But you don't really know it. Not like you should. Not yet, anyway."

There was a long silence as he stared at her in bemusement and she stared back at him with blurry eyes and a simmering anger. He couldn't tell what she was angry at; was she angry at him, at the world, or at something else he didn't understand and couldn't ever hope to understand? He understood they were having more than one conversation even if he only knew about the one and maybe he would never truly understand at all.

Sometimes not understanding frustrated Mikumo, on a deep, metaphysical level. He didn't understand why he was mocked, beaten, and looked down upon for wanting to be a Hero; he didn't understand why he was taken and molded into the archvillain of Japan, and he didn't understand why it felt like no one else cared. But then… he did understand, he supposed, even if he was in denial about it.

He understood that he had wanted to be a Hero not merely to help others but also because it was the only way he felt he would ever matter to their superhuman society. He understood that he was taken because of an accident of birth and circumstance but, to others, it was simply inevitable; of course the son of All for One would become All for One because villains were villains and that reality was stark and black and white. He understood that no one cared because the expected outcome had occurred.

All was right in the world, so there was nothing to see and nothing to be concerned about. Mikumo Akatani was inevitable, just as his father said-

"No."

Mikumo was startled, then he realized he had muttered all of that out loud. He turned to look at Uraraka and saw that One for All was flaring around her like a soft pink candlelight in the dark.

"No, it was not inevitable, Akatani. It was not inevitable that you would become All for One. It was not inevitable that you would become a villain. It was not inevitable that people would think you were 'worthless' or 'useless' for your whole life. It was…" She trailed off for a moment as Mikumo began to cry. "You would have been a great Hero, I… I'm so sorry…"

"How can you possibly know that?" Mikumo whispered back, and he was surprised when she laughed.

"Because I've seen it. You should have been a Hero." She stared intently at him, heedless of the tears tracking down their faces in the dark. Their eyes glowed by the pink of One for All, tears glinting off the fire, and a phantom memory asked him: is it meant to be pink or is it meant to be green, Deku? But the thought was hysterical and nonsensical and Mikumo sobbed because he didn't understand but he felt like he should have. "You… you were supposed to be so amazing, I wish I could express to you how much it would've been… You were supposed to be my friend, I'm so sorry…"

And there was an incongruity to that, the way that what she said was nonsense and yet it felt so utterly, metaphysically true that he just sobbed again, smiling like a crazy person. He and Uraraka should have been friends and she had said it and he realized:

He'd never had a normal friend before and he may never have a normal friend again but maybe tonight…

"Would you still like to be my friend?" Mikumo whispered, and Uraraka laughed again, a wet and giggly thing, looking at him like a small child she was afraid would break at any moment. Maybe he was; he wasn't sure.

"I… don't know," she replied. He looked away into the dark. It wasn't the answer he wanted but… he understood that, too. He nodded, mostly for himself, and began to chuckle… or maybe he was just crying as tears dripped onto his costume.

He realized - remembered - that he was freezing and the warmth of One for All was the only thing to cling to in that moment because he didn't have the strength to keep himself warm anymore. He leaned over a little bit, trying to get at that warmth and he wanted to laugh at the cruel irony of it all.

Uraraka cleared her throat and he realized he had leaned right into her.

"I'm cold," Mikumo admitted, feeling entirely foolish. He refused to look at her, sure that he was blushing like a fool. She grunted at him, an acknowledgement, but didn't make him move.

"I suppose you kept me warm, too," Uraraka said, and Mikumo laughed as he tried to wipe off his face with the heel of his gloved hand. He felt her shifting, then she spoke again, "I'm going to activate my emergency beacon and hopefully they'll be able to dig us out."

That was a sobering statement. Mikumo forced himself to recover, forced himself to push down his moment of vulnerability and emotional availability and become closed and distant again. It was a familiar act and it was often the only thing that kept him going anymore. He sighed, not sure if he wanted to argue or not.

"You know, I can't just… let them arrest me," Mikumo pointed out, as if she wouldn't be the one arresting him when the time came. He adjusted his sitting position and blindly pawed around in his belt until he pulled out a pair of small plastic-wrapped rectangles. "I have two of these little ration bar things, if you'd like one while we wait."

Uraraka snorted at him, then accepted one of the bars from his hand. He dared to sneak a glance at her and she was smiling, though it was a slightly rueful expression.

They tore open the packages almost in unison, then both of them stared at the moderately unappetizing-looking things for a moment. They had gotten slightly squashed during the fall, so they were crumbly but food was food in a survival situation. Mikumo went to take a bite of his and Uraraka whispered something as he did.

"To the friendships we missed out on," she said in a voice meant for him not to hear. He paused, the food between his teeth, and eyed her cautiously. She looked right back at him and didn't take it back, so he crunched down and accepted things for what they were.

He was always accepting things for what they were because the world never cared what he wanted for himself.

They ate in a reasonably comfortable silence, all things considered. The absurdity of it was almost astounding to him: All for One and One for All, sitting in a hole and eating half-destroyed granola bars, hoping they would be rescued before they starved or froze to death. Mikumo wasn't sure if he believed in fate-

Your fate is to watch the world burn, so that you can sit upon the ashes like a throne.

-but if there was such a thing, it was funny in a way. He had always wanted to talk to Sir Nighteye and ask him things. What did Sir Nighteye think about 'fate,' in a metaphysical sense? Did Sir Nighteye believe in any gods? What would Sir Nighteye say about this moment?

Then again, he was one of the ones who trained Uraraka. Perhaps he had already seen this moment. Mikumo wanted so badly to know the answer to that question but, alas, his time as someone who could be enamored with Heroes had long since passed.

That world had been denied to him, so here he was.

"Mirai said that I couldn't fight fate," Uraraka said, breaking his reverie. He turned and blinked owlishly at her, though she did not look remorseful at all. "You still mutter to yourself when you're nervous. It's… endearing," she added, and he felt heat rise in his face.

"Right… but what about that first part?" He said, trying to save himself from his own mortification.

"He said I can't fight fate," Uraraka repeated, then she shrugged and took another bite. There was a pause and Mikumo found himself enraptured just in watching her eat. That was sad, in a way, but for the boy who had not had any positive contact with other people in a decade, the sheer normalcy of this moment was almost too much. "But I don't know if he really understands what fate actually is, sometimes."

Mikumo raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue. She took another bite and chewed before indulging him.

"He thinks the future is already written and maybe he's right. He doesn't see how the past matters, too, how the past changes the future before it's ever written, and he doesn't see how memories are a weapon." She looked at him pointedly at that last part, as if he should understand the significance of it. He did not, though, instead feeling a bit lost. "A memory is just a future that already happened, though past, present, and future are relative terms for an absolute truth."

She spoke in that particular tone that one would use to recite memorized facts from a textbook, as if those were words she had heard repeatedly for years. Mikumo smoothed out his expression, deciding to try his luck.

"Who told you that?" He asked, and Uraraka looked at him as she took another bite and chewed.

"Shimura Nana," she replied matter-of-factly. Mikumo furrowed his brows again, not understanding.

"Shimura Nana died before we were born," he pointed out. Uraraka just looked at him like he was a total idiot in that particular moment or, maybe, like there was a joke he wasn't in on.

"I am aware," Uraraka replied. Mikumo looked at her for a few more moments, before conceding defeat. Then he turned away and ate some more of his own food, frustrated at how cryptic she was being. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth. You'd have to see it for yourself."

He didn't say anything right away. He was mostly processing her words, though he also spent some time eating. She finished her little protein bar first and balled up the wrapper. He watched her, from the corner of his eye as she crushed the plastic and clenched her fist on it. Then, after some hesitation, she threw it with a little flick of her wrist and it went about a meter before it pathetically fluttered to the ground.

He watched it and giggled, just once, at the minor transgression of it: to be able to litter, here in the privacy of this dark hole. 'Everyone marches to someone else's drumbeat, even the people who think they're the drummers.' Everyone was always putting on a performance, following the rules set out for them by others, no matter how strong they thought they were. But not here, in this dark hole.

Uraraka giggled once, too, but then she sighed and he was hyper-aware of how tired he was and she probably was and how dreadful this whole thing was.

"What's your favorite color?" She blurted out, and he hesitated. He wasn't sure whether he hesitated because he didn't want to answer or because he didn't remember the answer anymore.

"…Red," he admitted cautiously, after more than a little consideration. He turned to her and she seemed genuinely a bit shocked.

"Red?" She asked as if that was a complete thought and he could read her mind. As if they were on the same wavelength or, perhaps, as if they should have been. "I'm surprised it's not green," she clarified after a moment. He just shrugged.

"When I was little, I had these preposterous red shoes. I wore them everywhere, even with my school uniform. I looked ridiculous." She giggled at him and he felt his cheeks grow a bit warmer but he still smiled. "I wore them because it was just a little piece of me, something that defined me and was different from everyone else. Kacch- Katsuki hated those shoes… He used to give me so much grief for how awful they looked."

There was a long, sobering silence before Uraraka spoke again.

"I've seen the shoes," she admitted softly. "They were cute. Fuck Bakugou, honestly."

And he laughed because it was what he wanted to hear. Maybe they were on the same wavelength after all.

"What's your favorite color?" He asked, and she hummed in thought. He turned his head and saw that she was now staring at the ceiling, so he took his last bite of his own protein bar and threw the wrapper vaguely to the side.

"Pink, I think," Uraraka said. "I really do like the color. I think I got lucky that One for All came out that way."

Mikumo chuckled, not really believing that was luck at all.

"I think One for All just decided to conform to your desires," he said. She hummed again, not agreeing or disagreeing, and dropped her gaze back to him. "Do you ever regret it?"

"Regret what?" She asked as she stretched her arm to the side, and he would have sworn he didn't follow the movement with his eyes before darting his gaze partially away again.

"Becoming the Ninth Bearer," he said matter-of-factly. She rolled her shoulder around before replying.

"I don't think so… Not when Nana pushed so hard for me, anyway," she said, and he raised a confused eyebrow. She didn't clarify, however. "I've helped a lot of people. I came into my own. I grew up poor… Well." She paused and turned to him with a slightly severe, albeit sarcastic, expression of disbelief. He withered under it and turned away, biting his lip to suppress a smile. "You already know this story, mister. Why should I tell you all over again?"

"What if I just want to listen to you tell it?" He asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could slam the door on his own stupid thoughts. His eyes went wide and he looked back at her in horror; he did not mean to throw that kind of idea out into the open. "Er… Never mind, I'm sorry, you don't-"

Uraraka cleared her throat and he went silent.

"I used to think that I did this to see people's smiles," she said. He perked up; he didn't know this part, not properly, anyway. Her motivations - the finer details - had always been a mystery to him. "I wanted to see my parents smile, at first. Then I expanded my horizons as I grew as a Hero."

She looked out into the dark, pensive and with furrowed eyebrows. She was so beautiful, he was struck by, and part of him hated that. He hated that he noticed it, that he knew it. He hated that it didn't matter and that he could never have something like that. Not that she was a 'thing,' something to have; not to have her but to have…

Love.

She didn't say anything, so he could only pray he didn't say all that out loud.

"When we… saved Eri," she began again, and she turned back to him with a knowing look. He didn't think he really deserved any credit for that, on balance… but killing Overhaul had felt good. "I began to think about what 'saving people' meant. I thought about what it was like to be a person who had never smiled; to be someone who had their smile taken away from them."

She stared at her fist and clenched it for a moment and he stared at it, too, enraptured by it and her and what she was saying and all that she was.

"I realized that there was so much more to saving people with a smile than I used to think. All Might always thought things were simple. That he would be a Symbol for people to look to and that, through such, he could maintain peace. But I began to wonder if he ever really understood what Nana wanted him to see and if he ever really understood the way the world works. I wondered if he understood hope."

"He didn't," Mikumo said matter-of-factly, but he smiled. He still remembered how much he had loved All Might… Part of him still did, if he was being honest. He still had the last All Might figure that his mother gave him, tucked away in one of his little safehouses he used. Father had destroyed anything All Might-related he found and Tomura hated All Might but Mikumo preserved one little piece, just for himself. "But he tried," Mikumo finished, and he smiled a little more brightly at Uraraka.

She smiled back and it was a small thing.

"So I realized that… maybe I can't be a Symbol at all," Uraraka admitted calmly. "Maybe it's not about symbolism at all. People need something real; they need something to hold on to as much as they need something to believe in. Little Eri deserved so much better and we gave that smile back to her but… saving hearts is easier said than done, Akatani."

"I'm glad she's alright, at least," Mikumo said, though he knew that much without being told. He had monitored Eri for a while after that day and claimed to Tomura that it was because he wanted to know what made her so important. That was a lie; he already knew what her quirk was and what Overhaul had done to her. He just wanted to make sure she smiled again… and she did.

Because Uraraka, Togata, and other good Heroes like them helped her. Not because of anything he did.

"She still dreams about you sometimes, you know that?" Uraraka whispered, and Mikumo was startled. He refocused on her, an unspoken invitation to continue hanging in the air between them, and she sighed. "You were supposed to be there but not the way you were there."

Mikumo blinked slowly, not understanding at all. Uraraka just smiled and looked back towards the blackness around them, her light and warmth in the soft pink glow of One for All contrasting so sharply with the infinity surrounding them.

"I don't understand," Mikumo admitted out loud, hoping maybe that would get him answers.

"I know," she said immediately, though not sharply. She sounded so sad. "I wish I had understood sooner or, maybe, that I had been there to protect you… and I wish I could make you understand, too."

And there was the pounding again and the woman's voice but she sounded so much closer-

She was important. You needed her.

You don't need anyone.

Mikumo sighed, feeling like there was an internal conflict surrounding him in the endless void of All for One that he couldn't hope to understand, let alone participate in. It took everything he had in him to make sure that he stayed him, to keep the vestige of All for One at bay and remain Mikumo Akatani, a moderately sinister villain who did bad things for questionable reasons. It was better that way because the world would shudder in the face of All for One, the man who would be king, who would do horrific things for horrific reasons.

"The man who would be king," Uraraka whispered, and Mikumo hummed questioningly, accepting in stride that he had been muttering again. "You said, 'the man who would be king.' Why?"

Mikumo thought about it for a moment, struggling for words. Why… why did he think of it that way? It seemed like a fitting metaphor and it was what he'd always thought about Father, as far back as he could remember, anyway. Unable to put to words his swirling, confused thoughts, he just shrugged helplessly.

"That's what Nana calls him," Uraraka said, and Mikumo tilted his head in complete confusion.

"Does One for All also have vestiges?" He asked, now entirely curious. He knew so little about One for All as a quirk past what he could directly, physically observe. He didn't expect Uraraka to actually tell him anything about it, however.

She pursed her lips carefully before replying.

"It does," she said. "You'd be surprised how active they can be, for people who are supposed to be dead."

"Even All Might?" Mikumo asked, now fully in analysis mode. He cursed the fact he didn't have a notebook to write in. Uraraka made a little noncommittal waving motion with a flat hand, as if to say 'kind of.'

"All Might is still alive," Uraraka pointed out. "He's there but he can't talk. He was never one for the… metaphysical aspects, I suppose."

"And you are?" Mikumo asked. He didn't mean for it to sound like a thinly-veiled insult but Uraraka still scowled at him and he cringed a bit accordingly.

"More than I'd like to be," she said cryptically after a moment, and he frowned. He opened his mouth, planning to say… something. He wasn't sure what. Part of him wanted to ask her about the pounding and the voice, if that had to with Nana, and why he could still hear her at all-

But then there was a boom and the whole world shook. Uraraka blindly threw her hand out and grabbed Mikumo defensively, while he yelped in surprise as everything felt like it was falling apart.

"What the hell…?" Uraraka muttered as she released him, and Mikumo couldn't help but agree as he groaned. The shaking stopped after a moment, then they shared a look, eyes locking in realization. "My emergency beacon…"

"They're trying to blast through," Mikumo concluded, and Uraraka frowned.

"It's not… It isn't safe to blast though, they could kill us…" She said. He just laughed at her and she frowned more. He would say that he felt bad… but he didn't.

"I told you: they don't respect you."

"And you do?"

"Yes, I do," Mikumo said, and Uraraka's look of absolute disbelief was only a little bit saddening. "Look, the best we can do is… scoot into that corner over there and hope that nothing falls on us, I guess," he added, and he gestured with one hand over to the end of the hallway, where more rubble was blocking.

There was a big, sturdy rock there, thoroughly wedged in, and it wouldn't be moving any time soon. Uraraka hesitated, so Mikumo got up first and walked a few meters over. Then he plopped back down and shivered because wow when he moved away from the low intensity of One for All it was cold, so he frowned at his own foolishness.

Uraraka took her sweet time joining him, though blessedly at least she brought warmth with her. The warmth of One for All felt almost impossible, like he wasn't just feeling it through his clothes and skin but in his soul. Like it was a hug in the shape of fire, made of pure love. The thoughts were ridiculous, yet as soon as Uraraka made herself comfortable, Mikumo huddled close to her.

"Excuse me," she said sarcastically, and he shrank away. She stared at him for a moment, her knees drawn close in just like he had his knees, then she laughed at him. He pouted as he realized she was messing with him but at the same time…

It was nice. It was something like friendship.

He huddled back close and didn't even realize that he fell asleep like that, his head resting gently on her shoulder.

He didn't feel how she brushed his hair out of his face in his sleep.

He dreams.

In his dreams, he is not Mikumo Akatani, All for One, the most powerful villain on the planet. He is little Izuku Midoriya, quirkless, powerless, wearing a yellow t-shirt and dark-colored cargo shorts, with his tiny red shoes. He is standing in front of little Kacchan and his friends on the playground again as they prepare to beat him up but, suddenly, they aren't Kacchan and his friends anymore.

They are All for One, Father, and his twisted Nomu now. Gigantomachia looms large in the background, judging little Izuku from afar. In reality, he judged Mikumo to be worthy; here, little Izuku is not even worth consideration. He never was to anyone else, after all.

All he ever was was 'Deku.'

Your continued insolence and refusal to listen to me will do you no good, Mikumo.

The dream is silent but All for One's inner thoughts echo through infinity and little Izuku cowers away. This is his dream, his mind, and his will but All for One is powerful and dangerous and frightening and little Izuku is terrified because there is no All Might coming to protect him. No one is coming to protect little Izuku, to save him with a smile and show him that he, too, can be a Hero.

He is alone and he cries as All for One advances on him, tears rolling down his cheeks like ocean waves.

You will listen to me, sooner or later. You can only stave off the inevitable for so long.

All for One advances, his Nomus following like rabid dogs. Saliva drips from their rancid jaws and they prepare to feast along with their master.

Abruptly, there is a crash, like someone has shattered a window open nearby. Close nearby, like it is right in Izuku's ear, and he looks around, confused. It is like someone was taking their sweet time to break a window centimeter by centimeter… and now, they succeeded.

"Izuku!"

And he hears the voice, the only sound in this playground surrounded by an endless black, and All for One recoils as if he has been struck.

The woman screams and he realizes: she sounds like Ochako now but not, at the same time. It is as if Ochako is speaking but others are speaking with her. Like nine voices in the dark but Ochako is the loudest and she screams:

"Izuku… You can be a Hero, too! All you have to do is believe in yourself!"

Little Izuku begins to cry but they're tears of joy because he's always wanted someone to tell him that. He always wanted someone to believe in him, so that he could believe in himself. He always wanted someone to tell him he could be a Hero.

"I wanted you to remember that it's never too late to be a Hero."

Little Izuku is crying so much and he's so happy, then he feels the woman hug him. And it's Ochako and it's others, too, and it's everything he's ever wanted, all he ever wanted was for someone to tell him that he was wanted, that he was needed-

"I'm sorry I couldn't get to you, little Izuku. But I want you to know that you are important. I needed you… and I miss you."

Little Izuku can't see anymore. But he feels it - he feels All for One retracting slowly, retreating into the inky black darkness and leaving only this warmth - and he feels so safe. He feels so safe and loved, for the first time in years, and he wonders:

Can this feeling just never end? Please… don't leave me…

He wakes up then, when there's a sharp rumbling, and it's the most disappointed that he's ever been in his entire life. But he wakes up next to Uraraka, sleeping soundly with a smile on her face like she's having the most beautiful dream, too, and he wonders if maybe it wasn't entirely a dream, after all.

Note: there's a lot of text effects involving spaces that are lost in this cross-posting. I've never mentioned it in prior stories but it really affects this story because on AO3 I used those spaces to differentiate All for One and Nana/the other Bearers speaking. I'm sorry that this can't be used on FFN for technical reasons.