Chapter 54:

It felt strange to be going back to Yuuei after everything that had happened. In the grand scheme of things, Izuku hadn't missed much of school. Everything had been put on pause in the immediate aftermath of the attack as the school worked on increasing their security, but Izuku still felt the weight of it. Coming back might be a mark of life returning to normal, but that didn't mean that he hadn't been changed by what they had gone through. All of them had, although some wore those changes in more visible ways than others. His hand drifted to the marks on his throat, but he didn't touch them.

All things considered, Izuku knew that he had gotten off lucky considering how close the eskrima rod was to his face when it exploded. He still had stitches from the deepest cut, a long line near the top of his throat, but the other places where he had been nicked by the shrapnel were healing nicely. It would leave him with a collection of thin white scars, but if that was all the damage done after facing a villain like Shigaraki and his monster then Izuku could deal with it. He had to resist the urge to scratch at his stiches, but that was such a small price to pay that Izuku felt bad for even being bothered by it. His injuries, the small blistering that wouldn't even leave a mark, they were small things compared to what others had gone through. What Aizawa had gone through.

Maybe that was the real reason that going to school felt strange. It wasn't going back after being away but going back knowing his mentor wouldn't be there to greet him. Aizawa had been released from the hospital, but no matter what he tried to tell them Izuku knew it would be longer yet before he could return to Yuuei. If Aizawa tried to push himself, Izuku wouldn't even have to be the one to stop him. Hizashi would tie Aizawa to a chair and send Marlo to guard him if it came down to it.

Aizawa insisted that he was doing fine, but Izuku knew better. He had spent more time at Aizawa's apartment since his release from the hospital than he had his own, and although Aizawa hid it well he struggled. Injuries aside, guilt aside, the loss of his quirk hit him harder than he would admit. Izuku could see it though, in the lines of his shoulders, the tension that grew whenever he mentioned going back to school, the bandages that still covered his eyes. His vision was returning, slowly, but it was going to be hard for him to adjust to the knowledge that he would never be able to be use his quirk again. The doctors had used terms like "unlikely" and "potentially" but they all knew the truth. Talking around the issue with false hope would do nothing but delay the reality of the situation. Once Aizawa fully healed, he would have to make drastic changes to the way he operated.

Izuku had known it would be bad. In fact, bad seemed like an understatement. They were a long walk, a bus ride, and a trek through the woods away from bad. It had been awful enough watching what that monster had done to him. He had known even then that if they lived through the attack that Aizawa would have a long road of recovery in front of him. The warning that Hizashi had given him before Izuku visited him in the hospital for the first time had been all the confirmation that he needed.

"Izuku," Hizashi had said, stopping him a few doors down from Aizawa's room. His mother had trusted Hizashi with his safety for the day as she worked on something with the school. "You need to be prepared. I know I've told you this before, but Shouta is going to get overwhelmed easily right now. Even if he tries to deny it. I'm not saying don't talk about what happened, because I know he's going to ask you how you are doing. You don't need to lie to him about what happened to you, or Kaminari, or the others, but if we have to cut this visit short it's not your fault. He's been unconscious for a long time, and he's going to need a lot of rest."

Izuku had only nodded, sure that he understood what Hizashi meant. Maybe not the specifics. His mom and Hizashi had been filtering what news they told him about Aizawa's recovery, worried that knowing how exactly his mentor was faring would disrupt his own recovery. He was sure his therapist would have something to say about that analysis, but that was precisely why he didn't tell him half the things he thought about during their sessions. Reading between and around the vagueness of the updates, Izuku thought that he would be prepared to see Aizawa. He wouldn't like seeing him injured, but at least he was alive. Izuku felt sure that he had imagine much worse in the time it had taken for him to be allowed to see him.

Stepping into Aizawa's room had instantly showed him how wrong he was. It was amazing how much weight someone could lose in such a short period of time. Aizawa looked almost brittle in a way that Izuku knew his mentor would resent him even thinking, but it was true. Izuku had known they had him in a medically induced coma at one point, but he hadn't known the true extent of it. Maybe Hizashi had been trying to shield him from it, but looking at him now there was no denying that Aizawa had a long road of recovery ahead of him. Bandages still covered most of his head and his eyes, and Izuku was almost grateful that he didn't have to see the damage that had been done. The sparse details that Hizashi and his mother had passed along had been bad enough. Another layer of bandages was wrapped around the elbow Shigaraki had grabbed, holding it in place so that Aizawa didn't accidently make the injuries worse. Healing quirks would speed up the process, but with skin and muscles and nerves needing to be repaired they couldn't do all the work, and the risk of infection would be high.

He tried to stop the choked cry before Aizawa heard, but Izuku had never been very good about controlling his emotions. Not when it came to the people he loved being hurt. And he couldn't even hug Aizawa right now because that would only make things worse! His hands closed into tight fists at his sides as he tried-and failed-to not cry.

"Izuku?"

Aizawa's voice sounded broken, muffled through the drugs they must still be giving him for the pain. Izuku couldn't trust himself to hug him, but he rushed across the room anyway, falling into the seat beside Aizawa's bed and reaching for his hand.

"Don't cry, Izuku," Aizawa said, lifting his hand slowly to find Izuku's head before ruffling his hair. "I'm okay." Izuku felt Hizashi slide into the other chair beside him, but he didn't look, tucking his head into the sheets on Aizawa's bed and finally letting the tears come as Aizawa continued to brush his hair. Not just for himself, or Aizawa, but Kaminari and the rest of their classmates. For the unfairness of the situation and all that they had been through. But they were still there, Aizawa was going to be okay, and they were going to find the villains who had broken into their school and make them pay for every single horrible thing they had done that day.

If Izuku thought about what it had been like seeing Aizawa in that hospital bed for the first time, the anger that he hadn't let himself acknowledge until he had known Aizawa was going be recover threatened to boil over. It was a struggle to rein it back in, but they had no leads on where those villains might have gone or what they might have planned now that their attempt to kill All Might had failed. Izuku couldn't just run off and try to track them down himself. He may be planning to do more underground work like Aizawa, but he wasn't a vigilante. He needed to do this right, which meant letting the school head the investigation for the time being.

He wasn't happy with that option, but he would make it work. Returning to school was the real first step. Proving that he was able to fall back into a somewhat normal routine. Go to class. Meet with his therapist. Train without having flashbacks of all of the moments he had almost died on his school campus. It wouldn't be easy, but Izuku would do it. He had no other choice. Because he never wanted anyone else to feel as he had that day at USJ, and that meant learning as much as he could. He hadn't seen the last of that villain. Izuku would make sure of it.

Kaminari arrived an hour early for school on his first day back to meet with All Might. His brain didn't seem capable of comprehending the situation that he was in. He was meeting with All Might. One on one. Just the two of them. All. Might. In his short time at Yuuei, Kaminari felt as though he had gotten a much better handle over his quirk. Maybe he should have realized on his own that he needed to find a way to work around the side effects, but once he had a little coaching it was so much easier to channel that energy elsewhere. Now though, he felt like his quirk was going to short circuit and fry his brain again, because the situation he found himself in could not be real life. It couldn't. Only Kaminari didn't have an imagination good enough to make this kind of thing up.

He had been so sure that his grandmother would want to remove him from Yuuei. She had always been worried about the danger that being a hero would put him in, but he knew that she had found comfort in the fact that it would be a while before he faced any real villains. He would be older, have real training, have other pro heroes to back him up. The attack at USJ would have been just the thing to remind her of how dangerous that life was, even as a student, and Kaminari hated to cause her any extra worry. She had been through so much already.

All the time he was in the hospital though, she hadn't mentioned him changing schools. Kaminari hadn't brought it up either for fear of opening that floodgate. The longer that she went without telling him she wanted him to transfer, the more Kaminari allowed himself to hope that everything would work out. His injuries had healed with the help of Recovery Girl and a few other doctors' quirks. From what he understood, the villain hadn't touched him as long as he had Aizawa, so while the damage had been deep it wasn't as widespread as their teacher's. Once he had been cleared to return to school, a thick zigzagging line across his cheek was the only outward sign of what Shigaraki had done to him. It still hurt sometimes, phantom pains echoing the memory of Shigarki's quirk turning skin and muscle to dust. Kaminari could live with it if they were only echoes.

No, by the time he left the hospital he knew his grandmother was up to something. Something that made her nervous. Then she had dropped the bombshell on him that All Might had visited her, and would he like to know what he said? Would he be okay with All Might visiting? She had tried to tell him that it was okay for him to refuse, but Kaminari hadn't hesitated. If All Might wanted to meet with him then it must be important. He couldn't turn that down.

Turns out he didn't need to use his quirk to short circuit his brain, because All Might telling him the truth about who he was did that fine on its own. That would have been too much for him to handle on its own, but then he had to go and add that he wanted to offer his quirk to Kaminari and that. That was it. Kaminari had needed to sit down for a good long while before he was able to process what was truly happening. His grandmother had almost kicked All Might out of their apartment(All Might!), telling him she knew that it was too close to the attack to be having this conversation, and that had been the thing to kick Kaminari into responding. He couldn't let his grandmother leave and possibly take the offer away with him.

In the moment, Kaminari hadn't been sure if he even wanted to accept the offer, his brain still rejecting the idea that he had heard the situation correctly, but if he was going to say no then he wanted it to be his own choice and not because his grandmother had thrown the number one hero out with the trash.

"Why me?" Kaminari had asked quietly. He winced at the way that the question had sounded. He should be confident about this, shouldn't he? All Might clearly believed in him if he was making this offer, but Kaminari couldn't see why out of all of the students at Yuuei, out of all of the students in 1-A alone, why he had chosen him. Kaminari Denki. The boy who hadn't even been able to control his quirk properly until he had reached high school. He was still struggling with it actually, despite the progress that he had made. Why would All Might trust him with someone so important? Something so special?

All Might sat on the sofa beside him, his eyes burning bright despite the emaciated look to his features. "I chose you, Kaminari Denki, because when the moment came you chose to protect someone even if it meant putting yourself at risk. It was dangerous," he continued, seeing the flash in Koharu's eyes," but it was brave and selfless, and it was the sign of a true hero. The kind of hero that I would be honored to call my successor. It won't be easy taking on my quirk. There are challenges that you will have to face in gaining control of the extra power, and I'm afraid that there are enemies that you will inherit along with One for All, but I promise you that if you choose to accept this then I will be there every step of the way."

A more complicated conversation had followed. Conversations, if he were being more accurate. After All Might's declaration, the hero insisted Kaminari take the time to think things over. Talk with his grandmother. The offer wasn't going to disappear if he needed more time to consider things. It didn't escape Kaminari's notice that All Might seemed nervous throughout the entire visit, his words sounded rehearsed and practiced. He had promised the hero he would think his decision through, but even as All Might left the apartment that first day he knew there was only one answer that he could give. All Might believed in him, believed that he could be the kind of hero to fill his shoes, and that meant more to Kaminari than any compliment he had ever received before.

His grandmother had been a little harder to convince. While she hadn't wanted to refuse All Might without letting her grandson hear him out, she wasn't sure how she felt about the additional danger this would put him in. Kaminari had argued the opposite. He was already going to be in danger-and what a risk that reminder had been- but having All Might's quirk might actually end up helping him be better protected. There was also the fact that All Might himself would be there to watch out for him, to train him. The world needed someone to be the next All Might, to stand for the hope that he provided. All Might thought that person could be him, and did he didn't want to let him down.

She hadn't agreed yet, but Kaminari knew that she wouldn't stop him if he made the decision on his own. She wanted him to be safe, but she also believed that he was capable of making his own decisions. If he could survive a villain attack and train at the most prestigious hero academy in the country, then he was responsible enough to weigh the risks of the situation seriously without being swayed by how cool it would be to be All Might's protégé. All Might still agreed to train him, starting slowly as he got back into the swing of things with his recovery and his therapy sessions, but it was progress.

Kaminari was just glad that he didn't have to hide what was going on from Izuku. He felt fairly certain he wouldn't have been successful at it even if he had tried. His friend noticed too much. Part of him thought that he should have felt something about the fact that All Might admitted the reason he could talk freely with Izuku about the secrets he had shared with Kaminari was because Izuku had been offered his quirk first-and turned him down. Jealousy maybe. Disappointment that he wasn't the first choice.

He couldn't bring himself to feel either of those things though. All Might had made the offer to Izuku before the school year had even started, and if Kaminari had been in All Might's position he would have picked Izuku too. Izuku radiated goodness in a way that Kaminari had never seen before, and he would have been a perfect fit to become the next Symbol of Peace. That wasn't what Izuku wanted though. That wasn't the type of hero he wanted to be. He was too much like Aizawa to feel comfortable in that role, and Izuku's refusal of All Might made Kaminari's respect for him rise even more. Besides, Kaminari wouldn't have the control that he had gained over his quirk if it hadn't been for his friends' insistence that he get more help. He owned them more than he could ever repay them, although he felt pretty sure they didn't look at it that way.

He hadn't told Izuku or Mei yet, but he was going to. As soon as he got the chance. Izuku had probably thought about a million different applications for All Might's quirk after discovering the truth about it, even if he hadn't decided to accept it, and there were no limits to the amounts of gadgets that Mei would be able to build once he got the extra charge One for All would grant him under control. It was just what he needed to take his mind off of what had happened at USJ and the threat that still remained from the villains that had escaped. There was more Kaminari needed to know, more All Might needed to tell him, but for the first time since realizing that the school was under attack, he actually felt like things were going to be okay.

Kadono Eiko should have left the office hours ago. Hers was the only light still shining through the newspaper's front window, but she couldn't leave. Not yet. She had been waiting on a call for the last two hours, but she hadn't let doubt creep in yet. Her informants were always late, especially the new ones, although she guessed that this time it was due more to nerves than any misguided sense they would get more money out of her if they let her sweat it out.

When the phone finally chimed, vibrating against the wood of her desk, she let it buzz once, twice, three times before finally picking up. There was no need to appear too eager, although she was curious about what this particular treasure trove might have unearthed for her. It had been a shot in the dark when she reached out, a risk that could have caused more problems than rewards if she wasn't careful, but Kadono hadn't gotten where she was by playing it safe and easy. Groundbreaking, memorable work always came with risks. If she had wanted a safe position with the paper then she would have stayed in the gossip columns where her first boss had tried to leave her. There wasn't anything wrong with that work, but it wasn't what she had wanted. Now the pressure to break a story grew with every piece, always the push to find something bigger and better than the last.

"Well?" She asked, not bothering with a greeting. Social niceties only allowed the more…arrogant of her informants to think they were owed something they were not. Cutting out the unnecessary fluff kept the distance she needed and let them know that they weren't anything special should they cross any lines.

"I'm not sure about this," the woman said on the other end of the line. Kadono resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She wouldn't be calling if she had any real intention of backing out of their bargain. "Are you sure this won't link back to me? I could lose my license for this."

If she really wanted to keep her license, she shouldn't have agreed to pass on privileged conversations to a reporter, but Kadono was in no position to judge. This woman's bad judgement might be the thing that led to her next big break, and Kadono wasn't going to coddle her on the morality front.

"My sources always remain anonymous. No one will know you've talked to me unless you tell them. I've kept information from much more risky sources than you quiet, trust me." Not strictly true, but then Kadono didn't have to tell her that.

There was silence for a moment as the woman debated her choice. Kadono leaned back in her chair, not pressing the issue. Waiting her out. When it came down to money or morals, people chose money almost every single time.

"I want double." There it was.

"Give me something good, and we'll talk."

"You'll want what I've discovered. It's about Endeavor."

Kadono allowed herself a smile. Jackpot.

"Oh? Do tell."