Shouta woke up early the next morning and walked downstairs to find Hitoshi already awake and eating what sounded like cereal.
"Mornin'."
"Mornin'."
He went to grab his coat but paused, turning back to the kitchen.
"You wanna' take a walk somewhere with me?"
"Uh sure."
Shouta smiled.
"Finish your breakfast and we'll head out."
"A cemetery?" Hitoshi questioned as they approached the black iron gates after their walk through town.
Shouta gave a nod as he walked inside, flipping down his cane for the next stretch.
"It's been a while so let's see how good my memory is. If I remember correctly its thirty steps forward and six right, then eighteen forward twelve left."
"Is that how you work out where you're going?"
"Usually I get the layout down and memorise it so I don't need my cane but for this I don't visit enough to just know it so I made sure to count to where Hizashi told me they were."
"Are we visiting someone?"
"Yes." He nodded. "Come on then."
They headed through the graveyard, Hitoshi following the path set by the pro before they came to a memorial in the ground.
'Kaiyo Aizawa ~ 2116–2148
Loving Mother'
"She was your Mom?"
Shouta nodded.
Hitoshi worked out the age before wincing. He knew Shouta had spent a number of years in foster care before he was adopted by the Bakugou's but seeing it laid out in front of him was hard.
"Some kids at school, I uhh, I heard them talking about you the other day. They said something about, your Dad?"
"Shūgo Inagaki." Shouta supplied.
He'd heard that name before; Tomura had talked about him with Kurogiri. Something about him killing a bunch of people and then...
Oh...
His wife.
They were both silent after that.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be nosey, and it's really none of my business."
"She was amazing." Shouta continued undeterred. "She would always make the best bentos for my lunch at school and we'd spend hours on the beach together when I was growing up."
Hitoshi smiled.
"I wish I could have met her."
He smiled too, the soft words of the teen warning his heart.
"Me too Toshi."
Shouta kissed two of his fingers before pressing them against the top of the stone memorial.
"I love you Mom, if you're around, watch out for Hitoshi for me, okay?"
Hitoshi gently linked his arm with the pro's.
Shouta extended his cane.
"Come on, the last stop here isn't far."
The next memorial was newer than the previous and carried another life span that made Hitoshi feel for the pro even more.
'Oboro Shirakumo ~ 2139–2155
A free spirit'
"My Mom transferred me to a different school a year or so before everything happened. It was well into the school year and I'd already missed the first one so everyone had their friends already. I was timid back then, scared of my own shadow but Oboro saw me sat on my own and practically refused to leave me alone until we became friends. After that we went to junior high together, then UA. I remember not long after... something happened, some guy at school decided he wanted to give me his opinion and Oboro, the stupid idiot, decked the guy and got his nose broken for the trouble."
"Sounds like he really cared about you."
"Oboro was just a beautiful person and he didn't have a bad bone in him. Most kids aspire to take down huge villains and save big cities from destruction; Oboro never lost sight of the little guys. He wanted everyone to be able to smile and you always did when he was around."
"2155, you would still have been at UA, right?"
Shouta nodded.
"There's a reason UA hasn't offered work placements to first and second years in nearly fifteen years."
Hitoshi smiled as the pro's hand came to mess up his hair.
"Anyway, enough with the morbid stuff, fancy grabbing some bubble waffles on the way home?"
"Sounds good to me."
He couldn't help but think about what Shouta had said though. As they walked back through the gates and down the street he turned to look up at him.
"So why now?"
"Like I said in that homeroom, 1-A has already faced worse and this time they're all supervised by ranked pros. What happened back then was a freak accident, it wasn't anyone's fault but the school still took a hit, the only way they were able to start these up again was because of the pro hero involvement."
"Is that why you have me, because of the police?"
"You're with me because there's no one in the rankings with quirks like ours. I know exactly how to train you because I trained myself."
Hitoshi's eyes widened.
"Really?!"
"They didn't offer any more placements while I was at UA so we had random pros come in to give training sessions every so often, I was… focused back then and knew what kind of hero I wanted to be."
"An invisible one?" He questioned.
"I never wanted to be in the spotlight, not really, when Oboro, Hizashi and I were talking about having our own agency I was willing to put it with it if it made them happy but after he passed that all changed and Zashi and I decided on vastly different career paths. Well, sorta, he still bullied me into being a teacher, aided by the fact that Oboro thought I'd be a good one too."
"You and Hizashi couldn't have more different personalities, huh?" Hitoshi smirked.
"I like to think we balance each other out."
"It's sweet."
Shouta smiled.
"Placements start next week and it's going to be tough, you sure you're ready?"
Hitoshi nodded.
"Of course."