"Next stop, Aldera Station."

"Next stop, Tatooine Station."

"Next stop…"

Izuku drowned out the noise as the train kept chugging by, station after station.

As summer vacation was coming to an end, no matter how hectic it was for Midoriya Izuku, it meant his already limited free days were coming to an end as well. So Izuku decided to finally set out and do the one thing he should have done since he woke up in the hospital that fateful day.

If you thought about it, it was glaringly obvious. Where was the best place for an amnesiac that couldn't even remember his first day of school like Izuku, to look for and recover his lost memories?

"Doors are closing. Please do not obstruct the train doors…"

As Izuku walked out of the station and onto the main road, a sense of dread began to cloud his heart with suffocating anxiety.

Even if it was the best place to recover his memories, even if it was the most obvious place to look, Midoriya Izuku still couldn't bear to journey there.

*Ding*

The elevator doors creaked open, as Izuku hopped out of the cheaply maintained carriage.

Because he had no idea what to say or how to react when he saw her.

Izuku finally stopped at a certain apartment door.

The boy who would run straight into danger to save others, indifferent to his own wellbeing. The one who students in UA touted as the strongest for beating several hero students and throwing the festival for his best friend, was afraid. Izuku after what seemed like hours finally reached for the door. His hands shaking like he was caught in a winter storm, but for Izuku he might as well have been.

Hesitantly Izuku let out a breath, knocked a wobbly hand against the door open, and then…

"Coming!"

A pitter patter of anxious steps could be heard, and the door finally opened. But what lied behind wasn't a winter kingdom ruled by a witch, nor was it a futuristic door to anywhere.

It was just a short, portly woman with green haired who answered.

"Ah! Izuku!"

"H-hey Mom…"

Midoriya Inko pulled her son down for an almost too tight hug.

"I wasn't expecting this! Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?"

"Ah, must have slipped my mind." Izuku nervously scratched the back of his head. "I've been pretty busy after all."

"Well, come on in then! I'll get some tea on- Oh wait dinner! I haven't prepared any dinner! Oh you must be hungry, so many things to do…"

"Mom! Calm down! Take a deep breath…" Izuku motioned as his mother began a light breathing routine to calm herself.

"Better?"

Inko nodded.

"Alright. Lets not worry too much about dinner, ok? We'll just round up whatever's in the fridge, I'll help of course."

"Oh no, you should just rest baby. I don't want you to have come all this way just to-"

"Mom, it's fine! I don't mind cooking at all! Especially with a fully stocked fridge for once…" Izuku muttered out the last part to himself.

"Ok, if you insist…"

Thankfully there were eggs in the refrigerator, pork in the freezer and some panko in the pantry. So Izuku had all he needed to whip up his favourite meal.

As he sliced up the pork and dipped it in the beaten egg mixture, there was a certain flavour in the air.

No, it wasn't salmonella it was a much more distinct sort of flavour, something more striking than nostalgia, yet not quite as uncanny as deja vu.

The best way Izuku could describe it was like drinking a hearty bowl of chicken soup on a snowy evening.

"And the first one's in…" Izuku popped a wet piece of crumb covered pork into the piping hot oil.

"Careful dear! The oil just got up to temperature!"

It was the certain emotion or state of mind someone felt when they were among certain people in their lives. Even though this Izuku with an empty head hadn't a single bit of memory of this woman, he still felt a strange natural warmth around her.

"Itaidakimasu!"

The Midoriya's began to chow down on their deep fried fruits of labour.

"Mmm! You've gotten better, Izuku!"

"Thanks mom!" The boy uncontrollably smiled, with gleeful lips full of rice and oil laden pork.

Just what was this happiness he was feeling? It was a strange new sensation, or perhaps an old one rediscovered.

Was this how it felt to be somewhere you called home? For this Izuku it had always been a dormitory where he and a certain little girl resided, and yet he felt the same about a place he could not even recall, with a woman he only knew through hazy pieces of memory and a log of a thousand text messages from the past year.

Izuku had never felt anything like this since the first night he spent with Eri.

But while his stomach felt full and his heart warm, nothing of note had happened within Izuku's limited mind space.

After dinner, Izuku asked if he could take a moment to grab something from his old room.

Inko agreed, taking the time to do the dishes after their long awaited reunion dinner.

Walking up to the door, Izuku immediately noted the worn All Might styled nameplate. A toddler's scribble of his name, faded but still readable. With a nudge the door opened, and Izuku's eyes were met with the sight of a half emptied room, hero march filling what was left of his belongings. Stars and stripes plastered almost every inch of the room, either in the form of a collectible or simply wallpaper.

Izuku had the striking suspicion that the previous Midoriya Izuku, or at least the kid version of him was really obsessed with All Might. But he hadn't seen much of the muscly blond hero in his own dorm room, so what had changed? Did his passion suddenly die out? Or was it just a simple lack of disposable income in college?

He traced the shelves for any hint or clue, rummaged through the drawers with the goal of finding something in mind. Something significant that might trigger a memory, any memory that he might have lost. With somewhere he spent as much time as his old room, Izuku thought he might find at least something of value. While he noted how curiously dust free the furniture was, all he found were some old hero themed stickers, stationary, among other trinkets, along with some empty bottles of green hair dye.

In the back of Izuku's head there was the foggiest footnote reminding him that he was actually adopted, and here he thought that all the discount food he was eating was causing his hair to lose it's colour.

Maybe that was whats missing, maybe the old Midoriya Izuku thought that he did not truly belong in this house. Maybe that's why no memories were returning.

Over the desk, Izuku stumbled upon something else, a stack of notebooks that looked burnt to a crisp.

Picking up the one on the top, Izuku quickly realised that this one was the outlier. 'Hero Analysis for the Future, No 13.' Why did this one in particular look like it got set off under a firecracker? Flipping through the pages, Izuku found nothing to be extraordinary or out of place…

Oh wait! There was two page spread All Might autograph in here! Did someone try and wrestle Izuku for this? That was probably it.

*Knock Knock*

"Izuku? Can I come in?"

The book slammed shut with a paper clap. "Sure mom!"

The short portly woman walked in, with a handbag under her arm.

"Oh my baby boy, look at you."

Inko cupped his face. "You're so grown up now…"

The reddening Izuku shrugged her off. "Mom, I just went to college. I didn't change that much…" 'Except for the part where my memory bank did a hard reset.'

"I'm just… glad." Inko looked down.

"Hmm?"

"I… I was worried you know? After you failed the hero exam, I was so worried for you. All that drive and enthusiasm you had in your final year of high school, just gone in a day. All the way til the day you left for UA, you just seemed like a lifeless husk of the boy I raised. But you know what the sickening part was?" Inko started to sob.

"I was relieved. After All Might fell, after the number one hero fell, I was so afraid Izuku. Not just for Japan or the rapidly increasing crime rates, but for my son who wanted to be a hero above all. My poor son who just wanted to save people with a smile with his face who was born quirkless…" Tears started to pool at their feet.

"I-I just didn't want to lose you, Izuku!" Midoriya Inko cried out in guilt.

"But that's not all, there's still one more thing I've kept from you…" A sealed envelope was pulled out of the bag Izuku thought forgotten.

"After we found out you were quirkless… I had your DNA sent in for a test. Not just to look for every possibility of a quirk, but to look for something else as well…" Inko paused, letting out a stress filled breath of anxiety.

"The forensics found a match for your parents, Izuku. Your real parents."

"!"

Izuku came all the way here for something to help jog his memory, but this? He didn't think he would've been prepared for this bombshell even with his mind still intact.

"Now that you're old enough, I just thought you should know the truth. After everything you at least deserve that much…" Inko shakily raised the envelope toward him.

"My real parents? My real mother…" Izuku's hand reached out to hers, catching a glimpse of Inko's tear stricken face.

Then it finally came.

There wasn't any frame of time, nor any context behind them. But images kept flashing in Izuku's head.

A crying boy at the beach, smoke and destruction all around him.

A hospital, or was it a care centre or an orphanage? He couldn't tell.

A nurse or was it a sunflower? He couldn't remember.

A boy with white hair and blue eyes muddled with the image of a blonde with red eyes.

And a young couple who wished to adopt.

Suddenly, a ward filled with beds became a room lined with stars and stripes.

A bland food tray morphed into a delicious dish of deep fried pork with rice.

Sleepless nights were now spent in the lap of a green haired woman.

And the boy was no longer crying.

Finally Izuku held on and Inko let go of the envelope.

*Plink*

But what he held onto was not the envelope containing the secrets the past him never knew.

"I-Izuku?" Inko cried in surprise from his sudden embrace. "What are you doing?"

"Exactly what I said…"

Whatever sentence was coming out of Inko's mouth died before it could be formed into words.

"Did you know that humans replaced nearly all of their cells throughout their lives? So the body you have now, probably doesn't contain a single cell from when you was a child. But the energy you use to make those cells doesn't just come from nowhere right? You consume food to supplement your body's needs."

Izuku tightened his embrace. "And right now my body is made from 30% Breaded pork, 10% Onions and other vegetables, and 60% of the rice my mother made for me every single day."

There was virtually nothing left of the boy who cried all those years ago, in both spirit and body. What they saw now was merely the boy that Midoriya Inko fed and raised for well over a decade.

"I don't need a piece of paper to tell me who my real mother is…"

"I….Izuku!" Inko finally returned his embrace, tears flowing faster and more profusely than they ever had.

And Izuku cried as well as he held her in his arms, the famous Midoriya tears forming a puddle of comfort and joy at their feet.

Well as the saying goes, like Mother like Son.