Their Hero Academia

by Zylly

Twenty-five years after Izuki Midoriya and the rest of Class 1-A first set foot in the halls of U.A., their children begin their own hero academia. What adventures and challenges await the newest generation of future heroes? Can they possibly live up to the standard their parents set? Will they put Aizawa into an early grave? Or will this be the most Plus Ultra class of them all?

50. Chapter 45: What Does Toshi Want?

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 45: What Does Toshi Want?

"POWERRRRRR!"

Toshi had only a split second to react, lowering his gravity down to almost nil with a thought and jumping up and over his attacker. He'd gotten good at judging exactly how much power to put into his jumps. And in this case, he really had to be. His opponent was tall, with incredible reach, and more than enough muscle even without super-strength to really ruin his day. He'd been dodging blow for several minutes now, unable to land any of his own in return. Between his opponent's speed and his Quirk, it was all but impossible.

When he reached the ceiling, he pushed off, hard, increasing his gravity and turning himself into a missile. But his foe had gotten turned around in time and he passed harmlessly through him, smacking into the wall on the other side.

Dazed, he bounced off, his feet touching the ground, and clutching his head. He was harder to hurt when he amped up his gravity, but it didn't mean he didn't feel the sheer bone-rattling impact. It took him a moment to remember what direction up was and that moment cost him.

A slight rush of air, some instinct, told him to dodge, and he jumped back, blindly, this time slamming into a muscular wall, sending the both of them down in a heap.

Toshi scrambled to his feet and offered Uncle Mirio a hand up. "So I win, right?"

"What?" Uncle Mirio asked, taking his hand and getting to his feet. "How do you figure that?"

"You said if I could tag you, it counted as a win."

"I meant on purpose, Toshi. That was a total accident and you know it." Uncle Mirio crossed his arms, trying to look stern. That lasted for about all of five seconds. "But what the heck. I am a man of my word, after all!"

Uncle Mirio let out a hearty laugh. "So now the score is infinity to one!"

It was hardly the first time Toshi had sparred with Uncle Mirio, but the first time in a professional setting. Toshi's Quirk required a lot of split-second timing in order to get the best use out of it, shifting up and down the gravity spectrum rapidly. Uncle Mirio's Permeation Quirk required similar timing and thus made him an excellent teacher. His parents had brought him in early, once he'd decided he was going to be a Hero.

It, along with his parents' teachings, had given him a considerable leg up by the time he'd been ready to enroll in U.A. But he still had a long way to go.

Uncle Mirio had been a constant figure in his life for as long as he could remember, even becoming his godfather. He was one of the few people the Midoriyas had no secrets from, one of the very few who knew about One for All.

Uncle Mirio dropped back into another fighting stance. "C'mon. Let's go again. This time I won't go as easy on you!"

That was taking it easy?!

Toshi was, by nature, a fitness nut. Usually the only person in the dorm who had him beat in that regard was Katsumi, and he honestly wasn't sure how much that of that was natural inclination and how much was her competitive streak coming out. Most mornings, he'd get up, stretch, and then go for a job around the campus, before heading back to breakfast. These days, Katsumi and Kana usually joined him. He'd tried to talk Haimawari and Shoto into it, but both had declined.

Fortunately, for him, Uncle Mirio was as big a fitness nut as he was. After their sparring match, they'd decided to take on a jog in the city. And it was early enough that they could go out in their civilian clothes and not be recognized by anyone, even if Uncle Mirio was fairly distinctive and well-known as the Number Two (and sometimes Number One) Hero.

Granted, Toshi was fairly distinctive himself, both as the son of the Number One Hero and having taken Third Place in the Sports Festival. He'd been lucky, really, growing up. His parents had done an amazing job keeping him and his younger sisters out of the limelight and away from the paparazzi.

"So, question for you, Toshi," Uncle Mirio said.

"Shoot," he replied, wondering what it might be. They were already on day three of his Internship and had done quite a bit with patrol and other training. Today, once they got back, they were supposed to be focusing on investigative techniques.

"What do you want?"

"Huh?" Toshi asked, confused. But he kept jogging. He always thought better when he was in motion anyway.

"I watched you at the Sports Festival," Uncle Mirio said. "Getting your whole class to pass the Obstacle Course was pretty awesome. Must have taken a lot of planning. And looks like you gave out a lot of good advice during Quirkball too."

"Sure," Toshi replied, not seeing where Uncle Mirio was going with this. "I wanted to make sure everybody got the chance to show off and impress people. Not everybody's got the same advantages I do."

"Because of your parents are," Uncle Mirio said, and Toshi nodded in response. "And I know you told your dad about Haimawari."

"He was the only one of us without a Hero or two in his corner," Toshi said quickly. He still didn't get what his uncle was getting at. Why was his helping people being called into question? "And besides, Izumi did that too with her dad. And so did the Twins' uncle for some reason." That one he didn't get. Of course, his dad had later said that he'd have been interesting in Haimawari anyway… but a little extra encouragement couldn't have hurt.

"Thing is," Uncle Mirio said, "pretty much everything you do, you're always doing it for someone else. Always have. You're always looking out for your class, your friends, everyone. It's pretty commendable… but what do you want? Or should I ask, what do you want for you?"

"Huh?" Toshi stopped dead where he was, not understanding the question at all. Uncle Mirio overtook him easily because of it, but he stopped and turned around.

Uncle Mirio looked around, then nodded. "C'mon. Let's get some breakfast." He inclined his head to the side, in the direction of a stand selling breakfast sandwiches and opening early. "Then we can talk."

Toshi sat down on the bench and took a bite of his sandwich and a drink from the juice he'd purchased, before Uncle Mirio spoke again.

"So, mentor hat off," Uncle Mirio said, miming taking a hat off. "And godfather hat on." He mimed putting a different hat on. "You're always taking care of somebody else. Just like your dad, really. Almost everybody who works in the Tower has a story about a time he's helped them out, even me. You seem to always know what everybody else needs, but what do you want? What do you need?"

That was… an interesting question, now that someone said it out loud. Toshi had even pondered it a bit during the Sports Festival. He'd been so focused on getting his friends and classmates as far as he could, that he'd gone into the Tournament Round with less of a clear idea of what he was going to do than he'd really have liked. Sure, he'd managed to think his way through all his matches, but he honestly hadn't prepared for that eventuality like he should have if he was thinking about his own success.

Toshi did not want for much. As the son of the Number One Hero and another highly successful Hero besides, to say nothing of being the grandson of All Might, he wanted for very little. They may not have been as rich as Izumi's family or the Iidas, but the Hero business had done very well for them indeed.

When All for One and the original League of Villains had been defeated finally and decisively, it had created a major sociological shift: Villains still existed, but it had leveled off. There was still and would still be a need for Heroes, but their parents' generation was the first generation of Heroes to have families and children on so broad a scale. The demands on any one individual Hero, even the Number One Hero, were not so great that they could not have lives of their own. His dad may have had to devote more time to Hero work sometimes than others, but he also had plenty of time for them.

That Toshi would be a Hero was never in question. He'd grown up with too many examples of heroism right in front of him, from his parents, to his grandfather, to an extended clan of honorary aunts and uncles, to one Great Granpa Torino. He'd been practicing his Quirk for years. He didn't expect anything to be handed to him, and he knew he'd have to work hard to get there, but he knew being a Hero was his path in life.

And yet…

What did he actually want? To be a Hero, sure. To be like his dad, live up to the example he set. To help as many people as he could. Were those too abstract?

"I… don't know," he said, finally. Admitting it felt like defeat.

"Oh," Uncle Mirio said, then he smiled. "That's all right! You've got time to figure it out."

Toshi's eyes widened. "What?" he asked, arms flailing. "You made it sound so serious! You made it sound like I had to have an answer right now!"

Uncle Mirio smiled apologetically. "Sorry," he said. "But I do want you to think about it. I don't think you realized you didn't know."

He went on. "It's okay to have different goals. I used to say what I wanted to do was to save a million people. Pretty sure I've done that by now. But that also changed when I lost my Quirk. I had to find a new goal. And then I wanted to show people that having a Quirk or not didn't matter. Not sure how much that worked, since it didn't last. These days, I want to make sure everyone feels safe. It's my specific goal. Making sure that when I'm around, people know there's nothing to fear.

"Your dad's the Symbol of Hope. He wants shows people that they can do anything if they believe they can, and that Hope will always win out against evil. Everybody's got their reasons and they've all got their goals.

"Sir, bless him, wanted to make a world with smiles and humor.

"Tamaki and Neijire—my kids, not my best friends—want to protect people. Tamaki really wants to be a symbol, like your dad, showing people they've got someone in their corner. David wants to make sure the people doing that are as safe as they can be.

"Wanting your friends to succeed is a great thing, Toshi. But if you're busy looking after everyone else, are you looking after you? Are you putting your own goals aside to take care of them? Just think about it, okay? You've got to know yourself in this business."

Toshi nodded, slowly. He had always tried to look out for his friends, ever since he was little, whether that was keeping Katsumi from killing somebody, reminding Shota that he needed to sleep, or putting a good word in his dad's ear on Haimawari's behalf. Asuka was pretty much recognized as the "Team Mom" of the 1-A kids, but Toshi was pretty sure that made him "Team Dad."

What did he want?

"He's right, you know, Young Grans… Er, young man."

Toshi nearly jumped into orbit. He looked behind them and found Grandpa Might leaning against a street light. He was wearing a trench coat and a hat that hid his bangs, but he was unmistakable. Being a tall, incredibly fit, man in his early seventies (…truth be told, Grandpa Might's age was kind of weird, since Aunt Eri had rewound him by eleven years), made him rather distinctive.

"Mister Yagi, were you following us?" Uncle Mirio asked.

Grandpa Might yelped and shrunk back. "Why, I, ah, I don't know what you're talking about, Young Togata. I mean, young man! I was simply in the neighborhood and…"

Toshi buried his head in his hands. He'd thought he'd finally gotten Grandpa Might to stop following him…

Fortunately, the day got much less philosophical from that point on. They'd returned to Might Tower and quickly gotten to work, following a brief break to shower and change into their costumes. They met up in the Investigation Room of Uncle Mirio's floor.

While most of the investigative work was done by Uncle Hitoshi and Aunt Camie and the other Underground Heroes and Sidekicks, Uncle Mirio was also a deft hand at it from his days working with Sir Nighteye and his own course of study. Many people, Villain, Hero, or otherwise, had been taken in by his cheerful demeanor and ready smile, and been utterly surprised by the razor sharp mind behind it.

Carefully, Uncle Mirio planted a pin in the map of the city on the wall, joining several others already placed. "What do you think, Toshi?" he asked. "See any patterns?"

Toshi stared at the map, outlining several portions of Tokyo. There were about a dozen pins in it all together, spaced at various points around the city. "It depends," he said. "What are the pins for?"

Uncle Mirio shook his head, leaning back lazily against the wall. "Not saying. See if you can figure it out."

Okay, he thought to himself. One hand rubbed his chin, while the other tapped anxiously on his leg. Toshi considered himself to be pretty insightful, but he wasn't half the analyst his dad was. Or anywhere near as smart as his girlfriend (that reminded him, he should call her and see how her Internship was going). But he could give this his best shot.

So the pins were definitely scattered but, as he looked from each one to the next, he realized that the center point of the map was definitely Might Tower itself. Most of the pins were fairly close, with just a few outliers, and several of them came from different business districts or downtown, all in what should be heavily populated areas, only a few of them next to anything industrial or manufacturing, several of them were close together as though indicating buildings right next to each other, and one of them…

Toshi tilted his head. Was that where they'd just been earlier this morning?

"Waitaminute!" he said, giving Uncle Mirio an accusing glare. "This is just a bunch of food places!

Uncle Mirio laughed at that. "Okay, you got me," he said, apologetically. "I was just giving you a little test."

He looked over to one of the other maps on the wall. "This one though, if you can figure it out, that'd be great. Bunch of tech and chemical thefts, but no one's putting anything together."

Toshi studied it for a moment, finding one well outside city limits. "Isn't that pin the truck that got attacked last month?"

Uncle Mirio nodded. He seemed to hesitate just a second before answering. "That one's… a little bit top secret," he admitted. "Sorry, Toshi, but you're not cleared to know."

He shook his head. "Anyway, I've got some smaller cases we can review. Call it Investigation 101."

While Uncle Mirio was busy with investigative leads and talking to Uncle Hitoshi, Toshi found himself with a bit of a free time. There was plenty he could have done, more productive things, but instead, he found himself drawn to one of his favorite places in Might Tower: the Museum. Largely dedicated to Grandpa Might and his long and illustrious career, there was also a plenty of room dedicated to his dad, and many of the Heroes he had worked with and fought beside. Though Uncle Kacchan had never been entirely happy with his statue, claiming it looked nothing like him and that Dad had deliberately placed it in an out of the way corner. Considering how much space the section devoted to Ground Zero actually occupied and how much his dad admired Uncle Kacchan, Toshi knew that was all just bluster.

There was even a small section devoted to Gran Torino, which the man would have positively hated, having stayed away from the spotlight his entire life and career. There were two statues, one at the prime of his life, tall, muscular, and scowling. The other, closer to the time of his death, shrunken with age, but had no less of a scowl. It was how the world remembered him.

A far cry from the Great Granpa Torino that Toshi remembered, the kindly old man who had sometimes watched him and his sister Hana. He'd fed them taiyaki and told them stories that, in retrospect, probably hadn't been appropriate for children and still delighted in his ability to put Grandpa Might in a state of pants wetting terror. He'd been gone about four years now, having stayed active just long enough to briefly take Tamaki Togata on as an intern, before passing away peacefully in his sleep. Of course, he'd also claimed he was staying alive just so he could dance on Recovery Girl's grave, but that hadn't happened.

Toshi wished the old man was still with them to see the Hero he was becoming. He'd based some of his own fighting style on the way Great Granpa Torino had bounced around.

He'd kept a baseball cap on, hiding his green curls under it as much as he could, and the lower part of his face, including the circular pink patches on his cheeks, under a sickness mask. It gave him a little more privacy.

Uncle Mirio's words were still ringing in his head and he really needed to get them sorted out. He'd thought coming down here, seeing his grandpa, his dad, and all his extended family would help him get his head around them, but he wasn't sure it was helping any. So many Heroes. People carrying on legacies like Uncle Tenya, proving they were more than their past like Uncle Shoto, proving that no Quirk was villainous like Uncle Hitoshi, proving that brains mattered more than beauty like Aunt Momo, even people like Minoru Mineta showing that anyone had heroic potential.

Had all of them known why they were following the path of the Hero so early? Were they certain of it? Uncle Mirio had said he didn't have to have a definitive answer. But surrounded by all this, Toshi couldn't help but feel that he wasn't measuring up.

"You know," a voice from behind him said, "I like it down here too."

Toshi turned around and saw his dad, similarly disguised. "Hey," he said. "Didn't expect to see you down here."

"Got Hitoshi working with Haimawari and Kocho," Dad said. Toshi could tell he was smiling by the light in his eyes and the sound of his voice. "But Mirio said you were a little rattled this morning. You want to talk about it?"

Toshi drew in a breath, closed his eyes, then nodded. No harm in asking for help. "Yeah. I think I would."

For some, the roof of Might Tower might have been scary, being one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. But Toshi wasn't afraid. He'd been up here many times, starting when he was just a small child. With Dad able to fly from the portion of One for All inherited from Nana Shimura and Mom's Zero-gravity Quirk, he'd never been afraid of falling, especially when his own Quirk had kicked in. The view of the city was truly impressive, reminding him of just how many people lived here and how many people relied on Heroes for their safety.

"So what's on your mind, champ?" Dad asked. His tone was pretty light, but Toshi could hear the concern behind it. "Mirio said he got you thinking this morning. Is that still bothering you?"

"Maybe," Toshi said. "I thought I knew what I was doing, Dad. And then Uncle Mirio started asking me what I wanted. And then I didn't know."

"You sure about that?" Dad asked, encouragingly, patiently, like he was trying to draw something out of him.

"It's just…" Toshi began, trailing off. He waved a hand in the general direction of the city. "I remember something you told me a long time ago. About when you met Grandpa Might and saved helped save Uncle Kacchan from the Sludge Monster. You said there were Heroes there who didn't help, because they didn't think they could. But you could, so you rushed in even though you didn't have a Quirk back then. You always told me that if you could help, you should help, for no other reason than because you could.

"I've always tried to do that. I know I've got it way easier compared to a lot of people. A good Quirk, money, opportunities, and a family with some of the most famous Heroes in the history of, like, ever.

"All I've ever wanted to do with that is help people. And that means helping my friends too. Katsumi, Izumi, Haimawari, Shota, whoever."

Toshi clenched a hand into a fist, slamming it into his other palm. "That's what I want to be. It's who I am. That's what I'm going to do! I'm going to be the guy that helps people!"

His dramatic moment was broken by the sound of Dad clapping. "Just what I thought you'd say!"

The moment passed, Toshi felt puzzlement creep in. "But Uncle Mirio said…"

"He said you needed to know yourself, right?"

Toshi nodded and Dad went on. "He might not have put it just right, but what he was really getting at was that you should be sure you're doing it because that's what you want to do, not just because you think it's what you want to do, or even because you feel you have to do. There's a difference between doing the right thing because you have to and because you want to. You've always looked out for other people. You do it without thinking, just like a Hero. But now you know it. And I think your friends are lucky to have you looking out for them. I'm so proud of you."

He could see tears in Dad's eyes. "Daaaad," he said, waving his hands in front of him rapidly. "Don't cry! If you cry, I'm gonna…"

Too late.

They cried.

Some things never changed. But fortunately, the tears didn't last long.

"So," Dad said after a moment, "have you called your girlfriend yet? Not a good idea to leave a girl hanging for too long, you know. I remember, before your mother, when I was dating Melissa and didn't call her for three days and…"

Toshi's heart seized up. "…Sora!" He headed for the door to the stairwell, fumbling for his phone. "Sorry, Dad, gotta go!"