"Look, today I think is the day."

The beach again. There was no buildup like before, or wind that was whispering in his ears. The insides of his fingers were thick with sand as if he was just sitting down before, and he raised his head to respond.

Midoriya was standing, just like before, with that almost eerie but genuine smile etched onto his face.

"It's been a while since we were this powerful, and I think it will be easier to take it in short bursts," he continued. "You haven't been using your quirk, have you?"

"Not as often." Kirishima looked away, at the rolling sea that was lapping at his ankles. "It's been hard to use it lately."

"That makes things harder, you know."

Kirishima resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "You're dead. You shouldn't be giving advice to the living. Not very manly."

"I know." Midoriya placed one hand on Kirishima's shoulder. "But we can give encouragement, can't we? Learn from our mistakes. Break through any wall that stands in your way, Kirishima."

Kirishima awoke that morning jittery and cold, like there were ants under his skin. He itched his way through class, fidgeted though Aizawa's explanation of special move training, and climbed his way up to Cementoss's assigned place for him on the man made mountain without even activating his quirk to dig into the cement. His fingertips were rubbed raw by the time he reached the top.

He reached into his quirk like so easily before. Hardening was always a comforting blanket to pull over himself, protecting himself from harm. It was as easy as standing on his toes or breathing between his teeth. Unbreakable was becoming easier and easier to access, and today it felt so much more natural, so much more right , dipping into that bit of warmth in his stomach that had been pooling all morning. He imagined Bakugou's eyes on him, eating with Kamimari and Sero after school, Mina's warm hug, Jirou's judgemental but caring half glares from across the room. His friends. Even Iida's hard but caring glare and Momo's soft demeanor. Todoroki's hard boiled egg and the taste of wind on his fingertips.

The warmth spread to every single cell in his body, hardening and getting harder with every reactivation. Then he charged at the cement wall, yelling out a brutal battle cry that echoed in his hardened throat and punched.

Break through any wall that stands in your way.

For just a moment, he was back in his room and punching as a weak version of himself, quirk down and knuckles bleeding. He pushed the thought aside, eyebrows furrowing in concentration. His fist collided with the wall.

He screamed as the bone in his arm splintered. He could feel the shards tear through the muscles with a blinding pain. He almost didn't notice the cement wall in front of him spider webbing cracks from where his fist landed, until a woosh of air blew him backwards, across the gym floor, slamming into the rough cement, his face scraping across it painfully by the rough cement. God, his arm hurt so much. Wasn't his quirk activated?

No, Kirishima realized with a sharp jolt of pain. This wasn't my quirk.

The warmth disappeared in a heartbeat. Kirishima was cold, broken, and lying on the cold cement floor. None of the teachers moved. His classmates didn't twitch. Everyone had stopped in the middle of whatever training they were doing and were just looking. It made Kirishima's skin crawl. It was like sand pouring down his back, getting under his nails and making his muscles twitch.

He was doing so much better. Why now?

He tried to push himself to his feet but let out a painful gasp when his broken arm twitched from the movement. God, was this how Midoriya felt after every misuse of his quirk? When Jirou fell and broke her arm when Uraraka released her quirk too early once, was this how much pain she was in? Suddenly something hit him. Something important.

"Kirishima," Kirishima's nose twitched with the sweet scent of burnt sugar. Bakugou's voice

was filled with some unrecognizable emotion. Anger, maybe. Confusion, for sure. But something thick and laced with something akin to worry slipped into his tone, and it made Kirishima want to shy away from his touch. He did not need pity. He was a horse that would never waiver, a wall that would never fall.

They're going to kick him off r/neverbrokeabone.

"My karma," he protested meekly as Bakugou ever so gently lifted him into his arms, taking extra care not to jostle Kirishima's broken arm. "Oh my god, my Reddit karma. They're gonna kick me off."

"What the fuck?"

Kirishima must have blacked out from the red hot burning pain, because when he blinked he was suddenly in the nurse's office, staring at a familiar ceiling with no recollection of how he got there. His arm throbbed, and his fingers curled around the cooled sheets. The taste of cement and blood was heavy on his tongue, and for a terrifying moment he was back in Kamino, watching Midoriya Izuku die, swallowing a thick hair that got stuck in his throat. He sat up, just for the world to swim in front of his very eyes and he collapsed back onto the cot.

A warm hand clasped his own. Kirishima glanced over the head brace of his hero costume to see Bakugou's face, a certain softness to it that he hadn't noticed before. The fluorescent lights of the nurse's office didn't make anyone look good, but now he noticed that Bakugou had the smallest of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He was pulled to a sitting position, and his arm was gingerly taken into Recovery Girl's small wrinkled hands to inspect the damage.

"And that's how he broke his arm?" Recovery Girl's tone was judgemental, eyes narrowed in suspicion. She turned to Kirishima, a frown etched into her face. "You punched a wall. Because you were frustrated and angry, but also trying to improve upon your own quirk. And it was blown away?"

Kirishima grit his teeth and nodded though the pain. His arm throbbed with every beat of his heart, and his torn skin smelled so painfully of blood that he wanted to vomit. He wished she would go ahead and kiss him already so he could go back to trying to figure out what the fuck happened.

"Well that's a new development." Recovery Girl sighed, before kissing the side of Kirishima's cheek. The pain went away immediately, with the cool relief of bones mending back into place. The bruising around his knuckles faded, and the soreness around his stomach and chest lessened greatly. It was like dipping into a cold ice bath after a long day of training. Kirishima also immediately became woosy, and proceeded to faceplant into the floor from the bed he sat on, hitting the side table on the way down and smacking his nose face first into the linoleum tiles. His teeth dug into the floor for the second time that day.

"Oh dear. First broken bone?" Recovery Girl patted Kirishima's back sympathetically as he picked himself up, flopping back into the flimsy bed. Bakugou let out a snort.

"They're going to kick me off of my favorite subreddit," He groaned into the paper thin pillow. "I'm a disappointment to all the milk drinkers and hardening quirks out there. I have gone against the will of the bone brothers."

"Excuse me?"

In the back of Kirishima's brain he realized that Recovery Girl would have no idea what he's talking about. "It's nothing. Teenager internet things."

He was excused from the rest of class to sleep off Recovery Girl's quirk. His dreams were full of sand and judgemental stares from his classmates.

"Kirishima." Todoroki solemnly said when Kirishima eventually snuck down from his dorm to go sneak some food from the kitchen. The common room was empty except for Todoroki, Momo, and Iida. Kirishima could smell the horiddly sweet smell of burnt plastic and sugar, and knew that Bakugou was only just here. "Midoriya did something to you."

It was not a question, but a statement. It was the most obvious thing in the word. They watched Midoriya bleed out, and hallucinate enough to convince Kirishima that eating his hair would be a fantastic idea. Frustration welled up inside of his stomach.

"Listen," Kirishima snarled, suddenly angry. His eyes pin pricked with tears, but he blinked rapidly to cool them. "I know just as much as what happened as you guys. I was there-"

"Kirishima, we aren't angry." Iida's voice was surprisingly calm. "You were hurt. You clearly didn't know what happened. We're just trying to figure out what happened."

"What happened is that I suddenly just used Midoriya's quirk." Kirishima said it slowly. "Which, is like, impossible. You know that, I know that, and everyone else in the world knows that quirks can't be given. So whatever I did today was a fluke."

"Some fluke." Todoroki eyed the cloth cast his arm was still resting in. "He said-"

The front door slammed open right then. Bakugou, the fresh smell of burnt sugar heavy around him like a thick cloud of fog, glared at them.

"Outside. Now."

Kirishima followed.

"Deku was quirkless."

It was something that was so unexpected that it made Kirishima trip over his shoes, stumbling into Bakugou's back, and caught himself before he face-planted the cement. "Quirkless?"

"Quirkless."

There was a beat of silence.

Kirishima thinks back to the first time he saw Midoriya use his quirk to throw a softball out of the school grounds, powerful enough to break his finger. "Are you sure about that?"

Bakugou glared at him. "YES I'm sure about that, idiot. We knew each other when we were kids. He never had anything like that stupid power right until we got into UA. He had the extra pinkie toe joint and had to get his appendix removed in middle school and everything."

"That doesn't make any sense-"

"Let me finish." Bakugou turned away from him and kept walking towards Ground Beta. "He told me he got that power from someone else."

Kirishima wrinkled his nose at that, memories of All For One and those damned crystals piercing Midoryia's stomach. A while ago he would have argued that quirks cannot be stolen or given, and anyone who said otherwise was someone who wore a tinfoil hat.

But now, with his arm still throbbing from the phantom pain of a snapped bone, of those buildings getting flattened by the sheer wind of that punch from earlier that afternoon, he wouldn't be so quick to disprove that now.

"You think he gave it to me." He whispered. Somewhere, the world was being tilted on its axis and the stars were falling but Kirishima could only focus on Bakugou. "When I ate his hair."

"No shit sherlock. That's fucking obvious."

Kirishima's heart stopped.

Bakugou stopped walking. Kirishima realized they were in the middle of Ground Beta, the same spot where they did their first training exercise with All Might. "I think I know where he got it from."

"In his last year of middle school, he always went down to the beach near our school. One day I followed him, just to see what the hell he was doing because that beach was nasty as shit. And he was cleaning it."

Kirishima remembered his dream of Midoriya with melted ice cream running down his knuckles and a beach piled high with junk and garbage. A woman who he didn't know but whom he called his mother. He shook it off. "Maybe he was just trying to do community service?"

"Shut up, I wasn't done."

Kirishima rolled his eyes, but did not interrupt.

"I watched him for maybe an hour cleaning and pushing all sorts of crap onto a truck. And then All Might showed up."

Kirishima opened his mouth to interject when Bakugou held up a hand that popped with a few small explosions. "I didn't know it was him then! It was his weak form, the one that he used in Kamino."

Blood, a wet hand in his own squeezing, a warm smell hitting his nose, a smile, Iida's wail, those crystals-

"Hey." Bakugou grabbed his shoulders and shook him out of his thoughts. "Don't get lost on me until I fucking finish."

Bakugou let out a deep, shuddering breath, before looking Kirishima in the eyes. "All Might gave his power to Deku. And Deku gave it to you."

The silence that filled them both felt like a weight falling onto Kirishima's shoulders. All he could do was stare into Bakugou's eyes, inhale the faint sweet smell of unexploded nitroglycerin, and breathe.

"Why did he give it to you."

It wasn't a question.

Kirishima answered honestly.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Bakugou snarled, his hands popping with small explosions. "What do you mean you don't know? "

"I don't know man!" Kirishima half yelled, half sobbed because of the secrets this entire conversation was revealing, anxiety about getting caught breaking curfew, and the sight of his friend covered in blood and smiling swirled in his mind. He fisted his hair, shoulders hunkered up as if to protect himself from the situation at hand. "Maybe it's because I'm weak! Maybe it's because I'm a one trick pony and he felt sorry for me! In every single dream he's always there, encouraging and smiling and not realizing he gave his quirk to a failure who couldn't even save one life-!"

Bakugou punched him.

Kirishima half stumbled back, his quirk already activated across his left cheek, a delayed reaction. His cheek stung. There was no quirk behind the punch, just pure anger and force.

"Shut the fuck up!" Bakugou roared. "Deku never thought you were weak! He thought your quirk was fucking amazing! He had whole pages devoted to you in his fucking notebooks, you know that?"

Bakugou reeled back for another punch, but Kirishima was able to put up his quirk before the blow and only let out a soft grunt when Bakugou's fist connected with his stomach. "

"He did that for everyone! He was amazing!" Kirishima gasped with the force of the punch. He took half a stumble back, only just ducking in time from another punch from Bakugou.

"I know he did it for everyone!" The heat from Bakugou's explosions just barely grazed his face. The smell of singed hair filled his nose. "Now punch back, you bastard!"

"No way man!" Kirishima threw up his hands to redirect another explosion filled punch from Bakugou, pushing him to the side and onto the faux asphalt street.

"I said punch BACK!" Bakugou stumbled to his feet and tackled Kirishima from the side, knocking him to the ground. Kirishima activated his quirk just around his head as his ear was grinded into the pavement. His shirt tore around the sleeve, raw skin grinding against the pavement.

"Get off of me!" Kirishima planted one foot onto Bakugou's knee and pushed, but was only met with a twist, and suddenly another swift punch to the stomach. He stumbled to his feet, clutching his newly bruised torso.

"Not until you tell me!"

Kirishima bit back the bile that rose in his throat. He knew the answer, but he could not say it out loud. He had the weakest quirk in class, not flashy at all. With just one use, one application. It's short range and limits his movements, and it wasn't enough to save Midoriya. It wasn't enough to prevent Bakugou from getting kidnapped. Could he ever save anyone with that? What kind of hero would he be? What kind of man is he? Midoriya's last act was an act of pity. It made him want to vomit. Midoriya wasted his quirk on him.

But he couldn't say that. Not to Bakugou. It would be too cruel. He was the one that knew Midoriya the longest.

"I already told you! I don't! Know!" He punctured each word with a punch, not realizing that his quirk was active on his knuckles, tearing into Bakugou's skin until his fists came away wet and bloody. He didn't stop fighting, just switched to dodging Bakugou's explosions. "He only keeps telling me it's time-"

"Shut up! Stop acting like he's still talking to you! " Bakugou screamed, and Kirishima froze. It was the same horrific sound Bakugou let out when Midoriya was injured, his words audibly shredding his throat as they tore from him. "He's dead! Deku's dead!"

Kirishima panted, his mouth agape and eyes wide. He had seen Bakugou mad before, but now when he looked up there were tears in his eyes, and his face was so raw that Kirishima almost took a step back. A small trickle of blood dripped down Bakugou's temple, landing on the collar of his dark shirt.

Bakugou lowered his fists. "He's dead and I'm the one who killed him. I'm the reason Deku is dead."

All the air left Kirishima's lungs. How could he blame himself for this? It was his fault he wasn't able to protect Midoriya and Bakugou, and leave Bakugou's rescue to the Pros. He was the one who intervened and screwed up everything.

"...Bakugou, that's not true-"

"And All Might! I killed him too! All Might loved Deku like a son! And I killed his son! He's dead because of me too! He died of a broken heart. He's the strongest man in the world but he didn't survive that fight because he couldn't . You saw that damn video! He couldn't dream of a world without his son. And I took that away from him! I killed them both!"

Bakugou was sobbing now, hiccuping with every other breath. A hand wiped away his tears, leaving a trail of snot on his forearm, but those awful hiccups did not stop.

Kirishima reached out a hand, a source of comfort, on Bakugou's shoulder. No hugs, not yet. Bakugou wasn't touchy feely. But he could offer words of support.

"Bakugou, that's not true. It's my fault Midoriya is dead. He was the one that turned us in midair when I wasn't paying attention-"

"Shut! Up!" Bakugou exploded. Literally. The force of the blast knocked Kirishima backwards several meters, cracking the pavement and eventually coming to a stop against the faux buildings. Bakugou didn't give him a chance to recover, and launched himself forward, heavy sobs heard over his own explosions.

It wasn't a pretty fight, nor a fair one. Kirishima didn't drop his quirk with his punches, Bakugou didn't hesitate to shove his hands in Kirishima's face and let off blast after blast. They both took cheap shots. At one point Kirishima got a good hit behind Bakugou's knee and he face-planted into the concrete sidewalk, before jumping up with a roar.

Kirishima didn't notice that he was crying as well until Bakugou had him pinned, face down on the sidewalk, arms pinned behind his back and a knee in his ribs.

"Show me. Show me why Deku chose you. Get up." Bakugou's hands shuddered against Kirishima's wrists, and his voice was choppy, like he was holding back more tears.

Kirishima struggled against Bakugou's iron grip, then went limp. "I can't."

"Get up!" Bakugou yelled furiously. "Get up now! You have to show me why he chose you!"

Kirishima could struggle against his grip, but instead he let his tears fall, wetting the sidewalk beneath him. "I won't."

Above him, Bakugou loosened his grip. He spoke, and his voice was rough with some emotion that Kirishima couldn't identify. "It's okay. I know why, anyway."

"Why?" Kirishima spat out, suddenly angry. It burned like a pit in his throat, but he still did not struggle to get up. "Why drag me into this fight then, if you already thought you knew why?"

Bakugou's eyes, red from crying, hardened. "Because you're the most heroic out of all of us. That's why he chose you."

Kirishama couldn't say anything, even if he wanted to. Suddenly his tears were too much, his breathing too labored. Bakugou couldn't just say these things about him and mean it. He had admired Bakugou from the beginning, knows his power and technique is what will make him a fantastic hero. So why did Bakugou say that, with such meaning and conviction? Bakugou is not a liar. He does not tell white lies to make others feel better. So why was he lying now?

"I think that's finally enough, you two."

Kirishima couldn't move with Bakugou's knee on his back and his limbs pinned, but he was able to turn his head enough to see the form of his homeroom teacher, quirk activated and scarf floating lightly in the air.

"Aizawa-sensei," he choked out, then gasping as Bakugou was yanked away from him by Aizawa's capture weapon. He inhaled a sharp breath, trying to get as much oxygen into his lungs as he could.

"I should have expected this sooner." Aizawa sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, loosening strands from his bun. He lowered his quirk, and Bakugou made no move to resist or fight. "We were trying to speed up the process of getting licensed therapists into the school to help class 1A. Therapists take time to evaluate, and run background checks. I proposed that the teachers act as listeners in the meantime, but was denied because the doctor/patient confidentiality would be compromised if we were teachers."

"Therapists?" Bakugou whispered.

"You had a traumatic experience being in the villain's hold for over three days. Kirishima, Iida, Momo, Todoroki, and you watched a friend die. Everyone else is mourning the death of a classmate and blaming themselves for not stopping him from rescuing you when they had the chance. You are teenagers, with complicated feelings and emotions running high in a traumatic event. And just this morning, either Kirishima just discovered a new ultra move or just manifested his dead classmate's quirk." Aizawa's voice was bitter, but Kirishima knew it wasn't at them, even though they broke the rules. Even if Kirishima was a bigger screw up then the rest of their class combined, Aizawa felt no resentment towards him. His voice held no pity, only understanding. "Unfortunately, it seemed that the class was dealing well with the shock, and my concerns were pushed down. With the exam coming up, the staff felt it was better to focus more on your coping mechanisms rather than your own health by pushing this class harder. I did not agree."

Kirishima bowed his head.

"That's why you will both be taking three days off from school. House arrest. During that time you will clean the dorms top to bottom and do every chore on the list. No training, no quirks." Kirishima and Bakugou's head shot up, eyes wide, and Bakugou opened his mouth to protest before it was muffled by Aizawa's capture weapon.

"Think of it as a break from school. You two have a lot going on and this fight just proved that you both need time to process the situation at hand. It has been weeks, and you two in particular have been isolating yourselves from your peers and classmates."

"Yes sir."

"Good. When it is done, I will have those therapists in place if it costs me my job." Aizawa's tone was icy cold, and Kirishima felt a shudder of fear and pity for those who will be on the receiving end of Aizawa's furry. "Now come on back to the dorm. Do not bother Recovery Girl with your nonsensical injuries, she needs rest and technically this is a punishment." Aizawa let Bakugou go, turned around, and swiftly walked back to the dorms, students on his heels, with more questions than answers.

Kirishima all but crashed into his bed. His arm throbbed from where his quirk had dropped just enough for Bakugou's explosions to be felt, and he was sore all over from their scrappy fight. He was pretty sure his back had a nasty bruise from Bakugou's knee, but didn't bother peeling off his shirt to find out. Instead he clutched a pillow to his chest, screwed his eyes shut, and prayed for sleep to come.

He opened his eyes and immediately knew he was dreaming. Wind whipped his hair into his face and he tasted metallic sand in his mouth. He turned, already recognizing Dagobah Beach. It was clean now, waves crashing against white sand. Crabs scurried across shells and seaweed left behind by high tide.

Midoriya was there, legs in the surf, smiling sadly. Despite the sharp wind, his hair did not get blown out of place. More proof that this was just a dream that his subconscious was coming up with, another meaningless dream.

Kirishima had so many questions. But he settled on one, for now.

"Why," he choked out. He could feel tears falling from his face, his chest tightening. "Why did you pick me? You could have chosen any one of them, right?"

Midoriya opened his mouth, but Kirishima continued. "Iida would have made a fantastic hero with your quirk. Momo would have known how to use it on the spot. Todoroki would have become a god and Bakugou was obviously the only choice you were going to choose anyway. He was right there! So why did you pick me? Why did you say my name?"

Midoriya frowned. "I thought it was obvious." His voice was not a compilation of nine individuals, just his own. It was not lost in the wind, but spoken as if he was right next to Kirishima.

"The One for All holders all have one thing in common. In times of uncertainty, they are unwavering. Their hearts are strong. Kirishima, you have the heart of the symbol of peace."

Kirishima's eyes widened, mouth agape, then set to argue when Midoriya took a step out of the surf and continued.

"You have the soul of someone who can be a beacon to others and to carry on the legacy All Might and Nana and everyone else created. You will be the one that will shine the brightest out of all of us." Midoriya was face to face with him now. Kirishima could count the freckles on his cheeks and could feel the powerful energy of… something radiating off of him.

Kirishima only recognized that it was his quirk, alive and well and inside of him now, when Midoriya captured him in a bone crushing hug.

"This is more than a dream isn't it. You're actually Midoriya." Kirishima whispered, unafraid of his voice being lost in the wind. Slowly, he raised his arms, coming to rest on Midorya's back, and then burning his face into Midoriya's shoulder. He blinked back tears as Midoriya patted his back, solid and real, somehow alive in One for All. The name came to Kirishima on his lips and fell into his mind naturally. One for All.

"I never thought of you as weak, Kirishima. I chose you because of your chiverious spirit." Midoriya pulled back, hands on either side of Kirishima's face, eyes hardened and determined. "You were my friend. Now you are my successor. I chose you, willingly and without a trace of doubt. Now it is time for you to have that same confidence in yourself as well. Wake up. Use our quirk. And become the hero I will never become, not for me, but for those who love you."

The beach began to fade into black swirls of mist. Black waves lapped the shoreline, and the sand beneath them turned dark and almost liquid. Kirishima clutched Midoriya closer to his chest, willing the dream to last longer, for Midoriya to be alive just a little longer-

"You will be a great hero, Kirishima."

Kirishima snapped awake to his alarm, the soft but persistent music jerking him out of any post sleep haze quicker than coffee.

Something was off. Something big. There was a missing piece in his chest, something heavy but comforting, like a little flame wrapped around his ribs.

It took him getting dressed and halfway to the bathroom before figuring out what it was.

He was happy.