Izuku had hoped that it would be a quiet Saturday morning, a chance to rest and recover after the events of the day before had left him feeling drained and exhausted, maybe regain some sense of sanity in his life.

Unfortunately for him, he was dating someone who didn't believe in things like "resting" or "sanity."

That was how Izuku found himself yanked upright by a fully dressed Nana way too early in the morning, especially for a weekend.

"Come on, sleepyhead!" Nana said, somehow even more energetic than she usually was, "we have places to be!"

Izuku groaned, "Where?"

Nana's grin wouldn't have looked out of place on a shark as she replied, "The training field, obviously! It's time for Round 2 of flight practice!"

Izuku froze, his eyes going wide. A sudden wave of irrational fear flooded him as he remembered the last time he'd tried to fly, an experience that had almost ended with him splattered against the ground.

He begged, "Nana, no."

"Nana, yes," his girlfriend replied, unmoved. She managed to finish pulling Izuku out of bed, still smiling broadly.

Izuku sighed, "Do I have to do this? You know I'm scared of heights."

"Izuku, you're going to have to face it eventually," Nana pointed out, "and not making use of all your abilities as a hero is stupid."

Izuku...couldn't really argue with that. He knew full well how powerful the ability to use the quirks of past users of One For All was, and that he needed to utilize everything he had if he wanted to be the greatest hero around.

But he was scared, dammit. This wasn't a fear that could be punched away, or that he could smile through. Gravity didn't care how strong he was, or how hard he'd worked, it would still make him fall to his death.

Nana stared into his eyes sympathetically, smiling softly as she read his thoughts. She said, "We don't have to if you really, really don't want to, babe."

Izuku shook his head in response, telling her, "No, no, you're right. I need to do this sooner or later, we might as well get to work now."

Nana nodded, and she stood aside to let Izuku get dressed. Izuku was used to Nana shamelessly admiring his body by now, so he managed to ignore her hungry gaze long enough to throw on training clothes.

In an effort to distract her boyfriend and entertain herself, Nana told him, "Izuku, I'll get you to fuck me one of these days."

"I'm sure you will," Izuku replied dryly as he pulled on a pair of shorts, "but as you've said, my self-control is too strong."

Nana snorted and reminded him, "I know that you're seriously considering trying to get out of flying by just eating me out until I'm unconscious. If that's your self-control talking, I'll eat my nonexistent hat."

Izuku sighed, but didn't even bother cursing the link anymore; he was used to it by now. Nana just chuckled, knowing that Izuku would take her when he was ready, and that it would be glorious.

Once Izuku was dressed, they headed downstairs and outside, towards the empty clearing they'd found to be a perfect site to practice far from prying eyes. On the way, though, Nana had an idea, and an evil grin reappeared on her face.

"You know what?" she said, "I know exactly how to motivate you."

"How?" Izuku asked, already bracing himself for some crazy plot.

Nana told him, "Simple. If you manage to fly today, I'll let you do anything you want to me in bed tonight."

Izuku blinked once, then rolled his eyes. Trying to hide how much the offer excited him, he replied, "You know, that would be a much better motivator if I didn't already know that you're willing to do anything I suggest, anyway. Hell, you've told me exactly that before."

Nana slumped in mock defeat. "Fuck, you're right," she grumbled, "I guess I'll have to find something else to bribe you with."

Izuku smiled teasingly at his girlfriend as he asked, "Why are you so horny all the time, anyway?"

Nana smirked. "Hard work and perseverance," she replied.

"Uh-huh. Sure," Izuku said, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrow.

"Yep," Nana confirmed, "you don't get this good at seducing people without lots of practice."

Enjoying the easy connection that he and Nana had developed even more now, Izuku cracked, "I've seen what your idea of seduction is. I think you need more practice."

Nana smacked Izuku playfully on the chest, her eyes twinkling with humor and happiness, so unlike what she'd been like after they'd returned from their memories the day before. She was back, and Izuku had never been more glad to have her.

Nana pointed out, "Hey, it worked on you, didn't it?"

Izuku shrugged. "I suppose it did," he admitted.

Nana floated up to kiss him softly on the lips. Then she said, "Well, then, I don't think I need any more practice. After all, you're it for me."

Izuku's eyes went wide, his heart suddenly beating impossibly fast. Softly, he whispered, "A-are you serious? You really mean that?"

"Of course I do. Do you think I could ever love someone else as much as I love you? Because I don't," Nana replied, the easy smile on her face masking the way her heart was beating at the exact same rate as Izuku.

Izuku just kissed her, not needing to say anything else; Nana could read his thoughts, after all, she knew that he felt the same. She surged to meet his lips, wrapping her limbs around him with ease as she grabbed his head to kiss him even more fiercely.

For once, Izuku was actually grateful for telepathy. It made telling Nana how he felt while they were making out much easier, if nothing else.

Approximately ten minutes later, five more than it would have normally taken to get there, Nana and Izuku were standing in the clearing, their skin still a little red and their hair still a little messy.

Nana began, "Alright, Izuku. I think we should start off with just floating."

"Isn't that what we did last time?" Izuku asked, remembering Nana talking about weightlessness.

Nana nodded as she replied, "Yeah, because that's still the first step. My quirk is pretty simple, all things considered. Full three-dimensional mobility, no fancy things or special requirements like Sorahiko's breathing."

Izuku stroked his chin thoughtfully as he mused, "Wow, that's...a really incredible quirk. You can just fly, full stop, without any limit? How do you do it? Do you just apply a controllable force to counteract gravity, or do you manipulate air currents, or-"

Nana interrupted, "Izuku, I have no clue how the hell it works. The best explanation I have is that I can move through air like people can through water, I just don't have to paddle. Now, let's focus, okay? You can wonder about my quirk once it's your quirk, too."

Izuku nodded sheepishly, coming back out of analysis mode to say, "Right, good idea. So...floating. How do I do that?"

"Well, first we need to figure out how to help you get that weightless feeling down," Nana replied.

Suddenly, Izuku had an idea. He'd always felt so light whenever he was around Nana, like his heart was fluttering and his body was...well, weightless. He supposed that was what love did to him, but what if...

Nana eyed him curiously, and Izuku felt her brush against his consciousness as she peered into his thoughts. After a moment, she withdrew.

Nana told him, "Izuku Midoriya, I swear to fucking God, if you use the power of love to fly, I am going to fight you."

"Even when it's my love for you?" Izuku asked.

"Especially then," Nana retorted, "I have a reputation to protect, dammit."

Izuku wondered, "What reputation? Everyone's already either scared of you, thinks you're awesome, or both!"

Nana replied, "Oh, I know. Which one are you, out of curiosity?"

Izuku snorted, "I love you. Which one do you think I am?"

"You're afraid of my ability to drain your balls whenever I want, I know that much," Nana answered with a smirk that made Izuku shake his head disbelievingly.

At last, Izuku decided to move on. He said, "I mean, I think it's worth a try, at least."

Nana responded, "I guess it couldn't hurt. Well, Izuku, if this works, I'm going to be calling you the sappiest man in the world for the rest of our lives, so let's get started."

Izuku smiled softly when Nana said "the rest of our lives." He knew she was telling the truth, that she'd always be there, and that was enough to make the threat no threat at all.

He nodded and asked, "What should I do now?"

Nana commanded, "First, I want you to close your eyes and hold that feeling of weightlessness as tight as you can."

Izuku squeezed his eyes tight, imagining the way he felt when Nana smiled at him, or when she drew his hands close around her waist and tucked her head under his chin, letting him press kisses to the top of her head. The lightness in his chest pooled and flowed, filling his torso with every breath he took.

Nana continued, "Once you've got that feeling, let it spread, until it's filling your entire body, all your limbs, everything. Imagine it like a cloak that removes the weight that holds you to the earth from any place it touches. If there's even one little speck of that weight left, you can't fly, so you need to wrap yourself in that light feeling like it's a warm blanket, and never let it go."

Izuku nodded, totally focused on obeying Nana's instructions. He thought he could feel the floating sensation, the feeling of walking on air, spreading throughout his body, never running out or coming up short. It filled him from head to toe, thrumming under his skin, then over his skin, a little bit like One For All. In fact, Izuku thought he could feel just a tiny bit of the sensation of energy flowing through him that he got when he used Full Cowling; he wondered if One For All's power was helping him, making this easier.

At last, Izuku said, "I...I think I have it."

Nana nodded with satisfaction, keeping an eye on Izuku's progress through the link, careful not to disturb his focus. She ordered, "Okay, Izuku. Now, I want you to just...let go. Anything that weighs you down, anything that drags at you, let it go. It won't help you up there, and all your problems are tiny in the sky. Take a deep breath, and then let go."

Izuku inhaled, his chest expanding; it was still not big enough to hold the overflowing fountain of love and lightness in his heart. When he let the air out, he let everything go with it; fear, anxiety, worry, pain. He let it all drain away, until there was only lightness and love and Nana, a reassuring presence in his heart and mind that made him feel like he could do anything he set his mind to.

Nana said, "Perfect! You've got it!"

Izuku opened his eyes to find that he was a foot off the ground, his feet dangling in midair, his body held in place by an invisible force that seemed to suspend him there by a thousand puppet strings.

Instinctively, Izuku started to panic, flailing his arms and legs wildly with nowhere to push off of.

Before he could come crashing down, though, Nana said, "Hey, hey, easy, Izuku! You did it! Now, just take another deep breath to get yourself calmed down. Remember, you're in control, and you decide where and how to move in the air."

Izuku managed to obey, pulling his limbs back into line and breathing deeply and repeatedly to still his wildly beating heart. He reminded himself, "I'm in control. I'm in control."

At last, Izuku felt comfortable in the air, or at least he did this close to the ground. He asked, "Now what?"

"Now," Nana replied with a twinkle in her eye, "you're going to learn how to fly."

"Uh, that's a bit quick, don't you think?" Izuku stammered, bobbing gently in the breeze.

"Nah, it's easy. Here, I'll help you," Nana assured him.

Nana hopped into the air as well, floating on the same level as Izuku. Just like the night before, she took both his hands with her own, fitting them together snugly until they were face-to-face. Izuku felt a bizarre sense of vertigo as she flipped up, rising into the sky feet-first to keep her face close to his, pulling him along with her. Izuku kicked his feet helplessly, wondering how strange this must look to anyone who might have happened upon them; a girl flipped upside down, leading a scared boy into the sky with gentle eyes and encouraging words, a boy who rose because of his love for that girl. In the early morning, with the pinks and oranges of sunrise just beginning to give way to a light blue sky, it must have looked like a painting come to life, a waking dream. But the love that shone in Nana's tender eyes was no dream.

As she and Izuku began to move higher, Nana urged, "Now that you've got your floating down, imagine that there's a little ball at your center of gravity, almost like a joystick for a video game, but able to move in any direction you want. To move up, push the ball up."

Izuku did as Nana said, and he felt something shift. Nana was still pulling him upwards, but now, he had added his own power to it, as though there were a million microscopic jets on the underside of his body that were gently pushing him upwards. They were weak, nowhere near the level of movement Nana could achieve, but it was something.

Smiling at him, Nana said encouragingly, "Good! Whenever you want to move, just imagine that ball pointing in the direction you want to go in, and you'll go there. The harder you move the ball, the faster you'll go."

Izuku thought that that made sense; he began to feel more confident. Maybe he could actually do this! Then he made the mistake of looking down, and he realized that they were already fifty feet off of the ground.

Instantly, he felt his stomach drop, and he gasped, "Nana, I-"

"Izuku, don't look down," Nana commanded firmly, reaching up to grab him by the chin and yank his face back up towards her, eyes locked onto hers, "look at me. Only at me. Stare into my eyes, and there's nothing to be scared of."

Her words resonated in Izuku's heart; he knew they were true. Nana took away Izuku's fear, made him lighter, stronger, greater. Izuku suddenly became aware of the iron grip they had on each other's forearms; Nana clutched him so tightly, so strongly, that Izuku knew he could never fall.

Softly, she suggested, "Now, put a little more juice behind your movement."

Izuku nodded, and willed himself into the sky. The response was instant; their ascension went from a slow, dreamy rise to a quick, flowing movement, the air beginning to sing around them. They were a hundred feet in the air, then a hundred and fifty. Then two hundred, and rising fast. Before long, they were above UA, the ground spread out in a patchwork below them, getting awfully close to the clouds above.

All the while, Izuku did not look down. He couldn't tear his eyes from Nana's face, from all the details that were engraved forever in his memory. Deep, tender eyes, pouty lips, messy black ponytail that flopped forwards because she was upside-down, the mole on her cheek that was the only mark on smooth, expressive skin, every detail of her features entranced Izuku, pulled him higher into the sky and deeper into love.

Then, he realized that those clouds were getting awfully close. Gulping, he asked, "Um, Nana, where are we going? Why are we so high up?"

Nana smiled softly as she responded, "I want to show you something, Izuku."

Izuku nodded once, and went back to trying not to look down. A minute later, they burst through the clouds.

At first, Izuku was too focused on Nana to realize she'd stopped rising. He came back to reality when Nana said, "Alright, Izuku, I'm going to let you go now."

Instantly, Izuku shouted, "WAIT, WHAT-"

Then Nana released him, and Izuku kept floating, not even dipping a tiny bit. Izuku reopened his eyes to find himself hovering exactly where he had been, and blushed sheepishly.

"See, Izuku, it's not that hard!" Nana told him with a grin.

Izuku opened his mouth to respond, but at last, he saw what Nana had brought him here for. His jaw dropped.

They were floating right above the flat layer of clouds that was slowly evaporating in the early morning light. But from above, the clouds were anything but flat. Instead, they rippled and rose and fell like frozen waves, twisted into insubstantial mountains and shapes that scattered the light of the sun like diamonds. Izuku could look in any direction and see an endless landscape of marching ramparts, seemingly crafted by a whimsical god out of ethereal dust.

Izuku was struck by how peaceful it was up here, how there seemed to be no interruption to the silence of a place not for human eyes.

Nana watched with shining eyes as Izuku reached down to scoop a hand through the cloud beneath them; it was like passing a hand through wet air that was just a little too dense. It followed the movement of his hand as though he was digging a hole in sand that didn't exist.

At last, Nana said, "Do you see why I love it up here?"

Izuku turned to her, floating by his side a thousand feet in the air. With a voice only just returned to him, Izuku answered, "I do, Nana. This is...incredible."

"It is," Nana agreed, looking out at a sight she never got tired of, no matter how many times she saw it, "this is one of the reasons I love flying. But...there's more to it than that."

"Like what?" Izuku wondered, his voice hushed, as if speaking too loud would disturb the pristine nature of this place.

Nana looked down, at the gray swirls of the clouds beneath their feet, and began, "Last night, you asked me how I stay the way I am in the face of all the things I've seen. I told you the truth, but...there's another part to it. It's things like this, places like this, that keep me going. If something as beautiful as this can exist, untouched by us, then we can do a little better back down there, don't you think? This is how I've always healed, how I've always found myself again; whenever I need to think, I fly."

"I can see why," Izuku mused, "it feels like we're the only people in the world up here."

"Oh, this is nothing," Nana replied, "this low, there's all sorts of stuff up here. Small planes, people with mobility quirks, even just jumping ones, birds, that sort of thing. If you really want to be the only person for miles in every direction, you gotta go up there."

Nana jerked her thumb upwards, and Izuku followed. He gulped as he stared up into an infinite sky, the blue horizon stretching in every direction, no limit in sight. Izuku realized that there was nothing stopping him from rising even higher, from breaking the limits of gravity to fly into the atmosphere under his own power. The thought scared him and excited him in equal measure. He wondered what it did to Nana.

"How high have you gone?" Izuku asked; he couldn't imagine flying up and up into that endless expanse, with no earthly weights at all. He wondered, if he did, whether he'd ever want to come down again.

Nana's eyes were distant and dreamy, as though she was recalling with perfect clarity a scene no human was ever meant to witness.

She replied, "I don't know, not exactly. The highest I ever got was back...a few years before I met Toshi, if I remember correctly."

"You remember? Is this another context memory?" Izuku asked.

Nana shook her head, a gesture at odds with her impossibly wide smile. "Nope. This one's been in my head for my entire life since that day. I can remember every tiny detail of it, every heartbeat of the most beautiful sight I've ever seen," she said, the words ringing with even greater power due to their position a thousand feet above the ground, surrounded by clouds that twirled into shapes so fanciful they defied description, scattering the light into shadow and sun. If this wasn't the most beautiful thing in the world, Izuku needed to know what was.

Izuku instinctively slipped into their link as Nana told her story; he felt the triumph and the elation that she had, all those years ago.

Some things last beyond a lifetime.

Her eyes staring into the sky and into a past that she could only guess at, Nana began, "I don't remember why I did it. Maybe I just wanted to see if I could, maybe I thought it would be a good training exercise. Whatever the reason, one day I just...left the ground, and aimed my eyes towards the sky. I went as fast as I could, at first, but I just kept going and going, so long I lost track of time; I broke through layer after layer of clouds, avoided birds and planes and everything else between me and...well, I don't know what I was aiming for, if I was looking for something or not. I didn't have any way to know how high I got, but I must have gotten way, way higher than thirty thousand feet, because I remember looking down and seeing passenger jets like toys below my feet."

Her voice held Izuku in rapture, unable to tear himself away. Through their link, he could see it clearly; Nana, her cares, her pains, falling away as she climbed, her figure streamlined and her posture rigid, shooting through the air like a bullet as the world became a distant memory and there was nothing in any direction but an endless expanse of blue.

As though the memory stole her breath all over again, Nana whispered, "Do you know what happens to the air, when you get so high up the sky starts to fade from blue to black? It gets so thin, so cold, that no normal human could survive. Before quirks broke down human limits, mountaineers called anything above twenty-six thousand feet "The Death Zone," the place where your brain starts to die from lack of oxygen. One For All kept me alive even when I reached twice that height; it supercharged my lungs and let me breathe efficiently enough to keep functioning, keep pushing higher. The whole time I was up there, though, the thought I kept coming back to was "This is a place human beings were never meant to come, and I came because I wanted to."

Izuku could see it all in his mind's eye; he saw the things Nana didn't have words for, the feelings and the sights that could only be understood at the very edge of possibility, in a place that nobody had ever seen as clearly as Nana had.

Nana continued, "Then, right when I didn't think I could go any further, when I was about to turn around to stay alive, I saw the most beautiful thing I've ever even dreamed of. I looked up, and I saw that the sky was black, the darkest I've ever seen. And there were so many stars, Izuku. There's no light pollution up there, no clouds, nothing between you and the cosmos. I saw the Milky Way itself, thousands upon thousands of worlds; it was so beautiful I thought I would cry. Then, when I was lost at the sight of those stars, floating weightless, not even going up anymore, the auroras appeared. Great, shimmering ribbons of light in the sky, twisting in greens and blues and purples more vivid than anything I'd ever seen. They looked like they were so close, I tried to reach out and touch them. It was as if the sky was dancing for me and me alone. I looked down again, and there was the world. I could see the curve of the planet spin on the horizon; I could wave my hand, and blot out nations."

Izuku was lost in Nana's words; his very soul ached at the beauty she described. His only thoughts were of a place where the sky was black, where the auroras covered you in a thousand dancing hues as the stars twinkled just out of reach.

Nana finished, "I don't much care about being the greatest in the world at anything, not like you and Toshi, but I'll take that feeling of being the woman at the very apex of the world to my grave-well, my second grave, I suppose. I've never regretted the path I've taken in life, never wondered what would have happened if I'd chosen to spend my life in the sky, but up there, for a moment, I wished that I never had to come down. Part of me didn't, I think; it's still up there, watching the auroras shimmer for the rest of time."

Nana was no longer speaking as the hero who had lived two lives; she wasn't even speaking as the other half of Izuku's soul, the part he no longer thought he could live without. She was speaking as the woman who had touched the sky, who had danced with the Northern Lights, who had flown higher than most people dared to imagine.

Izuku could feel tears in his eyes as he saw the memory; Nana looking up at an endless abyss that was alive with color and light, leaving a piece of herself up there in the stratosphere as she returned to Earth, and gaining something precious in return. She'd come back down with hope, and maybe a little bit of perspective-he could see it written on her sky-touched soul.

"I hope I get to see that for myself, someday," he said wistfully. At that moment, he wasn't afraid of falling. If it meant he would get to see something so achingly beautiful that it moved Nana Shimura to tears, made the strongest person he'd ever known weep, Izuku would take that risk.

Nana looked at him with such certainty and ferocious love that it stopped Izuku's breath for a second, as if he himself had entered the Death Zone.

"You will, Izuku," Nana vowed, "I'll show it to you myself."

He could feel every bit of determination she poured into that promise; he didn't even have to ask if she meant it.

They looked up at the sky together, a thousand feet above the things that held them down, and planned for the day that they would return to the edge of the world.

It was a long time before they could come down again.