Many years later
Emiyo Hosakawa was a tall, lanky girl with wavy black hair that hung to her shoulders. Her eyes were, honestly, the most impressive part of her appearance; they shone and shifted like kaleidoscopes, countless tiny flecks of the rainbow surrounding her pupils like shattered stars. Her quirk let her see vast swathes of the electromagnetic spectrum if she wanted to; unfortunately, she wasn't very good at controlling it. She'd only barely managed to control it enough to stop wearing sunglasses everywhere in the last few months. She fidgeted nervously in her seat, in the office of her childhood hero, still not quite believing that he'd actually agreed to train her to be a hero, even after months of work. He was smiling gently at her, so different from the million-watt grin he was famous for sporting during even the worst fights.
Emiyo knew that her hero was old; he'd told her he planned to retire once she was ready, once she had claimed the power that her mind still reeled from learning about. But even the hints of distinguished gray at the very edges of his wild, curly hair did nothing to diminish his incredible presence; raw physicality seemed to seep off of him, off the muscles that were obvious even through the casual clothes he wore. There was just something about him that seemed bigger than real life, like his spirit warped the fabric of reality around him, pulling people into his orbit. That gift, that raw charisma that he had been born with, was one of the reasons he was the greatest hero Japan had ever seen, why he had stood atop the hero rankings for decade after decade.
And now, he was telling Emiyo that she would be the next to do what he had done.
As Emiyo fidgeted again, her mentor's eyes landed on her, and he smiled kindly; his eyes, though, twinkled with the mischief she'd come to recognize from him.
"You look even more terrified than usual. What's wrong?" he asked, his voice only enhancing the odd, welcome coziness of the small corner office, deep in the hero agency that was known the world over. Emiyo still felt the urge to laugh in disbelief every time she walked through the halls, watching heroes she'd worshipped as a child laugh and joke in the break room, working side-by-side to keep the world safe. The laughter threatened to turn hysterical when they greeted her, a poor, timid girl from a bad part of town, who had always dreamed of impossible things like being a hero, as one of them. She hadn't even gotten into UA yet, let alone graduated!
"I…I just don't know if I can do this," she admitted at last, worry making her heart speed up, "I mean…do I really deserve to be trusted with this much power?"
"If I thought you were gonna mess it up, I wouldn't have picked you," her mentor responded, his voice simple and blunt. It was refreshing, if a symptom of his tendency to smash right through politeness to get to the heart of any conversation.
Emiyo wrestled with anxiety for a moment before timidly asking, "But…but what if you're-"
"Wrong?" her mentor finished for her, his voice like a shock of cold water to Emiyo's system as he looked her right in the eye, "Come on, Emi, you can say it. I'm human, not some god from on high. You're my student, you should tell me when I've screwed up. But here…I don't think I have."
Somehow, incredibly, the confidence of her idol managed to do just what it had always done for Emiyo; it chased away her doubts, soothed her fears. Knowing that the greatest man in the world had looked at her and seen something worth believing in…it was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
"It's good you're nervous, though," her mentor added good-naturedly.
"It…it is?" Emiyo asked, blinking in confusion. Weren't heroes supposed to conquer their nerves, to put aside their own fear to help others? If she was too timid to raise her voice in anger, how could Emiyo ever be the kind of unbreakable, unstoppable force of nature her mentor was?
"Sure. It means you aren't stupid," her mentor told her, his voice hard and blunt, but ringing with hard-earned wisdom, "Nobody should take this much responsibility lightly. Power is a burden, Emi; never forget that. Consider that your first lesson in handling One For All, too."
One For All. Just the name of the quirk left Emiyo feeling like an ant staring up a mountain. She'd learned the stories, first from the history books and then, more personally, more viscerally, from her mentor. She'd learned of the League of Villains and the Demon of Kamino from her history classes…and from her mentor, she'd learned of All For One and a quirk passed from desperate hand to desperate hand to stop him, an unbroken chain of faith and belief in good that had started with the monster's younger brother, and come all the way to the man sitting before her, the power of countless generations flowing through his veins.
And today, there would be another link in the chain. Today, Emiyo would join their ranks, the group of heroes who had saved the world a hundred times over. What right did she have to stand next to them? What had her mentor seen in her that made her worthy of the greatest power the world had ever seen?
Emiyo didn't know; she'd never thought of herself as more than a hopeless dreamer, a girl who escaped into a world of imagination and fantastical futures she would never see. But here, today, she knew that she would see them, that she would make them with her own two hands.
"What do you mean?" she asked, eager to learn, ready to do whatever it took to earn her future, determined to become as great as the man who had believed in her when she didn't believe in herself.
Her mentor chuckled softly at her eagerness, even as he said, "I mean that it's easy to blow yourself to bits the first time you use it, if you don't know what you're doing."
Emiyo's eyes went wide, her eagerness deserting her in a flash. "WHAT?" she shrieked incredulously, "You couldn't have mentioned that before I accepted?"
Her mentor rolled his eyes at her outburst. "Do you not know what you're doing?" he asked rhetorically.
Emiyo slowly calmed again, mental images of becoming a spectacular stain on the walls fading as she fidgeted and admitted, "Um…well, we did spend months training, and talking about how to use it, and…"
"And you've got plenty of strength to handle it now," her mentor noted, nodding at Emiyo's body, where layers of dense, stringy muscle had helped turn her from a stick figure to someone who would clearly emulate the physique of an ancient Amazon once fully grown, "I bet the boys are all over you, eh?"
"Wha?" Emiyo replied, her mind briefly screeching to a halt as she blushed furiously. She was not going to be discussing her love life-or lack thereof-with her hero of all people. That was like…several layers of awkward that she wasn't emotionally equipped to deal with. Never mind the fact that she quite enjoyed the stares she got now that she was starting to look capable of crushing concrete with her thighs…
Her mentor shook his head, though his smile was wide and fond. "Kids these days," he muttered, before getting back to business as he continued, "Whatever, forget I said anything. The point is, you aren't going to explode. Hopefully, anyway."
"That's not reassuring at all!" Emiyo nearly shouted. Her mentor was good at many things, but giving reassurance was most definitely not one of them.
Her mentor met her gaze, and Emiyo saw the rock-solid faith there as he said, "Look at me. You are not going to explode."
"I…are you sure?" Emiyo asked skeptically, quite certain that exploding was not something she had on her bucket list.
Her mentor sighed. Then, he told her, "Repeat after me: "I am not going to explode."
Emiyo frowned for a moment, but as her mentor continued to look her in the eye, she took a deep breath, and repeated with as much fervency as she could to try and convince herself, "I am…not going to explode."
It didn't work. Emi was still very nervous about exploding…which she thought was a pretty fair reaction, all things considered.
"There you go!" her mentor said approvingly, clapping his hands before adding, "Now, if you do explode, try not to do it on my carpet, alright? I just got it cleaned."
Emiyo just stared at him disbelievingly. Despite herself, she raised one eyebrow, giving him a look that told him she was one hundred percent done with being reminded about the risk of exploding.
Her mentor responded by bursting into laughter. He nearly doubled over, his body shaking as deep belly laughs echoed through the hallway.
Emiyo just stared at him in confusion. "Hang on, why are you laughing, sensei?" she asked, mildly concerned.
As her mentor finally controlled himself, wiping tears from his eyes, he responded, "That glare…you remind me of my sister. She's always been good at putting a stop to my shit."
"Thanks?" Emiyo said, not convinced it was a compliment. Then, she remembered another story her mentor had told her once, and she got even more confused.
Emiyo asked, "Hang on, is this the same sister who threw you out of a seventh-story window like you told me about?"
"Oh, no, that was a different one," her mentor replied.
With a pang of concern, Emiyo demanded, "How many terrifying sisters do you have?"
With a snort and his arms crossed behind his head as he leaned back in his chair, her mentor answered, "All my sisters are terrifying. And I have quite a few."
"I feel so sorry for your parents…" Emiyo murmured, her sassy side coming out. It didn't show up often…but when it did, the results were often memorable.
"You shouldn't," her mentor told her unhelpfully, "Where do you think we got it from?"
Emiyo fell silent, partially because she didn't want to think about a family as terrifyingly intense as her mentor said it was, and partially because she'd just realized that her mentor had managed to completely distract her from her worries.
"You sly dog," she thought, almost admiringly (but not entirely; he had told her she might explode, Emiyo felt like she should probably hold that against him.)
At last, her mentor rearranged himself in his chair, leaning forwards to rest his hands on his desk as he explained, "Alright, enough joking around. Here's what's gonna happen: I'm gonna give you the quirk. You might feel a little weird at first, because it…well, it's gonna pull you into it, basically."
Emiyo frowned, musing, "That's…almost normal, compared to everything else that's been happening to me lately."
Her mentor snorted. "Be careful what you wish for," he told her, "You're about to meet some people that will change your life forever."
"I…am? How?" Emiyo asked, looking around the room as if expecting hidden doors to fly open and reveal said people.
"You'll see," her mentor replied cryptically.
Then, he reached up to pluck a hair from his head. Reaching across the desk to offer it to Emiyo, he told her, "Now…eat this."
"What?" Emiyo replied, staring at the single green-tinted hair with wide, confused eyes. She was supposed to eat that?
Her mentor sighed, "Just do it, alright? This is how the quirk works."
Emiyo hesitated for a moment, but in the end, she decided to trust her hero. "I…okay, then," she said, taking the hair.
For a second, Emiyo held it there, working up the courage. Then, in a surge of bravado, she opened wide and choked it down.
It sucked.
Emiyo spluttered and coughed as the hair snaked its way down her throat. Her mentor watched sympathetically, his expression clearly reminiscing about his own experiences.
When Emiyo finally stopped gagging, she sat back up, waiting patiently to feel something change. For a few minutes, there was nothing, and Emiyo felt awfully stupid about this whole thing.
"So," she began awkwardly, "when is this supposed to-"
As if the gods of irony had been awaiting their cue, Emiyo's voice cut off at that moment as a surge of power swept through her. Lightning sparked across her skin, a hundred different colors at once, leaking from her like an overflowing glass. She gasped, thinking she was going to die, that the power was too much; she could feel it making her heart beat erratically, her whole body shaking like it was about to blow.
Then she took a deep breath, and held. It still felt overwhelming, like standing under the world's largest waterfall and refusing to be swept away, but Emiyo stood. She contained it. And as soon as she did, there was a new sensation, like having her consciousness sucked down a drain. A black void opened up inside her, pulling her in, inexorably, unstoppably-
"Whoa, there, kiddo. Take it easy," her mentor told her soothingly as he patted her back; Emiyo realized that she'd been trying to fight this, too, "Just let it take you. I'll be waiting here when you come out again."
Emiyo managed to nod, and stopped fighting the portal. Quickly, her strength began to fade, until she felt exhausted, barely able to keep her eyes open. The power of One For All was a constant hum now, a glow surrounding her, a gentle cradle lowering her into the darkness.
She looked up into her mentor's deep black eyes, and whispered, "T-thank you…for everything…"
Her mentor smiled, his eyes filled with pride. "It's been my pleasure, kid," he told her.
Then, just before Emiyo was gone entirely, he added, "Oh, and one other thing…"
"What?" Emiyo just barely managed to ask.
Her mentor's eyes became distant, as though they were staring across the decades.
He said, "When you see my folks…say hi for me, alright? I'd do it myself, but, well…I want you to meet them."
Emiyo managed to nod, and then the surging power took her fully.
When she had disappeared entirely, Hoshi Midoriya, tenth wielder of One For All, stood from the desk, feeling the weight of his sixty-some years. His eyes fell on a picture hanging on the wall; Nana and Izuku Midoriya, surrounded by their five children, who were all in varying stages of attempting to either escape or fight each other. Despite it all, they seemed blissfully happy.
Hoshi grinned, and murmured, "She's a fighter. You'll love her, Mom and Dad."
And then, he sat down to wait.
Emiyo awoke in a black, empty void. It was like floating through mist that clung to you as you tried to fight your way free. She did just that, coming to in a gasp of action that made her scramble to her feet, which sank a ways into the fog before stopping, seemingly arbitrarily.
"Where am I?" Emiyo wondered as she stared into an endless, empty sky. There was nothing around; the horizon faded to nothingness, like the world simply dissolved at the edges.
With nothing better to do, Emiyo began to walk. She wasn't headed anywhere specific; she just picked a direction and went. Maybe this was some sort of test where she had to find her way out?
If it was, Emiyo had no idea if she was passing or not.
She didn't know how long she walked for. It could have minutes, could have been hours, could have been days. She wandered aimlessly, fumbling through the fog, which wafted and drifted without being moved by any wind she could feel.
Emiyo wondered if she was dead, if this was Hell. If it was, she'd like to know what got her sent here, thank you very much.
Then, a voice called out, "So, you're the new girl."
Emiyo jumped. Trying to keep the fear out of her voice, she yelled back, "W-who's talking?"
The voice didn't respond, and Emiyo wondered if she'd imagined the whole thing. Just as she began to take a deep breath, though, something slammed into her from behind.
As Emiyo went flying, she heard that same voice say, "Lesson number one: always look up."
When Emiyo finally managed to haul herself upright again, she found herself face-to-face with a strange woman. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, with spiky black hair pulled up into a ponytail and a mole on her cheek. She was solidly built, muscular, and wearing a hero costume with a skintight jumpsuit and long white cloak. A smile as wide as any Emiyo had ever seen covered her face, and her eyes glittered with mischief; with a jolt, Emiyo realized that those eyes were the same shape and color as her mentor's.
"Who are you?" she heard herself ask.
The woman just smiled. "I'm Nana. Who are you?" she countered, "seems to me like you're the guest here."
"Where is here?" Emiyo asked, looking around at the endless, formless sea of fog.
Nana's smile didn't change in the slightest as she answered, "This is One For All, of course."
"Am I… in the quirk?" Emiyo breathed disbelievingly. She looked down at her own hands, as though expecting them to be surrounded by lightning.
"One For All is more than just a quirk," Nana told her, "it's so much more."
Emiyo's eyes widened as Nana, without warning, was suddenly wreathed in humming, crackling purple lightning, lightning that seemed to leak from her form and fill the very air with electric charge. Emiyo was surrounded in an instant by that power; she could feel it press down on her, compressing her heart, making her feel small and weak and insignificant.
But Emiyo was used to all those feelings. She stood her ground desperately, tamping down her fear, refusing to back down. She met Nana's eyes again, and saw that the mischief had disappeared. In its place was pure power, lightning sparking into life in her irises. There was determination there, and fury, and pride…but most of all, there was hope.
In a voice that rang and echoed more than it had any right to, Nana demanded, "Why did you come here?"
Emiyo fought for breath as she yelled back, "Because I was given One For All!"
Nana said, "Why did you accept One For All?"
Emiyo paused for a second, searching for the words. When she found them, she responded, "I…want to be a hero!"
Nana shook her head. "Not good enough!" she shouted over the growing roar of lightning, "why do you want to be a hero?"
The sheer force pouring off of Nana made Emiyo's knees buckle; she fell to the ground, refusing to give up, straining for every inch of ground. But all that struggle pushed other thoughts from her mind; she couldn't seem to find what she wanted to say. Her understanding of herself was just out of reach.
Her expression stern and stormy, Nana repeated, "Why?"
For one second, Emiyo thought she was going to break. The power washing over her was too much; it felt like a vise around her chest, constricting her lungs. She couldn't do it, couldn't follow through.
But then, she remembered her mentor, and all the months she'd spent working towards this. She remembered the years of dreaming, of wishing this day would come. She wasn't backing down now, not when it mattered.
And just like that, Emiyo knew what she had to say.
Emiyo forced herself up onto one knee, gritting her teeth, ignoring pain, all to look Nana right in the eye.
Shouting from the depths of her heart, Emiyo yelled, "Because…because someone needs to be! Because this world is worth fighting for, dammit! It's awful, and messy, and flawed…but it's worth it! It's worth caring, worth defending, worth giving your all to protect! Because if nobody else is going to stand up and do the right thing, then I fucking will!"
The storm stopped as if on a switch. Emiyo staggered as the wind died down to nothing, as the lightning humming around her faded away. Slowly, painfully, she began to raise her head, determined to stand on her own two feet.
When she looked up, Emiyo found Nana there, offering her a hand. For a second, Emiyo could only stare at it, at the beaming, inspiring smile on Nana's face, an expression that could have been pride.
"What's your hero name?" Nana asked.
Emiyo finally took her hand, letting Nana pull her to her feet. Panting, Emiyo replied, "I'm not a hero yet. I haven't even gotten into-"
Nana shook her head, and Emiyo stopped mid-sentence. "That's not what I was asking," Nana told her, "I was asking what your hero name was."
Emiyo blushed a little, but she nodded as she wobbled on unsteady legs. At last, she whispered, "Sentinel."
"Sentinel," Nana repeated, as though testing the word out to see how it sounded, before finally deciding, "I like it. It suits you."
Emiyo just smiled, while Nana grinned at her. Apparently, that had been the test.
And Emiyo had passed.
At that moment, another voice came from nowhere. A warm male voice asked from the depths of the fog, "Nana, are you still torturing the new girl?"
Emiyo jumped a little, but Nana didn't seem bothered by the disembodied voice. She called back, "Oh, come on, Izuku. Let me have my fun!"
The first speaker appeared, revealing himself to be a tall, heavily muscled man with soft-looking green hair and laughing green eyes. He looked to be the same age as Nana, and wore a deep green and white hero costume.
"I did," he noted, nodding at Emiyo as he strode up to Nana and kissed her softly.
With a strange sense of vertigo, Emiyo realized she recognized them. Her mentor had a picture of them-several pictures, actually-on his wall.
"You're Atlas's parents," she gasped, using Hoshi's hero name in her shock.
Nana and Izuku broke their kiss, both turning to face Emiyo. She saw how their hands never separated, and briefly wondered what it must be like, to spend literally an eternity with someone you loved so much.
She supposed it must be a wonderful thing indeed.
Nana smiled fondly at the mention of Hoshi. "Yep, we sure are," she confirmed, "how's he doing, anyway? We haven't seen him in a few days. Is he still brushing his teeth?"
Emiyo frowned, ignoring Izuku's chuckle at Nana's question. "A few days?" she repeated in confusion, "you mean you talk to him?"
Izuku nodded. "Yeah," he replied, "what, do you think we would leave our kids alone when we have the chance to visit them?"
Nana poked him in the side and told him, "Oh, that reminds me, we should go pop in and say hi to Mizuki. She just had our second great-grandkid!"
Izuku shook his head in disbelief. "God, that makes me feel old," he groaned, making Nana snicker.
"It comes with being basically immortal spirits," she told him cheerfully, "and you definitely didn't act old fifteen minutes ago, when we-"
Izuku coughed loudly, pointing at Emiyo, who took that as a sign that now was a good time to change the subject. She asked, "So, uh, why all the scary lightning and stuff?"
Nana shrugged. "I was bored, mostly," she replied, "but I also did want to make sure you were worthy. It's a big job, and not everyone can do it."
Emiyo nodded and asked shyly, "And did…did I pass?"
Nana beamed, then, and Emiyo saw, for the first time, that a smile could chase away the deepest darkness.
"With flying colors," she responded. Then Izuku clapped his hands, and Emiyo's world filled with light and color and voices she'd never heard before.
Spirit after spirit appeared from the dancing mists, stealing Emiyo's breath as they surrounded her, their faces bright with admiration and joy.
One of them, a seven-foot giant of a man with an enormous smile and twin spikes of blonde hair, laughed as Emiyo scrambled backwards away from him, intimidated by his sheer size.
"Don't worry, young Emiyo," the man chuckled, "I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Toshinori."
Emiyo caught her breath, and managed to politely reply, "It's nice to meet you. My mentor's told me about you. You used to babysit him, right?"
Toshinori nodded. "I mean, I am his grandfather," he said good-naturedly, "he better be talking about me with respect!"
Emiyo admitted, "He did say you were smaller."
Toshinori laughed. "To be fair, he only knew me in my retired days," he agreed, "One For All preserves us as idealized versions, the faces we presented at our best times…though we always carry the worst with us, too."
Emiyo opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Toshinori turned, and she instead came face-to-face with a small, thin-looking man.
"I am the First," the man said, his smile wide and bright. Emiyo had never felt a presence like this, one that could make any moment feel important, feel true.
The First looked her over, nodded once as if to himself, then told her, "And you are the next. You carry the same burdens we did, fight the same battles…but you also carry us. We'll be here, whenever you need us. You will never fight this war alone."
Emiyo took deep breaths, then asked, "I feel like I'm being knighted. Should I kneel or something?"
The First laughed, joined by the others a moment later; Emiyo heard Nana mutter, "I'm liking this girl more and more every time she talks."
The First finally responded, "No, you don't need to kneel. I do have a question, though."
Emiyo's heart skipped a beat as the First's gaze pierced her very soul. He asked, "Who are you?"
This time, Emiyo knew the answer right away. Standing tall and proud, she declared, "I'm Emiyo Hosakawa. Eleventh Wielder of One For All."
The First nodded. Laying his hand on her shoulder, he said, "You are. Go and fight the good fight, Sentinel."
Once more, there was lightning. Every color Emiyo had ever seen, pouring into her, tracing her veins, filling her heart. She accepted it all, claiming it as her own, making it hers.
When it was done, Emiyo's body hummed with lightning of its own. It was a new color, her color; deep, deep blue, so deep it was nearly black. It shimmered with translucence, as if the lightning somehow deflected the light that touched it. It was black like space itself, like the voids between the stars that lit themselves afire to her eyes. It sang in her soul, filled her with power. For the first time, Emiyo held her dreams in her hands.
Emiyo nodded to the wielders, her thanks ringing out in the fabric of One For All itself.
And then she was gone.
Hoshi heard a crack and a yelp, and turned to find his young protege groaning as she picked herself up off the floor.
Grinning, he asked, "You didn't explode?"
"No," Emiyo muttered as she rubbed her head, "I didn't explode."
"Good!" Hoshi replied, "and you can use One For All?"
Emiyo stood up, breathing heavily. Raising one arm and closing her eyes, she felt the now-familiar crackle of lightning on her skin. Opening her eyes as she maintained the power flow, she saw herself wreathed in light the color of space.
Hoshi nodded, pride visible on his face. "I knew you could do it," he told her.
"She's damn impressive, Hoshi," agreed a voice from behind them.
Hoshi and Emiyo whirled, finding Nana and Izuku standing there. As they watched, the ghostly forms of the other wielders appeared, filling the room as if it were a family reunion.
Nana's eyes shone with unimaginable pride as she looked at her son. She came forwards until he had been dragged into her arms, pulling Izuku into the hug as well.
Hoshi let it happen, in the air of a man who had learned through long and painful experience that Nana's hugs could not be resisted. He grumbled, "Mom, I literally saw you a couple days ago when you came crashing through my wall to tell me about that bank robbery. Why do we have to do this every time?"
"Because I love you," Nana replied bluntly. Izuku echoed it, and Hoshi groaned as they finally released him.
Izuku studied Emiyo for a moment, and she found herself shifting nervously, wondering what he saw. At last, he smiled, and told her, "Congratulations, Emiyo. You'll be a great hero."
His judgment given, Izuku slowly faded away, as did many of the wielders. Soon, only Nana was left.
"Take good care of this one," she ordered Hoshi, "or I will ground you."
Hoshi snorted, but didn't say anything; Emiyo wondered if that was because he knew Nana wasn't joking.
Nana turned to Emiyo, and her eyes were full of mischief and pride. "Kick ass, girl," she told Emiyo.
Then, she announced, "I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm off to go have hot ghost sex with my husband."
Nana disappeared as soon as she'd finished speaking, leaving Emiyo spluttering helplessly and Hoshi sighing, long since resigned to his mother's antics.
"Now then," he asked once Emiyo was ready once again, "let's get started."
Emiyo nodded, already determined to make the people who believed in her proud.
And far away, watching over it all, a sky-touched girl kissed the boy she loved.