Once the rice cooker was running, Kaito turned to the simple speaker setup on the kitchen counter and started up his usual cooking playlist. Toru had come home in an especially good mood after school, and seeing his daughter so happy had done wonders to lift his own spirits. He'd been fairly nervous after their recent move, knowing from his own experiences how difficult it can be to settle in at a new school. Considering how insecure he knew his daughter could be, he could only imagine the experience would be even more difficult for her. What he hadn't expected was to see his daughter slowly becoming even happier and more confident than she had been at her old school.

From the many long talks he and Toru had had over the past few years, Kaito knew his daughter worried almost constantly about fitting in. Middle school had been especially rough in that regard, in spite of the close knit friend group the girl had been a part of. On more than one occasion, she had broken down into tears while talking about some social event or sleepover she'd gone to. It was heartbreaking for Kaito to see, feeling next to helpless that there was so little he could actually do to help her.

Now, however, things finally seemed to be changing for the better. Though it had been barely more than a month since they'd moved here, Kaito could already see Toru's old cheerful self starting to resurface. Their recent talks over dinner had been far more positive and optimistic, and even her laughter was sounding more and more genuine by the day. He figured he probably had these Bakugou and Midoriya boys to thank, considering how frequently Toru mentioned them, but regardless of the reason, Kaito was simply glad to see his daughter genuinely happy once more.

The sound of his phone buzzing on the counter pulled his attention back to the present, followed soon after by the sound of Toru's footsteps making their way downstairs. After checking to make sure the message wasn't anything important, he turned to give the girl a smile as she entered the kitchen. "Got everything done?"

"Pretty much," Toru replied with a nod, a gesture only made apparent by the simple headband she wore. "All that's left is an essay, but that's not due until Wednesday."

Kaito let out a hum of understanding, turning back to finish up the stir fry as Toru retrieved some bowls from the cabinet. "Can't really say I blame you for leaving that for last. Essays are one of the main reasons I decided to study engineering and computer science."

The girl snickered briefly at her father's words, making her pause for a moment as she set the table for dinner. "I honestly don't mind writing them too much. Usually it's the topic that makes it unbearable. Like, this one is supposed to be about the Silk Road and how it influenced world cultures at the time. Yeah, it's interesting, but not five pages, single-spaced, interesting."

"For the record, I agree with you," Kaito said with a grin, "but I know three people off the top of my head who would disagree vehemently."

Judging by the motion of the headband and the heavy sigh, he was fairly certain Toru had rolled her eyes at the comment. "Well that doesn't really help me. Unless you want to call one of them and have them write the essay for me?"

The man shook his head, turning to shut off the rice cooker as it started beeping. "No, because that's called 'cheating,' and we've already talked about how you need to break that habit."

"I'm trying, dad. I really am."

He couldn't help but laugh as his daughter played along with the quip. While the idea was little more than an inside joke between them now, it had posed a bit of an issue when the girl was younger. Being invisible, she'd found it was quite easy to look at other people's notes or tests without anyone noticing. Once Kaito found out about it, however, his disappointment in her proved to be more than enough motivation for Toru to break the habit.

As he loaded up a serving dish with the food, Kaito decided to change topics, more to sate his own curiosity than anything else. "So do I get to ask how your day went now? You seemed like you were in a rush when you got home."

The shift in Toru's posture betrayed a bit of embarrassment, drawing another brief chuckle from the man as he took his seat across from her. "Yeah, I kinda got sidetracked on my way to the station with Midoriya."

"Well that at least explains why you were in such a good mood," he teased. "Though I have to say, with how often you talk about him I'd almost think you two were a couple already."

"Dad, you know it's not like that. Bakugou had to leave early today, so I offered to walk him home. Because he's blind," she interjected quickly, obviously not wanting to give Kaito the opportunity to keep teasing her.

He grinned at the slightly indignant tone of the girl's voice. He trusted his daughter and knew she could take care of herself, but the more protective side of him couldn't help but wonder about these two boys she had become fast friends with. After taking time to scoop some of the food into his own bowl, he responded, "I still wouldn't mind getting to meet them one of these days, Midoriya and Bakugou. Why don't you invite them over for dinner or a study group or something?"

Toru paused briefly between bites of stir fry, apparently thinking the idea over. "I mean, we do have a group project coming up in a few weeks. I'd just need to know what days you'd be home."

"If you plan it more than a week in advance, I could make any day work." Kaito turned back to his food, a little surprised at how quickly his daughter had seemed to agree to the idea. In the past, she had seemed more than a little reluctant to invite friends over for one reason or another. Perhaps this was just one more sign of her confidence returning.

The woman hummed contentedly to herself as she stepped out from under the pier and stretched, glancing back briefly to the simple memorial she'd just finished cleaning. With a sad smile and one more bow, she turned to make her way back along the cluttered beach. It had been a few years since she'd last visited this place, and it was little surprise to her that the piles of trash had only grown in that time. In spite of the growing clutter, Dagoba beach was still just as peaceful as it had always been.

As she began making her way through the mountains of garbage, she quickly realized she wasn't as alone as she had initially thought. Off in the distance she could hear what sounded like someone digging through one of the trash heaps. At first, she decided it was likely nothing worth investigating, but as she got closer she began to hear the person—a teenage boy, judging by the voice—muttering to himself. Curiosity quickly settled in, and the woman started to make her way towards the sounds.

Her growing curiosity turned to true surprise once the boy came into view. He stood in what she could only describe as a canyon in the mountain range of garbage that covered the beach. The rift stretched for a few dozen meters before the trash piles resumed, with only a rusted truck and a few large kitchen appliances now dotting the bare sand. She watched as the boy circled one such appliance, a simple convection oven, wondering aloud about how best to move the thing.

"You could probably try rolling it," the woman called out to him after a moment, her voice causing the boy to jump slightly. "You'd probably need something to tie the door shut, though."

The boy stared at her for a moment, then glanced back towards the oven and nodded. "Y-yeah I was wondering how that'd work. I… I think I saw some rope over here earlier..."

His voice trailed off as he made his way towards the nearest trash pile, quickly extracting a fairly long rope that was hanging out of one of the bags. The woman stepped forward as he did so, doing her best to make sure things didn't shift too much as the boy freed the rope. Together, the two of them secured the oven door before dropping it on its side, working in tandem to roll the appliance up the beach to the brick retaining wall.

"That should be good for now," the boy sighed as they reached the wall, shaking out some soreness in his arms. "I just wanted to at least get it out of the way. I can move it to the dumpster later."

The woman nodded and looked back towards the beach, again taking in just how much appeared to have been cleared away. "Did you do all this yourself?" she asked, trying not to sound too incredulous.

An embarrassed smile formed on the boy's face as he looked down. "Yeah, I've been coming here for a few years now when I can. I didn't really realize just how much trash there was when I started."

"I was going to say, it seems like a really daunting task for just one person." She leaned up against the retaining wall, her gaze combing along the beach back in the direction of the pier. After a brief pause she looked back at the boy. "What made you decide to try?"

"I-I just… wanted to try and make a difference." The woman glanced over curiously, but the boy continued before she could say anything. "Without a Quirk, I'm probably never going to be an actual hero, but that doesn't mean I can't still help people. So I figured something like this would be a good place to start. Not to mention it's been a pretty good workout so far."

The broad smile that spread across the woman's face was clearly not the reaction he had expected, judging by his expression. She briefly looked away and cleared her throat, trying to compose herself a bit more so as to not give the boy the wrong idea. "Sorry, you just reminded me of an old friend for a moment there. He was always looking for ways to help people, even with the smallest of things. Quirkless or not, he was still as much of a hero as All Might in my eyes."

For a long moment, Izuku said nothing as he mulled over the older woman's words. He had heard similar platitudes many times before, comparing relatively mundane actions to the work of professional heroes. Usually, they were accompanied by someone essentially telling him to give up on his dream, that his being Quirkless meant he would have to find other ways to be a hero. Frankly, he was sick of hearing it. He was already painfully aware of just how far out of reach his dream truly was.

This time seemed different, however. The woman's words were full of emotion, in spite of the smile she had been trying to hide. Obviously, the person she spoke of had been quite close to her, and her use of past tense carried some grim implications. It was a level of sincerity Izuku felt he could trust, even coming from a stranger like her.

"It's probably hard to remember things like that sometimes," the woman continued, gazing out towards the ocean. "You always hear stories of how a hero stopped some rampaging villain, or kept a building from collapsing after an earthquake, but they rarely talk about the little things anymore. For example, you probably didn't hear much about what Eraserhead and Blindspot did during All Might's most recent villain fight, did you?"

Izuku had, in fact, but only because it was a fight he'd heard recounted dozens of times in the week since it had taken place. The details about the two other heroes' actions had mostly been ignored, however, except for one podcast channel that was specifically dedicated to discussing underground heroes. "They focused on search and rescue, didn't they? All Might did her best to keep the villain away from the buildings while they got people evacuated just in case. And I think the only civilian injuries were from before they arrived on scene, but there may have been a few others when the villain tried to make a break for it."

The older woman chuckled softly as the boy cut himself off, trying hard not to fall into his old rambling habits. She almost seemed to study him for a moment before speaking again. "And there probably would have been a lot more casualties had they not showed up, considering how busy the fire department was. My point is, All Might may have gotten the spotlight, but her fight wouldn't have turned out as well as it had were it not for those other two. And neither Blindspot nor Eraserhead have a Quirk that was in any way useful for the job they performed."

Those last words struck home a lot harder than Izuku had been expecting. Though no one knew exactly what the two heroes' Quirks were, their track record implied they were more specialized for stealth and capture. Blindspot may have had an easier time getting closer to the fight than Eraserhead, but when it came to moving debris, neither hero was any better equipped than the other rescue personnel. The only reason either of them were there was because they happened to be on patrol in the area at the time.

"That's… still not quite the same as being Quirkless," Izuku found himself muttering after a moment. "They're both pros for a reason. There's no way someone like me could hope to compete, no matter how hard I train."

Again the woman caught him off guard, letting out another brief laugh and shaking her head. "No, I guess it's not the same. You'd obviously have to work a bit harder to get noticed and make a name for yourself, but I'm a firm believer that almost anything is possible when you have true conviction. A Quirkless hero is probably not as far-fetched of an idea as you may think."

"A Quirkless, blind hero," Izuku corrected under his breath, almost without thinking. He thought he'd spoken too quietly to hear, but the shift in the woman's expression told him she hadn't missed the comment. However, instead of pity, which was the expression Izuku had come to expect when telling someone about his situation, the woman wore a look of curiosity.

She looked down towards the rope tied around the oven situated between them, then back up to the boy. "I was wondering about that, with the way your eyes were moving when you got lost in thought. It seems like you're able to work around it pretty well, though."

Though the older woman seemed more than content to leave the topic alone there, Izuku figured there was little harm in indulging her unspoken curiosity. He gestured towards the side of his head. "I, uh—my hearing kind of makes up for it. There's a long story there, but basically my brain is able to process sounds into an image."

"I see." The woman studied him silently for a moment as the boy got increasingly nervous, wondering if he should say more. Before he could make up his mind, however, she continued. "That's certainly a unique ability, and probably far more useful than you might realize. I have a feeling you can do a lot more than you give yourself credit for."

The compliment brought a smile to the boy's face, and he could feel his cheeks heat slightly. He gave a polite bow as he said, "Thank you. That means a lot to hear, miss…?"

"Nana," the woman replied with her own smile. "Just call me Nana."

By the time Nana left the beach, she could feel a dull ache settling into her muscles and joints, a very unwelcome reminder of her age. She and the boy, Midoriya, had chatted for the better part of an hour before she eventually offered to help him move a few more of the appliances. Under normal circumstances, she would have used at least a portion of her Quirk to make the job less strenuous. While a part of her was now regretting her choice to not use it, she saw the decision as something of a sign of solidarity towards the boy. And towards Toshinori.

"He really sounds a lot like you," she thought aloud, rolling her shoulders as she walked to relieve some of the soreness. "He's got the motivation and ideals, just lacking in confidence. Though it doesn't seem like that would be too difficult to fix."

She mulled over the rest of the conversation she'd had with Midoriya as she walked. The boy had opened up surprisingly quickly, especially when it came to his interest in heroes. Though he obviously understood his personal limitations well, his dream of becoming a hero still burned bright. To some extent, it even seemed that he barely considered his blindness and Quirklessness to be limitations in the first place, simply obstacles he needed to learn to get past first. It was this determination that had led Nana to consider, more than once, whether the boy would be a potential candidate as a successor.

For the past few years, she had all but given up on the idea altogether. The pain of losing Toshinori was still fresh in her mind, even after all this time, and she knew a repeat experience would likely break her. Yet with each passing day, the jagged scar that twisted down her side reminded her that she would soon have little choice in the matter. If she didn't find someone to pass her Quirk to, it would die with her, along with the ideals she had promised to keep alive.