"I can do this," Nana mumbled to herself for what must have been the hundredth time as she stared out over the ocean. Her chest felt tight despite the calmness of the morning. Normally, she would have attributed the sensation to her old injury, but she knew better. There was no pain, no taste of blood or shortness of breath. This was a much different sensation. Nana was still afraid.
The fear changed nothing, however. She had committed to this course and she needed to take this next step. The most important step. Even if she passed her Quirk on to the boy another day, she needed to make the proposal for Midoriya to become her successor. There was no time to find another.
With a steadying breath, Nana turned and began to walk back towards the clear patch of beach where she and Midoriya had been meeting for the past seven months. The boy had already arrived and was going through the set of pre-workout stretches she had taught him. It was just another sign of his drive to improve himself; with each instruction she had given, Midoriya had immediately begun to apply it, rarely needing any reminder or correction. Nana watched him for a long moment, letting her mind set aside its worries while she judged his form. The distraction was brief, but it was enough to clear her head.
Midoriya looked up and smiled as the woman drew closer, fully entering his field of vision. "Hello, Miss Nana. Sorry if I kept you waiting at all." He shifted positions where he sat, both legs straight out in front as he reached forward to grab hold of his shoes, stretching out his hamstrings.
"Not at all, young man," Nana chuckled, waving off his concern. She retrieved the paint bucket he usually used to collect smaller items and set it upside down in the sand, using it as a makeshift stool as she waited for him to finish his stretches. "I got here earlier than usual today since I needed to plan out today's lesson a little more."
The statement was only partially true. She had spent the whole week since her talk with Sorahiko planning out how to reveal the truth to the boy; her identity, the nature of her Quirk, and what had happened to the previous successor. It had only been on her walk to the beach that she had finally made up her mind on how to go about it. The actual specifics were still a little up in the air, but she figured she could manage with the outline she had. At least, that was her hope.
Midoriya perked up at the mention of a new lesson, just as she knew he would. "What will we be doing today?" he asked excitedly, finishing the last of his stretches and pushing himself back to his feet. "More endurance training, or is this going to be more strength related?"
"Today's lesson is about Quirks." Nana watched confusion begin to seep into the boy's expression. They had talked about Quirks before, musing about different heroes and how well they would work together, but it had always been in passing discussion. She stood as well, motioning for the boy to follow her as she set off down the beach at a languid pace. If she was going to tell him the whole story, there was only one place she felt would be fitting. "One Quirk in particular, and the two brothers who brought it into being."
Confusion all but overshadowed Midoriya's excitement as he fell into step beside the woman. It was an understandable reaction. The idea of creating a specific Quirk was simply unheard of. There were such things as Quirk marriages, where two people would try to have a child who would have a perfect mixture of their individual abilities, but that practice was frowned upon and entirely up to a roll of the genetic dice.
It was clear the boy had a dozen questions formulating in his mind at once, so Nana quickly continued in order to clarify. "This story happened almost two hundred years ago, not long after Quirks first came into being. The older brother had a Quirk he called All for One. It gave him the power to take someone's Quirk and give it to someone else. At first, he used that power to help people who didn't want their powers or were afraid to use them, but it wasn't long before greed took over, and he began to hunt for stronger and stronger Quirks. His brother, however… his Quirk never manifested. He had no power, so the older brother wanted to give him one.
"The younger brother was opposed to the idea. He had seen what his older brother had been doing, and was disgusted by it. So the older brother promised to give him a Quirk that he had been given, not one he'd taken. Eventually the younger brother agreed, and he got a Quirk. It was a simple one, a power that could stockpile strength from anyone who used it."
"Wait, could you say that again please?" Midoriya interrupted, unable to hold back his curiosity. "How would that Quirk even work if it could only get passed from one person to another using All for One? It… it sounds almost…"
Nana's smile widened as she finished the boy's sentence. "Useless? It would certainly seem that way, wouldn't it? Especially since the older brother had never used it since he thought the same. It did make the younger brother a little stronger, though not by much. There is more to the story, though. If you remember, I never said the younger brother was Quirkless, only that his Quirk had not manifested, and I meant that literally.
"The younger brother had a Quirk of his own. While he couldn't take Quirks for himself the way All for One could, he could give his Quirk away. When his older brother gave him the stockpiling Quirk, the two powers merged and created a new Quirk he called One for All."
The boy muttered the name to himself as though testing it out, nodding slowly. He stayed silent, however, gazing off down the beach while he processed the story he was hearing. After a few seconds of silence, Nana continued, turning her own gaze towards the old pier. "The younger brother soon left, wanting to get away from his older brother's influence as his greed for power grew stronger. He found his way to a group of people who were opposing All for One—that's what the older brother eventually started calling himself. Since there wasn't much he could do with his Quirk on his own, he did the only other thing he could and passed it on to someone who could make better use of it. Over the next two hundred years, that Quirk—One for All—was passed down from one user to the next, growing in strength with each new holder. Until it was passed to me."
Nana slowed to a halt, only a short distance away from the pier now. She looked down at her hand, skin wrinkled with age, and made a fist as she activated her Quirk. The wrinkles smoothed away, loose skin pulling tight over her musculature as she stood up straighter. As she turned to face the boy, she forced herself to once more put on the mask she'd hidden behind for the past three decades; a broad, fearless smile meant to reassure those around her that everything would be ok. "Young Midoriya," she said softly, voice now a warm alto. "I am the… ninth wielder of One for All."
The voice was unmistakable. Izuku had heard dozens of impressions over the years, many of which were quite believable. Voice actors, podcast hosts, even most of his classmates; just about everyone with any level of interest in heroes had their own version of an All Might impression. Yet with the enhanced hearing his unique brain structure had given him, picking out imitations of All Might's voice from the real one had become child's play. This voice—this calm, powerful voice—was undeniably real.
"Y-y-you… Y-you're…" He tried to speak, tried to say something to voice his surprise at this sudden revelation, but both his voice and words failed him utterly. All Might—All Might!—the hero he had idolized from the moment he learned about heroes—had been teaching and mentoring him for the past seven months. He had joked with her, talked with her about being a hero. 'Oh dear God, she's heard me fanboy about her!' Izuku felt his face heating as the mortifying realization set in.
The hero's laughter pulled his attention back, though it sounded almost a little forced compared to what he was used to hearing during interviews and news recordings. Even her smile seemed to falter slightly as she looked down at him. "Yes, it's me," she said simply, holding up a hand. "I can tell you have some questions about all this, but hopefully I can answer some of them. There's a bit more to the story."
Still dumbfounded, Izuku could only nod in response. There were simply too many questions in his mind for him to even decide what to ask first. Idly, he wished he had his phone with him to try and record what he was hearing, but something about that idea felt wrong. He let himself get so lost in thought that he almost stumbled to keep up as All Might—or Miss Nana; he wasn't sure what he should call her now—started walking again.
"The reason I'm telling you this is because I… I want to ask you to become my successor—" again she held up her hand to forestall his response, "—but you're not allowed to agree to that until you know the rest of the story. I need you to understand what you would be agreeing to first. The truth is, saying that I'm the ninth holder of One for All is something of a technicality."
Her voice trailed off slightly as the two approached the old pier, ducking past one of the support beams to the small space beneath. The echoes in the enclosure added clarity to Izuku's sight. This was clearly more than just a secluded spot to keep their conversation more private. He only wished he could read the carvings in the far wall as he watched his mentor gently trace them with a finger. When she spoke again, the usual bravado and confidence most people associated with the hero was nowhere to be found. Instead, her tone was somber, almost remorseful.
"About thirty, thirty five years ago, I met another young man very much like you. I'm sure I've mentioned him before; you remind me of him quite a bit. Like you, he had his heart set on becoming a hero despite being Quirkless. But not just any hero. He wanted… he believed the world needed a symbol of sorts." The hero chuckled softly, shaking her head. "I thought it was a crazy idea, that any one hero could ever have that kind of impact. He was set on the idea, though, and it didn't take me long to realize that One for All would be the perfect tool for him to achieve that goal. So I started training him, much like how I've been training you. I needed to make sure he would be strong enough to use One for All once I gave it to him."
For a moment, Miss Nana paused her retelling. The pause gave Izuku's mind an opportunity to catch up. 'Has she been planning to ask me to be her successor all this time? Does she really think I have what it takes?'
His stream of thought was cut short as he heard his mentor take a deep breath. Still facing away from him, she started speaking once more, her voice barely more than a whisper. "He had the Quirk for a week. He learned a lot faster than I'd thought he would, but it… it wasn't enough. When All for One found out and attacked…"
Slowly, the hero lifted her shirt, exposing her back to the boy. At first he wanted to look away, face heating at the sudden exposure, but he soon realized what he was meant to be seeing. Standing out against the hero's well-defined musculature was a massive, knotted scar winding up the right side of her body. Such a devastating injury could only have been inflicted by a villain orders of magnitude more powerful than any Izuku had heard or read about. The idea was almost too impossible to imagine. In spite of that, however, the thing that truly gave the boy pause was the look on his mentor's face when she turned back towards him. All Might was crying.
"I couldn't save him. I couldn't protect him from the one person this Quirk was meant to oppose. The only thing I could do was hold him. And watch him die." Her voice choked with emotion as she wiped her eyes, and Izuku could feel his own eyes begin to burn with tears. The hero let go of her Quirk and the visage of All Might faded away. Left behind was an old woman with a sad, tired smile. With a shaking breath and a glance back towards the carved wall, she continued, "In those final moments, Toshinori did two things that changed me, and changed One for All, forever. First, he gave the Quirk back to me, even though it had yet to fully leave me. Second, he made me promise that his dream wouldn't die with him, that I would use One for All to become that symbol of peace he always wanted to be."
Izuku wiped one of his own tears as he felt it rolling down his cheek. "So you became All Might… to honor his dream," he said softly, the words leaving him before he realized he was speaking them out loud.
Miss Nana nodded in response. "When he gave One for All back to me, it felt like the biggest thing the Quirk had taken from him was that dream itself, his desire to give everyone hope, no matter what. It's as though the Quirk is even stronger when it's used to protect someone, even moving me on its own sometimes…" She dropped her gaze to her hand, opening and closing her fist almost experimentally a few times. "But it's getting harder and harder to maintain. I can only use One for All for a few hours at a time before it gets too painful—that injury. I'm afraid that before long… All Might will be no more."
Her words sent a chill through Izuku. There had been much speculation about the infrequency of All Might's activity recently, but no one had considered the possibility of it being due to injury. That would just be unheard of. Yet he knew the truth now. It was a truth he would have passed off as impossible had he not heard it from the hero herself.
"So," Miss Nana continued after a long silence, pulling Izuku back out of his thoughts once more, "knowing what you know now, do you think you can accept the offer of becoming my new successor?"
"Yes." Izuku's answer was out of his mouth almost before his mentor finished her question. He had known what his answer would be the moment the offer was mentioned. The hero raised an eyebrow at his quick response, though, so he hurried to explain himself. "I know what you're asking of me is a-a huge responsibility, and to be honest, I-I'm still not sure why you chose me, but… For as long as I can remember, my dream has been to be a hero. Like you. Even after losing my vision, even after finding out I'm Quirkless… All I've wanted is to be able to help people. And even with the risks and the responsibility that I would be taking on, y-you're offering me a way to finally live that dream. I-I can't turn that down. I just—I can't."
Through his tears, he could see a familiar smile returning to the woman's face. Age faded away, her back straightened, and once more the hero he'd idolized his whole life stood before him. "If that is your answer, and if you truly mean that you're willing to accept the risks that come with it, then I would be proud to call you my successor. Izuku Midoriya, the future Symbol of Peace."
