Katsuki slipped out of Izuku's room and moments later Monoma slipped in, pale as a sheet, face an unreadable mask. He bore an all too familiar set of scars across his wrist--indented white ovals, finger prints. Shigaraki had caught him during the battle of UA, and the fact that Izuku's new sibling was alive at all was a miracle.
As Izuku looked Monoma over, Monoma looked Izuku over, each of them carefully assessing the other for injuries. All Izuku found were those horrible fingerprints, but clothes could hide all manner of damage. From his expression, Monoma was thinking something similar.
"Uh... Midoriya, I..." he swallowed nervously, clenching his hands into fists, the insecurity easy to read. He looked as if he might burst into tears.
That wouldn't do.
Izuku grabbed the blonde and hugged him. "Thank you." "What? I--"
"I'm really glad that you and my mom had each other while I was gone. I always wanted a brother. I'm sorry that it happened like this, but I'm really happy that my mom adopted you."
The blonde made no attempt to blink back the tears after that, burying his face against Izuku's shoulder. "I thought that--that maybe you'd think I was trying to steal her."
"What? No, of course not!" Though, in Monoma's place Izuku might have the same worries. Monoma had, from a certain point of view, taken Izuku's place, but that perspective showed only the shallowest understanding of the situation. "You can't steal family. You can join family," Monoma cried harder at that, which meant it had been the right thing to say. "You should call me Izuku, though. It would be weird if you didn't."
"And I'm Neito. I'm, uh, keeping my last name because..."
"You don't need to explain. I understand." If Izuku's mother had died and Neito's family had taken the ex-spy in, Izuku certainly would have kept the name Midoriya.
Izuku walked into the common room at Aizawa's side, Neito and Katsuki trailing behind. The majority of class A and class B students lounged on couches or rabbit-fluffy shaggy carpets. The room had been expanded--it was nearly twice the size it had been previously--due to the full merger of the A and B dorms. The space was still familiar, however. That was the same old couch, the same old coffee table... none of the harsh realities of war had wormed their way into this room, save perhaps the heap of maps on the side table, but those could be innocuous. They weren't necessarily battle maps, even if that seemed the most likely explanation.
This reunion shouldn't be as hard as seeing Katsuki or Neito again, yet Izuku's stomach twisted unpleasantly and he had to force his eyes away from the carpet.
His yearmates were much like the common room itself, radically changed but still familiar. Since the battle of UA, Yaoyorozu had gained a nasty acid or electrical burn across her throat and face which had been disguised by a tattoo in the shape of a twisting, feather-winged dragon. Mineta was strikingly different, too. He had aged at least five years since Gunga Mountain, hard lines on his face. He'd lost an unsettling amount of weight as well. Lost weight and hardened lines on the face were ubiquitous, but Mineta took it to extremes.
All these people had changed so much, and he'd left them alone for the duration. What right had Izuku to suddenly catapult himself back into their lives?
His teacher gave Izuku's shoulder a gentle squeeze of encouragement as the ex-spy glanced longingly back towards the stairs.
"Mr. Aizawa? Who's this?" asked Uraraka from a stool at the kitchen table, eyes snapping up from whatever passed for homework in the current chaotic environment of UA.
"H-hey everybody," Izuku waved nervously. Ojiro blinked at him without recognition. Shouji did a double take, eyes widening. Jirou and Yaoyorozu wore identical expressions of shock, and Uraraka
narrowed her eyes as if she were trying to fit one of the final pieces into a puzzle. "But you're dead!" Jirou yelled.
Shouji caught on more quickly, rising from his chair, crossing the room in a moment and crushing Izuku into a hug. "I don't care how," his friend breathed in his ear.
"You said Midoriya was dead!" Yaoyorozu half shouted at Aizawa, bewildered and jabbing an accusing finger towards the teacher's face.
"That's not Midoriya--what are you talking about?" Kaminari broke in from the corner. "Different face, same voice," Shouji shook his head sharply.
The room exploded into chaos, incoherent shouting, a few excited squeals, and Izuku found himself nearly unable to breathe as a dozen pairs of arms fought to clutch at him and pet his hair. This was... he wasn't sure what he'd expected after the conversations with Neito and Kacchan but certainly not this.
"Quiet please!" Aizawa demanded. "Quiet. Do you want to hear what happened or not? I have a meeting to attend in five minutes, so it's now or tomorrow." The cacophony of shouting faded to murmurs. Shouji picked Izuku up as if he were a beloved, lost pet finally returned against all odds. The ex-spy threw an arm across Shouji's shoulders in order to hold himself steady. This was... odd... but not unpleasant. Aizawa nodded as the room fell to complete silence. "When we told you that Midoriya Izuku was dead we were not lying, in the sense that we were quite certain that it was true at the time. We were very happy to be wrong."
"Y-you--you--" Uraraka snapped her fingers repeatedly, pointing at Izuku, "it was you."
Aizawa continued after a quick glance at the gravity eraser. "Midoriya has been a deep cover agent in the PLF. If he wants to tell you more about that he can, but you all know by now how this works. You don't press for answers someone doesn't want to give." The entire class nodded in sober acknowledgment. Nearly every one of Izuku's yearmates had accumulated in the common room by then.
"You can put me down, Shouji," Izuku tapped his friend on the shoulder as Aizawa strode quickly out the door, heading for Nedzu's office.
"Well... I could..."
"I suppose I don't really mind either way," the ex-spy decided. It was only now hitting him just how terribly he'd missed not just Shouji, Ojiro and other close friends among his yearmates but all of them. Fossa hadn't allowed him the space or time to feel these things and he'd gotten out of practice. Allowing the many-armed student to carry him around like a trophy was not at all unpleasant.
"The Battle of UA," Uraraka pointed, finally continuing her thought. "I--I for a moment I thought it was you who saved me, but it was. It was you, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, that was me," Izuku gave her a tired smile. "Sorry about Sone."
"Sone?" asked Ojiro, who was trying to steal Izuku from Shouji but didn't seem to be sure how to go about it without risking dropping the ex-spy to the floor. Shouji, at last, set the Izuku on his feet. Izuku dodged Ojiro's grasping fingers and settled into an arm chair.
"Sone was my asshole sergeant," Fossa curled his lip. "She's a royal bastard."
"Wow," Kirishima raised his eyebrows.
"What?" What did he say? Kirishima wasn't the only one who looked shocked.
"I... I mean everybody swears a lot now," Kirishima chuckled awkwardly, "but in my head you hadn't changed, you know? Because... you were just the same as I last saw you. It's weird."
"Oh. It's kind of the same for me I guess."
"No," Uraraka shook her head. "No, I don't think so." Yeah, she was probably right. His yearmates had all though him dead and thus eternally static whereas Izuku had viewed his absent classmates as living, breathing, evolving people, all be it people evolving a world away. Seeing how they had changed was a shock, but not a shock of the same caliber as his yearmates felt looking at him.
"So," Yaoyorozu began carefully, tone making it clear she didn't mean to pry in the strict sense of the word, regardless of what must be overwhelming curiosity. "Deep cover? How... did you plan this Midoriya? Aizawa said they really thought you were dead, but did you do that on purpose?"
"What?" Izuku shook his head. "No! None of it was planned. I wouldn't have put you through that on purpose." Or would he? Well, he hadn't and couldn't so he didn't need to think about that question. "I didn't even realize you all thought I was dead until after the Battle of UA. I had no contact with anyone here for months. I had no idea... I'm really sorry." More than half of his audience was on the verge of tears. Some were beyond the verge. This was how they felt seeing him again. God, what must it have done to them when they were told they weren't going to see him again? His face burned with shame, "I'm so sorry."
"Hey!" Kaminari interrupted his blubbered apology. "You don't need to do that. It happens. It happened, already." Had it? Had someone else been reported dead and then turned up again? "It sucks, but you don't need to beg forgiveness like that." Kirishima let the point stand but gave Kaminari a look that suggested the former had not forgiven the latter for the events which the electric student referenced.
Yaoyorozu took over again. "But... what happened? You just vanished after Gunga Mountain. They said you were at Angband?"
"Yeah. I was, because the HPSC didn't trust me after... after Tokoyami. Because I was the only one still standing and they needed someone to blame I guess." That sobered the mood, the room suddenly dead silent except for Katsuki taking a deep breath. Izuku should keep talking, not leave everyone stewing on thoughts like those. "During the Angband raid I convinced the PLF recruiter that I was an MLA fanatic and joined the army." That received some impressed whistles and a few "damn"s. "It was opportunistic. I really didn't know you thought I was dead, not until False Flag found me after the Battle of UA."
Tsu cocked her head. "I mean... that seems the logical conclusion, kero, though if I were you I'm sure I wouldn't have wanted to think about it."
She was right on the money. Izuku shook his head. "I had no idea what the HPSC had told you about why they arrested me or what they did with me, you know how--but I think you're right. I couldn't let myself think about it much or I would have lost my mind." Lost his mind more.
"So you joined the PLF... to be a spy... just because you kind of could?" Todoroki cocked his head inquisitively. He'd grown his hair out although it wasn't long enough for braids yet. He did have a
butterfly shaped clip holding his bangs back.
"Yeah, I guess so." It sounded crazy when you put it like that, and maybe it was crazy and he'd just lost track of what it meant to be "normal."
Sero broke in, "I gotta ask, what happened to your face?"
That had taken a long time to come up, so long Izuku had nearly forgotten that he looked completely different now. "There was a man at Angband who was giving away permanent disguises for free to anyone who asked, even guards."
"Wow," Kirishima whistled, "really manly, that."
"Yeah. It was an amazing thing to do and I really hope he survived," and the room sobered gain.
"Are you--do you want to go, like, take some time or talk to people alone or be just--I mean--" Mineta of all people, worrying his lip, stuttered through a jumble of concerns, "I mean should we be asking you all this? I don't want to bring up bad memories." What had happened to him? He spoke nervously, sobered and mature and sad, changes in his manner matching changes in his appearance.
The spy shook his head. "No, it's alright. I'm more just tired beyond feeling much of anything about it," Izuku admitted. "I don't mind answering questions, really. I didn't think that I was going to get to see you all again so I'm really glad to be wrong."
Abruptly, Aizawa strode back through the door, letting it crash shut behind him. "Asui, Yaoyorozu, Ojiro, get your usual strike teams ready to go. You have ten minutes."
Half of the room stood instantly. Fossa rose by reflex, watching the organized chaos, the flurry of activity as everyone moved fluidly, expertly dancing around each other, both the twelve people who needed to depart in a few minutes and those who did not. "Anyone need a snack before you go?" Sato called.
"Yeah, please," Yaoyorozu nodded. "Something for the road, too, if you can." "Absolutely," Sato agreed. "Anyone else?"
"Me, please," Todoroki called, jogging towards his room to change clothes. "And me if you can," Mineta echoed. "I haven't eaten today."
Kaminari shook his head. "Mineta."
"I know, okay?" the smallest class member muttered. "It's just..." his voice trailed off as he
vanished up the stairs.
"See you soon nerd," Katsuki said, clapping Izuku on the shoulder as he dashed past.
Aizawa and Fossa exchanged glances. Nothing needed to be said. Slowly the spy sat back down. Monoma strode by, ruffled Izuku's hair, tried to find something to say, failed, and settled for a plaintive look goodbye before hurrying towards his dorms to prepare to leave. He was a part of Yaoyorozu's squad, wasn't he, same as Kacchan? Tsu had been in Yaoyorozu's team, too, at the Battle of UA and now she was a squadleader herself.
In a dance they had done a thousand times, the hero class coalesced into an organized tornado,
pulling together to prepare everyone for combat as quickly as possible. Fossa, who had no idea of the steps of this dance, curled up on his chair so as to occupy as little space as possible. The least he could do was stay out of the way.
Fossa's part in the war was over. His classmates ghosted past him, gathering weapons, fastening armor, fitting helmets... and he had no part to play. They were going to go out to battle as they had dozens or hundreds of times before without Izuku even knowing but this time, this time he knew, this time he had to watch, had to sit back on his heels and accept that the role he had played was over and now he had to let others play theirs.
For a moment sitting still and watching, letting go, was unthinkable, but the moment passed like a dream.
Everyone had to step aside for those more adept at some point. Eventually everyone stopped being a story and started being history... It would be bitter if his work remained unfinished, if he were forced aside to make way for others to attempt a task in which he had failed. It would be bitter- sweet if he retired successful as he could be, making way for another to carry on in a task of endless toil. Neither of these scenarios was reality, however. His task was over. Done. There was no torch to pass. His part in the play had drawn to its inevitable close. Much as he might desire to tag along for the next act, to continue fighting the war to which he had all but sold his soul, to continue fighting to keep the people and things he loved, there was no place for him. All that remained for Fossa to do was take a bow and join the audience.
"I'm so glad you're back," Ojiro told Izuku as he strode past him, Mineta, Shouji and Koda close behind.
"Good luck," Izuku told them. "Hurry back." Shouji patted him on the head and flashed a thumbs up.
"We always hurry back," Yaoyorozu stuffed a pastry into her mouth as she jogged for the door. The flurry of activity that had consumed the common room vanished as quickly as it had appeared leaving nothing but stragglers and quiet murmurs behind. In the corner, Shiozaki sank to her knees, eyes closed, and began to pray with the tense posture and clenched fingers of someone who didn't quite believe anyone was listening.
Most of Izuku's closer friends had vanished, Katsuki and Monoma as part of Yaoyorozu's squad, Shouji with Ojiro's, and Todoroki with Tsu's.
"I wonder why they did not want my squad," Iida mused.
"Maybe because we can all see that you're still exhausted from last week?" Kirishima pointed out.
"What happened last week?" Izuku asked. Iida did have bags under his eyes, but that was nothing unusual. Kirishima looked much the same.
"I was shot multiple times last week," Iida admitted with a wince. He almost looked embarrassed. "I should have been faster... and I am still tired from the healing after the surgeries."
"You should be tired," Izuku nodded. There was no way Iida should be out on the field so soon after injuries that serious.
"Just trust that Nedzu will grab the right people for the job," Kirishima shrugged. "It'll all be okay..." Did he believe that? He almost sounded as if he did.
"Maybe," muttered one of several class B students who had holed up on a large couch in the
corner. The empty spaces of Shoda, Ashido, Tokoyami, Tokage and Rin cast long, sobering shadows across the common room. Up until... thirty minutes ago Izuku, too, had cast a shadow across this place, reminding each and every inhabitant of the terrible realities of life by his lack thereof.
Eventually, everyone became a memento mori.
Izuku curled into his chair and waited.
His classmates had waited for him to return for the better part of a year. He could wait for them for the better part of a day.
"You took it better than I did," Kuma told him, her silhouette blurry against the stars of a misty, forest sky.
"What?" Izuku asked her. "The end of your work."
"Oh." Somewhere in the dark an owl hooted mournfully. Cold wind rustled the needles of an endless army of pines as furry creatures darted between their burrows. "It's not the same." His retirement from the war was not at all equivalent to Kuma's terrible fate.
"No, I suppose not, and then again it is. This... is the one thing that everybody has in common. Eventually, doesn't matter where or when or how, your part is over and you have to make peace with it." She chuckled bitterly. "How I raged for decades, watching All For One make a mockery of everyone and everything I had ever loved. I would scream and beg the universe for one chance, one more day out there, one last opportunity to make him pay. Somehow, anyhow." She sighed, "and then it turned out my role wasn't quite over after all, in the sense that it was the end of my story that started yours." Her haunting smile cast in silver as the moon emerged from behind the clouds sent a shiver down Izuku's spine. "That look on Shigaraki's face when he finally realized who you were," she shook her head, bearing her neck to the sky, "it was worth it. I would spend my decades in hell all over again to see that."
"I'm glad I could oblige, then. I didn't let myself think too much... about how horrible things must have been for you all these years." With All For One, with Hirano... watching those monsters torture people with her stolen birthright.
"Best not to. I've borne it and escaped it," she shrugged, "there's no need for anyone else to suffer for what All For One did, not even by thinking about it."
Izuku would try not to think on it, then, if that were her wish. "I've been dying to know, what did Destro say about it? When he came back to the bowling alley after the time travel?"
Kuma narrowed her eyes, trying to dig up a lost memory. "Right... I can remember this. It's blurry
but it's there. He told us he'd been summoned to the future to defeat All For One's successor... and nobody quite believed him until Bit Weasel and Switcher confirmed to the best of their abilities that his memories hadn't been tampered with. It all makes sense in hindsight, all the things he said, but it seemed completely crazy at the time."
Izuku couldn't help but giggle. "Yeah. It must sound crazy out of context." "It was pretty crazy in context," she laughed with him.
Silence pervaded for a time once the giggling died away. A bat swooped across the moon. "I've said this before," Kuma told him, "but I'm so glad it was you. I don't think you realize quite how exceptional you are. I'm glad it was you who got my meta ability."
He threw his arms around her neck. "Me, too. I'm glad Switcher picked me. I'm glad I got to know you. All of it, the good and the bad. I'm glad."
Fossa started awake and nearly leapt out of his skin, reaching for a knife that he no longer carried. What was that noise ? Screaming? Where had all these people come from ? What were they--they were cheering? It was already dark outside; he'd slept a long time but what was--
"The war is over!" yelled Kirishima so loudly Izuku could have mistaken him for Present Mic.
"What?" the spy asked, dumbfounded, glancing around desperately in search of context and abruptly finding himself crushed to Katsuki's chest as the blonde howled incoherently.
"Everybody's back safe," oh, thank god, "and the war is over! The war is over nerd!"
"H-how? What?"
"The PLF and the Chain just agreed to a cease fire pending negotiation of a formal treaty," Iida broke in.
"We ambushed Toga and Geten's forces," Katsuki crowed, "they were the last holdout and then Magne took all of their stuff." He cackled. "Magne and Nedzu worked it out under the table. It's supposedly a secret what they did, but hell, everybody knows! And nobody cares!"
"Indeed, this does appear to be the case," Iida agreed.
"It's... really over..." Fossa took in the scene around him--celebrations of every caliber. Katsuki jumped onto Shouji's shoulders for some reason. Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, Tsu, and Todoroki had formed a squealing group hug, hopping up and down together. Sato was attempting to bake something while Jirou and Kaminari hosted a dance off in the kitchen with four class B students judging (rather leniently).
Not everyone reacted in that way, though. While the majority of the classes behaved like aggressively shaken carbonated drinks, Neito had curled up in a corner, face in his hands, sobbing. He waved Kendou away when she attempted to speak to him, putting his hand out flat to demand space. Izuku could understand the sentiment. The ex-spy would talk to his brother later.
Izuku couldn't fathom having the energy for wild celebration. He was more relieved than excited, more exhausted than enthusiastic, and still, it was hard to believe that it could all be over just like that. He'd come to terms with the end of his part in the war--mostly anyway--but the end of the war itself? The war was larger than life, a god that controlled millions of lives with merely the force of its presence. How could it be over?
So much noise... so much emotion... he'd been apart from everyone so long that the full force of their elation was overwhelming, but he couldn't imagine slipping away. He didn't seem to be the only one overwhelmed but unwilling to leave, unwilling to step away and seek solitude in this moment when everything finally came together. Neito, Shiozaki, Aoyama... there were a few others camped out at the edges of the celebration. Izuku shuffled to the side of the room, sinking down the wall and taking a seat on a fuzzy rug. "I didn't believe I'd see the end," Izuku whispered. And yet here it was.
"Me neither," echoed Mineta, who had taken a seat on Izuku's left.
"I... what happened to you?" Izuku asked at last, because deep cover spies in the heart of enemy
territory had good reason to believe themselves doomed but why would Mineta think that way? The small boy shrugged. "I have... I'm cursed."
What did he mean by that? "What--cursed?"
"I was... when Ashido died, I was there. I had to watch. When Tokage and Rin died I was there. There was a third year you might not know who bled to death in my arms at the Battle of UA and I couldn't do a thing about it. That's not all. Everywhere I go people get killed. My mom was killed in a missile attack when we were out spending an evening together. I figured... one of those times my number had to come up, right?"
Oh. Izuho had known of two such infamously cursed soldiers in the PLF, famous in the battalion for dooming the people who stood on either side of them. They had not been ostracized, not exactly, but regarded with a cruel mix of pity and suspicion. It seemed Mineta had avoided that fate, the class doing their best to support him if Kaminari's earlier comments were the norm. "I'm sorry."
"I think you probably had it worse than me," Mineta rubbed his red eyes.
"It's not a competition." Pain is relative. Sorrow is relative. There is always someone less fortunate, but that doesn't invalidate another's feelings.
"People keep telling me that."
"Well, they're right. And you're here. It's over. We both made it."
"A bit hard to believe," Mineta whispered, "like I might wake up and this would all be a dream." Izuku chuckled at that. "What?"
"Dreams... I can tell you for sure that this isn't one. It's real. The war is over." He said it aloud like he believed it and the enormity of the statement threatened to crush and silence him. "That doesn't mean the struggle is over," he choked out. "We have to put everything back together now. Hell,
I'm probably going to have to testify before war crime tribunals... almost certainly. Probably UN war crime boards like after Yugoslavia broke up... ugh." That was going to be a nightmare, but he'd do it, absolutely, drag all his terrible memories--the ones Fossa had carefully filed away well out of Izuku's reach--back into the light if it would put rapists and murderers behind bars. "And even when that's over, it never really ends, does it? All the lessons that people learned in World War Two, in the MLA War, every war ever... it doesn't take very many generations for everybody to forget and have to learn it all again. Even when we're not fighting a war, we're fighting not to fight a war."
"And I thought I was the gloomy one." They were both gloomy in comparison to the rest of the room, save the handful of criers like Neito and Aoyama.
Todoroki had found a bottle of sparkling cider and was busily spilling it on the carpet. Occasionally he filled some glasses, too. Sato had magically procured a three layer chocolate cake with butter cream frosting and was not spilling any of it on the carpet as he dished out slice after slice. Kaminari and Jiro were still involved in the most extreme counter-wide dance off that Izuku had ever seen and Tsu was literally bouncing off the ceiling.
Parents and teachers filtered in. A gaggle of excited Iidas accumulated in one corner.
"We should at least get some cake, right?" Mineta suggested. "I feel... it's so much but I also--I want to be here. It'll never be like this again. This is special. Tomorrow we have to think about all the things you said, like treaties and war crime trials and all that but tonight... tonight we pretend that it's going to be easy. We pretend and we have cake."
The sentiment was hard to put into words but easy to understand. "Yeah. Cake and pretending," Izuku agreed, and the two of them hauled themselves off the wall. Neito glanced up at them, having ceased his sobs. Izuku beckoned, and the blonde dragged himself to his feet to join them.