"The - what?"

Denki asked again and his teacher, bandaged from head to toe, turned to him.

"The Sports Festival," Aizawa repeated simply.

"Why?"

Aizawa fell silent and let his head, and with it, his eyes, wander through the now half-filled classroom. About half of the students had more or less left. Most of them had been forced to do so by their worried parents, two or three of their own free will, and Shouta didn't blame any of them. If his hands weren't so cramped, he would have clenched them in frustration.

It was just like then, just like then, but now he was an adult, a grown-up, a teacher, someone who was supposed to protect his students, someone who should have done more, should have gone on, should have...

He took a deep breath, which got him the attention of the classroom.

"UA... we want to show that we are still strong and upright, especially since..." he stopped himself when he saw that almost everyone in the class was flinching or had panic written all over their faces.

It broke his heart to see his students like that, and he wanted to break his heart for allowing it... for allowing it to happen. UA was working hard to provide physical, psychological and financial compensation to all the students and their parents who were present during the USJ.

It had only been a week and he didn't think the scar would heal that quickly, if at all, he knew a thing or two about that. He let his lonely eye, visible through a small hole in the bandages, wander over his class once more.

Iida, Uraraka, Ojiro, Kaminari, Krishima, Sato, Shoji, Sero, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Bakugo and Yaoyorozu.

They all stayed for one reason or another, the others left for one reason or another. He felt no sadness when he saw his students leaving, not those who had less potential than others, not those who had more potential, the only thing he felt when he saw the small group that was 1-A, his classroom, was emptiness.

A deeper part of Shouta, which he acknowledged but disagreed with, felt relief for those who had left. He hoped for the best for them, success in life, away from tragedies like this.

"...Especially since Midoriya's death," he finished bluntly.

There was a reason why they had stayed, why the small group he had left was still here, in UA. They wanted to be heroes, and Shouta didn't want this lesson to happen for several years, preferably never if it could be avoided, but now that it was happening, and so early in their ongoing heroic careers, they had to learn from it.

He looked at Kaminari in particular. He had been with Midoriya during the whole thing, and from what he had heard from his colleagues, the boy had had a complete breakdown, screaming and crying the whole time.

He was probably blaming himself, wasn't he? Of course, he was there at the end, watching his classmate slowly die in front of him.

Of course, he blamed himself.

Shouta knew what that felt like from his own experience.

Toshinori Yagi was not happy.

He mourned, cried and screamed in his own office, which was fortunately soundproof, cursing everyone and everything, especially himself.

His own stupidity, his own carelessness, his own - everything - had killed young Midoriya. It had killed a future hero who was going to do great things in this world, and all because of him.

He straightened his chair again and sighed before sitting down.

He hadn't told his mother yet. Not that her own son oh God, what had he done to her, was dead but that her son was his successor and dead. He buried his hands in his wet hands and wept again.

This was not the first time in his life that someone close to him had died. Nana had been just as close, if not closer, but she had died when he was an inexperienced teenager who knew nothing of the horrors of heroic work.

Now he was a grown man with years of experience. He had seen people, heroes, come and go, and none of them had hurt him nearly as much as he had.

He lifted his head from his hands, which were now a little wetter.

Toshinori simply remained seated, staring at the white wall that was his office. Not really for furniture, his office had a simple desk, a carpet underneath it, a potted plant in one corner and of course the chair he was sitting on.

The desk was in splinters and sawdust, cowering the floor with its remains. The carpet was ripped and torn apart, notwithstanding the sheer anger of All Might.

The potted plant still stood, as did the chair.

Hours passed and he didn't even make an attempt to move, fifty-seven missed calls, all of them coming from friends, Tsukauchi and Sasaki mostly, and the setting sun finally woke him up. He slowly stood up and walked to his desk, where there was a piece of paper with an address he had written down earlier.

He put it in his pocket and made his way out of the agency building.

Young Midoriya...

He would never see his smile again, he realised.

To be honest, when he found out he was going to be competing at the Sports Festival when he got his letter of acceptance, he was overjoyed. He wanted to show everyone what he was made of, what he could do, and maybe impress a girl or two.

But now he wasn't sure he wanted to be here.

Standing in the crowd of other students, listening to Bakugo's speech, hearing the cheers of the crowd, only to be ushered into a narrow tunnel where they would compete against each other…

How dare you stand where he should be.

He winced.

It had started quite early, after he had been released from the convalescent home, and only intensified when Tsuyu left the school.

Hateful comments, invisible to everyone else. Hateful images, invisible to everyone else.

And worse...

He tried not to react.

A green silhouette hovered above them, but no one else seemed to notice it, so he didn't either. It began to appear randomly in his field of vision, first as something humanoid, then with a fluffy head, white eyes and freckles.

It didn't take a genius to work out what had happened.

"Ii, Ddon'T BBlamme YoU…" the slow and ethereal voice from the silhouette came. Nobody reacted.

Was this what a complete hallucination was supposed to do? He didn't know that hallucinations could be so ... real, but he'd never had a hallucination before, so he couldn't know.

"KkamMinARi"

Ignore it, if you talk to him you'll be admitting your insanity.

"KkamMinARi"

Ignore it, if you speak to it, you acknowledge your insanity.

"Thheree AAree MOOree"

He snapped his neck up and stared directly into the white glowing eyes of his hallucination.

The silhouette disappeared without a word.

He was sure now that he did not want to be here.

XxXxX

Is Denki going Insane now or is there more to it? What of the League of Villains and their plan forward? And what will happen to All Might and his remaining ambers of One For All?

Stay tuned for the next mini-chapter next week!