Part 3: The Ghost of Christmas Past

All Might was given a momentary jolt, startled by the large crowd on the other side of the opening elevator doors. His legs gave an instinctual movement to the side, hoping to keep him out of their line of sight, but when his nerves calmed he was able to see that they were simply moving their way past. None even gave a glance in his direction.

"This next display will be quite the sight for any aspiring future heroes in our group." The guide at the front spoke to the entirety of the crowd following her. It was a tour, that was all. Again, it struck All Might as a little odd to have such a thing on the eve of the holiday, but as long as it made people happy, he supposed. He hoped the guide was at least being paid well for working today.

Everyone was looking away so thankfully it wasn't too difficult to sneak around behind them. A straight shot to the entrance.

"Whoa! He really wore that?"

"That's awesome! It looks so much cooler than the Golden Age one!"

"It's not as cool as his Silver Age costume."

"That red cape is WAY cooler!"

The remarks by the kids got All Might to pause. "..."

Curiosity finally got the better of him and, using his lanky height to his advantage, All Might took a peek over the crowd.

"That's right, folks, this is THE authentic costume All Might wore back when he was but a fledging Symbol Peace attending Japan's own UA High." The guide enthusiastically informed the crowd about the glass display to her right, containing a manakin within dressed in a very familiar outfit.

Red cape, just like the kids had said. The rest All Might found a little boring. Black with white gauntlets and boots, a belt, and...oh! He gave an unintentional snort. Shoulder pads and a thick vest to protect his chest. It was a practical design...or so he had thought at first. How many times had that thing ripped just by him flexing and he'd needed to replace it? Flash forward even five years later and it probably wouldn't even fit him.

He'd say he was surprised that he was ever that small...but given the amount of mass he'd lost over the years that would be a bit ironic, since he could easily squeeze into it now. ...At least he was still tall.

The guide directed everyone's attention to the TV screen next to the displayed costume. "There aren't many records of All Might before his official debut as a Pro Hero. Even UA back then felt the stress of the times and only documented the basics for the safety of its students. Thankfully over the years we've had a number of people come forward to donate photos they happened to have of him in those early days. Believe it or not, there was a time when the Symbol of Peace was about as elusive as the sasquatch, and has had about as many people in bad costumes trying to fake his appearances."

The crowd gave light laughter at her joke, some genuine, some pitying, but all overall done in good fun.

The screen flipped through the photos she was talking about, one slowly fading into another like a screensaver. They were about what All Might had expected. The class photo from his first year at UA, with a nice big circle around where he stood among his fellow students. A copy of his student ID, the actual thing being long gone by now. The clearest was from when he'd won the Sports Festival, him posing front and center for the camera to show off proudly the gold medal in his hand (good god, how was he ever that young?! He looked like a toddler!).

Another photo, this one taken at a distance from ground level as it showed him in his UA costume soaring across the sky in-between the buildings that scraped it. He wondered if it'd just been happenstance that they'd caught a photo of him at that time or if they'd actively been looking out for...for...

"It can't be..." The words slipped quietly out of All Might's mouth without him realizing.

Nobody else noticed what he had. From this distance it was unusual that even he had and from where the majority of the crowd stood it probably seemed like just a smudge in the corner of the photo. Even if they had noticed someone else was there, well, why would they care? That person wasn't All Might. What did they matter? But to the man himself his eyes became locked the moment he saw her. There was nowhere else in the display, in this entire building, that stood a chance at holding his attention more than this tiny area few pixels wide.

["At the stroke of eleven on Christmas Eve, there before Scrooge appeared the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The ghost was quite old in appearance. Or...was it younger than Scrooge? Its wafty shape was somehow both at the same time. Like a fading memory given form. The harder he looked the harder it seemed to be to tell.

But one thing was clear. The light it gave off was soft and flickered, like that of a candle, and for some reason or another it put Scrooge at ease. The ghost spoke gently to him and held out its arm for him to grab hold of its hand.

Scrooge was a stubborn man. He could hardly ever be made to do something he didn't want to. And yet there he went, taking the ghost up on his offer before even realizing he'd made the move to do so.

Thus did the ghost take Scrooge on a trip, turning back the clock further and further, back in time to Scrooge's own past."]

The cold stung Toshinori's face, and yet he couldn't stop smiling. Maybe his features had finally just become literally frozen in place. At this point he might not care if they had. He never wanted to forget this feeling.

For minutes on end there was nothing but air beneath his body, interrupted only for scarce seconds at a time when his feet touched back down on the tops of these towering buildings, with Toshinori feeling like he couldn't push himself back off them fast enough. He wasn't flying, not really, but it damn sure felt close to it. He could barely see the tiny dots that were people on the streets below him. Just a couple of years ago, when he had been one of them, when he imagined what the world would look like at this angle, he hadn't even come close to a sight like this. The sun was going down, transforming the snow-coated Tokyo into a city of gold. He was so high up he wondered if he was even seeing the surrounding prefectures.

His foot then gave a sudden slide to the right.

He'd touched down on the top of another building but unfortunately it just so happened that THIS particular spot where he'd happened to land had a bit of an icy patch.

This particular spot just also happened to be right at the edge of the building. Sooooo...

"WhoaaooohhhHHH CRAP!" Toshinori exclaimed as he went tumbling over the side, his wide eyes taking in the full view of the streets and cars and people many hundreds of feet below that he was about to get to know very well.

He made an undignified yelp and probably about as undignified a pose as his body was suddenly flipped right-side up. Though it took his eyes a minute to believe it, his fall had been stopped about as soon as it'd begun.

"And that, my dear disciple, is another reason why heroes wear capes."

Toshinori looked up to spot a familiar yellow glove gripping the end of his cape, the sleeveless arm it was attached to proving that all that muscle definition wasn't just for show.

"Th-...Thanks." He stuttered out clumsily, still feeling his heart in his throat after such a close call.

The woman smiled down at him. "Need me to pull you up?"

"Nah, I got this." Toshinori replied, taking up her unsaid offer of letting him reclaim some of his dignity by doing it himself. He swung his body gently back and forth to build up momentum before throwing his legs up and forward. His muscles defying gravity once again, Toshinori flipped himself above his cape, right back above the building's edge, and even over his savior for good measure, landing himself securely onto the rooftop (arms out at his sides for balance, and style too, of course).

"Not bad. I'd give it a 7." Nana Shimura complimented him, her own cape fluttering behind her in the breeze. Naturally the dive had cost him some points. "You might be getting more out of One For All than I ever did but never underestimate how useful a little bit of finesse can be."

"No kidding." Toshinori said as his breathing finally settled. "Kind of a shame One For All only gives energy. If I'd had Float too I'd have been fine there." He then rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "You're uh... You're not going to tell Gran Torino about this, are you? He's already gotten on me before for not paying enough attention to my surroundings."

Nana held her hand to her chin, faking a bit of playful pondering. "Hmm... Not unless it comes up...or if I can't think of an even funnier story to tell him."

"Master..." He pleaded.

With a wide smile on her face, her hand then started roughly rubbing the top of his head and mussing up his hair, as she did every time she had her fun messing with him. To think there'd been a time when he was short enough she barely even needed to lift her arm to do this. Not that him being a full head taller than her now ever stood a chance of getting her to stop. Perhaps she was hoping to whittle him back down over time.

"Now come on." She beamed at him, cocking her head towards the setting sun. "We've still got a patrol to do, don't we? Let's make evil regret not taking a holiday."

Her smile was infectious, as Toshinori felt a matching one stretching its return back along his features. "Right!" He gave an immediate nod to her words.

Without the slightest pause and Nana's feet left the rooftop, her cape billowing behind her like a taunt for her slowpoke ward to try and catch up. A taunt Toshinori was all too happy to rise to, leaping forward to follow her lead.

From down below it'd likely be difficult to make out their exact details. Just two weirdos sailing across the sky. All that could probably be made out was the colors of their costumes, and while they were laid out in different areas those matching palettes likely would make anyone watching think he was her sidekick or something.

At least...he hoped it did.

["The ghost had brought Scrooge back in time to Christmases long since passed, and yet even harder than that for Scrooge to believe was each time the ghost insisted that the boy before them was Scrooge himself.

How was it possible that he'd ever been like this? Not just young but so joyful. An emotion Scrooge had not seen staring back him in the mirror in so many years. What reason did this naïve child have to be happy? He wasn't rich. He wasn't important. Even back then he had to have known that the world couldn't care less about him.

And yet, look at him go! Not even half Scrooge's age and yet brimming with twice the life as he ran forward without fear towards the future and never looked back. Those eyes that didn't see the world just simply as it was but as everything it could be.

Scrooge wanted to dismiss the whole thing as just the ignorance of youth but the ghost had its own thoughts. Given its domain was that of the past, it did not believe the boy before them just popped into existence as is any more than the old man beside him had. No, he was shaped by those he encountered along his path up until this moment. This energy wasn't the result of ignorance of the world but of the goodwill the world had made certain to show him. He may have been a lonely child but he had once even a single relative who acted as a bright spot in that loneliness. He may not have been rich but he'd found himself as the apprentice of the greatest boss he could ever ask for. Good old Fezziwig couldn't pay him much but he always made certain to fill Scrooge's days with merriment and laughter, not the least of which on Christmas Day. As he watched said days play out before him, even Scrooge could help but crack a smile that finally showed a hint of the boy he'd once been. Fezziwig was hardly rich either but he remembered fondly how his employer was everything Scrooge had ever wanted to be.

"And are you?" The ghost asked him.

Scrooge...couldn't bring himself to answer."]

The image on the screen flicked away to the next in the reel, almost startling All Might as it did so. He hadn't realized how much he'd been staring.

This new one was just of him saving a bus that'd nearly gone off the side of a bridge. The first save he'd made upon arriving in America after he'd graduated. Before he'd met David and had a new suit designed for him.

This event wasn't unimportant. People's lives never were. He just...didn't care as much about this photo as the last.

["Those were days Scrooge had never wanted to end, and yet clearly they had, as evidenced by the man standing in his slippers and wearing his pajamas. And while it may have felt cruel for the ghost to do so, it showed too the events that'd brought about such a cold change in Scrooge."]

With a hard push against his chest, Toshinori was sent flying back.

"MASTER!"

They had overtaken everything within his sight. Perhaps they'd overtaken the entire city for all he knew. These thousand spires of twisted limbs and faces illuminated by the flashes unearthly black lightning, grasping desperately at every building within reach before pulling them down into the rubble with them; like human agony made manifest. The worst nightmare he'd ever had, bursting forth from Hell itself.

If his heart wasn't thundering in his ears he'd had heard their sickly creaks, like the endless snapping of bone, this...THING...that was not of this world, that could never exist in any kind of sane reality, moving in ways it was never meant to in order to corner its prey.

As it was, Toshinori could barely even hear his own screams.

"MASTER!"

He was stronger by far than Gran Torino. If his feet could just touch a solid surface he'd be able to push back against his jets with ease. And the older man likely knew that, thus why his hold around Toshinori's torso refused to ease, why the air releasing from the soles of his boots did so with more intensity than Toshinori had ever seen in the entire time he'd known him. He knew he couldn't let him have even the slightest chance or else they'd never get away.

Nana's white cape, so easy to pick out among the hellscape, flowed as it always had behind her, taunting Toshinori to try and catch up. But this time the taunt was cruel, as he was carried further and further away.

Please, just let him help! If they fought together he knew they could win! Don't throw your life away just so your worthless student can escape!

She was the only thing Toshinori's eyes stayed fixed on, so of course, even from this distance, he could see her turn, her arm moving behind her to point to him.

"All Might."

Even among the storm he could hear her say that name. He'd been so proud when he'd told it to her and even prouder when she'd approved of it. Everyone else at UA had naturally assumed it was in reference to his incredible strength but she, she got it one. How could she not? She was exactly who he thought of when he came up with it.

Nana turned her head so that she could see him. Blood was running down the side of her face, smeared around her eye where she'd wiped so that she still see. She was injured. She was completely outmatched. And yet she still held true to the lessons she'd always taught him and showed him her smile. One without fear, to tell him that everything was going to be okay.

Her pointed hand turned into a fist, held out to her student in determination. "I'm counting on you." She said, without the slightest hint of regret.

The name he had chosen...It was the name of a hero who protected everyone with all he had.

A hero who protected everyone...with all his might.

"MASTER!" Toshnori's voice went hoarse, tearing apart his throat with each scream, his vision completely muddled and unable to focus as the wetness ceaselessly streamed from his eyes.

At the center of it all, the dark figure raised his hand.

"Thank you for such wonderful comedy." All For One spoke, his smile the complete opposite of Nana's. Filled with nothing but sadism and delight in the cruelty he was about to inflict.

The explosion of light that followed could be seen for miles on end, and somewhere within it Nana Shimura disappeared, never to be seen by Toshinori again.

All Might's hand slapped across his mouth, catching just in time as a series of coughs hacked their way free from his throat. His cold was starting to act up again.

He tried to keep the volume down, not wanting to draw attention to himself, especially not here of all places.

Quietly as his burning throat would allow, he withdrew himself away from the crowd, package under one arm and a hand to muffle his mouth with the other. He continued coughing all the way until the exit, the only one taking any notice of his leave being the door's automatic speaker, telling him that the #1 hero "Wishes you a mighty Christmas! HA HA HA!".

["Unable to stand the sights shown to him anymore, Scrooge grabbed the ghost's cap and forced it down over the spirit's head, extinguishing its soft light until he was left in total blackness once more.

When his eyes adjusted, Scrooge could make out his surroundings as his dingy old room. The Ghost of Christmas Past was nowhere to be seen, not even its cap in his hands as proof it'd existed at all. It was tempting to use that as all the reason he needed to insist that it and Marley too had never been there at all. Just a bad dream brought about by a bit of undigested beef, or maybe an underdone potato. It was just gravy and not the grave that was his enemy this night.

But no. Deep down he knew the truth and couldn't kid himself otherwise. There was no pain in his stomach. But the pain in his heart...something had been here to poke at the wounds Scrooge had long since buried.

And he was still expecting two more visitors."]

Author's notes: You would not believe how difficult it was to find images of All Might's UA costume to use as reference, especially colored ones. I had to go searching through the episodes trying to remember where we'd actually seen it before (for the record, season 5, episode 3).

Funny enough, who would be the Ghost of Christmas Past was actually a conclusion I came to last. The others I knew immediately who I wanted but for this one where were quite a few options that all had their possibilities. Gran Torino, David and Melissa, All For One, even All Might's own statue in Kamino Ward. But in the end it had to be Nana. One of the things I like about MHA is that while we don't really see a lot of Nana, especially early on in the story, we get a pretty good idea of who she was and what she was like in how she shaped All Might into who he is and how he in turn tries to be a mentor to Midoriya, funny enough having more success when he is to Midoriya what Nana was to him, that being like a parent.

MHA is ultimately about All Might's legacy but he in turn is Nana's. She is everything he wanted to be and I love the idea that his costume was slightly modelled after hers, even if there's no canon reason to believe that to be at all the case.