Author's Note: I think it's funny that I got a review saying that Izuku's relentless self-blame was a turn off, and then I go and upload this chapter, which is centered on correcting that exact issue. Hell, this whole arc is getting the core four to grow and change. I call it the 'therapy arc' in my notes. Welp, that's incremental uploading for you.

Izuku felt like he was finally able to breathe when Ochako and Tsu took their eyes off him. He had kind of zoned out for the last of the conversation since it had drifted away from himself, but had occasionally chipped in with his own one word agreements to whatever sentiments had been put forward in the discussion. His heart wasn't in it, and Izuku knew that the others could tell. He kept getting worried glances from Ochako, or that head-tilting look from Tsu, and it was making his chest feel tight. He needed to get out from under their stares, and that chance came when some kind of vendor had begun to set up across the pond from their spot.

"Holy whoa, guys! Do you wanna go and check it out?" Ochako asked, her cheeks even more pink at the thought of all those sweets.

"I wouldn't mind taking a look," Tsu replied.

"Could be good," Shinso agreed.

All the heads turned to Izuku, who'd been the only one to not voice his opinion on the matter. He tuned back in and looked around, giving the others questioning glances instead of admitting that he wasn't paying attention. Shinso stared at him with intense worry, his eyes making Izuku's head hurt when he met them with his own. Tsu was still just looking at him, and Ochako was now trying to keep her lips from curling into a frown. He could see each of them keeping their initial reactions just under the surface, and wondered if it was so obvious that he wasn't quite himself.

"We're getting snacks from the vendor over there; do you want any?" Tsu asked, tilting her head in the same damn way that made him want to scream.

"I'm fine, thank you," Izuku answered. He hated how unlike himself he even sounded, like someone had crawled inside him without the faintest clue of how to be Izuku Midoriya.

Glances and looks were exchanged between the three, Izuku saw. They weren't even trying to hide it, like he wasn't even there. Maybe he wasn't. It felt like he was going to float away any second now, except not in the way he'd come to think of floating. With Float, the Quirk, it always felt like he was being embraced by One for All, guided so that he'd be safe. This new kind of floatiness felt like it was gripping him tight and dragging him upwards, away from his life and away from the ones he loved. It clawed at his heart, so that every time it did he got a little more numb inside. It hurt less the more it happened, but that also somehow made it hurt more . It was a different kind of hurt, though, a more distant pain that Izuku wasn't able to feel yet was so very aware of.

"We'll catch up. Get Midoriya some water," Shinso said, not breaking his line of sight with Izuku.

Shinso took his eyes off Izuku for only a moment to hand Tsu some money, and Izuku opened his mouth to argue that he didn't want any water but was forced into closing it again when Shinso shot him a glare from the corner of his eye. Tsu gently took the money and began to get up, nudging Ochako, who was just staring at Izuku, out of her thoughts. Ochako snapped out of it, but she immediately stood and made her way around the table to Izuku and wrapped him in a tight hug. It was almost nice, but with all of these thoughts swirling around his head, it made him feel oddly closed in. Like this was a trap. Izuku knew it wasn't a trap, that these were his friends. He did. Didn't he?

"Please, if you're hurting, don't lie to me. I love you too much to see you go through this alone. We're all in this together, and that doesn't just mean me, or Tsu and Shinso. Our whole class is going through the same thing. So, please don't take this all onto yourself. Share that burden, Izuku. It's what we're all here for," Ochako said into his hair.

Izuku didn't move to hug back, or do anything other than just sit in Ochako's embrace and try not to scream at her to stop. It felt like he was just hearing the same three or four things from everyone, on loop, all the time. She didn't know, she couldn't. Izuku wouldn't let her. It was too much. Everything felt like too much, and he needed space. But, he simply gently took Ochako's hands in his own and moved her arms from around him in order to look her in the eye.

"I know. Trust me, there's nothing for you to be worried about," he lied, and it felt like razor blades on his tongue.

Something in Ochako's eyes gained a certain weight to it, as if she knew what was happening but was choosing to accept it. Izuku had looked her in the eyes and lied, and part of him suspected that she was aware of that fact. He squeezed her hand gently to get her out of her own head, like he knew she was. Ochako nodded and began to walk away, her arms limp at her sides. Izuku felt … something at making his best friend feel this way, but another part of him knew it was for the best. She couldn't know what he was dealing with. It was something that he had to keep from her. There were too many possibilities for what would happen if she knew what he was.

"So, you're a liar now?" Shinso asked when Ochako and Tsu were far enough away that they couldn't hear him.

"I'm not a liar," Izuku replied.

"What do you call what you're doing to Uraraka, then? To Tsu? You know they don't buy what you're selling, right?" Shinso continued.

"They're fine—" Izuku was cut off.

"You don't get to decide that," Shinso argued.

"Why do you even care?!" Izuku snapped, finally meeting Shinso's eyes.

"W-What?" Shinso stammered out. He leaned away from Izuku, clearly shaken from the question.

Izuku knew that he was doing something wrong, but he couldn't hold himself back anymore. This was just all too much for him right now, and he needed this.

"Just two months ago, you were this aloof cool guy that didn't take shit from anybody. Now, you're suddenly the picture of a perfect friend? What happened to the guy I met at the entrance exam? What happened to cussing out Bakugo before training? Why do you get to change for the better, while I get this?!" Izuku yelled, jamming his finger into his own chest at his final question.

Shinso looked like he was thinking for a moment. Izuku saw Shinso's fingers fidgeting, coiling the cord to his headphones as his eyes ran over Izuku's face. He was being read again. Izuku felt his hands curl into fists again, but let Shinso do what he wanted, for now.

"What is this?" Shinso asked, unwrapping his finger from the cord as he spoke.

"You know what I've done. What I am now. This is what I get for trying to be a good person, for trying to be a Hero. This is my karmic retribution. I killed Iida—" Izuku tried.

"This is not karma. Whatever you're thinking right now, that you deserve this, that this is the universe giving you a sign, you couldn't be more wrong. Listen, I know what you've been through with this whole thing with Iida. I told you about my own feelings about Aizawa's injuries, and how I felt guilty the same way you're feeling now. Maybe not to this extreme, but I've been in your place, recently. It's not impossible to get out of it. Do you know what helped me see that the way I was viewing things was unhealthy?" Shinso said.

"Midnight?" Izuku asked back, sarcastically.

" You. You told me, during the Sports Festival, that it wasn't my fault that Villains did villainous things. That was when I started trying to get better about the guilt I felt. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Shinso insisted.

"It's diff—"

"It's not different, Midoriya! You need to stop being so hard on yourself so that you can get help! I'm not saying this as a friend. I'm saying this as someone who knows what happens when you go down that road. There's nothing but pain and helplessness at the end of it. You still have time to course-correct, so please listen to me. To us. Get help. It'll make all the difference. If you tell Ochako, I'm sure—" Shinso said, but was cut off.

"You can't tell Ochako. I won't let you!" Izuku yelled.

"Why not? If you did—" Shinso tried.

"Because she's the only person that loves me!" Izuku screamed, his voice breaking as he shot to his feet to stand over Shinso.

The two were silent for a moment, staring at each other as the power balance between the two boys had suddenly been annihilated. Izuku saw it in Shinso's eyes, that he was afraid of him, but he couldn't tell why until he saw a flicker of green light reflecting off the other's skin. He looked down at himself and saw the green lightning of One for All pulsing around him, and quickly felt the heat leave him as he stumbled back.

As Izuku backed away from Shinso, his foot got caught on one of the legs of the table and he fell to the ground. He impacted hard, not bothering to stop himself with Float or his hands. Izuku was too shaken to even think about calling on One for All in any aspect, and it even made him a bit sick when he retroactively considered it for a moment. How had he let that happen? He looked up at Shinso, who had moved to get a better look at him over the seat he was behind, from the taller boy's perspective.

The two kept that eye contact for a few moments, before Shinso scrambled to get up and over to Izuku. This set off alarm in Izuku's brain, believing in his panicked state that he was retaliating. It sent a wave of ice cold fear through him, that he'd brought a friend to this point, and he recoiled in on himself while a wave of, oddly, nostalgia washed over him. It was probably a bit sick for him to think this, but he kind of missed the days when he was just a Quirkless little freak for Bakugo to chew up and spit out. It was a much simpler life. He didn't have to worry about All for One or Shigaraki, or Nomu. Just what was for dinner that day and if he'd have to break out the first aid kit they kept in the living room.

For a moment, nothing happened. Izuku opened one of his eyes and saw that Shinso was standing there, a horrified expression on his face. Shinso went to speak, but no words came out. Izuku would feel bad for it later, but where Shinso was, he saw Bakugo. He picked himself up and ran. Shinso called something out to him from behind, but it fell on deaf ears, literally. Izuku heard nothing over the sound of his own heartbeat, the pulses in his head creating a shield to protect him from the words he wasn't ready to hear.

Before Izuku knew it, he had come to a tree. He staggered to a stop in front of it, not knowing how long he'd been running for. Looking around allowed him to see that he'd run out of sight of Shinso, which meant that he likely hadn't given chase. He let himself rest on the ground for a moment, thinking about all the things that had been happening in such a small amount of time. He was, quite frankly, overwhelmed with it all, and he needed a break. The burning of his legs and lungs served to ground him, however, as he breathed deeply under the shade of the tree.

"Izuku."

He sat up to see En sitting next to him. Izuku looked at him for what felt like a long time, unable to form any words. He stared at the sixth user of One for All, wondering why he was here. He'd never appeared like this, in the real world. This made it the third time a vestige had appeared as a sort of phantom in the waking world, as a specter nobody else could see, the others having been Nana before the Sports Festival and Yoichi after it. It had to be special if En was appearing like this, so Izuku sat up and slowed his breathing to match the young man's.

"Hello. Are you okay?" En asked.

Izuku liked En. He was kind of hard to get a solid impression of in the limited interactions they'd had so far, but he was sociable enough. Definitely more sociable than the second and third users, which wasn't a high bar now that Izuku was thinking about it. Nonetheless, En had a calming presence that was aided by the fact that only the upper half of his face was uncovered. It felt like Izuku could see everything in En's eyes, and maybe that was on purpose. If Izuku was going with the analogy he'd used with Kyuyu Iida, where the vestiges were like distant family, then En had a kind of distant but earnest older brother vibe to him that Izuku really appreciated. He tried, at least, Izuku could see that much.

"Not really. Things have been happening so fast this year and I don't know if I can handle it. So much has happened in such a small amount of time that I feel like it's breaking me apart," Izuku admitted.

En narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the sky. He was one of the more sullen vestiges, along with Shinomori and Yoichi, that Izuku felt were just a bit wiser than the rest. Those three seemed to always be thinking about something, whereas Nana and Lariat were able to focus on something, usually Izuku when he was able to communicate with them. It felt nice, but he did kind of feel bad afterward for taking them away from whatever they'd do when he wasn't around. Did they do things when he wasn't around, or were they simply 'off' when he wasn't interacting with them? That wasn't a pleasant train of thought, so he focused back on En as he finally replied.

"Do you want to talk about it? I'm not a professional, but I've found that confiding in someone always helps, even if to just let off some steam," En said.

"I just … don't feel like it's my place to dump this on anyone. I don't get to make it all about me; that's just not something that I get to do, y'know? I feel bad, sure, but it's not anybody else's responsibility to deal with that. It's on me, so I should handle it," Izuku said, curling his legs up to his chest.

"Are you handling it?" En asked.

"I … maybe not."

"Maybe that's the issue," En suggested, still looking up at the sky.

Izuku looked up at En. They were about the same height standing up, but when they were sitting as they were, Izuku curled in on himself and En with perfect posture, it made it so that Izuku was lower than the vestige. En had a contemplative look in his eye, and finally looked down at Izuku with eyes that told the boy that En was smiling.

"How do you feel when someone asks you how you're doing?" En asked hesitantly.

"Well, I feel kind of angry. Like, I'm tired of answering the same question. I know it's only been a few days since this whole mess started, but I feel like it's been weeks. I also feel … a kind of nothingness. It's not quite nothing, but it's like a black hole in my chest that's eating up all the light. Every second I feel the pain in my chest grow, and I can't bring myself to do anything about it. Is that weird?" Izuku explained.

"I don't think that's weird. I think that's human. You want people to stop asking you how you feel, because you don't know. Your wires are getting crossed, and that makes you angry. We all feel anger, Izuku, but it's how we move past that anger that speaks to our character," En said.

"Yeah. I just don't know how to get past this anger. It's like every time I try to take a breath and think things through, I just panic and get even more upset than I was before," Izuku confessed.

"Well, would you mind telling me the root of the issue? If we know where we started, we can begin to map out where we're headed, don't you think?" En asked.

Izuku froze. He thought about Ochako, and how he'd staunchly refused to elaborate on his issues with her. He thought about Tsu, who'd be able to figure things out with how tuned into things she seemed. He thought of Shinso, who he'd yelled at and ran away from like a child. He thought of All Might, who he hadn't had a real conversation with in what felt like months, and all of his other friends and allies that would help him in a heartbeat if he asked for it. He had put up this wall between him and them, and he didn't think he was ready to take that wall down just yet. But, the vestiges were different. The users of One for All shared a bond deeper than blood, deeper than friendship. They were family, their souls were bound to each other for all time, and that meant that he could be completely honest with them and they couldn't turn away. It felt bad to think of it in that oddly exploitative mindset, but it put him at ease and allowed the words to flow when before they just wouldn't.

"I had this friend. Tenya Iida," Izuku began.

"The speedster. He reminds me of someone I worked with in life," En nodded.

"Right. Well, during the Sports Festival, which was happening at the same time as All for One's siege on you and the others, I said some things to him. I convinced him that some rules could be broken for a greater good. Sometimes, it was okay to bend or even outright break rules put in place if it was for something better than what the rules would normally allow. Then, his brother was paralyzed by a serial killer that targets Heroes specifically," Izuku continued.

"How did he take that?" En asked.

"Not well. He spiraled, hard. He stopped smiling, his exuberance in class just melted away. He even stopped caring about seating structure, which doesn't sound like a massive thing, but if you knew Iida, you knew he was obsessed with structure almost to the point of insanity. Everything that made Iida himself just went away in a flash. Then it was announced that we'd be going out on internships," Izuku said.

"That's where you started using One for All again," En chimed in.

"Yeah. But, Iida also went on an internship. He chose the place where his brother was attacked. Iida went there with the intention of fighting the man that put an end to his brother's career, and I figured it out. I put it all together just as we were being sent off, and I tried to stop him. I told him that he wasn't alone, and that he had friends in Ochako and I. I told him to not fight the Hero Killer, but he just waved me off. He went to fight for his brother's honor, and the legacy of Ingenium, but he ended up being the one who ended it by confronting the Hero Killer by himself. That's how he died," Izuku concluded.

"How does all of that make you feel?" En asked patiently.

"Angry. Sad. Kind of … empty, to be honest. Like I should've taken his place. I should've been the one to fight the Hero Killer, and if anybody had to die, it shouldn't have been Iida. Like I'm just a kid, not a Hero," Izuku said.

"Do you expect yourself to be an exemplary Hero at fifteen?" En asked, moving so that he was facing Izuku completely.

"No, but I could at least do something when there's someone right in front of me that I know needs help," Izuku countered.

"I agree. And you did do something. You offered a hand to Iida when you could, and he made the choice not to take it. That's not your fault. In my book, you're a Hero for even trying in the first place. I knew many people, even the Heroes in my time, that wouldn't think twice about disregarding Iida, so the fact that you tried anything makes you more than worthy of the title of Hero," En said.

Izuku felt himself tear up. He pushed those feelings down, though, and kept going. He needed to get this all out.

"I've been told that, but I just feel like I could do more. Like, if I was able to do legal Hero work outside of school, I could catch the Hero Killer to make things right. If we had another round of internships any time soon, that could work, but I don't think we'll have those until next semester. I don't know how to get rid of these feelings," Izuku said.

En was silent for a few moments, seemingly thinking. He stared up at the sky, a far off look in his eye that Izuku couldn't figure the meaning of. He seemed to come to a conclusion, as he nodded minutely to the sun before lowering his gaze back to Izuku. En brought his hand up to the buttons on his large coat, the collar of which covered the bottom part of his face. He started at the top, unbuttoning the oversized piece of clothing and revealing to Izuku his whole face for the first time.

It wasn't pretty. The scar that ran from the left corner of his mouth, all the way across his cheek and down his neck was a faded white that demanded attention. It drew away from En's kind eyes and made Izuku's stomach churn. En's expression was the same as it had always been, a patient kindness, but it seemed like something much darker now that the full expression could be seen. He wasn't frowning, but the scar tugged on the corner of the mouth it extended out from, chunks of skin missing where some of his lip should be and making it so that he had no choice but to give an intense half-scowl.

"Can I tell you what I think, Izuku?" En asked.

"Uh … yeah, yes. Go ahead," Izuku said, trying to recover from his surprise.

"I think you're assigning responsibility to yourself where there is none. I think that you're taking the guilt and blame and pain from Iida's death and you're using it as an excuse to hate yourself, because that's all you've done your whole life. Bakugo said it himself, his hatred of you was born out of a hatred of himself, and I think this is similar. I think you're much too hard on yourself, and that you expect yourself to be the Hero, when in reality you are not the Hero. You're a Hero, sure, but the idea that All Might has cultivated over his career is toxic and will only lead to disappointment in whoever rises to fill the void he'll leave behind. You're trying to be him, but you need to be you. Aizawa told you as much, and I thought you'd learned that lesson, but here you are. As soon as something bad happened you reverted right back to your old way of thinking. It's unsustainable, Izuku, and you need to believe that other people can help you before you can really help yourself. That's what I think," En said, never taking his eyes away from Izuku's.

Izuku allowed himself a moment to take all that in. The more he thought about what En was saying, the more he realized that he was right. If he continued down the path he was starting on, he'd just self-destruct. Shinso had been saying the same thing as well, and he just couldn't see it through his own self-loathing. He needed to apologize, for multiple reasons, to Shinso, and to everyone else, as soon as possible. Shinso had been right, Aizawa had been right, Kyuyu Iida had been right and everything telling him to stop had been in the right, and he'd been … he'd been wrong. It was a tough pill to swallow, but he'd been wrong. He could admit that. He just needed some time.

"Do you see, now? It's not your job to save everyone. That's not something even All Might can do. It's just not where your responsibilities lie at the moment. Your responsibilities lie in training, learning and growing. Your responsibility will be saving some people, some day, but that day won't come for a very long time. You just need to focus on growing into that person, who'll have those responsibilities. Even then, you won't be the only Hero in town. You'll have all your friends right there beside you. Instead of a solitary Symbol of Peace, I think you all are Symbols, in a way. Symbols of Hope, Love, Strength, Compassion. You're all your own Symbols, and I think that's something you should think about," En said.

Izuku noticed that En was fading away, as all the vestiges did when their time with him was up. He smiled, though it seemed to tug uncomfortably on his lip, and they shared a quiet moment together before En had to go back to the vestige realm.

"I didn't expect you to have such a way with words," Izuku said.

"Where do you think Nana picked it up?" En asked, before fading away completely and leaving Izuku to his own devices.

He felt … not at peace, but Izuku thought he could feel that way given time, now. He was immensely grateful for what En had said to him, and how he'd helped Izuku realize that the help he'd needed was right there all along. He'd thought he'd been noble, ignoring the pain and shoving it down to deal with later, but now he saw that it was an incredibly harmful mindset to be in, and now that he saw that he could begin working to improve himself. That wasn't to say that he was bad, or broken in any way, Izuku knew that, it was just that he could start on the road to getting better, healthier, now that he'd come to the truth.

Before Izuku knew it, he'd started crying. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd first ran off, but he figured that he should start heading back the way he came if he didn't want Shinso, Ochako and Tsu filing a missing person's report. Izuku knew he needed to meet back up with them and apologize, and explain himself, but he also needed some more time. He needed to feel this sadness, this catharsis if he was going to face them properly.

And so, he cried. And while he cried, Izuku started thinking of the best way to come clean about the past few days to the people who mattered most to him. He'd make it right. He wouldn't destroy himself in the process, but he'd make it right and trust his friends to help him out of this mess. That was why he'd been given One for All in the first place, after all; binding peoples' hearts and wills was kind of the power's whole purpose.

Izuku laughed as he looked up at the sky, feeling the warmth of One for All coursing through his veins. It finally felt like a comfort now instead of a responsibility that had been thrust upon him. For the first time in a while, Izuku felt like he could be happy. He'd make it happen, for the people he loved, and who loved him the same.