Izuku stepped out from his hiding place and stood in front of the two strangers who'd triggered his Danger Sense. It looked like they'd been having an intense conversation, by the way they were huddled together and looking at each other with sharp expressions. Izuku immediately bound them with the thickest Blackwhips he could conjure and wrapped them up so tightly that not even Sato at the peak of a sugar high could break out. The girl yelped as she dropped her camera, the one thing either of them had that looked like it was worth any money at all, and it shattered on the concrete footpath with a clatter of glass and plastic. The man grunted as his arms were pinned to his sides, but didn't make any noise of complaint or pain, just surprise.
"No!" the girl said, looking down at the camera with watery eyes.
"Who are you? Why are you here? What are you planning?" Izuku asked, not giving them time to answer.
The man gave Izuku a look he couldn't decipher. It was like shock and anger and intrigue all rolled into one brief glance. The man then smiled, and curled his fingers with great effort up to touch the Blackwhip coiling around his torso. Nothing happened, and he looked back up at Izuku with the glimmer of fear in his eyes. He started breathing raggedly, but pulled himself together soon enough. He looked over at the small girl, who Izuku realised was a grown woman judging by her proportions, just a short one. The two of them shared a look, but the man shook his head for some reason. Izuku took a deep breath in and tried not to get annoyed.
"Did you hear me? Talk!" Izuku said, pushing the two further down into the narrow nook between stalls. He didn't need people seeing or hearing whatever was about to come next and freaking out and shutting the festival down.
"Please, lad, there's no need to be aggressive. If you wish to speak, we can have a conversation," the man said as he let himself be pushed.
"Alright, then tell me who you are and what you're doing here," Izuku said between measured breaths.
"I am the Gentle Criminal. I suppose you've heard of me?" the man said, giving Izuku a gleaming smile.
Izuku frowned. "No?" he said, failing to recall any villain he'd heard with that name. "Oh, wait! You're that guy on YoTube, right?" He remembered watching a video with this man in it a few years ago, but he'd reported the channel and moved on since he didn't support villainy going viral. "I thought you would've been caught by now."
"Ha, you jest. Surely no mere hero could stop the Gentle Criminal, the next man to take the title of the Peerless Thief!" he bellowed, causing Izuku to flinch and look around to see if anyone heard him yelling.
"Just quiet down and tell me what you're doing here," Izuku said flatly.
"Ah, but that would spoil the surprise! I'm waiting around for the faculty of this fine institution to be gathered in one place so that our wonderful show can begin!" Gentle Criminal said.
"Oh, yeah? I'm a hero student, y'know. I have the power to stop you," Izuku said, almost tasting the bitter lie on his tongue. His classmates had provisional licences, but if these villains tried to call his bluff, he didn't have the legal authority to fight them. Technically, he was a civilian in the eyes of the law, and he was supposed to go and retrieve a hero to fight any villain he came across. He'd forgotten to ask Aizawa for his explicit permission to fight should he find the villains, but it was too late now.
"Oh? Then you'll watch as I publicly shame your teachers for being unable to stop a notorious villain such as myself from infiltrating their school and showing them up!" Gentle Criminal laughed.
"So that's your game? You're going to make people lose their trust in UA? That's …" Izuku paused, unable to comprehend why someone would want to do that. Then he remembered that he'd met someone like that before — Tomura Shigaraki, who had started calling himself his true name again, Tenko Shimura. Tenko had tried to discredit UA and make Japan lose faith in heroes to force others to feel the pain he felt, of being unable to depend on heroes for help after a tragedy. Izuku then remembered his talk with All Might a few weeks ago, on the running track. This was a chance he was getting to be a better hero than he had been with Tenko, and Toga and Stain and all of the Vanguard. He looked Gentle Criminal straight in the eyes and asked, "Why?"
The taller man almost flinched at the question.
"Why?" he asked in return, repeating the question with a curious undertone in his voice. He looked at Izuku like he'd gone mad, but smiled. "Are you sure you're a hero student?"
"I am," Izuku said with a grimace. "Why are you doing this? Did UA wrong you in some way, or do you just like causing chaos?"
Gentle Criminal looked at Izuku with wide, intelligent eyes and an even wider smile. The man studied Izuku's face, which he was trying his best to keep passive and unmoved. In reality, his heart was racing and sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he considered his options. He didn't know this Gentle Criminal's Quirk, nor his partner's. He didn't know how strong they were in relation to himself, and he didn't know if he could find a hero before they started something, or hurt a civilian. Izuku kicked himself for simply running off to fix things himself, again, when he'd promised to stop doing that. It was too late to worry about broken promises now, though, because Gentle Criminal spoke.
"I suppose you'll be wanting my villainous monologue detailing my tragic backstory, then. The truth is that I don't see my life as a tragedy. It's a comedy if anything! See, I wish to be remembered. Long after I'm gone, I want the world to know my name and put it up there with the greats, like Oji Harima, the first Peerless Thief, Re-Destro of the Meta Liberation Army and All for One, the Demon Lord. I want everyone in Japan to know my name and remember my deeds in a hundred years, in a thousand! Gentle Criminal will be the greatest villain of all time, and it all starts here!"
Izuku listened to Gentle Criminal talk, and found himself wondering, so he asked. "Why is that your goal? What makes a person desire fame that much?"
"Ah, well, it's simple. I was much like you when I was younger. As all young boys do, I wished to be a hero. I thought my Quirk would be useful and even though I didn't have the best control of it, it was strong. I applied, and applied, and applied, but none of the major hero schools took me. I had to settle for a lesser known school, and even then I was no good for the two years I studied there," Gentle Criminal said.
As Izuku heard the beginning of his story, he couldn't help but identify parts of himself with the man in front of him. He knew what it was like to be rejected, to be no good at controlling his Quirk and to want so desperately to be a hero that he'd do whatever it took, even if it wasn't pretty. He'd walked into trash heap after trash heap every day for ten months to be a hero. Izuku knew what Gentle Criminal was talking about. A frown formed on both their faces as Gentle Criminal continued his tale.
"Even civilian schools rejected me en masse after I failed out of heroics in my second year. I refused to give up on my dream of being the most famous hero, so when I saw a chance to help someone one day, I took it. I used my Quirk to stop a man from falling to death, but I still hadn't perfected my Quirk. The man's spine was bruised by rebounding off air itself, and the object he'd been dangling from fell after him. He was dead before he hit the ground."
A shudder was sent through Izuku's body at Gentle Criminal's soft explanation that he'd killed a man, even if accidentally. The man's eyes were hardened, the icy blue of them cutting right through Izuku like a knife as he recounted his past. Izuku wondered how many people this happened to every day, and wondered if any of them could've had the chance to turn out like this man had. A lot of people had the potential to hurt someone, but most people weren't villains. What was different for this Gentle Criminal? Surely there had to be something that set him apart from others. Why did he want to be seen so badly? For Tenko Shimura, the tragedy in his childhood didn't decide his fate. No, All for One's manipulations made sure he took the path he ended up on. There was a video that was published a few weeks after Kamino detailing the Hero Killer's past, and how he had been kicked out of his high school heroics course because he had extreme views on morality and justice, so he'd turned to vigilantism and then transitioned into unrestrained villainy over a period of years seeing the injustices of the hero system. They had external reasons to do what they did. He couldn't see that in Gentle Criminal yet, so Izuku kept letting him ramble about himself in hopes he'd get the answer willingly.
"I tried to go back home and get my life sorted out, but my own mother pushed me away, claiming that she didn't want a failure slowing down her own life plans even further. I had failed to get the fame I craved as a hero, so in this superhuman society we live in, my only other option was to go down in infamy as the greatest villain of the modern age. The media sensationalises the struggle of heroism versus villainy so much that I knew it was my only shot left at becoming the star I aimed to be. So I turned to my life of crime," Gentle Criminal said.
"That's why you put your crimes up on the internet for all to see? You want to be remembered?" Izuku asked, feeling the hot poker of anger jab him in the chest. "If you wanted to be remembered, why didn't you become an actor or start a charity or something? Being a villain wasn't your one option!"
"Oh, but those things aren't nearly as newsworthy nowadays. If I wanted to be known forever, I was going to have to accomplish things nobody else had ever done before. The hero side of it all was off-limits to me, so I switched tracks. I started with petty theft, unarmed robberies, whatever I could do to make money while I planned the bigger jobs. I trained my Quirk quite a bit, too. Now it's my greatest tool when pulling off these high-priority jobs. It's certainly enough to beat a first year hero student," the villain continued.
Izuku couldn't help but take a harsh breath, giving himself away as he wondered how Gentle Criminal knew he was a first year student. Surely he couldn't have known about Izuku prior to this. Could he have information on the students? Was that how he got in, did he pretend to be someone's family? That seemed plausible. After all, the Vanguard — back when they were still the League of Villains — had gotten sensitive information about Class 1-A and where they'd be at what time back when they'd pulled off the USJ attack. Six months seemed like ten years ago, but it proved that something like that could actually happen. Izuku forced himself to relax as he took all this information in. He'd separated himself from the civilian attendees of the festival, and he'd asked Aizawa not to alert them to the danger these two posed, so he'd accidentally isolated himself from his backup, and he had no legal authority to arrest these two on his own, so he was screwed if he didn't think of some way to get help soon.
He got sidetracked thinking about Gentle Criminal's past, though. Izuku could see himself in the man in front of him. They'd both wished beyond rationality to become heroes, but they hadn't had something special like everyone else, they didn't have that innate spark. They had both been rejected by the world, but they both kept trying. They'd both stepped in to save someone in an urgent situation. That was where their paths had diverged from the other's, though — this Gentle Criminal had given up, where Izuku had always held out hope that something would come along and give him a chance to prove his potential. Izuku had met All Might, but Gentle hadn't, and that let him fall through the cracks and become a glory-seeking villain intent on ruining this festival for so many people just because they'd all be looking at him. It left a bad taste in Izuku's mouth to admit it, but Gentle Criminal was Izuku if he'd taken one step different on his way home after saving Katsuki from the Sludge Villain that day and had never met All Might and received One for All. Luck was the only thing that made them different. Izuku was simultaneously ashamed and proud of how much of himself he saw in Gentle. Izuku let his shoulders relax as he put all his energy into figuring out how to detain these two legally. He needed another chance to talk to Gentle. Izuku had a feeling they could actually have a conversation once Gentle Criminal was in handcuffs.
"Okay," he said, letting his mouth run as he stalled for time to think of a plan. Izuku turned to the short girl. "And what about you?"
"Me?" she echoed, shrinking under his gaze.
"I can understand him," Izuku said as he gestured with a nod to Gentle, "but what has you so invested in this? This school and the city of Musutafu are second only to downtown Tokyo when it comes to the number of heroes that are either at this festival or on standby for if something goes wrong. You have to have a lot riding on this to follow him here."
The woman looked truly terrified. Izuku had never caught her name, but she had caught his eye just for the fact that she was extraordinarily short. He felt kind of bad reducing her to that in his head, but he didn't know enough about her for any other memorable things to take precedence over 'short'. He'd only met a handful of people that short in his life, the most recent being Minoru Mineta during 1-A's final exam last semester, when he'd attempted to transfer into the hero course with the exam itself being his entrance exam. He hadn't made it by the time their second term had started, so Izuku had guessed that Mineta hadn't shown a good enough performance to be considered for heroics. That was beside the point, which was that this woman looked only an inch or so taller, and Mineta hadn't even come up to Izuku's waist, and he himself wasn't a very tall guy. He looked down into her pink eyes with those dark rings and waited for an answer.
"I … Gentle!" she said, her eyes sharpening as she hesitated to speak. It looked like she'd gone to answer his question, but turned her head around to Gentle instead. "Do you think we should engage Lover Mode and get outta here?"
"No, La Brava," Gentle said, finally giving Izuku a name to work with for the woman. A strange name, definitely an alias, but a name nonetheless. "Using it now would be foolish."
"Right," La Brava mumbled, blushing at his rebuttal. She looked back at Izuku. "Well, you've gotta let us go either way, kid!"
"Please, I just want to know your reasons for doing this. Surely you have something to say," Izuku sighed.
"You want my whole backstory? Fine! I was a little girl who fell in love too fast and it freaked people out. They called me names and played with feelings I couldn't control. When I finished school, I stopped caring about anything. I became a hermit. I was just about to consider checking out for good when Gentle came into my life! I found his videos and did what I always do. I loved him so much I tracked him down and asked to be part of his path to greatness! And we've been partners ever since. Good enough for you, hero kid?" La Brava all but yelled.
"Yes, thank you, but please keep quiet. I'm doing this foryoursake, too," Izuku said through gritted teeth as he checked that they were still isolated.
"What do you mean, boy?" Gentle asked, a curious light in his eyes.
Izuku sighed, but said, "I don't want to fight you. This can be easy if you cooperate. I just … I know what makes someone want to be a hero, because that's my life. I guess I want to know the other side so I can be a better version of the hero I want to be. I want to be the greatest, too, so I suppose we have that in common, Gentle Criminal. I really don't want to fight you, because we're similar."
"Oh? Are you disillusioned with the hero's life as well?" Gentle asked, his voice slipping into a snobbish, high-class accent. Izuku had noticed that he did that, sometimes, when he was leaning more into his villain persona rather than being genuine and having a real conversation. He could tell if Gentle was being honest, because he sounded like a real person, but when he put on that strange, almost foreign-sounding accent, like he wanted to appear above the common man, that was when Izuku knew that it was Gentle Criminal talking, and not whoever was under that makeup and outfit.
"No. I mean, not really. There are some things that I think are a little bit unfair to the less fortunate, but I'm not going to commit crimes because of it. Our superhuman society places an importance on Quirks that harms people on both ends of a social ladder they're placed on because of the Quirks they have. Kids get bullied for having weak Quirks, or villain Quirks, or no Quirk at all. It makes kids feel like they're worthless for having been born, and it robs the world of the amazing people they could have and still could grow into with more support and love. Then those bullies, who were born with strong, flashy powers, are praised and coddled until it all goes to their head, and then they break down in high school or university when they realise they were a big fish in a little pond and they're not really as good as they were told they were just because they had a cool Quirk they had no say in. I'm familiar with the pain you both feel at being rejected by the fields of study and the people you loved. I've felt that myself. I think I understand you now. I get it," Izuku rambled. He hoped this got through to the two villains, because if it didn't, he didn't know what to do.
"And you would have us … what? Surrender? No can do, boy. I'm not giving up on another dream," Gentle Criminal said, his eyes hardened despite the smile on his face.
"Please don't make me fight you. I see now that we're the same. It's just luck that makes us different. I acknowledge that I got lucky and you two didn't, but that's not something I could control. You don't have to be villains just because you think it's your only option. La Brava, is it?" Izuku said, hesitating at her name. After a wary nod, he smiled. "I recently met a villain whose perception of love was heavily warped by a couple of different factors, and because of that she ended up killing people. What does love look like to you?"
"What does love look like to me?" she repeated the question, more to herself than anybody else, and frowned, a blush making her face all but glow. "Love looks like … lending a helping hand, no matter what situation your loved one is in. It's helping the one you love with anything, because you know they'd do the same. Love is supporting the person you love to achieve their dreams because you know they deserve their happiness! Love is knowing a person better than you know yourself and doing your best to make them proud." La Brava started to tear up, but couldn't raise her hands to her face to stop it. Izuku also didn't feel comfortable approaching the two villains just yet, so he let her cry. "Love is … love is all I know. That's all I am. Love."
It looked as though La Brava was in some sort of daze, speaking about love. She had a far off look in her eye, her whole face was lit up with a furious shade of red and she was now simply mumbling to herself about all the ways she expressed her love for people in the past. Izuku felt comfortable saying that he'd gotten her to at least not be hostile to him anymore. He turned to Gentle Criminal and saw that he was looking at La Brava with wide eyes as his mouth hung open in shock. He looked at Izuku and closed his mouth with some effort. Gentle looked at Izuku quizzically, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing. Izuku collected his thoughts and turned to Gentle and looked him right in the eye, which seemed to surprise the villain.
"Gentle Criminal, I was told for years and years that I couldn't be a hero, but I never gave up on my dream of saving everyone I could with a smile on my face. I don't mean to compare our experiences or anything, because I've never actually wound up ending a life, but I did spend some time a few months ago thinking that I'd killed a person. It weighed on me, more than I wanted to admit even to myself, and so I know it can't have been easy for you to have wanted to be a hero but end up in that position. I sympathise with your pain at not being able to follow your dream, and I empathise with your desire for fame, which is why I don't want to fight you. We're not different. All that separates us is a bit of good fortune. Let me help you turn your fortune around!" Izuku said, his voice rising against his intent to stay quiet.
"And how would you do that, boy? If I surrender, I go to prison for life. Even if I wanted to be a hero still, even if my crimes have never killed or majorly harmed the victims of my thefts and manipulations, the deeds done by my hand can't be forgiven. You expect me to throw my dream away a second time because you feel bad for me?" Gentle laughed.
"I'm not asking you to give up your dream again. Just … some part of you must still want to be of aid to people, even if your motivation is fame. There has to be some altruism in you. I've read about you, and I know that every single place you robbed and every hero you fought was later found to be corrupt or sued for criminal negligence, or exposed in some way to be lying or doing something that was harming or taking advantage of civilians. Everywhere you've gone, you've made things better. Don't you see it, Gentle Criminal? You fix things, you help the innocent people these rotten corporations and selfish celebrities were exploiting for their own gain. We both know there's a word for someone who does that. Youcanbe a hero. You already are," Izuku said. His voice wavered at the end, as he repeated the same words All Might had said to him the day they met. He hadn't meant to get so emotional, but as his throat closed up and his eyes burned, he couldn't help himself.
It seemed that Gentle Criminal, too, was taken off-guard by Izuku's declaration, because the hero and villain both looked at each other with teary eyes and their best efforts at a stoic expression. Gentle seemed to be in better control of himself than Izuku, which was a given because Izuku was horrible at keeping his feelings hidden, so anyone was better than him at that. Izuku looked over at La Brava and saw her, looking at Gentle with tears in her own eyes, though he thought that her teary-eyed state had nothing to do with Izuku and everything to do with Gentle. She wriggled around in the Blackwhip binding she was still trapped in, but couldn't escape. She began trying to kick Izuku, but was too far away for that. She turned back to Gentle and frowned the same kind of frown that Ochako had when he had asked her not to worry about him a few weeks ago. That frown let Izuku realise something, and he put it together with a raise of his eyebrows and a small, silent gasp.
She loved him. It was obvious now, with all the talk of how La Brava fell in love so easily that it had gotten her bullied harshly by her peers in middle and high school, and how Gentle Criminal had been the one to give her life a new purpose after that, but Izuku hadn't connected those things before that moment when he realised that there was more to them than a partnership of villains. He didn't know if they were in a relationship, but there was a palpable tether between them, and Izuku could almost feel Gentle's half-hearted struggling against Blackwhip become more powerful as he met La Brava's eyes, like he drew strength from her.
In the back of his mind, the part of his mind that gave birth to thoughts he didn't consciously acknowledge, La Brava reminded Izuku of Ochako in a way. La Brava struggled viciously against Blackwhip to get closer to her love, and she didn't give up when by all means she should have. Izuku remembered the conversations he'd had with Ochako about love, and how he wished he could love her the way he thought she deserved, the way he wanted to. Something held him back, though. Maybe he really wasn't capable of that, or maybe it was just a lingering insecurity, but he wasn't ready for that yet. He'd been blessed with her patience, but that also came with the guilt Izuku felt every time he looked her in the eye and knew she was waiting for him, even when she knew he might never be ready for the things he knew she wanted. Izuku blinked more tears away at the sight of his own struggles being shared by these villains, two people who should've been the furthest thing from relatable to him, but instead were simply people pushed to extremes due to a shared dream. They, the three of them, were the same.
Blackwhip uncoiled itself from the duo in front of Izuku, and it snaked back into his skin as he released them from his Quirk. He sighed, letting the tears fall freely now, and watched as La Brava rushed up and hugged Gentle. She was so much smaller than him that it had to be the other way around, however, with Gentle wrapping himself around her as a bright grin split his face, and the two of them embraced the other with all their strength. He felt bad for having kept them apart. He still had to do something about them, but he couldn't go against them any longer. He didn't have the strength to oppose Gentle Criminal and La Brava.
"That could be a foolish mistake, young man," Gentle said, releasing La Brava and returning his gaze to Izuku.
"I don't think so. With any of the other villains I've faced so far, that would've gotten me killed. I know you're not killers, though. You're not bad people, you're just determined to have your dreams come true, and I can't bring myself to keep you from that when I'm the exact same," Izuku said.
"So now what?" La Brava asked, stepping away from him.
Izuku paused for a moment. That was a good question, a question he didn't have an answer to. Lucky for him, someone else did have an answer.
"We leave," Gentle said, surprising both Izuku and La Brava. "We've done nothing today that is worthy of punishment, the heroes haven't spotted us yet. Also, let's not forget that I am familiar with the hero course. Even if I went to UA, the curriculum is largely the same across Japan. I'd bet that this first year student—" Izuku wondered why Gentle was so certain he was a first year student. He was right, but how did he know? Was it just because he was short? "—hasn't received his provisional licence yet, meaning that he cannot legally engage in battle with us if we were to flee."
"The only question then would be how certain you are that I'd obey that rule and let some criminals go," Izuku replied. His voice was steely and steady, but he didn't actually plan on putting up a fight if they were to run. He just wanted to say one last thing.
"I thought you couldn't bring yourself to fight against our dreams?" Gentle teased.
"You're right," Izuku sighed as he was found out immediately. "Let's make a deal. I don't think I can just let you go, but I could put in a good word with the heroes if you do me a favour."
"You have the nerve to demand things from us?!" La Brava said, raising her voice, but she was silenced by Gentle putting a single finger up in the air.
"What is your request?" he asked, giving Izuku the same hard look he'd given before. He was being serious again.
"Your old dream and your new dream don't have to be separate. You can be famous while still doing something good and being a hero," Izuku said. "It's not too late for you, Gentle."
"I would say it is. I'm well past the usual age of hero course applicants, and—"
"I'm not telling you to go back to school for heroics. I'm just asking you to consider that you can still help people and be famous at the same time. Unlicensed heroics is a crime, yes, but people do it all the time out in the country, where there aren't as many villains. They just help each other with their Quirks. I technically did it just now when I restrained you two. Just don't target heroes, and give up on whatever you were planning for UA. Everyone who put on this festival today has a dream, and they're working just as hard as you to meet their goals. Don't ruin their hard work just for your own benefit. Don't be like the corrupt companies and selfish heroes you've exposed. That way we can both work on being better versions of ourselves," Izuku said.
Gentle looked at him for a long moment, and it felt like ten minutes. When he finally spoke, he said, "Okay."
"Okay?" La Brava asked, baffled.
"Okay," Gentle repeated. "We will leave this place and chase our dreams another way. I am not sure if it will work, but that's the nature of a dream. You must take the risk that it never comes true and venture on anyway!"
"And," Izuku said with a smile, "since the Hero Killer was caught and his story was spread online, a pretty big counter-cultural fandom has popped up around vigilantes, since he technically was one. I think you've already got an audience for your videos if you do decide to take my advice."
"That's good to know. Thank you for this illuminating chat, boy. I don't suppose I could get your name, lad?" Gentle asked.
Taking a long moment to weigh the pros and cons, Izuku decided to give Gentle Criminal this one last thing while still preserving his real identity.
"My hero name is Nexus. Watch out for when I'm the number one hero," Izuku said with a fierce grin on his face.
"I'll hold you to that," Gentle said, and put his hand out to La Brava. "Come, we must take our leave now."
Izuku balled his hands up into fists, ready to stop them from escaping. He empathised with them but they were still criminals who he could help better when they were caught. He also wondered how they were going to sneak out when he'd alerted the heroes of the villains' presence, but his mind was blown when La Brava climbed onto Gentle's shoulders and the two of them bounced up as if the concrete under their feet was a trampoline. Again, when they touched the side of the building they had spoken near, they were slingshotted to the side as if the metal and concrete structure had pushed and pulled itself out of shape solely to give them an escape plan. In just a few hops, the two of them were out of sight, and Izuku was left alone in the narrow space between two events. He wondered which of their Quirks that was, but he remembered that it didn't really matter now that they were gone. Hopefully, Gentle's promise to do better would hold up. Izuku walked out back into the warms of people and pushed it out of his mind. He would never forget Gentle Criminal and La Brava, but he didn't think he'd be telling anybody about them either. That was just for him to know.
He rejoined his friends, naturally excluding Katsuki, who'd grouped up sometime after he'd met them individually and started making their way through the events as a group. It was Tsu who first spotted him, pointing him out to the others with their keen observation skills. Ochako immediately went up to greet him, but stopped when she saw how he was dressed.
"You haven't changed? What have you been doing since the concert ended?" she asked.
"Uh, I've been dealing with something that came up. It's fine now," Izuku said with a dismissive wave.
"Right, you've been running around like a man on a mission. Is everything cool? Is this another OFA thing?" Hitoshi said.
"No, it's nothing. It doesn't matter," Izuku said with a shaky laugh.
It did matter. No matter what the people of their pasts had said to them, they mattered. Izuku smiled and played dumb the rest of the day, content to take their secrets with him to his grave. At least one person would now always remember those two, and that was hopefully just the start.
End of Arc 11: At the Seams
Author's Note: Well, that ends the first arc of this new saga of A Point of Singularity! Hope you've enjoyed your first taste of Gentle and La Brava, because they factor into an arc years down the road. Thanks for sticking through that more slice-of-life kinda story. The next two arcs are gonna be bringing the action pretty hard in comparison! See ya there!