Chapter Text
Hitoshi doesn't sleep much that night. He had plenty of rest at the hospital, and the unfamiliarity of his surroundings doesn't help any. But it's quiet here, the only sounds being the occasional car driving by, peaceful in a way his nights haven't been for years. He's grown accustomed to the sounds of children crying quietly over nightmares, snoring, constant creaking of beds and sick kids coughing. He rests in a light doze, his default state of sleep when he's not in a place he's designated as truly safe.
Logically, he knows Aizawa and Yamada are very unlikely to try to hurt him, but they're still unfamiliar. Aizawa is still categorized as a potential threat in his mind due to their altercations on the streets and that's not something that will change immediately. It'll take time to be able to let his guard down. The fact that every couple of hours Aizawa had near-silently opened the door to check if Hitoshi was still there doesn't help matters, even if it's a logical course of action for the hero to take. Hitoshi dutifully does not attempt to leave the apartment that night.
He's pretty much accepted that he'll no longer be able to continue his late night escapades, at least not in the way he used to. It's something he's acknowledged since he started going out, that if he was ever caught he'd have to stop. Now that they're aware of his identity and watching him far more closely it's pretty much inevitable that any attempts to continue would end in failure, unless he wants to spend years on the streets as a runaway. He'd really rather not. Living on your own when everyone thinks you're a young child is a pain.
Maybe it's cold to admit, but his vigilantism was never really about justice or heroics in the first place.
With two pro heroes acting as his foster parents, there's a possibility he might be able to get into a hero program after all. He still doesn't have any aspirations to become a hero, when it comes down to it. The way the system is set up, it glorifies the wrong qualities and essentially punishes anyone outside of their special program for ever helping their fellow human beings with their quirks. He's watched far too many people simply ignore an active crime even if their quirk might have been able to help resolve the situation because the law would punish them for daring to intervene.
It's disgusting. He doesn't want anything to do with a system like that. But he knows there are heroes out there who've essentially retired, who still hold a license but don't actively work in the field or make a living out of it. It might be nice to at least have the license, so no one could contest his right to step in if a situation arose. Hitoshi has saved lives without a license, yet the only reason he hasn't been prosecuted for it is because they believe he's a child who can't be held responsible for his "illegal actions."
The fact that he still doesn't truly have any purpose in this world is another factor. His time as a vigilante, brief as it was in the large scale of things, was fulfilling in a way all the research and learning in this world hasn't been. Maybe it's because fighting and war are all he's ever known. Maybe it's because he was once raised as a child soldier and taught that the good of his village was the only thing that should ever matter to him, even at the cost of his own life. He's already paid the ultimate sacrifice. There's no village to pledge his allegiance to. This system, broken and different as it is, offers a sense of familiarity that's hard to write off completely.
It doesn't make any sense. It's completely contradictory. Yet here he is, contemplating joining an organization he despises, just because he needs some sort of anchor to avoid crashing right back into the despair he's only recently started to pull himself back out of. It's the easy path for someone like him, a soldier without purpose.
Aizawa leaves for work, leaving Hitoshi alone with Yamada. His emotions are torn between relief that Eraserhead is no longer watching him and apprehension at spending an extended period of time with someone so similar to Gai in exuberance. He'd deeply cared about Gai, he really had - but the man had been exhausting to hang out with.
He decides to wear the sweatshirt he'd been given yesterday. It's comfortable and new, unlike the majority of the clothes he owns. Most of his clothing needs to be washed anyway. Yamada absolutely beams upon seeing it.
The man chatters incessantly the entire time they spend walking to the nearest shopping mall. He's the hero Present Mic, apparently, and the host of the radio show featured on the sweatshirt. He just became a teacher at U.A. this year along with Shouta, where they both graduated from. How he manages to have this much energy while working three jobs is beyond Hitoshi; by all rights he should be more like Aizawa in demeanor with the sleep deprivation he must be experiencing. It isn't a surprise at all to learn that Yamada's quirk is voice-related.
"You should totally apply at U.A. when you're older," Yamada says. "I bet you'd be a great hero! That's what you want to do, right?"
"Maybe," Hitoshi says noncommittally, eyeing Yamada guardedly. The real answer is no, he has little interest in becoming what their society calls a "hero", but he's not sure how they'd take it if he told them as much. For all he knows they're only interested in him because they believe he wants to join the same career as them, or they'd misunderstand and think he's considering a life in crime. Whether or not he decides to pursue a hero license just for the freedom of action it would offer him is still up for debate, anyway, so it's not really lying. And to be honest, the physical component to the education is attractive. It would be far more beneficial than wasting all his time in classes on material he mostly already knows, at least.
Their first stop is at a cell phone store, where Yamada picks out one of the mid-range phones for Hitoshi. "Just in case you ever need to get ahold of us," he explains, rapidly typing something into the device as they leave the store. "I added my number and Shouta's for you, as well as the numbers of a couple of our friends just in case something happens! You'll probably meet them soon - Shouta told them they couldn't come over yesterday because we didn't want to overwhelm you but they're dying to meet you!"
It's a little late to avoid overwhelming him, but Hitoshi doesn't say that much. The last few days have been a lot, though high levels of stress isn't exactly a new thing to deal with. "Sounds interesting," he says neutrally.
Yamada finishes and hands the phone to him. "You should keep this with you at all times, even at school. Just in case!"
It'll be nice to have a legal phone again, one he can actually take with him instead of hiding. He pockets it with a quiet thank you, feeling slightly uncomfortable over the financial hit the couple is taking for him when it's not like he has no money of his own. He has a decent amount of cash saved up that he'd liberated from petty criminals over the last few months, but he's pretty sure that little detail would not be welcome from either Yamada or Aizawa.
They stop at a few clothing stores, all of them far more high-end than Hitoshi would have chosen himself. Yamada is having a field day rummaging through all the items, though he doesn't try to impose any on Hitoshi, saying that he should pick out whatever he likes.
He keeps it minimal, with enough to last around a week in between washes. Almost everything he chooses is black, with some gray and one dark green shirt to mix it up just a little. The material is high quality and feels durable, the upside of a more expensive outlet. Most of the items have ample pockets. That anyone would want to wear those infernal skinny jeans with virtually no pocket space is unfathomable; where the hell is he supposed to store his weaponry and tools if there's nowhere to put them?
Yamada takes one look at the selection and laughs. "I swear, you're just like Shouta! What is it with you two and the color black?"
"I like practical," Hitoshi says.
"Aw, but you can be colorful and still practical!" Yamada holds up a neon green jacket which, to its credit, does have decent pocket space. That's the only positive thing about it. "What do you think?"
"Pass."
"Eh, yeah, you're probably right. It's kind of an outdated style anyway." He sticks the jacket back on the rack and blessedly doesn't try to suggest anything else.
Yamada seems to have way too much fun buying him some extra sheets, a couple pairs of sneakers and a few other assorted necessities. He lets Hitoshi pick out a few books on Python programming strategies and Korean, but rushes them back out of the bookstore with a strained expression when he catches Hitoshi eyeing the erotic fiction section.
By the time they finally make it back to the apartment, laden down with way more bags than he would have wanted, it's already nearing evening. Aizawa is dead to the world in the bedroom, getting a few hours of sleep before his nightly patrol.
Yamada quietly heats up some stir fry, asks about Hitoshi's favorite foods for future reference, and almost hugs him before bed. He must read the mood and switches to ruffling Hitoshi's hair at the last second. He says he's happy Hitoshi agreed to stay with them and actually looks like he means it.
Hitoshi doesn't know what he's supposed to say in response, so he just nods.
--
Life with Aizawa and Yamada is good. Surprisingly good. Hitoshi had expected the living arrangement to be more like a prison sentence than an actual home, and while his movements are far more restricted than they had been in the past he can't even feel upset about it. They clearly care, way more than he'd expected.
He starts at a new school, one closer to where they live. It's not great, but it could be worse - by now, most of the students seem more wary than truly afraid of his quirk. The first time someone tries to blame their wrongdoings on Hitoshi, Aizawa comes blazing into the school with a quiet rage similar to the one he'd had during their first meeting, and shuts the situation down very, very quickly. Most students just give Hitoshi a wide berth after that, which suits him just fine.
His knowledge of English gets even stronger with Yamada around. He starts studying Korean and JSL as well. Though the sign language he'd learned in Anbu is different than the sign language here, he finds there's more overlap than he's expected. Yamada is thrilled when he finds out Hitoshi's been studying sign, and wastes no time teaching him further. They start holding entire conversations in English and sign. Because he's able to complete the coursework at school so easily, a couple of his classes are replaced (at Aizawa's strongly-worded suggestion) with independent study periods. He uses the time to practice programming and starts improving his atrocious handwriting, as he's grudgingly come to realize that it's far too important of a skill in this world to ignore.
It hadn't taken long for Aizawa to notice the restlessness and insomnia plaguing Hitoshi, and he quickly adjusted his schedule so they'd be able to coincide their exercise regimens. He's a skilled fighter, one with a lot of practical experience and dirty tricks, and Hitoshi loves the opportunities to spar against an opponent like him. With his knowledge of Hitoshi's fighting prowess Aizawa doesn't underestimate him, constantly adjusting his own tactics to take advantage of their size difference and any openings Hitoshi leaves. It makes Hitoshi realize just how frequently he'd come to rely on his quirk now that it's out of the equation.
Hitoshi even starts being late to things, which if you asked him, is a sign that he's definitely improving mentally. If you asked anyone else, they would emphatically disagree.
--
Hitoshi's starting to test boundaries. Shouta has yet to decide if that's a good thing or not.
On one hand, it might mean he's starting to trust them more, and is finally starting to behave like a normal kid by testing authority figures to see what they'll do and what he can get away with. On the other hand, it's a pain in the ass to deal with.
Shouta had found a damn erotic novel in the apartment last week, just sitting on the couch as if it was perfectly innocent reading material. It was such a sharp contrast to the academic books Hitoshi seemed to favor that he'd actually gone and asked Hizashi if it was his, even though he'd never once shown any interest in poorly-written smutty romance novels. Hizashi promptly informs him that he'd never be so irresponsible by leaving that kind of literature somewhere where a kid could see it, and that actually now that he thought about it, he'd seen Hitoshi eyeing those types of books when they'd gone out shopping that first day.
The conversation with Hitoshi over it had been one of the most mortifying Shouta had ever had to deal with. Hitoshi hadn't seemed at all regretful over the book itself, though he'd definitely seemed to regret it when they tried to have a talk about sex with him. Given his less than normal background, they weren't sure if anyone ever had. He'd refused to even look at them for two days after that one.
But the tardiness. Good heavens, the tardiness. Everything was fine for the first few weeks, but after that? Hitoshi seemed to make it his life goal to be late to everything he feasibly could be. He'd be late getting to school. He'd be late coming back home. If he was asked to go buy some things from the convenience store one block away, it would easily be an hour before they'd see him again.
Shouta even followed him one time to see what the delay was and if he was getting himself into trouble. He'd spent almost eighty minutes watching a kid wander about like he had nowhere to be, stop on the street to try to entice a dog closer, study the packages of what seemed like literally everything in the store as if they were the most fascinating things he'd ever seen, before ambling back to the apartment at the world's slowest pace.
He seems to run on a schedule of his own without any regard for the schedules of those around him, and acts surprised every time he's called out for it, giving increasingly weird excuses that don't seem to have much basis in reality. Hizashi thinks it's hilarious. It's driving Shouta up the wall, because he can't find any sort of logic behind it or, heaven forbid, a way to make him stop.
"You're late," he says calmly as Hitoshi walks into the apartment three hours after school ended.
The kid looks at him like he's sizing him up, then shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. "There was a crow staring at me while I was walking home, so I had to find another way."
What.
"This is the third time this week," Shouta says, because he doesn't have a response for whatever the hell that excuse was. "Where were you?"
"Walking home," Hitoshi repeats. He seems perfectly calm and unconcerned by the confrontation, posture loose as he toes off his shoes and drops his backpack by the kitchen table.
"For three hours."
"I took the scenic route."
Shouta stares at him. Hitoshi stares back.
This isn't working. Time to switch tactics. "Look, I'm not mad at you. You just have to understand that it's concerning for us when you disappear for hours at a time where you can't be accounted for, and when you won't tell us where you've been." He wishes Hizashi was here. He's so much better at talking to kids and getting them to open up. But he's off at the radio station and won't be back until later that night - Shouta's on his own for this one. He tries to keep his voice calm, unaccusing, to avoid putting Hitoshi on the defensive. "Is there anything going on that we should know about?"
He knows the kid is aware of what he's referring to. What he's worried about. He can't see any visible wounds or evidence of a fight on Hitoshi or his clothing, but to assume that means he hasn't been out searching for trouble would be naïve. He's been paying attention at his job and online for any mention of Hitoshi's vigilante identity since the encounter that led to all this. Tsukauchi put out a notice at the precinct for the same thing, and so far there's been nothing.
But Hitoshi's wickedly smart. This is a boy who'd started fighting on the streets at only eight or nine years of age against fully grown adults, with only a mental quirk and some martial arts training under his belt, and not only survived the experience but also managed to keep it completely under wraps for over a year. He’s one of the most independent, self-sufficient kids Shouta’s ever encountered. He tends to be slow to respond in conversations and doesn't speak much, but has demonstrated critical thinking skills way beyond his age on more than one occasion. If he's out there again, he'll have done his best to make himself unrecognizable.
And what if there’s something more going on underneath? There’s no way Hitoshi is completely self-taught. His strategies and movements are way too professional for that. He fights like he's been doing it since infancy. He'd denied it when asked, but Shouta's been wondering if an underground organization had gotten their hands on this kid without any adults to interfere before now. If that's where Hitoshi disappears to.
He can feel his heart rate ratcheting up at the thought. Not for the first time, he wonders if he’s made a grave mistake, if he’s set both himself and Hizashi up for another tragedy.
Maybe some of his internal conflict shows up on his face, because Hitoshi’s shoulders droop and his expression softens. “There’s a dog,” he admits. “A stray one. Back on the other side of Musutafu. I used to feed it sometimes, before… before everything, and I wanted to go check on it. I’m sorry for worrying you.”
That’s it? It’s almost too convenient to be believable. But there’s no sign of a lie in the kid’s face - he almost looks sheepish, like he’s embarrassed to admit it. “Why didn’t you just tell me that, instead of trying to give me the run-around?”
Hitoshi shrugs, not meeting Shouta’s gaze. “I didn’t want you to say I couldn’t go.”
Right. Serious trust issues. He's not a hundred percent convinced that it's the full truth, but there's no real evidence it's not true and pushing matters will probably only cause more harm than good.
"I'm not going to say you can't go," Shouta says, choosing his words carefully. "I'm asking that you let us know where you are, if you're going to be somewhere we don't expect. That you don't lie about it when we ask. Do you understand why we're worried?"
"Yeah. I get it."
"Good. Then will you promise not to disappear on us like this? That you'll tell us where you are when we ask, and be honest about it?"
Hitoshi looks at him and nods. "I promise."
--
Hitoshi hadn't been lying when he said there was a dog. There was, and he'd even stopped by to see it and given it a couple fish cakes he'd bought at a convenience store. He'd just exaggerated the amount of time he actually spent with it.
His visits to the dog took a grand total of twenty minutes each time. The rest of the time over the past week had been dedicated to retrieving his various stashes of items and moving them closer to his new residence. He'd brought a few of the easier-to-hide weapons and two of his stolen phones back with him, since he wasn't about to use the phone Hizashi'd bought him for his less legal pursuits. He'd honestly be surprised if they didn't have something installed in it to help monitor his activities on it.
He'd also spent time searching for the perfect rock. It couldn't be too big or he'd never be able to keep it inconspicuous, but if it's too small there won't be room for all the names he needs to etch into it. He ends up buying one from a gardening store a couple kilometers away. It's pentagonal in shape, smooth and black with a blue tint in the light, and around six inches long. He's a little worried the weight of it will tear right through his backpack, but it holds up long enough for him to get it safely into his bedroom.
There's no way he'll be able to fit every Konoha ninja's names on it. It's not nearly big enough for that many names, and that's assuming he would even be able to remember all of them. Instead, he sticks to the names of his important people, the ones he'd been close enough to to feel a true sense of loss over. His father. Team Minato and Kushina. His own students. Gai. Tenzou. A few others, until there's only space for one more name. There he etches in the kanji for Konohagakure.
Hitoshi rocks back on his heels and stares at the makeshift memorial. He feels... not really any better. But he doesn’t feel any worse, either. More just… empty. Adrift.
He tucks it in the corner of his closet under an old shirt. He’s not too worried about Aizawa or Yamada finding it. They won’t know what it means anyway.
--
The longer Hitoshi has been staying with them, the more Hizashi starts to think Shouta's theory of an organization training child soldiers might actually have some weight to it.
He hadn't really believed it at first. Not that he doubted Shouta, but it just seemed like an awfully far-fetched idea, especially after meeting the kid. Hitoshi slouches most of the time and moves at a slow pace, nothing at all like Hizashi would expect out of a soldier. Hitoshi's eyes are half-lidded, a seemingly permanent expression of boredom visible even through that mask he always wears. He doesn't seem particularly interested in the world around him and while he seems to have some trouble with empathy, he also doesn't display any true villainous tendencies.
Plus, he has the wildest excuses Hizashi has ever heard a kid try to pull. He's constantly late and comes in with an apology even weirder than the last one. Yesterday he'd gotten a call from Hitoshi's school complaining that he'd been over two hours late to class, and Hitoshi had given him one of those "innocent" eye-smiles and said, without an ounce of shame, "Sorry I was late. I got brainwashed by my own quirk."
Shouta's eyes had looked like they were about to come straight out of their sockets with how hard he rolled them.
It takes Hizashi a couple months to really catch on to the other side of things, the facet of Hitoshi's behavior that hints towards something much darker than just the sad life of a child stuck in the foster system. It's in the way he carries out instructions to military precision and in the realization that Hitoshi never complains about anything, not even in the face of unfairness. It's his habit of subtly scanning every room he enters, casing corners, picking out the entry-points and positioning himself strategically so no one can sneak up on him. He tenses at unexpected movements, keeps the lower half of his face covered even while he's sleeping, eats so fast Hizashi's pretty sure he doesn't chew his food, and almost always wears clothing that will let him blend into the background. The first time Hizashi burst into the apartment at top speed without announcing himself, he'd been greeted by the sight of Hitoshi already poised to fight, though he'd relaxed after he'd identified the "intruder" as Hizashi. He'd nearly gotten himself punched! He's a little more careful to broadcast his presence after that.
By far the most disturbing symptom, though, is the way Hitoshi hoards weaponry. He's incredibly subtle about it, stashing them in places they wouldn't be easily discovered. Hizashi's pretty sure he never would have realized it was happening in the first place if it hadn't been for the aforementioned scare. Hitoshi had hidden it quickly, but Hizashi hadn't missed the blade he'd been holding when the door opened.
He brings it up with Shouta, of course, because he can't exactly ignore the fact that the ten-year-old they'd taken in has a penchant for deadly weaponry. They scour the apartment while Hitoshi's at school one day and find no fewer than ten sharp objects hidden throughout the place, at least one in each room. Hizashi pulls out a switchblade tucked into the lining of a sweatshirt, while Shouta finds a collection of throwing stars hidden under the slightly-raised edge of a frayed tatami mat. He cuts his finger on the edge of a razor blade when he picks up one of Hitoshi's sneakers, and a close examination reveals at least one blade pressed into the rubber soles of all of Hitoshi's shoes, almost invisible with only a few millimeters of each blade sticking out.
He's pretty sure they didn't find everything, either. With the way they'd been hidden, they'd probably have to literally tear apart everything in the apartment to be sure they'd succeeded in purging their apartment of weaponry.
Okay, he's still a bit freaked out by that. He's positive Hitoshi wouldn't hurt them on purpose, but there's more baggage to unpack here than Hizashi takes with him on business trips.
Shouta says he's been paying attention for any rumors of other children doing anything remotely similar to what Hitoshi had, or even just for noteworthy vigilantes in general. So far, he hasn't heard of anything out of the ordinary. None of the other kids at the facility Hitoshi had stayed in seemed to be showing any signs of professional training. He'd even looked into Hitoshi's birth parents, but he says he hadn't found anything useful there either.
One of the saddest things, though, is Hitoshi's lack of any friends. When Hizashi had been Hitoshi's age, he'd had dozens of friends! Even Shouta had had childhood friends, even if he hadn't stayed in contact with most of them after high school. But this kid doesn't even seem interested. It makes Hizashi want to cry. And that got Hitoshi all flustered and he'd tried to comfort Hizashi over his own friendless status. It was completely backwards!
Hitoshi must notice that most of his hidden weaponry was confiscated, but he never says anything about it. And he either gives up at stashing weapons in the apartment, or he gets better at hiding it.
--
Without nightly vigilante activities to keep him busy and satisfy his need to feel useful, Hitoshi starts turning his attention online instead.
From what the public at large can see, there isn't much dissent on the existence of heroes and how they operate in the world. Most media attention is overwhelmingly positive, hyping up heroes as paradigms of perfection and presenting public opinion as if everyone sees heroes in that light. Those who don't dig deeper into it can go about their lives blindly believing everyone around them buys into this narrative.
For most, it's not untrue. Children are raised to see heroism as the ultimate career. Heroes are praised for their actions at every turn, the more visible and flashy the better. Most popular heroes deal with only the most attention-grabbing cases, the ones that cast them in a positive light and improve their media image. Popularity has become synonymous with a high salary, while low-ranking heroes typically have to take on second jobs and exhaust themselves in the process. He's seen heroes turn a blind eye to villainous activity because they don't think their quirk is suitable enough to be worth intervening, even in cases where lives are at stake.
This is your job, he wants to scream. This is what you signed up for. It feels like spitting in the face of all the Konoha ninja who'd stood their ground against impossible odds. So many who'd given their lives for the sakes of the village and people they'd promised to protect, no matter the cost.
But in certain corners of the internet, he can find people who disagree with the popular narrative. People who see things like he does, or who at least seem to understand that the hero system is broken. A lot of the forums are very exclusive, slow to trust anyone new and keeping most of their (often illegally obtained) information very private. Villain-watching boards provide enough pieces of information that a dedicated individual could put together entire profiles of criminals and their habits, and even make relatively accurate predictions on their schedules or planned activities. A board for aspiring villains, while largely useless and filled with teenagers, offers a way to keep an eye on major underground shifts, movements and organizations.
Hitoshi participates just enough to be considered "trustworthy" enough to enter these groups, slowly gaining a reputation of his own for his ability to get information normally only accessible to police and a very limited number of heroes, such as police reports or otherwise classified data. In return, he collects whatever data he can from them that might prove to be useful in the future, and keeps it stored on a second device no one else knows he owns.
It's not his fault a huge number of people fail to use secure passwords for their accounts. It's also not his fault that most of them don't turn on second-factor authentication, or that they post the answers to their security questions - pets, spouses, past schools - openly on their social media accounts without a second thought. And it's not like he leaks anything that could end up hurting anyone innocent. He doesn't test his luck by accessing either Aizawa's or Yamada's accounts or files, and almost never touches the cases they work on unless he finds information neither of them were privy to.
He has a feeling Aizawa trawls these sites as well. It doesn't hurt to be extra cautious, in any case. He doesn't plan on getting himself caught a second time.
On days when he knows he has some time he can spend unaccounted for, he targets the scum of the earth, the ones who've more than proven themselves to be truly irredeemable but manage to stay out of the police's hands on technicalities or corruption. He puts together profiles and plans everything out meticulously in his mind, never writing it down to make it as difficult as possible to trace back to him. Once upon a time, he'd been famed for his assassination techniques. He puts them to practice now. Combined with the sharingan's ability to warp his target's perception of reality, he becomes little more than a shadow, in and out before they even know someone was there.
Hitoshi doesn't bother with fighting out there anymore. He doesn't turn it into a training exercise, because that carries too many risks of being caught or injured, and he manages to get in a decent amount of training with Aizawa anyway. This is about doing what needs to be done when society fails to purge the worst it has to offer from its ranks on its own. He's just picking up the slack.
He keeps it infrequent enough that interested parties would have a hard time picking up on a pattern. He never uses his documented quirk, and doesn't touch his mangekyo. The stakes are too high here. He can't afford to do anything that could trace back to Shinsou Hitoshi.
--
All Might is missing.
The media is strangely silent about it. The Number One hero in Japan hasn't been seen in over a month, and not a single article has been published about it.
Something big happened. Something serious enough to place a gag order on the news to keep it from leaking out to the public. Even the forums have nothing but conjecture without any sort of proof to back up their suggestions. So far the more popular theories are all over the place, ranging from the hero's death to a secret tryst with an unknown lover.
Hitoshi's reasonably certain All Might is still alive. It's doubtful they would try to hide his death for this long. More than likely he's been injured, probably pretty badly, to keep him out of the spotlight for such a long time. Hopefully he'd taken whatever villain he'd been fighting down with him. The idea of someone strong enough to take down the country's top hero isn't one he wants to see roaming free.
--
Two months later All Might reappears, looking perfectly healthy and normal. The media never comments on his unannounced three-month absence, and everything seems to return to normal.
Hitoshi doesn't miss the way he seems to favor his left side, though.