Chapter Text
He’s on a smoke break with Jirou—an indulgent vice he only partakes in on special occasions. Thin smoky plumes accompany the comfortable silence between them while the casual thrum of the izakaya is muffled in the crisp night air. Izuku notes Jirou’s black chipped nail polish as she passes him the cigarette. He smiles in thanks before taking a drag, hollowing his cheeks ever so slightly and letting the heat warm his throat. His head leans to the solid brick behind him, angling towards the night sky. He holds the smoke for a few seconds before exhaling it from his lungs.
The stars are beautiful in the summer night, and Izuku sighs wistfully, imagining him grasping at the rising smoke and floating into the sky along with it. It’s been years since he could use Float, but in moments such as this he misses it a little bit more. He misses Nana too, and her sad, kind voice.
Remembering himself, Izuku quickly breaks his reverie, dragging his gaze from the sky and back to Earth. He flicks the ash off of the cigarette before handing it back to Jirou, and he closes his eyes to the soft sound of her inhale before letting his head rest against the brick once more.
Suddenly, he feels a pair of eyes on him. Peeking towards the street to his right, a figure materialized before his eyes. It’s familiar, yet one he hasn’t seen in years. One he hasn’t thought about in months.
It’s Tomura Shigaraki.
Even though the figure is faded—akin to a ghost rather than a physical body—Tomura’s white hair stands out in the dark. It’s shorter than when Izuku last saw him on the fateful stormy day years ago, a gentle contrast to the long strands flying in every direction while they created a hurricane of energy, but manages to fall just above the shoulders. He’s damn near ethereal in the moonlight, like a fallen angel below the light of Heaven. His body is hunched, recoiling from the nearby streetlight, as if his very body was trying to merge into the shadows. Beady red eyes sear through his mind, and Izuku can’t help but jump at their intensity.
He nearly misses it, but those eyes widen slightly when they connect with his own.
“What’s up?” Jirou asks, taking another drag of the cigarette.
He jolts again, looking back to Jirou’s concerned expression. “Oh, nothing. Just…thought I saw something.”
Hurriedly glancing back across the street, Izuku finds nothing but empty sidewalks and dim streetlights barely illuminating the road.
She hums, handing him the cigarette. “Finish it. We should return back soon anyways.”
Izuku’s tense shoulders drop in relief, silently thanking her for not only dropping the topic but letting him finish off the cigarette; it must be clear he needs it after hallucinating the ghost of someone he killed.
“Mm. Kacchan will kill me if he finds me smoking,” Izuku jokes, feeling his esophagus and lungs burn from the cigarette while his stomach heats from the excessive amount of alcohol he’s consumed tonight. Luckily, the sharp night air gives him a slight reprieve, but the additional shame of being reminded of Tomura makes his body buzz in an unwelcome way. He takes a careful deep breath, grounding himself and trying to quell the nausea.
This was supposed to be Izuku’s birthday, his 21st birthday. One of the most important nights of his life. A night for celebration and hopeful cheers for the future.
I killed him when he was 21.
The thought pierces through his heart like a bullet, and suddenly the smoke in his throat becomes too much. Coughing out his last puff, he thumps dramatically at his chest to quell the fit.
Jirou laughs, and its mirth distracts him from his dampened mood. He shakes his head and smiles, throwing the dying cigarette to the ground, grinding the butt with the bottom of his shoe. A resounding cheer erupts within the izakaya, and they both turn towards the sound; it seems like the music has taken a more energetic turn as the late night turns into early morning.
“That’s our cue,” she says, pushing off from the brick and strolling towards the door.
Izuku risks one last glance towards where he saw Tomura, not sure what he wants to meet on the other side. His heart beat is in his ears, and he swears he can hear a raspy breath fan against the nape of his neck. Shivering in the night air, his eyes survey the empty street.
“Midoriya?”
He’s gone. I don’t want to see him, but why am I sad he’s not there…
“Yea?” he responds, turning away and following Jirou to the door. Before they breach the barrier, she stops him with an inquisitive look.
“You good?”
He inhales sharply, giving her a placating smile. “Yea. Yea, I’m good. Just spacing out, sorry.”
“Let’s get some food in you then,” she suggests, turning the knob and pushing him through the door with a strong arm.
The air is warm and the voices of his friends envelop him like a comforting blanket. Everyone cheers when him and Jirou return with food, and his visions of the past evaporate from his mind.
Izuku smiles while watching everyone eat, he really is so blessed to have friends such as these.
He wakes up with the worst hangover of his life, groaning in damp sheets and grabbing blindly in his bedside drawer for pain medication. Dry swallowing the pills, he pulls himself from bed, almost tripping as he pulls on a clean pair of boxers and sweatpants. Itching at his eyes in hopes of waking himself up more, he stumbles through the bedroom door and down the short hallway to the kitchen.
Izuku doesn’t give his vision of Tomura a second thought as he pulls out ingredients for breakfast in a zombie-like trance. Maybe if he were more perceptive in that moment, he would’ve noticed a pair of red eyes watching him from the shadows of his apartment.
When he sees him again, it isn’t until the summer ends, just when the leaves begin to change color and the kids start coming back from summer break. It’s only the second semester into his first year teaching at UA, but despite the nerves threatening to upend his breakfast, it’s definitely not as bad as his first day on the job.
His steps are more sure and Izuku wrangles his students with an ease he hadn’t thought possible months before. Lunch break is pleasant, and he’s able to catch up with All Might and Aizawa with a smile on his face. His students are more behaved as well, and he’s glad to see most of them have done their summer training.
It was a great day, and he still finds himself immersed in a nightmare when his head hits the pillow—it’s clockwork at this point. Even though the day was a success, being reminded of his days in UA never fails to bring back some unsightly memories.
It’s always of the war, what else would it be?
He’s just been thrown across country, barreling through the trees and crashing into the Earth. He can barely raise his head to see Mount Fuji glaring down at him in the distance, judging him with primordial disapproval. He won’t be enough, he’s never been enough.
The vestiges are gone this time—they always are in his nightmares. Every voice in his head that brings him focus, security, and bravery evaporates, leaving his own anxious mind to fill in the gaps. Izuku’s legs shake and arms tremble as he tries to stand up, but gravity proves to be too powerful, and he falls face first into the dirt. It grinds between his teeth and into his eyes, but he knows he has to stand up. Shigaraki is coming for him, he’s got to get up. If he doesn’t, everyone will turn to dust.
He can hear him now, in the thunder of the hurricane and how the sharp air makes him shiver, as if each gust of the wind pierces his skin with a thousand needles. With another breath, lungs stuttering in his chest, Izuku manages to stand, barely seeing his enemy shooting towards him through the onslaught of rain.
“What were we even fighting about?” A voice cracks, just before a boom of thunder follows. Izuku almost thinks he didn’t hear it over the promise of carnage.
Despite the brainfog, Izuku whips towards the voice, only to be met with Tomura Shigaraki sitting on the ground a few feet away from him. He’s got a faraway look in his eye, gazing up at the mountain behind them.
“What?” he manages to croak, glancing back towards the sky. Huh, the other Shigaraki—the one pumped full of quirks with raging white hair—is still there, but his movement seems stalled. The one sitting next to Izuku’s tired frame mirrors the one he saw on his birthday. Izuku tilts his head, analyzing the reluctant slope of his back and the frown on his face.
“Back then…” his voice is so quiet, but it seems to drown out most of the chaos of his nightmare. “...what was it even about?”
Izuku’s mind spins, and his vision goes in and out of focus for a few seconds. The kickback from Gearshift, exhaustion from fighting for so long, the lingering despair of seeing Katsuki with his chest ripped wide open, the panic of All Might nearly being torn apart…and now his enemy is sitting casually and unguarded at his feet.
A shot of pain slices through his head, and Izuku groans and rubs at his eyes. “What’s…what’s happening?”
Tomura doesn’t answer, seemingly content to let the rain soak his hair and soil his clothes. White hair fades into gray as the water weighs it down, but the longer Izuku looks he thinks Tomura is crying as well. His eyes are still red, but they’re dull and lifeless. He’s skinnier than his final form that haunts Izuku’s nightmares, and doesn’t have that feral detached smile on his face. This Tomura looks haunted, and young.
“You’re…not what I’m fighting,” he manages to croak, before stumbling forward and descending into a sitting position next to the figure.
“What did I turn into?” He doesn’t think Tomura realizes Izuku is sitting right next to him, soaking his already torn hero suit with mud.
Despite this being nothing more than a warped memory, he answers in an attempt to help; this man seems lost beyond measure. “You were misguided. I’m trying to stop you.”
Tomura hums, still refusing to meet Izuku’s eye. The mountain seems bigger than it did a moment ago.
“What’s going on?” he asks again, desperate to make sense of this dream. It’s different, unlike any other he’s had before. His senses are on high alert, different to the dull ache in his soul he experiences when reliving his most traumatic memories.
Red eyes finally turn to meet green, and they widen with surprise, while the previously hunched posture tightens like a noose. “Shit. You shouldn’t be here.”
“What do you mean, this is my nightmare,” Izuku retorts, gesturing to the torrid landscape.
A new surge of energy seems to spark within Tomura, and he stumbles up from his sitting position, leaving Izuku to stare dumbly at the action. Bare feet move to walk into the forest and away from Izuku, even though Tomura has never run away from a fight.
What the hell is going on?
“What are you doing?” Izuku says, voice rising amongst the storm.
The rain is icy cold, but the energy between them makes Izuku nervous they’re going to attract a lightning strike. For some reason, Izuku feels like this is an energy he needs to keep cultivating, or else everything will fall to pieces. It’s visceral and deep, like the energy of One for All zipping through his veins. He missed it. He can’t let it slip.
“This is just a dream, don’t read into it. Leave me alone,” Tomura barks over his shoulder, and his hair begins to grow and the ground beneath him begins to crack.
“Wait a second!” Izuku crawls forward, trying to get his aching legs to work so he can run after Tomura.
Mount Fuji erupts and the earthquake sends Izuku down to his knees, the fragmented ground opening wide to swallow him whole.
He’s crying when he wakes up, but has no idea why.
Light filters through the fall leaves of the large tree Izuku is sitting under. It’s his lunch break, and whenever the world seems too loud for him, the quiet whisper of the wind and the warmth of the sun keeps him company.
He hasn’t seen his friends for quite some time—there’s a big case going on and a lot of them are being sanctioned up north. All Might is gone too, off on a vacation slash work endeavor to the US.
Izuku takes a deep breath, putting his half eaten sandwich back in his lunchbox. He picks up a fallen leaf from the ground, its dark auburn hue giving him a sense of comfort he can’t explain. A gust of crisp wind dislodges the leaf from his grasp, and it flies away with the current before gracefully resting in the lawn. As he follows its trail, another figure materializes next to him.
This time, he can’t blame it on the alcohol or a nightmare. There’s nothing about this moment that should bring his memory to Izuku, and yet he’s here nonetheless. Tomura is really there next to him. Only it’s not Tomura, not really.
He’s still the same age, but everything that identifies him as Tomura Shigaraki has been stripped from his body. His hair is pitch black, the shade Izuku only got a glimpse of when they were trapped in One for All during their final fight. His eyes are gray too, and Izuku catches the shimmer in his iris as they look up at the sun. Where flaked and irritated skin used to be, there’s only inklings of an underlying condition that could no doubt be healed with the right care around his eyes and along the slope of his neck. Despite the baggy black long sleeve and sweatpants, Izuku can tell the muscle enhancement that All for One gave him is missing as well. His hunched demeanor is still present, and his legs are pulled to his chest while arms cross atop his knees.
Scars still marred his face though, slicing past his eye and lips.
“Tenko?” he ventures, because he’s alone and no one’s there to question his sanity.
If he didn’t see his hands clench, Izuku would’ve thought he hadn’t heard those words. The longer Izuku looks the more confusion rises within him. Tenko’s figure is slightly transparent, and he can see UA in the background. If he focuses really hard, there’s a dull filter of gray across his whole body and there are thin tendrils peeling off him like smoke.
“Is this real? Am I finally losing it? What are you doing here?” Izuku’s voice is hushed, as if speaking will break this spell. He leans forwards to try and get a better look.
No answer, but Tenko clenches his jaw and cranes his face away from Izuku’s gaze, resting his head atop his knees. Izuku quickly retreats back to his sitting position under the tree.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter that much. I don’t mind.” He does mind, but not in the way people usually mean it. He minds very much, but he’s willing to wait and see if this is something he should be legitimately concerned about.
A yellow leaf spirals down from a branch above them, coming to rest atop his knee. Izuku bites his lip and grabs the stem, fiddling with it for something to do. He looks down at his watch; 30 more minutes of his lunch break before he has to head inside.
“Would you stay here with me? I have a while before my break is done,” he says, knowing he won’t get a response.
Tenko stays—still as a statue—until his watch beeps, indicating their time is up. A deep sigh escapes Izuku’s lips, and he leans back into the tree, wishing he didn’t have to break this moment, even if it wasn’t real. He stands, feeling the leaves crunch beneath his feet, stretching his back and feeling the air pop between each vertebrae.
“Thank you,” he says to the wind, because when he turns to where Tenko was sitting there’s nothing there.
Dreams don’t really happen to Izuku anymore, it’s either nightmares or exhausted nothingness when he sleeps. He can’t even remember the last good dream he had. So imagine his surprise when he wakes up without feeling desolate fear coursing through his veins or his vision being filled by any number of people he cares about dying before his feet.
Now, that doesn’t stop the uneasiness in his bones, because he doesn’t rationally recognize this room but it still feels familiar somehow.
It’s an office, quaint and simple, but Izuku knows he shouldn’t be in here. He meanders around the room for a moment, but something about a certain drawer latches onto his psyche like a fishhook. As he moves closer and bends down to open the drawer, he sees a pair of feet peek out from under the desk and behind the chair. Pushing the chair and letting it slide away, he’s met with Tenko, crouched in the darkness and cradling something in his hands.
“Tenko?” The name feels weird on his tongue. Not wrong, just weird. Maybe he should use his family name instead.
“Shimura?”
Gray eyes snap to his, and even if they’re not red they still burn like fire. “No.”
“No?”
A frown spreads across Tenko’s whole face, and he assesses Izuku with unceasing judgement. The intensity of his distrust makes Izuku tense, but he doesn’t shy away, he merely crouches down to Tenko’s level and sits down across from him in the light of the office.
“What’s in your hand?” he asks, and even though annoyance is radiating in palpable waves, Tenko relents his grasp on the picture. He doesn’t give it to Izuku, but he lets him see where it rests in his hand.
It’s a picture of Nana with her son. They’re smiling wide in an adorable embrace, ignorant to the future ahead of them.
“Dad never let me look at this, but he’s not here now,” Tenko smiles ever so slightly, and it sends a shiver down Izuku’s spine.
If only he’d been able to look up to his grandmother the way he wished. If only All for One hadn’t taken his future away from him the second he was born. If only he’d been given a single choice for himself in his life. He still looks so young here, and even though they’re both the same age, Tenko looks so small huddled beneath the desk like a scolded child.
“You want to be like her?”
Tenko’s smile drops into something painfully contemplative, his lips twist and brows furrowing the longer he looks at the photograph.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
Okay. So this version of Tenko might have his memories? Or is he just a warped perception plucked from Izuku’s own mind? Does he know he’s dead? Does he know Izuku thinks of him every time he looks at his students? Does he know how desperately Izuku wishes there was another way?
“You can be a hero whenever you want to be. There’s never been a good enough reason not to start should you wish,” Izuku pushes, even though a part of himself knows he shouldn’t.
Tenko’s face sours, and he rips the photo in half. Izuku grimaces as the pieces fall to the hardwood floor. He knew he shouldn’t have used the word hero.
“You don’t get it,” he murmurs, cold anger seeping into his words.
“Help me understand?” Izuku asks, eyes pleading in the dim light of the study.
The tense line of Tenko’s jaw hardens, and Izuku knows he’s failed him once again. “Leave me alone. You shouldn’t be here.”
Izuku thinks this might be a nightmare after all.
He’s out with his friends. A celebration for a case closed. Most of them had returned from up north, and after taking down a trafficking ring the lot of them definitely needed a night out.
Izuku sits in one of the booths with a Sapporo sweating in his palm, it’s a cool reprieve from the stuffy air of the bar. Shouto and Katsuki are perched on either side of him, listening to the group recount their recent hero work. Some weren’t on the case, some were, but regardless, Izuku has relatively no clue what the hell they’re talking about. Sure, he keeps up with the general news, but there’s only so much he can know without clearance. Even then, that mission up north was need to know, and Izuku didn’t have the right to know. Not even the city they were in, just a general area after Ochako cracked and told him when he pushed for specifics.
He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know Kirishima got a serious concussion, he didn’t know Ochako had to levitate a whole building off the ground as a villains quirk nearly destroyed it and everyone inside, he didn’t know Sero’s eye almost got sliced as he navigated through the carnage, and he didn’t know that a lot of them didn’t think they’d all get out alive.
Izuku could’ve kept them all safe with One for All, but instead he was twiddling his quirkless thumbs back in comfortable safety. He sets his beer down and sinks into his seat; someone could’ve died and he wouldn’t have known for a long time. The rational side of his brain knows the importance of discretion when it comes to sensitive cases, but as they recount their time his heart feels like a stone lodged in his chest.
“Man, I was so close to short circuiting. That villain's rubber quirk was so annoying,” Kaminari whines.
“Doesn’t take much for that,” Katsuki snarks, smirking at the affronted look on his friend's face. Denki doesn’t look actually offended though—they’re always making fun of each other.
“No fair! I’ve gotten better since high school! Drink for your transgressions!” He defends, pointing accusingly at him.
Red eyes roll and Katsuki snorts, but he takes a swig nonetheless.
“Says you, Bakugou, you only got out of your sling yesterday,” Mina teases, tilting her head and raising a single thin pink brow. A few laughs erupt and he watches Katsuki begin to fume in exasperated anger, but Izuku can’t help but feel that stone sink deeper within him.
“What?” Izuku manages to say, voice wavering with an indescribable emotion. It’s not complete betrayal, but damn near close. He thought Katsuki would’ve told him if he got hurt, or if he’d even come home since he didn’t even know that they all had returned until the invite in the class group chat pinged on his screen while he was on his way home from work.
Izuku feels Katsuki tense next to him, and a barely perceivable nervous glance makes it apparent that he reads Izuku’s demeanor like a book. No one else picks up on this. Well, maybe except for Shouto, who remains stoic as usual, but can clearly see the way Izuku’s shaking fingers clench beneath the table.
“Yea, dumbass broke his wrist.” Kaminari waves a hand, as if there’s nothing wrong.
Katsuki glares at him, and yellow eyes squint in confusion at the intensity in the red eyes meeting his. “What? Still sore?”
A broken wrist is nothing Katsuki can’t handle, it’s nothing he hasn’t gone through before, but something in Izuku’s gut feels acidic with the fact that he didn’t know. He’d never have known. He almost bailed on this outing since he had papers to grade and he felt out of place accepting an invitation in celebration for something he wasn’t a part of.
He sighs deeply, and dread sets in his bones like an old friend. “All of you are alright now, though, right?”
Mina’s eyes shine with realization, then pity. Izuku feels worse even if she’s trying to make him feel better. “Oh, honey, of course we’re okay.”
“We got it done, Midoriya! No need to worry!” Kirishima laughs, and his smile barely lightens the weight on Izuku’s heart.
A hesitant smile forms on his face, but right before he opens his mouth, all of their phones go off at once. Everyone but Izuku’s, his phone lays immobile like a rock in his pocket. He peers over Shouto’s shoulder as he pulls out his phone, skimming the CODE RED text at the subject line.
“Shit.”
“Everyone here seein’ this?”
“Damn, Fatgum’s agency too?”
“We’re all on this, dude.”
“Darkness awaits us, once again.”
Mina’s voice rises higher than all the rest. “All right everyone, let's go! We know we all got called in, no need to read this long ass email while we can do it in the car.”
“I brought my van if people want to carpool!”
“Eijirou, you’re a lifesaver.”
Immediately, everyone shuffles out of the booth. Pulling out their wallets and shoving jackets over shoulders, the mass of heroes moves like a building wave across the bar to pay their tabs. Slapping cash on the bar, they’re out with a snap of a finger, piling through the doors and into the street. A sharp gust of fall air sneaks through the doors and a shiver travels down Izuku’s spine.
It’s only Shouto and Katsuki who lag behind, realizing that Izuku is frozen still in the commotion. They both look their own shades of uncomfortable, and Izuku wishes they’d just leave like everyone else so he can drop his facade and stare into the wood grain of the table as he finishes his drink.
“Deku.” He hasn’t heard that name in awhile. Katsuki only uses it if they’re in a professional hero setting or in the field. At least he sounds somewhat apologetic standing there with a twisted frown, as if the words he wants to say will magically fly from his mouth.
Izuku smiles, but it causes his two friends to frown deeper in response. “I’m okay. Go be a hero, the people need you guys if everyone’s getting called in.”
Katsuki clenches his fist, and stays silent. Shouto lets him stew for a second, before nudging his shoulder.
“Go pay the tab.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Katsuki grumbles without venom, but before he leaves he points at Izuku and says: “We’re not done here. Just…text me, or whatever.”
“It’s fine, Kacchan, just go,” he says, averting his eyes. He’s too tired to look straight at him and pretend not to be disappointed or sad.
His friends' gaze burns through his mind, and Izuku thinks he’s going to get an earful, but Katsuki stomps away to the bar instead.
“You know he didn’t tell you because he doesn’t like you seeing him weak,” Shouto explains, tucking his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
Izuku scoffs. How idiotic. “He sees me weak every time we get together. You all do.”
Shouto’s eyebrows lift in surprise, but his frown keeps its shape. “You’re not—”
Another buzz of his phone, the screen lights up with another alert. Katsuki is waiting at the front door.
“Go, Shouto. Don’t waste your worries on me, you have people to save,” Izuku says, maybe with a bit too much force, but he can’t help it.
“Okay, see you later then,” Shouto says in that soft voice of his, and the next moment he’s gone.
Finally, Izuku lets his shoulders slouch and face drop. Even though the bar is busy, a sudden emptiness weighs on Izuku like an anvil on his chest. Chugging the rest of his beer, he wraps his neck in a scarf and goes to pay his tab.
“You’re all set, man. Someone paid it for you.”
Izuku clenches his jaw. He doesn’t need charity.
Striding out through the bar doors, he’s momentarily blinded by the shining sun that’s just beginning to set. The streets are just as alive as the bar, the weekend rush is beginning to set in as night creeps towards the city. Izuku squints and rubs his eyes, a kaleidoscope of colors blooming behind his eyelids.
As he walks home, Izuku searches the intermittent crowds and alleys for a certain ghost hiding in the background. He intentionally takes the long way, but no figure comes to walk by his side, and the lingering heat behind his eyes threatens to overwhelm him with each step. Not even the slight feeling of eyes piercing through the back of his head manifests as he trudges up the stairs to his apartment. Silence greets him as he turns the key of his front door, and he barely makes it a single step before tears begin to stream down his face.
Exhaustion sets in, and as Izuku sinks beneath the waves of his comforter, he wonders how pathetic everyone would think him, wishing that the ghost of his enemy would appear to keep him company. He’s definitely hallucinating him anyways, there’s no logical way he’d somehow be able to materialize next to him. Even if it was possible, Shigaraki would never seek out the company of his murderer.
He’s dead. He killed Tomura Shigaraki. He had too.
The sheets on his bed twist up around him as he turns around and shoves his face into the pillow, hoping it will make sleep come quicker. The pillowcase is damp, and he’s too lazy to flip it around; he’ll just get the other side damp as well, so there’s no point.
Izuku never texts Katsuki.
Another dream, it’s the second within the week, but Izuku’s not going to complain. He just hopes it doesn’t morph into something worse.
He’s not anywhere recognizable. Just a vast landscape of faded colors and shapes, like an impressionist painting come to life. Brushstrokes that remind him of fluffy clouds surround him but nothing seems fully realized. Light blues and periwinkles streak across the background.
Suddenly, a force sends him ascending upwards, but it’s stable and comforting. He’s not afraid at this height, and the air doesn’t slice around his body like he remembers.
“I missed this,” he whispers, smile widening as he feels himself floating higher into the sky.
A muted sun rests in the distance, but it stays in place within his field of vision no matter how fast he flies. The tension releases from his body, as if he’s transformed into wind itself. It sifts through his hair, flows into his lungs, caressing his muscles and pressing up against him like a tender embrace.
He could stay like this forever, barreling towards the sun. Maybe he could convince himself he’d never fall back down.
When he wakes up, his bed feels like the clouds in the painted sky from his dream. It’s the most rested he’s felt in years.