Chapter 2

Rei follows him to school the next day.

There is nothing odd about this. She's followed him to school ever since that day in the second grade. It won't happen again, Izuku tells her, but she still follows. After years of practice, Izuku is the master of sitting still and perfectly attentive as she scampers to and fro, blowing papers off of desks to watch the students scramble to retrieve them, making the lights flicker so that some of them jump, or standing at the front of the room with the teacher and mimicking his poses and gestures. Izuku used to get in trouble for laughing, but not anymore.

Today, Izuku is silent in the midst of his rowdier classmates, smiling slightly on the outside and cracking up on the inside, as she performs the Hare Hare Yukai dance on Hanamura's desk three seats down, when his teacher's voice sends ice water shooting through his veins.

"Now that you mention it, didn't Midoriya want to go to Yuuei as well?"

Izuku's been to a lot of cemeteries. The next few seconds of silence makes him remember each one.

Then all at once, the room erupts into roars of laughter. Izuku stares straight ahead, letting his classmates' scorn lash at him from all sides. Rei gets angry then, her shriek of fury piping above their voices, but Izuku faces the front of the classroom and keeps staring until a miniature explosion blossoms up from his desk and sends him tumbling back to the floor.

"Forget having a weak-ass quirk." The voice makes Izuku's limbs lock where they are. He tries to look Bakugou in the eye; he really, really tries. "You don't even have a fucking quirk! So where do you get off putting yourself on the same level as me?"

Looking at his face is too much, so Izuku goes back to staring straight ahead. "I'm just applying to a school," he says. "It has nothing to do with you."

"Fuck that, Deku, I know a challenge when I see one!" A step forward, and Izuku stares straight ahead and waits. "Are you trying to fucking die?"

"No," Izuku says. "I'm trying to get into a school. That's all. I'm just… trying. There's nothing wrong with trying."

The class jeers with derisive laughter. Rei screams and claws at his tormentor to no avail, and it's a while before order is restored again.

By the time class is over, Izuku immerses himself in the safety of online news reports. Videos, photographs, and eyewitness accounts of heroics put him at ease, and the gross, ugly feelings die down as he reminds himself of his goals.

But Rei's warning hiss brings him back to the present, and on instinct he starts grabbing his belongings. As a familiar shadow falls across his desk and his ghostly friend's hiss becomes a threatening snarl, Izuku grabs his notebook and tries to shove it into his bag. The faster he gets his things together, the easier he can escape.

The notebook is snatched out of his hands and out of his reach. Rei lunges, clawlike fingers outstretched, but she passes harmlessly through Bakugou's face and chest and arms, and not once does he bat an eye. With a shriek of frustration she sends papers flying from nearby desks, and neither Bakugou nor any of his friends seem to notice.

"We're not done, Deku."

Rei's frustration might be contagious, because Izuku feels it welling up within himself. "It's just a high school app." He makes a grab for the notebook, to no avail. Bakugou twitches it out of his reach.

"Here's the thing, Deku. Try and get this through your tiny little quirkless brain. I'm gonna be the first and only student from this crappy school to get into Yuuei." A palm-sized explosion rips through the notebook, and Izuku makes a noise like he's just been punched in the stomach. "So I don't like it when a useless nobody like you comes along and challenges that."

He's too close. Rei doesn't like that very much, and he can see out of the corner of his eye what she turns into. It's hard to describe, and harder still to look at it for long without feeling his lunch creep back up his esophagus. He turns his eyes away from her and back to his classmates, and his brain immediately starts to scrub itself clean of the image, until all that sticks is dark, writhing hair and black pits where eyes should be. There's no blocking out the sounds, though. Izuku will take those sounds to the grave.

If nothing else, it puts things into perspective a little. The tightness in his chest loosens, and the power of speech returns to him. "If I'm so useless, then why do you think I'm a threat?" he asks.

"You're not!" The desk takes more abuse with another explosive punch. "Don't you ever fucking forget that! You're not a threat to me! You're nothing and you'll always be nothing! Try and remember that next time you try to pull shit like this!"

She's angry, so angry. Sometimes Izuku has to avert his eyes and remind himself that she can't hurt Bakugou, even if she tries. (And she has tried.)

"That's your problem, Bakugou," he says softly. "You always think everything is about you."

He regrets that in the next second, when Bakugou's hand closes around his shoulder.

There are a number of ways that Izuku can react to this. It is a small number, and does not include things like yelling for help, fighting back, or trying to apologize. The reason for this is that what Izuku does first, automatically, is panic.

To be specific, the number is two. One option is to fold like wet paper, break down crying, and let "flight" take over since "fight" isn't happening anytime soon. This option presents itself for a split second in Izuku's mind, and what little remains of the rational part of his brain promptly vetoes it. And so, instead, Izuku lets himself freeze.

A moment after Bakugou grabs him, Izuku goes dead-still. His limbs lock in place, his hands sit as motionless fists in his lap, and he stares blankly up at Bakugou's angry face.

(One of the fluorescent light panels in the ceiling goes out, and that's all anyone would be able to see of what Izuku's friend is up to right now. He can see the rest of it, and it's still less frightening than the flesh-and-blood teenager who won't let go of his shoulder.)

There's nothing he can do to stop Bakugou from squeezing his shoulder and shouting at him, so he does nothing. He simply sits and stares and keeps his mouth tightly shut and his fists in his lap and tells himself again and again, that squeezing and shouting is all that Bakugou is going to do. He tells himself, it won't happen again.

It won't.

The anger will pass. All Izuku has to do is wait.

He doesn't even have to wait long. Bakugou finishes saying his piece, and the ice in Izuku's blood vanishes the moment Bakugou's hand leaves his shoulder. Rei is still trying to hurt him. He wishes she wouldn't.

Still, Izuku is glad she's there, because when Bakugou hurls his notebook out the window, she dives after it. There's no fixing the scorch marks from Bakugou's quirk, but when Izuku finally makes his way on wobbly legs to the courtyard below, he finds her standing by the koi pond with his notebook on the ground by her bare feet, perfectly dry.

He's also appreciative later.

It's all in vain, but Izuku still appreciates it. They're walking together beneath an overpass, or at least he's walking and she's drifting beside him with her feet floating above the ground. Izuku steps over a manhole and walks on, unaware of his surroundings as he wrestles with his thoughts and fears and hopes. He's not paying attention until she appears before him.

Her face twists and contorts into a sickening mask. She hovers before him, her features dripping and melting in a snarl, her hair twisting and writhing around her like snakes. But she's not staring at him – she's staring past him.

Following her gaze, Izuku turns just as the slime emerges from the sewer. He has time to run, but it's not enough, and the slime is upon him before he even makes it out into the open. It covers him, sticky and clinging, oozing over his mouth and nose until darkness creeps around the edges of his vision. He sees her blinking in and out of view, and his ears ring and throb with her shrieking until his skull feels as if it could split in half, but it's not enough. The thing can't see her, and she can't touch it; her clawing fingers do even less harm than Izuku's.

His quirk really is useless in a fight, some small, barely-rational part of him realizes. He helps people no one else can see, solves problems that no one else knows need fixing, but here he is, suffocating under a criminal with a fancy quirk, and there's nothing he or any of his friends can do about it.

At times like this, like second grade, like all his middle school years spent getting beat up and shoved into lockers, he's as good as quirkless.

The panic that clouds his thoughts is purely instinctual, born of raw survival instinct. But as Izuku suffocates slowly, his last thought as his vision goes black is that he's going to join her soon, and maybe that means he might finally learn his best friend's real name.

Never a dull moment with this big lug, is there?

"You're getting slow," she tells him fondly. "Time was, you'd have caught him like a rat by the tail before he even made it to the manhole cover."

Toshi doesn't reply. He never does.

Truthfully, Shimura Nana is a poor judge of speed these days. He could be outpacing the bullet trains, and still she'd be right at his heels without breaking a sweat. Of course, that's not fair to say; she couldn't sweat if she tried. One can't sweat without skin, or breathe without lungs, or get tired without a body.

One can't do much of anything, really.

So she follows, and watches, and her brilliantly witty commentary falls on deaf ears.

Today, her faithful student has chased a criminal down into the sewer system. It's a petty criminal, hardly worth calling a villain, but Toshi never could ignore a cry for help. Unfortunately he's gotten a bit turned around, and there's little she can do to help or direct him.

No, all Nana can do is drift along behind him, as she's done for years, watching as he races and backtracks and finds the right path. The criminal's body is viscous sludge, and he's left tracks in his haste. Not that Nana was otherwise worried. Toshi always finds his way eventually.

The screaming makes her jump. She's been around for a while, long enough to know what's part of her new normal and what isn't. This isn't the scream of an innocent in danger; she knows it isn't, because if it were then Toshi would hear it and Toshi would haul ass straight to the source instead of loping along at the same place, following the patches of goo left by the culprit. This is the sort of scream that nails on chalkboard could only dream of matching, the kind of gut-wrenching noise that feels like screws driven into your ears, the kind that sounds like many voices in one, that shakes walls and rattles windows and becomes the soundtrack of your nightmares for weeks to come.

Not that Nana ever sleeps anymore.

But in spite of Toshi's obliviousness, he's still heading right toward it, and that means that Toshi is heading for something that he might not be ready for. And what kind of watchful ghost would she be if she stood by and let it happen?

In a blink she's ahead of him, following her ears and whatever other senses drive the dead to act. She leaves Toshi behind, and the trail of slime becomes thicker and thicker until she ascends up through a manhole and–

Oh dear God.

The slime villain is there, and he's not alone. Heaven help them all, there are children here. One of them is caught in his grasp, enveloped in slime like he's drowning in a living swamp. His movements ebb and slow, getting weaker and weaker by the second as he loses consciousness. And the other…

The other is still screaming, form shifting and twisting as she howls fit to wake the dead. Only her size and the vague impression of a child-sized nightshirt clue Nana in to the fact that she's looking at a little girl and not some eldritch demon that crawled up from the depths of a fever dream. The rest of her is all writhing, twisting shadows, fingers that stretch like the shadows of branches through a dark window, wild tendrils of black hair, and a face that burns Nana's memory white.

She screams, howls, not with fear but rage, as her spider-claw fingers rake uselessly at the enveloping sludge. She's attacking the villain, not the boy; with a jolt Nana realizes that she's trying to get him free.

And then Toshi is there.

The fight is a blessedly short one, if it can even be called a "fight" at all. In two shakes, the villain is ensnared in a pair of soda bottles, and Toshi is gathering up the unconscious boy and carrying him out into the sunlight. The little girl is calm now, the shadows still, and Nana finds herself looking at a child of eight or nine, all pale skin and thin bones and dark, tangled hair. Her black eyes blink up at Nana, curious but not hostile the way some poltergeists can be. Nana smiles at her, and after a moment's hesitation and a glance toward the still-living boy, the little ghost smiles back.

It's an unsettling smile, to be sure, but a sincere one.

"Friend of yours?" Nana asks. The girl nods. "Ah. That's very loyal of you. Don't you ever get lonely? He'll have a long life to live, you know."

The girl wrinkles her nose with a wry smile, like she finds Nana's words funny somehow.

It's a relief when the boy awakens, and highly amusing when he goes into starstruck conniptions over meeting Toshi. Nana wishes she could sneak up and give her old student bunny-ears, something to show this poor kid that he's the biggest dweeb and there's nothing to be nervous about, but it's not like the boy could see her anyway, so she hangs back.

The girl's fingers are like ice cubes when she takes Nana's hand. She tugs at it until she has Nana's attention, and points to her stammering friend with an eager smile.

"What?" Nana looks at him, but beyond making an adorable fool of himself in front of her student, he isn't doing anything noteworthy.

The girl points, more urgently, but she doesn't speak, and Nana isn't fluent in children, much less ghost children.

"I'm sorry, I don't – oh hell." Toshi takes off then – literally, like a rocket – with the boy clinging to his leg, and it's all Nana can do to keep from laughing herself to a second death as she follows.

"Is it possible for me to become a hero like you, even without a quirk?" the boy asks, and isn't that a trick of a question.

Nana's a bit distracted from it, though, seeing as how there's only a rapidly-dissipating cloud of smoke standing between Toshi and an unwanted discovery. She wishes she could wave her arms and cause a distraction, clap her hands over the boy's eyes, something to help Toshi hide, but it's no use. A simple gust of wind reveals Toshi's sickly, gaunt true form, and the boy leaves off his embarrassed rambling to make a noise not unlike a stepped-on mouse.

"Rotten luck," Nana sighs, though she knows Toshi can't hear her. "You might as well make a break for it before this kid plasters your sorry mug all over Instagram."

"W-what – what's going on – you're not–" the boy splutters.

"C'mon, just leave already," Nana urges. It's like yelling at characters on a movie screen sometimes. "You'll be back to full strength tomorrow and it's not like anyone's gonna believe him if he tells them he saw All-Might deflate like a sad muscly balloon animal."

The kid's face tightens, eyes twitching, with what Nana abruptly recognizes as a stifled snort of laughter. She glares at him. Is he… laughing at her student's misfortune? Before she can get properly angry, he quickly schools his face into a more neutral, curious expression.

"You're..." he says quietly, eyes wide with alarm. "Did… something happen to you?"

Toshi opens his mouth to reply and vomits blood instead.

Nana winces with sympathy, mostly for Toshi but just a little bit for the boy, too. That must be quite a fright, seeing the Symbol of Peace cough like he's about to die. She glances at him, idly wondering which category he'll fall into. Will he be a screamer? A fainting hemophobe? Or will he be one of the responsible quick-thinkers that go for their phones and have to be talked out of calling an ambulance? Ever curious and uninvolved, Nana looks to see his reaction.

And…

There isn't one.

Wait, no, that's a blink. He's blinking at least. Of course, he did just go for an impromptu flight through the city skyline, so maybe he just has dry eyes.

"Are you okay?" the boy asks, and that's about it.

"Fine," Toshi answers tersely, wiping his mouth on his arm. "Look… I'm gonna need you to keep this to yourself, all right?"

And that's that. Toshi changes the subject and… kid just goes with it.

O… kay…

Nana steps closer as Toshi explains his condition and the boy listens. Being dead means being an observer, and being an observer means chasing whatever sparks her interest for the sake of staying sane sometimes. There's no point in ignoring curiosity; she's already been thoroughly killed, and while satisfaction might not bring her back, it will certainly keep the threat of tedium at bay.

He's sort of small, this boy. Thin, even by gawky-teen standards. He's the sort of kid that blends into the background without even trying. The only remotely unique things about him are the slight greenish sheen to his hair, and the dark circles under his eyes. There's a pallor to his face, too, which would be unsettling if it didn't make his sprinkling of freckles stand out.

But his appearance isn't what's catching Nana's attention and holding it – it's how he's taking Toshi's story. Or rather, how he isn't taking it.

He doesn't interrupt, beyond polite little noises and responses to show he's still listening. His face doesn't change. There's no surprise, no horror, not even revulsion when Toshi shows him the ugly, gnarled scar on his side. The boy just takes it all in with the same expression of sad, sad sympathy.

"That must have been awful," he says quietly, when Toshi pauses. "I never realized."

"That's good," Toshi says, adjusting his shirt again. "I haven't told the public about my condition, and I don't intend to. I'm the Symbol of Peace, after all. The hero who rescues people with a smile. I can't succumb to evil or fear."

"I know," the boy murmurs, almost too quietly to be heard. "That's, um. That's why I want to be a hero. I want to be that kind of hero. Like you." And oh, Nana wants nothing more than to put this kid in her pocket and take him home.

Toshi sighs heavily. "Look. The truth is, there's not much behind that smile. Glory and joy don't enter into it when it's enough work just to stay alive and save everyone you can. I smile to distract myself from the fear, and the pressure."

"I… see." The boy looks thoughtful at this, brow furrowed as he takes in what Toshi's telling him. "I kind of… know what that's like." He shakes his head as if clearing it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you – this was really stupid of me and – I won't tell anyone, so you don't have to worry about that." The boy manages a nervous, apologetic smile.

"Thank you," Toshi says, and means it. "And with this in mind, to answer your question... no. I don't think you can be a hero without a quirk."

The smile vanishes as if it's been slapped off his face.

"This is the hazard of the job," Toshi continues. "And this is what happens with a quirk. Without one, and without a useful one for combat, you don't have much hope. It's dangerous, and believe me – however cool it seems, it isn't worth your life if you don't have a quirk to protect yourself and others."

This boy and his face are breaking her heart now. "Little harsh, there, Toshi," she mutters. "And hypocritical, God."

Nana remembers when this question came up, the day she tripped over a lanky kid with a surplus of heart and an unfortunate dearth of power to back it up. Why yes, a quirkless kid can become a hero, provided they gain a quirk at some point, but how rare is that? It's not as if Nana or Toshi could hand out One For All to every hopeful who wants it badly enough.

Doesn't stop the look on this boy's face from making her want to hug him. Toshi tosses out the suggestion to take up police work like it's a consolation prize, and Nana winces because now the kid looks like he's about to cry.

"Now look what you've done," she says with a flat look at her student. "See? There – there. There's his heart breaking, that's the exact moment it shatters. You monster."

She follows him off the roof, leaving the boy with his eyes welling with tears and a little girl ghost patting him sympathetically. Well, that's that, she thinks.

Before the day is even over, Midoriya Izuku whacks a slime monster in the eye and sobs as he accepts Toshi's offer to take on One For All, and Nana has never been so pleased to be wrong.

Izuku's still in a euphoric daze as he meanders home. His legs are just barely sturdier than jelly, and his mind is an echo chamber for All-Might's words.

You can become a hero. You can become a hero. You can become a hero.

"I should've thrown my schoolbag at a supervillain months ago," he says out loud. Rei gives a rattling cackle that sends a stray cat spitting into the bushes.

It's not until he sets foot on his doorstep that the happy, disbelieving fog breaks, and a harsh unforgiving realization hits him like a sunbeam straight to the eyes.

"Oh my God. Oh my God I'm not quirkless."

She blinks owlishly at him.

"I just lied to All-Might. I just lied to his face." Izuku's heart sinks, and he covers his face with both hands. "I just looked the Symbol of Peace in the eye and I lied through my teeth and oh God I'm an awful person and Mom." The second realization is no less brutal than the first. In a split second, a glaring flaw in his half-baked plan makes itself abruptly known.

He'd said yes. Of course he'd said yes. All-Might, the Symbol of Peace, the Number-One Hero, the greatest active pro that Izuku had ever heard of, the man whose face was plastered all over his bedroom walls, had stretched out a hand and offered to personally train him as a successor and pass a powerful quirk into his keeping. What was he supposed to do, shake his hand and say no thanks?

"Mom's never gonna agree to this," he whispers.

She gives him a flat look.

"I can't just not tell her!" Izuku hisses, checking his surroundings to make sure no one can see or hear him arguing with a ghost. "I already have a quirk. She knows what that quirk is. If I suddenly start growing a new one, she'll-"

The front door opens, and Izuku could swear he loses at least five years of his lifespan. "Izuku!" He's pulled into a hug before he has the chance to react. "Izuku, oh my goodness, I saw the news and I was just about to call you. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Mom I did a stupid thing," slips out of Izuku's mouth before he fully knows what he intends to do. "I did several stupid things."

His ghost friend's palm makes a faint smacking noise as it meets her forehead.

Mom fusses over him as they go inside, checking and double checking that he really is unhurt. Within minutes, his shoes and jacket are off and they're sitting down to dinner. Izuku stares down at his plate, his brows knitted together. Somewhere in the walls, a disembodied voice whispers something incoherent before its owner moves on.

"Izuku?" He's not looking at her face, but he can hear how worried Mom is. "You know, honey… whatever it is, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"I met All-Might today," Izuku says.

"Oh!" his mother squeaks in surprise. "Oh my goodness, you – wow. That's amazing! I'm so happy for you, sweetheart, but… what's wrong, then?"

"That's the thing, nothing's wrong," Izuku says, looking up at last. "Everything's… amazing, actually, it's just. You might not… feel the same way."

Mom frowns. "I… don't understand. I think it's wonderful that you got to meet your hero."

"He wants to train me."

The frown vanishes, and Mom stares at him with an utterly gobsmacked look that would have been funny in any other situation. "I beg your pardon."

"See, he – I–" Izuku stops, heart plummeting. The words stick in his throat, and before him lies a dilemma.

He has two options. Either he can lie to his mother and eventually scramble to find a way to explain to her when he suddenly gains super strength, or he can tell her the truth and betray All-Might's confidence by revealing the secret of his quirk, and possibly his injury as well.

This choice sucks. Today is becoming less and less like a dream come true.

"Izuku?" Mom prompts. "Um. I'm going to need a little context, sweetie."

"He told me something about himself," Izuku says finally. "Something he doesn't want people to know. But I can't do this without telling you about it, and I can't tell you about it without telling you that thing. So I'm just… stuck."

"Oh." Mom's face falls. "Oh, sweetheart. That's a tough position to be in." She frowns, but it's more of a thoughtful frown as she hunts for a solution. "This thing he doesn't want people to know about. Does it put you in danger?"

"No," Izuku says. "Not really."

"Does it put anyone else in danger?"

"Just him," Izuku says, remembering the twisted scar.

"Okay." Mom nods, still looking thoughtful. "If it's not something that's going to hurt you, Izuku, then… I guess it's all right if I don't know. But only then, hear?" Izuku nods. "Is there a way to tell me the rest without betraying anyone's confidence?"

"I'll… try."

"And if you can't, then… I'd really rather know about it, Izuku."

"I know, Mom. Okay." He takes a deep breath. "All-Might's… looking for a successor. His quirk… um." There's no getting around this one. "He can pass on his quirk, Mom. He asked me if I wanted to take it."

Mom drops her chopsticks with a clatter. She stares at him, shocked speechless.

"I… I didn't tell him about my power," Izuku continues. His eyes move downward to his plate again. "He thinks I'm quirkless. But he – he thinks I have what it takes to take his power." He pauses, throat bobbing as he swallows. "Mom, I… I told him yes."

"Izuku!"

"I know!" Izuku bursts out, dropping his own chopsticks. "I know, I know, it was stupid but – it's All-Might, Mom! And it's me! What did you think I was going to say?"

"You should have talked to me first," Mom brings her hands to her face. From across the table, Izuku can see them shake.

"You weren't there to talk to," Izuku says quietly. "So I'm talking to you now. Mom, I really want to do this."

"I know, Izuku, I know, but-"

"I don't-" His voice catches in his throat. "I don't think I'm gonna get another chance like this, Mom. I..." Guilt bubbles up in his throat, and he feels tears prick at his eyes, because his impossible dreams are suddenly within reach but she might say no. "I almost didn't tell you, but… you know about my quirk already, and I couldn't have hidden it from you if I suddenly got a new one, and-"

"You always tell me." Her voice is soft, her face hidden behind her hands. Izuku can't tell what she's feeling, and that scares him. "No matter what, you always tell me, because if you don't and you get in trouble then-"

"I know."

"Izuku." Slowly, her hands fall back to her lap, and Izuku finds it hard to look at her face for long. "This is – this is life-changing. And you're only fourteen. I don't know if this is a good idea. Do you – do you even know what he has planned?"

"All I know," Izuku says, "is that All-Might wants to train me, and this is the only chance I've ever had to become a hero."

"Izuku-"

"Mom." His voice breaks. "I need to – I need to tell you what happened. Mom, it was Bakugou." He sees her expression turn to stone. "No, I mean – he was in trouble. I was attacked first, and then the guy went after Bakugou, and…" His breath hitches. "M-mom, he was scared."

The stony look in her eyes breaks.

"He was so scared, Mom. He was just as scared as I was when – and I didn't even care that he – I didn't even care about anything he's done, I just – it had him, and-" Mom's shape blurs as the tears spill over, and Izuku struggles to speak through the shaking and the tight pain in his throat. "And all I could think was, I didn't want to see him that way. Not yet. Not ever. I-I don't ever want to see him that way. So I tried to stop it, and Mom, I couldn't do anything. All I could do was just – slow it down. I threw my bookbag and that was it. And then it went right back to hurting him a-and I couldn't do anything else. And then All-Might showed up and – and it was just over." He sniffles, wiping his tears on his sleeve. "I know I have a quirk and I know it's special and unique but I can't save anyone with it. I can't save people's lives. All I can do is talk to them after they're already dead." Arms wrap around him, warm and soft, and Izuku sobs into his mother's sweater. "I don't ever want to feel like that again."

"Oh, sweetheart." Her voice wobbles and Izuku wonders if she's going to cry too. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you were scared and I'm sorry you had to feel like that." She presses a kiss to the side of his head and rubs his back gently. "You're good, you hear me? You're a good person and the world is lucky you're in it."

"I can do this," Izuku tells her softly. "I know I can. And Mom, if I don't take this, if I don't try, I'm gonna regret it forever."

"I..." Her breath hitches a little, and she lets it out in a sigh. "I… I know, sweetheart. I know. And I think..." She pulls back, fussing a little with the hair falling into his eyes. She takes another deep breath. "I think if I stop you, then… I'll probably regret it, too."

Izuku blinks, suddenly wide-eyed, tears drying on his face. "You mean..."

"I want you to be safe," she says. "I want so badly for you to be safe. But I want you to be happy more." Gently, Mom cups the side of his face in her hand. "Will this make you happy?"

"More than anything," Izuku whispers.

"Well." After a moment, she offers a brave little smile, and somehow it seems even brighter than All-Might's. "All right then. Tell me what I can do to help."

Rei shrieks in triumph, taking out the kitchen light and sending a metal spatula flying across the room.