Chapter Text
Nana collapsed onto the old couch. She tossed her gloves on the floor, and buried her face in her hands. The radiator buzzed through her head. For once, she welcomed it.
“So,” Sora began, “he’s really the kid you picked?”
“… They left him behind,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Don’t start yourself up ag-”
“His family,” Nana hissed. The words summoned up bile. “His whole goddammed family. The took off running while he was still in school.” Her voice cracked just a little. The memory of Toshi, alone and terrified under a single light surrounded by toxic darkness, flashed through her mind. For a single frame, she saw Kotaro. “They left him behind…”
Sora sat beside her. “And you found him. He’s safe now.”
“Is he!?” she snapped. Then calmer, “Sorry, sorry… I just, we don’t know how bad this really is yet.” Get it together. What if Toshi walks out and sees you like this?
“We’ll figure it out. Always do,” he assured.
“Thanks…” What would I do without you?
“… I might have a lead.”
Nana lit up. “Really?”
“It’s small, but better than nothing.” He got up to retrieve a map from the other room. A paper map. Like the old man he was becoming. It brought a smile to Nana’s face. “I met up with the local fire station to help them get extra generators to some shelters. Apparently, the dark didn’t fall everywhere at once.” He circled three spots on the map. “They got calls about ‘weird weather’ from these locations a few minutes before things got hazy. One of their guys is a speedster, and he went to check it out. Sky was yellow when he got there, but mostly normal at the station when he got back.”
“He outran the advance,” Nana mused aloud. “So it must have started near here.” She traced the three points with her finger. Downtown. All of downtown fit inside the radius. Kandor was no Tokyo, but that was still a wide area for two people to cover. Even more for one. “I need you to stay here with Toshi.”
“What!? No way in hell am I playing babysitter!”
“Sora, in case you haven’t noticed, the world is ending outside! I need someone to protect him if things go even further south!” she shouted back.
“Then why don’t you stay and let me go?”
“My quirk doesn’t run out of batteries.” Maybe not the best choice of words. Sure, she wasn’t a flashlight, but she was human. Humans get tired. Humans get overwhelmed when in over their heads. Nana watched those arguments dance across Sora’s face. But in the end, he relented.
“Rest first,” he sighed, turning away from her. “Get some food and sleep. You’ll get more done fresh.”
“Thank you, Sora.” She reached across the couch to squeeze his shoulder. He just grumbled. “I wouldn’t trust my student with anyone else.” Another memory. Sora curled up in the corner of the hospital room, rocking newborn Kotaro to a tune he hummed. The once warm thought burned. Get it together!
“… So it’s really him then? Number eight?” he spoke up.
Nana held down a tear, and smiled. “Yeah. You’ll see.”
Toshinori passed in and out of sleep. Too tired get up, too wired to stay down. During periods of consciousness, he worried Nana would burst in any moment and yell that they had to run again. From what, he didn’t know. Maybe what hurt him outside was some sort of gas that could leak inside. Something that could only work where it was dark. Maybe that’s why his master left the bedroom light on.
His body decided for him when to give up the effort. Hunger heightened his anxiety to a painful degree. The sort where you felt like you’d throw up anything that went down. Toshinori fought back the feeling until his head hurt so much he couldn’t fall back asleep again. Tired as ever, he crawled out of bed.
The apartment was silent. Unsettlingly so. Toshinori put his ear up to the door to double check. No aunts or uncles chatting loudly on the phone, nor cousins running about or arguing with one another. Their absence felt like a presence unto itself. A new sense of heaviness on top of everything else that weighted him down. He stepped out.
Large bulbs on a wire lit up the hall. Light came from the kitchen too.
I guess if the problem is the dark… he thought. But is that really it? A gas or the darkness itself? Nana probably figured more out. Where is she? No one in the small kitchen. Way smaller than he was used to. Noble deeds weren’t profitable, he supposed. The bag they used to raid Aunt Haga’s pantry rested on the counter, empty. Toshinori’s stomach growled. He didn’t want to compromise his master’s goodwill by digging through her kitchen without asking.
“Master…?” he asked cautiously.
“What’re ya doin?”
Toshinori jumped and turned around. Gran Torino, the Jet Hero, loomed from the doorframe. Standing almost a foot taller than Toshinori, he scowled from behind a black eye mask. He wore his hero costume, minus the yellow cape. Septem’s loose-cannon partner. Whom Toshinori hadn’t met officially.
He swallowed. “I was, uh, just looking for Miss Na- I mean Septem! Sh-she said to find her when I got hungry.”
“Hmph. Can’t even feed yourself, eh?” the man sneered. “You that helpless?”
“No! I’m just doing what she said!” Toshinori argued. “A-and I don’t wanna be rude and just start digging through her stuff!”
“Oh really? World’s ending and you’re worried about manners, how courteous.” He walked past him to a cupboard and tossed him a can of soup. It slipped out of Toshinori’s hands before he got a proper grip on it. While he stumbled, Gran Torino watched him silently, juggling his own soup between his hands. “What are ya waiting for?” He pointed to another cupboard full of bowls. “Kids eat first.”
Toshinori felt harsh eyes burn through him, even if he didn’t have the nerve to look. The man sitting across the table from him gave off an intimidating aura. Gran Torino was the second-best hero in the city, after Septem of course. He never lost a fight. He met villains looking for a street fight head on instead of trying to talk them down first like Nana did. And they were barely fights they went by so fast. A lot of the boys at school thought he was cooler than Septem.
They’re probably dead now… Toshinori swallowed. The stuff in his bowl looked more like slime than soup. He’d eaten it before, it was from his aunt’s house, but familiarity was hardy a comfort.
“It’ll only get worse cold,” Gran Torino said. Reluctantly, Toshinori took in a spoonful of the mush. He didn’t realize how cold his body was until he felt the warmth travel down every individual inch of his throat.
“Where did Septem go?” he ventured.
“To work,” he answered through a mouthful. “Try to figure out how to fix this mess. Probably look for more survivors to help, knowing her.”
“Alone?” Not that Toshinori doubted his master. Far from it. But still, the whole situation seemed like a lot for one person.
“Someone has to babysit you.”
Guilt hit like a sock to the gut. He coughed harshly. Some soup came back up. Not only was Toshinori keeping the hero from his duties, but if Nana hadn’t come to train him the other day, she would have been able to intercept the villain who caused all this. His classmates. The corpses in the street. All his fault. He wiped away a tear before it could fall in his soup.
“Crybaby too, eh?” Gran Torino scoffed. “And here I was thinking I’d find out what made you so special.”
“What, what do you mean?”
“One for All.” Toshinori froze. “Oh don’t give me that look. Imagine how I feel! I hold on to the most important secret in the history of quirks for almost two decades, and what happens? My partner brings back some random punk during a crisis and says she’s been training him to be her successor for months!”
“Wait, she didn’t tell you about me?” He asked once if he could meet Gran Torino. Nana just brushed him off. Said the man was busy, and not good with kids anyway. Toshinori didn’t exactly feel like a kid, but that seemed to hold. “I just assumed-”
“And I assumed she’d at least give me a heads up she was considering someone. But I guess we can’t get everything we want.” He huffed. “Not even from people we trust.” The man stared unmoving into his half empty bowl.
And now I’ve gotten between two friends… Unwelcome memories clawed their way forward. All the little comments from family about how he ‘ruined’ his mother. About how Toshinori had been a burden since he was born. The rational part of his brain knew it was all bullshit. His family were old-fashioned, hateful extremists who should have died out with the social acceptability of their beliefs last century. They were the burdens, not him. He wanted to help. Make the world better. For everyone, not just rich quirkless people. Everyone. And yet… He knotted his fingers together. Rationalization could only do so much against a lifetime of conditioning.
“She didn’t give it to you yet, did she?” Gran Torino cut through his spiral.
“No Sir,” he responded quietly. She still has time to change her mind.
“And what’s your quirk?” Toshinori hesitated. “Spit it out, kid.”
“I-I don’t have one…”
He sighed heavily. “Goddammit.” Frustration cracked to pity.
“But I won’t be for long!” he declared. Gran Torino looked at him funny. “I’m going to keep training! To be worthy of One for All! And I’ll keep training after I get it! I’ll be the greatest wielder there ever was!” The man’s expression narrowed. “I’ll become so strong, that I can walk into any fight or disaster with a smile on my face! Everyone who sees me will start to feel better even before it’s over! Because they know they’re safe! Because they know I won’t let them down! That’s the kind of hero I’ll be!”
“Hmph. Is that all?” he challenged.
Toshinori met it. “No. Because it won’t just be me!” Gran Torino raised a brow. “I’ll inspire others! Show them that just one person can make a difference. And they’ll all want to be that person, regardless of where they come from or how strong they are! And that will inspire everyone else to have faith in heroes!” He hadn’t realized he stood up.
“And what makes you so sure you can reach others?” He leaned back and crossed his arms.
“Nana reached me.” Toshinori sat back down, hands on his lap. “She… She made me feel like I matter.” Her kind words cut out the mold of self-loathing his family and classmates tried to replant everyday. He wondered if he would have fallen more in line if he didn’t have her ideals to chase. She’s the only person who’s ever been proud of me. “Everyone matters. And they deserve to feel like it.”
Gran Torino said nothing, but Toshinori could have sworn he saw the corner of a smile poking out from behind his fist.