Chapter Text
Torino Sorahiko knew he hadn't seen everything. It wasn't hard to realize that there was more to the world than he had or would experience in his life, but he had never anticipated meeting someone like Midoriya Izuku. The kid reminded him of so many people that were now gone, while still being completely himself.
He was like Nana with his boundless determination, like Toshinori with his enthusiasm to help others, like so many young heroes he had grown up alongside and since lost. And yet there was something different about him too, a harsh edge he wasn't used to seeing in younger heroes.
Midoriya also reminded Sorahiko of his grandfather, the first quirked person in his family line, and the one who was enlisted in the army against his wishes. Torino Genpaku was a cynical old man by the time Sorahiko met him. On his grandfather's knee, he'd learned to take and exploit every freedom people would give him because they could be taken away so easily. Sorahiko had gotten a quirk much like his, and that was probably the only reason Grandfather had been so concerned with his future.
Grandfather never talked about the wars he fought in. He never acknowledged the medals he'd been awarded except with the names of the people who didn't make it home after that mission. After he was gone, Sorahiko had found a notebook filled with names and small pictures of the people they belonged to, the details becoming less and less distinct the further into the book he read. There was also a simple description of who the person was or a notable story about them. He had considered turning the notebook over to a quirk historian, someone who would recognize and respect what it was, but he couldn't bring himself to part with it. As much as it was a piece of history, it was part of his grandfather, too, an existing record of the people he had known, people who were sacrificed to battles they didn't believe in simply because they had been born differently.
It made far too much sense that Midoriya would remind him so much of his grandfather. They both grew up as part of the societal minority, and that shaped who they became. Sorahiko's father had mentioned once that Genpaku would have become an artist instead of a soldier if he'd been given half a chance. But he had been born with a quirk and society had decided he owed them something for his existence.
Midoriya was different, though. He had experienced the worst of society, clearly, had heard all of the people who told him that he couldn't do what he wanted to do, and he had become a hero anyway. Society had decided that Midoriya's existence had to be earned, and he'd come back and shoved all of that in their faces by becoming the one thing they said he couldn't be.
Listening to some of what he'd gone through, having him lay out exactly what it was like for him growing up, it made Sorahiko want to destroy something.
"People looked at someone who was quirkless and didn't see a person; they saw a victim."
There was no debating that there was something dark in the kid. He managed it well, turned it into something useful, but it never stopped existing. It could never be satisfied.
When he'd told his grandfather he was going to become a hero, the man stared at him for a long time, like he was trying to memorize Sorahiko's face.
"You do it," the old man had said. "And you make sure it's what you want to do. You make it yours. You do it for yourself. And at the end of the day, you look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if this is what you want to do. Do it every day. If the answer ever becomes 'no', listen to yourself. This world is different. If you want to stop, you can. You are not trapped. Do not trap yourself because you think you need to. You have the only answers that matter."
It hadn't made sense to him at first. He couldn't imagine not wanting to be a hero. But, like most things his grandfather said, it made sense in time, and only after he hadn't been following the advice for a long time.
Sorahiko had burnt himself out and he was ignoring all the signs of it. He still wanted to help people, he was still working, but it was like part of his soul had detached. He had looked around and seen all the new heroes, all of them bright-eyed and eager, and he knew he'd become jaded. He was catching the same kind of criminals, hearing the same lines of defiance out of them before he turned them over to the police.
He finally remembered his grandfather's advice. And when he looked in the mirror, he hated the image of himself he saw. He wasn't sure right then that he still wanted to be a hero because all the reasons he'd had for it before seemed so shallow and transparent.
And then Nana came along and challenged him all over again to be something greater than himself. She was larger than life, full of energy and light and all of the things he felt like he killed on his own road of life. He wasn't in love with her, and she wasn't in love with him, no matter what people tried to insinuate, but their relationship was still somehow deeper than any other friendship he'd had in his life.
Shimura Nana had stormed in and forced him to care about things again by shifting his perspective four centimeters to the left. She showed him how to approach a situation by paying attention to what people weren't saying, heroes, civilians, and villains alike. There were so many people in pain and hiding it with false confidence, so many who felt shoved into one role in life or another and just settled for that. And when he turned this new perspective inward, he saw how he was guilty of the same thing.
He'd written up his grandfather's words and stuck them up on the bathroom mirror the next day. Toshinori saw them once, shortly after Nana had decided to make him her successor. The kid was scared of him, but Sorahiko caught him staring more than once over the next few days like he was trying to figure him out. After all, how many heroes put the words 'if you want to stop, you can' up in a place where they would see them every morning and every night? To someone who didn't understand it, it looked like an apologist letter for selfishness.
He didn't think Toshinori understood it in the end. The kid didn't slow down enough to feel much of anything, probably because of how they lost Nana. For his part, Sorahiko had been avoiding full hero work since All for One killed her because he wanted the time and space to grieve. Now he was grieving all over again for Toshinori, who fought long and hard to be where he was, only to fall in exactly the same way and pass One for All onto the one person who probably needed it least. And would be most conspicuous, developing a quirk late in his twenties.
His watch beeped suddenly. Toshinori's sole sidekick, Sasaki Mirai, had requested a meeting at the All Might Agency. He hadn't said why, but the tone he'd been using over the phone was enough indication that he was angry about something. Sorahiko didn't have enough contact with Mirai to be at fault, so there were only a few things that the conversation was likely to be about. He had a funny feeling it was going to be about Midoriya. He had set an alarm for when he needed to leave, so now he didn't have any more time he could waste. Unless he wanted to piss the kid off, but that would just make any conversation they were going to have that much more painful.
As a general rule, Sorahiko didn't often wear his hero clothes. He'd shrunk in height over the years, and the design had gone through a couple of iterations since his more active days, but it was still obviously a hero costume. And it was what he decided to wear while meeting Mirai. The phrase "better safe than sorry" was one he liked to live by, and it had saved him more than once over the years. While he doubted that Mirai was going to attack him—it wasn't like he was part of the decision-making when Toshinori gave One for All to the literal last person standing in the fight—he had found that transit went much smoother when there was an obvious hero on the train. At the very least, it was a deterrent for any would-be criminals and tended to make them second-guess whether or not they wanted to end up in a holding cell by the end of the day.
As anticipated, his commute to Mirai's office continued unmolested and there were at least two kids that immediately stepped off the train the instant they noticed Sorahiko looking at them. Which was proof enough that he hadn't lost his instincts despite spending little time actively patrolling in the last few years.
It was painful staring up at Toshinori's building, more than he had been expecting it to be. The loss was still new, but it was somehow so much worse because it was yet another young hero Sorahiko had outlived. Another One for All user that had fallen to the monster who haunted the dark alleys of history, consolidating his strength and promising power to anyone desperate enough to believe his lies. And Toshinori's funeral was barely attended. He was All Might, yes, but he was Yagi Toshinori as well and the number of people who had known him didn't even number on all ten fingers.
The hero would be remembered in lights and movies and merchandise. The man would be forgotten in fifty years when all the people who knew him were dead. Sorahiko wished Midoriya had been given the chance to meet the man behind the hero. Perhaps parts of Toshinori's life were steeped in the hypocrisy of his beginnings verses his career, but they were driven in similar ways. They would have been good friends, maybe. At the very least, they probably would have had interesting conversations comparing how they had grown up and how that shaped them.
Toshinori would have never quite been the level of feral scrapper Midoriya is, but he never really needed to be. Once Nana had gotten involved, the kid's path to heroism was more or less confirmed. With a quirk. Midoriya dragged himself into heroism through sheer stubbornness, managing to get the attention of the most terrifyingly intelligent being on the planet as he went. This secured his journey in a different way because Nezu never could resist an underdog story.
Sorahiko abruptly realized that he'd been staring up at the tower lost in thought for much too long. Sure, he wasn't the only one who seemed to gaze listlessly at the building that once held the Number One Hero and never would again, but he was supposed to be a bit better than the average civilian at controlling and managing his emotions. And if Mirai happened to look at the security footage while he was waiting impatiently, he was going to be insufferable.
Sorahiko scanned his license at the door. He may not have been technically employed at Might Tower, but he was listed under Toshinori as one of the founding members. As such, his ID card had always been capable of getting him through security and into the building.
Mirai's office on the thirteenth floor—because the boy had decided that superstition was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard of and decided to fly in its face wherever possible—could have doubled as a funereal shrine for All Might. The hero, not Toshinori. There were pieces of merchandise on display across every available surface. A rug with All Might's face took up the majority of the floor space, the walls and shelves were covered in carefully displayed posters and action figures. And, for some ungodly reason, there were not one, but three different images of All Might painted across the ceiling. Sorahiko barely managed to swallow down the question of how much of the merchandise was commissioned and how much was official—and only because Mirai would probably give him some bullshit story about how all of it is technically official.
"You wanted to talk to me?" he asked instead.
"Yes," Mirai said, resting his elbows on his desk and steepling his unnaturally long fingers. "I hope you're doing well. Please, do sit down."
Sorahiko moved over to the only chair that didn't have Toshinori's face on it, flinging the throw pillow that did have it at the long couch instead. "About as well as can be expected," he admitted. "This was all rather sudden and it's hitting in different ways every time I turn around. Like this place. Building looks a little less bright without him in it."
Mirai's expression faltered, and he nodded. "I keep expecting to hear his voice when I pick up the phone, but it's never him. Most recently, it's reporters demanding to know what's going to happen with the agency now that he's gone. As if the entire infrastructure we've built isn't enough to survive this."
It was difficult not to bristle at the unspoken insinuation that Mirai had been instrumental in making the agency what it was. Were there a few things he brought to the table? Of course. But he wasn't the sole reason the agency succeeded or failed. "Well," Sorahiko said, letting the lingering frustration leave with a deep sigh, "some people don't want to see past what they expect to see."
Let it never be said that he couldn't be petty. And Mirai could be remarkably short-sighted for someone with a foresight quirk. What was worse was that most times he wasn't even aware of his own tunnel vision and refused to believe anyone but Toshinori when it was brought to his attention. Toshinori, who doted heavily on the kid because he really didn't understand how to relate to people in normal ways.
"I didn't ask you to come here to commiserate about nosy reporters, however," Mirai admitted as he laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them, the jab sailing right over his head as usual. "I wanted to get your opinion on Okami."
Sorahiko fought off another heavy sigh. "He's a good kid. Stubborn as a fucking mule and more than prepared to fight gods if he needs to, but that's just the sort of charm he's got."
"Yes, but it's my understanding that he was quirkless before he received One for All. And he's much too old to be able to reasonably explain away a quirk emergence. Surely he should turn it over to someone else."
"I don't think you're giving the kid enough credit." Sorahiko remembered the look on Midoriya's face when he shattered his arm. He didn't even look like he was in pain, in spite of how his arm had turned to a red-purple noodle of flesh that happened to be attached to him. The kid was resigned, grim, but there was a dark sort of fire in his eyes, the determination to beat this weakness he had discovered. "He managed to walk away from All for One largely unscathed without a quirk to back up his bullshit. Think about what he could do with one. With this one."
"That's another concern of mine. He managed to walk away more or less unscathed when Yagi died. And, according to his report, All for One was still alive. The medic team lost contact with him when he went to assess All for One's condition and he conveniently claims someone knocked him out before he could call anything in." Mirai began drumming his fingers on his desk. "There is a period of fifteen minutes where his actions cannot be accounted for, and we only have it on his word that some unknown third party knocked him out and removed All for One's unconscious body. Or that All for One was indeed unconscious. Beyond that, how did someone without a quirk become a hero in the first place?"
"Hard fucking work." Sorahiko leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "You haven't met the kid, have you?"
"I hardly see what that has to do—"
"Everything, idiot. Have you even bothered to look up his record? Because I have. Midoriya has barely been active for seven years and he's had to scrounge for every damn thing he's managed to achieve. Most of the time, his efforts aren't even on a level where most people would even hear of him. He works mostly with his local precinct. This job? This was an outlier. They called him in because he didn't have a quirk. Because someone who doesn't have a quirk to lose isn't going to be thrown off against a villain who steals them. About the only thing that could have thrown him off in that fight was giving him a quirk, which is something a stingy bastard like All for One would never do unless he could be sure it benefited him." Sorahiko huffed. "He's not Toshinori. He was never going to be, and he never wanted something like this in the first place."
"Then he should—"
"That being said," he continued over Mirai, "Midoriya's an underground hero. You don't survive long without taking every advantage you can get. And that sure as hell includes learning to use a weapon that was handed to you in the heat of battle. The kid's smart," Sorahiko admitted. "Smarter than most people have any right to be without a quirk, but it's not like he had something to back him up this whole time. He built his own agency because no one else would take him, he fought against the Hero Commission just to get his damn license approved, and he's had plenty of people tell him he's going to fail. He's not just going to hand over One for All because you think he's too delicate to handle it, and I would hazard a guess that if you tried it, he'd laugh in your face."
"But surely he must realize that it's impossible to manifest a quirk so late in life. He can't tell anyone—"
"And he's not going to. The why's and the how's are a conversation you should have with him yourself. Hell, it would probably do you some good to talk to Midoriya about a lot of things." A thought occurred to him, and he paused. "Mirai, what do you think Toshinori's original quirk was?"
"What?" Mirai looked briefly caught off-guard, which was a minor miracle in itself. "What do you mean?"
"What sort of quirk did Toshinori have before Nana gave him One for All? Throw out a wild guess."
The look of confusion on Mirai's face was well worth the trip, but it served as one more bit of evidence that Toshinori had attempted to distance himself from his biological origins. As Sorahiko thought about it, the kid barely existed legally speaking before Nana gave him the quirk, so it made sense that he would want to put as much distance between the undervalued and unremarkable child that was Yagi Toshinori and the future Number One Hero that was All Might.
And that was a bit painful, even secondhand. As someone who had lost his drive and himself on the path to heroism more than once, it hurt to think that Toshinori had done the same damn thing on purpose. Midoriya proved that a quirkless person could be a hero. That they could be a successful hero, even, and that was worth far more than becoming the Symbol of Peace. By achieving his license, Midoriya did more to show that everyone had the capacity to be a hero than all the hundreds of heroes who said it for the cameras every day.
"I assumed it was some kind of strength augmentation quirk amplified by One for All," Mirai replied slowly. "Or at the very least something that could be amplified well."
Sorahiko scoffed. "Let me guess, you don't like multiplying by zero."
Mirai straightened, a severe frown pulling at the corners of his lips. A natural expression for the man. "I fail to see what that has to do with anything."
"Toshinori was quirkless. Before Nana took a chance on him, that kid was kicked around by life just as much as Midoriya was. Maybe a little less because quirklessness wasn't as uncommon when Toshinori was growing up as it is now." He huffed. "So, no. By your logic, he didn't have something advantageous that would be amplified by One for All." Deciding to twist the knife just that little bit more, he added, "If we were to go back in time and apply your arguments to Toshinori, there would never be an All Might. Nana didn't make Toshinori what he became. The kid came with his dream all by himself, crazy and reckless and willing to throw everything onto the last shot he had. The only difference between him and Midoriya is that Midoriya made himself a hero first before he got a quirk."
"That can't be right."
"I'm the one who met the wet behind the ears thirteen-year-old Nana practically imprinted on. You didn't meet him until he had achieved the impossible dream."
There was something so satisfying about the slack-jawed expression of shock on Mirai's face. Because he was always so focused on the future, on whatever was coming next and how to get as much as he wanted out of it, he tended to miss the very basic things. Toshinori may not have mentioned his past quirklessness, but All Might's quirk was a closely guarded secret. As was his civilian identity. This wasn't because they were particularly concerned about his enemies tracking him down. Toshinori could definitely handle any of the regular villains that came after him, and All for One was going to be a problem no matter how actively they took that fight to one another. But Yagi Toshinori barely had a legal presence, and the presence he did have was listed as quirkless.
"It's actually surprising you didn't know that," Sorahiko admitted, gesturing vaguely at the room around them. "By your own admission, you are his biggest fan. I would have thought you'd have looked up his civilian identity as well. It's not like he was hiding it from you, and his quirk record on it is perfectly clear. Since, as you so astutely pointed out, quirks arriving so late in life are ludicrous at best."
He wasn't going to be able to push his point much harder before Mirai broke and dealing with a Mirai who was pushed to the breaking point was not something he wanted to do with his afternoon. He tended to get snobbish and sharp with everyone, and that wasn't something he should inflict on the rest of the people in the building. The rest of the workers in Might Tower certainly wouldn't have deserved that sort of treatment since Sorahiko was the one winding him up.
"What would you have me do, then?" Mirai demanded. "We need to keep track of One for All. And clearly All for One isn't permanently out of the picture, even if he is laying low at the moment."
"I'm working on training the kid. Nezu has given the both of us free reign to use the facilities at UA to get Midoriya's new quirk under control—and, yes, that does mean he's been fully read up on the situation. If you think Toshinori was able to keep something like that from Nezu, you are greatly overestimating his capacity for subtlety."
"It would be a dark day indeed if I began to doubt Nezu's loyalties."
"Then maybe you shouldn't doubt the kid." Sorahiko grinned. "He's one of Nezu's favorites, after all. I'm sure you of all people understand what that means."
And for once, Mirai looked properly alarmed by the very idea of Midoriya Izuku. It took a certain sort of person to draw the rat's attention. To keep that attention was something further beyond it. Nezu valued intelligence that came close to his own—something rarely achieved without a quirk. Underdogs could be interesting, but they needed to prove that they were willing to do whatever was necessary to achieve their dreams to hold Nezu's interest. Midoriya Izuku had done that and was still doing that ten years later.
"I think I need to look up his file," Mirai admitted, somewhat sheepishly.
"You do that." Sorahiko stood up and started making his way to the door. Then he stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "And next time, why don't you go and have a chat with Midoriya instead of wasting your time and mine? I think you'd find it far more productive."
It was a bit of a cheap shot to take, but Mirai deserved it just a bit. It was quite clear he fully expected Sorahiko to be on his side about this and he was just fishing for someone else to back up his point of view. But even if he hadn't met Midoriya yet, Sorahiko wouldn't have just made the decision to con the kid out of the quirk. Toshinori would have let the quirk die rather than pass it to someone he didn't think would deserve it. Or he would have put some fail-safes in place to ensure that someone he trusted would get it.
No, Toshinori meant to give it to Midoriya. Sorahiko could almost imagine the dumb look on his face when he realized that there was a quirkless hero in Japan, and that he was going to meet him, to work with him on the most important raid of his entire hero career. Midoriya definitely would have turned him down if given the choice, if it weren’t a matter of life and death, but Toshinori always was stubborn. And now Midoriya had one of the most powerful quirks in existence because the Number One Hero died to give it to him.
Maybe it was about time One for All faded into obscurity again. Nana may not have been very high on the rankings, but she sure as hell wasn't quiet. Midoriya, though, he knew how to hide better than anyone, how to use the obscurity he was cursed with as a weapon against people. Once he managed to get One for All under control, Sorahiko didn't think there was a thing in the world capable of stopping him other than his own morals. And this time, All for One probably wasn't going to survive the encounter.