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Izuku wondered who his soulmate was. He could feel them, sometimes, the strange sensation of a foreign consciousness pressing against his own. He only got impressions, flashes of emotions and thoughts. Disjointed sentences he couldn’t make sense of, all consuming emotions of sadness or pride, a seemingly soul deep ache for something. He tried to lift his mate’s spirits, sending them as much love and comfort as he could, although he was never certain if they felt it.
When Izuku was ten years old, he felt the press, except this time it wasn’t just a simple brush, a gentle touch. It was a forceful shove, a sudden feeling of his mate’s pain , that he’s scared and dying and Izuku tried to grab onto the other consciousness, tried to surround his mate’s soul with his own even as agony raced along his body, as he tried to protect his mate even as his body tried to defend against the sudden onslaught.
He felt a hint of of a name, an apology, and his world went dark.
~~
The day before he debuted, Toshinori felt another soul brush against his own.
It was young, a newborn most likely. Toshinori couldn’t help a small smile, surprised that after 18 years he actually had a soulmate.
‘Welcome to the world, little one,’ he thought.
~~
Izuku woke up feeling the hesitant touch of his mate lingering on the edge of his mind. He reached towards it, a thousand worries spilling forth.
‘
Are you okay? What happened? Did you get help--?’
he thought frantically as he reached towards the other. He got a phantom ache in response, an apologetic feeling flooding back.
Izuku knew that they had not yet met, that even this should be straining their bond, uncomplete as it was. But, as he drew his mate’s soul closer, he couldn’t help but feel relieved. At least he could help them with this.
~~
He didn’t mean for it to happen. He fought against All for One, and he won, but the final blow was dealt, and his mind went white.
He could feel himself drawing back, and then suddenly he was lurching away from his own body, trapped in a classroom, and everything was blurry. He felt another person (his mate) sharing the headspace, and he felt the pain chasing him.
(He wasn’t strong enough to face it head on.)
He felt his mate wrapping around him, concern and love and fear, and suddenly the pain was lessened slightly, and then his mate screamed (he’s a child still just a child) and--
Darkness takes them both.
~~
The doctors tell him that what he did might have very well saved his mate’s life. In sharing the pain, he had also apparently taken on some less life-threatening injuries (a concussion, a broken arm, broken ribs, strained muscles, scratches, scrapes, and cuts), something that only the closest mated pairs are supposed to be able to do. The doctors ask who his mate was, and he could feel the them on the other side of the bond, wordlessly shifting around, hovering on the edge of his consciousness but unable to contribute or explain for Izuku.
He told them that he didn’t know, that he could only feel the name, the words, on the tip of his tongue and scratching in his head, but he couldn’t bring it forward.
The doctors thought he was lying but he cried because he wasn’t, he really wasn’t. He coughed up blood halfway through, and suddenly he was being rushed back into surgery.
(Parts of his stomach and lung were missing, and he knew his mother thanked God every day for the fact that a nurse was on staff that could regrow muscle.)
~~
Toshinori faded in and out for several days. He felt his mate’s emotions, felt the pain he forced upon his mate (his mate who was only a child still only a child why--)
He’s told once he woke up that his injuries weren’t nearly as terrible as they should have been. There was an officer there, and a doctor, and they explained how he was brought in with life-threatening injuries, but some of them disappeared before the doctors were able to do anything.
They asked him questions: what happened, how was he injured, who was his soulmate? He answered the questions to the best of his abilities, still feeling only half-there. They claimed his soulmate must have somehow taken some of his injuries onto themselves, and Toshinori felt sick.
(He learned later that he would make an almost full recovery. They had managed to get someone with the right quirk there in time, and were able to rebuild his lung and stomach from the fragments that had been left. It wouldn’t be the same but it was as close as they could get.)
~~
“Where am I?” he asked, looking around at the darkness. He could still see somehow, despite the fact that it was pitch black.
“That, my boy, is an excellent question.”
~~
Izuku has learned not to fear the dark. He left the hospital almost a month later, still stumbling and recovering a bit. The wordless emotions transferred through the bond, offering apologies and safety, helped to bolster him even through the worst of the recovery.
Izuku knew he would do it all again in a heartbeat.
~~
“Who… are you?”
“I’m Toshinori Yagi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“O-oh, I’m Izuku Midoriya. Where… Where are you?”
“Over here.”
~~
His teachers gave him leeway for a week when he got back, and Izuku struggled to catch up on all the work he missed. He felt a humming determination in the bond, sending support and care.
He started to think that he liked his soulmate a lot.
~~
“ What’s going on?” Izuku asked, the emptiness of the world around him seeming to fuzz strangely against his senses.
“I’m not quite certain,” the voice responded, the same voice Izuku remembered hearing in his other dreams. He thought they called themselves “Toshinori’, but his brain felt off, and he couldn’t quite remember. He turned, looking for the source of the voice, and saw a pulsing glow behind him.
It swirled in different shades of yellow, bright against the eerie emptiness around him, and he realized it was the source of the voice. He could see a shape, a person, hidden among the yellow mist, but he couldn’t make out any details.
He approached carefully, stepping closer and closer to the light. It swirled faster in response, pulsing with bright flashes of gold, and it felt eerily familiar.
“I think this has something to do with the soulmate bond,” the voice spoke, and Izuku could tell it was masculine. Whoever it was, they sounded older than him, talking like the adults always did, with that same sense of assurance that they knew what they were doing.
He reached out, hand brushing against the mist, surprised to see how it twisted towards him. He looked at it, seeing his own arm covered in bright green electricity, crackling and sparking against his skin, obscuring him.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, seeing the strange mist was more condensed around one side, forming a barrier, like it was trying to protect something. The voice laughed, surprised and bright, and he saw the mist moving forward, dancing along his own electricity.
“Of course, but it’s thanks to you. I am truly sorry for what I put you through,” the voice said, and Izuku hurried to reassure him.
“No, it’s fine, I was happy to help! You just… felt like you needed it, is all,” he replied quickly, seeing a flash of a smile through the mist.
“Thank you, my boy.”
~~
Kacchan still bullied him, and the burns marred his skin, scratches and scrapes and bruises sparkling with pain at every movement. But Izuku’s had worse, and he ignored the pain and went on.
Everyday he felt his soulmate getting a little more scared for him.
~~
“Who keeps hurting you?”
It’d been a year, and Izuku was getting used to the late night rendezvous, the accidental dream-sharing they seem to have. He’d learned a lot about his soulmate in that time: his name, his favorite color, his favorite food. But every morning when Izuku woke up, he forgot it all, only to remember once he went to sleep again.
“What?” he asked, because he was still only 11, still hasn’t quite grasped the concept of what should be wrong or right.
“Everyday I can feel more burns, or scrapes, or scratches, or bruises. Who keeps giving them to you?” Toshinori asked.
“Oh! That’s Kacchan, he’s my friend! He’s gonna be a hero when he grows up!” Izuku explained excitedly. The swirling yellow mist seemed to take on a deeper color, almost like a frown.
“He’s your friend, and yet he hurts you like that everyday?” Toshinori asked, sounding concerned. Izuku didn’t understand why.
“Well, yeah. He says I’m below him, because I’m quirkless and all,” He shrugged, the lightning crackling along his skin with the motion.
Toshinori didn’t respond.
~~
Toshinori had been trying to track down his soulmate since the fight against All For One. He remembered parts of the dreams, just enough information to be tantalizingly close to a hint, but not enough to be useful. He kept the journal by his bed, and spare sheets of paper and a pencil with him wherever he went.
It was irritating, the fleeting thoughts and memories, but he felt the need to track down his soulmate, to find them and, at the very least, say thank you for all they’ve done for him.
The information slowly piled up, and Toshinori hoped he would get to meet them soon.
~~
“You got more burns today than usual,” Toshinori states, feeling the phantom pain of burns that weren’t his. A downside of the bond saving his life, he had gained all the emotions, the pain, with none of the context, which was all the more terrifying. He’d felt more panic and terror in the last few months than he had during his entire hero carrer combined.
“I mentioned wanting to be a hero again. Kacchan doesn’t like it when I try and be a hero,” Izuku replied softly, and Toshinori’s heart hurt for his young soulmate, still a child trapped in a cruel world.
“So he hurts you,” Toshinori said, the mist around him condensing, darkening with his anger.
“I guess. It’s not too bad though. I can handle it. Besides, he’s gonna be a hero, and I’m just some quirkless nobody,” Izuku said lightly, and Toshinori wished he could find his soulmate and sweep them up and away from the cruel reality they lived in.
“Isn’t it a hero's job to protect those weaker than they are? After all, we are in charge of protecting civilians, even those who are quirkless, or have weaker quirks,” Toshinori tried, and the crackling lightning took on an almost thoughtful look.
“I guess so. Are you a hero?” Izuku jumped to the question egearly, and Toshinori chuckled weakly, praying he could find his soulmate and inform their parents what was going on.
“I suppose you could call me that.”
~~
Izuku was standing in front of another child, this time someone unfamiliar, someone new. His hair was lilac purple, and he looked tired, resigned, as Izuku stood in front of him, fists clenched.
“Aren’t heroes supposed to protect those weaker than them, Kacchan? Isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?” he asked determinedly, forcing back the tears attempting to stream down his face. There were explosions, loud and bright, and Izuku resisted the urge to flinch back, to run and hide.
“Aren’t heroes supposed to help people, not hurt them?!” he shouted.
He went home that day with twice as many bruises, a chip on his shoulder, and the desperate prayer to make his friend understand becoming nothing but a whisper on the wind.
~~
Toshinori was gaining more information.
He only had fragments of names, places, people, but it was there and it gave him hope.
His dream journal was filled with half-coherent scribblings, information barely remembered, words and sentences jumbled and disjointed and making no sense out of context, but it was something .
There were a few words he’d scribbled over and over again, covering pages of his book--
‘ Quirkless’
-- and another--
‘ Bullied’.
He snapped the journal shut, dropped it back into his nightstand, and came to a decision.
Perhaps it was time for ‘All Might’ to start supporting a cause. But first, he needed help from a few people.
~~
“Did you hear? All Might and his old side-kick, Sir Nighteye, are working together again! I thought they went their separate ways a year and a half ago!” Izuku exclaimed happily. He knew of Sir Nighteye, or course: All Might’s famed side-kick, regarded highly among hero fans for his intellect. But most had assumed they had a falling out of some sort, due to Nighteye opening his own agency away from All Might.
“Really? Any idea why?” Toshinori asked, and Izuku thought he sounded… almost amused.
“Not yet, although there’s been a lot of speculation. People have been saying that U.A. is involved too, and a bunch of other high schools! I can’t help but wonder what’s going on…” Izuku said quietly, dropping off. Toshinori said nothing, listening to the rambling of his mate, and offering his own two cents every once in awhile.
Izuku didn’t have any more of an idea what it was about at the end of the night, but he still felt like he did.
~~
“You sure about this?” Nighteye asked, stepping into the office. Toshinori smiled tiredly at his old friend.
“Of course. I am sorry, about everything,” he responded, “But I couldn’t retire, not when there were things I still needed to do.”
“There will always be something that needs to be done. That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to do it,” Nighteye pointed out, dropping several files on the desk. “However, I am sorry too. I believe we were both at fault for this, but I hold no ill feelings towards you.”
Toshinori grinned.
“It’s good to have you back, my friend.”
~~
“All Might started an anti-bullying campaign,” Izuku said as soon as he entered the dream, lightning crackling along his skin. Toshinori’s mist shifted, almost like it was laughing, dancing in an intangible breeze.
“So I’ve heard. What do you think about it?” Toshinori asked, and Izuku frowned.
“It’s strange, he didn’t seem like the type to support a cause of that sort… He would have been better off supporting other causes, or campaigning for other things, wouldn’t he? Like public safety and saving the environment and stuff,” Izuku wondered, surprised by Toshinori’s small chuckle.
“Perhaps, but what about the kids? They will grow up to be heroes, and civilians, and, unfortunately, villains. Lots of villains have difficult backgrounds, whether they were abandoned or abused, or, often, bullied. If he can keep one child from being bullied, maybe he can stop one villain in the future,” Toshinori explained, and Izuku understood.
“Change the future by changing the present. Like a villain prevention program!” he exclaimed, getting another laugh.
“Exactly. Even if it only helps one child, only ever stops one villain from being created, well… I think that’s worth it, don’t you?”
~~
Kacchan was leaving him alone lately. Izuku didn’t know why, but his bruises were fading, his cuts were healing, and he hadn’t been burned in nearly a month.
He thought it was probably due to All Might’s new campaign against bullying. He’d been supporting a lot of causes lately, and Izuku didn’t know why, but he and Sir Nighteye and U.A. and tons of other hero schools were participating in weekly volunteering, cleaning up trash, and helping out shelters, and making donations to the poor.
Izuku liked the new direction. It was less flashy, less fist fights and criminal chases and less stunning but unavoidable victories, but it was helping. Izuku saw it, his mom saw it: everyone being swept up in a tidal wave of excitement towards a new kind of saving.
Izuku started volunteering at his local shelter when he could, helping wherever he could, and he liked it. He liked this new type of saving.
~~
“Nighteye,” Toshinori spoke, grabbing the attentions of his former sidekick. The man looked at him questioningly. He hadn’t felt burns or bruises from his soulmate in a while, but he didn’t know how long that would last, and he’d rather be safe than sorry.
“You know who my soulmate is, right?” he asked, remembering when he first met the other man. He had been a few years out of high school, already making a name for himself, when Nighteye had approached him. One thing had lend to another, and eventually Nighteye had used his quirk on him. Meaning, if he had ever met his soulmate, Nighteye would probably know who they were.
“Yes,” Nighteye responded, sounding suspicious. He waved away the man’s concern, looking towards the ceiling.
“I don’t want to know who they are, and I’m not asking you to tell me. Just, track them down, let their mom or dad or both know about what has been happening to them over the last few years. I want to make sure they’re being taken care of,” Toshinori said quietly. Nighteye gave a contemplative hum in response.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
~~
“My mom got a letter today. She wouldn’t tell me who it was from, but she cried and hugged me for a really long time afterward,” Izuku said, sitting in the strange dreamscape. The mist had been steadily thinning over the years, enough to give Izuku a few flashes of what his soulmate looked like.
Blue eyes, blond hair, bright smile, tired posture.
He wondered what his soulmate saw from him.
“Well, I’m sure it couldn’t have been bad,” Toshinori said, and Izuku frowned.
“I hope so. I don’t want her to worry about me,” he said, and he heard a slight sigh.
“It’s her job to worry about you. You don’t have to do everything alone, Izuku.”
~~
Toshinori was 33 when he woke up with the first completely coherent piece of information about his soulmate. He nearly fell out of bed to scribble it down, grinning victoriously when he saw the name of the middle school on paper, solidifying it in reality.
He supposed it was time to do some research.
~~
Izuku was attacked as he walked home. He felt the slime villain clawing at his face, forcing itself in his nose and down his throat, gagging on the taste, the texture, fear taking over and pushing out any rational thought as he desperately clawed at the slime, desperate to get a breath.
He felt darkness encroaching on his vision, swamping everything.
The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a familiar pair of bright blue eyes.
~~
Toshinori wasn’t trying to get caught up in a villain chase. Really, he had just been exploring the area around the school, the shopping centers and other amenities, getting a feel for where his soulmate lived. But then someone was screaming for help, and he could never turn down someone in need.
The chase took longer than he cared to admit, making him traipse all around the sewers. He was almost glad he had brought a water bottle beforehand, the water providing a slight relief from the heat. It couldn’t do anything for the smell, though.
He froze suddenly, feeling suffocated, like he was drowning. It wasn’t his feeling, but it was sudden enough, and powerful enough, to nearly make him power down. He shook it off, forcing himself to keep moving, forcing himself to ignore the feelings.
He burst out of the sewers, seeing the slime villain surrounding someone -- emerald green eyes, curly green hair, freckles, smile brighter than the sun --
He let loose a smash, even more grateful he had a bottle on him as he scooped up the villain’s body, capping it easily. Then, he turned to the boy who was lying unconscious on the ground.
~~
Izuku felt a hand on his face, warm and large, reminding him of something that felt just out of reach. He enjoyed the second of calm before everything slammed down on him, the stench and feel ratcheting up his panic.
His eyes flew open, meeting with familiar sapphire blue.
He felt everything else fall away for a split second, hours of dream conversations and information flooding his brain, the link in his head snapping into place with a sigh.
Then Izuku’s stomach protested violently, and he turned and threw up.
“Whoa, hey, easy Izuku, you’re okay,” he heard Toshinori say, a hand settling on his back as he heaved onto the concrete. His mind tried frantically to adapt to all the new information, thoughts swirling before he realized that Toshinori was All Might .
“Oh my God,” he whispered to himself, horrified. He just met his hero, who he’d apparently been talking to for years in his dreams.
There was amusement traveling through the bond, and the emotions so much clearer, cleaner, and crisper. It was like he was seeing them through clear glass for the first time after spending life behind frosted doors.
Steam and mist billowed out suddenly, and he saw a somehow far more familiar form beside him, giving him a slight smile.
“It’s nice to meet you, Izuku. I’m Toshinori.”