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Toshinori cannot remember the last time he bought somebody a birthday present. If pressed, he would probably be able to remember that it was back before he and Sir Nighteye lost contact. But that didn’t count, did it? He hadn’t bought his sidekick a present. All Might had dibs on any of his own merch, and Sir Nighteye was his biggest fan. It would have been stupid to do anything else. He tried not to think about where all that merch was now, it was most likely in new hands by now.
Toshinori stretched his memory, always a dangerous endeavor. Looking too far back would force memories to snap back at him like a rubber band on the inside of his wrist. A reminder for why he didn’t often delve into the past.
The last time he had actually bought somebody a birthday gift was when Nana was still alive. He can’t even remember what he ended up buying for her. He remembers looking through shops with a single-minded determination. The pressure of finding the perfect give weighed down his shoulders. His hands skimmed along shelves as he turned over items that he would never gift to his mentor in a million years, but for some reason felt compelled to consider anyway.
He was young then. Despite all of the anxiety he had felt over the gift he still had a good time looking for it. And Nana’s face when she received it. That was his favorite memory of her, out of costume, laughing uproariously at his poor attempts at gift wrapping, the kindness in her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.
Nowadays shopping was a much more harrowing experience, for a multitude of reasons.
First off, he was a twisted and warped reflection of the paragon of health that he was before All for One had forced half of his stomach across the planet. He could walk around well enough but if a trip took too long his lungs would start to ache. He didn’t have the strength to carry too many bags of groceries or anything particularly heavy. Asking for help to drag bags of rice to your apartment was not a fun experience.
Secondly, people could recognize him now. Once, he was browsing through the yogurt aisle, looking for the strawberry kind with the actual chunks of fruit in it because those were his favorite and Young Midoriya would always accept one as a snack if Toshinori handed one to him. And a woman tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned to look at her only to have three microphones shoved in his face, the woman and two other reporters shouting questions at him in the dairy aisle. He couldn’t just jump away from them like he used to. He had to resort to a soft threat about his agency's lawyers to get them to leave him to his shopping.
Or people would recognize him a different way. Adults and teenagers usually knew who he was, All Might, the fallen hero. Children, however, did not. The first time a little kid shrieked at the sight of his emancipated face he had felt like dying. He wished he could drop dead, both to escape the situation, a flustered parent who was trying to calm down their child and make sure he knew that their kid didn’t mean what they were saying, and to better match the child’s description of him as a skeleton.
The last reason that shopping wasn’t on the top of his to-do list these days was because it was lonely. He had never realized before, just how quickly he got his groceries and then escaped from the store. He was forced to take his time now, move through aisles a step at a time, load up his arms so that he didn’t put too much weight on his brittle wrists, try to sneak around any kids so that he didn’t freak them out. It was an exhausting outing, and if felt pointless sometimes.
Why go out to get food when he could just steal from his coworkers, or order food from the place down the street. Recovery Girl begged to differ. He was on a very strict diet, designed to keep him as healthy as possible. So, he had to go to the store and suffer under the fluorescent lights every week. It was doctor's orders.
But back to the matter at hand. He needed to buy a birthday gift.
This was an entirely different experience from when he was young, and astronomically different from his grocery runs. The mall was huge, he had no idea what he was looking for, there were so many kids around that he felt the need to wear a hat and that was, quite frankly, just throwing him off because he never wore hats. The grocery store usually wasn't that busy, but the mall was crowded and loud and Toshinori was surprised and disappointed when that familiar loneliness crept up on him.
Toshinori exited yet another brightly colored store with a sigh. Young Midoriya was surprisingly hard to shop for. When he had looked at his student’s file so long ago and marked his birthday on his calendar he had imagined he would just get the young man some merch. But when he tentatively brought it up last week, Midoriya had laughed and told Toshinori that one of his favorite things about merch was the chase.
How when you were really caught up on an item you had to fight for it, know just the right people, offer the correct trades. He was shocked to find that, apparently, Izuku had been bargaining to grow his collection since he was eleven. So, merch was out of the picture.
When that very clear and easy option was taken away, Toshinori realized that he had no clue what to get his successor for his birthday. The panic that had come over him at that epiphany was his main motivation for wandering around the dreaded mall on a Sunday, peeking in every store for something that radiated ‘this is a good gift for the boy that you’ve come to think of as your son and who you care about very much’ energy.
So far, that particular type of energy seemed nonexistent.
Toshinori was about to give up. Walking around a mall for hours was proving to be one of the most unpleasant experiences he had ever encountered, including his battle with All for One. He would come back later in the week. He still had a few days until Young Midoriya’s birthday. It would be fine.
Toshinoir’s resolve wasn’t firm but he reassured himself that it would be fine. Maybe he would google top ten gifts to get sixteen-year-old heroes in training. Toshinori was halfway toward the exit, having shuffled through the crowds with one hand keeping his cap dutifully lowered, when he accidentally shoulder checked someone hurrying past him.
He and the woman both huffed in surprise and turned toward each other simultaneously to apologize. And then they both blinked at each other in shock.
“Midoriya-san?” Toshinori asked. His eyes traveled up and down her figure. She was wearing a gray pencil skirt and a pale blue blouse that complimented her jewel-toned eyes. He cleared his throat after his question to try and force the butterflies out of his chest.
The woman softened immediately, her shoulders had been tense, perhaps anticipating an argument with whoever she had run into. She gave a smile to Toshinori that made his chest ache and tilted her head at him, her hair gently shifting to the side with the movement.
“Oh please Toshinori, we’ve been over this! You can call me Inko,” She shifted closer to him as someone bumped into her and had to crane her neck up to meet his eyes.
“O- Of course,” Toshinori said, he could feel his face heating up.
“What are you doing at the mall?” She asked.
Toshinori raised a long arm to scratch at the back of his head bashfully. “I’m afraid that I haven't gotten Young Izuku a birthday present yet. I was going to give him some merch but then he told me-”
“Ah!” Inko laughed, “He told you that he prefers to get it himself, right?”
Toshinori nodded.
“That does make it a lot harder to shop for him.” She said, cupping a conspiratorial hand around her mouth, as if someone was listening in on the conversation and would report it back to her son. She laughed at herself and lowered her hand, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear before continuing. “I have it easy, I’ve been buying him the same pair of shoes every birthday for six years now. I would feel lazy if he didn’t look ecstatic every time he unwraps them.”
Toshinori signed dramatically. “I don’t suppose you have any tips then?” His smile ticked up when she laughed in response to his performance.
“Izuku tends to prefer practical gifts,” She told him, “Or ones that have a lot of emotional significance. That card that he got from Kota is still one of his most prized possessions.”
Toshinori hummed thoughtfully, trying not to reveal that he still had no ideas.
Inko continued, “Why don’t you come shopping with me? We can find something for him together?”
Suddenly the aches in Toshinori's feet went away. “That would be great!” he replied.
Inko grinned up at him, they began walking together in the direction she had originally been traveling. “And,” She said, a calculating look behind her eyes “maybe I can convince you to do something for me.”
*
Izuku really didn’t mean to hide his birthday from his classmates. He swore it was an accident! He hadn’t even realized that he had done it until Uraraka burst into his room that morning shouting at him about how he was going to be late for class.
He wasn’t going to be late for class. Because he wasn’t going to class. He was going home to visit his mom for his birthday, a tradition born from a class full of bullies and a love for his mother. Spending the day together was his favorite gift every birthday, they didn’t even do anything special most of the time. They just existed together. His mom would make his favorite breakfast and they would eat together and his mom would talk about how old he was getting and how he was getting taller and taller than her and he would laugh. When they were little she would play hero with him until he tired himself out.
For the past few years they had, instead, snuggled together on the couch to watch a marathon of all their favorite movies. A mix of hero documentaries, mushy romance movies, period pieces with detectives who used large magnifying glasses, and the occasional film about spies foiling dastardly plots that were reminiscent of pre-quirk era action films (action films today were usually just big choreographed quirk fights, Inko did not like them, and had originally got into spy movies only because she wanted something cool for Iuzku to watch that didn’t involve flashy use of fire and ice and blades and electricity).
Later his mom would cook katsudon for dinner, lunch was usually just an absurd amount of popcorn, and after that, his mom would insist on lighting candles on the chocolate cake that they always bought from the bakery at the strip mall that his mom had discovered on her first date with his father. She would sing to him, and then clap as he blew out the small flames.
When he awoke that morning to Uraraka’s frantic shouting and Iida’s disappointed arm chops, his first thought was that they were there to wish him off. Then the content and tone of their squawking reached his ears and he realized, while he may have told them about the ritual he and his mother had, he never told them the date on which it occurred.
It was an old habit from a time that was long in his past. Before he started going home on his birthday but after his classes started referring to him exclusively as deku. The logic was as follows: If someone knew what day your birthday was it was very easy for them to ruin your birthday.
It was as simple as that. He didn’t have to hide stuff like that at UA, he knew that. His friends were amazing and he loved them and they cared for him and he knew that . But old habits die hard, so he hadn’t told anyone in class his birth date and as such, no one knew that he was going to visit his mom.
Uraraka was yanking on his arm. “Come on Deku!” she huffed, her heels digging into the floor as she tried to drag him out of bed. “Aizawa is going to expel you if you’re late!”
Iida pushed his glasses up his nose and reached for Izuku’s other arm. “Indeed! I am quite disappointed in you Midoriya, you’ve never slept in so late before!” Izuku was hauled into a seated position. He felt remarkably like a zombie with the way his arms were pulled in front of and his mind was clouded as he tried to process what his friends said.
Uraraka was still tugging, trying to turn his seated position into a standing position. “W- wait,” Izuku yawned, trying to force the sleep out of his lungs. “I’m not- I’m not going to school today, I got permission to visit my mom!” His explanation got more frantic as his friend's efforts began to succeed and his legs rolled off his bed.
Uraraka and Iida let go of his arms when he hit the ground with a grunt. They both looked down at him with wide eyes.
Uraraka slapped both hands over her mouth, careful to keep her thumbs from touching her cheeks. “Oh god,” she gasped, “I’m sorry Deku, Iida and I really thought that you were going to be late and- and you usually don't take days off and you didn't tell anyone so- so-” She trailed off, looking at Iida for confirmation.
“Midoriya we are sincerely sorry for pulling you out of bed for no reason, I hope you will forgive us!” Iida bowed low, Uraraka hurried to follow.
Izuku sighed. Uraraka peeked at him through her bangs, then they both laughed.
“It’s alright, I didn’t realize-” that I hid my birthday from my best friends “-that I forgot to tell you guys.” Izuku rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly.
Iida looked at his watch. “Well,” he said, dragging Uraraka out of her bow and then out the door, “we shall see you tomorrow when you return from your visit!”
“Have a good time Deku!” Uraraka called from down the hallway, Iuzku could almost hear her waving to him despite her being out of sight.
He picked himself up off the ground, his knees creaking from being in the same position for so long while he slept. He looked down at his hands. He blinked the rest of the sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on the epiphany that had just occurred in the back of his brain.
He didn’t tell his friends when his birthday was. Izuku sat back down on his bed and put his head in his hands. He groaned louder than what was appropriate but that was fine because the dorms were empty and no one was going to come looking for him to say happy birthday because he hadn't told anyone. God. They were going to be so mad at him when they found out.
Just last month they had a joint birthday party for Hagakure and Satou and the whole class stayed up super late and made promises about staying alive and celebrating each other and a bunch of other philosophical bullshit that teenagers started spouting when they were happy and sleepy and also had experienced an uncommonly large amount of villain related trauma.
Next year. Next year he would tell them… after enough time had passed that no one would be mad at him about it.
*
Inko was pouting.
Izuku wasn’t going to be home until lunch so she had to bide her time until then. She had seen him a few weeks ago during a long weekend, but it felt like it had been years. She missed her baby, and she could hardly contain her excitement over the surprise she had arranged! This made the waiting even worse.
When Toshinori knocked on the door at eleven she practically sprinted across the house. Well, it was more like a fast shuffle because she wasn’t young enough to be running around furniture and risk braining herself on the coffee table.
It was always slightly disorienting, talking to Toshinori. He was, despite the hunch that he walked around with, two feet taller than her. When she opened the door she had to choose between breaking her neck to look up at him, or moving back to look at him from slightly less of an obtuse angle. This time she chose the second option.
“Welcome!” She told the man, he had a brightly patterned bag in one hand with tissue paper sticking out of it. The other carefully balanced a cake box in the palm of his hand. “I can’t thank you enough for picking up the cake for me,” she continued, gesturing Toshinori inside and then closing the door behind him.
“It was no problem I- Inko,” He stuttered on her first name, Inko felt herself smile wider.
“You can set it down there in the kitchen, Izuku should be here in just a little bit.” She pointed to the spot on the counter next to where she had already set the box of candles. “He’s going to be so happy that you’re here!” She told him, her excitement mounting as she got out a glass to get Toshinori some water. Never mind if he wanted any, that man needed to take better care of himself, there was no way a glass of water could do him any wrong.
“I’ll be happy to see him,” Toshinori replied. “I’m glad that you invited me to spend the day with you and Young Izuku, I wouldn’t have been able to see him on his birthday otherwise.”
As soon as he finished talking they both stilled. The distinct sound of a key turning in a lock could be faintly heard. Inko smiled at Toshinori and quickly pawned off the glass of water to him before she motioned for him to stay in the kitchen.
She went to meet Izuku in the hallway, calling out a ‘happy birthday’ as soon as she saw him and rushing forward to give him a hug when he got his shoes off. Inko rocked him from side to side with her hug, making them both laugh as he started to lose his balance and had to fling out an arm to catch them both on the wall.
Inko distanced herself from the hug and cupped both of Izuku’s cheeks in her hand. “Look at you,” she said, tears forming in her eyes, “such a grow up young man.”
Izuku started to tear up in sympathy. “Moooom,” he moaned, “don’t cry, or I’ll start crying! I’m really not that different than last year!”
Inko raised an eyebrow at her son, and took one of her hands back to swipe a knuckle under her eyes to get rid of the water there.
“Okay,” Izuku ceded, “I am pretty different but I’m still- I’m still the same.” The last part of the sentence was spoken more softly than the other parts. Toshinori, who was eavesdropping in the kitchen with his ear against the wall, had to strain to hear him. His glass of water was abandoned on the counter.
“Yes you are,” Inko responded, she swiped her thumb back and forth on her son’s cheek. After a moment she seemed to pull herself out of her musings and she put both of her hands on her hips before turning around and marching toward the kitchen. “No matter how old you get you'll always be my little boy! Now come on! I have a surprise for you in the kitchen.”
Toshinori straitened himself up and swapped the hand that was holding his gift from his right to his left for no reason. He smoothed out the giant white t-shirt he was wearing, like that would somehow make him more presentable.
Inko rounded the corner first and quickly turned around to catch her son’s reaction to his mentor. She was not disappointed.
Izuku was still in the hallway when he sarcastically called out “Ohhh, I wonder what it is,” wrongly assuming that the ‘surprise’ was the same cake that he and his mother shared every year.
When he turned the corner he stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened to unfathomable levels. His mouth dropped open in a comic display of shock.
Toshinori waved timidly.
“A- ALL MIGHT!” Izuku shouted as soon as he got his bearings, his eyes ping-ponged back and forth between his mother and his mentor.
Inko started laughing, one of her hands slapped against the counter as she fought to stay upright. Now she really was crying. “Oh-” she gasped, “Oh baby your face .”
“Are- Are you here for my birthday?” Izuku asked All Might, his eyes were still wide but now there was the distinct shine of hope in them.
“What else would I be here for my boy!” Toshinori replied, a grin showing all of his teeth was slowly inching across his face. Inko’s laughter and Iuzku’s happiness put him at ease.
“Oh wow!” Izuku shouted, “Thank you for coming- are you- were you just dropping by or- or are you going to stay for cake?” Izuku asked, he was fully in the kitchen now. His fingers running circles around each other as he fiddled with them anxiously.
“I planned on staying,” Toshinori said, “as long as you want me here. I don’t want to intrude on your family time or-”
Izuku and Inko both cut him off before he could get any farther.
“You would never intrude-”
“We love that you’re here Toshi-”
Toshinori let out a booming laugh, perhaps the only part of All Might that remained in his new form.
“It makes me really happy that you’re here!” Izuku yelled.
Inko gave Toshinori a look that translated to ‘I told you so’. He might have argued about intruding on their celebration when they had met up at the mall.
“And I’m glad to be here, my boy,” Toshinori said, he brought up his free hand to drag the boy into a hug. His student squeezed him tightly in response.
Inko clapped her hands together, pulling their attention toward her, and the television that she now stood in front of. The movie options were pulled up on the screen. On the table sat two giant bowls of popcorn. “Let’s get this party started!”
*
An incomplete list of things that occurred during the four movies that the group managed to watch before dinner:
1) They all shared a box of tissues as they cried at the credits of a particularly sappy rom-com movie
“It’s just-” Inko blew her nose and waved her hands around in the air, “It’s just the romance of it all isn’t it?! She just- She-” her babbling trailed off as she grabbed another tissue.
Iuzku tried very hard not to disintegrate into a mumbled analysis of the cinematography of the last scene. This was doubly hard because it was such a good scene and because when he was crying it got even harder to control other parts of his face. It was like, his tear ducts were already working double time, why not let his tongue start to trip over itself while he was at it?
He snuck a glance at All Might. Izuku and Inko were cuddled up together on one side of the couch, another tradition, and Toshinori was leaning against the opposite arm. He did a double-take when he saw Toshinori had his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with his sobs.
“The part where they went on a date to the aquarium, and the girl used her quirk to have the fish do a show for her girlfriend,” Toshinoir hiccuped, looking up from his hands to show the Midoriya’s the tears streaming down his gaunt face. “That part was good,” he finished lamely. He felt a bit like a hypocrite right now, for all the times he had told Izuku to not be such a crybaby.
Inko and Iuzku exchanged looks. Inko laughed through another wave to tears.
“You really fit in, don’t you Toshinori?” She asked playfully, absentmindedly handing a tissue to her son.
Izuku couldn’t hold his rant in any longer. He brought the tissue to his eyes and wiped his face off haphazardly and then launched into his triad. His hands flapped around wildly as he spoke, gesticulating to get his point across and get out the extra energy he had. At one point he picked up the remote to rewind to the scene in question and ran around in front of the television pointing out the contrasting colors and lighting choices that ‘really made us feel the love between the leading couple and drive home their compatibility’.
Toshinori and Inko kept their attention on him. Inko’s expression was one of fond familiarity. She had sat through many of Izuku’s mumbled harangues. From hero rankings and critiquing costumes to movie reviews and comments on the architecture of a random building, Inko had heard it all and she loved to listen. Izuku was just so passionate about things that it was hard not to listen if he let you. Sometimes, if her baby had just finished a particularly good tv show or book while at school he would shoot her a 5,000 word email that pretty much amounted to an essay about his latest fixation.
Toshinori, who had only been on the receiving end of a few muttered rambles so far and usually only about serious hero matters, was in awe. He felt like he should be taking notes. His chest was flooded with warmth. He always seemed to fall into this, this carefree happiness around his successor. Well, unless they were discussing horrible things about the burden that he had put upon the boy with his quirk, but that was happening a lot less since Kamino Ward.
Izuku was just the kind of person that forcefully dragged happiness out of him, it was something he had learned to accept. He wondered if he did the same for Nana, she did always seem to be floating just slightly off of the ground when they trained together but, who knew.
2) When Inko went to the bathroom halfway through a mystery film that Iuzku had already guessed the ending to, but was dutifully keeping to himself for Inko and Toshinori’s sake. Izuku leaned over and tentatively asked Toshinori about how he knew today was his birthday.
Toshinori rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “The first thing I did when I got to the staff room on my first day at UA was find your file so that I could mark your birthday down in my calendar.” He explained. If it weren't so dark Izuku probably would have been able to see a dusting of pink over the former number one hero’s cheeks.
“Oh!” Iuzku squeaked, “Tha- That makes sense,” Iuzku replied, privately thinking that that made absolutely no sense at all. No one had ever- Toshinori was the first person to ever go so out of their way to make Iuzku happy.
Toshinori gave his successor a look.
Izuku’s rambling tendencies took over for the second time that night.
“The- the thing is just that I- I kinda forgot to mention that today was my birthday to any of my friends so I- I’m really happy that you’re here because I was kinda worried that- err- not worried but like, um, resigned to the fact that no one important to me besides my mom would say happy birthday to me this year. And that's, like, fine because that’s how it’s been most years but this year has been different so-” Iuzku abruptly cut himself off, putting a hand over his mouth and looking up at Toshinori apologetically.
Toshinori lifted his arm up in an invitation for Iuzku to sit leaning against his side instead of his mother’s. Izuku removed his hand from his mouth and then quietly shuffled over. (Like he was going to refuse an offer to snuggle with All Might, the first person to ever willingly admit that they were wrong about him.)
“Happy birthday,” Toshinori told Iuzku, squeezing his shoulder. Izuku grinned up at him and then Inko came back and smiled at him too and then Toshinoir and Inko both gasped when it turned out that the banker's assistant’s goddaughter was the thief all along and Izuku giggled helplessly at their shocked expressions.
3) Izuku very harshly critiqued a new All Might documentary that Inko had gotten him to agree to watch even though All Might was literally right there and mom isn’t that kinda weird?
“Oh,” Toshinori said pleasantly, halfway into the movie, “The actor they hired to play me is pretty good. And they did a good job on the costume, you don’t see someone attempt the bronze age costume often.”
The documentary was paused instantly. Izuku had wrenched himself out from under Toshinori’s arm at such a speed that Toshinori didn’t realize he had moved until his own arm fell to the couch without his successor’s shoulders there to hold it up.
Izuku was sitting in the middle of the couch, where Inko had put the remote. It was clutched in his hand, his knuckles turning white from his grip, Toshinori distantly worried, around his confusion, that Iuzku would break it.
Toshinori turned to look at Inko when Izuku remained silent, his gaze laser locked onto the screen as he squinted at the actor. Inko had a hand over her mouth, clearly trying to keep her giggles locked inside.
Like in a horror movie, Young Iuzku, slowly, so slowly, turned his head to stare at Toshinori incredulously. Izuku licked his lips before speaking, his voice sounded oddly pained, “You think, that that-” he pointed vehemently at the screen like there was some kind of monstrosity there and not just a buff blond actor in an All Might costume “-is an accurate representation of your bronze age costume?”
Toshinori quickly realized his mistake. “No?” He replied, hoping that Izuku would believe him.
Izuku only narrowed his eyes, setting the remote carefully down on the coffee table.
They didn’t get to unpause the movie for thirty minutes. Izuku brought up pictures. He didn’t stutter once. He talked about stitching patterns. He blushed furiously when he sat down, probably realizing that he had gone slightly overboard. Toshinori had a better understanding of his costume than he had ever had when he was wearing the thing. He also felt lighter than he had in years.
4) Inko left Toshinori and a dozing Izuku on the couch while she made dinner and carefully placed a ring of candles in the cake preemptively. Putting the candles on the cake, one for each year her son had been in her life, was one of Inko’s favorite parts of his birthday.
“Inko!” Toshinori whisper shouted across the couch as she carefully got up, “Inko! You- Let me help you. Or- or-”
“No, sorry Toshinori but you’re Izuku’s pillow for the time being. You’re responsible for waking him up when dinner is ready!” She told him cheerily.
“Inko!” Toshinori whispered one more time, Inko just disappeared into the kitchen without giving him a second glance.
Toshinori deflated. He looked down at the teenager napping on him. Izuku had started off just leaning against Toshinori’s shoulder while the last movie played. Then halfway through he had slumped down to being curled up diagonally, his cheek squished into Toshinori’s elbow. Quickly after that, he had passed out. His neck had been bent at a truly horrendous angle and it was second nature to maneuver his successors head into his lap.
Inko had a similar instinct, grabbing Izuku’s feet and pulling them across her lap so that he could stretch out more in his sleep. They watched the rest of the movie in silence. Toshinori absentmindedly stroked Izuku’s hair every now and then, Inko distractedly patted her son’s legs and shook his feet when something exciting happened in the film.
But now she had abandoned Toshinori. He didn’t mind Iuzku sleeping on him, he just dreaded waking him up. The credits were still rolling across the screen, Inko had gotten up a few minutes before the movie actually ended to escape having to rouse her son from slumber. An adult version of tag you’re it!
Izuku looked so small like this. Toshinori smoothed the boy’s hair away from his face with one hand. He could hold Iuzku’s entire head in the palm of his hand like a volleyball. To think that there was a well of unadulterated power inside of the sleeping boy was ludicrous at that moment.
He was just a teenager who mumbled in his sleep and came home to see his mother on his birthday. And when he looked down at his successor Toshinori wasn’t a fallen hero or a legend or a scary skeleton. He was Toshinori Yagi, he was Midoriya Iuzku’s mentor and confidant. He was the man who teared up when Iuzku got his provisional license. He was the man who held Iuzku when he cried. He was just someone who was lucky to be a part of the boy’s story.