Work Text:
Shirakumo Oboro wakes up.
Well, he has to admit that’s pretty unexpected.
To be totally honest, he figured that getting those kids out of the way of the collapsing building was the last for Loud Cloud. And, well, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about dying. But he went out like a hero, he felt like. There were quick thoughts toward his family and his friends and then...
Well, and then.
Oboro, however, is pretty certain that he’s alive though. If only because of how his body screams at him when he shifts. He feels just sore all over, so he groans if only to just verbalize how utterly like shit he feels like.
“Ah! You’re awake, Shirakumo,” someone says. He cracks an open to see Nedzu at the foot of his bed. There’s some relief at seeing his Heroics teacher in front of him with a cup of tea. Something so utterly normal that Oboro feels the tension in his shoulders drain out.
“Nedzu-sensei,” he croaks out tiredly. His head feels stuffed with cotton. “How long was I out for? Are those kids okay? What about Shouta?”
His teacher pauses for a moment, and that sends a wave of fear through him.
“Now that is a very complicated question, Shirakumo,” Nedzu says as he hops onto a chair next to the bed. “But to answer your other questions, Aizawa is fine. And the children were saved. At the cost of your life.”
He did die then. Though, if he was a ghost, he suspects he would have been in less pain.
“So, I died then?” Oboro replies. “I don’t feel dead. Death probably won’t hurt so much if I was a ghost.”
A ghost of something pasts over Nedzu’s face.
“That’s when things are going to get complicated. I’ll give you the basics, Shirakumo. And we’ll go into detail later, alright?”
Oboro has a feeling he’s going to hate this, but he nods.
Yeah.
He was right.
He definitely hates it.
His best friends are almost forty. They’re married with a kid and seven cats between them. They teach at UA, training future heroes while also being pro heroes themselves. Hizashi has a radio show. Shouta, apparently, is known for producing some of the youngest heroes to ever crack the Top Twenty-Five. Kayama-senpai works in advocacy along with heroics and teaching. They all know All Might, who is retired.
Oboro, meanwhile, had his body stolen from the morgue and used as some sort of weird corpse puppet (a Nomu or something) named Kurogiri for a couple decades. He was a villain with a warp quirk and was part of a League of Villains. And then when Kurogiri was dying from his programming breaking down, they used a hero-in-training with a rewind quirk and someone with a quirk to erase any traces of brainwashing to restore him.
What the fuck.
No wonder Oboro is sitting across from a therapist, Hina-san. Frankly, he has no idea where to even begin processing all the things he doesn’t remember. She has short spiky neon green hair and is missing her pinky finger on the right hand. She’s a retired hero who went into therapy and deals with “difficult” cases.
Like dying and being made into some kind of corpse puppet or Nomu or whatever the fuck he was for about twenty odd years and then being rewound/reset when his corpse puppet self was dying back to a seventeen-year-old.
That kind of difficult.
He stares at her for a long moment from his seat. She looks at him sedately, not forcing him to talk until Oboro is ready to.
“Do you even know where to start with me? Because I don’t.”
Hina snorts, “No clue, kiddo. But we’re going to do our damnedest to help you with this second chance.”
And the fact that she admits she doesn’t have all the answers has Oboro feeling better.
Maybe therapy won’t be a bad thing after all.
The next couple of months are rough for Oboro. There’s a lot of talk with doctors about…everything. He sees Hina-san daily. There are tests about his memories and his quirk. The Chief of the Mustafu Police is brought in, Tsukauchi. He interrogates Oboro using his quirk, but it’s more like a conversation than an outright interrogation. He’s not stupid though. Sure, Shouta may have joked about he and Hizashi sharing a brain cell but all three of them were in the Top Ten students of Class 1-A.
So, yeah, Oboro knows it was an interrogate disguised as a conversation. Tsukauchi was pretty nice though. He visits, sometimes, bringing Oboro books to keep himself occupied while he’s in the top-secret hospital “recovering”.
Other people with specific quirks are also brought in as well to do tests and readings on him. They want to be certain that the process worked. And they seem to believe that every trace of Kurogiri has been erased from him. That’s…good. Oboro hates that someone had his body for longer than he’s been alive. Or, well, been alive according to his memories.
He really hates that’s a fear that he has now. That he’ll wake up cover in black mist and just suddenly become him again. Hina and his head doctor, Watanabe, both seem comfortable on reassuring him as often as need be about how he won’t be turning back. That the process, if it was going to fail, would have by this point.
Still, the thought likes to pop up in the dark of night when Oboro can’t sleep. He summons his clouds though, which remain the same as they ever do. He breathes in and out, missing the days that
He hasn’t seen Kayama-senpai, Hizashi, or Shouta yet. They asked to see him, but he turned them away, needing some space. He’s not entirely ready to see them as, you know, adults yet. He needed distance from everything to look at all the angles, to know he’s…to know he’s himself.
And he is.
Or he thinks he is.
Pretty sure anyway.
“I thought people get an identity crisis when they hit middle age,” Oboro says to Hina one day. He leans back, head hitting the wall as he sighs. “Not sure I’m liking it as seventeen. I’d like to return this, thanks.”
“You’re dealing with the fallout of an impressively traumatic event that you will never have memory of,” she says. “I think you need to be a little kinder with yourself. Do you feel like Shirakumo Oboro?”
“Yes,” he says, cracking open his eyes.
“Well there you have it then.”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“Not always,” she agrees. “And we’re going to work on that. We’re going to go over some grounding techniques I think will help. This also may sound really stupid, but what the hell, not like there is precedence for your cases anyway.”
Most would probably rankle at Hina’s unprofessional language, but honestly? It just makes Oboro feel better hearing it. He always feels like he knows where he stands with Hina.
“I’ll try everything.”
“Right. Every day and night, I want you to tell yourself who you are.”
Well…
It couldn’t hurt.
“I am Shirakumo Oboro.”
“You have a visitor, Shirakumo-kun,” the cheerful nurse with the flower petal hair says. The man that follows her is only a little bit older than he feels, in his twenties, with half of his long messy purple hair shaved. He’s dressed in a costume: deep purple panels with what looks like Shouta’s capture weapons wrapped around his arms like bandages. He has some kind of muzzle type device on the lower half of his face.
It’s very retro cyberpunk and deeply, deeply cool.
He’s not a hero that Oboro recognizes off the top of his head. Maybe underground? He has that vibe. Granted, he’s still playing catch-up with all of these new heroes that Shouta, allegedly, taught and adopted, according to Nedzu-sensei. Not that he’s seen Shouta yet. He’s still working his way up to it. He knows it’s probably driving his friends insane, but Oboro needs time.
Still, they’re the only ones on the “do not let in” list. He made sure to write Hizashi, Shouta, and Kayama-senpai letters explaining why. They’ve not pushed the issue so far as Oboro knows.
“Hi?” he awkwardly greets.
The hero pulls back the muzzle like thing from his mouth. With the bags under his eyes and the general vibes he gives, he’s reminded of Shouta a little bit.
“Hey. I’m Shinsou Hitoshi, hero name Mindfuck,” he greets with a wave. “I was one of Aizawa’s students.”
Did Shouta send him?
“Nice to meet you, Shinsou-san.”
“Ugh no. Call me Shinsou or Mindfuck,” he says sitting down in a graceless sprawl. “I’m not really big on formality. And Aizawa didn’t send me either.”
Telepathy? Or did he just hazard a guess?
“Then why are you here?”
Shinsou shrugs, looking over at him with a shrug.
“Because you’re in a hospital and, well, I’m sure the doctors and nurses are nice but I’d be begging for human contact that wasn’t a medical professional a couple months in. I’d’ve staged an escape attempt at this point, but that’s just me. Go, go, go.”
“Right to bed, judging by those eyebags.”
Shinsou grins at that, and damn. Is he sure he isn’t related to Shouta? That’s a pure Aizawa grin right there.
“Aizawa never said you were sassy,” he sounds delighted. “Just that you had Kirishima vibes, right down to your love of Crocs.”
Kirishima…is Red Riot? Oboro did like his vibes (along with him being shirtless but, like, he’s also a bisexual disaster who was used as a corpse puppet for like twenty years so he’s allowed the eye candy it feels).
He likes him even more because clearly Red Riot understands correct footwear.
“They’re the perfect theme park shoe,” defends Oboro. “And they’re comfy! Shouta has no room to talk. He gets pissy when the shades of black he picked to wear are slightly off in sunlight.”
It makes the man look even more delighted.
“I am so glad I decided to visit you.”
And…yeah.
Oboro is pretty glad he came to visit as well. There’s something in his gut telling him that he’ll be great friends with him.
“I’m not really big into formality either,” he says. “You can call me Oboro.”
A surprised blink is all he gets from that statement. He shrugs.
“Then call me Hitoshi I suppose if we’re on a first name basis already.”
Oboro grins, “You any good at cards? I’m getting bored fleecing the orderlies.”
“I’m Shirakumo Oboro. And I got a couple thousand yen out of the underground hero Mindfuck in cards.”
It’s not like Oboro is entirely without things to do. Nedzu has been giving him some of the revised coursework since his education is a bit out of date.
“I’m not losing my spot at UA?”
“The way I see it, Shirakumo-kun,” Nedzu says simply. “Is that you were our student and we failed you greatly. The very least we can do is provide you with an education. I understand if you don’t want a place in the heroics course. But you will have to redo most of your second year. I just wish to make sure you and your future class, whoever they may be, are up to speed.”
He pauses at that.
Does he want to be a hero? He never…not even for a minute.
He never considered anything else since he woke up.
The urge to help people remains the same as it always did. He died being a hero and his body was used to be a villain.
He wants to be a hero though even if he can be one with Shouta and Hizashi, opening up their own agency. Yes, the death of that part of his dream hurts but he wants…
“I want to be a hero still, Nedzu-sensei.”
He thinks he sees pride in his teacher’s beady little black eyes as he says it. Oboro smiles back as he looks at the coursework.
“Excellent!” he claps his paws together. “Currently, you are a ward of UA so it won’t be that hard to get the paperwork handled. Though if there was someone else you would like to live with.”
Oboro’s parents died when he was a kid in a villain attack. He only remembers them in a hazy sort of way. He went to live with his aunt who was…well she wasn’t the worst. She did the bare minimum of care for him, but, yeah, he’s not surprise that she hasn’t come running back into his life after his miraculous return from being a corpse puppet.
UA has dorms and being a ward doesn’t sound bad. But, well, having a guardian sounds nice in a vague sort of way. But right now, all the options are in his hands. It’s good having that again because he knows they have been taken from him for so long.
“Not right now? The doctors still want to keep here to make sure my mental state is okay.”
The principal merely hums and takes a sip of his tea.
“You wouldn’t be joining the heroics course until our current first years are second years. Now, I must warn you, the only class with spots available is Aizawa’s. Unless it’s something you absolutely cannot do, then we can switch in someone in 1-B. Though…well…”
“Rivalry?” he remembers the one that they had with Class B. It’s practically a tradition even if that one asshole kept making fun of Shouta’s “weak” quirk.
“Class 1-A is relatively small this year and quite protective of each other.”
Later, Oboro would know that was Nedzu’s double talk to say, ‘These children are absolutely feral and Shouta is holding the leash.’
In the instant though, he thinks that it sounds like his sort of class.
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I’m going to be a hero.”
Hitoshi keeps on visiting him, coming in at least once a week. He brings Oboro things: not hospital food, books, a stuffed cat plush that looks like it’s made of clouds. (“It’s practically made for you,” he defended. “Plus look at how fucking cute that thing is.”) He reminds Oboro of Shouta quite a bit, though a more cyberpunk version that likes classic magical girl anime.
(Hina thinks that Hitoshi seeing him regularly is a good thing. She says that Oboro looks perkier, happier. His nightmares have decreased. Not saying that socialization was the cure all to things, but he does better around people.
“The mind and the psyche are a wild place,” she says wryly.)
The visits are nice. Chief Tsukauchi only stops by for usually about a half an hour sporadically because his job keeps him busy. Nedzu, at least, stops by once every two weeks like a furry little ghost that brings Oboro work to do and revise so he can retake his second year with his new classmates.
“Do you mind if I bring more people next time?”
Oboro blinks at that.
“More people?”
“My boyfriends’ maybe,” Hitoshi says from where he’s playing a cat game on his phone. “Class A wants to meet you as well. I think Izu mentioned something to Uraraka and she told Iida and he, well, he doesn’t know quiet.”
“They want to meet me? But didn’t I?”
“No one blames you for Kurogiri’s actions,” the hero said, pale purple eyes meeting Oboro’s. “Besides, everyone has been in a hospital, they know how much it sucks being in one so the company, especially since Aizawa and the others are on the do not visit list.”
He says it without judgement, just stating a fact, but Oboro feels a flare of guilt in his heart over keeping his friends away.
“Do you think I should see them?”
“Class A or your friends?” Hitoshi asks as he puts his phone away. “I can’t tell you what to do in regard with Aizawa, Yamada, and Kayama. That’s something to handle on your time, and they get that. But Class A? They just don’t want you to be alone, Oboro. Besides we all got the taste for adoption, so looks like you’re next if you let it happen.”
His mouth twitches.
“Seriously? I’m technically older than you.”
“Irrelevant in the long run,” he says with a smirk, hair falling into his eyes. “Class A’s gonna adopt you.”
Oboro thinks that sort of sounds like a threat, but he feels choked up. A group of people that he, indirectly, hurt still want to know him.
It gives him hope that maybe his friends won’t hate him for what happened.
“I’m Shirakumo Oboro and I want to be with people again.”
His room becomes livelier telling Hitoshi that it was okay to bring his friends with him or for them to come by himself. Soon enough, the nineteen other members of Shouta’s famous class seem to have set up a rotating schedule so Oboro wasn’t alone too often.
(“Is your hair a cloud?!” demands Ashido within five seconds of introductions. “That’s so cute!”
“Your hair looks like cotton candy,” Oboro returns and she squeals before hugging him.
“I love cotton candy!!!!”)
They are definitely a very odd group of people. But they’re all…they’re all so nice to him. Even the ones who seem stoic (Shouji) or brash (Bakugou) are nice. Kirishima brought him new custom Crocs with a sky pattern on them.
“Croc bros!” the cheerful (and very buff) red head declares with a wide and toothy grin. In the background, Bakugou facepalms over his boyfriend’s antics.
It’s wild to Oboro. Because he’s been keeping up more with recent news and those in the Top Twenty-Five of the limelight hero rankings are coming to see him. Nevermind the underground heroes that seem equally capable. His Purple Majesty was amazing, of course, but he wasn’t that highly ranked.
And even then he just seemed…above it all in a way.
Class A are disasters. Oboro, as a disaster himself, adores them.
They talk over each other and meddle to the extreme. Some of them only barely know how to cook. The others barely know how to do laundry. They tease each other relentlessly and troll each other’s social media. They’re messy and brash and chaotic and imperfect and loud and…human.
Utterly human.
And something in Oboro’s chest loosens the more time he spends with them. How real they seem in comparison to the heroes of his childhood. They’re not paragons, just good-hearted people doing their best to make the world a little fairer.
(“Shouldn’t you hate me?” he asks Deku one night. The hospital is still and quiet. The Number One hero slipping in after Oboro had a nightmare and accidentally texted him instead of Hitoshi. Big green eyes pin Oboro, looking almost eerie with the moonlight streaming in.
“Now,” Midoriya says, sitting down ruffling his undercut. “Why would I do a stupid thing like that?”
“I did horrible things,” he whispers. “It wasn’t me, but it was my body. My hands. And I’ll never remember it either. It….”
The not knowing, Oboro thinks, is what kills him the most. He knows it was bad. What the League of Villains did was terrible. What Kurogiri was part of was…monstrous. And it makes him sick, stomach churning with bile in the dark of the night.
The Number One hero hums thoughtfully at that.
“You can see that way if you want, but I think that you died. You did something incredibly heroic and hearing your sacrifice, well, it definitely explains a lot about how sensei is the way he is. But your final action, Oboro was to save people. You died. And people violated you in a horrible way and now it’s…living with that,” he says thoughtfully. “But I think the fact you’re first thought was of those kids when you woke up…it says about you as a person, Shirakumo. Ultimately, however, you’re feeling are yours. But I think you can be a hero.”
The tears well almost without Oboro thinking about it. He presses his fist to his mouth as if to stifle the noise. Instead, however, he’s pulled into a hug. Midoriya’s arms wrapped around him, strong and steady.
“Cry,” he instructs gently. “You don’t have to be ashamed of your tears. I cry the most out of anyone I know.”
Oboro looks up and can see the tears also gathering in green eyes.
“We’ll cry together. Okay?”
And someone it feels like better, crying it out with someone. Like Deku is also mourning the life that Oboro could have had, the person he could have been. It feels…freeing.)
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and what was done to me wasn’t my fault.”
He agrees to see his friends at the six-month mark, after Shouta’s birthday.
Oboro feels ready to see them and he misses them as well. He’s been listening to Hizashi’s radio show and watching Kayama-senpai give a talk about sexism in the heroics industry. He finds the HeroTube channel for Shouta’s current homeroom and howls with laughter as they try to provoke a reaction out of Shouta with elaborate song and dance numbers. He catalogues the changes in their faces, how they have become amazing pro heroes and adults.
And how they are still his friends even with that gap of missing years between them. It’ll always hurt that he didn’t get to live those years with them, that he didn’t get to grow with them. But they’re still important to him and he’s missed them.
(“I think it’s great progress,” Hina says when he tells her he wants to see his friends. “Are you sure that you’re ready?”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready,” he replies. He’s wearing the giant hoodie that Yaomomo got him, a couple shades darker than his hair and gives him sweater paws. Wearing it is like a big hug at times. “But I’m more ready than I was. And I miss them. And missing them outweighed me not wanting to see them. Does…does that make sense?”
“So long as you feel comfortable with it. And remember that if you want it to stop or not go through with it that’s fine. This is on your timetable, Shirakumo.”)
The day of, however, Oboro feels like he’s on a roller coaster. Well, at a specific point of a roller coaster. You know, when you’re right at the very top of the drop and it just went so, so slowly to get to that peak. You can see everything for a split second and it’s beautiful, but your stomach is also swooping right out from under you from the sheer anticipation of the drop? That’s how it feels to see your friends who are now a couple of decades older than you.
Hitoshi’s here. Oboro asked him to and he agreed to come as…a buffer? Moral support? He’s not sure. But he likes the steady presence as the underground hero plays on his phone in a chair, using the stuffed cloud cat plush as a pillow. He’s also wearing a knit sweater done in the colors of Harmony (“Call me Shouto”).
Oboro’s on his bed, nervously making shapes with his quirk. It’s something that he did to amuse himself when he was little and to make his friends laugh when he was older. Right now, he’s definitely trying to get out his excess nerves.
He hears them before he sees them, of course. Hizashi always make sure you can hear him before you see him. Kayama-senpai was not that much better either. Hitoshi’s mouth quirks upward at the noise. Oboro suddenly remembers how everyone calls him “Aizawa’s favorite kid outside of his own child”.
Still, part of him thinks that Hizashi’s doing this on purpose. He’s being loud so Oboro can prepare himself or send Hitoshi out to send them away. He was always so weirdly considerate like that. It’s why Oboro liked him from the word go. Something in his chest swells and it pushes aside all the nerves and doubt. Because Hizashi still does stuff like that all these years later.
And, out of everything…
Out of everything, that thought is what gets him out of bed, clouds of animals disappearing as he drops his quirk. Because he missed them so much. And it doesn’t matter how much they changed because, at the core, they’re the same good and heroic people that Oboro adored. So, he stumbles out of bed, probably surprising Hitoshi, but he gets out of his room.
And he sees them.
And they see him.
“Hey guys,” he greets, tears clogging his voice a little as he braves on. “Can’t believe you gave Shouta green streak of all things. We could have dyed his hair pink. C’mon now. We all now he’s a softie.”
Hizashi lets out a choked laugh at that. It may be a sob, but Oboro doesn’t know. Kayama-senpai just books it to him, suddenly Oboro is smushed up against her sweater dress. Hizashi follows moments later. They’re all a snot-filled, teary-eyed mess, and Oboro loves them so fucking much.
He looks up to see Shouta staring at them, eyes soft and fond and Oboro reaches out to him.
“Hey,” he greets with a smile. Tears streaming down his cheeks. “You know I was never mad at you for living, right? I’m so damn happy that you survived.”
That’s when Shouta breaks. He rushes to the group and Oboro wraps an arm around him, hand buried him that long messy black hair as Shouta chokes out apologies for not being enough to save him. It chokes him up all over again and they’re such a mess, but his friends are here and they’re alive.
And they’ll be okay.
They’ll be okay.
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I’m…okay.”
After that Hizashi, Nemuri, and Shouta are frequent visitors to Oboro’s room. Rather than Nedzu bringing Oboro some of the work that he’ll need to complete in order to join 2-A (retaking his second year all over again, ugh), it’s usually one of them.
“You’re such teachers,” complains Oboro to Shouta and Hizashi when they come to visit him with a stack of work to do.
“Not our fault you’re a fetus,” grins Hizashi, bright eyes peering over his glasses. “Besides Class A’s homeroom teacher is a real hardass.”
Shouta rolls his eyes as he takes a seat, “Do you want the nightmare children as a homeroom next year, Zashi?”
“Nope! They only listen to you. They just go along with the rest of us. Well…maybe they listen to me.”
“Nightmare children?”
“When Shouta really, really likes a class, he gives them a cute little nickname. Hitoshi’s class were the hellions. So Shouta’s pretty much guaranteed to the follow them over the next couple of years. And beyond.”
Considering how deep his friend has buried his face into his capture weapon, Oboro thinks Hizashi hit the nail on the head.
“They look like a fun group,” he says with a grin. “I saw their HeroTube channel.”
“Do you want to meet some of them?” Shouta asks from where he’s settled in. “Somehow they heard about you and that you may be joining. Unless you want to go to Kan’s class.”
“Nope,” Oboro says. “Well, no to going to 1-B. It’s decided I’m going to give you some new gray hairs, Shouta. But yeah, I’d like to meet your nightmare children. How did they learn about me?”
“There are many possibilities, most are headache inducing to consider.”
Hizashi leans and whispers loudly.
“Shouta has to save that energy for when there’s property damage involved with his classes, graduated or not."
Oboro laughs and Shouta throws a balled-up piece of paper at his husband’s head.
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I’m going to be in 2-A.”
The next time Hitoshi visits, he brings a girl with him. Her head is shaved with patterns done into the shorn locks, likes swirls covering her head. The girl has on high-waisted jeans, combat boots, a crop-top that reads PROBLEM CHILD REMIX, a flannel shirt around her waist, and a large battered and patched biker jacket.
“Sup,” the girl greets with a grin. “My name is Watashi Kiyomi, but you can just call me Ki. I’m Deku’s protégé.”
“Shirakumo Oboro,” he bows toward her. “Call me Oboro. Nice to meet you!”
“Look at you kids getting along already,” Hitoshi drawls as he sprawls out. “I’m taking a nap. Don’t burn the place down.”
“Sure thing, Gramps,” Ki says and Hitoshi flips her off. She cackles. “Espeon survives on naps, Oboro. That’s rule number one.”
“So, you’re in 1-A?”
“Yep! Recommendation student and everything. And you were a Nomu?”
That’s a bit refreshing. People usually try to be tactful about Kurogiri, which leaves Oboro feeling…a uncertain on bringing it up. This feels like cutting to the chase, a simple statement of fact.
“I prefer the term corpse puppet actually.”
Ki stares at him with wide dark eyes. Mouth open slightly for a moment before it stretches into a demented looking grin.
“Oh I like you,” she declares.
“Even though my body was used as a villain?” Oboro asks because he knows she knows. Part of him wonders how much other people know. He’s probably going to be judged. It’s best to know where his potential new classmates stand on such things.
“And I’m Quirkless,” the girl says with a shrug. “We all got fucking baggage. Now gimme your phone. Imma add you to the group chat.”
And that’s that on that, Oboro supposes.
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I hope that Doctor and All for One are choking on their own hubris in fucking Hell."
Aizawa’s Nightmares
#general
KiMyAss has added CloudyWithAChance to the chat!
KiMyAss: @everyone meet Shirakumo Oboro! He’s gonna join us next year and he’s my favorite. Well, after @LoveShack
RockOnDonkeyKong: Ouch.
KiMyAss: You’re my best ho, Akiyama
RockOnDonkeyKong: I am a good hoe.
LoveShack: Welcome @CloudyWithAChance! I’m Ito Masumi. I identify as non-binary so they/them pronouns please!
SticksAndStones: @CloudyWithAChance I’m Suzuki Nakano, Shirakumo-kun! I’m currently the class rep so if you need anything then reach out to me or to @WhyUGottaHurtMeBradBird, who is the vice rep.
CloudyWithAChance: Thnx! Im super excited. Hopefully this won’t be too weird
Kuribara: We deal with Watashi’s shit on the reg you’re fine
KiMyAss: Meet me in the fucking foam pit and say that to my fucking face @Kuribara
LoveIsAnOpen: Don’t worry Shirakumo-kun! This is how Kurihara and Watashi show how they love each other. I’m Domen Hiroko! It’s super nice to meet you!!!
CloudyWithAChance: I mean I once stripped in front of my class so this is kind of feeling like home already
Several people are typing…
“I’m Shirakumo Oboro and that’s enough for today.”
Hitoshi and the others come around to take Oboro out of the hospital in order to get some air, get him used to being out in the world. The air is cold, making Oboro’s eyes water. He buries his face into the fuzzy scarf that Ki knitted for him and shoved his hands into the fleece lined pockets for his coat.
“Cold?” Hitoshi asks sounding amused.
“I feel like Father Winter just bitchslapped me,” he grumbles, making Hitoshi bark out a laugh. He grins at Oboro with something like fondness.
“We’ll go hit up a cat café,” the underground hero says. “I know a good one near here.”
“Are you sure your related to Shouta?”
“Trust me,” Hitoshi responds with an eye roll. “We had to have a DNA test to satisfy Shouto on that front.”
“Shouta agreed to it?”
“I mean, if only to stop the rumor. Shouto paid for it with Endeavor’s credit card as well. This was back in second year so part of it was probably spite. Aizawa hated that man so much. One time, Shouto spite bought a bouncy house for us. I think it’s in storage somewhere at UA.”
This explains a lot about Shouto, who also did a lipsync on Kaminari’s YouTube channel to the classic song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” with the most dead face that Oboro has ever seen. Shouta’s kids are the best.
“So it was just villain attacks or shenanigans and there was no inbetween during your school years, huh?”
“Well occasionally, we would actually learn something much to all our surprise,” Hitoshi replies as he opens the door for him. “But basically.”
Oboro is so glad for the warmth of the cat café, which is done up in soft colors and has adoptable cats. And the menu has puns. He’s having a ball. Hitoshi gets a cat-punncino with enough espresso shots in that Oboro thinks he could get the same desired effect with hard drugs before face planting on a couch and letting cats climb over him.
“So,” Hitoshi says after Oboro takes some sips of his meow-cha and becomes best friends with a calico with a torn earn. “You’re a ward of UA, right?”
“Yeah. I still need to figure out who will be warden or guardian, but warden sounds better because isn’t that’s who is in charge of a ward? I can’t keep being Nedzu-sensei’s ward though. But it’s…I don’t know…weird? It’s weird to ask my friends to do it for me, even if I know they’d do it.”
It’s something Oboro has been waffling on. The other teachers sound nice, but he doesn’t really know them. Not like Nedzu or his friends, he’d want to be with someone that he really trusts.
“What about me?”
His eyes snap toward Hitoshi, covered in cats, but looking deadly serious. It’s such a bizarre image that Oboro almost wants to laugh. Instead, he feels his breath catch in his throat as he stares at Hitoshi.
“I know it’s weird. Technically, you’re supposed to be older than me. Right now, our age gap isn’t that big, even less than what we have with Ki. And we’re mostly semi-successfully co-parenting her with her, you know, actual parents,” Hitoshi continues as he shifts into a sitting position. “And, frankly, legally, no one knows what the hell to do with you. Given the nature of quirks, especially permanent ones, that feels like an oversight. But that’s just me. Izuku, Shouto, and I’ve talked it over. We have the room and a frankly horrifying amount of money between the three of us. Well, everyone deserves a home, you know? So, if you want, then you can come home to us. We’d be, I don’t know, not your parents. But maybe brothers or something?”
“You mean that?” he whispers.
Hitoshi tilts his head to the side, softening his gaze. He leans forward, resting his hand on Oboro’s shoulder.
“I never say anything I don’t mean.”
“Then yes!” Oboro says, voice cracking and he rubs at hs eyes to stop the tears. “Yes, I’d really like that. If you guys will have me.”
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I have a home.”
Considering her role in getting Oboro back to being Oboro, it’s really surprising that it took him so long to meet Shouta’s daughter, Eri. That, apparently, was her idea.
“I was a little worried,” she said nervously, twisting a spinning ring on her finger. She’s pretty with long silvery hair and bright red eyes, dressed in a knit sweater dress and tights. “That you would be mad or something. Not that I thought you would. But…I’m still dealing with some issues regarding my power. And this was the first really, really big thing I did with you and I—”
“Thank you,” Oboro says, reaching and stilling her hands. She looks up at him and he smiles. “You gave me a chance to have my life, whatever that looks like. You’re a miracle worker.”
She smiles tentatively and sits down.
“I felt like this power was a curse for so long. There was,” she hesitates. “There was a man named Chisaki Kai, who…did bad things to me, used my body and my quirk without my consent, made me feel like I was cursed. I don’t know how you’re feeling exactly because you don’t have those memories. But, um, I get it? A little bit.”
“It sucks,” he says quietly, patting her hand. “I worry and wonder and research a little. I…I hate them for, I don’t know, taking me away from me. Even though I was dead. It’s…complicated.”
Eri smiles, wan and gentle.
“If there’s anything I understand, then it’s that.”
They don’t talk more the rest of the visit, well not about serious things. But Eri gives them her number and the two of them form their own little weird support group of two. And that’s enough for him right now, Oboro finds.
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I’m terrified...and that's okay."
Shouta comes the night before Oboro is supposed to leave the hospital. It’s late. Most of the others are sleeping and Oboro’s not tired yet. He’s not…wired either. He’s just kind of taking it in. This place that was basically his home for once, where he spent a lot of time dealing with his shit. It means something to him and he wants to say goodbye.
Either way, Oboro’s not surprised when Shouta slips into his room in the middle of the night.
“Shouldn’t you be getting your allotted two hours of continuous sleep?”
His friend rolls his eyes before sitting.
“I figured you’d be nervous about tomorrow. It’s a big change.”
“My life has been some pretty big changes recently,” Oboro says, but he moves to the end of the bed. “But I’m…I didn’t sleep my first day before UA either, you know? I’m just wired that way I suppose.”
Shouta hums at that, sitting down on chair.
“It was Hizashi and me,” he says after several moments in silence. “That approved the procedure when Kurogiri was…falling apart.”
Oboro figures that’s what happened since no one knows what the hell happened to his aunt. Shouta watches him, face blank. But it’s a blankness that Oboro remembers. He’d do the same thing when he was expecting someone to be angry with him.
“I didn’t expect to live,” he confesses. “I have to admit that I was surprised when I actually woke up. I mean, I didn’t want to die, of course. But it was alright if the kids were okay, if you were okay. Granted, Izuku said you had to smack that out of him. But it, I knew that one day it would come down to that in heroics. And I made my peace with it. Because it meant that someone could go home, you know? Like my parents couldn’t.”
He pauses.
“I’m pissed at the villains for what they did to my body after I died, Shouta. I’m pissed that I didn’t get to rest in peace or whatever. I hate what was done to me without my consent even if my body shows no scars and I can’t remember it because of the process to get me back from Kurogiri. But you are my best friend, Shouta. You and Hizashi are my best friends in this world and are my family, even if I don’t want to live you right now. I love you, Shouta, okay? I’m never going to be angry with you for living or for choosing to give me a chance at life.”
Shouta swallows thickly at that. Oboro gives him a watery grin.
“Just don’t a repeat, okay?” his best friend rasps.
“I don’t plan on it anytime soon,” he promises. Shouta smiles. What makes Oboro really happy is that those fine lines around his mouth and eyes are from laughter and smiling more than anything else.
Evidence of a life well-lived.
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro and I have a family who cares about me.”
Move in day into TodoShinDeku apartment (portmanteau created by Tenya of all people, Oboro changed one of his diapers once when visiting Tensei, Tenya turns bright red when he’s informed of this) is chaotic as with all things revolving around Class A. Tenya and Yaomomo are trying to direct those that could get off work to help.
Eri’s in the master bedroom keeping Shocchan occupied so she doesn’t escape along with her boyfriend, Jirou, and Kouda. Ki’s perched on the back of the couch with Dark Shadow draped around her shoulders as Tokoyami, Kirishima, Ashido, Izuku, Shouto, and Hitoshi bring it boxes.
Oboro doesn’t have a lot of stuff. All things considered, but they also got him a new Western style mattress for the bedframe that was recently bought to convert an office into Oboro’s own room rather than sticking him in the guest room. It’s fun and there’s music playing and Oboro likes this place, how lively and bright it is.
Shouta, Hizashi, and Ka—Nemuri are in the kitchen getting the rations for lunch ready. Their banter and teasing as familiar as the back of Oboro’s hand. But the banter and teasing of Class A sounds just as familiar now.
There’re still a couple months to go before he officially joins Class 2-A. Ki complains about her upcoming exams as with the others in the group chats, which leads the Class A students into fondly recounting their own examination days nad how they either succeeded or failed.
The fact of the matter, however, remains is that in a couple of months? Oboro will be moving into the 2-A dorms and go back to classes. He’ll be living his own life again, preparing to become a hero. He’s having a good day today and the future feels…boundless like the endless sky.
Oboro feels Hitoshi bump into him and he looks up.
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” he says with a wide grin on his face. “Never better.”
“My name is Shirakumo Oboro!” he’ll greet warmly to classmates that are new but familiar. The new 2-A stares at him with fond smiles on their faces as he takes his place next to Shouta.
“And I’m the Second Chance Hero: Cloud Nine!”