Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kyoka Jirou sat in her apartment and drummed a new beat out with the fingers on her right hand as she rested her chin in her left hand.  Her earphone jacks gently swayed with the beat, like two little snakes on her head, as she tracked the movement of the other person in the apartment with her from her couch.

Her roommate and perhaps girlfriend, Momo Yaoyorozu, hummed along as she worked on putting together their newest piece of furniture.  Kyoka would say ‘perhaps girlfriend’ because to be honest, even to this day, she wasn’t entirely sure what the drop-dead gorgeous bombshell that was Momo saw in the spunky little musician, and yet here they were.

Kyoka should have been helping with the furniture but Momo lived for the minor thrill of assembling that shit.  She learned the directions - down to the little copyright notice and everything - then she would assemble it from memory.  If Momo found a piece lacking, she would make a new one out of more suitable materials.  Upon completion of her task, she would go and have some ice cream or some other heavy food to replenish her lipids.

They would sit together on the couch and watch television together while Momo snacked and Kyoka tapped out a new beat with her fingers on Momo’s leg.  Maybe Kyoka would con Momo into making out with her or maybe Momo would attack Kyoka first, though Kyoka did not hope to be so lucky even though it happened fairly regularly.  Either way, they would end up snuggling in bed, enjoying the new life they had about a year out from graduation.

“How’s it coming, Yaomomo?”  Kyoka asked conversationally.  She knew the answer was ‘flawlessly’ because Momo did everything flawlessly but it still felt polite to ask the question.

“It’s going wonderfully, dear!”  Momo responded happily without looking up from her task.  Kyoka enjoyed the little butterflies she felt when Momo used pet names for her, even a year and a half into dating the black-haired creation Hero.

Kyoka had a little smile on her face as she continued to drum her fingers, absently working out the new beat she wanted for her latest song.  She should have, she figured, been really happy.  She had an absurdly beautiful, smart, and kind girlfriend, she was a talented musician who could play multiple instruments and who had a quickly budding career, and Kyoka herself was a well-respected, freshly minted sidekick in the Hero world.

But she was kind of… lukewarm on life.  Part of it was that she had this huge, nagging complex regarding Momo, like she was afraid she really wasn’t good enough for the creation Hero and one of these days the other shoe was going to drop on the vague joke being played on Kyoka’s life.  Part of it was that Kyoka felt really insecure about her career, too.  She knew she could make it as a professional musician and she knew she could - and felt a duty to - be a good pro Hero that saved many people but she wasn’t sure if she could swing both.

And she felt so, so obligated to be a good Hero first and foremost, even if the prospect of doing that full-time was moderately unappealing to her.  She couldn’t deny how great it felt, how much pride and happiness she derived from saving people and assisting in disaster relief and all the other things that pro Heroes did.  But she felt distracted when she did too much Hero work, always thinking more about the songs she could be writing or performing instead of whatever the assigned duties for the day were as a newly graduated sidekick.

Then there was the thousand pound elephant that came with her everywhere she went as a Hero:  Kyoka Jirou was the Ninth Bearer of One for All.

Kyoka had taken to the borrowed power of the former Symbol of Peace better than she’d thought she would.  She had to get in a lot better shape to do it and that had been a whole entire other challenge.  For somebody who already had body image issues, sculpting her body into something leaner, with hard edges and lines, had been really difficult and still left her feeling insecure about it to that day.

Kyoka had been so, so damn sure that the punk rocker girl who just wanted to be a Hero on the side was unfit to be the successor to the greatest Hero who ever lived but Toshinori was a reasonably supportive teacher all things considered.  Kinda sucked at teaching, on balance, and he was a huge dork even into his retirement but she still loved him all the same.

Her chance meeting with Toshinori Yagi a year before taking the entrance exam to UA had changed her life.  Kyoka was just still not sure, even to this day, if it had been entirely for the better.  It made her reevaluate herself, her place in the world, her dreams and wants and desires… Perhaps she needed that kind of introspection but it didn’t make it any easier for her to stop doubting if maybe the plan she had always envisioned in her head might not be suitable anymore after all.

“Something wrong, love?”  Momo asked, and Kyoka jumped a bit.

Kyoka wore a black t-shirt and some gray leggings, while Momo wore one of her preferred lime green… robe things.  God, Momo was so damn pretty, with her hair tied up and her little reading glasses on.  Momo sat down on the couch to Kyoka’s left and set two steaming mugs of tea down, too.  Momo was just fucking perfect and maybe, just maybe, that was entirely the problem after all.

“Ha, no, I’m good,” Kyoka lied through her teeth with a smile, and Momo smiled back.

Kyoka stuffed down an urge to frown as Momo turned the television on and began playing the show they had been halfway through binge-watching.  It was some kind of horror anthology series and they were on the season about witches and shit.  Ochako introduced it to them and Kyoka loved it but Momo was a big baby, afraid of the barest hint of fictional blood.  The fact that it made Momo more cuddly than usual might have been part of the appeal, if Kyoka was being honest.

Kyoka was at the point where she was contemplating writing sappy songs about how she couldn’t figure out what to do with her life.  When did it come to this?

Why did the girl who had everything feel like she had nothing?

She dreams of falling that night.  She is falling from great height into the sunset.

There is a city below her and she is falling towards the highest and brightest skyscraper in the skyline.

She can fly.  Why is she falling?  She doesn’t know but she can’t stop herself.

She wakes up before she hits the rooftop of that skyscraper.

Kyoka sighed as she stepped into the elevator of Shield Industries.

It was a little bit like going to see her crazy cousins and she wasn’t quite looking forward to finding out all the new and wonderful ways they had found to destroy the kitchen at grandma’s house.  Okay, that was a lie.  She was looking forward to it, at least a little bit.

Kyoka wore her Hero costume, which was a bit of a stretch description-wise when all it really was, was a leather jacket and pants, a pink shirt, and some black boots with advanced speakers in them.  She did have her fancy earphones meant to protect her ears as well as her gloves that had her Amplifier Jacks attached to them but really she pretty much just looked like a nineteen year old girl listening to music when she walked down the street.

That was how she liked it, though.  Nobody ever bothered her - and few of them even recognized her - when she did patrols.  She also, realistically, was listening to music.

In this case, she was listening to some calm piano music, hoping to get some inspiration as she wanted her next album to have some piano parts on it.  The fact that Momo loved piano and wanted to potentially participate if possible in making music with Kyoka was definitely a consideration, too.

Shield Industries was a newer company.  Melissa Shield founded it when she moved to Japan two years ago, then she hired on some graduates from UA’s Support Department as she got herself established.  It was still a small thing and they were headquartered in a five story building but every trip to Shield Industries was an adventure to Kyoka.

She liked Melissa.  Melissa was super nice.  A bit of a nerd and not quite Kyoka’s type but that was why she and Mei stuck together like glue.  Then there was Izuku and, between Mei and Izuku, there wasn’t a day that went by that something didn’t get blown up in the Shield Industries workshop.  Kyoka privately suspected Melissa had an entire section of her budget dedicated just to cleaning up after the other two geniuses.

When the elevator opened and Kyoka stepped off, she reached up and tapped the button on the right earphone to pause her music.  Then she narrowed her eyes when she realized there was still music playing, albeit faintly.  She took off her headphones and held them under her left arm as she walked down the white, well-lit office-style hallway towards the source of the music, which got much louder without her headphones on.

Kyoka poked her head into the doorway and raised her eyebrows and earphone jacks in unison.  She noticed three things immediately.  First of all, nothing seemed to be destroyed or exploded today; that was suspicious.  Second of all, Mei, Izuku, and Melissa were all there in a line, facing her but not looking at the doorway.  They had their eyes closed… and they were dancing?  They were doing some kind of routine, all in sync, raising their legs in turn and spinning their arms around with index fingers raised, eyes closed and smiles on their faces as they danced to the music.

Third of all, they were dancing to one of her songs. 

“Hey, what the heck are you three up to?”  Kyoka could feel the heat in her face as she interrupted them.  All three of them stopped dead in unison and looked at her with a mechanical swivel.  Kyoka knew they were all the same wavelength but honestly couldn’t even stop the laughter that escaped her at the sight, as her earphone jacks fell.  Then they reacted as was appropriate for them each:  Melissa smiled and chuckled nervously, Izuku turned beet red and started stammering quietly and incoherently, and Mei looked unabashed as she threw her hands into the air and called back.

“Earphone Jack!  You’re just the person we were waiting for!”  Mei wore her usual:  a thick, dark gray tank top and some light gray overalls with the top part of the overalls wrapped around her waist.  She also had some boots and work gloves on as well, and she had her weird google things she used for her quirk.  She ran over first and Kyoka had just enough time to step into the doorway properly and brace herself before she was attacked in a hug.

“Oof, Mei, relax!”  She said as Mei laughed maniacally.  Mei wasn’t really strong enough to knock Kyoka over - Kyoka was strong, these days - but she was strong enough to be inconvenient.  Still, Kyoka hugged the pink-haired girl back and she both rolled her eyes and smiled just a little bit.  Then Mei skipped away, her expression turning into that dangerous, deadly one that meant she was about to discuss a new ‘baby.’

“Hey, Jirou!  Sorry about that, we, uh… were practicing for a surprise for you?”  That was Izuku, who Kyoka affectionately referred to as ‘Greenie.’  He really was a sweetheart and he and Melissa made an excellent little team along with Mei to give them a bit of that eccentric spice.  He had come into his own in UA’s Support Department and, between him and Mei, they’d designed the updated Hero costumes for pretty much all of the graduated Class A before they even started working with Melissa.

“Oh yeah, Greenie?  Is that the dance routine or a gadget that’s gonna blow up again?”  Distantly, Kyoka thought that might sound mean out of context.  But when half of what Mei and Izuku made exploded, it was really more than fair in her opinion.  Appropriately, Izuku smiled and also blushed like a dweeb.  He was always blushing and Kyoka didn’t pay it any mind.  She knew who he had eyes for and she was more of the gravity-defying persuasion than Kyoka’s own sound-based powers, even if he studiously denied it.

“Both!”  Melissa chirped happily.

Izuku wore the same kind of gray overalls Mei had, though he was wearing his clothes properly.  Melissa also had hers on but the top was unzipped to show off the white t-shirt with Shield Industries’ logo on it she had underneath.  The three of them were like their own little flight crew and Kyoka smirked at the thought.

“Alright, well, I saw the dance routine.  Not bad, if I might add.”  Melissa jumped up and down a bit and clasped her hands together in excitement at that, while Izuku awkwardly scratched his head as he smiled and looked away. “So what else do you got, Melissa?”

“I’m glad you asked!”  Came Mei’s voice from Kyoka’s left.  Kyoka swiveled her head to the left and raised her earphone jacks in a defensive stance.  Mei had a little remote in her gloved hand and, when she pressed it, a floor panel in the center of the room opened up.

The room was very well lit and also conspicuously clean.  Both Mei and Izuku were messy workers in the lab, so that meant Melissa had probably moved things into their proper places and swept in preparation for this day.  There were some diagrams pinned to corkboards on the wall, a tall fake plant in a pot in the far corner, and some bookshelves placed generously away from the main work area.  The main work area had some work tables along the wall, along with some rolling stools to sit on.  It was very similar to how UA’s Support Department was set up, all and all, and had bright white lighting, too.

But still, suspiciously clean today; no half-built doodads or broken robots.  And as something rose out of the little hole in the ground, Kyoka raised an eyebrow as she realized why.

It was a full-body mannequin attached to a little steel stand and it wore what looked like her Hero costume, though it was modified.  It had two shirts - a white tank top underneath the pink shirt - and the pants and jacket were still black but a different material now.  The boots had what looked like finer speakers in them as well as a different material.  Also, the headphones were a different color, now black and dark purple with pink highlights that matched the shirt.

But what struck Kyoka most of all and made her frown was that the Amplifier Jacks were gone, replaced by full-cover black gloves on the mannequin’s hands.

“Okay… I’m skeptical, guys. Tell me what I’m looking at here,” Kyoka said slightly hesitantly.  She did realize she’d had her earphone jacks up in a defensive stance the whole time, though, so she awkwardly dropped them.  Mei started to go off but got as far as opening her mouth when Melissa glared at her.

“Midoriya is supposed to explain, Mei,” Melissa said in a very stern tone, and Mei visibly deflated.  Kyoka might have felt bad for her if Mei didn’t routinely steamroll any and all tech demos.  Let Izuku have a chance, Kyoka figured.  Izuku cleared his throat and stepped forward.

“So, uh… I’ve never presented a costume like this to a pro Hero, so I hope it’s okay if I go a little slow?”  He asked, and he had visible apprehension in his green eyes.  He really was a little ray of sunshine, though, and Kyoka made a mental note to tease the shit out of Ochako later when Kyoka saw her next.

“Course, Greenie.  I’ve got time,” Kyoka said.  That was true, too.  Besides, she wanted him to get this right.  He deserved it with how hard he worked on his support gear designs.

“Alright… So, as you can see, the material is different now.  It’s bulletproof to small arms, though we had to add a second shirt to your torso for that.  It’ll also be warmer in the colder months,” he began, and he walked around the stand and looked at Kyoka with a mixture of nervousness and excitement.  Izuku lived for work, though, and the more he spoke the better he got.

“It’s basically fireproof, the jacket has special slots in the sleeves for you to hook your jacks into and hide them, it should breathe easier and be easier to move in, and the boots have a sturdy composite alloy in them so if you kick somebody they won’t break as easily now and they’ll cushion your falls better.  The speakers have been enhanced to output far higher potential sound waves and your new headphones appropriately can noise cancel more efficiently and dynamically, to compensate.”

By the time he got to the headphones, he was going too fast.  Kyoka made a little lowering motion with a flat palm and he made an ‘oh’ noise of understanding.

“Sorry… the biggest thing is the gloves, though.”  He reached over and took one off the mannequin to hand it to her.  She flipped it over and found what looked like a small, circular speaker on the palm.  “You told us ‘no armor,’ so we made this out of the sturdiest material we could work with that would still feel like fabric.  It might be a bit stiff at first.  I was able to miniaturize the Amplifier Jack into that little speaker there,” he pointed at it in her hand, “and you can string your earphone jacks within your jacket to the new gloves to protect them and still use the gloves.  The port for gloves is on the inside of the top of the wrist.”

“Well damn,” Kyoka said as she turned it over a few times.  It did feel a bit stiff; definitely not regular fabric but not unacceptably so.  Not having to have large devices on her wrists would make movement less clunky and also make it easier to punch people when she needed to.  “That’s pretty damn cool.”

“Yeah!”  He said, entirely enthusiastically.  “They also have ports for the, uh…”

He trailed off and Kyoka laughed nervously.  He meant Blackwhip but he didn’t know about One for All.  Melissa did, though, and she generally handled the special considerations for that.  Melissa nodded behind Izuku and gave a little thumbs up and a smile.

“Right.  Thanks, Greenie,” Kyoka said, sparing the both of them from that awkwardness.  Izuku gave her an adorable little thumbs up, too, as he was liable to do, then he gently took the glove from her and stuck it back on the mannequin.  Kyoka put her hands on her hips and walked around the mannequin for a bit as the three engineers waited with bated breath.  “Well, it certainly looks good.  I’ll have to go punch some bad guys or something to know if it works, though,” Kyoka said, and all three of the engineers gave a little fist pump and cheered in unison.

God, Kyoka loved the three of them.  Her life would be so much harder without them.  All of Class A’s would be, even Katsuki, despite how he had bitched endlessly during their first year about having to go to the same high school as Izuku.  He got over it, though, after he was relentlessly mocked for being such a killjoy by Class A and put in his damn place.  Eijiro becoming the Katsuki Whisperer and showing him the Power of Love really helped, too, and it never stopped being the funniest goddamn thing to Kyoka.

“So, do you wanna take it for a spin?”  Mei asked enthusiastically, and Kyoka grinned at her.

“Sure do.  But first, I want you three to show me your dance routine from the top so I can critique it,” Kyoka replied mischievously.  Both Izuku and Melissa turned red and looked mortified but Mei threw up her hands in excitement.

Guess I know whose idea that was, Kyoka thought with amusement as the three of them got back in their little line.  Kyoka started the song over on their little stereo and they took it from the top.

It was about three hours later that Kyoka walked into the apartment of Toshinori Yagi.

“Toshi?  Toshi!  I brought you some more food…”  She called out as she stood in the front hallway.  All she heard was a muffled groan and Kyoka couldn’t help the eye roll that came over her.  “Are you being a drama queen again?”  She called out, and she heard a slightly pained grunt.

Toshinori Yagi, formally the Symbol of Peace, All Might, was one of her favorite people in the world.  Really, it was true and she looked up to him a lot as a kid as all young people in Japan did in their superhuman society.  But as a young adult, knowing the real him and how much of a massive dork he was, she couldn’t help but tease him.

She wore her new Hero costume with her headphones around her neck and held two plastic bags filled with various goodies.  She had texted him towards the end of her patrol and asked him if he needed anything from the store and he let her know he wanted to make some kind of American food.  He really was such a nerd for American stuff; his apartment had red, white, and blue everything, his costume had been red, white, blue, and gold, and even his damn car had a little American flag on the license plate.

It was hilarious.  The only thing she’d ever seen that was funnier was the first time she’d visited the Support Department dorms in her second year and saw Izuku’s dorm room with all the All Might nerd shit he had in his room.  She had gone to play some board games with Mei and Izuku and some of the other Support Department kids and she wasted no time in mocking Ochako endlessly for how much her future husband was a fucking massive dork just like their teacher was.

Ochako still hadn’t gone on a date with Izuku and that was funny as hell, too.  The two of them were utterly hopeless, though she held out hope for the two yet.  She wasn't quite Mina… but she was willing to push people along sometimes.

Kyoka walked around the corner into Toshinori’s kitchen and was hit with a wave of disorienting déjà vu.  Because there, on the floor, was Toshinori, face down in a puddle of red with some broken glass around him.  It reminded her exactly of how she’d met Gran Torino and the juxtaposition of teacher and master would’ve been funny if it wasn’t unnerving.

“Toshi!  What the hell?!”  Kyoka yelled out, raising her earphone jacks.  She jabbed one into the wall and listened around but nobody else was in the apartment.  Toshinori just continued to lay face down into the floor, though he raised his right hand to motion vaguely.

“I was gonna make you some food from the American South but I tripped and broke the sauce bottle all over myself,” he grumbled into the floor.  She could smell it now and, whatever it was, it smelled rather tangy and savory.

“So what, you’re just gonna lay there and scare me half to death?”  Kyoka asked incredulously.

“I think so, yes, Young Jirou.  Go on without me.  I trust the future of Hero society to your capable hands,” he deadpanned solemnly.  Kyoka snaked out an earphone jack in response and jabbed him in the shoulder.  He yelped and got up quite quickly, then glared at her half-heartedly.

“Quit being a dweeb,” Kyoka said with a smirk, and Toshinori chuckled in response.  His front was all covered in sauce, though it looked like he might have cut himself on the glass while he was at it and Kyoka’s smile morphed into a frown.  “You should clean up and check those cuts,” she continued in a more serious tone.

“I will.  Please, feel free to take a seat,” he said kindly.  Then he padded off to go change in the bathroom.

Kyoka worried a lot about Toshinori because his health still wasn’t the greatest since he retired from Hero work after their first year in high school.  Melissa, Mei, and Izuku, the mad scientists that they were, had worked on various gear and items to try and help Toshinori out but… damaged was damaged as far as the human body went.

It took Toshinori about twenty minutes to go do what he needed to do and, in the meantime, Kyoka contented herself with putting away the food she’d bought for him and cleaning up the mess in his kitchen.  She knew where all his stuff was - he had lived in the same apartment since his retirement, after all - and it was mindless, pleasant busywork that she kind of needed at that moment.  Once she was done sweeping and mopping, she grabbed one of his dark towels and manually dried the floor.  She wasn’t about to have Toshinori fall twice because of her work.

That was about when Toshinori came back in, wearing fresh clothes and a smile on his face.  He had a noticeable bruise on his chin, though.  Kyoka tapped her own chin and looked at him.

“Gonna go to the doctor?”  She asked, and he grinned in response.

“I have an appointment tomorrow, anyway.  I’m fine, really, it’s no big deal.  I may have used my muscle form as I fell to cushion the impact,” he replied matter-of-factly.  Kyoka blinked a few times in confusion and laughed.

“That’s kinda awesome,” she said, and they shared a smile before they got to cooking.  Kyoka enjoyed cooking with Toshinori quite a bit.  He used to suck at it before he retired; she knew because, the first time she invited him over to her parents’ home for a family dinner, he managed to burn the food he tried to help make.  But a few years of retirement and extra time on his hands helped a lot and Kyoka had learned to cook along with him in her free time.

It took them about an hour but they made some delicious smelling food that was primarily based around a chicken-dish and some biscuits and gravy.  Since Toshinori managed to lose the sauce, he had to change gears on what he wanted to make but it worked out and when they sat down at his table to eat Kyoka hummed in contentment at the first bite.

“Good job, Symbol of Food, this is delicious,” she said mischievously, and Toshinori snorted at her joke.

“I appreciate your approval, Young Jirou.  Thank you for coming to spend time with me,” he said, and Kyoka just smiled.

“Of course, silly.  Where else am I going to eat food like this?”  She said sarcastically, and they both laughed at that.  “So, tell me how the new class at UA is going,” Kyoka followed up with as she cut herself off another bite.

“It’s going.  Aizawa only expelled two students so far and Nezu brought both of them back by the end of the day, so it could be worse,” Toshinori admitted in a very calm voice.  Kyoka chuckled at that.  Aizawa never expelled any students from her class at UA, though that jackass Mineta had come close more than a few times before he grew up and got over himself in their third year.

“Got any firebrands like Katsuki or Todoroki in there?”  Kyoka asked after she finished chewing.  Toshinori just shook his head, though.

“No, this class is very subdued.  Things have been quiet since the Meta Liberation Army was defeated.  It’s really calm and I only sometimes have errant projectiles thrown at me during training exercises.”  Toshinori gave her a toothy grin after he spoke.

“You shouldn’t be doing those anymore, you know,” Kyoka said, and she pointed her fork at him for good measure.  “Katsuki and I aren’t always gonna be there to protect you from falling rocks.”

“I am aware, trust me.  I make a point to stand near Aizawa or Kan at all times when we do exercises now,” he said, though Kyoka just rolled her eyes, knowing that argument was pointless.  Toshinori was a reckless, foolhardy man and nobody was ever going to tell him otherwise even though he wasn’t a Hero anymore.  Then again, he was still surprisingly quick all things considered and Kyoka considered whether or not he might always be a Hero, in his own way.  Old habits died hard, after all.

“So tell me, has something been bothering you?  You usually schedule more in advance for our dinners - not that I am complaining, of course,” Toshinori said with a glint in his vivid blue eyes, and Kyoka sighed as she set her fork down.

“I dunno, it’s weird.  I’ve been feeling weird recently about my plans and stuff as a Hero and with… other stuff.”

“Are things going well with Young Yaoyorozu?”  Toshinori asked, and the corners of his mouth barely pulled into a smirk.  Kyoka groaned before responding properly.

“Yes, they are.  That’s the weird part!  I just… I dunno, I feel inadequate, I guess…”  She sort of mumbled that second part, and Toshinori grimaced in response.

“Do you remember what you asked me when we met?”  Toshinori said, and Kyoka rolled her head back towards the ceiling to think.

“I believe my exact words were, ‘All Might, why are you acting like such a weirdo?’”  She said, and Toshinori sputtered.  She brought her gaze back down to him and he looked appropriately defeated.

“No, not that part.  The question you asked me about being a Hero!”  He said indignantly, and Kyoka chuckled.

“I asked you if… if someone could still be a Hero but also have a normal life,” Kyoka said after a moment, and Toshinori nodded enthusiastically.

“Exactly.  And remember how I told you that I was utterly struck by that?  That I realized that I didn’t have a normal life and had suffered for it.  I realized that not having any kind of normalcy in my life hurt my ability to serve and protect the people,” Toshinori said, and Kyoka bobbed her head back and forth horizontally in consideration as he spoke.

“Okay but Toshi, it’s One for All.  I feel like every moment I spend writing songs or recording music is a moment I could’ve helped somebody!”  Kyoka frowned after she spoke, but Toshinori just shook his head.

“That’s how I felt, too.  But I didn’t realize I was running myself ragged and burning out until I saw how successful you were as my successor.”  He stopped and pointed his index finger up in her direction; not at her but more so to accentuate his point.  “One for All was made to defeat All for One… and we did it!”  He added, and he gave her another smile.  She didn't bother to correct him by pointing out that he did it, well before he met her.

“However,” he continued, “you can’t save everyone and you can’t just work forever.  I learned that the hard way; ask Mirai sometime, he’ll be happy to complain about my insane habits, I’m sure.  If I could go back and do it over, I think I would’ve liked to be like you:  to learn an instrument, learn to cook, have friends and family…”  He looked at her with a meaningful, toothy smile.  “Have a wife.”

“Toshi, don’t be embarrassing!”  Kyoka said, feeling like her uncle was talking to her about her love life at a family holiday.

“It’s not embarrassing at all!  Love is good and I’m thrilled to see how happy Young Yaoyorozu makes you!”

“I just feel like I don’t make her as happy as she makes me,” Kyoka admitted quietly.  To her surprise, Toshinori just scoffed at that.

“Young Jirou,” he said severely, “do you have any idea how Young Yaoyorozu looked at you in your third year?  The teachers bet fifty thousand Yen on how long it would take for her to ask you out!  You are her whole world and it’s beautiful!”  Kyoka felt her whole face turn red and hot at that and she looked away in a pout, her earphone jacks coming up in a defensive stance unconsciously.  Toshinori just chuckled at her.  “I rather wish I had met somebody who looks at me like how Young Yaoyorozu looks at you, young lady.  You should cherish that because it is a wonderful thing.”

“Is the man who has never gone on a date in his life lecturing me about love?”  Kyoka teased once she had composed herself.  Toshinori smiled at her when she looked back at him.

“I haven’t been teaching for very long but let me tell you, seeing as much young love as I do at UA… It really puts things in perspective,” he said in a quiet voice.  Kyoka rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know… I just feel really worried, like I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing anymore,” she admitted, and Toshinori nodded in understanding.

“And I am sorry for that.  I suspect that giving you One for All probably derailed your plans, didn’t it?”  Kyoka returned his nod with a sigh.  “But I will say that I don’t regret doing so at all and I’m proud of the work you’ve done.  You are a wonderful successor and you will be whether you decide to be a full-time Hero or to pursue your love of music as well.”

Kyoka smiled softly at Toshinori for that.

“Thanks, grandpa,” she said with amusement, and Toshinori looked appropriately mortified.

“I am not that old,” he said defensively, and Kyoka openly laughed at him.

They stopped talking about heavy topics after that and Kyoka enjoyed their idle chatting.  Toshinori described the new class to her, what their quirks were and how they were shaping up as Heroes, and who had been elected the class representatives.  Kyoka smiled fondly; Momo was their class representative and it was something Kyoka always kind of looked up to her for.  Kyoka might have, if pressed, admitted that she had a thing for women in positions of authority, however small.

Eventually, Kyoka and Toshinori finished their food and she did the dishes for him.  He protested but she threatened him with earphone jack jabs until he sat in front of his television with a grumble.  Once she finished his dishes, she said goodbye with a hug and went back to her apartment.  It was early evening by that point and Kyoka felt a little better.

Not resolved but a little better, all the same.

“Hello, sweetie!”  Momo called when Kyoka walked into the apartment.  Kyoka smiled to herself as she took her shoes off.  

“Hey, Yaomomo, how was work today?”  Kyoka called back as she unlaced her boots and set them in a pair next to their other shoes.  Momo had… a lot of shoes.  Kyoka had some shoes, don’t get her wrong but… Momo had a lot.  She had an organizing system for her shoes.

“It was good!  I’ve got a job lined up soon to help Itsuka on a case against an up-and-coming villain gang soon!”  Momo called from the other room.  Kyoka blinked in confusion and tilted her head.  That wasn’t really Momo’s style; not the 'working with Itsuka' part, those two were a killer team, but the ‘villain gang’ part.

“What’s up with that?”  Kyoka said, her volume falling as she spoke.  She walked around the corner to stand in the doorway to their kitchen and found Momo trying very hard to cook.  “Do you… need help?”  Kyoka added with only the slightest undertone of teasing.

Momo was never a very good cook.  That would happen when people cooked for her all the time growing up, Kyoka figured.  But she was determined to get better and Kyoka took just a little bit of pride in being objectively better at least one thing than Momo was.

“No, no, it’s fine!  I’ve got it!”  Momo chirped, and Kyoka smirked, though Momo didn’t turn around to see it.

“You remembered that I had dinner with Toshi, right?”  Kyoka asked slyly.  Momo stilled and turned around with a groan.

“I didn’t look at my phone!  Drat!”  She moaned, and Kyoka giggled a little.

“Well, if you manage to stick the landing on that,” Kyoka began, and she gestured with both a hand and an earphone jack at the same time towards the now-smoking pan on the stove, “I’ll try some with you.  If not,” Kyoka jiggled the plastic bag she was still holding in her left hand, “I’ve got leftovers.”

Momo slowly turned her head from her smoking pan to the plastic bag and back again, then reached over and turned off the stove.

“I’d rather have Yagi’s cooking, honestly,” she said without a hint of shame, and Kyoka snorted at her and started snickering.

“Good choice, beautiful,” Kyoka said, and she enjoyed how Momo turned pink.  Momo wore a t-shirt and pajama pants and she looked fabulous even already dressed for bed.  “What’s up with this case?”  Kyoka added, and Momo’s smile fell a tiny bit.

“We’re not sure yet,” Momo admitted frankly.  “Whoever they are, they seem big.  They… Well, I’m glad you asked, actually.”  Kyoka blinked in confusion and tilted her head, her earphone jacks swirling around her for a moment.  She had been planning to bring up her conversation with Toshinori and how she’d been feeling recently but that was forgotten now.  Momo didn’t usually talk about work at home and, when she did, Kyoka listened.  “The, uh, the villains?  They… We’ve got reports of them somehow stealing quirks.”

Kyoka took in a sharp breath, then narrowed her eyes; not so much at Momo, just in general.

“Impossible.  Toshi defeated All for One five years before we even started at UA.  He was dead and buried before I became the Ninth Bearer, Yaomomo,” Kyoka said with as much confidence as she could muster.  Momo pulled her lips to the side in a slight pout.

“I don’t think it’s All for One.  Not the ‘proper noun’ man All for One, anyway.  But I think it’s possibly a quirk like his,” she admitted quietly.  “We haven’t gotten any good photo or video evidence yet but… I’m worried, Kyoka,” Momo said quietly.  Kyoka shifted on her feet and stood up straight, stepping away from the wall she’d been leaning on.

“Well, how ‘bout this:  if you need me, let me know and I’ll help you out,” Kyoka began as she strode forward, feeling confident, and gave Momo a hug.  Momo hugged her back and Kyoka squeezed affectionately.  “But it’s your case, so if you don’t need me, that’s okay, too.”

“I know you’d be there for me,” Momo whispered, and Kyoka felt an incredible amount of warmth and love and affection rising in her.  “I’ll let you know but I would plan to get involved at some point.”

Kyoka went on to warm up the leftovers for Momo, not feeling very hungry herself.  Between the possibility of someone else with the ability to steal quirks and her minor fear at talking to Momo about her own insecurities, Kyoka didn’t feel like eating or talking much.  But they sat together on the couch and Momo snuggled up to Kyoka while they watched their television show and Kyoka at least felt loved and safe, which was really what she wanted at that moment.

When she slept that night, she saw something new and unexpected.

Kyoka Jirou is dreaming but in a new and bizarre way she is not accustomed to.

What the hell is this?  She thinks to herself.  The scene is familiar:  she’s backstage at an event venue and she looks down and finds that she’s wearing her new Hero costume she just got.  She looks up again and both her eyebrows shoot up to her forehead at what she sees.

It’s her but she’s an awful lot younger.  Little Kyoka wears a dark blue band t-shirt and some black jeans, only just a third year in middle school.  It’s a little more than a year before she will take the UA entrance exam… and Kyoka remembers this day like it’s yesterday.

Her older self marches straight over to her younger self and snaps her fingers, then realizes to her own confusion that there is no sound.  Her fingers move and she feels her fingers but there’s no sound and, for a Hero whose powers are all sound-based and built around hearing, the effect is almost nauseating.

Her younger self does not react at all to the older Kyoka, even when she reaches over and waves her hand insistently in front of her younger self’s face.

This isn’t cool, Kyoka thinks a little bit like an idiot, feeling utterly bemused and unsure of what else to think.  She turns and a familiar face bursts into the room.  He is silent, too, but she remembers the conversation perfectly as the dream provides the words for her.

“I am here, entering this backstage area because I am very lost!”  All Might, the Symbol of Peace, booms and comes flying in, wearing his silly costume; the one with the cape, for maximum effect, of course.  Little Kyoka turns and looks torn between awe and pure incredulity.

“All Might, why are you acting like such a weirdo?!”  She shrieks, stunned by his appearance as she jumps and flails in surprise.  All Might is also stunned, and now watching this happen as a young adult, the older Kyoka bursts out into silent laughter at the sight of All Might being so surprised by a little girl.

“Uh, hey, kid.  I’m supposed to be going up to the stage in about twenty minutes but I don’t know where the heck I am.  Can you help me out?"   All Might asks awkwardly.  Little Kyoka blinks in confusion at him and frowns.

“My parents are already on stage and ready to start!  What do you mean you don’t know where to go?!”  She says, shocked and appalled.  All Might looks appropriately horrified, realizing that Kyoka is with someone who is in the show.  It is a charity event and All Might is meant to be appearing along with some other pro Heroes, while her parents are part of the musical team.

“Look, kid, just help me out here.  I don’t want to ruin your parents’ show, now!”  All Might pleads.  Little Kyoka narrows her eyes at All Might and cannot help but blurt out the thing that’s been on her mind.  She is meeting the Symbol of Peace, the greatest Hero who ever lived, so she’s gonna take her shot.

“I’ll help you if you answer a question.”  All Might nods cautiously.  “Can you… Could I be a Hero and still have a normal life?”

All Might looks appropriately, utterly blown away by her question.  Kyoka’s older self watches in sheer, enraptured curiosity.  Even though the scene is so ethereally quiet, she remembers every word and seeing it in this new light is fascinating to her.

All Might surprises little Kyoka by trudging over.  Little Kyoka had been sitting on a bench in the backstage area and All Might is comically too huge to share it with her, so he just crouches down and looks preposterous as he tries to be level with her.  Still, his smile shifts a bit; it becomes not the practiced, fixed smile he uses to inspire hope in people but a genuine smile just for her.

“Well, young lady, I’ve never really thought very much about that.  I suppose I would say no but that’s just… what has been true for me.”  Kyoka looks intently at All Might.  Both versions of her do at this moment.  “What were you thinking about doing with your life?”

Little Kyoka looks down to the floor in indecision.

“Well… I have a really cool, powerful quirk and I… I feel like I should help people with it.  But making music is my dream and I want…”  Little Kyoka pauses for a moment and looks back to All Might with surprising determination.  “I want to make people happy, whether that means saving them or making music to inspire them.”

All Might stares back at her for a few moments and purses his lips and the expression is almost surreal on his usually carefully controlled face.

“That sounds like a lovely dream, young lady.  I… I feel like you’ve got the right idea there, even if it’s a different approach than mine!”  He admits with forced cheer.  Little Kyoka blinks in confusion at All Might but her older self feels tears running down her face.  As a young adult she can understand now.  She sees what All Might was trying to convey, even if words were never quite his strong suit.  He saw himself in her, a new symbol for people.

A symbol who might not toss their whole life away to inspire people like he did.

“Thanks, All Might.  I wanna try for UA and… I wanna make life better for people, in some way.  I’m just worried I won’t ever be good enough…”  Kyoka says in a tiny voice.  All Might frowns at that.

“Young lady, what’s your name?”

“Jirou Kyoka, sir,” little Kyoka says shyly.  All Might beams at her in turn.

“I think you’ve got the right idea there, Young Jirou, when it comes to being a Hero.  How about this:  I’m going to go help out with the show and, after that, why don’t you introduce me to your parents and I can offer you some tips on how to be a Hero?”  All Might holds out his giant hand to little Kyoka, who looks down at it, dumbfounded, before shaking with her relatively tiny one.  “Deal?”

Kyoka’s older self smiles at the memory.  She had no idea how significant that moment would be in her life.  She just wanted to be validated by the greatest Hero she’d ever known.

“Deal.”

“That’s how you became the Ninth Bearer of One for All, little Kyoka.”

Kyoka’s older self nearly jumps straight out of her own skin and to the ceiling at the voice.  It’s a new, different voice; a voice she’s never heard before but, more significantly, she can hear it, physically.  She slowly spins with wide-eyed horror, only to find an unusual sight.

It’s a… woman.  A woman who seems awfully familiar, like Kyoka has seen pictures of her before but can’t place why.  Faint, phantom memories dance behind her eyes in the dream and Kyoka can’t help but tilt her head and stare slack-jawed at the woman.  She is a Hero, that much is certain, with her black and red costume and pristine white cape.  Her cape billows as if she is outdoors and flying even though they’re inside.  She's utterly gorgeous with her raven hair and she smiles so kindly and warmly at Kyoka, with a shocking amount of presence in the dream.

Around them, the memory freezes and begins to fade away as the world turns to ash and white begins to bleed around them.

“You’re doing just fine, little Kyoka.  I’ll talk to you again soon.”

Kyoka doesn’t get to respond, feeling instead like she abruptly falls through the fabric of reality itself, and she wakes up with an image of beautiful gray eyes staring into her soul.

Chapter Text

Kyoka woke up feeling like she’d been proverbially punched in the gut and the face.

She didn’t actually hurt, really.  It was more like a sense of pressure, the weight of reality itself was crashing all around her at a single point like a meteor; the forces of the universe surrounding her in that moment, the spike of One for All as clear as the edge of a sword.  That was one hell of a metaphor, not so much in a good way, and it didn’t feel like her words at all.

One for All was always a sword, made to destroy.

The thought was bright and clear and true, like the blade itself through her mind, and it wasn’t her voice she thought it in.  Kyoka blinked slowly and tried to sit up, only to find she was being squashed by a very cuddly Momo wrapped around her, her black hair all over her face and all over Kyoka’s face, too.  Kyoka blinked a few more times and turned to look at her girlfriend, stifling the urge both to giggle and sigh as she blew a little air out of her mouth to make Momo’s hair go away.  Momo was the best cuddler but this was the one moment Kyoka needed to escape without waking her.

It took more than a little bit of wiggling and pushing and the quietest grunts but Kyoka managed to extract herself from Momo’s koala death grip.  The good news was that Momo was a heavy sleeper - early riser but heavy sleeper - so at least Kyoka didn’t ruin her girlfriend’s morning.  Kyoka quickly found out why when she retrieved her phone from its charger.

It was only barely five in the morning.  She groaned softly and made her way to the restroom, padding along in pajama pants and a black t-shirt, her black short socks cushioning her footfalls.  When she made it there she found out, to her great irritation, that her purple hair was a mess and she had the beginnings of some eye bags near her red diamond-shaped birthmarks under her eyes.

Just the greatest morning, she thought to herself in the mirror.

She took a quick, hot shower and did her best to fix herself after the fact.  At least her hair was short, so she could dry it with a towel and not have to wait for air drying.  Poor Momo, while her hair was long and beautiful and fabulous, spent half her time at home walking around with a towel on her damn head.  She looked cute that way, though, so Kyoka didn’t strictly mind.

Anyway, she sat her tired ass on the closed toilet and picked up her phone.  She composed her text knowing that Toshinori would be awake by now, since he was old as hell and kept old as hell people sleeping hours, contrary to his protests.

Toshi, call me when you wake up, please.

She only had to wait about five minutes.

“Good morning, Young Jirou.  You are not an early riser.  Is there a problem?”  He said, sounding obnoxiously awake already.  Kyoka groaned into her phone and looked up at the ceiling.

“You know how you told me that sometimes you saw the other people who had One for All but that was rare for you?”

“Uh huh.”

“And I haven’t ever seen them before and we discussed that and kept checking on it all throughout my time at UA.”

“Uh… huh…”

“Toshi, last night I had a dream about a beautiful woman with a white cape and black hair and it was some haunted ass shit.”  There was a long pause and Kyoka briefly checked her phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.  When Toshinori made another sound, it was him groaning and huffing air into the receiver.

“Young Jirou, her name is Nana Shimura.  She was my predecessor, the Seventh Bearer of One for All,”  he said, and Kyoka hummed to herself and thought about it.

“Okay, well, you never really told me about that stuff since it wasn’t super relevant, right?”  Toshinori made an affirmative grunt into the phone.  “Well, I think you probably gotta tell me now.”

“Why, what did she say?  Normally, they never talked to me.  It was always vague imagery or them showing up to just… put a hand on my shoulder, that kind of thing,” he said, and Kyoka cleared her throat pointedly.

“Well.  The dream was how we met but it… it wasn’t a normal dream.  It was definitely One for All and whatever is going on in there,” Kyoka tapped the side of her head, mostly for her own benefit, “is… some shit.  The kind of power radiating off of Nana was like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Alright but what did she say?  Did she say anything?  Because otherwise we’re gonna have a rough time," Toshinori said, now sounding more appropriately tired for the hour.  Kyoka blinked a few times and searched her memories.

“She said… ‘you’re doing just fine, Kyoka.  I’ll talk to you again soon,’ but also after I woke up she added another thing with like… I dunno, her connection?”  Toshinori hummed again, inviting her to continue.  “She said, ‘One for All was always a sword, made to destroy.’”  Toshinori gasped into the receiver and there was a clattering sound into the phone.  “Toshi?  Toshi!  Are you okay?!”

There was a distant grunt and huff of irritation, then what Kyoka presumed was the sound of Toshinori picking up the phone again.

“Young Jirou, that is what Nana said to me when she was training me, regarding All for One.  One for All was made by All for One… but the First Bearer took it, like Prometheus, and forged a blade to slay the beast.  Those were her metaphors,” Toshinori said gravely.  Kyoka coughed awkwardly into her hand.

“Momo took a new case.  There’s a villain gang… and there’s reports they can steal quirks.”

Toshinori dropped the phone again.

It wasn’t until about half past six when Momo came out into the living room.

Kyoka had gotten herself dressed into her Hero costume and idly sat at their kitchen counter, browsing her phone.  Most of the Hero news for the day wasn’t terribly interesting, though there was a thing there about Mirio and how he had broken the Top Ten, that was neat.  Music news wasn’t very lively, either, though Kyoka did note with more than a little pride that her music was relevant enough to chart on the billboards now, which was kind of nuts.

“Good morning, love,” Momo said, and Kyoka looked up and promptly sucked air through her teeth at the sight of her girlfriend.

Momo had on a fairly simple three-piece black suit with a white dress shirt and a thin black tie.  She also had sunglasses and little earrings with small diamonds in them.  She’d done her makeup and stuff, too, she had soft pink lipstick, and she had just the tiniest smirk on her face.  She looked fabulous and she knew it, too.

“Yes, dear?”  Momo said slyly as she took off her sunglasses and stuck them in her suit jacket pocket.  Kyoka blinked a few times and felt herself turn red.

“Please step on me,” Kyoka blurted out, and Momo giggled a little.

“Is that a request or a demand?”

“Yes,” Kyoka replied shamelessly, then they both laughed together.  Once they recovered, Kyoka continued, “So, what’s the occasion for you to look like a super spy?”

“Oh, please,” Momo said bashfully.  “I’m going to a meeting with Itsuka today at the Ryukyu Hero Agency.  Our mission is going to be a joint effort between several agencies and Ryukyu’s agency will be taking the lead in some areas.”

“Sweet, does that mean ‘Chako and Nejire are gonna be in on things?”  Kyoka asked with a bit of excitement, and Momo smiled.

“Most likely.  Tsu is not deployed at sea right now and Mina and Hanta are both potentially going to be involved, as well as Setsuna.”  Momo checked her nails idly and Kyoka noted they were a vivid, royal red like her Hero costume.

“Dang, what are you guys gonna do, drop a Hero army on the bad guy?”  Kyoka asked, her eyebrows furrowing.  Momo looked up and frowned.

“It’s possible.  Hero society has become… complacent in recent years.  After All for One was defeated, there weren’t very many big threats.  You defeated Overhaul and Stain in our first year before they got very far, and the Meta Liberation Army went down in our second year.  I think…”  Momo trailed off for a moment and looked away, her trademark ponytail bobbing as she did so.  “I think the Hero Commission is concerned we might not be up to the task, if it really is someone like All for One.”

“Well that’s some bullshit,” Kyoka said flatly, and Momo looked back at her with a small smile.

“Spoken in the spirit of Katsuki, Kyoka,” Momo said sarcastically, and Kyoka rolled her eyes.

“Look, we’ve got all the big guns.  Mirio just made the news for kicking ass and Hawks still works for the Hero Commission all the time.  Hell, Endeavor is still king shit on the mountain since Toshi retired, they could drag him on it if need-be!”  Kyoka’s enthusiasm rose as she spoke.

“I think they want things to stay quiet.  They’re letting Ryukyu and Sir Nighteye take the lead on this one, along with mostly recent UA graduates, so that they can assign competent people who aren’t famous yet.”  Momo had the tiniest frown as she finished, but Kyoka was too busy focusing on one specific thing she said to care.

“Sir Nighteye?!  He still doesn’t like me…”  Kyoka said with a small grimace.  Momo’s frown deepened.

“I’m sure he’ll get over it.  He said he respected you after the business with Overhaul, even if you two don’t… personally see eye-to-eye,” she offered in a conciliatory tone.  Kyoka stuck her tongue out and looked away, glad that only Momo was there to see her act like a petulant child in the safety of her own apartment.

“He means well,” Kyoka admitted begrudgingly.  “He’s just restless as hell in a world without All for One.”  Kyoka turned back to look at Momo with a small, pouting frown.  “He saw All Might die fighting All for One with his Foresight, back in the day, and he never got over being wrong about it.”

“I see,” Momo said neutrally.  “Well, I trust he’ll get over it now, at least for the sake of professionalism.”  Momo walked over and planted a small kiss on Kyoka’s cheek.  “I’ll talk to you later, I need to get going or I’ll be late!”

“Like ‘late’ late or ‘I won’t be half an hour early’ late?”  Kyoka responded in a teasing tone.  Kyoka gave Momo a little wave as she left and Momo returned the wave with a small smile and an eye roll in lieu of a verbal reply.

I need to convince her to wear suits more often.

It was about three days later that Kyoka was slowly making her way through sparse crowds on the streets of Musutafu on a mission.

She was in her Hero costume and, theoretically, on patrol.  She definitely had her sights on a heinous, no good villain.  A man who had been avoiding her pleas for him to see reason and not complying with her wishes that he tell her more of what she wanted to know.  He was a dangerous, manly villain, with his dashing red hair and costume that was basically only half an outfit.

Kyoka snuck through the crowds feeling like a ninja, a stupid little smirk on her face as she had her hands up in little claws.  She was gonna get him today, though, she was gonna surprise that dastardly villain and foil his plans to be a huge dork all the time.  She could practically hear the scary shark movie theme song - damn Ochako and her scaring the shit out of the UA girls back at the dorms with horror movies - in her mind as she made her way towards her prey.  Finally, as she got close, she took a running leap and let out her battle cry.

“Attack!”  Kyoka landed on Eijiro’s back with a little huff and a giggle, and Eijiro dramatically caught her arms and spun around, pretending to be scared.

“Oh!  Oh no!  I am defeated!  Whatever shall I do?!”  He pretended to be scandalized as he rested the back of his right hand against his forehead and mimed the action of fainting, his head lolling back.  Kyoka responded by blowing air into his ear and he cringed and yelped as he dropped her.  Kyoka snorted and began to laugh at him as she landed gracefully on two feet, then he started laughing, too.

“Did you hear me coming?!”  Kyoka asked in disbelief between laughs, and Eijiro started pointing at her as he laughed even harder.  Clearly, whatever expression she had on her face was priceless to him.

“I saw you around the corner when you were trying to tail me, about two blocks ago,” he said as he continued to chuckle, and Kyoka pouted at him.

“You’re supposed to be the himbo with no observational skills!”  Kyoka moaned, and Eijiro pretended to be scandalized again.

“I’ll have you know that I am not a himbo anymore because Kats spent a million billion years tutoring me!  Now I’m just hot and smart, what now, huh?”  Eijiro said, and he gave her a shark-toothed smile and a thumbs up like he’d walked right off a Hero movie poster.  In fairness to him, Kyoka noted, he wasn’t wrong; by the time they graduated, Eijiro was doing pretty damn well when it came to academic scores relative to the class.

“You are such a dweeb and I love you,” Kyoka said with a smirk, then she motioned for him to follow her towards a nearby park bench.

The streets were quiet these days; crime was low and villains were generally not very active anymore.  All for One’s death seemed to take all the air out of the sails of the big plotters and schemers and when Overhaul went down it pretty much snuffed out major organized crime in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Kyoka walked around the park bench with a huff and plopped down, still pretending to be annoyed at Eijiro for knowing she was coming.  Eijiro, in turn, sat down a bit softer and crossed his arms, then looked at Kyoka with a toothy grin once more.  He still wore pretty much the same Hero costume he used to, though it was now made out of advanced fabrics and armor that Izuku and Mei came up with.

Kyoka still remembered when they were testing that.  Eijiro had no idea why he would need it, since his whole deal was being invincible.  Izuku just handed him a red notebook with about fifty pages written about Eijiro’s quirk and told him that it was so he wouldn’t waste all his energy defending himself and could focus on punching bad guys real hard.  Eijiro still had that notebook.  Kyoka got to read it once, it was nuts.  Izuku even made little doodles of Baby Shark Eijiro in the margins and it was glorious.

“So what’s up, Earphone Jack.  Why’d you interrupt my perfectly good patrol, protecting the good citizens of Japan?”  Eijiro said, throwing his arms out towards the sky in a vague, grand gesture.  Kyoka turned and rolled her eyes at him, her earphone jacks twirling with the motion before dropping again.

“Oh yeah, all these big bad villains out here.  You just like that you have an excuse to walk around shirtless and show off how ‘manly’ you are, don’t you, Red Riot?”  Kyoka smirked remorselessly at him and he smirked right back.

“Damn right,” he said, and he wasn’t joking at all.  “Besides, I come home in the costume and Kats is like ‘put some damn clothes on!’ like he doesn’t like it.” 

Kyoka started chuckling.

“He was always a nerd, secretly.  Remember when we moved into the dorms in second year, we found his secret stash of All Might merchandise?”  Eijiro looked like he was trying really hard not to laugh at his boyfriend’s expense.  “And Katsuki had spent all first year giving poor Greenie shit for being an All Might nerd and we found his shit and he was like ‘it’s not fuckin’ like that!’”

Kyoka’s shrill Katsuki impression sent Eijiro over the edge and he started cackling.

“God, that was… I already liked him so much at that point but it was so funny and he was so red in the face… You know that he came to me upset about it?”  Eijiro said with a knowing smile on his face.  Kyoka gave him a genuinely scandalized expression.

“Oh, is that when you two confessed your undying love finally?”

“No, I chickened out honestly.  But I… I might have held his hand and let him know that having a bunch of All Might stuff was actually super manly.”  Eijiro looked at her with a trembling smile, like he was on the verge of laughing again.  “I wasn’t lying… He still has the All Might stuff and it’s kinda cool, honestly.”

Kyoka couldn’t help it:  she cracked the fuck up again.  People gave the pair funny looks as they passed but Kyoka did not care whatsoever and Eijiro laughed a bit with her.

Eventually, she settled down and looked around, still with a stupid grin plastered on her face but mostly recovered.  It was a nice, sunny July day; she had just had Greenie’s birthday party along with Melissa, Mei, and some other people from Class A the other day and her own birthday was coming up pretty quick in a few weeks.  Kyoka sighed happily and placed her palms on the edge of the bench as she kicked her legs gently, then turned to eye Eijiro thoughtfully.

“Everything alright on the home front there, Eijiro?”  She asked quietly, though she had a smile.  Eijiro smiled back and gave her a right thumbs up.

“Things are good.  Katsuki has been a lot happier recently, since he started going to therapy.  I started going, too.  It’s been awesome and we can like, talk about our feelings and stuff now, it’s so manly.”  He kind of whispered that last part and Kyoka smiled at his silliness.

“Are you two all good?  It’s not like, couples counseling is it?”

“Nah, nothing like that.  Kats had…”  Eijiro paused and frowned, thinking about it for a moment.  It didn’t suit his usually bright face.  “Kats had a lot of issues from childhood, as I’m sure you kinda noticed.”

“You mean like how he talked mad shit for like half our time in high school about how Greenie was his ‘rival’ even though he was just a cute Support Department kid who wanted to make gadgets?”  Kyoka asked sardonically.  Katsuki might as well have worn a big old sign that said ‘inferiority complex’ when he first came to UA.

“Yeah… they were, uh, they were friends growing up.  Then Izuku got diagnosed as quirkless,” Eijiro said solemnly.  Kyoka blinked at Eijiro’s words, then frowned.

“That’s really what made him get mad at Greenie?  What a crock of shit,” Kyoka said flatly, and Eijiro gave her a sheepish expression.

“It’s complicated.  Kats doesn’t really go too in depth with his therapy stuff with me because I think he’s still sorting through a lot of it.  He… he wasn’t the nicest to Izuku when they were younger.”  

“He wasn’t the nicest to Izuku when we were at UA,” Kyoka pointed out dryly.  Eijiro shrugged and looked a little sad.

“You know those two had lunch together yesterday?  Like, alone?”  Eijiro said, and he looked at Kyoka with an unreadable expression.  Kyoka slowly leaned away and thought about her reply before she said anything.

“I’m surprised that half of the surrounding metro area didn’t get blown up,” she said, and Eijiro rolled his eyes but smiled in spite of himself.

“They shook hands at the end and… Katsuki actually apologized to Izuku.”

“Well damn,” Kyoka said, genuinely surprised.  “I can’t say I expected that.”

“Kats didn’t, either.  But he looked a lot better when he came home and I bet it made Izuku happy.  Izuku only really ever wanted to be his friend,” Eijiro said, and Kyoka pulled her lips into a pout and looked away.

“Well, as long as they’re getting along now I guess.”  She turned back to Eijiro and eyed him curiously.  “What about you, mister?  How’s therapy for you?”

“Oh, it’s awesome!  I had weird self-esteem issues and stuff and my therapist has been really nice about it.  She helped me work through a lot of my self-doubts and I feel pretty good, honestly.”  He smiled so kindly that Kyoka couldn’t help but smile, too.

Eijiro was damn near one of the kindest people she’d ever met and she was glad he and Katsuki were happy.  They balanced each other out a lot, Kyoka decided, and they were a good couple.  That thought prompted another, though, and Kyoka slowly narrowed her eyes at Eijiro, who accordingly shrank a bit in anticipation.

“So… does this mean you two might be making things permanent and official?”  Kyoka asked mischievously.  Eijiro chuckled softly at Kyoka.

“You know, Mina already asks me about that constantly.  She’s been ready for Kats and I’s wedding since we started dating.  I didn’t realize you were as bad as her, though!”  Eijiro gave her a faux stern look and Kyoka stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’ll have you know that I am not as bad as Mina.  Mina interferes, I just watch and enjoy my show, maybe with a little popcorn.”

Eijiro snorted at her in obvious disbelief, then reached down into his pocket on the other side.  Kyoka tilted herself forward to look and gasped when Eijiro held out a little red velvet box towards her.  Kyoka took the box like it was an offering to the gods and started making soft ‘ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh’ noises to herself as she looked at it.  Then she opened it and gasped again because it was beautiful.

It was a little custom star-shaped polygonal gem, sitting snugly in the ring, and it had two layers.  The bottom layer was vivid crimson and the upper layer was bright, shiny orange.  The ring it was attached to was silver and rather thin and Kyoka tilted the box ever-so-slightly to look before snapping it shut and handing it back.

“God damn,” she breathed out, then she bounced in her seat a few times.  “I am so excited for you both, hell yes!  Do you know when you’re gonna ask?”

Eijiro smiled and put the box back in his pocket, then shook his head.

“Not yet.  But it’ll be before the end of the summer, I think.  Probably won’t schedule the wedding until next year, though.”

“Well I, for one, am hype, Eijiro Kirishima.  Will you still be Eijiro Kirishima afterwards or have you not gotten that far yet?”  Kyoka tilted her head and narrowed her eyes as she asked, more so in curiosity than anything else.  Eijiro just shrugged at her.

“Dunno yet.  I think we might have to negotiate that.”  He scanned the park as he spoke, then turned to her and balked when he saw her teasing expression.

“Negotiate or ‘negotiate?’”  She asked, wiggling her eyebrows and earphone jacks in tandem at him.

“Well, I suppose both are likely going to happen,” Eijiro said with incredible smugness, and Kyoka gawked at him.

“Oh, do tell, Eijiro, I want to know more about this aspect of your life!”

“Maybe.  Will you tell me what you and Momo have been up to, huh?”  Eijiro now wiggled his own eyebrows at Kyoka, who turned a bit pink in response and pouted at him.

“I’ll have you know that Momo is a very proper and respectable lady… Actually, that’s bullshit, she’s awesome in bed, I won’t even pretend otherwise.”

They shared another laugh together but it was time for them to get back to their respective patrols.  Kyoka smiled at Eijiro and gave him a congratulatory hug and they briefly discussed the idea of making plans to hang out as two couples along with Katsuki and Momo sometime in the near future.  Then Eijiro marched off, looking manly as ever, but…

The things he said about Katsuki and Izuku stuck in Kyoka’s mind and she made a note to herself to ask about that the next time she chatted with Izuku alone.

It was that weekend that Momo and Kyoka found themselves walking, hand-in-hand and arms swinging, down the sidewalk on their day off.

Kyoka was glad at that moment that she did Hero work part-time and that Momo mostly worked special cases as an analyst as well as a Hero more so than doing conventional patrol work.  She worked for Edgeshot and she had proven herself quite capable both in terms of active Hero work and analysis and strategy; Kyoka was damn proud of her.  But today they both had the day off and, blessedly, most of the other girls did, too.

Today was girls’ day out at the café and Kyoka was stoked.

“Hey, Yaomomo?”

Momo had been idly watching some birds flit around near a tree in the park across the street as they walked along.  It was a quiet day and, given that it was about two in the afternoon on a Sunday, it wasn’t so busy.  That was good, since it meant they could walk around on the sidewalk hand-in-hand like dorks and not get in people’s ways.

“Yes, love,” Momo said, and she turned her head back to Kyoka with a winning smile as she did.  Kyoka almost lost her nerve then but she powered through.  Her conversation with Eijiro had been on her mind and she was gonna stop being such an emotionally constipated dork and actually say words this time, she was determined.

“Do you ever, uh… Well, okay, so I ask this and I don’t mean like, right now, but do you ever think about… marriage?”  Momo had an adorably bemused expression on her face as Kyoka spoke and her cheeks pinked at the end of Kyoka’s question.  Her bottom lip was halfway under her top lip and she seemed to be very carefully considering the question.

“Are you asking me, Kyoka Jirou?”  Momo said slyly, and Kyoka immediately turned red from neck to ear.

“No!  Of course not, if I was gonna ask you to marry me - which I am not saying I don’t want to do even if I’m not right now! - I would put some damn effort in, c’mon, Yaomomo,” Kyoka said defensively.  Momo giggled at her, using her free hand to cover her mouth, before responding.

“I know, I’m just teasing you.  And yes, I have thought about marriage,” Momo said.  Kyoka blinked a few times in confusion.

“Okay… and?”  She asked, and Momo gave her a sly smile that kind of scared Kyoka, though perhaps not in a bad way.

“I rather like the idea, personally,” Momo said, barely containing the mirth in her voice.  “In general and with you.”  Kyoka turned red again and she knew she had a stupid expression on her face but didn’t bother to try and hide it.  “I think we probably should establish ourselves better professionally first, though.  Not that I have any doubt that we’ll do that,” Momo added absentmindedly.

Kyoka’s stomach fell a little at that.  She didn’t disagree with Momo but something about how she said it made her anxiety go into overdrive.  It should have been obvious that Momo was just being realistic but Kyoka always overanalyzed things and she could already feel her internal panic rising.

But it got cut off because they reached the entrance to the café.  Kyoka took a deep breath and closed her eyes to bring herself back from the ocean of mixed emotions in her heart.

“You alright, sweetie?”  Momo asked with concern, and Kyoka opened her eyes and forced a smile.

“Yeah!  Yeah, all good, Yaomomo.  Sorry if I jumped you with that.”

“Oh, that’s okay!  It’s one of those things we should chat about more later, I think,” Momo said kindly.  Then she looked over and caught sight of Mina enthusiastically waving at them from a large table near the back.  “I believe now is the time for excitement and gossip, however,” Momo added, and Kyoka’s smile became a bit more genuine now.

I’ll talk more about stuff with her later, I promise.  Kyoka wasn’t sure who she was promising, really.  Mostly herself.  But, to her surprise, she actually got an answer and she nearly fell over at the purity and clarity of Nana Shimura’s voice.

You’re doing your best.

Kyoka looked up and Momo was giving her a funny look.  Kyoka awkwardly cleared her throat and gestured towards the table, so Momo started walking over, not satisfied but not willing to push the issue at that time, either.  There were new, weird things to chat about with One for All but she hadn’t had time for that discussion, either.

“Oh my lord, you two look delightful!”  Mina said with great enthusiasm as the two women approached the table.  Kyoka couldn’t help but smirk.  She wore a simple dark purple blouse and some nice black jeans she liked, along with her black sneakers.  Momo, on the other hand, because she was a goddess, wore a red blouse and black leggings, along with some black heels, and she definitely looked fabulous, if Kyoka did say so herself.  Kyoka sat down with Momo on her right and smirked back at Mina.

“You look pretty good yourself, Pinky,” Kyoka said as her smirk softened into a real smile.  Mina wore a sporty dark blue t-shirt, though Kyoka couldn’t see what she had on the bottom.  Mina smiled brightly back at her and looked thoroughly pleased at the compliment.  Then Kyoka surveyed the table.

To her left were Itsuka and Setsuna and they briefly interrupted their hushed conversation to give small greetings and waves to Kyoka and Momo, who returned them.  On the other side of the table, on Mina’s right, was Toru, who currently was a disembodied t-shirt with sideways navy blue and white stripes and a floating headband.

On Kyoka’s right, on the other side of Momo, were Himiko and Tsuyu, who also gave little waves.  Kyoka noted that they were holding hands on the table; they were just the cutest buttons together and Kyoka loved them.  On the other side of the table, on Mina’s left - and looking like she knew that was not a good place to be - was Ochako, who was curiously dressed up in a sundress today.

“Alright, ladies, the war council has been gathered!”  Mina exclaimed with far too much excitement than was warranted.  The women that had been having their own little conversations stopped and turned to eye Mina warily.

“Please, have mercy,” Setsuna said first, and Kyoka and Momo both began to giggle along with Itsuka at the lizard girl’s remark.  Setsuna and Itsuka had been dating since their third year, about the same time that Kyoka and Momo had gotten together, and they were the power couple of Class B.  “If you don’t have mercy on us, I’ll send one of my hands to go get some of my dinosaur pets and sic ‘em on you,” Setsuna added, and the entire table - except for Itsuka, who was presumably used to this - turned to look at her owlishly.

“You have dinosaur pets?”  Mina asked cautiously.  Setsuna replied by giving her a toothy grin with her slightly pointy teeth.

“You don’t wanna find out for sure, do you?”  She replied, only barely keeping a straight face, then all the girls burst out into giggles at her.  Kyoka knew that Setsuna was a big dinosaur nerd; she probably had as many damn dinosaur knick knacks and toys as Izuku had All Might toys, if Kyoka was being honest.

“Mina, what d’ya mean ‘war council,’ anyway?  We graduated and half the table is dating the other half of the table,” Himiko said, and she held Tsuyu’s hand up and squeezed it for emphasis.  “You and Toru here have boys to go home to as well, too.”

Mina turned to look at Toru and held up a hand.  Kyoka saw the hand move back and heard the sound of Toru smacking it in a high-five and rolled her eyes.  It was always so funny how committed Mina and Toru were to their active 'shipping' antics.  The best spice of life, Kyoka would insist, came from watching other people relentlessly screw up and fail in their romantic pursuits, not actively helping - or accidentally sabotaging - them.  Sometimes Kyoka was a hypocrite and interfered, though; she wouldn't make apologies for herself.

Mina cleared her throat and turned back to the center of the table with a devilish grin, then Kyoka saw Ochako visibly shrink in the corner.

“Not all of us are happily taken, though, are we?”  Mina said mischievously, and Ochako groaned and dropped her forehead into her arms on the table.

“C’mon Mina, give her a break.  You keep at it and ‘Chako isn’t gonna wanna come anymore!”  Himiko said, and Tsuyu ribbited in agreement as she nodded along.  That was an empty threat; Ochako wouldn’t miss girls’ day at the café because it was probably the most socializing she did on a regular basis and Kyoka and the other girls knew it.  But they weren’t about to let Mina roll over the poor gravity girl, either.

Mostly.

“You guys are no fun!”  Mina said with a pout.  “Don’t you want to know why Ocha’s all dressed up today?!”

Kyoka blinked in confusion and slowly turned to look at Ochako; out of the corners of her eye, she saw all the other girls follow suit.  Now she was curious and Ochako groaned, knowing she was screwed.

“I went on a date this morning,” Ochako mumbled from her arms.  All of the girls at the table gasped theatrically, genuinely stunned.  Ochako Uraraka never went on dates.

“Was it… Was it with… uh,” Itsuka trailed off.  They all knew who she meant but they didn’t want to say it out loud for fear of ruining the moment.

“No, it wasn’t, and it was also a disaster,” Ochako moaned from her arms.  Kyoka couldn’t quite stifle the snort that escaped her, then she and Momo began to giggle together at Ochako’s expense.

“You went on a date and it wasn’t with Greenie?!”  Himiko said, sounding suitably horrified.  Kyoka’s choice of nickname for her adopted little brother had rubbed off on Himiko and Tsuyu and sometimes Kyoka even caught Mina and Toru using it, too.  Pretty much only Ochako didn’t because she called Izuku ‘Deku,’ instead; the nickname that only Katsuki used otherwise.  Kyoka never quite got the story behind that but she was content with Ochako having a special nickname for her future husband all the same.

“Yes, I did.  One of the other sidekicks that Ryukyu hired on recently asked me out and it turns out that he’s a damn doofus,” Ochako said ruefully, then she finally picked her head up and sat up straight.  She had a comical little red line on her forehead now, though it was fading, and Kyoka had to look away and bite her lip so as not to laugh at how funny Ochako looked as she pouted.

“Why the heck did you say yes?”  Toru asked, and Ochako turned to glare at her.

“I dunno!  I haven’t… I haven’t gone on a date since Tenya and I went out that one time in second year and that was a disaster, too!  Clearly dating is just not for me,” Ochako said, then she huffed and set her chin in her hand, her pinky-raised slightly.

“Or maybe you’re just dating the wrong person, huh?”  Mina asked with an eyebrow wiggle.  Ochako looked at her with something between ‘scandalized’ and ‘profoundly annoyed’ on her face.

“We’ve been over this a thousand times, Mina.  Deku doesn’t feel like that about me and even if he did, I’m so busy all the time as a sidekick!  Every time I go on a date, it’s a mess and I need to learn that I just don’t have time for that!”

Every single girl at the table stared in disbelief at Ochako and her sheer obliviousness at how utterly in love Izuku Midoriya was with her but Kyoka was the first to break the silence.

“Do you seriously believe that?”  Kyoka asked, her right earphone jack coming up to point at Ochako as she did so.  Ochako groaned and looked away, turning faintly red as her permanent blushmarks spread out across her face.

“I think… I think Deku is brilliant, kind, and he deserves somebody who is gonna spend a lot more time with him than I can,” Ochako said quietly, and Kyoka felt her heart break a little for Ochako and her self-deprecation.  Poor girl had no idea how much she had going for her or how Izuku would fall all over himself to be the best goddamn boyfriend who ever lived for her.  The only person Kyoka knew who drank more ‘respect women’ juice than Izuku was Eijiro and Eijiro was gay.

Never mind how obvious it was that Ochako was in love with him, too, and how Kyoka knew Ochako would move heaven and earth for Izuku if she needed to.

“Good lord, Ochako,” Kyoka said, matching Ochako’s stance of putting her chin in her right hand.  Kyoka looked over at Ochako and Ochako looked defiantly back, while the other girls just kinda watched for a moment.  Then Ochako rolled her eyes and turned to Toru with a rather sardonic expression, leaning forward to look around Mina as she did so.

“Toru, tell them your damn news, please.  Please, have mercy on me.”

Kyoka slowly shifted her gaze and arm over to look at her invisible friend properly and so did all the other girls.  Toru responded by bouncing up and down excitedly in her seat and holding up her left hand, palm facing towards herself:  where there was now a little diamond ring on her ring finger, floating disembodied in the air.

The response was immediate and a bit explosive as all the girls began cheering and making noises of excitement.  They promptly all shut up and looked guilty when the waitress came over and gave them a ‘please keep it down’ kind of expression, then began taking their orders.  Once the waitress finished and left, the girls resumed their celebration, though they kept things at an appropriate indoor volume.

“That’s so awesome, Toru!”  Momo said enthusiastically, and Himiko bounced and nodded along as Tsuyu ribbited off to the side, kind of like a laugh.

“Do you have a date yet, ribbit?”  Tsuyu asked conversationally, once she contained her ribbiting laughter.

“No, it only happened last week!  But we’re working on it now and oh gosh I’m just so excited!”  Toru exclaimed, and Kyoka couldn’t help but smile.

Part of her wondered if already planning to get married at nineteen pushing twenty was too young but… they were Heroes.  They went into life with the knowledge they could die young, so getting married young didn’t seem that crazy.  Kyoka’s previous conversation with Momo came to mind and she frowned a bit.  Momo turned and grabbed Kyoka’s hand under the table and squeezed gently and Kyoka looked up to find Momo smiling happily at her.  Maybe it was all in Kyoka’s head; maybe she was just too worried and too anxious.

Maybe Eijiro was right and she should go to therapy, too.  Couldn’t hurt, could it?

The girls kept chatting.  Toru and Mashirao started dating early in their second year, so they were one of the first couples of Class A and B.  Mina and Hanta had been dating since about the end of their second year and Mina cheerfully informed the girls that she and Hanta had discussed marriage and were planning for something potentially in the next year or two.  That kind of shocked Kyoka; she would’ve thought that Mina would’ve lived for the romanticism of the surprise.  But then, Mina was really more responsible these days than she used to be; years of training at UA would do that, Kyoka figured.  Maybe her and Hanta sitting down and making plans like smart adults was the better play after all.

Itsuka and Setsuna flatly told Mina to buzz off when she tried to pry and, honestly, Kyoka kind of respected that.  Himiko and Tsuyu, meanwhile, declared that they weren’t interested in marriage quite yet; they had been dating since the beginning of their third year and, with Tsuyu out at sea half the time, things were kind of tough.  Kyoka smirked at that, though; getting them together had been Ochako’s little project, not Mina’s, and Ochako was still proud to this day that she’d helped her two best girlfriends stop making goo-goo eyes at each other and bite the bullet.

Ochako was pretty good, it turned out, at recognizing love in other people, once she got used to it after their first year.  It was her own love life that she sucked at.

“What about you two?”  Mina asked suggestively, rounding on Kyoka and Momo.  Kyoka’s earphone jacks came up in a defensive stance unconsciously but Momo just giggled.

“We’ll get there when we’re ready and not before,” Momo said in a kind but authoritative tone.  Kyoka nodded firmly but internally panicked a bit.  Part of her was elated:  Momo was implying that they would get there and that she did see a future with Kyoka.  But part of her was slightly mortified at the vaguely non-committal nature of the answer.  Was that just her overthinking things?  Probably, since after all--

“Kyoka, I can hear your whirring brain from over here,” Mina said sarcastically, and Kyoka jumped in her seat.  Momo affectionately squeezed her hand and began rubbing her arm and it grounded Kyoka, at least.

“Oh, sorry, I, uh… I was thinking about Eijiro and Katsuki, actually,” Kyoka said sheepishly.  It was a lie, though it was an interesting lie at least.  Mina looked intolerably smug, in on the joke as she was, but the rest of the girls gasped and turned to her with enraptured attention.

“Eijiro bought a ring,” Mina declared with immense pride and self-satisfaction, and the girls began squealing and giggling in delight again.

“Are you telling me that Bakugou Katsuki is going to be asked for his hand in marriage before he can ask first?”  Ochako said in pure disbelief, and Mina turned to her with a shit-eating smirk.

“You’re goddamn right he is and he’s gonna love it,” Mina said without a hint of remorse.  Ochako raised an eyebrow but said nothing.  She and Katsuki didn’t really get along, since Katsuki had been such a little shit to Izuku for so long, but they were… better these days, than they used to be.  At least as long as Katsuki continued to improve on that front, at any rate.

The girls continued on and received their food.  That dampened conversation for a while, as they were women with manners and weren’t about to spray food around trying to eat.  Or at least, Kyoka would’ve assumed; she was proven slightly wrong when Himiko jumped in her seat and accidentally spilled her drink just a touch as it sloshed over the edge of the glass.  Kyoka leaned forward to look past Momo and realized that Tsuyu had been poking Himiko from under the table as a joke.

Those two were really funny.  Himiko tried to act all smooth and shit, like she was cool and a good flirt, just like Denki did.  But she melted into a puddle for Tsuyu and it was beautiful.

It wasn’t until food was done that Itsuka decided to bring up work.

“So,” she began, clearly feeling awkward and yet soldiering on because she felt obligated, “how many of you ladies have heard about Momo and I’s new case?”

Kyoka turned and looked expectantly at her, obviously already in the know.  Setsuna also looked quite readily informed.  Kyoka flicked her gaze around and most of the other girls just looked confused, save for Ochako; that didn’t surprise Kyoka, since she worked for Ryukyu.

“We’ve got a case on an up-and-coming potential supervillain gang.  They might be big.  Like…”  Itsuka trained off for a moment and scrunched up her nose, and Setsuna smiled fondly at her.  “Like big big,” Itsuka finished lamely, looking disappointed at her own description.

Kyoka didn’t hold it against her; one of her strengths as a leader was that she could explain things in simple terms to people rather than getting into weird jargon or technical terminology.  That was also partly why Momo was often a better leader than Tenya during their time in Class A; not that he didn’t try his hardest and he got better over time.

“Well, you probably can count me and Toru out, honestly,” Himiko said with a slight frown.

She and Toru were more espionage and reconnaissance focused Heroes, not so much for direct combat roles.  They could definitely fight, though.  Izuku and Mei had created cool needle whips, a fancy mask to go with her hood, and an extendable metal combat staff for Himiko, along with a neat suit made partially out of her DNA that would accommodate her powers in the field.  Toru, meanwhile, was a terror in a fight because nobody could see her coming until she flipped them over and got them in a hold with her own advanced, invisible costume that Izuku worked on.

However, the two girls probably already had a mission anyway; they started working directly for the Hero Commission after graduation and they had a close working relationship with Hawks these days.

“Yeah, though I did hear about this at the Hero Commission.  They didn’t tell us who was working on it,” Toru said with a degree of disappointment.  That tracked, Kyoka figured; the Hero Commission were a bunch of jerks and they didn’t tell anyone a goddamn thing until after it would’ve been useful to find out about.  Fighting the Meta Liberation Army in their second year had been a handful almost exclusively because the Hero Commission kept screwing things up by leaving out need-to-know information.

“Itsuka and I are working on this one primarily, though Ochako has already been briefed,” Momo said calmly.  She looked slowly between Tsuyu and Mina.  “It would be nice if you two could join us on this, assuming you don’t already have anything lined up?”

“Ribbit, I’m on shore duty for the next few months and if I have an active case the JCG won’t call me back and can push out my sea work,” Tsuyu said calmly.  Mina nodded and pursed her lips.

“I haven’t gotten any fancy cases like you guys yet, so I’m in.  Do you want Hanta in, too?”  Mina asked, and Momo considered it for a moment.

“Most likely.  This one…”  Momo paused and turned to Kyoka, who nodded in return.  “This one is major.”

Kyoka saw every woman at the table turn to her and sighed softly.  It was an open secret that her quirk was weird.  It didn’t used to be haunted but it was always weird.  Kyoka hadn’t even bothered trying to come up with an excuse when she first went to UA; she marched straight to Aizawa’s office and explained One for All to him on the spot, despite Toshinori’s objections.  She knew she wouldn't have been able to credibly keep that secret to save her life.

Meanwhile, she had simply told most of her friends that her quirk did weird stuff and, while she was able to control it, she didn’t understand it.  It was hard to keep it in the dark when Izuku wanted to spend every waking moment poking at it and figure out what it did and its limitations, especially when Blackwhip became a thing.  But she managed to bullshit him about it and… she still felt kind of bad about that.  He always blamed himself for not being able to figure out how it worked and she couldn’t even tell him that wasn’t his fault at all.

“They can steal quirks,” Kyoka said quietly after more than a little consideration, and most of the girls gasped.

They sat in a part of the café where nobody else was really sitting; their previous loudness and energy had scared off anybody who might’ve sat near them and it wasn’t very busy at that point during the day.  So Kyoka felt safe to talk about this stuff, at least in the broad strokes.

When All Might defeated All for One, five years before they went to UA, All for One’s existence had been revealed to the public as a kind of power move.  The Japanese Government and Hero Commission were trying to gloat over defeating one of ‘the old threats’:  one of the famed old warlords that had terrorized Japan when quirks first came into being.

Kyoka didn’t remember it very well, given that she was ten at the time, but she knew that it was fairly well known now that All for One had been All Might’s archnemesis and they had waged a secret war in the past.  And it was known, or at least popularly believed, that All for One was the only one who could steal quirks.

Until now.

“You don’t think… he’s back, do you?”  Ochako asked, voicing the unspoken question the rest of the girls were probably thinking.  Kyoka frowned; she couldn’t articulate ‘my quirk is haunted but I’m not quite sure even still’ but she kind of just wanted to say that out loud and let the chips fall where they may.

“I kind of doubt it,” she instead said with probably more authority than she should’ve.  The other girls all knew she had a close mentor-mentee relationship with All Might, so none of them were in a hurry to challenge her on that.

All for One could take… but he could also give.

The thought was cripplingly powerful in Kyoka’s mind, like getting hit with the force of a bomb from inside out that sounded like Nana’s voice, and she almost doubled over in pain.  She couldn’t hear anything for a few moments and, when she stopped seeing stars, Momo was freaking out and holding on to her shoulder to keep her from falling out of her chair.

“What, uh, what the hell was that?”  Himiko said with great horror once Kyoka righted herself in her chair.  Kyoka groaned and leaned forward to half-heartedly glare at Himiko, requesting clarification with her expression.

“That wasn’t… That wasn’t your voice, ribbit,” Tsuyu added with clear confusion, and Kyoka frowned.

“I don’t… I don’t know, honestly,” Kyoka said. That was the truth, too, and the fact that it was the truth scared the shit out of her.  “Maybe… I think I need to probably go home and get to bed, I don’t… I don’t feel great,” Kyoka added, and Momo quickly moved to pay their bill so she could take Kyoka home.

Kyoka didn’t miss the concerned looks on her friends’ faces as Momo assured them she and Itsuka would fill them in later.  The worst part was that Kyoka couldn’t even tell them the truth.

Not just because it was One for All but because she didn’t even know what the truth was anymore.

Kyoka dreams of falling again.  Why is she falling?  Why is she dreaming?

She remembers barely making it home and immediately passing out on her bed.

But now she is falling.  Why… This isn’t like the other dream.

The skyscraper is coming fast but what she thinks incoherently is:

Can I defeat a skyscraper?

The dream abruptly changes and Kyoka is so disoriented she nearly falls over when she finds herself on her feet.

She is a ghost here again but something about this feels… real.  It is real in a frightening, metaphysical way that Kyoka does not have words for.  She is a songwriter, a musician at heart, and the idea that she cannot describe the vast, incomprehensible reality of where she is…

It’s scary.  It’s terrifying, even, and she looks down and is confused to find a photograph in her hands.

It is Nana - the real Nana, Kyoka presumes - hugging a little boy.  She’s got her yellow gloved hands on his waist; he’s so tiny and precious and Kyoka is filled with immense, impossibly powerful emotions of empathy and warmth and love for this little boy she’s never seen in her life.  The little boy looks so happy to be hugging his mother - why does Kyoka know that he is her son?

Kotaro.  Kotaro Shimura.  The words hit her mind like a runaway train, so hard and fast and strong that Kyoka nearly falls over again.  The photograph is gone, where did it go?  Suddenly, her world is very black and dark… It's nighttime out?  No, there is no sky anymore; where the sky should be is now pure, infinite black and the reality and unreality of that crashes together like the tectonic plates in her vision.

Kyoka blinks.  One moment, she was in what seemed to be the middle of a street.  The next, she is in a home.  She sees… She sees and hears a man - Kotaro - he’s a man now, though, and the unreality of the passage of time is disorienting.  He is… He is yelling at children - his children? - and angry with them.

It’s the photograph.  They have the photograph.  Kyoka tries to yell and scream, to tell him to stop; she doesn’t understand why she wants to but she feels it, a visceral sense of need and sorrow and desire and pain, that she must stop him.  That she can never stop him, as she has no voice in the dream.

The scene abruptly changes again.  She is looking at a little boy outside.  His name is Tenko.  The name again hits her mind like a bomb.  Tenko Shimura, the little boy she didn’t protect from his father.  The father who was abandoned by his mother.  The mother who was killed by All for One, the man who would be king.  This information hits her relentlessly, again and again like blows in a fight she cannot hope to defend herself from.

Little Tenko is heartbroken and he’s hugging his dog.  Kyoka, in that moment, experiences an utterly smothering, stunning, shocking feeling of dread and terror.  Nothing has happened yet - why does she feel this way?

Then little Tenko kills his dog with the onset of his quirk.  Kyoka is so horrified that she covers her eyes at the sheer violence and terror of what he’s done.  His quirk… His quirk caused the dog to decay and it was stomach-churning.  She can hear his cries, even in the silence of the dream; it’s horrible, why is Nana showing her this?

The sound-- She can’t escape the sound, it’s everywhere at once, like his cries are coming from the fabric of reality itself.

He kills his sister.  His mother.  His grandparents.  Then his father.

And then, he places his hand on his own face and kills himself, fading away with dust and blood.

The scene abruptly fades to white and ash, just like little Tenko’s quirk causes, and Kyoka realizes that it’s all connected.  Now she is standing in a field of infinite night and Nana is in front of her, sorrow on her beautiful face and her cape billowing in a non-existent wind.

“I’ve been granted the power to bend and break reality itself, little Kyoka,” Nana says, and reality itself shudders in the face of her power.  It is overwhelming, awe-inspiring, devastating…

Kyoka idly wonders if Nana has become god.

“No, little Kyoka, I haven’t become god.  But we’ve never spoken before and much of my energy has been… saved.”  Nana looks so overwhelmingly, tragically sad that Kyoka has no words for the depth of pain she is seeing.  “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you… but I needed you to see this.”

Kyoka watches as Nana raises her right arm, motioning with a flat palm held upright to a frozen frame of the memory:  little Tenko, tears on his face and pure agony in his expression, looking on the remains of his family.

“What if there was something off with the world, little Kyoka?  Something deep, something metaphysical; a nagging feeling you couldn’t place?”  Kyoka tries to think of a response but she is so overwhelmed by the raw power of Nana’s presence that it’s all she can manage to keep herself upright in the dream.  “I have spent countless days, months, years… Moments in time - true infinity - protecting little Izuku Midoriya the best I could."

Kyoka is finally able to articulate something, anything in her mind, in her sheer shock at Nana’s words.

Greenie?

“Yes, little Kyoka.  ‘Greenie,’ my little love, my second child, and the one I hope to do better by,” Nana says sadly.  “I save him… because I can’t save little Tenko or his family.”  Nana looks sadly at the frozen memory, hanging in the true infinity of reality itself as it begins to fade away to ash and dust.  “Some moments are too powerful to intervene.  Some things are the constants of our reality:  the gravity that keeps us grounded.”

Nana turns back to Kyoka but she does not smile.  Her next words shake the foundations of everything even in the dream of One for All.

“The weight of my sins is immense.”

Then Kyoka wakes up and she screams when she does.

Chapter Text

This time, Kyoka wasn’t able to avoid ruining Momo’s sleep for the night when she woke up screaming.

Indeed, they got a visit from a police officer, as one of their neighbors thought somebody was being murdered in their apartment.  The police officer, at the very least, was very understanding - a benefit of being two pro Heroes, Kyoka supposed - but it was still awkward as hell.

It was awkward when the truth was ‘I had a nightmare… but you could never understand what it was like’ as a grown, albeit still young, woman.

Unfortunately, once the officer bid them farewell, Kyoka was left with the unpleasant task of explaining what the hell was going on to Momo.  She didn’t really mind telling Momo about it, necessarily; Momo was the first person she told about One for All that wasn’t a teacher, as her best friend back in their second year at UA before they were even dating.  It was more so that Kyoka didn’t really want to worry Momo… and before last night’s dream, she didn’t think it would come to that.

Kyoka started from the top:  the first dream, with Nana showing her how she and All Might met again, the things that Nana had said in her mind the past few days, and then, through tears and shuddering breaths, the dream about little Tenko Shimura and his family.  Kyoka bent the truth a little on her recent insecurities and how Nana had replied to those, too; there would be time to bring that up when One for All wasn’t being spooky as hell.

“So it has to do with Izuku?”  Momo concluded once Kyoka finished her story.  Momo had Kyoka wrapped up in a hug around her shoulders and Kyoka had her knees pulled to herself on the bed.  They were both still on the bed, where they had returned once they finished dealing with the police.  Both were in pajamas, though it was now close to six in the morning.  When they had woken up, it was about half past three.

“That’s what… That’s what she said,” Kyoka said with a sniffle.  The worst part was that Kyoka wasn’t that upset about it.  What happened to Tenko was horrific but she’d seen bad things as a Hero even just as a UA student when responding to things like disaster relief.

Hell, she had helped defeat Overhaul.  She’d seen some shit in her time.  No, the emotions she was feeling… They didn’t feel like her own.  The ocean threatening to flood her heart with a tsunami of sorrow didn’t feel like it was truly hers at all.

“I think… I think Nana is trapped in Hell,” Kyoka added, and she definitely meant capital ‘H’ Hell or ‘true infinity,’ as Nana had called it.

“I’m not sure what’s worse:  that she is or that… I don’t think we can help her,” Momo said quietly, and she squeezed Kyoka for good measure.  Kyoka leaned into the touch and sniffled again.  She had ugly cried for longer than was really necessary by her own normal standards and it was a little bit humiliating.  But after what she’d seen… She didn’t begrudge Nana crying tears through her.

Nana deserved to cry more tears yet.

“She said there are ‘constants’ and… I guess she implied that things could’ve happened differently?”  Kyoka said hesitantly.  This kind of advanced science shit was the kind of thing Momo, Tenya, or Izuku would babble on about for hours at the lunch table at UA, not so much Kyoka’s scene.

“Multiverse theory, I suppose,” Momo said dryly.  “I would have assumed things would conform to the butterfly effect hypothesis, though,” she added, and Kyoka turned her head to look at Momo incredulously the best she could from their respective positions.

“What the hell do butterflies have to do with anything?”  Kyoka asked, realizing Momo couldn’t really see her properly.  Momo chuckled softly at her and her voice was so beautiful and warm and made Kyoka feel a little better.

“The hypothesis is that if a butterfly flaps its wings over a body of water, the resulting minuscule change in air pressure can cause a tornado down the line.”  Momo paused for a moment and cleared her throat.  “That’s a deliberate modification of the wording of the original study but I think people like the iconography of a butterfly more than a seagull,” she added with just the tiniest bit of mirth in her voice.  Kyoka blinked a few times and thought about it carefully.

“So it’s like… if one tiny thing changes, I guess other big things can change?”  Kyoka said, trying to work through it.  It was hard on the amount of sleep she had.  Momo giggled, though not unkindly, and leaned her head against Kyoka’s head.

“Yes and no.  It’s about… Anything we do could have far-reaching, unforeseen consequences and we don’t even know that we’re changing things when we do.”  Momo huffed a bit of air to the side, blowing her hair out of her face.  “Though, Nana implied that there are… tethers, I suppose?  Constants or anchors, I guess you could call them.”

“‘The gravity that keeps us grounded,’” Kyoka quoted sadly, thinking about Nana’s choice of language.  “Toshi had said she was very particular about the metaphors she uses.  She likes swords, apparently, and gravity and infinity…”  Kyoka trailed off but she heard Momo make a little noise of recognition.

“The only person I know of who is associated with both gravity and infinity in our life… is Ochako,” Momo said quietly, and both girls moved away from each other to look at each other in turn.

“So it’s Ochako and Izuku?”  Kyoka said first, and Momo narrowed her eyes in concentration.

“I guess that makes sense… but it sounds like Izuku is the primary catalyst.  Something about him… Something about him is important?”

He was important.  I needed him.

“I knew you didn’t speak with your own voice the other day!”  Momo exclaimed in hushed excitement, but Kyoka just felt a little dazed.

“What did… What the hell was that?”  Kyoka asked in confusion, and when she refocused on Momo, she looked like the girl who had just solved the math problem that had been giving her issues for the past twenty minutes.

“You said ‘he was important.  I needed him’ but in… I guess in Nana’s voice,” Momo said.  She tilted her head and thought about it for a moment.  “I’m guessing that’s… Nana speaking through you?  About Izuku, I presume.”

“Do you think Izuku knows any of this?”  Kyoka asked, but Momo quickly shook her head.

“I highly doubt it.  He couldn’t keep a secret like that to save his life for five minutes, let alone for four years.”  Momo turned away for a moment, a pensive expression on her face.  “I think… there are two things going on here, right?”

Kyoka narrowed her eyes in concentration.

“Izuku and also the thing with All for One?”  Kyoka asked cautiously, and Momo nodded.  “You don’t think Izuku is All for One, do you?!”  Kyoka exclaimed with absolute sincerity and concern.  Momo immediately started laughing so hard for several moments that by the end Kyoka was pouting at her.

“It’s not that crazy!”  Kyoka insisted defensively; in response, Momo just started cackling again.

“I cannot imagine Izuku Midoriya, the support gear engineer and ray of sunshine that we all love, ever being evil,” Momo said with utter seriousness when she recovered, and Kyoka honestly couldn’t really argue with that.

“Alright, so then what about All for One?  Do you think he’s back?”  Kyoka asked as she began to try and adjust her pajamas and get more comfortable.  She stretched her legs out and leaned into Momo’s warmth in the process.

“Well… Nana said ‘All for One could take… but he could also give,’ right?”  Kyoka nodded.  “So… What if All for One, the quirk, has been stolen… or given… and it’s someone else?”

“Then that sucks,” Kyoka said flatly, and Momo giggled.

“It would indeed suck,” Momo conceded.  “I think I’ll have to chat with Sir Nighteye about it the next time I see him for a strategy meeting.”

“That would be nice.  I’m going to go back to Shield Industries soon for a review of my new costume, so I’ll try and chat with Greenie I guess,” Kyoka replied quietly.  She was more awake and the graveness of the conversation was beginning to die down for her.

“You aren’t… Are you gonna tell him about One for All?”  Momo asked hesitantly, and Kyoka shook her head.

“Nah, I don’t see why I would at this point.  But… I am gonna ask him about him and ‘Chako and maybe also about… him.”  Her conversation with Eijiro flitted through her mind once more.  “I have… questions about him and Katsuki that I wanna ask him,” Kyoka added quietly, and Momo reached around and gave her another hug.

“Just don’t scare him.  I rather doubt Izuku would appreciate you trying to talk to him about ghosts and such,” Momo said, and Kyoka could hear her tiny smirk without looking at her.

“It’s okay, Yaomomo, I’m not going to tell him that my quirk’s haunted.  I might have to scold Toshi about it, though.”

The two girls shared a laugh before they were both pathetically startled by their own morning alarms going off.

Unfortunately for Kyoka, she did not get to go back to Shield Industries so soon.

Instead, she got roped by Momo into coming to the strategy meeting with Sir Nighteye a few days later and that was just Kyoka’s least favorite idea she’d heard in a while.

The thing was that Kyoka didn’t dislike Sir Nighteye.  Indeed, she rather respected the guy, considering he had a really specific quirk and some gimmicky support items and he still flattened bad guys like it was no big deal.  She also could tell, once she had talked to him for a bit, that he used to keep Toshinori in order back in the day and Toshinori probably had quite a bit of trouble when Sir Nighteye stopped working as his sidekick after the defeat of All for One.

No, the real issue was that Sir Nighteye didn’t like Kyoka and he was quite vocal about that fact.  Not so much that he didn’t like her as a person, though.  As a matter of fact, he always stressed that he thought quite highly of her as a person:  that she was kind and smart and that she worked hard and had done an admirable job of mastering One for All, considering the relatively limited instruction it came with.  Especially after Blackwhip came in, Sir Nighteye was always respectful of her usage of the borrowed sword across generations.

There was that damned metaphor from Nana again and Kyoka groaned as she walked next to Momo.  Momo gave her a sidelong look - they both wore their Hero costumes and walked on the sidewalk in the mid-morning sun - but Kyoka gently waved her off.

Sir Nighteye’s biggest issue with Kyoka, really, was that even though she was as talented and capable as she was - or as he insisted she was, anyway - she didn’t plan to be a full-time Hero.  Sir Nighteye and Toshinori argued at length about that and how Sir Nighteye insisted that such a thing was ‘a waste of the potential of One for All.’  He would say that Kyoka couldn’t possibly serve as a symbol for society if she wasn’t committed to it and that, if she wasn’t, she should pass One for All along.

Toshinori and Sir Nighteye got into a shouting match about that in Nezu’s office one evening after everyone else went back to the dorms at UA in her third year.  It was quite the disaster and Toshinori and Sir Nighteye hadn’t been in the same room since.  Sir Nighteye had the audacity to suggest that Kyoka pass on One for All to Mirio, right there in front of Toshinori and Nezu, and the latter two were… less than pleased.

Now, to be fair, Kyoka could see where Sir Nighteye was coming from.  He had lived through a world with All for One and other dangerous supervillains and supposedly there used to be other awful shit too in the past:  people like Destro or how Overhaul had almost become the man who would be king if they hadn’t stopped him.  But Kyoka worked hard, god dammit, and at the very least she took pride in the fact that Toshinori never stopped supporting her.

Kyoka had done her first internship with Gran Torino, then her work-studies in first and second year with Sir Nighteye.  She worked closely with Mirio during that time, even after Mirio graduated and became Sir Nighteye’s sidekick along with Bubble Girl and Centipeder, until the big blow up with Toshinori and Sir Nighteye happened in her third year.  That kind of sucked.  Kyoka didn’t really enjoy working with Sir Nighteye, but she loved working with Mirio… even if he was a little shit sometimes.

“We’re here!”  Momo chirped happily, and Kyoka jumped a bit in recognition as she came back to reality.

“Sorry, Yaomomo, was just thinking over here,” Kyoka said sheepishly as she turned to regard Momo carefully.

“I could see the gears turning,” Momo said playfully, and Kyoka’s cheeks pinked as she looked away.  Then Kyoka squared her shoulders and took a deep breath before pushing open the front door to the agency.

When they walked in, the two young women were immediately greeted by a receptionist over at the front desk.  The Nighteye Agency had grown in the past two years since Kyoka did any work there and they had more sidekicks and interns than they used to.  Kyoka looked over and saw some kids - probably second- or third-years - sitting in UA uniforms and waiting with smiles on their faces with their little costume briefcases in their arms.

I’m glad things are still going well, she thought to herself.

“Earphone Jack, Creati!  Long time, no see!”

Kyoka whipped her head around and grinned from ear-to-ear at the sight of Mirio, wearing his Hero costume and with his visor up.  He threw his arms up in a V-shape and she ran over to him, where he promptly caught her in a hug.

“Hey, Lemillion!  Still keeping count of all those people you’ve been saving?”  Kyoka said with a grin as she attempted to squish him.  She was strong but Mirio was built like a goddamn tank, so she couldn’t hug that much of him.

“You know it!”  Mirio replied, then he stepped back once Kyoka released him.  Mirio held up his right hand for a high-five but Kyoka narrowed her eyes at him and her earphone jacks came up a little.  Mirio had gotten really good at using his quirk to fake out high-fives to her when they worked together but Kyoka had learned her lesson by the end of things.

Usually, she just ignored his high-fives and pouted at him.  This time, she surprised him with a quick right jab to the gut.  She didn’t hit him very hard, really, but it was fast enough that he took a step back and made a small ‘oof’ of surprise.

“Okay… I deserved that,” he muttered as he rubbed his side a bit.  Kyoka snaked out an earphone jack and held it right in front of his face.

“That shit isn’t gonna work on me anymore,” she said with faux darkness, and Mirio snorted as the earphone jack retreated.  Off to the side, Kyoka heard the interns from UA giggling at Mirio.  Mirio looked over at them and pouted, then Momo walked up to Kyoka’s side so that Kyoka and Momo could both snicker at his expense.  Once he turned to look back at them, he offered Momo a polite handshake and a smile.

“Welcome back, Creati.  Sorry I wasn’t in the last few times you came around but you know how it is for us crazy people who handle patrols!”  Mirio said with a smile.  Momo, in turn, covered her mouth as she giggled.

“I saw the headlines, congratulations on making it into the Top Ten!”  Momo replied, and Kyoka held her hands in front of her in little fists and jumped up and down.

“Hell yeah, that’s awesome, Mirio!  Gonna be the Symbol of Hope in no time at the rate you’re going!”

“I kinda doubt that,” Mirio said evenly.  “I’d have to somehow catch up to Hawks and Endeavor and you know how the Dynamic Duo are.”

That much was true.  Endeavor had really aggressively gotten into being the number one Hero since Toshinori retired and he and Hawks started working together often.

Kyoka wasn’t a big fan of Endeavor; she wasn’t the closest of friends with Todoroki and he was only one of two people in their class she wasn’t on a verbal first-name basis with but she knew enough to know that… Todoroki was always kind of cold and distant and it was most likely because his dad was a shit.  Still, apparently things were somewhat better once Endeavor became number one and couldn’t spend all his time bitching and moaning about how he wanted to surpass All Might.

Todoroki had taken a job at his dad’s agency at any rate, not that he seemed super pleased about it.  Honestly, most of the time Kyoka spent with him was because he and Izuku had become buddies.  Something about how Izuku had spent a lot of time designing gear for Todoroki and, in the process, gave Todoroki advice about his quirk, had caused the two to become good friends.  Kyoka never got filled all the way in on that but she was glad for it all the same.

“Hey, Earphone Jack, you in there still?”  Mirio asked, and Kyoka blinked in confusion.  She never used to get so lost in her thoughts like that.

What if there was something off with the world, little Kyoka?

Kyoka nearly fell over on her ass, though Momo grabbed her shoulder and steadied her.  Kyoka gave Momo a slightly panicked look, to which Momo nodded before turning to Mirio.

“We should go over to Sir Nighteye’s office now.  Kyoka, er… hasn’t been feeling well today,” Momo said, accepting her slip of the tongue in using Kyoka's given name instead of her Hero name in her distress.

“Sounds good and sorry to hear that,” Mirio said, a little more seriously now.  “I’ve got medicine for upset stomach and headaches in my office if ya need it!”

“I’m… I’m good, I just need to sit,” Kyoka said, and at least that part wasn’t a lie.

They made their way down the halls and up the elevator to the conference room.  It was still pretty early in the day and they passed some sidekicks coming out of the conference room as they got close.  Mirio gave the sidekicks a little wave, then turned to Kyoka and Momo.

“Sir is waiting for you two, he wanted to chat before the others show up.”

“The others?”  Kyoka asked, looking at Momo as she did so.  Momo gave her a sheepish smile in response.

“You’ll see,” Momo said awkwardly.  Mirio gave them a thumbs up.

“I gotta go wrangle the interns and sidekicks, we’re gonna do some training with all of them today and I’m the chaperone!”  For anybody else, Kyoka would’ve surmised they might not be enthused but Mirio loved himself some training of new people.

“See ya later, Lemillion.  Keep me updated on that number of yours!”  Kyoka said with a smile, and she waved with her right hand and earphone jack as he walked away.  Momo also waved and Mirio gave them a grin and a thumbs up as he left.

Kyoka really respected Mirio’s aspirations to save ‘a million people’ or more generally all of the people he possibly could.  His commitment and dedication to the cause of protecting and saving people was remarkable and she could understand why Sir Nighteye loved Mirio so much.  Sir Nighteye didn’t just see Mirio like a son; he saw Mirio as the second coming of All Might himself.

Kyoka didn’t really blame Sir Nighteye for being a stick in the mud about it.  But she didn’t plan to give him the time of day, either, on the subject.

The two young women walked into the briefing room and were greeted by the sight of Sir Nighteye in one of the most unusual positions Kyoka had ever seen.  He had his usual gray three-piece suit and funny red polka dotted tie on but he was sitting and looking very intently at what appeared to be an All Might action figure in his hands at the head of the conference table.

He seemed to be talking very quietly to himself and, as Kyoka and Momo inched closer, Kyoka realized he was talking about the action figure.  Something about its coloring and paint job being ever-so-slightly off, how it didn’t have the right muscle definition in certain places, and how the smile was wrong.  Kyoka slowly turned her head to Momo and mouthed ‘what the hell?’ to her, to which Momo just shrugged.

Then Momo cleared her throat.  Sir Nighteye snapped his gaze up and looked at the two young women with an unreadable expression and eyes hidden behind shiny glasses.

“They got all the details wrong but in subtle ways.  An amateur would never notice,” he said with a perfectly straight face.

“I feel like Greenie and Katsuki should’ve been the ones to work for Sir Nighteye, they wouldn’t have ever run out of nerd stuff to talk about together,” Kyoka whispered, leaning over slightly towards Momo.

He was important.  I needed him.

“What was that, Earphone Jack?”  Sir Nighteye said, and Kyoka quickly shook her head to clear her mind.

“Er… One for All stuff,” Kyoka mumbled, and Sir Nighteye tilted his head so that she could see his eyes.  He actually rather looked concerned, though Kyoka was loath to discuss One for All with him if she could help it.  That was just asking for an awkward conversation.

Sir Nighteye stood up and set the All Might action figure on the table, then he buttoned his suit jacket and walked over to the two women.  He offered his hand to Momo first, who gave him one firm handshake.

“Welcome back, Creati, and thank you for coming,” Sir Nighteye said in an even tone.  Momo gave her ‘professional business’ smile, as Kyoka thought of it:  the one for people she didn’t quite care for but she was still polite because that was what her parents taught her to do.  Sir Nighteye let Momo’s hand go and turned to Kyoka.  Internally, Kyoka braced herself for the coming awkwardness.  “Jirou Kyoka-- Earphone Jack, I owe you an apology.”

Kyoka’s jaw dropped straight to the proverbial floor at Sir Nighteye as she gawked at him.  He, in turn, adjusted his glasses on his face and looked at her with a neutral expression.

“I allowed my concern for the future of Hero society outweigh my duty to be a helpful and respectful teacher to the Ninth Bearer of One for All and Toshinori Yagi’s successor.”  He tilted his head at her thoughtfully.  “You are Toshinori’s successor and I never had any right to treat you as I did.”

“Uh… Thank you, Sir Nighteye, uh…”  Kyoka trailed off and just stared at him for a moment, before turning to Momo.  Momo looked incredibly smug and Kyoka slowly realized that this was probably the product of a lot of negotiating and arguments between the two.  Sir Nighteye seemed to sense her unanswered question.

“Creati made it very clear that her working with me was predicated on me respecting you.  And I think that’s fair,” Sir Nighteye began, and he turned to look at Momo.  “To be clear:  I always respected you.  My fear was that you weren’t living up to your potential… but now I see that I was simply too narrow-minded.”

“We argued about this a lot,” Momo added flatly, and Sir Nighteye nodded firmly.  Kyoka turned to look at Momo and blurted out her response without a second guess.

“I love you, Yaomomo,” Kyoka said, and Momo giggled.

“I love you, too, dear,” Momo said, then Sir Nighteye gestured for them to sit down near the head of the table.

Momo sat so that Kyoka would be left with the seat at the edge of the table, closest to Sir Nighteye.  Sir Nighteye, meanwhile, sat back down and produced a pair of tweezers from his jacket and began poking at the action figure.  Kyoka thought a bit sadly about that night that Sir Nighteye and Toshinori had yelled at each other and realized that in many ways Sir Nighteye had only ever wanted to make sure that Toshinori was safe.

Sir Nighteye cared a lot, he just didn’t express that care in ways that other people appreciated.

“You know, I always wanted your approval,” Kyoka said, voicing her internal conclusion out loud.  Sir Nighteye stopped poking at the All Might action figure and looked over to Kyoka with a solemn expression.

“I know that now.  I’m sorry that I was so focused on my vision of the future, I didn’t respect yours.”  Then he looked back at the action figure and Momo sighed.

“David Shield and Yagi will be over soon and we’ll be doing a briefing on what’s going on.  I have come up with some theories and I even--”

“You even made a slide presentation, I know, Yaomomo,” Kyoka finished for her.  Momo blinked owlishly at Kyoka.  “I saw you working on it over your shoulder.  Looks good, by the way.”

Momo sputtered and looked rather defeated, though not seriously.

“I can never keep secrets or surprises,” Momo bemoaned comically as she slumped in her chair, and Kyoka just giggled at her.

“That’s not true, you managed to coordinate at least one surprise birthday party for everyone in Class A and B before we graduated and you even did one for Izuku and Mei, too.”  Kyoka smirked at Momo.  “Remember when Katsuki was so shocked when we turned the lights on and used party noise makers at him that he accidentally set the couch on fire?”

“I remember that Eijiro decided to use 'Unbreakable' and jump onto the fire and put it out - which didn't work - but he was so determined to impress Katsuki and Katsuki decided to jump on, too, to ‘help.’  Then Todoroki accidentally froze both of them into a little ice sculpture when he put out the fire."

Both Momo and Kyoka began cackling together at the memory.  It took them twenty minutes to unfreeze the wonder boys and, by the end, Katsuki was furiously embarrassed at having been frozen while giving Eijiro a hug.  That was how the two of them ended up confessing to each other and Mina declared that Todoroki was her unofficial shipping partner after that, much to the confusion of Todoroki.

“Good times,” Kyoka said wistfully, and she and Momo chuckled together.

They waited for a while longer, idly checking their phones.  Momo eventually stood up and began fiddling with the projector and Sir Nighteye stopped messing with his All Might action figure to help her with it.  Kyoka smiled at the two of them and thought fondly of the idea of Momo sticking up for her.

Momo really was the best.

It was about twenty minutes later when the door opened and Toshinori and David Shield walked in.  Toshinori stepped in and to the side, allowing David to go first.  David, in turn, gave quick, polite handshakes and greetings to Kyoka, Momo, and Sir Nighteye.  He and Sir Nighteye always had a slightly weird working relationship but they partnered well together these days now that David had moved to Japan full-time to work with Melissa.

David wore a simple dark gray dress shirt and black dress pants, while Toshinori wore his preferred dark gray business suit and red tie.  Kyoka was silently grateful he didn’t go with his gaudy-looking yellow pinstripe suit, at least.  Toshinori moved to walk around the table but stopped dead when his eye caught the little All Might action figure.

Kyoka watched intently as Toshinori looked slowly but increasingly more bemused at the action figure, before turning his gaze to Sir Nighteye.  Sir Nighteye did not look like he expected Toshinori to give him a handshake and did not stand up.  True to that expectation, Toshinori started to move around without doing so.

“Hey!  Toshi!  Uh uh, no, shake Sasaki's hand,”  Kyoka said with all of the authority she could muster.  She felt four pairs of eyes snap to her in confusion.  Kyoka just stood up and crossed her arms.  “He apologized to me for being wrong, so now you apologize to him for letting that get between you like dorks."

Those two were working together probably before she was even alive and she’d be damned if she let that get ruined on her behalf.  Toshinori slowly looked between Sir Nighteye and Kyoka before his gaze settled on her.

“Are you sure, Young Jirou?”  Toshinori asked cautiously.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Kyoka replied flatly.  She accentuated her point by snaking out her earphone jacks to each man, hovering them by their faces.  “Ask Foresight over here about letting people fall out of your life when they might not have a tomorrow,” Kyoka began, and she saw Sir Nighteye look appropriately glum, “and ask the Eighth Bearer here about pushing your friends and family away for petty, bullshit reasons.”

Toshinori visibly wilted, then he turned and offered his hand to Sir Nighteye.  Sir Nighteye shot out of his seat and gave Toshinori a hug and Kyoka couldn’t help but smile.  Once they were done, they smiled at each other, then Toshinori took his seat across from Kyoka, with David on his right.  Sir Nighteye sat back down, then pushed his chair away from the table towards Toshinori so he could turn to look at the projector screen.

“Take it away, Creati,” Sir Nighteye said, and he, Toshinori, and David all looked intently over to the projector as Creati’s presentation came up.

It was, somewhat predictably to Kyoka, mostly a light gray with royal red accents and very Momo by Kyoka’s estimation:  very well put together, very formal, slick.  Regardless, there were a bunch of graphs, what appeared to be crime scene photographs, and a list of official participants as well as a chain of command that ran down from the Hero Commission.  Momo went briskly through the slides and her demeanor became what Kyoka fondly thought of as her ‘commander mode.’

Kyoka also noted that Hawks was the highest-ranking Hero assigned to the case relative to the chain of command, due to his work directly for the Hero Commission.

Momo got to the last slide and turned to Toshinori.

“The bottom line, Yagi, is that I think that either All for One - the quirk - is back somehow… or we’re dealing with something troublingly similar to it.”

“How many quirks have been taken so far?”  David asked as he stopped scribbling on his notepad.  Momo pressed a button and the last slide was a summary page with important info collected on it.

“Twelve cases confirmed so far.  Most have been directly combat-related:  either defensive quirks like Red Riot’s Hardening, some healing quirks, that type of thing.  There was one non-combat oriented quirk taken, some kind of sensory quirk from someone with the ability to track someone if they made skin-to-skin contact, as well.”

Momo flicked through the crime scene photos and brought up one that was quite unpleasant, so Kyoka frowned.

“They don’t have to kill the person to steal it, do they?”  Kyoka asked.

“I don’t think so,” Momo replied.  “We’ve got twelve confirmed cases but only nine fatalities.  The other three seem to have escaped through happenstance, usually because someone else interrupted the attack.”

“Have we gotten a visual of the perpetrator?”  Sir Nighteye asked.  He leaned forward in his seat and clasped his hands together, intently looking at the projector screen.

“Not so far.  David has requested access to public camera systems near the incident scenes in conjunction with Detective Tsukauchi and the Hero Commission but, if this person has many quirks, they likely have a way to hide,” Momo said with a frown.  David nodded in turn.

“That’s coming down the pipeline; I believe Melissa and I will get a chance to take a look at that within the next two weeks,” David said.

“What about Tsukauchi?”  Toshinori asked, and he turned to Momo for that one.

“The detective couldn’t make it today, scheduling conflicts.  He’s at the Hero Commission right now, actually, giving pretty much this briefing to the leadership there.”  Momo cleared her throat awkwardly.  “I may have let Hawks use my presentation,” she added sheepishly, and Kyoka couldn’t help but giggle a little bit.

“A year out from graduation and you’re still letting the boys copy off your homework,” Kyoka teased, and Momo turned pleasantly pink in the face.  Toshinori hummed neutrally and looked at the presentation slides with a toothy grimace.

“What about the other issue, Young Yaoyorozu?”  He asked, and he gestured towards the screen.  Momo sighed and pressed some different buttons on her little remote to show off a new presentation.

This one was just all pictures, it didn’t have the slick graphic design of the other one, not that Kyoka much cared.  But what it did have, more importantly, were blown up images of bizarre looking creatures.  Kyoka assumed they were creatures, anyway, as Momo flicked through the images; some of them had wings, others strange claws or more than two arms, and most of them had gangling, inhuman appearances or were unnaturally muscular.

They all, curiously, appeared to be missing the upper part of their skulls and their brains were exposed.

“What the heck are these things?”  Kyoka asked absently, not really sure what to say otherwise.  Momo brought her right hand up to scratch her temple.

“We don’t know for certain.  They appear to be biologically engineered soldiers of some kind and they have displayed evidence of using quirks.”  Momo pointed her remote and a laser appeared on the eyeball of the creature on the current slide.  “They all have this unusual, blank look and have never responded when confronted by first responders.  Typically they escape and they usually display superhuman strength and speed.”

Toshinori cleared his throat and had a severe expression on his face.

“I suspect whoever this is has stolen more than twelve quirks and these,” he gestured with one hand to the presentation, “are where those quirks might be going.”

“So we got these people out here making damn super soldiers but we don’t know where they’re coming from?”  Kyoka asked incredulously.

“If they have the resources and technology to produce something like that, they would have the resources to hide from the authorities, I suspect,” David said with a frown, and Kyoka frowned, too. 

“Well, how do we know they’re bioengineered?”  Sir Nighteye said, and Momo flicked over to a new slide showing a crime scene.  There was a severed purple arm with a little yellow number placard display next to it on the ground and Kyoka stared at the image in curiosity and mild disgust.

“Generally, these things always run.  But we’ve had one confirmed engagement with one and it was Hawks.  He was able to sever a limb and, when analyzed, it was human… but also not or, at least, not anymore.”  Momo looked distinctly displeased as she spoke and Kyoka’s frown deepened.

“So we don’t actually have anything to go on other than waiting for them to make a move?”  Kyoka asked after a long pause as the men had regarded the presentation carefully and Momo organized some of the papers she’d placed on the conference table.

“Sort of,” Momo admitted softly.  “We have a lead.”

Sir Nighteye jumped in there, as Momo had handed him back his remote.  He pressed some buttons and something new came up on the screen.  Kyoka tilted her head at it:  it was an image of what seemed like a factory or refinery of some kind, with lots of smoke stacks and billowing steam and pipes everywhere.  Kyoka squinted at it, not detecting anything amiss, then turned to look at Sir Nighteye as he explained.

“This is a pharmaceutical plant tied to one of the major pharmaceutical and biomedical research conglomerates of Japan.  Trace substances on the arm recovered match one of the products officially manufactured at this plant and only this plant, at least on record.”  Sir Nighteye adjusted his glasses on his face and they got shiny again in the light from the ceiling, so that Kyoka couldn’t see his eyes.  “I suspect this corporation is in some way a front or that its leadership is involved,” Sir Nighteye finished, and Momo nodded.

“My plan is to bring Battle Fist and Lizardy for an inspection and tour of the plant later this week, in the late afternoon.  We got clearance from Detective Tsukauchi and the Hero Commission to use official powers for it and the company didn’t fight us on it.”

“Do they operate at night?”  Kyoka asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow.

“Not officially,” Momo replied.  “Lizardy should be able to get some sneaky intelligence for us, though.”

Kyoka huffed some air out of her nose.  She didn’t like that plan, not at all.  She wasn’t about to ask to come with, though, and imply that Momo needed her babysitting or anything like that.  But maybe she’d schedule a later afternoon patrol in the area, just to be safe.

Kyoka took that moment to tap her finger on the table a few times, calling the attention of everyone else in the room.

“So… I have One for All stuff to talk to you three about,” she began, and she saw Toshinori especially look very wary.  “I’ll keep it simple:  I’ve been receiving… dreams or maybe you could call them visions from Nana Shimura, the Seventh Bearer.  She… she implied to me that something is… off with the world but the message was vague,” Kyoka began.  Momo took that moment to add some more.

“We have reason to believe it has to do with Midoriya Izuku, an employee at Shield Industries, and Uraraka Ochako, Hero name ‘Uravity.’  Both are UA graduates.”  Toshinori turned with a raised eyebrow to Momo as she continued, “Nana specifically called out Izuku as being… ‘important’ and we’ve inferred Uravity’s involvement from some of Nana’s word choices.”

“I did not interact with Young Midoriya very much during his time at UA, though I recall he was always very… enthusiastic,” Toshinori said, and Kyoka saw his gaze flick to Sir Nighteye’s All Might action figure, still sitting on the table, for just a moment.  “What significance does he have to all this?”

“I don’t…”  Kyoka trailed off for a moment and realized that everyone else was dead silent and waiting for her to continue.  For so long, she had been afraid that she wasn’t taken seriously as the Ninth Bearer of One for All by those who knew of the power.  She was so afraid that they didn’t respect her thoughts on the matter.

In that single moment, she felt like they were hanging on her every word.

“I don’t think Greenie-- er, Midoriya is, uh, relevant to the bit with the quirk thieves,” Kyoka said quietly.  “I think… I think he’s important to Nana.”

He was important.  I needed him.

There was a stunned silence in the room for an uncomfortably long time.  Nana’s voice had come through with perfect clarity and impossible, devastating power and the look of concern and fear on Toshinori’s face was very visible.

“I don’t think I still readily have a connection to the vestiges, Young Jirou,” Toshinori admitted quietly after the pause.  Kyoka watched Sir Nighteye and David lean forward and share a disconcerted, confused glance.

“I’m not very familiar with this aspect of One for All,” Sir Nighteye provided with a tone of utter sincerity.  David nodded in agreement with the Hero who could see the future.

Mirai told me I couldn’t fight fate, so I became fate.

Kyoka blinked slowly and looked around in confusion, realizing she’d lost several seconds, before settling her gaze on Sir Nighteye.

“I have no idea what that means… but that’s concerning,” he said quietly, and Kyoka couldn’t help but nod.

“We’re working on it,” Momo said.  “We don’t think Midoriya or Uraraka are in any danger but because Midoriya works for you,” she looked to David as she spoke, “we wanted to inform you of this fact.”

“He primarily works for Melissa in her department.  I generally handle the more day-to-day leadership and administration tasks,” David said.  “Midoriya works very hard, though, and I know that he and Uraraka have a, uh… complicated relationship.”  His last words came out like a question almost, and Kyoka and Momo both rolled their eyes in unison at that.

“I’m hoping Nana will tell me more later but let’s focus on All for One or… whatever, now,” Kyoka said, and the other four all nodded in agreement.

Kyoka left Sir Nighteye’s agency that day thinking about fate and, if Nana wasn’t god… then what had she become in the end?

Later that week, Kyoka was on patrol… and she was very bored.

In fairness, that was probably good, since she wasn’t really there for patrol.  She had her headphones on and she was just idly walking down the streets on the sidewalk, looking back and forth with a slightly dull expression.  It was after six in the afternoon, though the sun was still up on the late July day and it was still pleasantly warm out.

Kyoka had her hands in her pockets as she bounced a bit to her music.  She had a nice song on with a cute little piano ditty amidst the guitar work and she took mental notes on the way the melody went to think about how she would want to incorporate piano into her own music soon.  Currently, she was a solo artist but she suspected that might change soon.

She was on the other side of the industrial park that the pharmaceutical plant was in and Momo had just texted her fifteen minutes previously to let her know that the three Heroes were beginning their tour.  Kyoka didn’t expect much to come of it but it never hurt to be too cautious.

Kyoka turned the corner and stopped with a sigh.  There was a younger kid there - probably about thirteen or fourteen - and he was spray painting on the wall.  He turned and looked at her and she expected him to bolt, only for her to realize that behind him was a high fence and she was standing at the entrance to the little alley he was in.

“C’mon, kid, what are you doing?”  Kyoka asked with a resigned tone.  She hated dealing with petty street crime; she was the Ninth Bearer of One for All, not a guidance counselor or a cop.

“Go away, lady, I’m not hurting anybody,” the kid replied shortly, and Kyoka rolled her eyes as she took a step forward.  To the kid’s credit, he held his place, defiance in his eyes.  Kyoka tilted her head and looked at the wall he was working on.  He was doing a cool little mural and he had All Might, Endeavor, and what appeared to be half a Hawks up so far.

“That’s pretty good, kid,” Kyoka said as she turned her music off.  The kid just scowled at her.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion on it,” he replied, and Kyoka just snorted at him.

“Look, kid, you know people gotta clean this up when you just paint on random walls right?”  The kid did not look like he cared.  “It’s good art, though.  Do you wanna go to art school?”

“Parents can’t afford that.  What do you care anyway?”  The kid said, and he glared at Kyoka.  Kyoka frowned in turn, feeling awful for him.

It was such a waste to see talented people without the means to pursue that talent.  Kyoka thought distantly of Himiko and how she had been put up for adoption for her parents because her quirk was supposedly ‘villainous.’  Kyoka always wondered if the world was somehow broken or… damaged but in a very physical, grounded sense.  The world wasn’t fair and Kyoka often wondered why… and why no one seemed to really care.

What if there was something off with the world, little Kyoka?

The kid looked rather afraid of her at that point but Kyoka just shook her head in minor irritation.

“Okay, look.  I’m a pro Hero but I’ve got better things to do.  So scram for twenty minutes and you can come back and finish when I’m not here, how’s that sound?”  The kid nodded quickly and stuffed his things into his little backpack, then ran off past Kyoka.

“Way to make me look like a damn weirdo, Nana,” Kyoka grumbled to herself.  No response from Nana was forthcoming.

Kyoka turned her music back on and turned to walk away.  She paused, though, feeling a rising urge to do something.  Turning back, she looked at the mural curiously… then she took her phone out and snapped a picture of it.

It really is good art, Kyoka thought absently as she stuffed her phone in her pocket.  Then she began walking back down the sidewalk.

Not much else happened as she walked into the fading sunset, as most of the staff at the corporate and industrial locations went home for the day and the night crews took over.  She waved to some people who waved at her but was quietly grateful she wasn’t very recognizable as a pro Hero.  She wasn’t even in the top two hundred for Hero rankings and what popularity she did have was for her music, generally, not her Hero work.

She was a tiny bit indignant about that; she responded to a lot of cases when she did Hero work, she just only did Hero work part time.  But it was the life she had chosen and she made the most of it.  She still had the first ‘thank you’ card that someone had sent her, after she had prevented a commuter bus from falling into a river.  It was stuck to her fridge with a magnet.

“This is pro Hero Creati, sending out a distress signal to all other Heroes in the area.  Pro Heroes Battle Fist, Lizardy, and Creati are requesting assistance at the--” 

The rest of Momo’s message got garbled by static but Kyoka didn’t wait.  She paused her music as she took off at a sprint.

Kyoka often idly wondered if One for All in motion looked different for other people when they used it.  Toshinori never had any visible discharge when he used One for All, though she could always feel it, like a radiating, beautiful warmth whenever she was near him in his Hero form.  As Kyoka ran and One for All swirled around her with intense power, she thought about that again and, strangely, she thought:

What would Deku’s One for All look like?

It did not sound like her own voice… but it didn’t sound like Nana, either, nor Ochako or Katsuki.  Kyoka blinked in confusion as she ran, then shelved that thought for another day.

For Kyoka, One for All rose above her body like a purple shimmer, akin to the steamy heat from a highway mirage.  Then, as One for All reached the apex of its power at maximum output, purple smoke began to rise from her body and her hair rose off her head in beautiful purple light as she disappeared from the ground in an explosive jump.  The air shattered and the ground buckled, asphalt and concrete chunks flying from the force as Kyoka took to the sky.

She didn’t need Momo to tell her where she was going and she was glad that she’d listened to her bad feeling about things as she flew towards the pharmaceutical plant.

When Kyoka landed - catching her fall gently with Float in the process - onto one of the taller holding towers of the planet, she was… confused at the scene that was playing out in the unfurling night. 

There was a lot of chaos and alarms going off.  There were bright, high-mounted lights and fences around the perimeter of the plant and, to Kyoka’s curiosity and suspicion, she saw what appeared to be black blast shields going up to reinforce the fences.  That was a high level of security for a civilian location like this to have… and it would also interfere with pro Hero and police reinforcements.

Kyoka did not like how things were going.  She didn’t get a chance to dwell on it, though, as an explosion broke open a wall on one of the larger buildings.  From that hole in the wall came Creati, Lizardy, and Battle Fist and Battle Fist was bloodied.  Kyoka waited for just one moment, confirming that one of the unusual bioengineered super soldier… things was following her fellow Heroes.

Then six more came flying out of the hole, too.

Kyoka disappeared at that point, the tower she’d been standing on shattering at the top from the force.  She flew right over Creati’s head, boots sparking as they slid across the ground, and struck the closest bioweapon right in its gross face.  That one had wings and it buckled under the force and went flying.  It struck the wall hard and Kyoka had the distinct impression that she had just swatted a fly.

Then she hooked her earphone jacks into her new gloves, spun them around for maximum volume, and pushed her open palms forward to let off a devastating pair of soundwave attacks as One for All rose around her body.  The wall of raw sound and kinetic energy hit the bioweapons with palpable kinetic energy and they were either pushed back or dropped to their legs in agony at the sheer, reverberating power.  The building behind them began to buckle and crack from the force and soon all of the bioweapons were sent flying.

Kyoka felt all the hair on her neck stand up as she attacked and she turned just in time to duck a blindingly fast punch from something thick and purple.  One for All burned and sizzled the air around her as she ducked and weaved and the bioweapon on her this time was fast.  It was also huge, probably about the size of All Might in his prime, with a disturbing, leering bird-like grin and red scar-like lines on its purple skin.  It was shirtless, wearing yellowed, faded shorts that had skulls on the knees.

It kept coming and Kyoka kept dodging; they were probably on about equal speed footing but she didn’t want to find out what would happen if she didn’t dodge.

She spun around, ducking a punch.  Then she whipped Blackwhip in an arc with suffocating, air-shattering power and the bioweapon was sent lurching sideways and away from her only a few meters, still upright on its feet as it slid.  Kyoka straightened and was stunned; that level of output force would’ve turned anything else - including armored vehicles - into paste or separated the top half from the bottom half.

Kyoka darted away and found herself back-to-back with her fellow Heroes.  Creati had pulled a halberd out of her body - and Kyoka knew that meant Creati meant business - while Battle Fist had righted herself and Lizardy had recalled all her bits and pieces.  Kyoka turned to Creati, who nodded in turn, then all four women launched themselves forward against the incoming bioweapons.  They moved like ribbons in the wind together.

Creati ducked the first one and twirled smoothly into a low stance with her weapon, effortlessly slicing the monster in half.

Battle Fist jumped over Kyoka and hit the next with a devastating uppercut, sending it sprawling as she connected with its face.

Lizardy separated her top half from her bottom half as she slid on her knees to dodge a heavy swipe, then both her fists left her arms and punched the bioweapon from two different directions.

“Duck!”  Kyoka yelled, then she spiraled around again with Blackwhip and cut every single remaining bioweapon currently near them in half in a single wind-ripping swing.  All three of her fellow Heroes ducked on instinct and the small sonic booms of Blackwhip ripped the wind around them and disturbed their hair and costumes as they looked to Kyoka.

Then Kyoka got smacked with the force of a freight train as the big bioweapon came back and got a clean hit on her.

Pain shot through her whole body as she flew and she only barely caught herself with Float before she crashed into a tower.  Kyoka lowered herself to the ground and groaned.  Something… something was probably broken in her rib section, though her costume had done a surprisingly good job of absorbing and diffusing the force.  She suspected that wouldn’t remain true for more than another hit or two, though.

That was all the time Kyoka got to dwell on it as the bioweapon appeared in a sonic boom in her vision and tried to take her head off.  Kyoka ducked the attack as One for All exploded around her, then she struck the bioweapon hard in the chest with a right hook.  The force rippled across the monster’s body and diffused, then Kyoka had to dodge out of the way of the bioweapon’s attempts to smash her like a volleyball spike with both fists.

Kyoka rolled painfully and came to a stop in a half-crouch, her breathing heavy and ragged.  She heard the abrupt sound of what seemed like… someone snapping their fingers?

The sound echoed through the fabric of reality itself and time stopped.

“Have you ever heard of hysterical strength, little Kyoka?” 

Kyoka turned and saw Nana Shimura herself, wearing her costume.  Her cape billowed in the wind and Kyoka was struck speechless as amethyst, cloudy lightning began to sizzle and boil the air around Nana.  Nana's striking gray eyes were backlit with beautiful purple and she looked…

She looked like an angel.

“You’ve never faced a true challenge, little Kyoka.  You’ve never faced down the devil in the moonlight.”

Nana turned to her and smiled as dust and rocks hung suspended in the air around them.

“Toshinori once defeated this monster, in another time and another place.  You will rise to the challenge as well.  I believe in you.”

Kyoka blinked and for a moment she was struck by a vision of a line of beautiful, multi-colored stars in her eyes, a bright line of light connecting them like a chain.

One for All shattered and boiled the air around her from its simple, passive presence as she felt more of it wash through her than she ever would’ve thought was possible.  Kyoka never had imagined that she would ever need to use that much because most villains couldn’t possibly hope to stand up to such force.

Time sped up.  She eyed the bioweapon and its blank eyes with pure determination and a resolve to destroy.

It couldn’t possibly hope to stand up to such force, either.

The bioweapon moved to hit her but she wasn’t there when it swung.  She hit it once and saw its body ripple again but more violently this time.  Twice and its skin began to buckle and tear.  Three times and it stepped backwards, clearly in pain.  Four times and her hands hurt so much but the bioweapon clearly hurt even more.

On the fifth it went flying and the air and ground exploded around them from the raw force of all of One for All in her fist.

The monster soared through the air, then Kyoka watched Hawks zip past like a crimson blur and cut it in half vertically from neck to groin.

Hawks flew back down towards her and landed with gentle, perfect precision even at his extreme speed.  He had two feather blades in his hands and he swung right over Kyoka’s head and took out another bioweapon that had been sneaking up behind her.  Then the feathers floated to his wings and he looked over to her with a thumbs up and an easy-going grin.

“Hey there, Earphone Jack.  That was quite impressive!”

Kyoka nodded and turned around.  Then she smiled as she saw Façade in her black and red jumpsuit and twirling her bladed staff around, back-to-back with Creati and her halberd as they took out more of the bioweapons left and right.  Nearby, Battle Fist and Lizardy coordinated:  Lizardy split up and flew, using her hands to pull Battle Fist over an attack and Battle Fist, in turn, smashed the offending bioweapon into the ground with a crash.

Battle Fist and Lizardy’s feet hit the ground, then everything was very calm and still besides the ongoing sirens in the now-full night.  The plant was brightly lit by the high-mounted lights and Kyoka winced as she turned to survey the wreckage.

Creati ran over first, dropping her halberd to grab Kyoka by the shoulder.  Kyoka winced again and let Creati slowly guide her over to a suitable piece of rubble to sit on.

“I, uh, I probably am gonna need to go to the hospital…”  Kyoka said sheepishly, and Creati had a little frown on her face as she made first aid materials.

“Kinda figured, based on the scene we came into,” Hawks said from the side.  Kyoka turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

“Where the hell did you come from, anyway?”  Kyoka asked, and Hawks just shrugged and grinned again.

“Façade and I were aware of Creati’s operation today and I had a feeling, if you will, that we would be needed,” Hawks said.  Kyoka blinked and bobbed her head in acknowledgement.  That was why she was there, too, after all.  Well, that and a general desire to protect Momo but that was her internal thought to keep to herself.

It took a long, long time for first responders to show up.  Kyoka found that suspicious but she was also in a lot of pain, so she didn’t have time to dwell on it.  Momo assured her that they would have time to debrief once Kyoka had been seen by some doctors for initial assessment - given that the sling that Momo put Kyoka’s arm in was something done in the field - and Kyoka just nodded in agreement.

She hated debriefing anyway, so an excuse to put it off a bit didn’t bother her at all, chest pain or no chest pain.

Chapter Text

“Alright, who invited Bird Brain over here?”

It had been a few hours since Kyoka, Momo, Setsuna, and Itsuka made it to the hospital.  Kyoka, it turned out, was on the money about her injuries, with two fractured ribs and several smaller fractures in her arms and hands.  Her new gear from Melissa, Mei, and Izuku over at Shield Industries had done a great job for what it was but she also rarely used One for All at maximum output like that and the gear was simply hopeless at that level of force.

Kyoka felt bad that she’d already broken the gloves.

Itsuka had a fractured tibia and a deep gash on her side, so she and Kyoka were room buddies at the hospital.  Momo and Setsuna were largely unharmed - Momo had a couple of bandages on her arms, while Setsuna healed just fine thanks to her quirk’s passive elements - so they were keeping the room buddies company.  Himiko was also there, still in her Hero costume; Momo had made some pajamas for herself and Setsuna on the spot but the doctors yelled at her to not strain herself before she could make some for Himiko, too.

Himiko didn’t really mind.  Kyoka had gotten to try her costume on once when they were in their third year; all the girls spent an afternoon swapping costumes to try out what they had.  What Kyoka learned was that Himiko and Tsuyu’s costumes were very comfy, while Ochako’s really needed to be less tight and Momo’s was just a tad embarrassing for someone without her… figure.  Kyoka did not plan to wear Mina’s costume ever again because it looked ridiculous without pink skin.  Toru, meanwhile, barely had a costume at all, though these days she wore a suit partially made from her own DNA like Himiko did instead of just running around in the nude.

“Excuse you, I’ll have you know that my brain is not bird-like at all!”  Of course, they didn’t get to relax since Hawks had tagged along and Kyoka knew her time putting off debriefing was coming to an end.

Kyoka didn’t actually mind Hawks, though she had never worked directly with him before.  Momo had, though, and Kyoka had briefly chatted with Hawks at Hero events.  He was clearly secretly a dweeb underneath his carefully crafted façade of being too cool for school but he worked hard and Kyoka respected him.  Besides, she saw him in action and knew that he earned his rank two spot.

“Hawks, we should start from the beginning,” Momo said quietly.  Momo had her hair down and her pajamas were, as was typical for clothing she made for herself with her quirk, royal red and white.

Momo adjusted herself to sit cross legged at the end of Kyoka’s bed and Kyoka shifted a bit to accommodate her.  She then reached out and placed her left hand gently over Momo’s right hand, mindful of her injuries; they had three of her fingers in those obnoxious little padded metal things to keep them in place.  Her right arm was in a cast entirely.

“Alrighty then, you run the show around here, Creati!”  Hawks said merrily.  Kyoka raised an eyebrow; that wasn’t true but maybe Hawks just didn’t like being in charge of things.

“So, Battle Fist, Lizardy, and myself entered the facility as was planned,” Momo began, and she turned so she could look at Itsuka and Setsuna, too.  The latter two nodded in confirmation.  “We were taking our tour, then Lizardy excused herself to use the restroom and used her quirk to begin covertly surveying the facility.  We had a close escort of armed guards but they didn’t notice her quirk.” 

Momo shifted a bit and had a slightly severe expression on her face as she spoke.  Kyoka furrowed her brows as she listened, building a mental image for herself.

“We knew backup was nearby; our hope was to stake out possible ways for Façade to enter the facility and do a more thorough round of reconnaissance in the near future,” Itsuka added.  Himiko nodded; she was taking notes on a little digital pad as Momo spoke and probably recording audio, too.

“However, Lizardy’s quirk entered a clearly higher-security area of the facility and the more advanced cameras there caught sight of her.  There were production systems and large tubes housing more of the bioweapons there and when the alarms went off they began releasing the bioweapons.”  Momo paused and cleared her throat.  “The loudspeaker system seemed to issue orders to the bioweapons but it did not do so in Japanese or any human language I recognized otherwise.”

“Could be a constructed language?”  Hawks provided.  Momo shrugged while Himiko kept tapping away.

“I don’t know.  Unfortunately, we don’t have any audio of it because the security systems of the facility were sabotaged.  Our security escort accosted us when the alarms went off, so we disarmed and restrained them but that took time, unfortunately.  By that point, we had to run from the bioweapons.”

“That’s when I came in!”  Kyoka piped up.  “I was on patrol in the area and I… uh, assisted.”

Momo turned to Kyoka and raised an eyebrow when Kyoka mentioned her patrol.  Kyoka had the decency to look embarrassed.  Momo just smiled softly, though.

“You sure did ‘assist,’ Earphone Jack.  What the heck was that?”  Hawks asked.  His tone was jovial but he had a knowing undertone to his expression that made Kyoka swallow heavily.  

“I don’t answer questions about my quirk to strange men,” Kyoka blurted out, not sure what else to say.  Himiko looked up from tapping on her pad to give an incredulous expression but Hawks just snorted in amusement.

“It’s not that important to me, personally, anyways,” Hawks said.  Kyoka did not miss his implication that it was important to someone but that was a problem for future Kyoka.

“So what happens now?”  Itsuka asked from off to the side.  “Did we secure any information from the facility in the aftermath?”

“Sure did!”  Hawks began.  “The bioweapons are called ‘Nomus’ and the ones you fought were all referred to in the systems as ‘low-end,’ with one exception.”  Hawks gestured over to Kyoka with his right hand.  “The one that Earphone Jack over here sent into the stratosphere was referred to as a ‘mid-end.’  We’re concerned there will be worse to come yet.”

Both of Kyoka’s eyebrows went up.

“That, uh… that one was, er…”  Kyoka trailed off and looked at Momo.  “That one took special help to beat, for me.”

Momo’s expression slowly shifted from confusion, to understanding, to horror as she processed what she probably thought Kyoka meant, then she turned back to the rest of the Heroes in the room.

“I’ll talk about it in my report later,” Momo said cryptically, and once again both Hawks and Himiko looked confused and concerned.

“Alright you guys, I am shot,” Setsuna declared from the other bed.  “We gotta submit reports anyway, so beat it so I can sleep!”

Itsuka turned with a smirk to Setsuna.

“Who said I was gonna let you sleep here?”  Itsuka said, not being serious.  She then shrieked in panicked surprise when Setsuna detached her fingers and attacked Itsuka with tickles.  Kyoka and Momo both cackled at the sight and Himiko shook her head softly.

“I’m going home so I can hang out with my girlfriend,” Himiko declared.  Then she menacingly pointed her pen at Hawks, who hastily waved at the other ladies and retreated before he incurred the wrath of his shapeshifting underling.  They were nice enough to turn the lights off on their way out, then Momo stood up to close the privacy curtain for Setsuna and Itsuka so they could sleep unimpeded.

This hospital had nice rooms, so the curtain was actually solid, made of a kind of plastic fake-wood material rather than fabric and it just about divided the room for real.  Once Momo returned to the bed, Kyoka could no longer make out what Itsuka and Setsuna were whispering about without using her quirk, which suited her just fine.

“What happened?”  Momo whispered quietly once she reached the bed on Kyoka’s left.  Kyoka situated herself so her legs were stretched out, then Momo got into the bed with her.  It was a slightly awkward fit given that Momo was so much taller than Kyoka.  Momo was already north of 170cm in high school and now she was about 180cm; meanwhile, Kyoka was still a shrimp at 158cm.

“I, uh… So when I was fighting the Nomu, right?”  Momo nodded.  “Nana… Nana stopped time.”

Momo stared blankly at Kyoka for a long time after Kyoka whispered, turning paler by the moment.  Eventually, Kyoka slowly described what it was like:  how she could see the hanging rubble and particles of dust in the air, how she could still breathe and think and move as reality itself came crashing to a halt, and how… how it felt like Nana could pull on time and force it to a stop, just as easily as a person might pull on a leash to stop a dog.

Kyoka wasn't sure if time really stopped or if it was a perception thing but it was scary either way.  She also described how Nana helped her see the true potential of One for All… the blade to slay the beast.

“She called it ‘hysterical strength,’” Kyoka said as she finished.  Momo looked a bit like she was gonna puke.

“That’s… that’s a real thing but gosh, that’s… I have to wonder how powerful Nana was in life if she’s this powerful in death.”

Time is a relative concept in the face of true infinity, little Kyoka.

The look of stunned horror on Momo’s face might’ve been priceless if Kyoka wasn’t sure she was wearing a matching expression in turn.

“I think… I think I’m ready for bed,” Kyoka admitted softly.  She had a distinct feeling she would be seeing Nana face-to-face very soon.  Momo nodded dimly and curled up next to Kyoka, shivering a bit.  Kyoka couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she tried to adjust more of the blankets onto Momo.

“Yaomomo,” Kyoka began, and Momo looked up at her quizzically.  “Just make us more blankets!”

Momo pouted… then she made more blankets.

Kyoka is dreaming again… and she is entirely unsurprised.

She expected this, as she stands around and squints at the scene before her.  She’s a bit more surprised at where she is, though.

The raid on the Shie Hassaikai is something she thinks of often.  It was a defining moment in her young career as a Hero, though at the time she didn’t realize that.  It meant a lot to Mirio, too, at the time; he’d run into Eri on a patrol on his own and let her slip through his fingers back to Overhaul.  Kyoka started at Sir Nighteye’s agency soon afterwards for UA’s work study program and Mirio confessed to her how the guilt ate away at him as they worked together on the case.

Kyoka sticks her hands in her pockets and walks as a ghost through the silent scene before her.  She watches as Overhaul’s watchdog, Rikiya Katsukame, bursts through the door only to get slammed backwards by a massive soundwave blast from Kyoka herself.  She was furious by the time they got to the raid.

Furious at what they were doing to Eri… and furious that Kyoka felt like she had done nothing to stop it.  

The Shie Hassaikai rush the police, only to again get blown backwards by a desolating sound attack.  The police are awestruck by Kyoka’s anger but she doesn’t care.

Up until this point, she has hidden One for All relatively well:  she used it sparingly during exercises and rarely focused on the strength-enhancing aspect in the presence of her classmates unless absolutely necessary.  Kyoka also deliberately did not do well in the Sports Festival, not wanting to draw attention to herself as the Ninth Bearer.  The only other time she used One for All at her full potential was to save Tenya from the Hero Killer alongside Todoroki.

But tonight, as the older Kyoka watches her younger self, little Kyoka does not hold back.  The Shie Hassaikai are devastated by sheer kinetic energy:  the sound of Kyoka’s heartbeat and the sound of her soul as the Ninth Bearer of One for All.  The Hero teams shatter their way through all resistance.  Overhaul’s Eight Bullets accost Kyoka alongside Suneater only to be blown away by sound and animal appendages alike.  The villain in the walls, Mimic, is trying to slow them down but concrete gives way to sound as the Heroes blow through.

Overhaul cannot stop the coming roar of the Ninth Bearer of One for All.  He just doesn’t know it yet.

Eraserhead, older Kyoka remembers, gave her a fateful order.  He told her to stick close at all costs.  He told her not to run ahead as Lemillion had.  Kyoka was furious… but she listened to Eraserhead at all times.  He is one of the only teachers who knows of One for All and she hangs on his every word secure in the knowledge that he would not lead her astray.

When the Hero team reaches Overhaul, they find him already engaged with Lemillion.  Chronostasis tries to separate Eraserhead from the group, only to be subdued with ease by Kyoka and Rock Lock.  With him out of the way, Eraserhead is free to turn off Overhaul’s quirk.

Older Kyoka watches with a fond smile as suddenly, Overhaul is defenseless against Lemillion.  Lemillion punches Overhaul in the face so hard his stupid mask breaks, then suddenly Overhaul is being flung through the air by Eraserhead’s capture scarf.

There is the distinct sound of someone snapping their fingers and it echoes through the silent dream.

Time stops.

“Hello, little Kyoka.”

Kyoka turns from the frozen image of Overhaul sailing through the air to find Nana Shimura.  There is a smile on the woman’s face as cloudy purple lightning begins to sizzle the air around her for just a moment, before it fades away again.  There is an incongruity to it:  time is stopped, yet it is not stopped for Nana.  All living things obey time and the rules of reality along the axis of the fourth dimension… except for Nana.

Or, perhaps, except for One for All.

Hello, Nana.  How… how are you?  Kyoka is unsure what else to think, so she tries to be polite.  Nana smiles at her, an expression filled with such love and warmth, and Kyoka cannot help but smile, too.

“I’ve been better.  I am better.  I will be better,” Nana says, and Kyoka furrows her brows in confusion.  “Time is a fickle thing, little Kyoka.  Reality is a fickle thing.  One for All is a fickle thing.  When I told you that I have seen true infinity… I don’t think you appreciated what I really meant.”

Of course I didn’t, I’m just a girl over here, Nana.

Nana hums neutrally in acknowledgement and the sound reverberates through the dream.  Kyoka looks down and sees cracks appearing on the surface of the floor… and in the cracks, she sees a sea of stars, as if the dream is merely a thin veneer over an unpleasant truth.

“You are so much more, little Kyoka, than you could ever dream of.”  Kyoka blinks in confusion at that.  “Tell me:  why do you think little Izuku is important to me?”

Kyoka thinks for a long time before she provides a mental response.

Is he your… relative?  A child?  I’ve never… I never met Greenie’s mom…

Nana chuckles and smiles softly.

“I’ve been speaking to you because you’ve been asking yourself recently why you feel like your life is all wrong.  You’ve been asking why it feels like your life wasn’t meant to be this way at all, if One for All destroyed your dreams and left something different and unwanted in its place.”  Nana smiles more brightly as she continues, “You’ve been asking if there was something off with the world, haven’t you?”

Well… Yeah but I didn’t expect to actually get an answer.

Nana begins to pace around the frozen scene of Eraserhead, Lemillion, and Overhaul and the hanging debris and particles of dust in the air pass through as if she is a ghost, too.  As she does so, she places her hands together, then pulls them apart to reveal a golden thread.  Kyoka steps closer to get a better look and is awed by the warmth and beauty coming off of the thread.  It’s like a thread from an angel’s harp; it is pure and perfect and wonderful.

“Reality is like a thread, you see.  It is constant and linear and, up to a certain point, it was fixed.”  Nana holds up the thread to accentuate her point.  “Nana Shimura will always be born.  Nana Shimura will always become the Seventh Bearer of One for All.  Nana Shimura will always give up her son, a misguided act of attempted love, and her grandson will always be lost in some way.  In the end, Toshinori Yagi will always become the Eighth Bearer of One for All and so the torch is passed along.”

As Nana speaks, her voice begins to rise; not like she is yelling but like she is speaking through a microphone… or, perhaps, that there is more than one person speaking.  At first it is subtle, then Kyoka can pick out the other voices.  They rise until there are nine voices… and one of them is Kyoka’s.

Then more voices are added:  Kyoka hears Izuku, Ochako, Katsuki, Eijiro, Todoroki… All of her classmates are there and the effect is stunning.

Nana begins to… flicker as if she is briefly, for a metaphysical instant, turning into other people.  For a moment, she is Toshinori.  Kyoka recognizes others as well:  her classmates and friends.  The dream provides a new thought:  she is seeing the other Ninth Bearers of One for All… and the other Bearers, too.  The concept is disorienting in a deep, frightening way Kyoka does not have words for.

All at once, the effect ends and Nana is Nana again, smiling like nothing happened.

“When Toshinori becomes the Eighth Bearer, the thread frays.”  Nana pulls the thread apart more to reveal that it turns red and begins to fray into infinite smaller threads almost too tiny for Kyoka to see.  Kyoka inches closer and Nana stops right in front of her to show Kyoka better.  “Originally, it was whole:  an unbroken line of the Bearers of One for All.  The Ninth Bearer rose, he challenged the man who would be king with our borrowed sword across generations, and he defeated that threat to peace, stability, and life to become the greatest Hero who ever lived.”

Nana smiles at Kyoka but Kyoka picks up on a subtle part of what she said.

He?

“Yes, little Kyoka.  He.  Izuku Midoriya, the Ninth Bearer of One for All.  The boy without a fate, who chose his own fate.”

Gr-- Izuku was supposed to be the Ninth Bearer?!  Is he like… the chosen one?

Nana smiles and looks off into the distance for a moment.

“If he was the chosen one, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Nana says sadly.  “My power and relationship with time is frail.  I am powerful but unpredictable and my choices have unforeseen consequences.  Izuku was born quirkless.  He is born quirkless.  He will always be born quirkless.  Because he is the boy without a fate and his fate correspondingly is tied to his place in the world.”

Nana holds up the thread and Kyoka spots a point where all of the red threads become green.

“Toshinori didn’t have to choose little Izuku.  He chose Izuku because he saw that little Izuku was worthy.  But in his time as the Ninth Bearer, I came to love little Izuku as my own.  I saw that I could not save little Tenko, no matter how hard or how many times I tried, so I hoped… I came to see little Izuku as my second chance.”  Nana shows the thread beginning to fray further.  “My actions inadvertently create self-fulfilling prophecies and unstable closed loops in time itself.  I saw that sometimes, Toshinori does not reach little Izuku, whether circumstances conspire to keep them apart entirely, such as in your case, or whether Toshinori fails little Izuku instead.  So I tried to fix that and… it was a mistake.”

Kyoka blinks in confusion.

What do you mean, ‘in my case?’

“Little Izuku is meant to meet Toshinori Yagi ten months before the UA Entrance Exam.  You met Toshinori Yagi twelve months before the UA Entrance Exam.  A soft pull on the thread of hope creates reverberations both small and big.”  Nana turns briefly away to look at Overhaul and, in turn, at little Eri sitting in the corner of the room, tears running down her face.  “There are other things.  Even if little Izuku becomes the Ninth Bearer, things can go wrong.  It is necessary that he meets all of your classmates at UA, as they shape who he is when he becomes the Symbol of Hope.  It is necessary that he reconciles with little Kacchan, so that their broken bond can be reforged anew.  Likewise, there are other constants.”

Nana turns to Kyoka with a frown, and Kyoka feels the air of the dream grow heavy with Nana’s sadness.

“The Ninth Bearer of One for All is always given the chance to save little Eri… but you don’t always succeed.”

Kyoka gasps, silent in the dream, and looks over sadly at Eri.

But we… we did save her, right?

Nana smiles then and the air lightens once more.

“You did.  I’m proud of you, little Kyoka.  You rose to the challenge that you were faced with, despite it never having been meant to be your challenge at all.”

Nana turns and gestures to Sir Nighteye, frozen in the dream as he runs to secure Eri and evacuate her from the room.

“Mirai is always looking forward, always concerned about the future.  He thinks the future is already written and, perhaps, he is right.  He does not see how the past matters, too; how the past changes the future before it is ever written… nor does he see how memories are a weapon, little Kyoka.  A memory is just a future that already happened, though past, present, and future are relative terms for an absolute truth.  I learned the hard way that trying to tell the Ninth Bearer their possible fate before they were ready has… negative consequences.  So I can’t tell you what will happen to you, even if I truly want to.  I can’t tell you because I love you.”

Nana gestures around at the dream.

“What you see in these dreams is a fraction of what is happening.  You are looking at infinity through a keyhole because true infinity is too frightening for a human to process and stay sane.” Nana looks back to Kyoka with a smile.  “Sanity is relative, too, however.”

Nana continues to pace, her smile faraway and dreamy, like she is seeing Kyoka and not seeing her at the same time.  Like she is seeing every Kyoka that ever was, is, or will be, the dream provides.

“Little Izuku is not always little Izuku.  Sometimes he is little Izumi, instead.  But little Izuku all the same is the child without a fate… because my interference destroyed his fate and left him with the ability to choose his own fate, whatever that might be.  I became his guardian angel and… sometimes I’m afraid I made things worse.”

Kyoka tilts her head in thought.

What happens if he’s… Can he fall?  Can he be a villain?

“Certainly.  You should have seen little Izumi, the successor to All for One.  I exposed her to my full power, unfiltered and unprotected… and she chose love in the face of it.  Her love altered the course of fate itself because little Mirio was meant to die that night in his final battle as the Ninth Bearer of One for All.”

Kyoka processes her mental image of Izuku as a young girl with infinite power in the form of All for One, granted the ability to tear down Hero society itself and leave only ashes and dust, instead.  She processes the idea of Mirio as the Ninth Bearer, the true Symbol of Hope.  Then Kyoka imagines Izumi challenging Nana herself… and accepting Nana’s love.

What about… the other Bearers?  I heard my friends’ voices, too…

Nana gestures with her right arm extended to the right, palm flat up, and the scene of Overhaul flickers away.

In its place, Kyoka is greeted with an image of Izuku, wearing a green Hero costume.  The image moves and she watches Izuku - he has Eri on his back and Kyoka frowns briefly at the sight - proceed to destroy some kind of awful multi-limbed monster.  The monster stands no chance as all of One for All sparks as viridian lightning around Izuku, before blotting out the sky itself in darkness.  For Eri, Izuku truly becomes the Ninth Bearer of One for All, the dream provides, and Kyoka is awed at the sight.

She feels sorrow then, a feeling that she denied Izuku this without even realizing she did at all.

The scene changes and Kyoka is greeted instead with what appears to be Ochako, though her Hero costume is all wrong.  It is armored and mostly black and Kyoka watches in awe again as One for All burns as white fire around her.  Ochako lifts an entire aircraft carrier into the sky, then drops it on a villain that seems very familiar to Kyoka, though she cannot recall where she’s seen him before.

You told us Izuku is important… What about Ochako?

Nana smiles and looks at the now-frozen image.

“Toshinori grants Izuku a sword with which to become a Hero.  But it is Ochako that he becomes a Hero for.  Their fates, insofar as they are fixed, are intertwined and I try to bring them together when I can, in whatever capacity is appropriate for the time.”

Nana turns to Kyoka then, still smiling.

“I created an unstable loop when Ochako was the Ninth Bearer.  I manipulated events so that Toshinori would meet little Ochako and make her the Ninth Bearer when he failed little Izuku.  I pushed her to save him before she was ready and made it worse.  In the end, Ochako broke the loop… by showing Izuku that he deserved love, too, and that he, too, could become a Hero even without One for All.  Izuku, the boy without a fate, changed the course of fate because of that love.”

Nana looks up at the scene of Ochako looking so proud.

“Mirai told Ochako that she couldn’t fight fate… but I became fate for her.”

The scene changes again and Kyoka is greeted with the sight of Eijiro using his 'Unbreakable' move.  His hardened skin is like molten magma, glowing orangish-red and hot, as he sails through the air towards a massive villain who seems to also be made of rock or some other hardened material.  The villain swings out a clawed hand trying to intercept Eijiro, only for Eijiro’s punch to shatter the villain’s chin in a single strike, releasing a devastating air pressure wave from the sonic boom.

Kyoka blinks and there’s a new scene.  She watches Katsuki fight alongside Izuku and both of them burn bright with the power of One for All.  They challenge a villain she’s never seen before and Katsuki’s explosions burn so hot they turn rock to lava and bring down an entire mountain on the villain.  The villain radiates death and malice and the dream provides to Kyoka that he is important, too.

Another scene, this time of Todoroki.  Kyoka watches in curiosity as Todoroki appears to be at the USJ but there are villains there, too.  There were no villains there in Kyoka’s time, though she thinks of butterflies and wonders at that.  There is an unusual villain, so familiar and yet not, covered in dismembered hands.  One moment, he is about to kill Aizawa and the next, Todoroki drops an avalanche on him, then the villain is no more.

Kyoka feels a wave of sorrow hit her from Nana and she cannot help but feel sad, too.  The scene reverts back to the memory Kyoka recalls of Overhaul and she looks in dismay at Nana.

Nana… does it… make you sad that you’re with me, instead of with Izuku?

Nana sighs and the sound echoes across the fabric of reality itself.  She holds up her hands and the threads disappear.

“It does, little Kyoka.  But because I love and miss Izuku, not because I do not love you.  I brought you here tonight to tell you something important.  If you don’t remember anything else about this dream tonight, remember this, understand?”  Kyoka nods solemnly.  “You feel like your life wasn’t meant to be.  You feel like you cannot possibly rise to the challenge you’ve been given.  There are dark and unknown things on the horizon, looking to close in and snap their jaws around you.”

Nana pauses and smiles wistfully.

“I cannot tell you how things will play out.  But I can tell you that I believe in you, little Kyoka.  You are now the Ninth Bearer of One for All… and just because something wasn’t meant to be, doesn’t make it not worthwhile.  I’m proud of you… and I believe you will rise to the challenge.”  Nana's smile becomes conspiratorial.  “Little Momo loves you so much, little Kyoka.  She’s dreaming now, too.  Why don’t you ask her about that when you wake up?”

Nana reaches out and gently bops Kyoka on the nose with her index finger.  It feels like being touched by a soft candle flame made of pure love.

“Do me a favor, though, would you?  Please help little Izuku and little Ochako.  It is so painful to watch them so close to happiness yet denying it for themselves.  I have a feeling you’ll find happiness helping them along, too.  It would make your friends happy to have another project to work on together.”

Kyoka can’t help but laugh silently into the dream as Nana brings her index fingers up to pull her smile up.  Kyoka is hit with a raw wave of déjà vu at the sight as she remembers a memory that isn’t hers of Nana doing that in life, too.

“Go out there and make people happy with a smile.  I know you can do it.”

And like that, Kyoka wakes up.

When Kyoka’s eyes fluttered open, she was greeted with a hospital room bathed in soft morning sunlight.

She turned and found Momo still sleeping gently, curled up against Kyoka and hugging her close.  Kyoka smiled and felt an overwhelming, pure love at that moment for Momo.  It felt like it was coming from Nana… but also for herself.  It felt like approval and Kyoka began to cry softly with tears of joy.

After a few moments, she blinked her tears away and shifted ever-so-slightly to look over.  Itsuka and Setsuna were gone and the clock on the wall said it was just after seven in the morning.  Kyoka suspected they probably went for a morning walk - Itsuka was on crutches but that wouldn’t stop her from exercising - and smiled at the thought.

Kyoka loved all her friends.  She decided she wanted to do something nice for them if she could.

Kyoka looked down then and saw Momo begin to wake up.  Momo blinked a few times, processing her state of awareness, then her eyes focused sharply as she looked to Kyoka.

“Good morning.  Was your dream nice?”  Momo slowly tilted her head and turned it in confusion, narrowing her eyes.  Clearly, she was surprised that Kyoka knew to ask that, though Kyoka just chuckled softly.  “Nana told me to ask you about it.  So, did you enjoy… ‘true infinity?’”

“I rather doubt that was true infinity but… she showed me a memory.  She showed me the moment I realized I was in love with you, actually,” Momo said with a slight eye roll.  Kyoka’s interest was piqued.

“Oh?  I don’t think I’ve heard this story, have I?”  Kyoka asked slyly, and Momo turned pleasantly pink in response to that.

“It was… It was in our first year when we were practicing for the School Festival,” Momo began, and Kyoka’s eyes went wide as dinner plates.  She never knew Momo had feelings for her for so long.  “We were practicing for the music and you and I kept sitting at the piano and… one day I thought to myself, ‘what would it be like if we could do this forever?’  And I looked over at you and you were lost in the music and I realized I had utterly fallen in love with you, Kyoka.”

Kyoka was speechless and Momo smiled softly as she looked at Kyoka’s loss for words.

“Wow… I didn’t… I didn’t realize you liked me for so long, Yaomomo.  I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be sorry?  I was happy for you when you and Denki were dating because you seemed happy.  And… I was happy when you decided it wasn’t working out for you because I thought I might have a chance then.”

Kyoka was slightly stunned.  She and Denki had dated for most of their second year at UA, only to break up upon the mutual realization that they were just coasting.  Kyoka never really wondered if that was a mistake, exactly, as she began to date Momo later on but sometimes she wondered if Denki had been right for her simply because they felt like equals.  He was a lovable dumbass and in a way she still loved him; not so much romantically but still as one of her best friends.

Sometimes, she had wondered if Momo was too good for her, while Denki had been just right.  But in this moment she decided that had always been a silly thing to think.  And besides, Denki was happy now, too, what with his chaperone in the form of Hitoshi to keep him in line.

“Were you pining after me, Momo Yaoyorozu?  Did you complain to Mina about it?  Because I never heard anything,” Kyoka said smugly, trying to play off the moment a bit.  Momo smirked without the slightest hint of remorse at Kyoka.  Kyoka was suddenly a bit afraid.

“I vented to Denki, actually.  Before you were dating and after you broke up, of course.  He… may have helped set us up,” Momo said slyly.  Kyoka was thoroughly scandalized by that.

“I would say he’s gonna get his the next time I see him… but, to be honest, I’m glad he did.  I’m… I’m really happy, Momo.  I’m happy with you and… I’ve been feeling really insecure recently, so I’m glad to know that you’re happy… with me.”  Kyoka trailed off and looked at Momo, whose black eyes were glistening with fresh tears.

“I think… Nana wants us to talk about it,” Momo said as her tears began to fall.  She still smiled mischievously and Kyoka smiled, too, as she matched her girlfriend’s tears.

Nana got Kyoka good… but maybe Kyoka didn’t really mind.

Kyoka was released from the hospital that afternoon but, curiously, Momo didn’t want to go back to their apartment right away.

Instead, Kyoka got led to a restaurant, hand-in-hand with Momo as they walked down the street.  The hospital had healed Kyoka and Itsuka well enough to walk and remove the casts, though they would still be sore for a while and needed to rest and recover more.  The two young women wore civilian clothes - that Momo may have made for them on the fly so they wouldn’t have to go home - and Kyoka, honestly, was on top of the world.

They were on top of the world together and that was how Kyoka wanted it to be.

“Am I being led into a trap, Yaomomo?”  Kyoka asked idly as she side-eyed her girlfriend.  Momo’s response, at first, was to hide her mouth with her free hand as she giggled.

“Of a sort, my love,” Momo replied, and Kyoka just smiled.  Momo was just perfect and, perhaps, Kyoka was perfect for her and had been all along.  “We’re here!”  Momo announced cheerfully, and Kyoka slowly came on guard as they walked in.

She didn’t expect anything bad to happen.  She was slightly wary of it being a prank but that seemed… silly, now.  She had met a guardian angel and found out the mild-mannered boy she looked at like a cute little brother had been 'meant' for greatness.  A little prank seemed like a small thing in the face of that cosmic reality.  Kyoka really did need to visit Izuku soon though and have a chat.

She felt… guilty and like she ought to tell him what should have been.  Like she owed him that much:  the truth, at least, if nothing else.

Would that make him happy, Kyoka?

Kyoka stopped dead and turned to Momo.  Momo raised an eyebrow, so Kyoka realized that she hadn’t spoken out loud.  Kyoka shook her head and kept making her way through the restaurant.  It was a nice, slightly fancy place - apparently Italian, judging by the aesthetic and what Kyoka saw people eating as they made their way towards the back - and Kyoka was curious as to what was going on.

Would knowing the truth make Izuku happy?  Kyoka turned her thoughts back to her previous track.  She wasn’t sure of the answer to that.  Probably not, she decided; Izuku had confided in her that he did want to be a Hero in the past, so badly, before he fell in love with support gear design.  He was, insofar as she knew, genuinely happy with his job and life now, though.

Would telling him the truth take that away?  And… was it right to deny him the truth, even so?

All I ever wanted was for Izuku to be happy, Kyoka.  Happy and safe.  I believe you will do what is best.

Kyoka frowned at that.  She wanted Izuku to be happy, too.  She wanted all of her friends to be happy if she could help it.  She wanted to be a symbol for people so that they might be happy.  What better place to start than with her friends?

Kyoka’s train of thought crashed to a halt as Momo brought her into a dark room.  Then the lights flicked on and Kyoka nearly jumped through the ceiling when the entirety of Class A, Izuku, Mei, Melissa, Toshinori, Sir Nighteye, Mirio, Aizawa, Eri, and most of Class B yelled at her in unison.

“Surprise!  Happy Birthday, Kyoka Jirou!”

Kyoka slowly turned to Momo.  She'd forgotten all about today.

“Oh, you’re gonna get it tonight, Yaomomo.”

Momo did not look sorry at all.

Chapter Text

Kyoka was a little bit lost at her own twentieth birthday party.

Oh, she certainly loved parties, that much was true.  Once upon a time, she used to be a bit more of a wallflower but, with all the fun she had doing dorm parties at UA - both responsible dorm parties run by Tenya and Momo and irresponsible dorm parties run by herself and Denki - she got used to things.  At the moment, she’d had her fill of watching Momo and Mina fail at darts so she was meandering towards a couch.

She found her target - a certain yellow-haired boy sitting on a couch along the wall with a coffee table in front of him - and set her drink down before plopping onto said couch.  They were in an event space at a local restaurant and apparently Momo had paid for everything.  Well, more accurately her parents had but it wasn’t like they were going to notice.  It was basically a rounding error to them, Kyoka mused as she threw her arm around Denki’s neck on the couch.

“Hey there, Jammingwhey, I have beef with you,” she said, her tone one of false seriousness, and Denki immediately paled next to her.

“Whatever it was, I didn’t do it, I swear,” he immediately declared, and Kyoka couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“Well, that’s a shame because it was something really nice someone did for me,” Kyoka replied, and Denki’s expression went blank for a moment as he processed.

“Never mind, then I totally did it,” he said with a smirk, and Kyoka smirked right back.

“You did.  Momo told me how you helped her work up the courage to ask me out.”  Kyoka watched awe and wonder cross Denki’s face in slow motion.  “So I wanted to remind you that I love you and thank you because I am so happy you did.”

Denki threw his arm around her, too, and gave her a nice side hug.

“Any time, Kyoka.  Love ya, too, and I’m glad you’re happy.”  Denki raised his own plastic red cup towards Momo, who was across the room and sticking her tongue out, aiming a dart with one eye closed.  “You really lucked out there with her and she lucked out even more with you.”

Kyoka snorted and gently poked Denki in the side with an earphone jack.  Denki pretended like it actually hurt, making a hilariously wounded face as he flinched away.  Hitoshi came then and plopped down on the other side of Denki.  Then he casually threw his arm around his boyfriend - and on top of Kyoka’s - and leaned back with his cup in his free hand.

“Hey there, dorks.  I just got back from Eri wrangling,” Hitoshi said, and Kyoka smiled and leaned forward to look at him.

“Oh?  How is Eri enjoying the party?”

“Aizawa looked away for twenty seconds to help me move a table and she got covered in your birthday cake,” Hitoshi deadpanned, and both Kyoka and Denki promptly cracked the fuck up.

“Haha, very funny you three,” a familiar, very tired-sounding voice said, and Kyoka opened her eyes - and blinked away tears from crying, she was laughing so hard - to see Aizawa looking distinctly unamused at them from a meter away, his arms crossed.

“I would say that I’m sorry, Aizawa… but I’m not,” Kyoka said, barely containing her laughter.  She began laughing again as soon as she finished and so did Denki.

Hitoshi chuckled but he tended not to antagonize his quasi-adopted father.  Hitoshi wasn’t actually adopted by Aizawa and Present Mic… He just acted like he was.  He even started the meme of calling Aizawa ‘Dad’ in their third year and it was extremely funny until they all got house arrest over it.

Some of them had started calling him Dad again after graduation, though, much to Aizawa’s chagrin.  It was inevitable, Kyoka supposed, when he was such a huge influence on their lives, both personally and professionally.  She could certainly attest to that, since she spent so much time training with Aizawa and Hitoshi over the years to master One for All.

“So where is the little squirt?”  Hitoshi asked fondly, and Kyoka and Denki finally got a hold of themselves and went from ‘laughing like idiots’ to merely ‘grinning like idiots.’

Eri was ten now, almost eleven, and she was all too eager to make up for the time that Overhaul had taken from her.  Aizawa probably spent the better part of the time he wasn’t teaching, chasing her around and keeping her safe - too safe, probably, by Kyoka’s estimation - along with Present Mic and Midnight.  But they tried, bless them, and Eri was such a lovable, fun child.

“Togata is helping her clean off,” Aizawa said matter-of-factly.  Kyoka perked up at that.

“Oh man, is Mirio your backup instead of Present Mic?  Did he bring Tamaki~?”  She said, and Hitoshi sighed to the side but Denki cackled at Kyoka’s silliness like the true ally he was.

“That’s none of my business,” Aizawa said as if he did not absolutely know the answer to that question.  His gaze betrayed him as he looked off to the side and Kyoka followed it to find Tamaki fretting over by the restroom, holding a fresh towel in his hands.

Aizawa made a disapproving humming noise at Kyoka, then stuffed his hand in his pocket as he walked away.  Kyoka made a cheeky little wave with her hand and earphone jack as she followed him with her eyes and Hitoshi and Denki snorted in amusement to her side.  As Kyoka watched him go, she caught sight of someone else she wanted to talk to as well.

There was Izuku and, to her surprise, he was laughing and sitting on top of Katsuki’s shoulders.  Eijiro stood facing Katsuki and on top of his shoulders was Hanta.  They were trying very hard to execute a maneuver by which Hanta showed Izuku how to juggle in mid-air but what they were doing, instead, was dropping little rubber balls on Katsuki and Eijiro’s heads.  Katsuki and Eijiro were smiling and laughing, though, tossing the balls back up to the duo on top.

Kyoka felt happy at the sight.  She had intended to talk to Izuku at the party but he seemed like he was having entirely too much fun to do that.  So maybe she’d bring things up another day.  Seeing him and Katsuki genuinely laughing and having the time of their lives together filled her with an immense feeling of pride and approval, though.  Kyoka wondered if that feeling was entirely hers as she whispered a goodbye to Denki and Hitoshi and sidled over to the drink table.

“Hey, ‘Chako, can I have some punch?”  Kyoka said when she reached the table.  Ochako turned and raised her eyebrows in a bright smile, wearing casual wear like everyone else was.

Kyoka tilted her head and recognized Mr. and Mrs. Uraraka behind Ochako, then gave a little wave.  The Uraraka family was a lot more successful these days than they once were and they had even been able to move closer to Tokyo to see Ochako more often.  Kyoka and the other girls slept over at their new apartment in third year and it was a nice, simple place.  They were good people and Kyoka was happy to see they made it.

“No problem.  Some of our parents got invited by Momo to help out and enjoy the party.  Mine decided to come along, er…”  Ochako trailed off as she handed Kyoka the cup of punch and suddenly seemed very embarrassed.

“We wanted to meet some of your friends’ parents!”  Mrs. Uraraka said with a smile as she gently grabbed Ochako’s shoulders.  Ochako turned a bit red and Kyoka raised an eyebrow and looked around.  She leaned over and saw Mr. and Mrs. Bakugou then, along with another woman that Kyoka had never seen before…

She looked so much like Nana that Kyoka actually blinked a few times in confusion.  The woman had green hair, though, and--

“Oh, I see,” Kyoka said, and her expression shifted into a smirk as she straightened and looked back to Ochako.  “I take it that’s Mrs. Midoriya along with Katsuki’s parents?”

Ochako promptly went from red to scarlet.

“Ye-yeah, um, my parents wanted to meet other parents, too, and, uh, Mrs. Midoriya is really nice anyway, she has been teaching me how to cook better…”  Ochako was mumbling by the end of her statement.

She spent a lot of time with Mrs. Midoriya by the end of their third year, Kyoka knew.  With how much time she spent with Izuku and how Ochako’s parents had lived far away until more recently, it made sense.  Kyoka had heard that Mrs. Midoriya loved Ochako and was entirely unsurprised by that, for more than one reason no less with how much Ochako got along with almost everyone.

“Uh huh.  So what did you think, Mr. and Mrs. Uraraka?”  Kyoka said.  Ochako made a squeak of embarrassment and both of her parents looked like they were entirely on the same wavelength as Kyoka at that moment as they smirked.

“Mrs. Midoriya is very kind.  I see where her handsome son gets his manners from,” Mrs. Uraraka said, and Mr. Uraraka flashed a thumbs up.  Ochako looked like she was about ready to die.

“Jirou Kyoka, don’t do this, please…”  Ochako hissed, whining as much as she was begging.  Kyoka just smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Little early to be introducing your parents to each other, isn’t it?  Gotta go on a date first, I thought,” Kyoka said in a low voice without even the slightest hint of remorse.  If looks could kill, Ochako’s glare in reply would’ve struck Kyoka dead on the spot.

Kyoka took a long sip of her punch, staring right at Ochako.  Ochako’s expression of pure annoyance and anger was priceless.  Then Kyoka twiddled her fingers in a silent goodbye to the Uraraka family and walked over to where the Bakugous and Mrs. Midoriya were.

“Oh, Jirou!  How are you!”  Mr. Bakugou said when she approached, and Kyoka watched Mrs. Bakugou’s gaze snap to her with both joy and intent.

“Set your drink down, honey,” Mrs. Bakugou said, and Kyoka promptly obeyed.  Then she shrieked in happy surprise as she was squished in a big hug.

Kyoka loved the Bakugous.  They used to be… rather intense, back in the day, but things were better now.  Katsuki’s friends visited his house a lot in their second and third year, mostly for studying, and Kyoka remembered still that Katsuki admitted to her in their second winter break that his parents were getting marriage counseling and family counseling for the three of them.

At the time, Kyoka had been concerned.  But she suspected that it had gone really well for all three of them, as Mrs. Bakugou released her, because they all seemed much happier.  Kyoka smiled at the Bakugous, then slowly turned her head to Mrs. Midoriya.

“Uh, hi!  My name is Jirou Kyoka.  I’m, uh… Well, I’m your son’s friend.  He helps make all my stuff and I love the little guy!”  Kyoka said, holding out her hand.  To her surprise and moderate confusion, Mrs. Midoriya began to cry as she gripped Kyoka’s hand with two hands and shook profusely.

“Oh, I’ve heard so much about you!  Izuku tells me you’re one of his favorite people from UA, he almost talks about you as much as he does Uraraka over… Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about that, though,” Mrs. Midoriya said wetly.  The grin on Mrs. Bakugou’s face was evil and Kyoka began to chuckle.

“That’s nice to hear, Mrs. Midoriya.  I’m glad I met Greenie, he’s such a nice kid,” Kyoka said with a smile, managing to contain herself from laughing.  Mrs. Midoriya quickly composed herself, though she had cried two little waterfalls on the floor and Kyoka made a mental note to get that cleaned up.

“Ah, but what about you, Jirou?  It’s your birthday and I hear your lovely girlfriend organized everything!  How is your life going?”  Mrs. Midoriya said, and Kyoka smiled at her.

“It’s going.  I don’t really do… high-profile stuff as a Hero, honestly.”

“Please, Jirou, Katsuki showed me the news story about you fighting that big monster!  That thing was scary!”  Mrs. Bakugou said, and Kyoka couldn’t help but smile sheepishly at the praise.

She spent the next twenty minutes showing the Bakugous and Mrs. Midoriya her new music on her phone, talking about the Hero work that she and Momo did, and what it was like to have trained directly under All Might himself.  The three were quite enraptured by it and Kyoka was having a lot of fun.

They only teased her a little bit about getting married to Momo but now Kyoka didn’t feel weird about it.  Instead, it made her happy and that was a comforting development.  Part of her even daydreamed a tiny bit about what that marriage ceremony might look like and it filled her with immense anticipation and excitement.

Eventually, Izuku wandered over to say hello to the Bakugous, with Katsuki in tow.

“There ya are, ya damn gremlin,” Mrs. Bakugou said to Katsuki, but it had no real bite to it.  Katsuki, to Kyoka’s stunned surprise, calmly walked over and gave her a side hug and she returned the gesture without hesitation.  Izuku did the same with his mom and smiled at Kyoka.

“Oh, hi, Jirou!  I see you met my mom, I hope you didn’t gossip too much about how much of my work explodes,” he said in a slightly too chipper tone.  Mrs. Midoriya and Kyoka both blinked in unison and Kyoka watched in slow motion as horror crossed Mrs. Midoriya’s face.

“I, uh, didn’t tell her that part, Greenie, that’s on you,” Kyoka said awkwardly, then she smirked in amusement as Izuku realized how much he had fucked up.  “It’s alright, Mrs. Midoriya, I promise that David and Melissa Shield run a tight ship with this little disaster.”  Kyoka reached out and affectionately ruffled Izuku’s hair as he smiled and turned a bit pink.  “Honestly, if you survived Boom Boy over there, Greenie’s got nothing on him.”

“Hey!”  Katsuki said indignantly, but Izuku just chuckled nervously.  Kyoka watched Katsuki smile, just a tiny bit, and couldn’t help but smile, too.  The parents turned to talk about some childhood memories between Katsuki and Izuku but Izuku took that opportunity to lean over and whisper to Kyoka.

“Oh, Jirou, er… have you seen Uraraka?  I wanted to ask her something…”  He asked quietly.  Kyoka looked around and realized she didn’t see where the Uraraka family had gone at all.

“She was at the drink table before but not in a couple of minutes… What’s up?”  She whispered back.  Izuku turned a bit pink but quickly shook his head.

“It’s no big deal, I’ll… I’ll text her later!  She’s busy, I know,” he said meekly.  Kyoka frowned at that.  The two of them were hopeless, she realized.

It is so painful to watch them so close to happiness yet denying it for themselves.

Nana added her own input, echoing her words from before in Kyoka’s mind, and Kyoka couldn’t help but agree.  She watched Izuku turn back to talk to Katsuki, mentioning something about 'the time that he fell off the log.'  Katsuki squawked about how he totally had it handled and Izuku chuckled at his silliness.  But Kyoka stared a bit into space, thinking about what she could do about things with Izuku and Ochako.  Maybe it was time to create a little project after all.

“Kyoka!”

Ah, but Kyoka didn’t get to dwell on that thought.  She turned and smiled as a newly clean Eri came whooshing over, then Kyoka effortlessly caught the little terror and twirled her in a fancy spin in the air.  Eri giggled and laughed like crazy and Kyoka laughed, too.

Eri was a bit taller now, Kyoka noted.  It’d been a few months since Kyoka last saw her.  Kyoka set Eri down and turned to find Mirio and Tamaki walking over and--

“Oh my god, are you two holding hands?”  Kyoka whispered to Mirio as he got close, and she pretended to be absolutely scandalized.

“They’ll never find your body if you say another word, Kyoka,” Mirio said in a flawlessly even tone, and Kyoka smirked at him in turn.

“H-hey, Kyoka,” Tamaki added in a shy voice, and Kyoka took that opportunity to maniacally wave at him with both her hand and earphone jack like a dumbass.  Kyoka stopped abruptly and blinked slowly, mechanically turning.

She remembered that she had an audience and she completed her turn to find the Bakugous and Midoriyas looking absolutely dumbfounded.  Kyoka awkwardly coughed into her right hand, then took a step back to gesture at her friends.

“Okay, lightning round!  This is Eri, she is an angel that I rescued from the devil.”  Kyoka reached out, pulled Eri over, and squeezed her shoulders for good measure.  Eri beamed at the adults looking on, her back to Kyoka as she leaned into the older girl.  “This is Togata Mirio, also known as the pro Hero Lemillion.  He helped me beat the devil.  Next to him is Amajiki Tamaki, also known as the pro Hero Suneater, who also helped me beat the devil.”

The two boys waved with their free hands and Kyoka’s level of excitement for the fact that they were still holding hands was extraordinary.

“Mirio, Tamaki, this is Midoriya Inko, mom to Izuku, and Bakugou Mitsuki and Masaru, parents to Katsuki.  I assume you already know Greenie and Kats here, though, right?”  Kyoka continued, and Mirio quickly nodded.

“That new visor you made for me is great, sport!  Good work!”  Mirio said happily, looking at Izuku.  Tamaki nodded profusely from Mirio’s side.

“My new costume is very comfy now,” Tamaki added with a small smile.  Izuku looked like he was about ready to die from embarrassment but maybe in a good way.  He was always a bit awkward when people praised his work but Kyoka suspected that he was especially freaking out to now be making gear for someone in the Top Ten.

“Oh, Izuku, you didn’t tell me how many Heroes you make support items for!  Are they famous?”  Mrs. Midoriya asked, and Kyoka turned to her with a slightly open mouth.  Mirio beat her to it, though, holding his index finger and thumb out so there was a tiny space between them and giving a lopsided grin.

“He’s in the Top Ten, Mom,” Izuku whispered to Mrs. Midoriya, and Inko nodded along in awe, her mouth slightly open and eyes wide as she looked at Mirio.

Meanwhile, Eri looked up to Kyoka and gently bumped her fists against Kyoka’s thighs to get her attention.  Kyoka leaned down with a quizzical look on her face, so that her head was level with Eri’s.  Kyoka was only a little bitter that she didn’t have to lean that far anymore.

“Kyoka, isn’t this the one that ‘Chako is always talking about?”  Eri whispered, and Kyoka snorted in amusement.

“He sure is.  They love each other very much but are too silly to tell each other,” Kyoka whispered back.  “I’m gonna help ‘em, though.”

Eri nodded, looking like she was already enamored with the idea.  She had spent so much time with those who had been on the raid team to defeat Overhaul - including Ochako - so Kyoka suspected that the idea of helping Ochako be happy was very appealing to Eri.  Eri leaned in to whisper more conspiratorially, covering her mouth from the side with her right hand.

“Can I help?”  She asked mischievously.

“Oh boy,” Kyoka whispered back, and she also covered her mouth with her hand to play along.  “I think everyone is gonna help me, if I get my way.”

When Kyoka looked back to Izuku - the others were chatting, not paying her and Eri any mind - he was looking at her in utter horror, realizing they were talking about him.

Kyoka just smirked.  Izuku and Ochako were doomed.

Two weeks later, Kyoka walked into Shield Industries feeling just a tiny bit apprehensive about how her plans were going to go.

In the intervening time, Kyoka did a lot of things.  She met up with her parents - who couldn’t make it to the big birthday bash, tragically - for a more intimate dinner with just them and Momo.  Momo’s parents were traveling, so they couldn’t make it.  Kyoka’s parents loved Momo, though, and Kyoka felt more proud than she had ever felt to bring Momo to dinner with them even if it wasn’t the first time she'd done so.

She also had spent a very long, very awkward afternoon with Momo, Sir Nighteye, and Toshinori explaining every single detail that Nana had told her.  Toshinori coughed up blood no less than four times in his shock and by the end he was pale as a sheet.  Sir Nighteye, meanwhile, actually threw up in the garbage.  The idea that Nana was not merely still powerful but had also…

She had effectively become the personification of One for All and, through it, she had become a metaphysical hole in the fabric of reality itself.  That was how Momo described it, anyways.  She made a little slide show, much to Kyoka’s immense amusement.

But more importantly than that, the idea that Kyoka wasn’t ‘supposed to be’ the Ninth Bearer and that All for One - the power, the antithesis to One for All, the beast that had menaced Japan so long ago, the man who would be king - wasn’t truly dead deeply disturbed Toshinori, while the way Nana described fate basically shattered Sir Nighteye’s perception of reality.

They both had something of an existential crisis, wondering if they had failed Nana and the other Bearers of One for All.  Kyoka’s response was to tell Toshinori that based on what she had been told, if he had really failed Nana, she would’ve made that abundantly clear to him.  Kyoka had stressed to Sir Nighteye, in the meantime, that fate not being absolute wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, in her opinion.  After all, the bad futures he saw not being set in stone was a good thing.

Kyoka did some other things in those two weeks.  She wrote and recorded some bits of new songs, she spent a lot of time with Momo - during which they talked a lot about their feelings with a renewed sense of openness and trust - and she spent time plotting out her little project.  Izuku and Ochako weren’t even gonna know what hit ‘em and Mina was going to be jealous of Kyoka’s prowess as a matchmaker.

Now, as Kyoka walked into Shield Industries and waved as she passed employees, it was time to implement Stage One and hope she didn’t fuck it up right out of the gate.

“Hi, Jirou!”  Izuku chirped as soon as she entered the workshop.  Kyoka smiled and waved to him as she surveyed the room.  It was more true to form than last time.  There were papers and blueprints and bits and pieces of robots and rockets everywhere as Kyoka squinted at the center table.  There she saw what looked like a partially disassembled rifle, though the insides didn’t look at all like the schematics she remembered learning for Snipe’s practical firearms courses at UA.  “Ah, that’s for the US Army,” Izuku said with a smile as he walked over to her.  “It’s called a ‘coilgun’ and it’s meant to shoot metal slugs with magnets instead of propellant.”

Kyoka turned back to Izuku with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh… huh.  Why does that matter?”

“Well, you see, a man-portable coilgun with sufficient output would be effectively impossible for personal ballistic vests to block and we could even extend the concept up to carrier-mounted electromagnetic--”  Kyoka held a hand up, already deciding she was quite fine on that topic.

“Alright, Greenie, that sounds firmly like your territory.”  Kyoka smiled as she spoke and Izuku didn’t take it personally.  She also knew he spent enough time chatting about that nonsense with Mei as it was.

“It is!  But that’s not why you came, I bet.  Check it out!”  Izuku said, and he handed her a strange looking purple ring.  Kyoka raised an eyebrow at it.  “It’s a right glove,” Izuku clarified.

Kyoka stuck it on her right wrist and pressed the little, bright blue button there.  In response, there was a flash of whitish light, then her hand was covered in a fascinating looking little matte black gauntlet with purple highlights.

It seemed like metal but it didn’t feel like metal.  It wasn’t stiff or uncomfortable and it covered her entire hand, fingers and all.  She tilted it around and saw that it had a circular cover on the palm and a noticeable little conical cover below that where her wrist met the base of her hand.

She snaked out an earphone jack down her sleeve and towards the conical cover and, as she suspected, it opened to show a hook up.  Then she hooked her earphone jack in and the circular cover opened to reveal a speaker.

“I know you don’t like armor but, uh, that’s based on Melissa’s ‘Full Gauntlet’ prototype from back in the day.  I figured with the kind of output force you were using on that Nomu, you might need it,” Izuku said matter-of-factly.  Kyoka inspected the gauntlet for a few moments, then turned to smile at Izuku.

“Honestly, I think my opposition to armor was me clinging to… an idea of the kind of Hero I used to want to be,” Kyoka admitted frankly, then she smiled.  “But this is pretty neat and I think I’ll be needing the help.”

Izuku beamed at her, then handed her three more rings.

“That’s the other glove and two boots.  I didn’t make anything for your chest, I figured… you probably wouldn’t want that?”  Kyoka quickly nodded; she hated wearing ballistic vests or anything like that.  “Your Hero costume as such is rated for small arms fire, at the very least.”

Kyoka worked her boots off and stuck all three other rings on.  The left glove, as she expected, was identical to the right glove.  The boots, to her surprise, looked very close to her previous boots.  They felt a bit different but they were still black with gray soles.  Now, however, the speakers and earphone jack hookups in them had metal coverings on them for when they aren’t in use.

She experimentally walked around in a circle for a bit, clenching and unclenching her hands, twiddling her fingers, and rotating her ankles one after the other.  Everything felt wonderful and she looked back to Izuku with absolute awe.

“You’re a genius, this is so cool!”  She exclaimed, and Izuku awkwardly scratched the back of his neck and smiled.

“It’s mostly iterating on Melissa’s work… but I’m glad what I did is satisfactory.  I worked on this for all of the last week and a half,” he replied shyly.  Kyoka slowly blinked at him.  He’d created these in only a week and a half?

“Dang,” she concluded, and Izuku chuckled nervously.  “Hey, Greenie, I’ve got a question for ya.”

“What’s up?”  He replied, perking up and smiling.

“Why do you still call all of us by our last names?  I gave you permission to call me by my first name back in third year, remember,” she asked, her tone curious but pointed.  Izuku’s initial response was to awkwardly touch his fingertips together for a few moments.

“I feel… weird about addressing pro Heroes so casually.  Like I’m not… supposed to?”  His tone was surprisingly melancholy and sad, so Kyoka frowned at him.

He was important.  I needed him.

Kyoka sighed at Nana’s voice and walked over to a pair of spinning, backless chairs that didn’t seem to have too much junk on them.  She carefully cleared the chairs - setting the stuff on the nearest table - then took a seat.  Then she motioned for Izuku to sit down next to her and he quickly did so, looking rather confused.

“Izuku,” Kyoka said, and Izuku turned a bit pink, “I want you to understand something, okay?  You… are important to all the people in your life.  You matter so much.  I cannot imagine going out into the field and punching bad guys, going to parties with my friends, or planning big events in my future,” Kyoka wiggled her eyebrows at that, thinking about Momo and marriage, “without you being there.  You are my friend and you shouldn’t think of yourself as lesser because you’re not a pro Hero.”

Izuku opened and closed his mouth a few times and looked very confused.

“But… you go out here every day and save people, Ji… Kyoka.  So do all the others!  All I do is sit in a lab and make gadgets that blow up half the time.”  Izuku pouted after speaking and looked away to the floor.

“Hey!”  Kyoka said sharply, and he looked back over to her.  “You know that big monster I beat up a few weeks ago?”  Izuku nodded quickly.  “I was able to do that because of the costume you helped make.  I wouldn’t be able to do that without your help.  You…”  Kyoka thought for a moment, thinking hard about how to phrase things without giving the game away.  “You have no idea how important you are, Izuku.  I wonder if you ever truly will.”

Izuku looked like he was in absolute awe of Kyoka for a moment, then he beamed at her with complete sincerity and happiness.  Unfortunately for him, she settled into a deep smirk in response, immediately prepared to ruin the moment for the sake of Nana Shimura, his guardian angel, and totally not for her own amusement.

“So is that why you haven’t told Ochako how you feel about her yet?”  Kyoka asked, and she watched Izuku’s face go perfectly blank before he turned cherry red.

“M-maybe…”  Izuku admitted, and Kyoka was honestly kind of shocked.  He had never actually said in so many words that he had a thing for Ochako, Kyoka just kinda… knew.  Usually, he had denied it in the past.  Kyoka sighed heavily.

“Really, Midoriya Izuku?”  Kyoka said in absolute disbelief, and Izuku accordingly cringed.  Kyoka pulled her lips to the side in a pout and rested her right elbow on her knee so that she could put her chin in her hand and look at Izuku properly.

“Yes!  Really!”  Izuku snapped, again surprising her.  “I’m just… some guy!  What do I even have going for me!  Nobody has ever been interested in plain old me, so why would she be any different?!”  The words seemed to just sort of spill for Izuku, almost like when he talked about work, but he didn’t seem mad.  He seemed sad, more so, and like he was unhappy with himself.  “All I’ve ever been is the quirkless nobody loser, Kyoka.  Ochako is such a great Hero and I’m just… me.”

Izuku kicked absently so he would spin in his chair and looked at the ceiling so he wouldn’t have to look at Kyoka.

“Alright, Greenie.  I want you to tell me a story.”  Izuku put his feet down on the bottom rungs of the chair to stop spinning and looked at her incredulously.  “Tell me about how you first met Ochako.”  

Izuku turned a bit pink again and looked away with a pout.

“You already know this story!”

“I do.  Tell me anyway, in your own words,” Kyoka said remorselessly.  Izuku grumbled and went from pink to red.

“It was… our first Sports Festival.  Mei was super excited to show off her gear but I wasn’t interested in that.  I went over to the Class B room first, hoping to meet them and see if I could get a head start on designing concept gear for them.”  Izuku paused and looked at Kyoka then, a surprisingly determined expression on his face.  “Then I went over to Class A and when I walked in the first person I saw was Kacchan.”

Kyoka nodded, barely containing her amusement.  She had heard this story several times from his perspective and it never stopped being the funniest goddamn shit to her and she was there.

“I tripped over my own feet like a moron in my surprise and Uraraka… caught me before I could hit the ground.”

“And then you flailed and sputtered while she told you that falling would be bad luck, then promptly turned around and ran the fuck out of that room, right?”  Kyoka said mischievously.  Izuku’s look of wounded pouting was priceless.

“Yes, I did.  You were there, you don’t have to be mean about it,” he said, but he smiled, too, even though he was still red in the face.  Kyoka chuckled, knowing she wasn’t being entirely fair and not feeling the slightest bit bad about it either.  “So anyway, I immediately developed a huge crush on her,” Izuku said, and Kyoka raised an eyebrow.  That was new information to her, though not surprising.  “And when we got into the events, I pushed Ochako out of the way of the big robot attack when Shouto accidentally froze her to the floor.”

“Ah, tit for tat then.  I always loved this story,” Kyoka said, and she raised her left index finger and earphone jack in unison to point at him.  “You know, I found out recently that Momo liked me since the first school festival we did and I didn’t figure it out until third year.  Think of all that time we could’ve had together!”

Kyoka was trying to get Izuku to put the pieces together on his own but his reaction, to her dismay, was to furrow his brow and look absolutely confused.

“Really?  I knew she liked you early in our second year…”

“What?!”

“Yeah, she told me one time when I was fitting her for costume changes.  She knew you and I were close so she wanted advice for how to deal with her crush.  Denki ended up asking you out the next week, though…”  Izuku said absently, thinking of the memory.  Kyoka smacked her forehead with her left hand.

“Good lord, why didn’t you say something?!”  Kyoka moaned.

“She told me not to!”  Izuku said defensively, and he flailed his hands a bit.  “Besides, you and Denki were happy at the time, even if it didn’t work out in the end.  Why would I have wanted to possibly ruin things?”

Well, can’t argue with him there, Kyoka thought with a huff of air through her nose.

“Anyway, this is me telling you, today, Midoriya Izuku, that Ochako likes you.  She’s liked you since at least our second year and both of you are too much of a pair of dweebs to admit it!  You both think the other is too good for you and it’s weird.”  Kyoka leaned over to narrow her eyes at Izuku.  “I was hoping you two would work it out but now I’m afraid the heat death of the universe might happen first.”

Izuku looked dumbfounded and slowly turned away and put his hand on his chin.

“I didn’t believe Kacchan when he told me that because I thought he might still be messing around.  But hearing it from you is totally different, you’re completely trustworthy.  Maybe I should take a survey of the former Class A and B to see if they concur, get a relevant sample size.  But not Mina, she--”

“Izuku~”  Kyoka said in a sing-song voice, and he snapped out of his muttering.  He was, to be fair, better about that these days than he used to be.

“Right!  Sorry… The other day, at your party, I was, um…”  Izuku trailed off, and Kyoka raised an eyebrow expectantly.  “I was gonna ask Ochako if I could be her date to the Hero charity gala this year,” Izuku admitted sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.

Kyoka immediately squealed in excitement and she could even feel Nana’s excitement in the back of her mind.  Damn guardian angel was a filthy shipper just like Mina, Toru, and Kyoka were and clearly felt no shame about that fact.  Then again, neither did Kyoka, so maybe she shouldn’t talk shit about the woman who was now a metaphysical hole in the fabric of reality itself.

“So did you?”  Kyoka asked, and she was promptly devastated when Izuku shook his head.

“She was, um, she was really busy all of a sudden when I tried to talk to her.  Mina was there and I think she might’ve… She might’ve ruined it?  That sounds mean, I didn’t intend for that to sound mean…”

Kyoka scoffed and theatrically threw her hands in the air, then promptly almost fell off her goddamned chair because of it.  That wasn’t an intentional part of the joke, either, and when she finished flailing and caught herself with Float she was red in the face.  Izuku chuckled at her, though, and that was worth something at least.

“Goddamn Mina,” Kyoka grumbled under her breath, once she was safely situated on the chair again.

“Hey, you assume Ochako would’ve said yes.  You don’t know that!”  Izuku pointed out to Kyoka’s irritation.  “It’s one thing to ask her out on a date, it’s another to ask her to a very public Hero event as just…”

“Izuku,” Kyoka said, cutting off his impending self-deprecation.  “When’s the next time you’re gonna see Ochako?”

“Oh, she’s coming in today!  I made a fancy new costume for her, I spent so much time on that.”  Izuku looked away with a dreamy expression and Kyoka couldn’t help but laugh at how excited he was to mix ‘work’ and ‘Ochako’ at the same time.

“Well, why don’t you ask her then?”  Kyoka asked idly.  Izuku quickly shook his head.

“No, that’s not right!  She’s coming in for a professional reason, I can’t just corner her like that!”  Izuku said defensively, and Kyoka couldn’t argue with that, to be fair.  Instead, she groaned and looked away.

“Fine.  But you’re gonna ask her, mister, even if I have to get Katsuki and have him help me drag you over to do it,” she said with menace that was only mostly fake.  Izuku looked appropriately terrified of that possibility.  Kyoka felt precisely zero shame, though.

Izuku had a literal guardian angel trying to keep his life in order, the least he could do was ask his goddamned soulmate out on a date.  The two of them had a metaphysical representation of cosmic power trying to make them happy and Kyoka would be damned if she didn’t do her part.

Maybe literally.

“I’ll try, Kyoka,” Izuku replied after a moment, and he smiled softly, even though he was still a bit pale.  Kyoka smiled, too, nodding to him after she stood up.

“I’m gonna go talk to Melissa for a minute, is she in her office?”  Izuku nodded quickly.  “Alright, Greenie, good luck presenting that costume to Ochako.  I’m sure whatever you made will rock her socks off.”

The innuendo did not appear to be lost on Izuku, as he went from pale to red again.  Kyoka didn't feel bad as she twiddled her fingers at Izuku in a cheeky wave and walked off back down the hall towards Melissa’s office.  To his credit, she saw him stick his tongue out at her at the last second, so she smirked to herself as she walked.

Shield Industries was quiet today.  Kyoka was of the understanding that some of the staff was away for a presentation with David Shield but Melissa was still in to hold the fort.  Kyoka eyed the office environments as she walked and thought about what being ‘important’ meant.

Izuku was important.  He was important to her and she cherished the memories she’d made with him as well as her other friends at UA.  Ochako was important, too, and Kyoka thought fondly of staying up until four in the morning because of Ochako’s taste in horror movies and learning how to cook from Tsuyu with Ochako and Himiko so she could turn around and supervise Toshinori in his escapades.

Was Kyoka important?  Kyoka wasn’t precisely sure she wanted to know the answer to that question, in a cosmic sense.

You’re important to me, Kyoka.  You’re all my children now, after all.

Kyoka stopped dead in front of Melissa’s door and couldn’t help but smile.  Nana, clearly, did not care if Kyoka wanted to know the answer.  But then, it was a good answer and the feeling of pride and approval from Nana filled her with warmth as she turned the handle to enter Melissa’s office.

“Uh… hello?”  Kyoka said, enunciating her greeting slightly sarcastically.  The office was kind of dark as Kyoka peered inside.

“Hi!”  Melissa said, and the lights abruptly flicked on.  Kyoka slowly blinked as she found Melissa and Mei huddled together, staring intently at something on Melissa’s desk.  Kyoka stepped properly into the room and saw that it appeared to be a glow-stick, of all things.

“What the heck is that?”  Kyoka asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Experimental underwater lighting device, we’ve been contracted by a Japanese diving team searching for wreckage on the ocean floor!”  Mei said enthusiastically.  She threw her hands up into the air, comically startling Melissa in the process.  “I don’t care what they want it for, though, this baby is going to be able to illuminate pitch black ocean for a two hundred meter radius when I’m done with it!”

“Uh… huh,” Kyoka said, noting that currently it did not appear to be glowing at all.  “Are you sure you two weren’t just making out in here?”

She was kidding but Melissa turned scarlet.  Mei answered first, though, to Melissa’s horror.

“No!  We don’t do that at work!”  Mei said, and Kyoka cracked the fuck up.

“I swear to god, I’m going to make it so that all of your support gear in the future plays Uncle Might’s television show jingle whenever you take a step, Jirou Kyoka,” Melissa said as Kyoka continued to laugh at her expense.  Mei rolled her eyes and walked over, so Kyoka stepped to the side, drawing down to just chuckles, so she could pass.

Before Mei got too far, though, Kyoka quickly put a hand out on her shoulder.  Mei stopped and looked expectantly at Kyoka, waiting for her to be ready to speak.

“Uh, hey, you know how Greenie is presenting gear to Uravity today?”  Kyoka said.  Mei blinked a few times and seemed to be genuinely confused for a moment.

“I know he’s doing a presentation, can’t remember who for, to be honest!”  Mei said in her usual, slightly flippant way, and Kyoka snorted.

“Okay, well, do me a favor and leave those two alone.  It’s, uh… for science,” Kyoka replied slightly lamely.  Mei’s eyebrow slowly crept up as her little zoom eyes focused and unfocused, then she shrugged and nodded.

“I have robots to test!”  Mei said enthusiastically.  “I’ll go to the alternate testing room and work on that, I suppose.”

Mei walked out, a bounce in her step.  When Kyoka turned back to Melissa, she was a bit surprised that Melissa’s glare didn’t strike her dead on the spot.  Melissa was still red in the face, though, and Kyoka began to giggle at her expense.

“That’s not supposed to be common knowledge!”  Melissa moaned as she sat back down in her seat.  Mei had been wearing her usual work attire but Melissa had a three-piece suit and blue tie on today, playing the role of ‘boss.’  Kyoka closed the door and locked it, then walked forward to sit down in the chair on the other side of the desk.  Melissa’s blush went down and she looked rather confused at Kyoka’s actions.

“Melissa.  Everyone knows.  Izuku knows,” Kyoka said.  Melissa’s response was to scowl and grumble something under her breath.

“Maybe but he works with us!”  Melissa said, trying to offer a defense for herself.

“He didn’t know Ochako liked him until I talked to him five minutes ago,” Kyoka responded.  Melissa planted her face firmly on her desk in response.

“I hate you,” Melissa mumbled, and Kyoka snorted at her.

“Give me ten minutes to explain how One for All is haunted and you’ll change your tune,” Kyoka replied, and Melissa shot up straight and to attention in her chair.

Kyoka proceeded to do exactly that, starting from the top:  lucid dreams, true infinity, constants and gravity, thread of hope, the blade to slay the beast, Izuku Midoriya, the boy without a fate, hysterical strength - the whole nine yards.  By the end, Melissa looked absolutely dumbfounded, though she quickly recovered and began furiously typing on her computer and, Kyoka presumed, doing research.

“That is insane, Kyoka!  Do you have any idea the implications on space-time and high-level quantum mechanics and physics this has?”  Melissa asked as she continued to type at about a hundred words per minute.

“Uh… no?”  Kyoka admitted.  Melissa briefly paused and gave Kyoka a slightly dim expression.

“The idea of there being multiple states or variations of reality has been considered an unfalsifiable idea.”  Kyoka slowly blinked.  “Basically, that it isn’t science, it’s philosophy.  But you’re living proof of the concept, it’s… it’s unprecedented!”

“Okay, well I don’t exactly want to be dissected or held in a government black site for the rest of time, Melissa,” Kyoka pointed out dryly.  Melissa quickly nodded.

“Oh, certainly, this is entirely academic.  One for All is the greatest secret in our superhuman society and it’s a shame we can’t share.  Gosh, I would love to write a thesis on this…”

“I’m sure you would, Melissa, but the bottom line is that Izuku Midoriya is…”  Kyoka paused and pursed her lips, and Melissa looked at her.  “He’s got a guardian angel.  Little Greenie, the kid who couldn’t hurt a fly, not only was supposed to be the Ninth Bearer of One for All, he also sometimes becomes evil!”

“And sometimes he’s not even a ‘he,’” Melissa said absently as she turned back to her computer.  “There are too many variables to ever possibly account for and we can’t run experiments anyway.  You said you saw others with One for All, right?  What was that like?”

“It was breathtaking,” Kyoka said, and it was true.  She still remembered every detail of the dream with Overhaul, like it wasn’t a dream at all.  “Kats and Ei were very impressive and 'Chako lifted an entire warship into the sky.  I also saw Todoroki kill a villain I’ve never seen before but they seemed… important.”

Melissa hummed and finally turned her screen.  It was on a little swivel mount to accommodate that, then Kyoka squinted at it.  On it, there were now some graphs and three-dimensional models, though Kyoka didn’t have the slightest clue what they were meant to be showing her.

“These are readings I’ve been able to get of One for All’s output levels,” Melissa explained, sensing Kyoka’s confusion.  “It’s been hard to get raw data since you don’t historically ever use it at maximum output.  But I got some phenomenal data the other day when you fought that Nomu.”

Melisa reached out and ran her right index finger up the screen, where there was a funny looking graph that was mostly a slow incline, though it tapered off at a point.  Right at the end, there was a gigantic spike and Kyoka raised an eyebrow.

“So what?”  Kyoka asked, though not unkindly.

“So, I’m learning that my previous expectations and understanding of how One for All works were basically all for nothing,” Melissa said matter-of-factly.  “I had assumed it was just a quirk that outputs a ton of raw kinetic energy, along with the ancillary quirks.  Now I not only know that its upper limits are far greater than what I thought but it’s also a metaphysical tether through space-time itself.”

Kyoka furrowed her eyebrows, not sure what to make of that.

“It’s mostly for my benefit,” Melissa said sheepishly.  “The bottom line is that it’s really cool and I’m probably the only one who is ever going to understand it.  I really should bring Momo in, she would talk with me about it…”  Melissa trailed off, and Kyoka grinned at her.

“That can be arranged,” Kyoka said.  “But I need to get going, my patrol starts soon, then I’m going out on the town tonight.”

Melissa smiled and nodded, then Kyoka gave a little salute with her right earphone jack after she stood from her chair.  When Kyoka got to the door and opened it, Melissa offered a parting shot.

“I better get a wedding invitation, Kyoka!”

Maybe a month ago, Kyoka would’ve been mortified.  Instead, she turned and smirked at Melissa.

“Please, you’ll be a bridesmaid, honey,” Kyoka said, and Melissa actually seemed kind of impressed.  Kyoka closed the door behind her and put her hands in her pockets as she walked.  She had her headphones around her neck but didn’t feel like listening to music yet.

Shield Industries was rather quiet all of a sudden and Kyoka saw that most people seemed to have closed their doors to work.  It was late morning, so she figured they were all buckling down to really get into their projects for the day.

As Kyoka passed the workshop Izuku usually was in, she saw that he was standing next to a mannequin with a fascinating outfit on it.  It looked… mostly like Ochako’s costume but it had a lot of extra bits on it that Kyoka didn’t recognize, including what appeared to be both gadgets and armor.  Izuku was very flustered and absolutely red in the face and Ochako was there, wearing her normal Hero costume with the headband in her hand but facing away from Kyoka so she couldn’t see Ochako’s expression.

Kyoka smiled and walked away.  In spite of all of it, she didn’t want to eavesdrop.

She believed in them.

It was later that night that Kyoka found herself at the club with three of her favorite people in the world.

Kyoka wore a glittery purple clubbing dress and some purple heels and felt fabulous.  Maybe before, she would’ve felt self-conscious but, right now, she felt like she was on top of the world.  Momo had a matching dress and shoes but in royal red and she had her hair down tonight and Kyoka was looking respectfully at her girlfriend and how hot she was.

Meanwhile, their buddies for the night, Denki and Hitoshi, were quite different in their appearances.  Denki had a black t-shirt and jeans that were probably a bit small on him but he wore them well and they showed off that he was in great shape.  Maybe Kyoka wasn’t romantically interested in him anymore but hot was hot and she wasn’t ashamed to admit that she had been his girlfriend at one point.

Hitoshi, on the other hand, had inherited maximum killjoy energy from Aizawa, his totally-not-dad.  He wore a black long-sleeved shirt and pants but he had brought his damn capture scarf along and looked just like a little mini-Aizawa with purple hair.

Kyoka and Momo had promptly laughed at him when he showed up but he had cheekily replied that, if something bad happened, at least he was dressed for the occasion.  Kyoka and Momo had their gear in the rental car, so they just stuck their tongues out at him.

Blessedly, they had managed to secure a booth after some dancing and both Momo and Denki were probably too many drinks in by that point.  They were hanging off each other and engaged in a contest over ‘who had the hottest significant other,’ where Momo was trying to leverage the fact that Denki had dated Kyoka to deduce that Kyoka must have objectively been the hottest of the four.

Kyoka just propped her right elbow up on the table to lean her chin in her hand and smile at the two as Momo squished her a bit in the booth.  Kyoka had a drink earlier but she was the driver for tonight so that was all she got.

“I feel so slighted,” Hitoshi said sarcastically from the other side of the booth, where he was sitting to Denki’s right.  “Momo over here really is talking shit now that she’s had a few.”

“Ex-excuse me, Aizawa, I have had more than a few,” Momo slurred at Hitoshi, and both Kyoka and Denki lost it at her.  Momo didn’t understand what was so funny and that made it even better.  “I’m just saying, Aizawa over here never wants us to have any fun.  He’s almost as bad as Tenya!”

“I am not that much like Aizawa,” Hitoshi said as he sloshed his drink in a circle.

“The fuck you aren’t,” Denki said.  “But you’re hotter than Aizawa and younger and thus better.”

Denki gave Hitoshi a cocksure grin and leaned into him, making a kissy face at Hitoshi’s cheek.  Hitoshi let Denki kiss him a few times, then he put his whole hand on Denki’s face and pushed the dumbass away.

“Man, imagine how fucked these two would be if we got mugged,” Kyoka said as she checked the nails of her left hand.  “How are you two going to protect us if some big bad man comes over and bothers us?”

“I’ll have you know that I c-can fight just fine, inebriated or not!”  Denki said with a pout.

“I’m impressed you remember the word ‘inebriated,’ Jammingwhey,” Kyoka replied with a grin, and Denki scoffed at her.

“Clearly, we are the only responsible adults here.  We’ll handle the ones who are too forward,” Hitoshi said idly.

“Nah,” Denki said, slurring the word out.  “I could handle ‘em.  I’d just zap ‘em, I’d kick so much ass if we fought tonight!”

“Please, who the fuck would be stupid enough to fight in a nightclub with you?”  Kyoka said, and Denki slumped over on Momo and looked pathetically wounded.  “You can’t aim your shit and you’d end up short-circuiting your dumb brain with how drunk you are.”

“C’mon, love, Denki doesn’t short-circuit that often anymore.  I haven’t seen him do it since second year!”  Momo said defensively as she rubbed a comforting circle on Denki’s back.

“Yeah, Yaomomo, and that time he short-circuited in a training exercise with you and both of you had to see Recovery Girl!”

“Details!”  Momo exclaimed, and she blew a raspberry at Kyoka.  She was lucky she was hot.  Momo was so silly when she drank but Kyoka still loved her.

“Alright, I think that I am going to hit the restroom.  Do any of you want a drink while I’m up?”  Hitoshi asked, and Momo and Denki both nodded quickly.  Hitoshi and Kyoka both looked down and saw that they still had drinks that were plenty full, so Kyoka shook her head at Hitoshi and he rolled his eyes as he walked away.

Kyoka brought her phone out as Denki and Momo began reminiscing about all the times they could remember that Denki had short-circuited himself.  It was getting late and she was getting close to ready to go home.  Not so much that she was ready to pull Momo and Denki away from their fun but enough that she was kind of checked out.  Kyoka had acquired water the last time she had stood up, so she sipped that as she read some Hero news.

The news had an article about her, from the other day with the Nomu, and Kyoka almost choked on her water.  Momo and Denki thankfully didn’t notice, so Kyoka collected herself and clicked on the article.  She had forgotten that Mrs. Midoriya mentioned seeing it on the news and never bothered looking it up before.  The article was… mostly clickbait, honestly.  They had some blurry images of Momo and Itsuka after the fact, one of Setsuna, but they didn’t get a good angle on Kyoka--

Oh fuck.

They did get a good angle.  It was clearly a cellphone image zoomed in from afar, maybe a rooftop, but somebody got a picture of her final, big punch on the Nomu.  It was, honestly, a really cool image, with debris hanging in the air and the concrete exploding beneath her feet as she sent the Nomu into orbit.  Kyoka looked at herself, with purple energy burning the air around her and whipping her hair up, and decided that even she had to admit that she looked pretty dang awesome.

Next to it, to her confusion, there was what appeared to be a… painting?  Or drawing?  Of the image, recreated.  It was really well-done, too, and Kyoka saved the art to her phone and made it her background since it was the most recent cool thing she’d done as a Hero.  A picture of her and Momo was her lock screen, anyway.  As she scrolled down, she saw that the image was credited to some guy she’d never heard of but there was a picture of him… and it was that kid she’d admonished for tagging.

Little brat, Kyoka thought with a smirk.  She wasn’t really mad, though.  His art was damn good and she hoped he’d go far.

She did consider, though, what she should say if asked questions by the press.  Kyoka had chosen a publicist who specialized in both music and Hero work and who was aware she didn’t want a major public profile.  She didn’t know why Kyoka didn’t want it but she knew it, so she did a good job of beating off the press with a stick.

Kyoka’s conversation with Melissa came to mind and Kyoka wondered about what she would do if she couldn’t hide One for All anymore.  She wasn’t… sure what to do about that, honestly, but she didn’t think it would end well for her.

Just because something wasn’t meant to be, doesn’t make it not worthwhile.

Nana’s voice cut clear and sharp through her thoughts, then Kyoka looked up to see that Denki and Momo had calmed down a bit.

“You two need some water?”  Kyoka asked, and they both nodded in unison, to her amusement.  So Kyoka got up, finished her water, set the glass down, then meandered over to the bar. 

She got lucky and made it up to the bar during a lull, ordering two waters.  As she waited, she idly flicked through her phone again but there wasn’t much else going on in her opinion.  As she did so, a guy walked up to her and Kyoka looked up dimly to find him leering at her.

“Hey there, pretty lady.  Wanna dance?”

“You’re not my type,” Kyoka said dismissively, then she looked back down to her phone.  In response, the man stepped closer into her personal space.

“How’s that?  Into girls instead?”  The man asked, and Kyoka looked back up to him and let One for All flare around her for a moment.

“I’m just not into obnoxious dickheads.  Now run along, before I break you in half,” she huffed in irritation.  The man promptly turned tail and ran back into the crowd and Kyoka smirked.  The bartender brought her the waters and Kyoka took them and made her way through the crowds.

She was glad for what Nana had shown her.  It had made such a difference in her life and she felt so much more confident in herself than she used to.  But also, she was glad for One for All, even if it sometimes made her life inconvenient.  Maybe she wasn’t ‘meant’ to be the Ninth Bearer of One for All but Kyoka was resolved to do her best all the same.

For Nana.

Kyoka made it back to their booth and found Hitoshi there.  He smiled when he saw her, though his smile fell when he saw the waters he set in front of Momo and Denki.

“None for me?!”  Hitoshi said, pretending to be offended.

“How many hands do you think I have, dude?  I’m not Mezo over here,” Kyoka grumbled.  Hitoshi pointed his right index finger to his earlobe, grinning at her.  In response, Kyoka used her earphone jack to poke him in the ribs and she heard him squeal over the music.

Kyoka got as far as sitting down when their phones began buzzing.  She pulled hers out from her tiny purse and she watched Hitoshi, Momo, and Denki all pull theirs out in unison as well.  Kyoka squinted at her phone:  it was a Hero alert and it was nearby.  The threat level was rated as ‘moderate,’ though, and none of them were on duty, so she wasn’t in a huge hurry to respond to it.  She looked back up to the others and they reached the same conclusion.

Then there was a deafening crash from somewhere above them and Kyoka blinked as dust filtered down from the rafters.  She looked up and simultaneously snaked an earphone jack over to the wall to her right, trying to listen through the concrete.  She heard… scuffling?  Pounding?  It kind of sounded like somebody was deliberately stomping as they walked, like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Kyoka looked back to her phone and the threat level had been upgraded to ‘extreme,’ so she sighed.

“Alright, you two,” Kyoka began, and she pointed with her right index and middle finger at Momo and Denki.  “Get these civilians out of here and probably pull the fire alarm.”  Momo and Denki quickly nodded, becoming serious.  They were not in any shape to fight but they could still shuffle people along and defend them as a last resort.  Kyoka turned back with a raised eyebrow to Hitoshi.  “Ventriloquist, you feel like being battle buddies tonight?”

“You bet,” he replied as he quickly stood up.  “I brought my mouthpiece.”

“Of course you did, you dweeb,” Kyoka muttered as she stood up, too.  Then she motioned for Hitoshi to follow and they ran off towards the exit so that she could get to their car.

Most people just stood in place as the music still played and the lights still pulsed, so there wasn’t any panic yet.  Kyoka knew that wouldn’t last, though, and she had to get her gear and change so she could figure out what the hell was ruining her night out at the last goddamned second.  Running in heels was a pain, too, and Kyoka cursed under her breath as they rounded the corner on the sidewalk into the parking garage.

It was dark out, really dark, and that was when Kyoka realized that the power had gone off while they were running.  That meant no elevator, so she stepped back out onto the sidewalk instead of continuing further into the parking garage.

“Alright, fuck it, Hitoshi come here,” Kyoka commanded.  Hitoshi complied, and she scooped him up in a bridal carry as One for All roared to life around her.

Then she jumped straight up to the sixth floor in one go, stopping her momentum perfectly with Float and landing gently on the concrete ground.  That was where they were parked, so she let Hitoshi down so she could scramble over to their car.  Kyoka unlocked the door and ripped her dress right over her head to change.

Hitoshi politely looked away, leaning against the backseat door with his hands in his pockets as Kyoka got her real clothes on.  She was thankful that she had the foresight to bring underwear just in case some bullshit like this happened, then the last thing she did was turn on her new gloves and boots and put her headphones on over her head.

“New stuff from Greenie and Mei?”  Hitoshi asked idly once she finished.  Kyoka nodded and looked out towards the dark city through the gap in the concrete.

“Here, get on, we’re going quick,” Kyoka said.  Hitoshi brought his mask up, then he was Ventriloquist as he jumped on her back for a piggyback ride.

One for All came to life once more in a purple shimmer around her as Kyoka quickly sprinted through all six additional floors of the parking garage and to the roof.  Once she got there, she put Ventriloquist down and surveyed the scene.

Everything was dark as hell as Kyoka slowly turned in a circle.  There were mostly taller buildings around them and she saw that down the street the nightclub was now dark as well.  People were coming out and being very loud and she saw them mostly heading for nearby parking structures like the one she and Ventriloquist were on.

Kyoka and Ventriloquist both spun around when something crashed onto the roof of the parking garage behind them.  Once the dust cleared, Kyoka was met with a number of figures.  Most of them appeared to be Nomus similar to those she encountered before, the ones classified as ‘low-ends.’  Some had wings or other unusual appendages and they were generally purple or gray.  In the center, however, there was a… a really tall one.

That one had a hood over its face and shiny eyes, glinting crimson in the moonlight.  Its neck was long as hell and it only barely looked humanoid as it stared at her from the darkness.  Next to it walked up a much smaller, obviously human figure.

“Ah, so you're Earphone Jack, no?”  The woman said, and Kyoka couldn’t quite see her very well even in the moonlight.  She had long hair, though, and was definitely a villain.

“Who’s asking?”  Kyoka replied.  The woman’s response was to somehow suspend herself high in the air by what seemed like two appendages, then a barrage of something came flying at her and Ventriloquist as all the hair on Kyoka's neck stood up straight.

Kyoka didn’t quite have time to react, though.  Instead, something with blistering speed and crimson wings came burning out of the night and came to a picture-perfect stop between her and Ventriloquist.

“Going up,” Hawks said as he grabbed both of them and flew off like a missile, saving them from a hail of projectiles in only a split-second.  He flew straight up the nearest skyscraper - which had to be more than forty stories - then landed, setting them down in the process.  He was breathing pretty hard, though, and Kyoka suspected that carrying two adults plus himself was no easy feat for him, let alone as fast as he just went.

“Uh, hi, Hawks,” Kyoka said.  “Thanks for stopping by.  Care to fill me in on the situation?”

“Sure thing,” Hawks said, and he pretended like he wasn’t out of breath.  “The big one with the hood?  He’s dangerous, I was fighting him before.  Hits like a truck, don’t let him hit you.”

Kyoka looked Hawks up and down and saw that he was a bit worse for wear and had lost his visor.  She leaned over and looked at Ventriloquist, who just shrugged.

“Alright, well, what about the lady?  She knows who I am,” Kyoka said.

“She sure does,” Hawks replied sullenly.  “You’re the target.  We knew they were going after you but, uh, I didn’t expect them to send so many.”

“Well shit,” Kyoka said.  “I guess I can take the hood dude if you wanna keep the lady off me.  Ventriloquist, you up for a good fight tonight?”

“Always am,” Ventriloquist replied, his voice slightly muffled by his mask.  Kyoka nodded, only to be interrupted by something fast hitting her like a freight train and sending her sailing off the skyscraper.

Kyoka flew quite far and saw that the hood guy - who she decided to just call Hood, since that was simple - was somehow flying around with air following her.  His attack hurt and Kyoka grit her teeth and caught herself with Float.  One for All began to blaze around her, sizzling the air as purple smoke rose from her body, and Hood came barreling at her for another attack.

He was able to generate more than his normal number of arms and three appendages came out like lightning at Kyoka.  She only barely saw them against the night and she let Float go and free fell to dodge.  She caught herself with Float again and descended more gently to the ground, landing at a four-way intersection.

There were a lot of people there, confused as to what the hell was going on, and Kyoka began to panic as she realized how bad that was.

“I am a pro Hero!  All of you, evacuate now!”  Kyoka yelled, but all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up again and she instinctively ducked a devastating whip-like attack from Hood.

She turned and was at a loss for how to fight him with civilians in her presence.  She was strong but she wasn’t durable and she couldn’t use wide, sweeping soundwaves or Blackwhip attacks like she normally preferred to.  She watched Hood transform his fingers into sharpened blades that caught the moonlight on their silver edge, then his arm came out again in a blazing fast attack.

Nana’s voice cut through her thoughts.

One for All was always a sword, made to destroy.

All of One for All flared around Kyoka as she whipped her right arm out and for the first time ever, she hardened Blackwhip like blades on her hand.  She had never thought to do that before but her body just moved and Blackwhip shattered Hood’s own bladed fingers like glass.

“Oh, it’s on now,” Kyoka said as she hardened Blackwhip on the other side as well.  She could work with this.

Hood tried to fight her but even as fast as he was, Kyoka was faster.  She disappeared and reappeared immediately to Hood’s right.  The Nomu spun and tried to slice her in half with three arms, only for her to cut through his arms entirely with five Blackwhip broadswords, glowing purplish-black in the night.  Hood tried with his other side and she ripped through that, too.

Kyoka noted that he was regenerating so she kicked him away into the air, hard, and there was a sonic boom as he crashed through a building and kept going up.  She kicked off the ground in an explosion of concrete and made to follow, only to have to dodge another blurring crack of an attack from Hood’s regenerated limbs.

Okay, so cutting limbs slows him down but won’t finish the job, she thought as she kicked off the building towards her opponent.

Kyoka yelped in pain and surprise when Hood caught her with a sideways attack and sent her flying.  She was so stunned she didn’t quite catch her fall, then she gasped and breathed in water when she landed in the nearby river.  She flailed and tried to swim for the surface, only to see Hood come crashing into the water after her and try to rip her apart.

She ignored the strain on her limbs and threw her arms forward with Blackwhip in a devastating arc, then the water exploded with One for All at maximum output as ten Blackwhip tendrils hit Hood like a bomb.  She didn’t see if it killed him but assumed that it didn’t, so she kicked hard to the surface and went flying straight into the air.

Kyoka caught herself with Float about twenty meters over the water and gasped for air, then looked at her hands and feet.  At least she still had her headphones on, so she was thankful for small blessings.

I didn’t ask if this new stuff is waterproof…  Kyoka thought with dismay as she caught her breath.  She threaded her earphone jacks through her jacket and into the hook up on her gloves and saw that the speaker uncovered automatically.  She then held her hand up to her head and heard the small, telling hum that it was active.  So it was waterproof, apparently, and that was very useful.

Kyoka slowly looked around into the night and saw that there was nobody around - no boats or anything - and they were about in the middle of the river, the moon reflecting off of the black water.  She heard a splash and looked down to find Hood poking his weird long neck and head out of the water.  With his hood wet, she saw his face and it… He was real ugly, with his exposed brain and Cheshire cat grin.

Kyoka spun her earphone jacks so that they were at maximum volume as One for All sizzled the water out of her costume.

“You’re gonna wish you kept me near the civilians, jackass,” Kyoka called down to Hood, who tilted his head quizzically in response.

Then Kyoka slammed both hands down towards him and hit him with a wall of sound, exploding the water and creating a circular wave from the impact.  The waves crashed back in on Hood when she finished and she saw he was dazed, so she dropped from the sky and punched him with all of One for All back down into the water like a wrecking ball, the shockwave pushing the liquid away in a sphere.

Hood hit the bottom of the river with a crash as the water churned around them.  Kyoka grabbed him with Blackwhip and spun, whipping him back upwards and towards the sky.  Hitting the waterline at the speed of sound was like hitting concrete and Kyoka knew it as she watched Hood go flying back up into the night.  She flicked up with her fingers to push the water away and quickly kicked herself up and followed, using the sonic boom from her feet to carry her away from the water.

Hood sailed through the sky and she reached out and grabbed him with Blackwhip.  Then she deliberately spun forward in an arc, like a wheel, gaining momentum.  They careened towards the city and as they got close to a dark skyscraper, she ended her wild spinning and slammed him with all the power she could muster right into the roof of the building.

Kyoka caught herself with Float and watched as windows for about ten floors shattered in all directions in the skyscraper as Hood went through the floors like a cannonball.  Then she launched herself towards the floor where they stopped and came to a rolling stop in a fairly conventional office clouded by debris and smoke.

Hood was on the floor on his back but he was already trying to get up.  He tried to swing out bladed hands at her but Kyoka ducked them at maximum output of One for All and darted forward.  Then she brought her hands down in an X-pattern with Blackwhip hardened like swords again and cut right through Hood’s face, two-ways.

He could regenerate limbs and maybe even a body but he wasn’t going to regenerate shit if he was dead.  For good measure, Kyoka cut at his neck and removed the remains of his head, then threw the product off to the side where it made a slightly gross noise.

“Ew,” Kyoka said absently as she watched Hood for signs of movement.  He was still, though, and, after a long time, she determined he wasn’t getting back up from that.

Kyoka turned and walked over to the broken window and looked out into the sky.  She squinted and was moderately surprised when all the power came back on.  With how bright the city lights suddenly were, she could see people running in panic down the street, then she saw a familiar figure on top of a nearby, lower rooftop, suspended by two long appendages.

There was a hail of projectiles and Kyoka saw what she presumed was Hawks cut through two flying Nomus as he dodged the attack.  Then he responded with a hail of feather blades, which the villain deftly dodged.  Abruptly, another figure dropped down and seemed to… grab the female villain?  Then they flew towards Kyoka and she took a step back from the window as One for All flared around her.

The two people rose up towards the window and she could mostly see them properly with the city lit up.  One was a woman with a slightly silly looking costume, made of basically dress clothes in purples and black with some leather belts around her waist.  She had long red hair, which Kyoka suspected was the source of her attacks when the woman raised the hair at her like it was a living appendage.

The other figure held out his right arm, however, and the lady villain lowered her hair once more.  They stood on a large yellow platform of light, generated by the man’s feet.

The other man was… strange.  He wore a grayish white suit with a bizarre black undershirt that was armor or made out of some kind of hard material, with glowing purple hexagonal lines on it.  He had long white hair and tubes sticking out of his back and over his shoulders and one of the strangest masks Kyoka had ever seen.  It was attached to his armored shirt thing and it covered his neck and the entire bottom of his face, with a harness over the top of his head.

“Jirou Kyoka, Earphone Jack.  The Ninth Bearer of One for All.  I can’t say I’m impressed,” the man said in a low monotone.  Kyoka growled at him as One for All burned bright, bathing the office around her in purple light.  “My name is Nine,” the man said.  “My associate is Slice.  I came to see how you would fare against more… adequate opponents.  I am surprised you’re still alive.”

“This is a populated area, how dare you?!”  Kyoka yelled back.  She raised her hand and let off an explosive wave of sound.  The man simply brought up his hand and blocked her sound attack with another large circle of yellow light.

“Ah, don’t take kindly to us threatening bystanders, do you?  The Bearers always were touchy, thinking they were so Heroic,” Nine said as he dropped his shield.  “I am the successor to All for One and you would do well to memorize what I look like.”

He turned to look at Slice, and offered her his arm.  She stepped into his grasp and a bright pinkish-purple light began to burn under his feet.

“My face will be the last thing you ever see,” Nine said, turning back to Kyoka.  Then the two blasted off like a rocket, shooting off into the night.  Kyoka ran forward towards the edge of the office but all that greeted her was the sound of wind, yelling, and sirens.

Now you see, Kyoka, the challenge you are faced with.

Kyoka did see… and she didn’t like it.

Chapter Text

Kyoka cleared her throat.

“We keep meeting like this, Bird Brain, and I’m not sure I like it,” Kyoka said, only slightly in jest.  To her left, Momo sighed in amusement, her lips curling upwards slightly in a smile.

They were in Kyoka’s hospital room the next day and Kyoka felt like shit.  She had some cracked and bruised bones, mostly in her mid-section and forearms, and she wasn’t immensely thrilled to be back in the hospital so soon.  If she kept this up, she’d end up with some kind of terrible reputation for breaking herself and lord knew she didn’t need that shit in her life.

It was early morning and the sun was showing, not too brightly, through her window off to the side.  Hawks had come to visit and he was injured, too.  Apparently, he wasn’t injured enough to not come and bother her but that was a relative thing.  Part of his hair on the left side of his head had been shaved, much to his dismay, so he could get stitches.  His left arm was also in a cast.

“Sorry, Earphone Jack.  Next time the baddies come after you, I’ll just whistle and look the other way, I guess,” Hawks shot back without any remorse, giving a cocky grin after he did so.  Kyoka just rolled her eyes at him.

He was all talk, she could tell.  He was probably a huge dweeb underneath it all.  Kyoka idly wondered how much Endeavor merchandise he had hidden in a closet somewhere.  Maybe she could get him and Izuku in a room and let them nerd out.

Kyoka stuck her tongue out at him and, to her surprise and amusement, Hawks just returned the gesture, giving her the stink eye for effect.  Kyoka and Momo both giggled.

“So, care to give me a rundown?”  Hawks said, and Kyoka frowned at him.

“Feels like I should be asking you that, Hawks,” Kyoka replied, her voice taking on an edge of seriousness.  Then again, that didn’t feel entirely fair, since she knew things about the situation Hawks couldn’t possibly know.

“Well, we were able to crack that language that they were using to command the Nomus,” Hawks said absently.  He didn’t have his Hero costume on, in favor of a combination of bandages and a hospital gown, and he idly checked his fingernails on his free hand.  “Figured out that it’s a combination of animal noises, weirdly enough.  Can’t translate it but we got some fragments of it from an employee’s phone from the plant.”

“Okay… So what?”  Kyoka asked.  Momo answered, however.

“So, they were probably able to find somewhere else where that noise was coming from.  I bet they cross-referenced city surveillance camera data for that, right?”  Hawks nodded at Momo.  “I’m disappointed nobody thought to tell me about this, though…”

Momo narrowed her eyes at Hawks, who looked suitably put in his place.

“Er… That wasn’t my decision, I swear,” Hawks said sheepishly.  He scratched his nose awkwardly with an index finger.  “The Hero Commission… has concerns about Earphone Jack here, her quirk, and what this ‘Nine’ guy wants with her and it.”

“Well nobody asked them, did they?”  Kyoka said sharply, and Hawks slowly blinked at her in confusion.  “Look… It’s complicated but it’s also mine and when the hell was the last time the Hero Commission made something better by messing with things?”

Hawks scrunched up his face for a moment but didn’t argue.

“Fair enough,” Hawks said.  “Earphone Jack, I’m gonna be honest, I respect ya.  You’re not very high-ranking as a Hero but that doesn’t really matter.  I think you probably could do a lot better than where you are,” Hawks raised a knowing brow, “but what you do with your time as a Hero is your professional business.”  Kyoka nodded firmly and Hawks sighed.  “That being said, if this guy is after you, then they want me to shadow you and--”

“Absolutely not,” Kyoka growled, and Hawks brought his lips to the side in a pout.  “Hell.  No.”

“I can’t help but agree.  We are Heroes, not children who need babysitting,” Momo said adamantly.

“I dunno, Creati, I hear you weren’t supposed to be in that club last night,” Hawks said with amusement, and Kyoka turned to find Momo looking a bit pink.

“What?!  It was… It was nothing, it was just… I wanted to feel daring!”  Momo said, pursing her lips.

“I didn’t know that sneaking into a club underaged was still considered daring,” Hawks said.  “How old are you, anyway?  I thought Earphone Jack here just turned twenty?”

“…I turn twenty at the end of September, on the twenty-third,” Momo mumbled.  Hawks brought up his right hand and quickly counted off, silently and to himself.

“That’s, like… in three weeks?  Four?”  Hawks said, and he smirked at Kyoka in turn.

“I wanted Momo to feel like she was doing something naughty without actually really doing anything that naughty,” Kyoka admitted shamelessly.  Momo scoffed at her, utterly scandalized.  “She used her quirk to make a false ID and everything, thinking she was getting away with murder.  It was very funny.”

“Kyoka!”  Momo said, horrified.  Kyoka leaned over and kissed her on the nose, so Momo turned scarlet in embarrassment as she glared at Hawks.  “People called me boring, so I decided to do something fun,” Momo said with a huff.  Hawks snorted and raised a hand in surrender.

“Hey, ladies, whatever floats your boat.  I’m not gonna tell on you.”

Kyoka began to snicker at Momo, who pouted to the side.  Kyoka loved her so much and she was glad that Momo had fun, even if she was a bit silly about it.  Kyoka turned back to Hawks to find him looking at them fondly but also a bit… wistfully.

“You are the most painfully single man I have ever seen,” Kyoka said, and Hawks glared at her.  She thought about a conversation she’d had with Izuku last year about gossip he’d heard from Todoroki.  “I thought you were trying to date Endeavor’s daughter.  Why the hell are you so single?”

Hawks had been mid-sip of water out of his little paper cup as Kyoka continued.  However, he promptly choked on it and spilled all over himself when she spoke.

“I am doing no such thing!”  Hawks said indignantly, once he was done sputtering.  His blush went right to his ears.

“Uh huh.  My sources don’t lie, Bird Brain.  Tell me, do you think she’s pretty?”  Kyoka said mischievously, and Momo began to giggle to the side.  This was revenge for the both of them.

“I hate both of you,” Hawks grumbled under his breath.  Kyoka snorted in amusement.  She didn’t get a chance to reply, though, because all three of them turned when someone new walked into the room. 

It was Recovery Girl, wearing her typical outfit and looking none too pleased.  She was still tiny as ever but even Hawks shrank back as he registered who she was.  Kyoka wasn’t precisely sure if he had ever met her before but everyone in the business knew her.

Recovery Girl walked forward so that she was standing between Kyoka’s bed and where Hawks was, across the room against the wall.  Then she turned to look at Kyoka and Momo first.

“Young ladies, you shouldn’t be making a habit of getting into the hospital like this.  You won’t be able to save anyone if you spend all your time in a hospital bed,” she said.  Then Recovery Girl turned to Hawks and, though Kyoka couldn’t see her expression, Hawks looked mortified.  “And you, I hear you were responsible for protecting Jirou here.  At least Shinsou was unharmed.  What happened?”

Her tone was even and indoor-appropriate but sharp and Hawks suddenly did not look like the number two pro Hero of Japan but rather just another young boy at UA getting scolded for going to the infirmary too often.  He hadn’t even gone to UA but everyone instinctively felt the appropriate fear of death when Recovery Girl was displeased.  His wings wilted a bit behind him and he hung his head.

“I didn’t want to call for backup because I wasn’t sure anyone else could handle it,” Hawks admitted softly, and Kyoka frowned at that.  “I take full responsibility, ma’am.”

Recovery Girl looked at Hawks for a long time without saying anything.  Then she clicked her tongue and shook her head.

“You kids, all of you think you can take on the world on your own.  You’re Heroes, you need to take these things on together.”   She stepped forward towards Hawks, who relaxed a bit in his posture.  “Would you like me to heal you?”

Hawks quickly nodded, so Recovery Girl extended her lips to his cheek.  Hawks looked very bemused but didn’t move away, then he got rather woozy on his chair.  Recovery Girl’s quirk could be quite draining, especially when Hawks was banged up pretty good.

“Now go see the doctors about getting that cast removed and probably your stitches, too.  Shame about your hair, dearie.  I didn’t know if I would be available to come today, my apologies.”  Recovery Girl reached up and patted Hawks on the side of his torso and Hawks just smiled down at her.

“Just hair, ma’am.  It’ll grow back,” he said.  Then he looked up meaningfully towards Kyoka and Momo and gave them a little mock salute as he stood up.  “I’ll see you ladies later for a proper debriefing, yeah?”

Kyoka and Momo nodded, then Recovery Girl turned to them.  She waited calmly for Hawks to leave and shut the door behind him, then she smiled.

“I hear that you’re going up against a possible fragment of All for One.  Are you prepared to stand up and fulfill your destiny as the Ninth Bearer, young lady?”  Recovery Girl said, though her tone was encouraging.  Kyoka opened her mouth but Nana spoke, instead.

You will rise to the challenge as well, Kyoka.  I believe in you.

Kyoka closed her mouth and felt very confused but Recovery Girl just pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow.  After a few moments, she walked over to the side of the bed where Momo was and looked at her first.

“Yaoyorozu, are you aware of what’s been going on with One for All?  Toshinori filled me in the other day, though I was not expecting to see it in person.”  Momo quickly nodded at Recovery Girl, who smiled in turn.  “Keep her safe then, yes?”

“Of course, ma’am,” Momo said with a smile.  Recovery Girl reached out and patted Momo’s thigh, then turned to Kyoka.

“I’m going to heal you now but I hope you don’t see me for a while.  I’d hate to make this a regular occurrence.”

Kyoka quickly shook her head in acknowledgement; the last thing she wanted was to get the famous Recovery Girl Clipboard Forehead Smack.  She’d heard plenty about it from Katsuki, who spent more time than he should’ve in her office in their second year as he experimented with more and more complex usage of his quirk alongside Eijiro, especially where it concerned aerial movement.  Recovery Girl reached out and kissed Kyoka’s cheek, then she felt physically much better but also utterly exhausted.

“Take care, Jirou.  I would say that I’m proud of you but I’m not sure how much that’s worth versus Shimura Nana herself saying it,” Recovery Girl said as she patted Kyoka’s shoulder gently.  She handed Kyoka a sucker, then she turned to take her leave.  As Recovery Girl walked out of the office, Nana provided an answer.

It’s worth the world, Shuzenji.  Thank you for watching over my children, in every lifetime.

Thankfully, the next few months were largely uneventful for Kyoka.

Momo was properly briefed by Hawks and Himiko on what the Hero Commission knew and didn’t know and, since Momo knew about One for All - while Hawks and Himiko did not - she was able to piece things together.  Nine’s characterization of himself as All for One’s ‘successor’ was something Momo wondered about but they weren’t sure if Nine had All for One’s quirk directly, somehow or merely something similar.

They also had no way of observing, since Nine disappeared for several weeks after that; the hideout they did find was stripped barren by the time Tsukauchi got into it with a tactical team.

Kyoka did mostly normal things.  She and Momo had a birthday dinner with Momo’s parents finally, for Momo’s birthday this time, and it was mostly lovely.  Kyoka did some patrols and she wrote some songs.

She even published some new songs on the internet and they got more popular than was typical, probably because she had become more well-known after her back-to-back public Hero incidents.  The incident at the nightclub was highly publicized and there was slightly grainy, dark cellphone footage floating around of her battle with Hood.

Someone had caught the moment, on camera, of her trying to urge civilians to evacuate the intersection and of her using Blackwhip to shatter Hood’s clawed attack.  Hero gossip and analysis sites were going nuts, Izuku (un)helpfully informed Kyoka, speculating about the nature of her quirk and why a Hero with a publicly-listed sound-based quirk had some kind of physical, offensive power as well.  Izuku was too nice to add his own speculation - though Kyoka knew he had them and didn’t mind - and Kyoka internally groaned at the news.

It was exactly why she had strived to not become too famous as a Hero and now she was famous anyway.

The Hero ranking ceremony and charity gala were coming up soon, at the beginning of December, and Kyoka and Momo had already planned to go in the tailored black suits they had.  They had agreed on wearing royal red ties - they considered purple but Kyoka decided that was too close to black - and Kyoka was excited to match with Momo.

Previously, they hadn’t gone to many formal Hero events together; not for lack of interest but usually because of scheduling conflicts.  Kyoka also liked to avoid the press and the media loved formal Hero events.  But now they were going and the whole world would know that Kyoka was Momo’s and that Momo was Kyoka’s.  The idea thrilled Kyoka more than a little bit, she considered as she walked down the sidewalk.

It was a crisp, late October morning.  Kyoka wore a black hoodie and jeans and she had her hands behind her head as she walked.  To her left was Ochako, wearing a gray UA hoodie and jeans, and ahead of them, Toru and Mina were going on and on about… something.  Kyoka had been a bit lost there, so she didn’t follow their conversation.

The three of them were helping Toru dress shop for her wedding.  Kyoka didn’t bother to point out that Toru and Mashirao didn’t even have a date set yet because she didn’t want to be a killjoy.  She was also more than a little curious how Toru was going to handle the whole ‘being invisible’ thing when it came to stuff like wedding photos but it wasn’t Kyoka’s place to pry.  She was a bridesmaid but Mina was the maid of honor and she took to the role like she’d been drafted to be the Prime Minister’s personal bodyguard/assistant all in one.

Kyoka and Ochako just trailed behind and smiled and nodded.  Kyoka idly daydreamed, as they went from bridal shop to bridal shop, what Momo might look like in one of these dresses.  Part of her kind of just wanted Momo to wear a suit if they got married.  She looked too good in them not to want that.  But then, that was a bit getting ahead of herself.

“Hey, Kyoka, are you hungry?”  Ochako said in an even voice, and Kyoka made a little noise of surprise and turned to her.  Ochako had looked entirely checked out all day and Kyoka felt a bit bad; Himiko was also supposed to have come but she already had planned a date with Tsuyu.

“Uh, sure, I suppose.  Wanna let them go at it for a while and grab some food?”  Kyoka asked, and Ochako nodded very quickly.  Kyoka frowned, suspecting that wedding stuff made Ochako feel weird and not sure what to do about it.

“Hey, Mina!  Toru!”  Kyoka said, and both girls snapped out of their ramblings and turned to Kyoka and Ochako.  “We’re gonna grab a bite and let you guys take the next few stores on your own.  Will you survive or will you die if we don’t supervise?”

“We’ll be fine, promise!”  Mina said mischievously after snorting in amusement, and Toru bounced in place.  Then she seemed to grab Mina’s hand and pull the pink girl off, though it was hard to tell with her invisibility.  Once they were sufficiently far away, Kyoka turned to Ochako as the latter sighed in relief.

Kyoka raised a questioning eyebrow but said nothing, then the two made their way towards the nearest decent food place.  It turned out to be a simple ramen shop and they ordered their food and sat down at a free booth in the corner.

They were lucky to have arranged a day off together.  Well, that wasn’t entirely true; Mina and Kyoka didn’t work very heavy schedules as Heroes and Toru did not presently have an active case with the Hero Commission since she wasn’t assigned to the business with Nine.  It was Ochako who was lucky, since she worked basically constantly if she could manage it.

Kyoka gently blew on her ramen to cool it to an acceptable eating temperature as she eyed Ochako warily.  Ochako looked off at the crowds rather solemnly.  She looked nice with her hair grown out longer for the winter season but she didn't look happy and Kyoka thought about what Nana had said.

Their fates, insofar as they are fixed, are intertwined and I try to bring them together when I can, in whatever capacity is appropriate for the time.

Maybe Kyoka had things all wrong?  She was pretty sure Ochako loved Izuku and she knew that Izuku loved Ochako but maybe a relationship between them really couldn’t work out.  Kyoka was skeptical of that but decided that maybe today she shouldn’t tease Ochako too much.  Maybe Ochako needed a break.

“You okay there, ‘Chako?”  Kyoka asked cautiously, and Ochako turned with a smile to Kyoka.  It was probably a fake smile, Kyoka suspected, but she wouldn’t comment on that.

Ochako was a master of holding things in until they burst and she couldn’t take it anymore.  It was something she never talked much about with the girls of Class A, besides Himiko and Tsuyu, but Kyoka knew about it both from simply being observant and from talking with Izuku.  Izuku had confessed, over time at UA, that he worried about Ochako and how she held things in… and how she wouldn’t talk to anyone about it until it became overwhelming.

“I’m good, yeah.  Just… thinking,” Ochako said, then she also blew on her ramen to cool it down.  “How is Momo?  Was her birthday dinner good?  I heard you got to go out with her parents.”

“Yeah, haha… yeah,” Kyoka said awkwardly.

Kyoka did not mind Momo’s parents and, as far as she could tell, they liked Kyoka just fine.  Kyoka had a lingering suspicion that Momo’s parents would’ve greatly preferred if Momo had gotten together with someone more… ‘respectable,’ someone with money and status.  Probably someone like Todoroki or Tenya, maybe Katsuki, though he was more so ‘new money’ as far as such things went.  But they never directly brought that up and were always polite to Kyoka’s face.

She wondered if they gave Momo shit in private on the subject but Momo never said anything about it.  Kyoka used to feel insecure about that but now she decided that it was what it was and she would live with it and trust in Momo.

“We did,” Kyoka continued after a moment’s hesitation, “and it was nice.”

Ochako smiled and took a bite of her ramen before responding.

“That’s good.  I, uh… I’m sorry for how I behaved at your birthday party,” Ochako said, a bit more quietly.  Kyoka raised an eyebrow, now confused.

“Why?  You didn’t do anything wrong,” Kyoka pointed out, twirling her spoon and right earphone jack in unison to accentuate her point.  “I was teasing you in front of your parents and that wasn’t very cool, so if anything I should be saying sorry.”

Ochako smiled more awkwardly and looked down at her soup.

“I… I asked Deku to be my date to the Hero charity gala when he showed me my new costume the other day,” Ochako began, and Kyoka’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.  “As friends,” she continued, promptly fucking ruining it.  Kyoka couldn’t quite stifle the urge to groan in frustration and Ochako cringed, probably knowing exactly what Kyoka was thinking, yet not at all at the same time.

“Ochako,” Kyoka said, softly but emphasizing her full name for effect, “why do you do this to yourself, honey?”

“Because!”  Ochako hissed, surprising Kyoka.  “I… I… I’m a Hero!  I just can’t…”  For a brief moment, anger flashed in Kyoka’s eyes.  Was Ochako saying she was too good to date Izuku cause he was a support engineer?  That seemed ludicrous.  Then Ochako continued and a tear rolled down her face, “What if I take that leap and he says yes?  What if all the hours I work ruin us and I lose him forever?  What if I… What if I don’t come home one day, Kyoka?  How could I ever do that to him?  I’m afraid I could never be enough for him… For what he deserves.”

Kyoka slowly blinked at Ochako and couldn’t find the words to say what she wanted to say.  She wanted to tell Ochako that Kyoka used to think, idly and to herself, that Ochako would move heaven and earth for Izuku Midoriya if she needed to.  That she would kill for him and that she would die for him, without hesitation, and Izuku would do the same for her.  But now Kyoka had seen that as an objective fact; Kyoka had seen Ochako Uraraka, the Ninth Bearer of One for All, challenge fate itself for Izuku Midoriya because she would never let him go.

It killed Kyoka that she couldn’t tell Ochako the truth at that moment.

Mirai told Ochako that she couldn’t fight fate… but I became fate for her.

Kyoka looked at Ochako sadly for a long time as their respective food got cold.  But Ochako just stared down at her soup and Kyoka wondered, was she up to this task?  It should have been simple to make two of her friends happy and to make them see how much they loved each other, just as Kyoka and Momo loved each other.  But it felt impossible; she wondered if fighting Nine would be easier.

“Ochako,” Kyoka said, and Ochako looked up at her, looking utterly miserable.  “I guarantee you that you are enough for Izuku and that he would want nothing more than you, as you already are.  It’s all he’s ever wanted from you.”

The words didn’t feel sufficient.  But Ochako still made a slightly wet giggle and tried to wipe her eyes and recover her dignity.

“I’m glad you have such faith in me, even if I haven’t earned it,” Ochako said sadly.  Kyoka scoffed in response.

“Remember when Kats kicked your butt in our first Sports Festival?”  Ochako groaned.  “Yeah.  And who was the one who told you later, when you came back, how great you did and how impressive you looked going up against Katsuki?  How it was a hard match up and you did your best while we sat together in the stands?”

“Deku…”  Ochako said quietly.

“Yeah.  Remember when we took that trip to I-Island and none of us knew what the hell we were doing with formal dances but Izuku and Mei were there to meet Melissa for the first time?  And Melissa and Mei were dancing and you blurted out to me at the punch table, ‘I wish Deku would ask me to dance?’”  Ochako turned red and looked away.  “Yup.  And remember how I marched over to him and whispered to him and then he did ask you to dance and you were on top of the world for weeks after that?  You liked him even then, didn’t you?”

“I think I always liked him, once I got to know him,” Ochako admitted quietly.  “He just… deserves better.”

“Bullshit,” Kyoka spat out, visibly startling Ochako.  “He deserves you.  I cannot stress how much Izuku thinks the world of you because you are you.  He doesn’t want you to change or pretend and he’s afraid he wouldn’t be good enough for you!”  Kyoka had to work to keep her volume low and Ochako looked back to her with a frown.  Kyoka nodded, an expression on her face somewhere between smug and annoyed.  “Uh huh.  He does.  He cares so much about you and you two are over here being a bunch of dorks!  It’s ridiculous!”

Kyoka only barely resisted the urge to throw her hands up into the air, mindful of drawing attention to them.  She threw her earphone jacks up, instead, habitually.  Kyoka tilted her head at Ochako for a moment and thought carefully, slowly lowering her earphone jacks.

“Hey, ‘Chako?  Are you… okay?  Like, just in general?  I’m worried about you…”  Kyoka said, and Ochako pursed her lips as she looked back at Kyoka.

“Not… not really,” Ochako admitted softly.  “I should go to therapy, I know that I should.  But I’m always working to support my parents and I don’t know where I’d find the time.  I have nightmares, sometimes… I dream about what if we didn’t save Eri or what if the Meta Liberation Army killed our friends or… just stuff, I guess.”

“I thought your parents were doing better recently?”  Kyoka asked, frowning deeply.

“That stuff is always fleeting,” Ochako said sadly.  “One day you think things are stable, the next it all falls out from under you.  I just… have to keep working until I know they’re secure.”

“Yeah, and what about you?”  Kyoka challenged.  “What if that day never comes?”

“Then I’ll just keep working,” Ochako replied defiantly.  She had a look on her face like she wasn’t in the mood to keep having this conversation.  “Please, just… Can we talk about something else?  The wedding stuff was stressing me out.”

Kyoka sighed but decided to have mercy on Ochako.  So they chatted about other things.  Kyoka swapped recipes with Ochako - hers came from Mrs. Midoriya, mostly, and Kyoka’s came from Toshinori - and showed Ochako some of the music she’d been working on.  Ochako gave some feedback - she liked this track or thought this other one was a bit too fast or slow - and Kyoka nodded and made a note of that.  Kyoka also showed some pictures that she had taken with her and Momo when they went to dinner with Momo’s parents and Ochako let her know that they looked quite fabulous together.

It was nice and by the end of things, Ochako looked… less down than she had been.

Kyoka wondered distantly why wedding stuff stressed her out.  Kyoka suspected, sadly, that it was because Ochako didn’t think she’d ever have something like that for herself.

The night after Kyoka had lunch with Ochako, she dreams again of falling and the skyscraper.

It still isn’t like the other dreams.  It’s not a memory… but it feels like a memory.

Or maybe, like a premonition?

This time Kyoka thinks, deliriously:  maybe I am not supposed to defeat the skyscraper and, instead, the skyscraper is a weapon?

She does not get an answer before waking up.

“Alright, what the hell are we doin’ today, Ears?”  Katsuki said as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Next to him, a very bemused-looking Denki and Hitoshi stood with held hands and raised eyebrows.  Kyoka clicked her tongue as she moved instruments around in her little studio room she had rented for the day.

“We’re getting the band back together, Blasty,” Kyoka said absently.  There was a characteristic reverberation as the speaker turned on and she plugged in the first guitar.

“Ha?  Who the hell said I agreed to this?”  Katsuki said, miffed.  Kyoka turned to him with an evil grin.

“Eijiro offered you as tribute, sucks to suck.”  Denki and Hitoshi both laughed and Katsuki looked absolutely scandalized.  “I gave him advice on how to phrase his marriage proposal - which I hear you accepted, by the by - so this was his return favor.”

“Fuckin’ traitors,” Katsuki muttered, but Kyoka saw the ghost of a smile on his face.

Kyoka turned and saw that outside the studio, with headphones on, Momo and Eijiro sat together.  They were serving as the mixing crew for their little practice sessions; when Eijiro caught Kyoka’s eye, he gave her a little wave and a toothy smile.  Momo also waved enthusiastically and Kyoka smiled back and waved with an earphone jack as she continued to fiddle with equipment.

“So what’re we playing?  You know me an’ Hitoshi aren’t exactly in practice, Kyoka,” Denki said with a frown.  Kyoka just smiled and straightened, satisfied with the placement of the equipment.

“I’ll show ya.  It’s a surprise.  You’re all being read in on my Secret Mission, Operation:  Cute Dork Matchmakers.”

Denki and Hitoshi slowly blinked, not understanding.  Distantly, Kyoka could hear the maniacal laughter of Momo and Eijiro together in the sound booth, since they could hear what they were saying in the studio.  Momo was very excited about this plan and Eijiro was, too, once Kyoka explained it to him.  Katsuki arched an unimpressed eyebrow.

“So we’re finally tryin’ to get Round Face and Deku to fess up about how they wanna suck each other’s faces?”  Katsuki said gruffly, and Kyoka snorted in amusement.  Both Hitoshi and Denki made an elongated ‘oh’ sound as they realized what they were all talking about now.

“Yes, Kats, that’s the bottom line.  I lined up a time slot at the Hero charity gala for us to play a song, dedicated to whoever I want.”  Even Katsuki looked kind of impressed and, accordingly, Kyoka smirked.  “Momo pulled some strings with Hawks,” Kyoka added, and Katsuki actually chuckled.

“Alright, so why the hell would you think I wanna participate in this dumb shit?”  Katsuki said.  Kyoka responded by picking up a pair of drumsticks and flicking them out towards his face, so they stopped right near his nose.  He didn’t flinch, to his credit.

“‘Cause, it’s gonna make them happy and you want your friends to be happy.  That’s how normal people treat their friends,” Kyoka said, still smirking.  Katsuki momentarily went cross-eyed looking at the drumsticks, then he scoffed and snatched them away.

“Those two nerds are fuckin’ hopeless, anyway.  It’s not gonna work,” he said dismissively.

“Ah, but even Mina says that she can’t do it.  She’s given up on them.  You wanna prove you’re a better matchmaker than Mina, don’t you?”  Kyoka said in challenge.  Katsuki knew what she was doing and Kyoka knew that he knew.  He scowled at her momentarily, then marched on over to the drum set.

Denki and Hitoshi shared a look of confusion, then they shrugged in unison and moved to pick up the guitars.  Kyoka would be handling vocals and the song she’d chosen was in English.  It was just like their first School Festival and the thought made Kyoka smile.  It was too bad the song she wanted to use didn’t have a piano part but Momo was still participating along with Eijiro so that was fine.

Kyoka took her place at the microphone, then turned to eye Katsuki curiously.

“Ready?”  She asked.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Katsuki said flatly.  “This shit is gonna be great because I’m helping you now.”

Kyoka snorted; that was as close to an admission of ‘Katsuki wants them to succeed’ as she was going to get, she supposed… and she was grateful for it.

It was the middle of November when Kyoka got called in for a mission by Hawks.

Things had been going well up until that point.  Practice sessions with the band were progressing smoothly - Eri came over sometimes to give moral support, much to Kyoka’s delight - Kyoka hadn’t run into anything particularly strange on patrol, and the news was slowly losing interest in her as other new shiny things came into focus.  Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods finally announcing the birth of their first child sucked all the oxygen out of the proverbial room, so that helped, too.

But now Kyoka was on a park bench at eight at night, next to somebody she always felt a little bit awkward hanging out with.

“Can you pass me some chips?”  Kyoka whispered, and Todoroki wordlessly held out the plastic bag to her.

The thing about Todoroki was that Kyoka liked him just fine.  He was very quiet and very reserved but, after their first year, he mostly stopped being a killjoy.  He used to be almost kind of a dick, he was so standoffish, but he mellowed out once he started hanging out with Izuku.  He was one of Izuku’s best friends now and Todoroki probably spent more time hanging out with Izuku than he did hanging out with people in Class A.

Mostly.  He and Momo were good friends because they had been seat buddies.  Momo and Izuku both spoke fondly of Todoroki and how ‘Shouto really is very nice, once you get used to him’ but he never really gave Kyoka a chance to do that.

And, honestly, that was fine; he didn’t have to be her or anybody else’s friend but Kyoka just sort of… felt bad about it.  Like she could’ve and should’ve been better friends with him, if things were better; if things were different.

What if there was something off with the world, Kyoka?

“Did you say something?”  Todoroki asked, and Kyoka awkwardly cleared her throat.

“Nope, nothing,” Kyoka said with a forced smile.  Todoroki shrugged and had some more chips.

Nana had mostly stopped calling her ‘little Kyoka’ after her birthday and she wondered if it was because she wasn’t a teenager anymore.  Nana loved her symbolism, after all; she was quite the romantic, in the traditional sense of the word, Kyoka had noticed.

Still, she didn’t need to embarrass Kyoka in front of Todoroki, thank you very much.  Kyoka felt Nana’s amusement at her troubles and turned away briefly to scowl aimlessly in response.

Kyoka and Todoroki - Frostfire was his Hero name these days, after he changed it in their third year from ‘Shouto’ - were assigned to keep watch over this complex of warehouses in anticipation of… something; they weren’t sure what yet.  They had just received their orders from Hawks, who in turn got them from the Hero Commission.

They were sitting at the edge of the park across the way, on a bench under a streetlight, and mostly just hanging out.  The park they were in was disputed property - the industrial companies wanted to rezone it and turn it into more factories or warehouses, since they had encroached on its space - and that made Kyoka a little sad.  Everything beautiful in their world kept getting crushed underfoot because nobody was brave enough to stand up and fight for it.

Todoroki cleared his throat and Kyoka turned to look at him again.

“My parents got divorced, formally,” Todoroki said in a monotone, and Kyoka slowly blinked in confusion.  “I assumed that you saw the news and I just wanted to say that everything is fine.”

“Uh… I didn’t see the news about that.  Is that public knowledge…?”  Kyoka said, and Todoroki looked a little confused.  It was hard to tell with him but his expression slowly changed into an understated one of realization.

“I thought it was…”  Todoroki admitted, and Kyoka pursed her lips, torn between sympathy and a small desire to be amused at him for that.

“Well… I didn’t hear about it,” she said frankly.  “But… Are you sure it’s okay, if, uh, you’re bringing it up?”  She added, slightly nervous, though Todoroki chuckled softly, to her surprise.

“Yeah… It’s fine.  I have a question for you, though, if you don’t mind?”  Kyoka nodded for him to continue.  “Is it… Is it wrong that I’m happy my parents got divorced?”

Kyoka slowly furrowed her brows as she processed, thinking hard about it.

“Uh… Well, I would be sad if my parents got divorced,” she said matter-of-factly.  “But I’ve heard… not so great things about your dad?”  Todoroki nodded calmly.  “So I guess… If you think your mom will be happier now, then no, it’s not wrong.”

“I’m not sure if she’ll be happier but I feel like she’ll be better off,” Todoroki said calmly, and Kyoka laughed once, mirthlessly.

“And why are you asking me for advice on this instead of Greenie or Momo?”

“I already asked them,” Todoroki said simply.  He shifted a bit on the bench and Kyoka noted absently that his vest-thing he wore for his costume probably wasn’t comfy like that.  “But you don’t know anything about my parents, really, so I figured you’d have a unique take.”

Kyoka looked away from Todoroki then and out to the warehouse they were watching.  There still wasn’t much going on and the facility was now very dark.  They’d gotten there at about four in the afternoon, occasionally switching off to go to the nearby gas station for snacks or to go to the bathroom, and nothing much had happened in that time.  Kyoka squinted at the warehouse, thinking hard about what she could say.

“Did they say you were wrong to be happy about it?”  Kyoka asked neutrally.

“No,” Todoroki replied a bit too quickly.  “But they’re invested.  I was worried they’re biased.”

“Well… Why don’t you like your dad?”  Kyoka asked, figuring that getting right to the heart of the issue was prudent.  She slowly turned to look at him and leaned forward on the bench so that she could grip the bottom edge of it and brace herself.  Her gauntlets protected her from the cold - they were quite comfy, now that she was used to them - as she eyed Todoroki thoughtfully.  He leaned back into the bench and looked up to the night sky.

It was a bit cloudy tonight and rather cold.  Todoroki had been gracious enough to let her sit on his left side, though, and she was consequently pretty warm, all things considered.

“When I was a kid, I had an older brother,” Todoroki began, still looking at the sky.  Kyoka made a small noise of confusion.  “Not Natsuo, older than him and Fuyumi,” Todoroki clarified.  Kyoka hummed in acknowledgement; she’d met his family at family events at UA… Well, she’d met his siblings, anyway.

“His name was Touya,” Todoroki continued calmly, "and all he ever wanted was to be a Hero.  My dad’s dream was to surpass All Might and he wanted Touya to take on that dream.  But Touya was fragile and his flames burned himself when he used them.”  Todoroki paused and turned to look at Kyoka properly.  “My dad stopped training him but, when he was a bit older, he tried to prove my dad wrong, training by himself up in the mountain area they had used previously for that.”

Kyoka tilted her head, not understanding.

“He attempted ‘Prominence Burn’ without supervision,” Todoroki said, and Kyoka gasped softly.  She knew what that meant from watching television back in the day with Endeavor as the number two Hero.  “When my dad found him he was charred black from head to toe.  He had to have a closed-casket funeral, it was… It was horrible.”

Kyoka sort of expected Todoroki to cry but he clenched his left fist and a little fire flickered in his palm before going away again, instead.

“Before he died, Touya became distant from the rest of us.  He blamed me and saw me as his replacement… because that’s what my dad told him I was.”  Kyoka gasped again, sharply this time.  “He tried to attack me and, after he died, my father became more abusive.  That’s what led to this,” Todoroki said, and he gestured to his scar with his left index finger.

“Your dad did that?”  Kyoka breathed, horrified.  Todoroki shook his head, though.

“No, my mom did.  She was driven mad by my dad and she snapped.  Spilled boiling water on me.”

“God damn, dude.  What… the fuck?”  Kyoka said, at an absolute loss for words, but Todoroki actually smiled, just a little bit.

“I was very young when most of it happened.  I learned most of this in family therapy in the last year and a half or so.  Fuyumi finally got my parents to go when my mom came home from the hospital.  They’ve been living separately this entire time anyway; the divorce is just the legal formality.”

“That sucks, honestly,” Kyoka said, not precisely sure how else to respond.  “So… Are you still going to work for your dad?”

“I’m not sure yet.  I don’t… want to but I’m not sure where else I’d go,” he admitted sadly.  He then shrugged, looking a bit lost.

“You and Kats could make your own agency; he works over there still, right?”  Todoroki nodded.  “Stick it to your old man, if both of his star Hero underlings leave together,” Kyoka suggested slyly, and Todoroki made a noise that wasn’t quite a scoff and wasn’t quite a laugh.

“I just feel like I’m walking in place sometimes, like I don’t really know where I should be going or what I should be doing,” he said, and Kyoka could definitely understand that feeling, if nothing else.

“Well, how’d you get stuck with this dumb mission?”  Kyoka asked absently, and Todoroki sighed and scratched his temple with his right hand.

“Hawks,” he said bitterly, and Kyoka snorted.  “He came over to the agency and said he wanted someone to accompany you who could be trusted but what he really meant is that he wanted me to do it because Bakugou is rather… intense.”

“You have to admit, Kats is good in the field, though,” Kyoka pointed out, and Todoroki nodded.

“He’s just a jerk,” Todoroki muttered, and Kyoka giggled.  Todoroki and Katsuki never got along, sadly, especially since Todoroki was protective of Izuku when it came to Katsuki being a dweeb about things early on.

“He’s better now,” Kyoka said, and Todoroki rolled his eyes.  “Still, can’t blame ya.  He’s not for everyone.”

“I saw that he was being nicer to Izuku when we were at your birthday party,” Todoroki said.  “So I asked him if we could start over and he said yes.  Now I feel… weird about it, like I’m being the hostile one.”

Kyoka just shrugged.

“Hey, he was a dick to Izuku.  He’s trying to do better but that doesn’t mean you owe him anything.”  Kyoka brought her right hand up to point vaguely in Todoroki’s direction but not at him.  “It’s nice that you offered that to him, though.  Being the bigger person is tough.”

Todoroki nodded solemnly but didn’t get a chance to reply verbally.  Instead, there was a spectacular explosion of sound and fire and both of them turned and jumped as one of the central warehouses in the complex went up in flames.

“Well shit,” Kyoka said as she jumped to her feet, and Todoroki nodded again in agreement.

One for All flared around Kyoka, then she took off in a long, bounding jump right over the perimeter fence of the complex.  Frostfire wasn’t far behind, skating on ice with ease, then both of them landed at the edge of the complex and began to survey their surroundings.

Thankfully, there wasn’t really anybody there; the complex was officially closed, though Kyoka tensed as she saw a figure walking out of the flames.

They were… a man?  Seemingly?  They did not have human facial features and instead their face looked kind of like a dog or wolf.  They had claws that were bird-like and a reptilian, crocodile-like tail swishing behind them.  They wore a heavy trench coat over a button-down shirt and pants but it was singed and burnt by the flames.  Steam rose off their skin and they seemed to be… healing.

The man threw off his coat and Kyoka noted that his pants were armored and he had the tell-tale imprint of a ballistic vest under his shirt.  He came to fight.

“Earphone Jack, just the woman I was looking for!”  The man said, his voice loud and booming and echoing, and Kyoka tensed.  Frostfire took a step forward, fire crackling in his left hand.  “And Frostfire, too!  You’re not the one I wanted but you won’t be able to stop me, either.”

“Frostfire… You should back up,” Kyoka said, and Frostfire turned with an aside glance toward her as One for All sparked around her at maximum intensity.  Her hair flew up and around her in a blazing purple light and she knew then that this guy was one of Nine’s pawns.

The complex must have been a ruse; it was associated with an American military contractor, the NAMM Corporation, and they thought that was the target but Nine must have been trying to draw her out specifically.

Blackwhip curled around her right fist, like another layer made of purplish-black energy.  Then Kyoka disappeared, hitting the villain at several times the speed of sound with all of One for All focused into an earthshaking punch.

To her surprise, the villain didn’t really attempt to block or dodge, instead simply taking the hit right in the chest.  The raw kinetic energy of the strike shredded his clothes on his torso and left half a ballistic vest there, sending the villain flying.  Kyoka landed on two feet and watched as he connected with some kind of stationary barrel, which promptly exploded in a firestorm.

Frostfire walked up next to her and the ambient heat of One for All created steam against the cold on his right side.

“I think… we’re not supposed to immediately jump to lethal force,” Frostfire said slightly sarcastically.

“Give it a second… I doubt that he’s down,” Kyoka replied, still holding on to One for All.  She threaded her earphone jacks through her jacket and into her gloves and spun them around for maximum volume.

Sure enough, the villain walked out of the flames, now without a shirt of any kind.  He was wounded - there was blood all over him and a deep gash on his face - but it was all healing as steam rose off of him.  As he walked, he began to transform:  large horns grew out of his head, feathers elongated on his arms, and his bird-like feet and claws got larger, almost like a dinosaur.  His body was covered in feathers and fur and he looked like a true monster now.

“Ha!  My name is Chimera and that wasn’t bad for such a pathetic little girl,” the man - ‘Chimera’ - said, and Kyoka frowned at him.  Something was wrong here, something was off…

She didn’t get a chance to interrogate that thought, as Chimera opened his mouth and bright pinkish-red fire collated there, then came out with the intensity of a laser.  Frostfire pushed her out of the way as Chimera swept his attack across the complex, cutting buildings in half like they were made of paper.

Kyoka made a grunt of surprise and pain as Frostfire landed on top of her side but both of them were quick to scramble away as another fire attack came.  Where they had been, there was a smoking, glowing gash in the ground and Kyoka frowned at the sight.

“Okay, Plan B,” she said as she pressed the button on her phone that sent out a Hero SOS call to anyone nearby.  “Hope somebody competent is nearby, I guess,” she added, and Frostfire nodded without saying anything.

“You go high, I’ll go low?”  Frostfire whispered after a moment, and Kyoka held out a thumbs up.  Then she launched herself into the air, high above where Chimera had been, as Frostfire executed a long, graceful slide over a sheet of ice on the ground into the clearing.

Chimera still stood there as he looked up at her and began charging up his fire.  Kyoka responded with raw sound, the shockwave hitting Chimera like a freight train as a gigantic orange flame lance also hit him from Frostfire.  Chimera was engulfed in their attacks and disappeared from sight and Kyoka suspended herself with Float to sustain her attack.  She waited for ten full heartbeats, then released Float and dropped to the ground.  Frostfire was already on her left when she touched down.

There was a roaring sound that seemed familiar and Kyoka realized that it sounded like the recording of the language that Nine was using to control the Nomus.  Then the flames abruptly dissipated and there was Chimera.  Something was wrong with him, though; his upper body was charred and burnt but steaming and his skin and feathers were growing back slowly.

“What… the fuck?”  Kyoka said, but a voice on the radio interrupted her.

“Incoming, ladies and gentlemen!”

Kyoka looked up and smiled as she watched Ground Zero execute an explosive, graceful twirl high up in the air.  He was holding on to Red Riot’s hand but as he gained momentum, he let go.  Red Riot broke the sound barrier with a boom as he flew in his ‘Unbreakable’ form towards Chimera.  Chimera had just enough time to look up, then Red Riot hit him like a missile and his punch sent Chimera stumbling backwards with the impact.

Ground Zero landed effortlessly in front of Red Riot after that and wordlessly pulled the pin on his right gauntlet, then Chimera was enveloped in brimstone as the explosion sent him flying backwards.  Both Heroes then jumped backwards, ending side-by-side with Kyoka and Frostfire; Ground Zero on her right and Red Riot on Frostfire’s left.

“What’s the situation?”  Ground Zero said authoritatively, and Kyoka frowned.

“He’s… he’s regenerating,” Kyoka said.  “We hit him with attacks that would’ve killed anyone normal but… I think he might be…”  She trailed off as Chimera walked forward out of the smoking wreckage left by Ground Zero’s attack.

Then all four gasped in unison as they saw it:  Chimera’s covering of relative normality was burned away and underneath was revealed the familiar purple skin, glowing yellow eyes, and an exposed brain, along with a terrible, lopsided smile.

“A Nomu,” Kyoka gasped.  “They turned him into a Nomu?”

“Well, what the fuck do we do?”  Ground Zero, though his tone was measured.  Red Riot grunted to Kyoka’s left and she heard the tell-tale sound of him adjusting his quirk for battle on his body.

“I guess we just keep hitting him?”  Red Riot said, but Frostfire shook his head.

“We did hit him and it didn’t do anything,” he pointed out.

“Fire,” Kyoka said abruptly, and all three men turned to her.  “Hit him with fire, until he burns.  We have to stop the regeneration, then aim for the head.  That was how we dropped the other ones, slicing attacks to the head.”

She turned slowly to look at Ground Zero, then back to Frostfire and Red Riot.  All three of them nodded, processing.

“Alright, good plan,” Ground Zero began, and he pointed at Frostfire with two fingers and his left arm straight, “Frostfire, you’re with me.  Red Riot, stick with Earphone Jack.  Hit him hard,” Ground Zero said, and they all nodded.  Just like that, it was like they were back at UA again, challenging villains together as Heroes-in-training.  They could do this.

Kyoka took Red Riot’s hand as One for All boiled the air around her.  Red Riot took his ‘Unbreakable’ form again, then she spun around and whipped him at Chimera.  As she completed her spin, she kicked off the ground to follow.

Red Riot hit Chimera with another sonic boom, connecting his right fist right with Chimera’s face, moving too fast for Chimera to hope to block.

Kyoka ducked under Red Riot and connected with Chimera’s lower torso, shattering through the air itself in a blaze of purple.  She turned and pulled Red Riot away with Blackwhip as Chimera swiped out and tried to slice at him.

As she did, Ground Zero twirled through the air like a firecracker, then he let off a series of massive explosions down on Chimera, one after the other, suspending himself in the air with their force.  The attacks drove Chimera back and away from Kyoka and Red Riot, giving them breathing room.

Then in came Frostfire, as he front-flipped between Ground Zero’s explosions.  First came fire, burning hot and bright orange in the night.  Then he dropped an avalanche of ice onto Chimera and the heat and cold met in a snap explosion of steam and air pressure.  Chimera howled in pain, the first verbal acknowledgement he’d made of any of their attacks at all.

Kyoka and Red Riot darted forward again, together, and the world slowed down as Chimera tried to swipe out and intercept them.  His body was charred and black again, having difficulty keeping up with the raw kinetic force the four Heroes were using against him.  Red Riot jumped his attack and Kyoka ducked underneath it. 

Then both of them connected as time nearly stopped - Kyoka with her right hand and Red Riot with his left - in a devastating, coordinated punch to Chimera’s chest, driving him right to the ground with the impact force.

Kyoka landed on two feet, with her right hand on the ground, but Red Riot was surprised when Chimera used his tail to bat the Hero away.  Kyoka spun and blocked a shockingly quick punch from Chimera, using both of her gauntlets to stand up to the force.  Even then, it drove her to one knee as One for All struggled against Chimera’s Nomu-enhanced strength.

“Your friends are strong, Earphone Jack.  But what’re you, without them?”

Kyoka glared at him as her hair rose off her head in purple light.  Then, faster than a blur, she pushed his hand away and ducked under the follow up swipe.

Then Chimera’s head was separated from his body at the jaw, as Kyoka sliced true with Blackwhip from both hands.

Kyoka came to a stop a meter in front of Chimera as his body hit the ground, then doubled over with her hands on her knees, panting for breath.  That was the longest she’d ever sustained One for All at maximum output and she felt like she could drink the sea with how thirsty she was all of a sudden.

“Kyoka, look out!”  That was Red Riot, and Kyoka spun only to find Chimera’s partially headless body trying to return the decapitation favor with a quick swipe.  Kyoka barely fell over out of the attack, trying to protect her head with her arms, then Frostfire dropped down and landed with his right hand on Chimera’s neck.

“Time to go to sleep,” Frostfire said flatly as a sheer chill emanated from his hand and began to freeze Chimera solid.  It took several moments but, once it was complete, the process was absolute and Chimera wasn’t going anywhere.  The villain barely had a chance to struggle as Red Riot darted forward to restrain him and protect Frostfire as he worked.

“He survived getting his head cut off?”  Red Riot asked in disbelief, once Chimera was neutralized, as he made his way back over.  Ground Zero landed gracefully next to him and looked on with curiosity.

“That’s some shit,” Ground Zero said flatly, and Kyoka nodded firmly in agreement as Frostfire helped her up.

“What now, Earphone Jack?  He said he was after you…”  Frostfire said, and Kyoka frowned as she brushed herself off.

“Well… I kinda doubt he’s dead,” Kyoka said honestly.  “So we call Hawks and the Hero Commission and let them bring him in.  He can be their problem.”

“Did you know that a person could be turned into a Nomu like this?”  Red Riot asked, and Kyoka frowned.  “Uh… Momo was filling me in, when we were practicing,” he clarified, and Kyoka snorted.

“I had no idea.  But they’ll probably want to study him.  The real question is why they would turn him into a Nomu?  It seemed to lower his combat ability; he was strong, sure, but he was slow at making decisions.”  Kyoka put her hands on her hips, thinking things through.  “I bet if they didn’t do it, this guy would’ve been more dangerous, not less.”

“Maybe it was an experiment…”  Frostfire said aimlessly, taking a stab in the dark.  Kyoka just shrugged.

“That sounds like something Momo, Melissa, and Itsuka will figure out, not me,” Kyoka said.  Then she held out her hand to Frostfire, who looked down at it in confusion.  “Good work, Shouto… I’m glad we talked tonight.”

Frostfire looked at her hand for a few moments, then ever-so-slightly smiled as he took it and shook.

“Thank you for listening, Kyoka,” he said, and Kyoka beamed at him.

She turned back to Chimera thoughtfully.  Thankfully, it was cold out, so he would stay frosted over while they waited for reinforcements.  Ground Zero already walked away, on the phone with the Hero Commission, and Red Riot stood closer to Chimera, looking thoughtfully at the villain with his hand on his chin.  Kyoka wasn’t sure that Chimera wasn’t dead… but she had a strong feeling he wasn’t.

She looked over and saw that where the top half of his head had been, where she cut it off, it had dissolved.  Then she looked back at Chimera and frowned.

Would Nine just throw away his underlings like this?

Something felt off to Kyoka and this time she wasn’t sure what to make of that at all.

Chapter Text

Kyoka stood in her Hero costume - headphones around her neck, her arms crossed, and her stance neutral - as she stared at the glass.

Momo was to her right and Itsuka was to her left; both furiously typed on digital pads, using styluses to take down information.  Off to the far left side, Himiko stood with Hawks, also taking notes.

Hawks had his arms behind his head, his stance lazy; his expression was firm, however, with pursed lips, and he didn’t look pleased.  All five Heroes wore their costumes and Kyoka might’ve called it overkill if she weren’t angry.

Melissa stood on the far right side, wearing a three-piece gray suit and carefully monitoring the vital signs and readings of Chimera on a screen; her eyes narrowed as she took notes the old-fashioned way, on a pad of paper with a pen.  The vital display had a bunch of graphs and readouts on it and gently beeped in time with Chimera’s heartbeat.  Kyoka had inspected it when Chimera was brought in, but that was twenty minutes ago; now she paid it no mind.

In the other room, Chimera sat in a straightjacket with quirk suppressing restraints made of solid composite alloys on top of that.  His head was restrained, pointed straight forward, and he was muzzled with a quirk suppressing mouth guard as well.  He had not struggled since he was brought in and his head had regenerated promptly once he thawed.

But now he was… different.  Melissa theorized that he probably was cognitively damaged by the attack Kyoka used on him, though they were unsure if it was permanent or temporary.  The idea disturbed Kyoka, though what disturbed her more was the idea of turning a person into a Nomu - into a monster - for personal gain.

Chimera was alone in the room.  The six observers waited patiently, getting set up and prepared to take notes.  Momo and Itsuka whispered in hurried tones about mission reports and theorizing as to what quirks were native to Chimera and what were added on but Kyoka was numb to that.  She wanted to know exactly who had done this to him… and how they could live with themselves.

The observation room went starkly quiet as Detective Tsukauchi walked into the interrogation room, wearing a plain gray dress shirt and khaki slacks and carrying a manila folder.  He calmly sat down across the steel table from Chimera, facing away from the observation audience through the one-way mirror, and set the folder on the table.  Then he gently clasped his hands on the table and stared at Chimera for a few moments, seemingly; it was hard to tell from behind him.

There was a long silence.  Chimera did not react at all to Tsukauchi’s presence.

“Good afternoon,” the detective began, his voice coming through the speaker, “my name is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa and I am the lead detective on this case.”   Chimera did not react at all, not even looking at Tsukauchi; more so through him.  “Can you tell me your real name?”

There was a long pause, then Chimera spoke, his voice muffled by the muzzle.

“Chojuro… Kon…”  It sounded like he was out of breath or like he didn’t really remember but answered on instinct?  Kyoka turned and frowned at Momo and Melissa, who both looked equally confused and concerned.

“Okay, Kon.  Do you remember how you got here?”  Tsukauchi said, and his answer implied that Kon had told the truth about his name.  There was another long pause and Kyoka was just about convinced Kon wouldn’t answer, then he did.

“I… don’t…”  He admitted.  Tsukauchi didn’t say anything at first.  Eventually, he stood up and subtly looked back towards the window for a moment.  Then he pushed his steel chair in quietly and began to leave the room.

“Thank you, Kon.  You’ll be escorted back to your cell now and fed.”

Kon did not react, then Tsukauchi left the room at a brisk pace.  Kyoka waited, tapping her fingers against her arm and getting antsier by the minute, until the detective finally came back around and entered the observation area.

Kon just sat there the entire time and made no indication he even registered Tsukauchi had left.  It was… disheartening, so Kyoka’s stomach dropped into her feet.

“Good afternoon,” Detective Tsukauchi said as he entered, and Kyoka turned and frowned at him.  “He wasn’t lying.  I don’t know if he’ll be recovering from what happened but you shouldn’t beat yourself up too much, Earphone Jack.”

Kyoka squinted at him, disbelieving.

“I just… I could’ve held back!  He pissed me off and I… I wasn’t thinking hard enough about what I was doing…”  She said, feeling defeated.  Momo gently brought her hand up and rested it on Kyoka’s shoulder, giving her an encouraging squeeze.

“He demonstrated the ability to cause mass destruction, directly tried to kill you and three other Heroes, and he’s been granted additional quirks by Nine.  I think you acted with appropriate force,” Tsukauchi said gently.  “Not every fight is going to end with a clean handcuffing.”

“And we don’t know what effect being turned into a Nomu has on the human body yet,” Melissa pointed out from the side.  Kyoka turned to look at her and saw that she had spun her little display to show it off.  “The readings we’re getting from his body… aren’t promising.  I don’t think the Nomu transformation process is agreeing with his biology and I suspect that not all of the damage is from you.”

Kyoka sighed.  That made her feel better, a little bit… but she still felt bad.

“Do we have any leads on where he came from?”  Momo asked, and Itsuka made a small noise of affirmation as she raised her hand.

“Yeah, I’ve got something.  I went through my agency and got access to flight logs from the nearest air traffic control towers.  There was an unauthorized aircraft detected over the warehouse facility last night but, by the time someone got authorization to dispatch a fighter jet to try and force it to land, it was long gone,” she said, and Momo pulled her lips to the side in a pout.

“Did they identify what kind of aircraft it was?”  Momo asked, but Itsuka shook her head.

“No, it didn’t have a transponder or IFF active.  Our detainee is heavy, though, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a private jet,” Itsuka replied, and Momo and Melissa both nodded.

“So they probably have access to military-grade transport planes?”  Himiko asked from the side, and Kyoka turned to find her biting her lower lip with her canines and Hawks with narrowed eyes and irritation on his features.

“Damn JSDF never keeps track of their hardware,” Hawks muttered under his breath.  “That facility belonged to an American contractor, right?  Do we think they’re involved?”

“Unknown,” Itsuka replied flatly.  “Kon did several hundred million dollars worth of damage and we found out that they were housing illegal weapons technology there.  I suspect Kon had a dual mission objective:  destroy the facility and confront Kyoka here.”

“Why would they want to destroy the facility?”  Kyoka asked, confusion entering her tone.  Itsuka hummed and thought about it for a moment.

“I’m not sure… I do know it’s turning into a minor international incident, though.  The current government has close ties to the American government and neither one is pleased about NAMM being implicated in illegal dealings…”  Itsuka said, trailing off, and Kyoka scratched her head.  She was out of her depth when it came to international politics.

“Alright, well, I’m going to leave that shit to you big-brained ladies,” Kyoka said matter-of-factly, and both Itsuka and Momo laughed at her.  “I think I’m going to go find the boys, I gotta ask Shouto something about the charity gala coming up.”

Kyoka turned and saw that Momo specifically looked surprised, though she was smiling, too.

“Did you and him chat while you were on stakeout?”  She asked, her voice lower and in a whisper.  Kyoka smiled and nodded.

“He really is nice once you give him a chance.  It was fun… until everything exploded, y’know,” Kyoka replied, smirking.  Momo giggled and quickly wrapped her arms around Kyoka for a hug as she kissed Kyoka’s cheek.

“I’ll talk to you later tonight and I’ll text you if something comes up.  Don’t forget to submit your incident report!”  She whispered, and Kyoka held up a thumbs up and an earphone jack after Momo pulled away.

“Will do,” Kyoka said, and she gave a little wave to everyone in the room as she walked away.  Hawks, specifically, barely acknowledged her and looked like something was on his mind.  But Kyoka didn’t really know him well enough to ask about it, she reflected as she walked out into the hallway and shut the door behind her.  So, she wouldn’t pry; he would probably figure it out.

She walked down the dull bluish-gray hallways of the police department, lit by harsh white light, and stuffed her hands in her pockets.  There was some activity - officers and detectives scurrying to and fro, mostly paying her no mind and usually carrying papers of some kind - but Kyoka wasn’t interested in that right then.

She had plans to fulfill, both personal and professional.  She was torn between daydreaming about music and performing at the charity gala in front of a bunch of people - professional Heroes, mostly, no less - and about what was going on with Chimera and Nine.  Part of her, a deep part that she didn’t have the right words for, suspected there was something dark and troubling about the affair.

She suspected that Chimera had been a message:  a blood sacrifice meant to display Nine’s power to her.

All for One could take… but he could also give.

Nana added her opinion in Kyoka’s mind and she nodded.  All for One was all ‘take, take, take,’ she suspected; the opposite of One for All, the symbol of selfishness and terror, the man who would be king.  Kyoka was afraid to find out what it was truly like to be a disciple of All for One… and what the man who would be king had given to Nine as his inheritor.

Kyoka stopped musing as she reached the office she knew the boys were waiting in.  Eijiro had texted her where they were… and that Katsuki and Shouto were having a chat.  So Kyoka gently opened the door and peaked just her head in, not precisely sure what she expected to find.

What she did find was Eijiro sitting next to Katsuki, his toned arm around Katsuki’s shoulders.  Katsuki sat with his legs spread and his posture leaned forward and he had his gloved fingers steepled in front of him at waist-level.  Across from him, in another chair, Shouto sat in a fairly similar position.  All three wore their Hero costumes.

And all three were smiling.  Eijiro’s was big and wide and he looked immensely pleased.  Katsuki and Shouto’s smiles were more muted… but they were smiling.

“Haven’t killed each other in here yet, have ya?”  Kyoka said, breaking the moment.  All three boys turned to her and nodded in acknowledgement; Eijiro gave a wave with his free hand.

“No, ma’am,” Eijiro said brightly, with a little mock salute for emphasis.  “Holdin’ down the fort over here; these two are on their best behavior.”

“Excuse me, I am always on my best behavior, dweeb,” Katsuki said.  Eijiro’s expression turned intolerably smug and he leaned over and whispered right in Katsuki’s ear.

“Lying isn’t a good habit for a Hero, Ground Zero,” Eijiro said suggestively.  Kyoka only heard it because of her enhanced hearing from her quirk and Katsuki turned a bit pink and grumbled at Eijiro.  He didn’t pull away or make Eijiro move, though, and Shouto chuckled at the pair of them.

“Congratulations on your engagement, by the way.  I heard it was at a very romantic picnic in the park and that a certain purple-haired girl helped Eijiro pick the words to say,” Shouto said, and he held out his right hand as he stood up.

Katsuki looked carefully at Shouto’s hand, an unreadable expression on his face.  Then he reached out and took it from his sitting position, shaking once, firmly.  Katsuki let go and Eijiro immediately reached out and shook Shouto’s hand, a bit more vigorously, with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Kats here cried like a baby,” Eijiro said with precisely zero shame, and Katsuki went from pink to strawberry red.

“Ei!”  Katsuki hissed, and both Kyoka and Shouto snickered at his expense.  Katsuki grumbled incoherently, then he attacked Eijiro with some tickles, to which Eijiro shrieked and tried to use Hardening to defend himself.

Shouto laughed and said his goodbyes to the two men, then Kyoka moved and opened the door all the way so he could step out of the room.  They carefully closed the door behind them so that Katsuki and Eijiro could have some privacy, then Shouto motioned with his right arm so that Kyoka could lead the way down the hall.  He took up a position to her right as they walked and both of them had relaxed postures as they went.

It was a few moments before Shouto broke the silence.

“Katsuki apologized to me,” he said simply.  Kyoka hummed in acknowledgement, thinking carefully about that.

“And how do ya feel about that?”  She asked, genuinely curious.

“It made me… happy.  But I told him it was Izuku he needed to apologize to.”

“And how did he take that?”  Kyoka asked.  They reached the elevator and she pressed the button to go down, before turning her head to look at Shouto as he mulled over his response.

“He said he knew that, that he did, and that he still would, yet,” Shouto said.  Kyoka made a single noise of acknowledgement and nodded once.

“Good,” she said simply.  And she meant it; she was happy that things were going to be better for her friends and that Katsuki recognized that there was never really a reason for him to act like he had.

“It is good,” Shouto said as they stepped into the elevator.  There was a brief pause as the doors closed, then he continued, “I’m sorry I was weird in high school, Kyoka.”

Kyoka snorted and waved vaguely with her left hand at him.

“It’s fine.  You didn’t owe me anything.  But hey, we’re here now, right?”  She said, and Shouto nodded firmly.  “Speaking of which… You know about Greenie and ‘Chako, right?”

Shouto groaned and ran his hand down his face.

“They’re hopeless,” he declared firmly, and Kyoka laughed openly.  They really must’ve been if even Shouto Todoroki thought so.

“Well, I’ve got a plan,” Kyoka replied once she composed herself.  Shouto looked disbelieving.  “You wanna help me at the Hero charity gala?”

“I don’t know… Ashido’s plans never really worked, did they?”  Shouto countered immediately.  Kyoka smirked at him and pointed an earphone jack in his general direction.

“I’ve got inside information,” she said, and Shouto looked rather disbelieving.  But then he nodded and smiled ever-so-slightly.

“Then I’m interested,” he replied.  The elevator doors opened and the pair stepped out and into the lobby.

There was a lot more activity there, so Kyoka didn’t immediately start explaining and Shouto didn’t ask.  But they walked side-by-side and Kyoka felt like today, perhaps things were not off with the world.  She felt like, for all the weird and sometimes bad things happening recently, this part of her life was now how it was supposed to be.  She was happy that she knew Shouto and all of the other people she’d been blessed to meet at UA in her time as a Hero.

As they got to the front door of the police station and Kyoka smiled at Shouto - and he returned her smile, just the slightest upturn of his lips - she decided:

She was happy that she’d made a new friend.

She dreams of the skyscraper again.

This time, she falls all the way to it and catches herself gently, landing gracefully on the roof.

She stands on the skyscraper and realizes:  it’s familiar.  A landmark, then?  Somewhere she’s been?

She cannot recall.

But she thinks to herself:  maybe, the skyscraper is not a weapon.  Maybe, it is a symbol.

And then she wakes up.

Kyoka and Momo were in a café and Kyoka just sat with her chin in her right hand, smirking openly at Momo.

Momo looked at the menu, heedless of Kyoka being a huge dork.  But Kyoka knew Momo could see her being a dork - Momo had looked up a few times, not quite sly enough to hide the flick of her eyes - and the idea made Kyoka happy.

She used to feel self-conscious about just being a huge dork towards Momo in public.  Sure, they held hands and sometimes had chaste kisses but Kyoka was always a little embarrassed and a little bit afraid, like she would make Momo feel awkward.  Now, Kyoka openly stared at Momo and decided:  she did not give a single shit what anybody else thought.

Momo looked up and closed the menu, then smiled brightly at Kyoka.

“Yes, love?”  She asked, and Kyoka’s smirk became a more genuine smile.

“You’re pretty,” Kyoka replied confidently.  Normally, Momo might’ve blushed and looked away but, to Kyoka’s surprise, she leaned forward with her own elbow on the table and matched Kyoka’s pose with her own smirk.

“Am I?  Why is that?”  Momo responded slyly.

“‘Cause everybody thinks you were born perfect and fabulous.  But I know that you work your ass off to look and act like you do and accomplish what you have and I love that about you,” Kyoka replied without hesitation.  She may have been practicing her silly, dopey, sappy things she wanted to say to Momo that she’d never been brave enough to before.

“Is that so?  Well, I love that you’re here with me while I do it,” Momo said with a head tilt and raised eyebrow, and god she was pretty and perfect and, most importantly, Kyoka’s.  And Kyoka was hers and that was exactly how Kyoka wanted it.  “Did you pick something to eat or did you spend that whole time staring at me?”  Momo asked mischievously as she straightened her posture.  Kyoka smirked again, not put off in the slightest.

“I did pick out something to eat and that isn’t only a euphemism,” Kyoka said, and now Momo turned a bit pink.

“Table manners,” she said half-heartedly, and Kyoka snickered at her as she finally sat upright in her chair.

Today was not just a date.  They were going to be meeting Izuku relatively soon because he had sent them a frantic text message halfway through the week about needing assistance.

Kyoka was knee-deep in scheming and planning by that point, having created a special group chat that had a few dozen people in it.  It had all of Class A except for Ochako, all of Class B, Mirio, Tamaki, Nejire, Toshinori, Mirai - who gave her permission to use his first name when they weren’t working, much to Kyoka’s delight - David and Melissa Shield, and Mei.  All of them were in on Kyoka’s plan and she was ready to rock Ochako and Izuku’s worlds.

She kinda had to be because the charity gala was in four days and Kyoka could only imagine what kind of nonsense Izuku had gotten himself into this close to the event.  But still, until Izuku brought himself over, it was a date, so Kyoka and Momo were having a bit of fun.

“Did you decide on if we’re going to have boutonnières?”  Kyoka asked idly - silently grateful for Yuuga in that moment - and Momo nodded as she sipped her water.

“I did!  We’re going to have some very pretty crimson roses.  Ibara’s parents run a very nice flower shop and she introduced me to them,” Momo said, more than a little bit proud of her accomplishment.  Kyoka beamed at her, excited for the prospect.

“Crimson roses for love, huh?  Gonna tell the world that ‘we are here?’”  Kyoka asked playfully, and Momo giggled.

“Something like that…”  She said, her voice slightly conspiratorial, and Kyoka raised an eyebrow.

Before Kyoka could say anything, the waitress came over and took their orders.  Momo got heavier food than Kyoka to accommodate her need for lipids.  She had used her quirk a lot the other day during an incident, creating support beams to prop up a collapsing building, so she’d been eating more recently.

Kyoka got something light, not feeling like eating a lot for lunch that day.  She would be doing things with music later anyway - both for the gala and her own personal work - and she didn’t like to be too full when she did.

The waitress walked away and Kyoka eyed Momo suspiciously.  Momo, contrary to Kyoka’s teasing, could arrange surprises just fine.  Indeed, Kyoka suspected that Momo had gotten better at surprises as they got older, since she had a halfway decent poker face these days compared to their high school years.  Still, if Momo was deliberately hinting at a surprise, that meant she wanted Kyoka to ask, so Kyoka smirked at Momo.

And proceeded to ask nothing.

“Oh come on, you don’t even want a hint?”   Momo bemoaned, and Kyoka giggled at her.

“Nope.  Not even one.  I’ll take your surprise gladly, Momo, whatever it is,” Kyoka said, and Momo pouted only a little bit.

But that was when Izuku entered the café.  Both women turned to him and gave a little wave as he scanned the café, then he quickly made his way over, a bit nervous and almost fumbling over himself.  It was almost kind of funny to see him in casual clothes; typically, she was used to seeing him in UA uniform or, more recently, in his Shield Industries work clothes.  Today, he wore a blue t-shirt that said ‘t-shirt’ on it and some jeans.

Neither Kyoka or Momo were very dressy but Kyoka still snorted at him when he sat down.  He gave her a confused, slightly wounded expression, not understanding what was funny.  Kyoka, in response, slowly motioned up and down at his shirt with her right earphone jack as he sat to her right between her and Momo.

“You gotta get better clothes, my friend,” Kyoka said, and Izuku sighed heavily.

“That’s why I’m here!”  He admitted, then he propped both elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.  “Ochako told me what she was going to wear two weeks ago and I didn’t realize until yesterday that I don’t own a decent fitted suit or nice ties that match!  I also don’t know how to pick out flowers…”

Kyoka looked at him for a moment, blinking in disbelief, then slowly turned to Momo.  If they were responsible adults they would point out that Izuku and Ochako were going ‘as friends’ and didn’t really have to match as such.  But Kyoka and Momo were Izuku and Ochako’s friends, so instead Kyoka sighed and reached out to pat Izuku gently on the shoulder.

“Greenie, you came to the right place,” Kyoka declared matter-of-factly.  “Yaomomo here will get you set up in no time.”

Momo quickly nodded and when Izuku removed his hands from his face, the look of pure hope he had - combined with how his face was now slightly red from embarrassment and having his hands on it - was extremely entertaining.  Izuku looked at Momo and she smiled encouragingly.  Kyoka, meanwhile, took a sip of her water, liking how everything was coming together in the end.

“Okay!”  Momo began, and she scooted her chair over a bit to sit closer to Izuku.  “Do you know your suit sizes, Izuku?”  Izuku groaned and buried his head into his arms on the table.  “Oh dear,” Momo added, and she looked up to Kyoka, who just shrugged.  That was when the waitress came over - looking rather confused and concerned at Izuku - and asked if he wanted food.

Kyoka realized they were in for a long afternoon at that point.

It is the night before the charity gala and Kyoka Jirou is dreaming once again.

Tonight, her adult self stands in an alleyway, a ghost at the edges, and watches as little Kyoka, before she was a grown Hero, challenges her first true villain.  It is a dark night in their first year of UA that Kyoka stands against the Hero Killer, Stain.  Tenya and Native, the pro Hero, are wounded but Kyoka arrived quickly enough to get Stain’s attention before he could land a fatal or crippling blow on her friend.

Indeed, he could not because he was hit with a concentrated punch from little Kyoka using One for All.  Before this point, she has carefully hidden her true power.  Blessed with a relatively strong, ranged quirk in the form of her soundwave attacks, Kyoka saw no reason to use and abuse One for All.  Now, in the middle of her internship with Gran Torino, she is prepared to use it all.

It is not too hard for her to hold off Stain at first, as he is met with a wall of sound as he tries to attack her.  He is quick but so is she and Gran Torino has been helping her master using One for All evenly throughout her body as a strength-enhancer, building on lessons from Aizawa.  Little Kyoka and Stain dance in the moonlight and at first she thinks she might be able to win alone.

Stain cuts her, a long thin cut along her arm.  He almost licks it - Tenya tries to warn her, 'don’t let him get her blood!' - but she knocks him away with sound and the blade clatters to the ground.  She picks it up and whips it away; it goes careening into the dark night.

“You are strong… I believe you’re All Might’s protégé, are you not?  I’ve shadowed you, in the past,” the Hero Killer says, silent but for the memory of his voice that Kyoka’s dream provides.

“I am and I won’t let you hurt my friend!”  Kyoka declares as she prepares to use her new, experimental Amplifier Jacks; technology that Izuku made for her, that she plans to use to their fullest extent tonight.  Stain doesn’t get to respond, however, because he is hit by an avalanche from behind.  He lands in a crouch but there behind him stands Shouto - and Endeavor.

“It’s over, Stain.  Come quietly so I don’t have to burn you,” Endeavor booms, and Stain does not look pleased.  Steam radiates from Shouto, who still fights only with ice.

Adult Kyoka watches him, solemn now.  From her position, Endeavor looms over him, a ‘fatherly’ presence stifling him and what he wants to be.  She wonders, what does Endeavor think about what he’s done now?  Does he recognize what he’s done?  Does he see how it was wrong?  She suspects that he does, from what she’s heard.  But she wonders if that can make up for things that are already done; if that can put back together what’s already broken.

Stain is arrested that night, unable to defeat the combined power of Kyoka, Shouto, and Endeavor.  He is still in Tartarus as Kyoka lays dreaming and, in that sense, it was a success.

But she wonders as she feels alertness beginning to encroach on her:  how were things meant to go?  Was Shouto meant to be there?  Was she?  She suspects not but, all the same, she is still proud.

She is proud that she protected her friends.  And she is prouder still that Shouto might one day step out of his father’s shadow.

The thing about the annual Hero charity gala and ranking ceremony was that Kyoka had gone in the past.

Only once, though, when she was a second year at UA.  She and Denki went together, along with the then recently retired Toshinori.  It was fun and she didn’t regret having gone but it wasn’t really her scene, either.

Kyoka liked parties, certainly, but she liked fun parties.  The Hero charity gala was stuffy and mostly made up of three kinds of people:  pro Heroes who thought they were better than everyone else, politicians, and businessmen and other rich people angling for an ‘in’ with the first two groups.

Kyoka didn’t like those kinds of people, so she hadn’t gone last year even if she was a graduated pro Hero.  This year, she went and sat in on the ceremony as the Top Ten was named publicly and it was… interesting.

She mostly went to the ranking ceremony because Mirio was there, getting congratulated for his new spot as the number ten pro Hero of Japan.  The rest of the Top Ten didn’t much concern her, though she was happy that Ryukyu was still in there as number eight now.  That meant good things for Ochako and Nejire, generally.

Endeavor was still king of the mountain and still as much of a killjoy as always.  He was really enthusiastic - in a gruff, douchebag kind of way - about being the number one Hero and had a phenomenal case completion rate now but it left a sour taste in Kyoka’s mouth to see him there after what she’d learned.

Still, she thought in fairness, he did save people; a lot of people, even.  She wasn’t sure what the moral calculus of something like that worked out to be and decided it wasn’t her place to worry about it.

Hawks was there, too, clearly a bit bored.  He decided to fuck with Endeavor when he was given the microphone, lightly talking shit about how ‘Hawks needed to stay in the Top Ten to ensure people saw that Heroes could be fun, as opposed to Endeavor’s permanent scowl.’  The look of angry disapproval on Endeavor’s face was priceless as Hawks flew away to keep the microphone in his hands when Endeavor grabbed for it.

Kyoka, to her surprise - and disappointment, sort of - was ranked ninety-two now.  It was an enormous jump from her previous rank - two hundred and fifty-six - and it warranted discussion on the analyst desk by the media, to her dismay.  They discussed how her recent performance in high-profile incidents had spiked her popularity - even for her music, no less - and how ‘Earphone Jack appears to have great power in combat and could likely be a high-ranking Hero, if she applied herself.’

It really grinded Kyoka’s gears.  The problem was not about applying herself at all.  It was about protecting the secret of One for All and having the life she wanted while still helping people.  Was there something so wrong with that?  She came when she was needed, god dammit, and--

Momo reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently, and Kyoka snapped out of her spiral.  She looked over to smile at Momo and was internally grateful that at least one thing was perfect tonight.  She and Momo looked quite fetching in their matching three-piece black suits, royal red ties, and crimson boutonnières.  When they walked into the charity gala, hand-in-hand, the press went nuts and took a bunch of pictures of them.

It wasn’t a secret that they were dating but it was the first official appearance of Creati and Earphone Jack in public confirming their relationship openly.  Momo was ranked forty-three, so it was considered overall a Big Deal in the Hero world.  Izuku had warned Kyoka that the Hero nerds - her words, not his - were going to go crazy over it but she had sort of assumed he’d been exaggerating.

“Are you okay, sweetie?”  Momo asked in a low voice, leaning over to stay quiet over the noise.  Kyoka quickly nodded and smiled even wider.

Momo had her hair up in a fancier ponytail than was normal and she truly looked fabulous.  Kyoka looked pretty good, too, she would admit, and she was so glad they decided not to do dresses.  Their fellow ladies of Class A and B all looked wonderful but Kyoka knew they were all suffering in heels and trying not to trip over their own feet.

Momo and Kyoka walked together away from the punch table, a glass of punch in both of their free hands, and found some familiar people.  Himiko and Tsuyu were there, wearing a red and black dress with emerald earrings and a green and white dress with ruby earrings, respectively.  They had done their hair up in fancy plaits and looked stunning and both Kyoka and Momo beamed at the two when they walked up.

“Ribbit, everything going well for you two?  You look great, by the way!”  Tsuyu said happily, and Himiko leaned over from the other side to nod in agreement.

“Flawless,” Himiko declared, looking from Kyoka to Momo and back, and Momo covered her mouth to giggle.

“Everything is great,” Kyoka said, squeezing Momo’s hand for emphasis and gesturing at Himiko and Tsuyu with her earphone jacks.  “I’m ready for tonight to rock, how about you guys?”

“Hell yeah,” Himiko declared with a smile.  The four were distracted, however, when Itsuka and Setsuna walked up and completed their little circle.

Itsuka had on a striking light blue dress that contrasted her fiery orangish-red hair quite well.  Setsuna had gone with a darker forest green dress and both had their hair done in very pretty, regal buns.  Kyoka noted they had themed earrings - Itsuka had little T-rexes and Setsuna had little triceratops, words that Kyoka only knew from Setsuna - and she smirked at the sight.  Itsuka and Setsuna smirked right back, pleased with themselves.

“Damn, I wonder how many hours, collectively, we all spent on our makeup for this,” Kyoka asked as she scanned the ladies.  They giggled in response and agreement with the underlying sentiment.

Kyoka had purple lipstick and a dash of blush, along with eyeliner.  Momo had gone with red lipstick and she looked amazing in it.  The other ladies all had interesting and different makeup setups but Kyoka’s favorite was probably Tsuyu’s red lipstick and Himiko’s dark green lipstick; that was a nice touch.

Kyoka’s earphone jacks perked up as she listened to the song change.  There was a live band, currently playing mostly classical or jazz music.  Kyoka had memorized the listed song set, so she knew how long she had until it was show time.  They had some time, so she turned to Momo with a smile and theatrically offered her hand, palm up, old school-style, with the slightest bow.

“Would the lady care to dance?”  Kyoka asked mischievously, her earphone jacks slightly raised as she smiled.  Momo took her hand and smiled genuinely.

“Of course!”  Momo replied, sounding thoroughly elated.

“Wow, since when is Kyoka smooth?”  Himiko asked slightly sarcastically, and Kyoka stuck her tongue out as she led Momo away.  Himiko and the other girls smiled and waved as they left, happy for them.

Kyoka bobbed and weaved through the crowds, excitement building in her.  Momo’s grasp on her hand was firm but not panicked or too tight and at that moment Kyoka felt like everything in the world was right.  She felt like everything she’d ever wanted was metaphysically, cosmically lining up like a shattered mirror coming back together with a perfect, polished sheen.

She felt like she was home, as she reached an empty space on the dance floor and spun so that she could assume the correct position with Momo.

It was interesting to dance with Momo.  When Kyoka and Denki had been dating and on the rare occasion they had danced together, he was about 173cm after growing a bit in second year.  Momo, by comparison, towered over Kyoka but she also knew how to dance just fine.  Indeed, she was very graceful and Kyoka just… released, letting her worries and anxiety go, and let Momo lead.

Kyoka wasn’t worried about the usual:  stepping on toes, people watching them, or saying the wrong thing.  They didn’t say anything at all, just looking at each other and how beautiful they were at that moment, and Kyoka felt complete.

Momo was poetry in motion, with Kyoka right there alongside her as they synchronized perfectly to the music.  They danced to several songs and Kyoka didn’t care at all.  Time could pass and everyone else could leave but she and Momo would be there, dancing the night away.  Momo clearly felt the same way, with her easy-going smile and loose posture, yet still regal and elegant all the same.  Momo looked utterly in her element and Kyoka’s trust in her was absolute.

It was Momo who broke the spell, however.

“That song that just ended means you need to go get ready, love,” Momo said quietly as she brought them to a gentle stop.  Kyoka blinked a few times, coming back to reality.

“Shit, you’re right!”  Kyoka whispered urgently, then she shook her head to ground herself.  Momo just kept smiling, unconcerned.

“You’ve got this.  I’ll be standing off to the side, as is the plan, okay?  You’re gonna do great, I’m sure!”  Momo said, and Kyoka nodded.  Maybe before, she might’ve been nervous.  She might’ve been afraid that she was gonna screw it up or that she wasn’t up to this task.  But not here and not tonight.  Kyoka could do this and she felt incredible approval and excitement from Nana Shimura herself, too.

Approval from within and approval from without, as Momo gave her a little wave as they parted.

Kyoka quickly navigated through the crowds.  The plan was simple:  all of their friends who were in on it were there.  Even Toshinori made an appearance and he never went to Hero events, these days.  In some ways, he was the distraction; he was going to draw the attention of the press when Kyoka’s song began, so they wouldn’t pester.

In the meantime, some of their friends - many from Class B, though also some from Class A, led by Yuuga - would make sure that Ochako and Izuku actually stayed on the dance floor together.  Kyoka flicked her gaze over to where the snacks were and, sure enough, she saw Izuku and Ochako standing there like dorks.  Kyoka actually stopped to look for a moment and was kind of surprised.

Ochako wore a beautiful emerald green dress - subtle, girl, Kyoka thought with a smirk - and Izuku wore a rather simple black three-piece suit with a matching green tie.  Kyoka noted his tie was done correctly and wondered who had helped him with that.  Then she moved on, hurrying to the backstage area.

Mei and Melissa were going to handle sound mixing for Kyoka’s performance and David and Mirai were going to handle getting Izuku and Ochako to the dance floor initially.  The rest of Class A and B that had dates, meanwhile, was also going to take the floor and dance, too, so that Ochako and Izuku wouldn’t feel picked on or singled out.

When Kyoka reached the backstage area, Katsuki, Denki, and Hitoshi were already there.  Denki and Hitoshi were holding hands and discussing something in a hushed whisper, smiling softly to each other.  They were adorable and Kyoka loved them; when they looked at her, she grinned and nodded, moving past without interrupting further.  Then she stopped at Katsuki, who looked a bit grim.

“What’s wrong?”  Kyoka asked sincerely, and Katsuki sighed.

“Just… thinkin’, it’s whatever,” he said gruffly.  Kyoka crossed her arms and frowned.

Like most of the men she’d seen, including Denki and Hitoshi, Katsuki wore a black three-piece suit.  Denki had a purple tie and Hitoshi had a yellow tie, while Katsuki had a red tie that matched Eijiro’s dyed hair.  Kyoka had seen Eijiro earlier and he had his hair down tonight; he looked wonderful and he had a conspicuous orange tie that Kyoka quite enjoyed.

“It’s not 'whatever' if you’re gonna pout about it.  C’mon,” Kyoka said, and Katsuki sighed again, more theatrically this time.

“I’m thinking… about if it’s right for me to be involved with this?”  Katsuki said quietly, and Kyoka slowly raised an eyebrow.

She thought back to her conversations with others about Izuku and Katsuki’s past and she thought about what she’d learned.  She looked at Katsuki and he just seemed… sad right now.  She had noticed he was more melancholy when she’d texted him recently, as well, but he wasn’t one to talk about those things.  Kyoka squinted at him and thought carefully about what to say.

Nana’s words from before came to mind but as her own memory and in her own voice:

It is necessary that he reconciles with little Kacchan, so that their broken bond can be reforged anew.

“Kats… I think there’s no one else Izuku would rather be up here doing this with me and the others than you,” Kyoka said quietly, in a kind, even tone.  Katsuki looked very surprised at her, then he smiled gently, only for a moment.

“Yeah… yeah, you’re probably right.  I just feel like that’s kind of fucked up, though,” he replied, and Kyoka snorted; at least he was self-aware.

“Maybe.  But we’re here now.  So let’s go give Izuku and Ochako a kickass show, huh?  It’s the least we could do,” Kyoka said.  Katsuki looked at her for a long time before he stood up and got ready to walk out.

“You’re right.  It’s the least I could do.  But I’m ready,” he said, and Kyoka nodded firmly.  Then she led her boys out on stage and prepared to put on a show.

The previous band had left the stage as Kyoka walked out and the crowd was fairly hushed and muted.  Part of her was abruptly terrified; she had performed shows but usually they were in relatively small venues for relatively small crowds.  Tonight, at the Hero charity gala, they were in front of at least a thousand people and it was televised.

You will rise to the challenge as well, Kyoka.  I believe in you.

Kyoka smiled to herself and silently thanked Nana as she took her position at the microphone.  Denki and Hitoshi picked up their guitars and Katsuki sat very calmly at the drum set.

“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a very special song by the one and only Jirou Kyoka - the professional Hero, Earphone Jack!  Alongside her are pro Heroes Chargebolt, Ventriloquist, and Ground Zero.  Please give it up for these lovely performers!”

God, Kyoka was glad that she conned Present Mic into doing the announcement for them.  He and Aizawa were having a blast, she knew, and she was happy for them.  Maybe, one of these days, they would even admit publicly to being married.

Kyoka saw Momo in the crowd, standing next to Eijiro on the side.  Both looked up and waved when she caught their eyes.  Then Kyoka cleared her throat as Denki prepared to play the opening guitar riff.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this song is for all my friends but it’s especially for two people who are enormously important to me and to the world.  I want you all to give it up for Uraraka Ochako, pro Hero Uravity, and Midoriya Izuku, professional support gear designer for Shield Industries!”

Kyoka looked out into the crowd as she spoke into the microphone and saw Izuku and Ochako on the dance floor.  Both of them looked incredibly nervous and, if looks could kill, Ochako’s glare at Kyoka would’ve killed her on the spot.  The crowd quietly and politely clapped, playing along with Kyoka’s show.

“This song is a song for them and how I see them.  They’re both such wonderful people and I love both of them very much,” Kyoka said as the crowd continued to clap, their sound muted and reserved.  “They changed the world just by being my friends.  Thank you, Ochako and Izuku.”

Then Denki began to play the opening guitar riff and Kyoka smiled.  It started out quiet, muffled slightly by creative mixing from Mei and Melissa.  Katsuki hit the drums and Hitoshi joined in, too, and the crowd looked surprised at the faster rock song.

Kyoka raised the microphone and began to sing, feeling more confident than she had ever felt in her entire life.

“~She’s to die for.  A little murder on the dance floor calls her name.”  Kyoka paused as Denki hit his guitar.  “~A little further to his heart she holds the flame.  She is still so unsure; she always leaves him wanting more…”  Kyoka grinned and pointed out into the crowd towards Ochako with her right hand as she sang.  “~You let me down… but I can't let this go now.  Time to turn it ‘round again!”

“~She is dressed to kill and he is to die for.  She knows he would kill, just to hold her on the dance floor… So, do we dare to take this dance?  ‘Cause I'm willing to take the chance.  And tonight could be the night, baby:  just take my hand; I swear we'll make it right.”

She sang in English and she hoped Present Mic was proud, with how much she had practiced for this song.  Hitoshi, Denki, and Katsuki hit every note flawlessly and Kyoka smiled as she watched Izuku and Ochako - and the other couples of their graduating classes from UA - dance.  It wasn’t a slow song, so they weren’t slow dancing, but they were having a lot of fun.  She even saw Ochako smiling and laughing as Kyoka sang and got more into it.

Quickly, she came up to the slow part of the song where the music fell away briefly and where she sang to Ochako specifically, in her mind.

“~But she's too caught up in moves and the moonlight plays so soft on her skin.  And she's singing, he's sinking; it's the sweetest sin.  Oh, the state that she has got him in…”

“~But she - she’s too caught up in moves to even notice you.  And she's singing, she's swinging her hips.  He keeps saying and praying:  that one day he will know her lips…”

Kyoka kept singing and her boys kept playing and she was profoundly proud of them.  The song wasn’t very long - about three and a half minutes - but they pulled it off without a hitch.  In the end, Denki played off the last guitar note and there were a few moments of silence.

Then the crowd began to clap and holler and Kyoka smiled.  She was on live television and she had just played her first song - a cover, sure, but still - for a major audience and she received a positive reception.  She knew her parents had seen and she knew they were proud, as she executed a graceful bow alongside her boys.

When Kyoka straightened, she was surprised as Momo dashed up to the stage, a conspiratorial grin on her face that was unusual.  The boys stepped back and when Kyoka quickly looked at them, she saw that Denki specifically looked like he had just won the fucking lottery.

“Hello, fellow professional Heroes!”  Momo declared into the microphone, and the crowd went quiet again.  “My name is Yaoyorozu Momo, the pro Hero Creati, and the wonderful woman who just sang for you is my girlfriend!”

Momo looked at Kyoka out of the corner of her eye as Kyoka turned progressively redder.  Realization hit Kyoka… as Momo grabbed the microphone and got to one knee.

“And tonight, I wanted to ask her the most important question of my life.  I asked her, a few days ago, if she would want a surprise.  And she told me that she would be happy with any surprise from me.  So, Jirou Kyoka, this is my surprise:  will you be mine, forever?”  Momo said, and Kyoka was already screaming incoherently and nodding by the time Momo got to the question and held out an open velvet box.

They kissed on the stage in front of hundreds of pro Heroes.

And Kyoka was home.

It wasn’t until late, when the party was winding down, that Kyoka finally found Izuku.

She had to search around for a long while first, though.  Nobody had really seen him after her song and she spent a long time just basking in the glory that was ‘being engaged with Momo.’  They were interrogated for more than an hour by the press, once they realized they’d been tricked by Toshinori.  But Kyoka didn’t mind at all and, indeed, she reveled in having her picture taken with Momo over and over again.

They would be on the front page of every single news media site and Kyoka was over the moon about it.

But she still had to find Izuku, so she hunted around for a long time.  Eventually, she began searching around the edges of the party and Himiko and Tsuyu flagged her down near one of the balconies.  They let her know that they were preventing anyone from bothering Izuku and that he was out there stargazing.  Kyoka raised an eyebrow at that, before she strode out onto the balcony.

Izuku was there on the balcony, leaning over the edge of the handrail and staring at the moon.  It was a crescent moon tonight and he looked good in the moonlight.  Kyoka tilted her head as she walked over, then registered that he was making noise.

He was sniffling.

He jumped a bit as Kyoka slowly stepped up to the edge of the balcony and leaned over it to look at him.  He abruptly straightened and tried to fix himself as Kyoka raised an eyebrow, alarmed.

“Did… something happen?”  She asked cautiously, and Izuku made a rather wet-sounding giggle.

“No, no, nothing happened.  I, er… I need to go catch my ride, yeah…”  He abruptly spun and tried to run away, only to be foiled when Kyoka grabbed his right arm with an earphone jack.

“Hey, Greenie!  What’s wrong?”  She said, more urgently this time.  Izuku chuckled, but it was also a sob, and he looked miserable.

“Ah… Haha, nothing, I’m… I’m just an idiot,” he mumbled, and he stopped trying to retreat.  Kyoka released him and took a step closer, tilting her head so she could look at him properly.  He was looking down and now he had tears running down his face again.  “I, uh… I asked Ochako if, um… If we could be a couple,” he admitted.  “After your song, that is.  And… I think she was overwhelmed or… I don’t know.  I was so excited and caught up in the moment, I wasn’t thinking and I… I kissed her first.”

Kyoka frowned and waited for Izuku to continue.

“She… she said that she liked me, like that.  But she didn’t think it was a good idea for us to be together.  She was… embarrassed but she said that she liked kissing me.”  Izuku chuckled again, a bit more hysterically this time.  “She said I ‘deserved better’ and ran off.”

“Fuck,” Kyoka said sharply in a low voice, and Izuku jumped a bit.  “No, no, it’s not… anything you did,” Kyoka added, and she reached out and grabbed Izuku in a hug.

He just kinda melted, reduced again to ugly crying, so Kyoka held him up.  That was easy enough with how strong she was but she was just… frustrated.  She didn’t blame Ochako; in retrospect, her idea had been too forward and ‘romantic’ to just spring on someone without preparation.  Kyoka had just hoped that Ochako would see how good things could be if she let herself have nice things and enjoy the moment.

“It’s not either of your faults,” Kyoka said.  “Ochako… She probably just needs time to think.  I’ll talk to her and apologize, okay?”

Izuku nodded, so she helped him sit down on the little stone bench that was on the balcony of the event space.  Then she sat down next to him and just sighed.  She stared up at the moon and wondered what Nana thought about all this.  Had she seen this coming and did she already know that Kyoka would fail in the one request Nana had made of her?

No answer from Nana was forthcoming as Kyoka fiddled with her fingers in her lap and tried to comfort Izuku.

Nothing could ever be simple for the Ninth Bearer of One for All.

Chapter Text

The next afternoon, Kyoka stood at Ochako’s apartment front door.

She wasn’t precisely sure if Ochako was home.  Kyoka had gone over to the Ryukyu Agency first, only to run into Nejire and some sidekicks as they were preparing to go on patrol.  Nejire informed Kyoka - in her typical, bubbly way - that Ochako had taken a day off, which was the point that Kyoka knew that things were probably bad.

So Kyoka made her way over to Ochako’s apartment.  It was a tenth floor studio apartment - Kyoka had been there a few times before, though not recently due to how busy Ochako had been - and Kyoka took the stairs.  Ten flights of stairs was a pain, whether or not she was in peak physical condition, but Kyoka figured she needed the exercise.

Sort of.  Maybe she just wanted time to think.

Nana… did I make a mistake?

Kyoka didn’t really expect an answer as she ascended the stairs.  She sort of figured that she had fucked up.  Her plan had felt reasonable at the time.  Much of Class A and B danced with Izuku and Ochako, and although Kyoka did shout them out, she deliberately didn’t pick a slow or overly romantic song.  She just was hoping that she could give the two a moment of fun and a moment that they could see how things could be.

How things ought to be, she considered idly, as she reached the ninth floor.

You didn’t make a mistake, Kyoka.  Some things are just more complicated than they may seem.

Kyoka stopped in the stairwell and smiled, hearing Nana’s voice from within.  There was a soothing warmth to it, an accompanying feeling of pride mixed with disappointment, that Kyoka resonated with.  Then she continued walking up the stairs.  She wore a simple dark maroon winter jacket and some blue jeans, along with her pair of white and purple tennis shoes Momo got her for her birthday.

Kyoka looked at her left hand and smiled.  Momo had created their engagement rings:  matching silver bands, where Kyoka’s had a small purple gemstone with a crimson gemstone on either side, in a row of three.  Momo’s had the same pattern but with the colors inverted:  a crimson gemstone with a purple gemstone on either side.

They were relatively simple but they meant so much to Kyoka because Momo had made them.  Usually, she tried to buy things; ‘it isn’t fair if I can just make things other people have to work so hard for,’ Momo had said once during a conversation at a party at UA, and that really stuck with Kyoka.  But Momo made these rings for the two of them and Kyoka really appreciated that and the intent behind it.

They were unique and they were from Momo alone.

Kyoka stopped as she reached Ochako’s apartment door, then she sighed.  Ochako hadn’t answered her phone all day - calls or texts - so Kyoka decided it was about a fifty-fifty chance that Ochako had either gone on some kind of impulsive trip or she was just a zombie on her couch. 

Kyoka raised her hand and quickly knocked on the door a few times with the back of it.  Definitely loud enough to hear, since Ochako’s apartment was pretty tiny, all things considered.  Kyoka waited for several moments, gently tapping her foot.  She wasn’t impatient but more so… anxious.

She was about to try again - then stick her earphone jack into the wall to see if she could hear anything - when the door cracked open and Ochako stuck her head in the tiny space made.

Ochako looked thoroughly dejected, with the most ferocious bedhead Kyoka had ever seen from her and puffy eyes from crying.  She also had the beginnings of some eyebags, so Kyoka suspected that Ochako had not slept well.  She only kind of cracked the door to look and the expression she made when she saw it was Kyoka was somewhere between annoyance and panic.

“I really… don’t think I can do this today,” Ochako admitted quietly, and Kyoka frowned at her.

“I promise, I didn’t come here to tease or pressure you,” Kyoka said sincerely.  Ochako eyed her warily for a few moments, then she stepped aside and opened the door all the way.

Kyoka gently stepped in and shut the door for Ochako, locking it as well.  Ochako was already padding back over to her couch, where she collapsed back into a messy nest of blankets.  Kyoka calmly watched Ochako settle back into her little nest, sideways across the couch, then surveyed the apartment.

It was, generally, clean.  Ochako always tried to keep things orderly, she’d said in the past, because the clutter would quickly overwhelm the small space, if she didn’t.  Her coffee table by her couch, however, was a mess, with empty cans and plastic bottles and what appeared to be a few fast food wrappers.  Ochako didn’t usually do fast food, so that was the point that Kyoka realized things were pretty grim.

Kyoka slowly walked over and sat down on the end of Ochako’s small, two-seat couch.  Ochako lifted her feet to accommodate Kyoka without a word, then plopped her feet back down on Kyoka’s lap.  Kyoka didn’t really mind - it reminded her of nights spent with the girls back at the UA dorms - as she looked around.

Little had changed about Ochako’s apartment since Kyoka had last been there.  She had framed photographs on the walls - a lot of her and the other girls, some of her, Tenya, Izuku, and Shouto hanging out together, and even a few of just her and Izuku or her and Mrs. Midoriya - and Kyoka regarded them carefully.  She had never paid too much attention before - and she hadn’t known the pictures were Mrs. Midoriya - but now the realization of who the nice middle-aged lady with the green hair was made Kyoka smile.

Ochako’s apartment had little in the way of decoration otherwise.  She had a poster of the Solar System on one wall, next to a smaller one of Thirteen.  There was a small shelf on which Kyoka saw a small Hero figurine of Thirteen - and one of Ochako, in her Hero costume as well, that was new.  Kyoka tilted her head at it, then slowly turned her gaze back to Ochako.

Ochako didn’t have a television or any real kind of recreation in her apartment, save for a few old board games.  She mostly read books for fun when she wasn’t going out with people or actively doing something.  Kyoka realized, since there wasn’t any book visibly near Ochako and she was in the dark in her apartment except for scattered light through her partially-closed blinds, that she’d just been… sitting here, all day.

“Did you already have the day off today?”  Kyoka asked, mostly for the sake of conversation.  To her surprise, Ochako nodded.

“I was supposed to go spend the day cooking with Inko,” Ochako said, then she made a noise that was not quite a scoff and not quite a laugh.  “I’m such a fucking idiot.”  Kyoka slowly blinked at her but said nothing.  Eventually, Ochako continued, her expression annoyed and rueful, though she wasn’t looking at Kyoka directly, “I just… I don’t wanna talk about it.  Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Kyoka said.  “Is there anything else on your mind?”

“Nightmares,” Ochako blurted out.  “I just… I’ve been having really bad nightmares for the past year or so.”

“About… Can you tell me what they were about?”  Kyoka asked, hesitating.  She wasn’t exactly good at this type of thing - Momo was the listener, the big sister of Class A, not Kyoka - but she would try her best.  Ochako hesitated, like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to answer.  When she spoke, her voice was tiny but audible in the silent apartment.

“It’s usually… people I can’t save,” Ochako admitted quietly.  She curled in on herself under her covers.  “Incidents or… disasters that I responded to where people died.  Sometimes, I dream that I didn’t save anyone… and sometimes, the people in trouble in my nightmares are my friends, instead.”

Kyoka pulled her lips to the side in a pout and gently squeezed Ochako’s feet under the covers in her lap, trying to be encouraging.  Kyoka had nightmares, rarely, about work but she also didn’t work full-time like Ochako did.  Ochako was also primarily a rescue Hero, so she saw the ugliest parts of incidents:  the car crashes and the collapsed buildings, the sinking ships and the train wrecks.

Kyoka had seen some shit, in her time.  Ochako had seen so much worse though, and Kyoka knew it.  They had never spoken openly of it, though, among the girls.  Ochako never seemed willing to, and they didn’t want to pry.

Ochako licked her lips and still looked away from Kyoka, towards the wall with the photos.

“A few weeks ago, I had… I had this really vivid nightmare and, uh… in it, Deku… He was a Hero, with us in Class A.”  Kyoka’s eyebrow shot up to her forehead.  “He… We were in this big battle but I don’t think it was a real memory.  I guess it was the nightmare.  And there was this terrible villain I had never seen before and he… he destroyed most of the city in a single attack.”

Ochako began to cry and pulled her blankets close.

“Deku and Shouto and Bakugou, they… they were strong, so much stronger than us, and they… they just left us, Kyoka.  They left me and I was trying to save people but I felt like I couldn’t save everyone and they died.  So many people just fucking died and it was all for nothing.”

Kyoka was speechless but the words just seemed to tumble out of Ochako.

“In the end, Deku… Izuku was in a coma and I was afraid he was never going to wake up.  And I could hear all the voices of the people I didn’t save but there was… There was a lady - I couldn’t see her, only hear her.  She told me… that I would always be a Hero to her.  Then I woke up and I was having a panic attack…”

Kyoka stifled the urge to laugh, rather hysterically.  She wasn’t about to explain Nana Shimura, the guardian angel standing out of time, to Ochako.  But Kyoka wasn’t sure what was more frightening to her:  how powerful Nana was… or how Ochako just kept soldiering on, in spite of it all, and held it all in for the sake of others.

“But that didn’t happen,” Kyoka said, not precisely sure that her statement was true, in a cosmic sense.  “You’re here and Izuku is here and those people didn’t die.”

“It felt so real, though.  And it’s what I’m… It’s what I’m so afraid of, every day I go out.  What if it’s the last day I ever go out?  What if it’s all for nothing?  What if I die for nothing?”

Ochako’s tears ran down her chin and soaked her blanket but she didn’t move to stop them.  Kyoka leaned forward towards the coffee table and picked up a tissue box - it felt about half-used already, she noted based on its weight - and handed it gently to Ochako.  She took it but sort of just let it limply land in her lap after she did.  Kyoka frowned at Ochako, trying to find the right words and failing.

“I think… you can’t die for nothing,” Kyoka said, trying to work it out on the fly and desperate to make things better.  “You already have saved so many people.  Even if… that did happen, it would matter.  You would still have been important.”

Ochako chuckled, a wet, uncomfortable sounding noise, then growled in irritation.

“I’m just tired, Kyoka.  I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of always being a wreck, I’m just… tired.  I want to have a normal life, I really do, but how can I when I’m so afraid… if I slow down for even a moment, everything will fall apart?”

“Have you considered going to see a therapist?”  Kyoka asked quietly, and Ochako barked out a laugh, fully void of any real amusement.

“And then what?  They decide I’m not suitable for Hero work anymore and it was all for nothing that way, instead?  I’m… I’m too afraid,” Ochako said.  She started out loud and bitter but she was small and quiet again by the end, staring blankly at the box of tissues in her lap.

“You can’t do it all on your own,” Kyoka replied gently.

“That’s easy for you to say!”  Ochako snapped.  Kyoka did not flinch, though her expression fell.  “You’re so strong… I don’t understand why you’re so strong or what your quirk is and, honestly, I don’t care.  You’re my friend and I love you but I… I’m also jealous of you because I wish I had what you had, sometimes.”

Ochako looked like she felt incredible guilt about the admission she had just made but Kyoka didn’t really blame her.  She had long learned that their superhuman society valued power, status, and wealth, even if it wasn’t something she specifically focused on.  Kyoka was a part-time Hero with one of the most powerful quirks in the world; Ochako was a full-time Hero with a very specific utility quirk.  But it was Ochako who had to work hard for everything, while Kyoka got lucky.

Kyoka squeezed Ochako’s feet again and plastered a smile on her face.

“I don’t think you should feel bad,” Kyoka said calmly, and it was the truth.  “But I think you should let your friends help you.  We want you to be happy, Ochako.  We can’t help you get there if you don’t let us help.”

“Do I deserve to have your help after the stunt I pulled?”  Ochako asked bitterly.  Kyoka scowled at her in turn.

“Why wouldn’t you, dork?  We love you!  The worst thing you could do is keep running away from us.”

Ochako giggled wetly and she had slowly stopped crying as they talked.  She finally worked out a tissue from the box and tried to fix her face, though she went through about four more before she wasn’t a total mess.  Kyoka thought about it as Ochako did her thing and made her decision by the time Ochako was done.

“How about this,” Kyoka said, and Ochako looked at her curiously, “you go shower and clean up, then you and I can take a stroll through the city and do whatever you want and we won’t talk about boys or work or any of that trash.  Just you and I.”  Ochako looked skeptical, so Kyoka sweetened the deal.  “I’ll also buy you as much mochi ice cream as you can eat.”

“You’re bad,” Ochako said, but she smiled.

“Gotta make things up to ya somehow,” Kyoka countered with a grin.  Ochako looked at her with a small amount of skepticism for a few moments.  Kyoka was almost afraid she was going to decline after all.  But then Ochako nodded and got up so she could go get ready.

They had a nice day out… and after they were done, Ochako looked just a little happier again.

It was about a week and a half later that Kyoka and Ochako were together again, though it was for a briefing, this time.

Kyoka stood in her Hero costume, next to Mina and Hanta on her left and Ochako and Nejire on her right.  Mina, Hanta, and Nejire hadn’t changed their respective costumes much since they were at UA and all of them were pretty neat and functional.  Mina and Hanta did have winter variants now that had thicker padding and special thermal material, though, and Hanta’s specifically was set up so that it could cover his arms and hands but still dispense tape.

Hanta looked over to her and shot a thumbs up with his left hand, as his right arm was around Mina’s waist.  He had his helmet visor flipped up and Kyoka smiled and nodded at him before turning back to Ochako.

Ochako’s new costume was… kinda wild, if Kyoka was being honest.  It had armor on the chest now - a sort of flat plate, with sections so it could bend - and new armored boots and gloves that were more functional than her old boots had been, sans heel.  The gloves had retractable fingertips as well, to accommodate Ochako’s quirk, and her wrist-guards had improved grappling lines in them.

Her boots now had rockets and she had additional rocket jets in a thruster pack on her lower back.  The most interesting thing to Kyoka was the addition of additional zip wire devices on Ochako’s hips so that she could zoom around but keep her hands free for saving people or fighting.  The zip wires on her hips were lighter and not really suited to combat, while the ones in her wrist-guard launchers were heavier and meant to hit people if necessary.

Kyoka knew all of this because Izuku had nerded out about it when they were at the café with him, once he got his suit situation fixed for the Hero charity gala.  She actually paid attention that time because Izuku had never looked more excited than when he talked about Ochako’s gear.  He still had to explain it twice because he talked too fast but it was neat.

All of it was still in Ochako’s preferred colors of white, pink, and black, with a few neon green highlights, and she honestly looked very cool.  It was less of a ‘space bodysuit’ now and more like something actually meant for field work.  It also covered her butt from the press, which was a nice touch.

Ochako saw that Kyoka was looking at her and tilted her head, a questioning look on her face.

“New costume, looks neat,” Kyoka said, not meaning to imply anything else.  Still, Ochako pouted a bit and looked away.

“It’s very useful.  I’ve gotten a lot of practice with it since… I got it,” she replied with only a touch of dejection.  Kyoka hummed in agreement and also looked back to the front.  She didn’t want to tease Ochako about it.

Momo and Itsuka were setting up a presentation for them.  They had been selected - along with Setsuna, who was somewhere behind Kyoka and to the left, taking notes for Itsuka so she could focus - for a mission coming up very soon, as they entered the middle of December.  Kyoka hadn’t gotten any details about it from Momo yet but she was unconcerned; the briefing would tell her what she needed to know, she was sure.

“Okay!  Thank you for coming, ladies and gentle… man,” Itsuka said, and she smirked at Hanta.  Hanta laughed and raised a hand in a little wave.

“I’m just along for the ride,” he said with a lazy grin, and the girls giggled at him.

“Let’s begin!”  Momo declared, her tone now all business.  The other Heroes in the room nodded firmly.  “Our mission briefing today is going to be in relation to this train line.”

The screen they’d been fiddling with turned on and the group were presented with a map of south-central Japan.  A railway line was highlighted in blue, showing the route between the City of Toyama and the Port of Nagoya.  Kyoka raised an eyebrow; she’d never been out that way before and the route was kind of roundabout, going far to the west and around the coastline before curving back inward towards the port.

“The NAMM Corporation has a special freight train that will be going down this route in a few days,” Itsuka said, also gesturing to the image as Momo dropped her hand.  “It will not have very many people on it - mostly at the front and back - but it is carrying special military technology that is going to be transferred to the JSDF in Nagoya.  From there, they will be transporting it to an unknown, secure location.”

“Are we… attacking the train?”  Nejire asked, confused.  Itsuka shook her head.

“No.  We believe that Nine plans to attack the train, along with two of his associates and, possibly, Nomus.  We intercepted a message that seems to have been intended for Nine, sent by an individual named Kiruka Hasaki, callsign ‘Slice.’”  Itsuka turned to look at Kyoka specifically.  “Earphone Jack encountered Slice a few months ago and she is considered a B-rank villain.”

“We intercepted a message?”  Ochako asked, her tone one of disbelief.  Kyoka couldn’t help but agree.

“We did,” Momo replied.  “But I share your concern.  This may be a trap.  Which is why we’re sending so many of you and why Hawks will be shadowing you from afar, as well.”

Kyoka sighed at that.  She was still annoyed at Hawks; she found out that he had sent Katsuki and Eijiro to be in the vicinity of Shouto and Kyoka the other day without telling Shouto and Kyoka.  That was why they had been so close and able to respond to the distress call.  Hawks was a hard guy to work with because he played everything too close to the damn vest and thought he could do things all alone, which was irritating.  At least this time, she had a heads up.

Be mindful of things freely given by the man who takes everything, Kyoka.

Nana added her own input and Kyoka nodded to herself.

“The plan, in simple terms, is that a helicopter will bring you to the train and shadow it from above.  If the train is attacked, you will be able to react as is appropriate.  If not, well, then you’ll land and go on with your day,” Momo said, gesturing to the screen as it changed to an image of the train itself.  “The train will be traveling for approximately four hours and civilian passenger train traffic will be cleared in front of it when it begins its journey, on order by the government.”

“I don’t like this plan,” Kyoka said.  Something was off with this and it gave her chills.

“I don’t exactly love it, either,” Itsuka admitted calmly.  “But they wouldn't tell us what the train’s cargo is, so this is what we’ve got to work with for now.”

Kyoka frowned and shared a glance with Ochako.  She looked just as perturbed and both of them silently agreed without words, simply from experience.

Their instincts said the same thing:  they were missing a crucial part of the puzzle.

In retrospect, Kyoka should’ve figured being stuck on a cargo helicopter for four hours would suck.

At least her friends were having fun.  Mina and Setsuna sat together, with Hanta on the other side of Mina; all three of them were across from Kyoka and giggling about something.  Kyoka caught ‘Toru’s wedding’ and ‘floral arrangement ideas’ and tuned it out.

She had her own wedding to plan, so she wasn’t about to get invested in planning someone else’s - especially when Mina was so enthusiastic about it.  Hanta looked quite invested, though, and he occasionally threw out ideas in hushed whispers as Mina made notes on her phone.

To Kyoka’s right, Ochako sat, followed by Nejire, both kind of staring off into space.  They had been chatting for about an hour before but now, almost two and a half hours into their flight, they seemed to have run out of small talk.  Kyoka figured that would happen, considering they worked together and saw each other all the time anyway.  At one point, Kyoka heard Nejire giving Ochako hushed advice regarding Izuku but Kyoka didn’t eavesdrop.

All of them wore parachutes and their Hero costumes, ready to go at any time.  However, the helicopter pilot and copilot reported status every fifteen minutes and nothing had come up on radar or from visual inspection.  Hawks also occasionally spoke into their earpieces but he also reported nothing.

Kyoka was about ready to let the steady hum of the helicopter put her to sleep, wondering if this was really a wild goose chase.

Part of her was kind of concerned about that.  She wondered, what if Nine was deliberately trying to draw them towards this specific place so they wouldn’t be able to respond when he attacked somewhere else?  She had discussed that with Momo and Momo let her know that the Hero Commission had raised the general Hero alert level for the rest of the week and mobilized part-time Heroes for double strength patrols.

That wasn’t much, Kyoka figured, against the successor to All for One but she supposed it would have to do.

“We have an unidentified flying object on radar, please stand by.”

Kyoka jumped and sat upright.  That was the copilot, over the radio.  All of her friends were also paying attention now and now they were working.  They were ready to be Heroes.

“We have incoming, brace for impact!”  The pilot yelled, distorted by the radio.

Kyoka instinctively covered her head and curled inwards as there was a loud boom and violent shaking of the aircraft.  Her headphones automatically muted the sound of the explosion but, when she dared to look around, she saw that most of her colleagues were nursing their ears.  Kyoka leaned forward and to her horror she saw that something had hit the back of the helicopter and now, in the back, there was only twisted metal and open sky.

“We need to jump and get off the helicopter!”  Kyoka tried to yell, but between the vastly increased noise of the wind and everyone still a bit deaf from the explosion, most of her colleagues just looked confused at her.  Alarms began to blare red on the helicopter and even through her headphones Kyoka's head began to pound.

Uravity nodded, though; her headset also had noise cancellation.  So both of them unbuckled and stood, then gestured to their parachutes.  Lizardy, Pinky, and Cellophane nodded in recognition and also unbuckled.  Kyoka turned and saw that Nejire-Chan looked dazed and had a bit of blood running down the side of her head.

“Fuck,” Kyoka muttered as she moved over to her fellow Hero.  Uravity looked like she wanted to assist but Kyoka waved her off and pointed at the back.  “Nejire-Chan!  Wake up!  We need to get out of here!”

Kyoka gently tapped Nejire-Chan’s cheek with her right, gloved hand, and that worked to startle the blue-haired Hero awake.  She had unfocused, bleary eyes but she seemed to register where she was after a moment.

“Did I miss the cue to jump…?”  Nejire-Chan asked, slightly delirious but also deliberately joking, and Kyoka chuckled and helped her unbuckle.

“Not yet, I’m still waiting for ya,” Kyoka said.  Her colleagues quickly filed out the back of the helicopter and jumped as Kyoka helped Nejire-Chan get up and steady on her feet.  There was an awful sound of metal-grinding-on-metal and Kyoka turned and saw that the helicopter had lost its tail.  That was bad, she realized to her horror; they might start to spin.

“Time to go!”  Nejire-Chan declared, having found her bearings, then she pushed Kyoka towards the back of the helicopter.  Kyoka didn’t waste any time.  She jumped right out, then immediately flattened her body to fly towards the train below.

Looking around, she didn’t see Nine and that concerned her.  She did see two parachutes, which she assumed were Pinky and Cellophane since they didn’t have the ability to fly on their own.  They were on track to land in a safe clearing to the side, so Kyoka decided they were fine and turned away.

Kyoka saw Uravity and Lizardy standing on top of the train at the back.  They appeared to be trying to get a door into the back car open, as Kyoka flew towards them like a missile.  Kyoka stopped her rapid descent gracefully with Float, landing on top of the train as well.  It wasn’t moving that fast at that point but it was windy and the wind had quite the chill to it.

Right now, they were still in a more remote, slightly wooded and hilly area, with snow around them.  That would change soon, though; the train was scheduled to pass through a more populated area in about twenty minutes.  That wasn’t a lot of time to work with, so she briskly walked over to where the other Heroes were struggling.

“Can’t get it up,” Uravity grunted as her gloved fingers slipped off the hatch.  She took a step back as One for All burned purple around Kyoka, then she punched down and shattered the hatch down into the train.  Kyoka looked up and smiled at Uravity, who nodded and dropped deftly into the hatch, feet-first.  Lizardy looked around, and Kyoka glanced over at her with a questioning expression.

“There!”  Lizardy said, and Kyoka followed her pointing and saw Cellophane latch onto the back of the train with tape and fly over, Pinky in his other arm.  They landed on the back of the train and Kyoka smiled.

“Lizardy, you should fly around to the front.  The train has staff, right?  We need to evacuate them.”  Lizardy nodded at Kyoka as she spoke.  “See if you can’t figure out what the hell the cargo is, too, and why they want it.”

Lizardy laughed and split into a bunch of pieces, quickly flying down towards the front of the train.

Kyoka turned and glared, looking around.  There weren’t any signs or tunnels coming up, so it was safe for her to stand there for now.  She began to slowly walk down the train, staying on top of the cargo cars and searching for any signs of Nine.  One for All burned at low intensity around her, mostly to keep herself warm but also to make sure she was ready for any attacks.

She was somewhat surprised when a man dropped down in front of her, a few train cars ahead.  He looked at her, though she could only really see the top of his face and his shaggy gray hair.  Otherwise, he wore tactical gear but most of his body underneath was covered in strange, reddish wrappings.

He looked at her for a moment, then down at the hatch he had landed near on top of the boxcar.  Kyoka glanced to the side and saw that he must have come from a position on the mountain, then turned back to him.  He pulled some kind of long knife from his back and used it to rip off the hatch.  Then he put his hands into the opening and Kyoka saw the wrappings coming off his body and going into the train.

“What the hell…”  Kyoka muttered as she began to walk forward again, faster and jumping over gaps.  Whoever he was, he wasn’t a friendly Hero.

The man pulled… something, out of the train.  They seemed like animals and other figures?  But they were all covered in reddish-maroon wrappings and, after they came out of the train, they hovered around the man like plush toy minions.  All of them were still connected to him and it gave him the appearance of being a demented puppet show in motion.

“You’re in the way, Earphone Jack,” the man said, his tone slightly maniacal.  Then the puppets around him launched themselves at Kyoka.

She held out her hands and blasted the first wave away with raw sound but the man just let the puppets be destroyed and stuck his hand back down into the train car to find more.  Wave after wave came and Kyoka blasted them away the best that she could with sound.  However, while his attacks weren’t hitting her, they were preventing her from moving forward.

“God dammit,” Kyoka said as she blasted another wave away.  One for All burned bright around her, purple light and smoke surrounding her.  Then she launched herself at the villain, intending to hit him too fast for him to react to.

Kyoka was surprised when he released all of his puppets and simply threw his wrappings forward in an arc.  She ran right into them, planning to try and shred them, then they took over her costume and gear, wrapping her up.  Kyoka grunted in annoyance and panic but the wrappings covered her from head to toe, muffling her.

“My quirk doesn't work on living things but I can take over your costume just fine.  Foolish Hero,” the man said, and Kyoka tried to scream in annoyance as she made One for All burn at maximum intensity.

It wasn’t quite hot enough to burn the wrappings, though, and she could only see still with one eye that wasn’t covered.  The man stood in place and he lifted her into the air as she struggled in vain.  She couldn’t move her arms or hands very well and couldn’t get her earphone jacks back down through her sleeves.  They had come loose when she moved to punch him instead of using her soundwave attacks.

She saw that the man was still near the hatch but he was looking at her.  He brought her closer and she watched him pull out his big knife again with his other hand.  Kyoka tried to scream, to get the attention of her allies, but she couldn’t speak.

Kyoka was saved when Uravity came flying off from the side and punched the villain in the face.  He grunted and swung his blade wildly.  Uravity ducked the attack and kicked the man hard at the knee.  It gave out and he fell over with a surprised yell.

The wrappings on Kyoka loosened and she connected her earphone jacks to her gloves.  Then she blasted the wrappings away with sound and landed on two feet.  The man was trying to get back up as Uravity flew back into the air with a pink glow and orange jet exhaust but Kyoka marched right over to him and picked him up with one hand as One for All flared around her.

She was pissed.

So she judo flipped him in a long arc with Blackwhip and slammed him right into the roof of the train boxcar, where he went through it with the force.  The metal buckled and gave, then she walked over after the fact to see that he was unconscious and bloodied, face-down on the ground.  Pinky and Cellophane ran over then, looking very confused on the other side of the hole in the roof of the train car.

“Damn, girl,” Pinky said, and Kyoka snorted in amusement.

“What’s the status of evacuation?”  Kyoka asked as Uravity flew back around and landed next to her.

“Mostly done,” Lizardy said into the radio.  “The train staff didn’t want to leave but we have legal authority here… and I may have punched one of them from behind while standing in front of him when he got aggressive.  They were afraid of me, after that.”  Pinky cackled remorselessly and Kyoka smiled.  “I think the train has been sabotaged, though.  When I got to the front, the controls had a device on them that I couldn’t remove.  The staff said that one of the villains put it there and threatened them.”

“You three probably wanna get off then, I think…”  Kyoka said, looking around for Nejire-Chan.  “I think this is going to turn into an airborne fight soon-- hey, wait a second.”

Kyoka paused and turned to Uravity, who seemed to have the same thought at the same time, as she got rather pale.

Is the train moving faster than before?

The train abruptly lurched and Kyoka almost fell off.  Uravity grabbed and steadied her and Kyoka nodded in thanks as she felt the air getting quicker on them.  It wouldn’t be safe to be up here if the train got much faster and Kyoka’s mind raced as she considered what she could do about that.

“Pinky, Cellophane, grab whoever is left and get off,” Uravity called to their colleagues.  “Lizardy, radio Hawks.  We’re gonna need him.”

The other Heroes yelled out acknowledgement, already moving.  Uravity and Kyoka both turned and finally caught sight of Nejire-Chan.  She was fighting a villain with a familiar head of bright red hair, though it was easier to see now in the bright of day.  Nejire-Chan launched a twirling yellow energy blast, which the villain - Slice - dodged gracefully as she stood up on her long hair like a second set of legs.

Nejire-Chan came flying back towards Kyoka and Uravity and came to a spectacular stop, yellow energy flaring from her hands as she used it to slow down.  She almost looked like Katsuki at that moment but the look of pure determination on her face when she looked back wasn’t quite the same kind.  Nejire-Chan was focused and she was unhappy and she was dangerous when those things were true.

“The train is getting a lot faster,” Nejire-Chan said, her wording somewhat absentminded but her tone serious.  Kyoka and Uravity nodded, then all three women took off into the sky.

“Nejire-Chan, Uravity, focus on Slice,” Kyoka called out as she hovered in the air with Float.  “I’m gonna try and stop the train.”

“Roger, Earphone Jack,” Nejire-Chan said, far enough away that Kyoka heard her more through her radio than out loud.  Then Nejire-Chan and Uravity took off in tandem - the former in a blazing yellow twirl, and the latter in an orange glow from rocket boosters - and moved to take on Slice.

Kyoka brought her leg back as One for All flared around her.  Then she kicked hard, using air pressure to propel herself towards the front of the train and catch up.  When they had started, the train was going at a fairly slow 55 KPH, not in any particular rush.  Now it must have been rapidly approaching 120 KPH and, at the rate it was accelerating, it wouldn’t be able to stop.

It wouldn’t be a train anymore.  It would be a cruise missile.

Kyoka landed near the front of the train in a roll and kicked off into the air again, trying to figure out how best to approach the issue.  She was afraid to just derail the train because she didn’t know what the hell was on it.  She also had to be sure that it was empty of people, too.

She landed again and had just come up to a standing stop when a purple laser grazed her arm.  Sharp, searing pain went across her nerves and she yelped in surprise as black smoke rose off her costume.  Kyoka looked up and time slowed as she was met with Nine, standing on a yellow disc of energy and keeping pace with the train from the side.

Then, time stopped, as Kyoka heard the sound of someone snapping their fingers.

She slowly turned, confused.  There was a presence to her right, as all the hair on her neck stood up.  But when she turned, she wasn’t met with Nana Shimura.

She was met with a man.  He had long, light-colored hair, soft, almost feminine features, and a quiet smile as he stood next to her on the train car.  His hands were held loosely at his sides and he was looking intently at Nine.  Though he smiled, there was a darkness in his eyes and Kyoka could feel the anger and resentment rolling off the man like boiling lightning.

Then the man turned to her and his aura of malice was abruptly gone.  He just looked… happy.

“Hello, Jirou Kyoka.  My name is One for All.”

Kyoka blinked slowly at the man as time hung at a standstill around them.  There was a disorientation to that and she almost wanted to lean over and throw up, as it felt like she was going out of her fucking mind.  The surreal unreality of being able to move and think and speak and hear as all of reality came to a devastating halt around them felt like the ocean itself crashing down on her.

“You don’t have to speak.  That would be unwise.  Just listen and I will help you,” One for All said matter-of-factly.  He turned back to Nine and frowned for the first time.  “This man… ‘Nine.’  He claims to be Nine.  But he is no longer Nine.  He is a monster wearing Nine like a suit and you would do well to be wary of him.”

One for All turned back to Kyoka.  She saw a snowflake hanging in the air and wondered deliriously if maybe it would never fall.

“The man who would be king - my brother, All for One - is not as dead as I hoped.  Be mindful, Jirou Kyoka, of the true nature of the threat you face.”

And then, like that, time flew, hitting Kyoka like an earthquake as she instinctively ducked another laser attack from Nine.

“You’re quick!  I should hope so with the power you’ve been given and clearly don’t deserve,” Nine said, his voice more maniacal and strange than last time.  He sounded… different.  He sounded like someone else, as One for All flared around Kyoka and she launched a devastating soundwave attack at him with her right hand.

Nine held out a large disc of yellow energy to block the attack and Kyoka was unsteady on her feet as the train continued to accelerate.  But she kept at it and added her other hand.  Slowly, she pushed Nine backwards as he kept pace with the train, traveling on his moving yellow light disc, and Kyoka grit her teeth in frustration.

His power was awe-inspiring, far greater than any villain she had ever seen.  She wondered if she really was up to this task after all.

Kyoka stopped her attack and jumped high into the sky as Nine launched out some kind of physical attack.  It looked like hardened, almost metallic tentacles, sprayed out like a fan of knives and colored black and red; crimson lightning crackled violently across them as they shattered the mountain behind where Kyoka had been.  She flew into the air and front-flipped, trying to think of a goddamn plan on the fly.

What would Momo do?

Gravity was quick to claim Kyoka as she brought Blackwhip out in a wide arc and flipped forward.  Ten small sonic booms exploded in the air as Kyoka began to spin and gain momentum.  She decided if she were Momo and raw force wasn’t sufficient, she would leverage physics, as One for All flared at maximum output.

She flew fast towards Nine, spinning forwards like a wheel, and he held out another yellow shield.  This time, when Kyoka hit the shield with Blackwhip, it cracked in the face of her force and momentum, then it began to buckle.  Kyoka released Blackwhip and punched forward and the shield cracked again.  She drew her fist back one more time and glared at Nine as her hair flew up in a brilliant purple light and she suspended herself with Float.

“You’re not as clever as you think, All for One,” Kyoka said angrily, and for just a moment even Nine looked surprised.  He looked like he wanted to ask how she knew but he didn’t get a chance.

Kyoka hit the yellow shield with all of One for All and watched as it - and her right gauntlet - shattered and sent Nine flying.  He hit the ground in an explosion of snow and rock.

Kyoka didn’t dwell on him, though, as she turned back and saw that the train was rapidly getting away.  She kicked her leg and went flying after it, determined to stop it.

“Is everyone off that goddamn train?”  Kyoka yelled into the radio, hoping anyone would be able to answer her.  She kicked her leg back again, striving to catch up as the train must have been up to 135 KPH.

“Confirmed, we got everyone off.  We also got the other villain you fought, he’s in custody,” Lizardy replied over the radio.  Before Kyoka could thank her, Pinky interjected.

“Earphone Jack, the cargo is explosive!  They’ve got live munitions on that train!  If it hits a populated area and crashes, we’re looking at five digit death tolls, at least!”

“Dammit…”  Kyoka said as she reached the back of the train.  Her footing was unstable and she almost slipped but she forced herself forward.  They were approaching the populated area fast and she only had a few minutes left at most.

“Die!” 

Kyoka scrambled out of the way of an attack on instinct as all the hair on the back of her neck stood up straight.  Red, needle-like projectiles coated the train where she’d been, so Kyoka kept moving forward, using One for All to push against the wind hitting the train.  She glanced back and saw Slice sailing through the air, kicking off rocks and trees using her hair quirk to keep up with Kyoka.

“I need a little assistance here,” Kyoka yelled into her radio.  She glanced back again and saw Uravity come rocketing from the side, her face bloody but her expression fire, as she cracked Slice across the face with a right hook.

Uravity flipped away from the piercing retaliation from Slice’s hair, zip wires flying to pull her to the side, then Slice yelled in surprise as Nejire-Chan slammed her into the ground with an energy blast.  Kyoka turned back forward and grunted as she charged towards the front of the train.  At the rate she was going, she wasn’t going to get there in time.

“Need a hand?”  Hawks said, and Kyoka screeched in surprise as he grabbed her from under her shoulders and flew.

“God dammit, Bird Brain, you’re a little late!”  Kyoka exclaimed, and Hawks laughed at her as they flew towards the front of the train.  “I need you to drop me off at the front car.”

“And then what?”  Hawks asked as they went.

“And then I’m gonna make a mess of this train,” Kyoka said, and Hawks grunted in acknowledgement.

“One of these days, I’m gonna ask you to tell me the truth about that quirk of yours, Earphone Jack,” Hawks said as they closed in on the front car.  Kyoka scoffed at him and prepared for him to set her down.

“In your dreams, dude,” Kyoka shot back, slightly playfully but mostly serious.  She looked up as Hawks set her down and he had a lazy grin on his face but his eyes were dark.  He meant it, though Kyoka just shook her head as she got ready.

Hawks flew away and she hoped he would go help the others.  She moved towards the front of the train and tried to figure out how the hell she was going to stop it.

She looked up and could see the city now, in the distance and approaching quickly.  She had maybe ninety seconds of room to work with before it was within ‘devastating damage’ range.  Kyoka looked at her hands as she crouched down and remembered she only had one gauntlet to work with, then cursed under her breath.

What do I do?  She thought to herself.  To her surprise, she got an answer - from the First Bearer, One for All himself.

You show All for One your heartbeat, Jirou Kyoka.

Kyoka smiled, then carefully put her bare hand on the train car.  The car was frigid and she hissed in pain but One for All burned around her at higher and higher intensity and kept her warm.  She glared in focus as her hair rose off her head, then threaded her left earphone jack down to her remaining glove.  She had sixty seconds.

Then she swung forward in front of the train, bracing herself with her right hand on top of the train and her feet against the front, and hit the front of the train with the loudest soundwave she had ever attempted in her life.

Thump, thump.

The kinetic force ripped down the train on the first pulse and the metal buckled and rippled like she had dropped a pebble in a puddle--

Thump, thump.

The thin metal of the cargo cars began to shatter as the soundwave reverberated through it.  Kyoka adjusted her hand so that it was further down--

Thump, thump.

There was a horrific metal-on-metal screeching noise as the entire train began to buckle under the force of One for All--

Thump, thump.

The train did a partial front-flip as Kyoka’s power drove the front of the train down into the tracks and the wheels gave out.  She kicked away and into the air, then grabbed the now upended back of the train with Blackwhip.  Then she pulled hard and wrenched it to the side, so that it would fall sideways and blunt its forward momentum.  Sparks and fire flew from the ground as the train buried itself into the tracks and rocks and snow were whipped up into the air.

The train began to fall as friction rapidly slowed it down.  Kyoka hovered with Float… and that was when she realized she was too close to the blast zone.

She didn’t get a chance to cry out because Uravity came flying around, rockets flaring, and grabbed Kyoka in a half-hug, half-tackle.  Kyoka released Float and Uravity took away her mass in a pink glow, pushing her as quickly as she could away from the train and towards the city.

As the train hit the ground, it detonated and the initial air pressure wave hit Uravity and Kyoka hard.  They both screamed in surprise as they were sent spinning violently through the air and Kyoka was horrified when she watched something hit Uravity from behind.

Uravity went slack, her rockets cutting out, and Kyoka quickly adjusted their position so that she was holding Uravity properly.  Then she kicked away with One for All and tried to make more distance between them and the train.

“Uravity?  Ochako!  Wake up!”  Kyoka yelled frantically.

Ochako didn’t answer.  Kyoka saw red running down the back of her costume.

It was just after one in the morning now.

Kyoka sat outside of Ochako’s room, her left arm in a cast and her head bandaged, and leaned back in her chair.  She wore a hospital gown and she had bandages on her right hand as well, where touching the cold train had hurt her skin.  The doctors had seen to her the best they could but none of them had advanced healing quirks as strong as Recovery Girl’s and Recovery Girl was unavailable for several days.

Kyoka wasn’t overly concerned about being hurt.  On balance, she didn’t really get the worst of it.

Nejire was the second-most hurt.  She had taken several of Slice’s needles to the leg, she had a gash on the back of her head from the helicopter, and her face was cut from when Slice had pushed her into the ground from the air.  Still, in the end - with help from Hawks and Ochako - Nejire was the one who put Slice down.  Both Slice and her associate - which they learned had the callsign ‘Mummy’ through interrogation - were now on their way to Tartarus.

Lizardy, Pinky, and Cellophane were entirely unharmed.  Kyoka was grateful for that.  No civilians had sustained major injuries, either, and that was a victory.  The helicopter crew had to get rescued but they were just banged up, though the helicopter itself was unfortunately totaled.

It was Ochako that got hurt the worst, inadvertently taking shrapnel that would have hit Kyoka, otherwise.  She was lucky that the new costume she had was sturdier than her old one and that the shrapnel hit her in her new jet boosters that sat at the small of her back.  If she hadn’t had that, she probably wouldn’t ever have walked again.

She still needed surgery, however, and Kyoka had sat along with Izuku and Inko Midoriya very patiently in the waiting area while that was done.  Kyoka couldn’t hold Izuku’s hand as he panicked at first, to her frustration, but Mrs. Midoriya handled that for her at least.

Ochako’s parents also came by and they had been allowed into Ochako’s room first when she woke up around eleven at night.  They had gone to eat something now that doctors were sure that Ochako was stable and would recover.

But Ochako was profoundly lucky and she wouldn’t be returning to Hero work for at least a month, minimum, as she recovered and went through physical therapy.  Kyoka would be out for at least a few weeks and that irritated her, too.  But she knew that being out for so long would be devastating to Ochako and it made Kyoka sad, deep in her heart, for her friend.

Izuku had gone into Ochako’s room alone about half an hour ago, with permission from her parents.  Mrs. Midoriya went home once she had said her hellos and left some baked goods for Ochako to eat later.  Now, Kyoka sat alone in the hallway and could only wonder what kind of conversation that Izuku and Ochako were having.  She could have eavesdropped but she didn’t want to.

She wanted to imagine that she had made a difference, though.  That she had a positive impact on her friends’ lives, whether or not romance worked out for them or not.  She just wanted them to be happy… and she wanted to know that she had mattered, in the end.

You matter to me, Kyoka.  You are important to me.

Kyoka smiled and huffed air out of her nose at Nana’s words.  Then she looked over and her smile became even brighter as she saw Momo walking over.  Momo had her black winter jacket on and her hair tied back, and she looked like she had possibly just power walked through the entire hospital.  That was kind of impressive to Kyoka, since they were on the eighth floor.

“Hey, Kyoka,” Momo whispered, a slightly forced smile on her face at the sight of Kyoka's injuries.  Kyoka grunted slightly and got herself up, knowing that Momo couldn’t help her up with her hands hurt.  Then she sighed happily and let Momo gently hug her, mindful of her arms.

“Hey, Yaomomo.  Love ya,” Kyoka whispered, and Momo hummed approvingly as she placed her head on top of Kyoka’s.

“I love you, too.  I have news but… I wanted to check on them, first?”  Momo said.

“I wasn’t gonna interrupt… but I guess we can just look,” Kyoka replied.  She let Momo step forward and very, very gently open the door to the hospital room, completely silently.  Momo peered in and Kyoka stuck her head around the corner underneath Momo, also looking in.  The room was dim but not dark - they had the lights turned down but still on - and Kyoka smiled at what she saw.

Izuku was there, fast asleep with his head on Ochako’s lap as he sat in a chair next to her bed and leaned over it.  He held onto one of her hands and his upper torso rose and fell slowly as he breathed deeply.  Ochako was still awake and she was gently brushing his hair and smiling down at him like he was her entire world.

She definitely looked like she had cried recently and she looked worse for wear with her hospital gown and bandages.  But she looked happy, too… Happier than Kyoka felt like she’d seen her in a long, long time.

Ochako looked up, probably feeling eyes on her, and locked eyes with Kyoka.  Kyoka raised her right hand and gave a little wave, silent and smiling.  Ochako nodded, then Momo and Kyoka retreated promptly.  They wouldn’t intrude further.

Kyoka walked with Momo back to the room Kyoka was assigned.  The doctors had let her wait with Ochako mostly because she was a pro Hero and because her injuries were not severe or in need of immediate attention anymore.  But she was supposed to be in her room, so she figured she would settle down and sleep there for the night before they probably discharged her the next day.

Kyoka and Momo entered the room and Kyoka quickly made her way over to the bed and got comfortable.  She was exhausted as Momo calmly shut the door and began arranging things for them to sit together and chat.  She got some paper cups from the dispenser in the restroom and filled them with water, then came over and handed one to Kyoka.  Then Momo pulled the guest chair over close so she could sit by the side.

“I can’t stay tonight,” Momo admitted sadly.  Kyoka smiled and nodded; that wasn’t the end of the world.  “But I do have news… and it’s not good news.”  That made Kyoka sit up a bit more straight, putting her on edge.  “Nine got away,” Momo continued calmly.  “You hit him and it seemed to stun him, from Hawks’ description, but it didn’t… do any real damage.  Hawks tried to fight him and nothing stuck.  Then Nine just… left.”

“Huh,” Kyoka said, narrowing her eyes in thought.  “He just… abandoned the plan?  If he’s as strong as I think he is, he should’ve been able to wipe us out…”

“That’s the thing,” Momo replied.  “I think he accomplished his objective.  Can you… Can you tell me what you alluded to on the phone earlier?  About One for All, the proper noun person?”

Kyoka nodded and described it from the beginning.  How One for All’s presence was different when he was there instead of Nana and how he seemed… scary.  But his anger wasn’t directed at Kyoka and she felt nothing but kindness and familial love directed towards her from him.  No, his anger was towards his brother and Kyoka related how she suspected that Nine wasn’t Nine at all.  Instead, he was All for One, having taken over Nine’s body to use as his own.

“Perhaps All for One transferred his quirk to Nine and took over that way?”  Momo theorized when Kyoka finished.  Kyoka just shrugged, not sure at all.  “But you said he was surprised when you knew.  Maybe All for One doesn’t know about ‘true infinity,’ like One for All does.”

“I guess so.  I don’t think he knows the kind of wildfire he’s playing with,” Kyoka said, and Momo chuckled and nodded.

“Nana is scary,” she admitted matter-of-factly.  “But it’s especially bad if it is All for One, the person, using Nine’s body.  I think… I’ve figured out his plan.”

Momo brought out her phone and showed Kyoka an email.  Kyoka squinted at it as she read and the more she read, the more her stomach dropped.  The email described the political fallout from the attacks on NAMM and how the United States and Japanese governments had organized a political conference on the matter that would take place soon.

They had scheduled it for late February and it was to be held at the ‘Yokohama Landmark Tower.’  Kyoka raised an eyebrow; she wasn’t familiar with that building.  She turned back to Momo with a frown.

“Any particular reason it’s this location?”  Kyoka asked.  Momo nodded, an annoyed expression on her face.

“It’s near the United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka naval base.  This is mostly political theater; the American government isn’t happy with the sitting Japanese government and they’re making a show of power.”  Kyoka grimaced; she hated dealing with the government at large.  “The Prime Minister is going to be there.”

“Well damn,” Kyoka said.  “That’s bad, I assume.”

“It’s pretty bad,” Momo agreed.  “Yokohama Landmark Tower is seventy stories and the top floors are a fancy hotel.  They’re going to have their conference near the top floors, where it will be the hardest to evacuate them if there’s an emergency.”

“All for One is going to assassinate the Prime Minister,” Kyoka breathed, her eyes going wide, and Momo nodded gravely.

“The Hero Commission isn’t taking us seriously.  They want to take the investigation out of our hands and give it to Endeavor.”  Kyoka scowled at Momo as she spoke.  “I don’t know if Endeavor will believe us or not about… about All for One still being alive and being in a new body.”

“Shit,” Kyoka said, and she rubbed her temple with her left hand.  “What can we even do, then?”

“Theoretically?”  Momo asked, and Kyoka nodded.  “We somehow convince Endeavor that our concerns are valid and get him to call in every single professional Hero we can muster.  Then we hope that’s enough to kill the devil himself.”  Momo flicked through her phone for a moment and brought up the internet encyclopedia page for Yokohama Landmark Tower.  “This is the building, I suspect they’ll probably be on about floor--”

Kyoka cut off Momo with a sharp gasp as she spilled her water over herself.

“Momo…”  Kyoka whispered, “that’s… that’s the skyscraper.  The one from the nightmares I told you about.”

Momo blinked a few times and turned her phone back to herself to stare at it.  Then she slowly turned the screen off and let her hand fall to her lap.

“I’ll call Endeavor the moment his agency opens,” Momo said flatly, but Kyoka was numb.

This was it.  She was facing down the end against the man who would be king.

She was facing the challenge Nana believed she could rise to… and Kyoka was afraid.

Chapter Text

Kyoka’s next morning, walking into Endeavor’s office at ten, was painfully early.

She still had a cast and bandages on but she wore her Hero costume now, with her headphones around her neck.  The left sleeve hung off her side, though she’d managed to work the right one on just to keep her jacket from falling off her shoulders.

Momo also wore her costume as they went to the Endeavor Hero Agency.  Kyoka was glad that Momo didn’t have to try to do this shit alone, at the very least.  Kyoka would be there with her and they would face it together.

Endeavor’s office was, predictably, massive, primarily made of fancy wood and marble.  Kyoka might’ve made a joke about ‘compensating,’ if she didn’t really need Endeavor to not be a dickhead today.

The Flame Hero himself was sitting at his big wooden desk and the wall to their right was made of giant windows that illuminated the room with daylight.  Endeavor wore his Hero costume and perused some paperwork in his hands.

He didn’t look up at Momo and Kyoka as they walked towards him but there were two chairs waiting in front of his desk.  Kyoka took the seat to the right and Momo took the seat to the left as they sat down without a word.  The chairs were leather and high-backed and they weren’t precisely comfortable.  Kyoka adjusted in her seat and willed herself not to glare daggers at the number one Hero.

“Welcome, Creati, Earphone Jack, to my Hero agency,” Endeavor said, his voice deep and low.  “I’ve read your reports on the incidents, Creati.  It sounds like Earphone Jack here has been doing a lot of work, relative to her past history as a Hero.”  Endeavor finally turned his head to look at them - and Kyoka specifically - as he spoke.

Kyoka offered him a slightly blank expression, trying not to betray how she was both nervous and profoundly annoyed.  The fire that made up his ‘facial hair’ and came from his shoulders danced in both women’s eyes as they regarded him carefully.

“Hero rank doesn’t mean anything, Endeavor,” Kyoka said, deliberately being a bit snippy.  Endeavor narrowed his eyes at her, then seemed to restrain himself from commenting.

“Well, Creati asked to meet with me.  I understand that the Hero Commission removed you from the case, Creati, and gave it to my agency exclusively.  You didn’t come to have hard feelings over that, did you?”  Endeavor said after a moment, as he turned his gaze to Momo.  Momo remained firm, her posture straightened and her expression even, but Kyoka could tell she was displeased.  She saw how Momo clenched her fists in her lap, below the table where Endeavor couldn’t see.

Both of them jumped, however, when the door behind them flew open.

“You can’t go in there, yet, they’re having a meeting--!”  Burnin’ called out from the lobby area in front of Endeavor’s office.

“They sure are!”  Hawks said as he strode into the office like a rockstar.  “And I’m invited!”

Kyoka turned back and saw that Endeavor’s facial expression was now curdled milk and his fiery ‘facial hair’ got a bit more intense in his irritation.  She heard the door close, then Hawks walked over to Kyoka’s right, into her field of view from about a meter away, and looked down at her with an easy-going smile.  To his credit, she hadn’t heard him walking at all; he was quiet as hell, basically all the time, when he moved.

“Hey there, Earphone Jack!  Creati!  Feels like it was just yesterday that we were hangin’ out!”  Hawks said cheerfully, and Kyoka laughed once in amusement at his silliness.

“Hawks,” Endeavor said, his voice dripping with disdain.  “You were not invited to this meeting.”

“Sure wasn’t,” Hawks said with precisely zero shame.  “But I’m here now and trust me, you’re gonna want me here on this one!”

Endeavor’s expression of disbelief implied to Kyoka that he thought that he would never want Hawks on any mission.  Yet, he also did not throw Hawks out, as Hawks crossed his arms and took a slightly laid-back posture.  The two really did have a weird working relationship; they kind of reminded her of a dad and his least favorite son-in-law.  Then again, maybe if Hawks got lucky, that would be literally true, one day.

Momo cleared her throat and both men snapped their attention to her.

“I did not come to have ‘hard feelings,’ Endeavor,” Momo said, giving her ‘professional business’ smile for good measure.  “I came here to warn you.”

“Ah, yes.  Your report about ‘All for One’ coming back from the dead.  I read that part, too,” Endeavor said.  His tone implied he did not think much of it.  “I do not take kindly to practical jokes in official reports.”  Endeavor shot a pointed glare at Hawks as he said that last part and Hawks chuckled, not remorseful in the slightest.  “All Might defeated All for One years ago.  Dead is dead, Creati.  People don’t come back to life,” Endeavor added as he crossed his arms in annoyance.

“Normal people don’t come back to life,” Kyoka countered quietly, and everyone turned to her.  “All for One wasn’t normal.”

“He was still human,” Endeavor replied immediately.  “I had my disagreements with All Might but he did a great service to Japan that day.  I was there when they performed the autopsy.  All for One is dead.”

Kyoka stared defiantly at Endeavor as he spoke.  She carefully considered her options but she wasn’t sure she liked where her conclusions were going.  She turned after a moment to look at Hawks, who raised a questioning eyebrow in acknowledgement.

One of these days, I’m gonna ask you to tell me the truth about that quirk of yours, Earphone Jack.

Kyoka cleared her throat and turned back to Momo, who looked increasingly concerned.  She shook her head quickly, as if to say ‘that’s not a good idea.’  Kyoka pursed her lips, wondering if she was about to make a horrible mistake.  But she had faith.  She had faith in herself… and she had faith in Nana, more than anything.

“I have two quirks,” Kyoka blurted out, making her decision, and Momo gasped.  Both Hawks and Endeavor shifted uncomfortably, looking rather confused as Kyoka turned to look at them.  Then Endeavor reached over and pressed a button on his desk; it looked like an intercom.

“Burnin’, lock my office door and cancel any and all attempts to visit me for the next hour.  I do not care if the Prime Minister himself walks in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m listening,” he said as he took his hand away from the intercom, looking very intently at Kyoka, with his tone sincere even if it was also gruff and slightly annoyed.

Kyoka stood and looked at her right hand, carefully counting bandages and wondering how to phrase things.  Then she looked over at Hawks, who - to her surprise - nodded encouragingly and smiled.  He probably suspected something was off.  She wondered if he ever guessed the true extent of things.

“My quirk that I was born with is called ‘Earphone Jack.’”  Kyoka brought up her right earphone jack and wiggled it at Hawks, then Endeavor, in turn.  “It lets me hear things through walls if I stick ‘em in, I can use them as weapons, and I can channel my heartbeat to create soundwave attacks.”  Endeavor and Hawks both nodded but let her speak.  “My second quirk…”

Kyoka trailed off for a moment as she looked at her hand.

Nana… tell me if I’m about to make a terrible mistake.

No response from Nana was forthcoming… but Kyoka felt approval from within.

So she let One for All burn around her, as purple smoke rose from her body and purple light soon followed.  Hawks uncrossed his arms to step forward, looking more closely as he brought a hand to his chin and flipped his visor up with his other hand.  Endeavor remained impassive in his chair, still crossing his arms.

“My second quirk is called One for All.  I was given this quirk… by All Might.”

There was a long silence.  Hawks was the first to break it, by whistling sarcastically.

“Damn, that’s the best joke delivery I’ve ever seen.  Good one, Earphone Jack,” he said as he straightened his posture and gave her a finger gun.  Endeavor was scowling, unamused.

Kyoka frowned at Hawks.  She opened her mouth, intending to point out that there was no reason for her to have super strength or Blackwhip.  But instead Nana spoke and her voice was devastatingly powerful, reverberating throughout the room with echoing force.

Be mindful of dismissing things at first glance, Enji Todoroki.  You would do well to learn from your mistakes the first time, before someone has to teach you instead.

Kyoka felt woozy and almost fell over, still tired from the day before.  Momo stood quickly and kept her steady but Kyoka felt like the whole world was spinning.  By the time she could see straight again, she realized her ears had been ringing so badly she hadn’t heard anything Hawks or Endeavor had said.  When she could hear, Hawks again was quicker on the draw.

“What the hell was that?”

“That… was Nana Shimura, the Seventh Bearer of One for All,” Kyoka said solemnly.  “She was All Might’s teacher.  He was the Eighth Bearer of One for All.”

“I have questions,” Hawks said, but Endeavor waved him off for a moment.  To Kyoka’s surprise, Hawks actually went silent and his expression became neutral as he deferred to Endeavor.

“I’m going to ask you to start from the beginning, but I want you to get to the important part first, so we can plan around that.  What does this have to do with All for One being alive?”

Kyoka stared grimly at Endeavor for a moment as she chose her words carefully.

“The First Bearer, One for All himself, was All for One’s brother.  He told me that All for One is still alive and has taken over Nine’s body.”

Endeavor leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands in front of his chin and mouth, looking intently at Kyoka from behind his desk.  Kyoka and Momo sat back down and Kyoka felt exhausted.  Hawks, meanwhile, clasped his hands behind his head and he looked carefully at Endeavor and waited for the elder Hero to choose his next move.

It was a long time before Endeavor spoke again.

“Alright, Earphone Jack.  I believe you.  Now, tell me everything.”

And so, she did.

It was two weeks later that Momo organized a party for the ladies of Class A and B.

Momo got permission from her parents to use their home, since it was so large, and all the ladies of their graduating classes were able to make it.  Nejire and Yuyu also came, at the request of Kyoka; she wanted to see how Nejire was holding up after the incident with the train.  Besides that, the pair were a fun couple and Kyoka enjoyed hanging out with them.

Kyoka sat next to Momo on one of the couches.  Momo was to her left and there was a space to her right.  Next to that space was Himiko and sitting on the floor and leaning into Himiko’s legs was Tsuyu.  The rest of the girls sat on couches in a vaguely circular formation and chatted amongst themselves.

Kyoka leaned into Momo and just… relaxed.  She didn’t have her cast anymore - she, Ochako, and Nejire had all been respectively visited by Recovery Girl, though they still had to rest and heal yet - so it wasn’t uncomfortable.  Momo squeezed Kyoka’s left thigh - they were all wearing pajamas - and Kyoka turned to smile at her.

They were just missing one person.  Ochako hadn’t made it yet, though she had texted Momo to let her know she’d be there soon.  Kyoka hoped that Ochako would be feeling well and that being out from Hero work hadn’t been too hard on her.

“Hey, Himiko, can you pass me those chips?”  Kyoka asked, gesturing at one of the bowls on one of the tables with her right earphone jack.  Himiko nodded - her own mouth full of chips - and handed it over.  “Want some, Momo?”

“No, thank you-- oh, look, ‘Chako must be here!”  Momo said, and she showed Kyoka’s phone, where she had the app that controlled the gate.  Kyoka nodded and smiled, while some of the girls murmured in excitement.  Once Ochako came in, they would be complete as a group.

“How’s the arm comin’ along, Kyoka?”  Mina asked from another couch, and Kyoka raised her left arm and gave a little wave for effect.

“Better.  Kinda sore but I’ll be fine in another week or so, I bet,” Kyoka said matter-of-factly.  Mina grinned at her and gave a little thumbs up.

She had been a little freaked out when Ochako was hurt so badly.  Mina always hated seeing her friends hurt, even if it was part of the job.  It gave her anxiety and she would mother hen a bit when her friends were recovering from injuries.  Kyoka didn’t really mind, though; it was nice to know that she cared.

Experimentally, Mina tossed a granola bar over to Kyoka, who caught it deftly with her left hand.  Mina giggled and some of the girls who were paying attention 'oo’d' and 'ah’d' in mock amazement.

Kyoka turned and presented the granola bar to Momo, open-palm and with a slight bow like she was handing Momo the sword Excalibur itself.  Momo smiled and accepted it; Kyoka knew she was hungry, since she made some stuff for the party when they realized they had forgotten earlier.

The door behind them opened and the girls all turned.  Himiko and Tsuyu called out in excitement as they saw it was Ochako.  Ochako, in turn, beamed and waved but Kyoka heard the room go abruptly very, very quiet as the women began to register what Ochako was wearing.

Ochako’s smile morphed slowly into a shit-eating grin as she calmly walked around and fifteen pairs of eyes followed her intently.  She didn’t say anything as she took her seat next to Kyoka, plopping down onto the couch like nothing was amiss.  Most of the women were absolutely speechless.  Kyoka and Momo were already in on the joke, so Kyoka smirked like this time she was the one who won the lottery, instead.

Ochako wore gray sweatpants and pink socks, having taken her shoes off at the door.  But that wasn’t what the girls were staring at.  Kyoka bit her bottom lip to stop herself from cackling like a madwoman as Ochako side-eyed her.

Ochako was wearing a limited edition All Might sweatshirt with the hood up.  The little All Might hair things made her look like a bunny and it was adorable.

“Uraraka Ochako,” Himiko said sternly, “you are wearing a limited-edition All Might hoodie.”

“I am,” Ochako said, right at the edge of laughter.

“Ochako, you do not own a limited-edition All Might hoodie.”

“I do not.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Mina whispered, then the room exploded.

“I fuckin’ knew it!”  Toru yelled from next to Mina, but that was the only thing Kyoka could pick out distinctly.  Honestly, she didn’t care; she was too busy squishing Ochako in a hug on the couch.  Then Momo, Himiko, and Tsuyu piled on and Ochako shrieked in surprise and excitement and laughter.

And they were home.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Ochako said, and she was released from the others’ attempted smothering.  “This is girls’ night, Mina, shut it.”

Mina had opened her mouth, then she promptly closed it with the most hilarious pout Kyoka had ever seen on her face.

“That is so not fair.  You’re not safe, ‘Chako.  I’ll get you!”  Mina said threateningly, pointing her right index finger at Ochako for good measure.  Ochako just laughed at her.

“Okay, but first, I’m going to kick your ass at board games, we’re going to drink, and I am not going to think about work or any of that other shit,” Ochako said, and she looked at Kyoka with a smile as she did.  Kyoka nodded and smiled back but Momo interjected.

“Excuse me, I don’t think you’re twenty yet,” Momo said in her most serious Class Representative voice.

“I turned twenty two days ago, thank you very much,” Ochako replied, smirking at Momo.  “And besides, the pot is calling the kettle black right now, methinks.”

Momo’s scoff in response was appropriately scandalized, made with as much of her rich girl background that she could muster.  Then Ochako smiled, and Momo smiled, too.

Kyoka was happy as they began to play party games and chat about whatever came to mind.  They had spent a lot of time planning behind the scenes for what would come in February but tonight, that didn’t matter.  Tonight, they would play games, drink, chat, and probably stay up too late watching horror movies that Ochako picked out to save them from Mina’s romantic comedies and that was how Kyoka would prefer it to go.

They might be about to face down the man who would be king soon.  But tonight?

Tonight, it was just them.

It was early January when Kyoka went back to Shield Industries once more.

Today was a busy day, as technicians and office workers scurried around.  Shield Industries had received a lot of requests for costume modifications from the graduated Heroes of Class A and B in preparation for the political conference in February.

Endeavor was pulling out all the stops - contacting every other member of the Top Ten personally, gathering other competent pros, and drawing up battle plans - as well.  No matter what happened in February, Kyoka was sure they would be ready.

As she walked down the halls, she considered that, in a way, she did respect Endeavor.  He was a prick but he had also changed his ways, in some respects.  She talked to Shouto semi-frequently via text now and he had talked about how Endeavor had really been working on things since Kyoka’s meeting with him.  Shouto didn’t know about One for All but both of them reached the same conclusion:

Endeavor knew he might die leading the Heroes against All for One.  And, they suspected, he had made his peace with that reality and he was doing what he could to make things right before the end.

He’d even given Fuyumi Todoroki his blessing when she admitted that she and Hawks were dating, Shouto said.  Apparently, they had dinner, the three of them, and it went surprisingly well.  So surprising, in fact, that Fuyumi told Shouto about it in a daze.

“Hey, Kyoka!”  Izuku said as she turned the corner into his workshop, and Kyoka was broken from her musings.

“Hey, Greenie.  How’re you today?”  Kyoka asked as she walked into the room and promptly sat down onto a stool.  Izuku smiled as he turned and rummaged through some stuff on his table but didn’t look at her as he replied.

“I’m good!”  He said absently, focused on what he was looking for.

The room was clean today.  Not spotless - Melissa hadn’t come in to make them clean - but it was organized and mostly presentable.  Kyoka wondered if maybe Izuku had more motivation now and the thought brought a sly smile to her face.  Izuku came walking over with a little familiar band - her new gauntlet, collapsed - but he stopped when he saw the expression on her face.

“You’re keeping things more organized,” Kyoka explained with a smirk.  “Betcha you feel a lot happier recently, huh?”

Izuku just chuckled.  Maybe before he would’ve blushed like a dweeb.  But now?  He just looked… content.

“Something like that,” he said as he handed her the ring.  Kyoka stuck it on her right wrist and twisted it a bit so it was centered.

“You gave her the hoodie,” Kyoka said with faux disbelief in her tone, “or did she steal it?”

Izuku laughed, the sound bright and kind, and took a seat on his other stool.

“I gave it to her.  But if she decided to steal it… I probably would’ve let her,” he admitted.

“You two really do love each other, huh?”  Kyoka said, and that made Izuku blush.

“Yeah,” he said, to her surprise, as he scratched the back of his neck.  “Yeah, I do.  Thanks, Kyoka.  I really appreciate how you tried to help.”

He was important.  I needed him.

“No problem, Greenie,” Kyoka said, smiling, and she felt like she had truly accomplished something.

“So, about February,” Izuku said, and Kyoka tilted her head.  He gestured over to some diagrams on his table.  “I’ve been studying the structure with Melissa.  We’re going to be on communications with you when the mission begins.  We’ll be on a separate channel, though, so you’ll only hear us if you need us.”  Izuku suddenly looked very determined and very focused.  Kyoka rarely saw this side of him in person, though both Ochako and Mei had discussed seeing it often in other contexts.  “If you need technical assistance or something like that we can help with, we’ll be there for you.”

“I’m glad,” Kyoka said earnestly.  “I'll feel better knowing you and Melissa can help, honestly.”  Izuku smiled and looked pleased with himself.  More importantly, he looked proud.  But Kyoka was still a bit of a gremlin.  “Now, tell me how your first date went,” Kyoka said as she leaned forward, and Izuku turned red again.

“Kyoka…”  Izuku said, though he smiled softly.

They couldn’t get away with not telling her the details forever.

February felt like it was coming fast.

Kyoka tried to focus on keeping herself ready.  She worked out, keeping herself in shape and recovering from her injuries from the train.  She also did patrols but nothing huge really happened while she did.

It was strange to her.  It reminded her of the way animals could tell when a storm was coming and they would flee from the shore.  Organized crime already wasn’t very big in Japan anymore these days but it was especially quiet before the February conference.  The hair on the back of her neck stood up often and she wasn’t sure what to make of that.

She and Momo watched the news a lot.  The news was not very excited about the conference; it didn’t rate highly in terms of ‘what will interest viewers.’  It mostly got discussed on dry talk shows where they would go back and forth on the state of the United States-Japanese international relationship and how the current American administration wasn’t thrilled with the current Japanese administration.  The NAMM Corporation, Kyoka learned, was heavily in bed with the American government and they took no prisoners when it came to protecting their wealth and power.

Kyoka wasn’t very interested in the politics of it.  Certainly, she recognized that they were important but she suspected All for One didn’t really have a ‘political’ motivation, in the traditional sense.  This was all about raw power for him and how he would show that he alone could do what he wanted.

The Americans thought they were showing strength; an act of ‘political theater,’ as Momo called it.  But All for One planned to show them what true strength looked like or, at least, by his definitions.  He would be king and he would show the world why he would be king.  Kyoka could only hope they could prove him wrong.

She wondered, sometimes, about the concept of fate.  She called Mirai once and asked him if he would be willing to look at her future.  He was adamantly against the idea and would not be participating in the February mission because his skillset wasn’t suited to it.  However, he did tell her that no matter what happened, had happened, or should have happened, it was now her destiny alone to face All for One as One for All.

And he told her that he was proud of her and the Hero she had become.

The morning of the conference came too quickly for Kyoka’s liking.

She stood outside in her costume on top of a building, next to Momo.  Momo also had her costume on and they stood on a helipad.  Officially, Endeavor had requested high security to justify the Hero presence, citing ‘potential risks to the esteemed Prime Minister, during these trying political times.’  The Hero Commission wasn’t pleased - they believed that made the government look weak - but Endeavor fought for it still.

Kyoka was glad for that as Momo looked out at the Yokohama Landmark Tower from across the street.  Ochako, Nejire, and Tatsuma Ryuko were with them as well, standing in costume and prepared to drop down at a moment’s notice.

There were north of a hundred Heroes on scene, including the entire Top Ten, all of Class A and B, and the former Big Three of UA from Kyoka’s first year.  Aizawa and Present Mic were there as well, though their location was kept a secret.  If things went bad, they were going to try to escort Aizawa within range of All for One, if at all possible, to shut him down for good.

Itsuka had her own team on the building to their left, which also had a helipad.  That building was a touch taller and, between the two of them, it gave them good vantage points to report to Endeavor from.  Endeavor served as the official leader of the operation from another building but, in many respects, he was deferring to Momo, to Kyoka’s surprise.  He recognized that, while he was the number one Hero and officially in charge, Momo was the one who had pre-established bonds of leadership with more than half of the Heroes on the scene, as well as Itsuka.  It was his show officially but he had freely handed them the reigns.

He and Hawks were leading the older pro Heroes, however, and they had the Landmark Tower completely surrounded.

The conference had already been in session for an hour.  Kyoka had the live feed on her phone in her pocket, her right earphone jack attached to it so she could listen at low volume.  It wasn’t terribly interesting to her; mostly political dickwaving and members of the Japanese opposition party arguing that the sitting government had fucked up in giving NAMM leeway.  Kyoka couldn’t really argue with that, given how many crimes NAMM was now accused of, but that was a problem for another day.

“We’ve got movement,” Itsuka said into the radio, and suddenly it was Hero time.

Kyoka squinted down at the Landmark Tower, cursing the fact she didn’t have her own binoculars.  She turned her head to ask Creati about it but Creati had already looked over and saw the issue.  She fabricated a new pair of binoculars and Kyoka smiled as she accepted them.  Then she trained them down towards the road.

It was a busy weekday afternoon and the road between them and the building was six lanes, all cordoned off by police.  That made the traffic in the surrounding city worse but, at least, it meant civilians would be farther from the crossfire.  The Landmark Tower was near the water, on the mouth of an outlet into the larger river, and from there, the bay.  The Nippon Maru Memorial Park was along the side, a kind of museum showing off a vintage sailing ship.

There was also an amusement park further down and that made Kyoka nervous.  Everything within a certain radius of the Landmark Tower was shut down today but she was concerned there might still be civilians loitering--

“Hostile confirmed, commence evacuation of the tower!”  That was Battle Fist, and Kyoka looked frantically around with her binoculars for what the hell was going on.  Then she saw it:  there were Nomus in the courtyard of the Landmark Tower.

There were a lot of Nomus.

“Shit,” Kyoka said, and she turned to Creati.  Creati gestured down to the street with her right hand as she brought her left to her earpiece.

“This is Creati, broadcasting to all Hero channels.  We have a confirmed attack on the Yokohama Landmark Tower.  All pro Heroes in the vicinity, report to intercept and protect civilians!”  Creati clicked off her radio and turned to Kyoka then.  “You, Uravity, Nejire-Chan, and Ryukyu, go down and engage.  I’m going to stay up here and direct from above,” she continued, and Kyoka nodded.

Then Kyoka and her three fellow Heroes took a running leap off of the helipad and flew downwards to stop the Nomus.  There was almost a flood of them coming now and some of them were mid- and high-end, Kyoka saw to her horror.

Kyoka was so focused on what was going on below that she didn’t notice the enemy flying towards her until all the hair on the back of her neck stood up, then she kicked away.  A large, angry winged Nomu - seemingly a high-end - whipped past where she’d been, claws out and ready to kill.

It came back around on another pass and Kyoka brought her hands up in an X-shape.  Blackwhip hardened like meter-long purplish-black swords and she brought them down right as the high-end got close.  It fell away in pieces as Kyoka released Float and free-fell downwards.

She caught herself with Float again but still landed with a crack of shattering concrete from the momentum as her boots absorbed the impact.  A low-end Nomu swung for her immediately, only to get blasted away by Nejire-Chan.  Kyoka turned and saw Ryukyu struggling with a number of Nomus, so she bounded over and punched one away, then grabbed another and used Blackwhip to front-flip it into the pavement with a crash.

Ryukyu beat her wings hard and sent the remaining Nomus flying.  All four Heroes stepped back into a circle, with one of Ryukyu’s wings over them.  The Nomus began to surround them, circling carefully.  Kyoka heard an explosion from somewhere off to her left but she held her hands up in a combat stance and threaded her earphone jacks into her gloves.

“Creati, we could use some assistance at the primary entrance…”  Kyoka said quietly into her headset.

“Already on it!”  Creati chirped back, and Kyoka smiled as she turned and saw many of her fellow Heroes from the former Class B arriving, led by Battle Fist and Lizardy.

The Nomus turned, unable to decide which targets to focus on.  Then the Class B Heroes crashed into the Nomu group and Kyoka surged forward as things turned into a brawl.  For what felt like forever, she lost herself in punching and kicking as One for All burned bright around her.

She became a beacon as Battle Fist and and Real Steel took up positions around her.  Together, they formed the hand-to-hand combat core, while Uravity, Nejire-Chan, and Lizardy flew around above and fought the Nomus that could fly.

A Nomu tried to punch Kyoka but Real Steel cracked it so hard in the face that its teeth shattered--

There was a boom and Kyoka ducked as Ryukyu whipped her tail across the field and swept three Nomu into a nearby raised concrete section, shattering it--

Kyoka grabbed a Nomu and stabbed it with Blackwhip, bringing it to the ground as Battle Fist launched another one away and into the air--

Everything was chaos but the Heroes were winning and that was what mattered to Kyoka.

Abruptly, the Nomus began to retreat backwards into the cleared street as the Heroes took up a collective position on the stairs of the front entrance.

“We’re evacuating the civilians through the side exits, Earphone Jack.  Good job down there, keep it up!”  Creati said into the radio, and Kyoka nodded, mostly for her own benefit.

She was surprised when the ground shook and she looked over just in time to see Mt. Lady, in her giant form, punt about a dozen Nomus down the street with a hard kick.  She hit pretty damn good for someone who had just given birth a few months ago.  The other Nomus quickly ran away, to Kyoka's confusion.

“They’re running.  Why the hell are they running?”  Kyoka said, and her fellow Heroes around her took cautious stances and nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know… Creati, is something going wrong inside--?”  Battle Fist began, but all of them were startled when the ground shook, more than even when Mt. Lady had become big.

“Evacuations are largely complete and what’s left is being handled by Lemillion and some of the other Top Ten but… something is wrong,” Creati said as Kyoka turned around and saw exactly what was wrong.

Most of the rest of their fellow Heroes from Class A, as well as older pros led by Kamui Woods, showed up and began to take up positions in the front of the building.  Even now gathered as a group of dozens of Heroes, Kyoka was concerned.

Behind them, the Nomus were amassing to challenge them as Mt. Lady shrank down temporarily to stand with her fellow Heroes.  And in front of them, there was a villain she had never seen before in person…

But she remembered him from the dream.  The monstrous, massive villain that Red Riot had challenged when he was the Ninth Bearer in Nana’s gifted memories.  The villain was massive, his body seemingly hardened like rock, and he had giant claws.  He stood between them and the building and, above him, another familiar figure was descending.

“Gigantomachia, hold position.”

Kyoka looked up to find All for One standing on top of one of his energy discs of yellow light.  He had what looked like an unconscious person - or maybe a corpse - in his hand, holding onto the back of their suit jacket.  They were blooded and battered and had the torn remnants of a gray business suit on.

Red lightning crackled around All for One, though she could only see his eyes and long white hair because of the mask he wore.  As he hovered above the Heroes, between them and the building, the sky began to darken.

Kyoka looked up further and saw that a storm was gathering directly above the building, as thunder began to boom from the clouds.  It wasn’t natural.  Then she looked back to All for One in horror.

“Hello, Earphone Jack,” All for One said, his voice echoing with power.  “Welcome to the end of your world and the beginning of mine.”

Kyoka looked around and saw what looked like little drones - dozens of them - hovering around All for One.  They looked like cameras and he had so many.  Kyoka blinked in confusion as the drone cameras seemed to be either focusing on All for One… or on her.

All for One looked down to the man in his grasp, then one of his black and red tendrils snaked out and stabbed the man in the back, straight through.  There were gasps from the Heroes as blood spattered, then All for One casually tossed the man down to the ground.  He fell easily twelve meters and, when he hit the ground, he was still as blood ran across the concrete from underneath him.

“That’s the Prime Minister…”  Battle Fist whispered in horror, and Kyoka’s eyes went wide.

“You didn’t really think I was here for him, did you?”  All for One asked, his tone maniacal and smug.  “I could have killed the Prime Minister whenever I wanted.  He - and the government - are nothing in the face of my power.”

All for One began to slowly walk to the side in mid air and new energy discs appeared under his feet to accommodate this.  As he walked, his white suit began to turn black and the purple backlights of his armor and mask turned red.  The color seeped into the clothes like blood and ink and, when he was done, he really did look like the original All for One.  Younger, maybe, but just as powerful.

“This body has served to be more than adequate for my purposes,” All for One declared.  “Now this pathetic nation will watch as I tell them the truth about their ‘Symbol of Peace.’”

As All for One spoke, Endeavor and Hawks arrived and went right over to Kyoka.

“Earphone Jack, we need to stop him--!”  Hawks whispered urgently, but Kyoka shook her head.

“Evacuations aren’t finished, Hawks.  We let him talk and stall for time,” she whispered back.  It wasn’t the choice she wanted to make.  But… it was the choice she accepted.

“Shall I tell them?  Or will you do the honors?  Will you tell this wretched nation the truth, before I tear your heart out on national television?”

Kyoka grit her teeth.  Then, in a fit of annoyance, she raised her right hand and flipped All for One off.

“Oh, so defiant!  Very well.  Jirou Kyoka, Earphone Jack, is the Ninth Bearer of One for All.  All Might’s wretched quirk and a quirk that I created.  Tell them, Earphone Jack, what it’s like to have been passed down the greatest power that Hero society has ever seen and to be a lazy, part-time Hero who does nothing with it!”

Kyoka took a step forward, furious, but Battle Fist held out a hand to stop her.  Kyoka looked around and all of her fellow Heroes were stunned, looking at each other and whispering.  Kyoka caught Ground Zero’s eye and he looked like he was ready to throw up, standing next to Red Riot.  She turned back to look at All for One and narrowed her eyes.

“Why should they believe anything you say, All for One?”  Kyoka yelled back.  She had no real intentions of denying his accusations… but it would buy them more time.

“Ha!  They don’t have to believe anything I say.  I will show them the truth by killing you.  All Might chose you as his successor.”

All for One leaned forward, his hands held out to his sides with palms up, as the drones twisted their camera lenses to zoom in further.

“I intend to show the world why he made a poor choice.”

One for All was always a sword, made to destroy.

Kyoka turned back to look at Endeavor, who nodded grimly.  Then she looked back to All for One and glared as One for All burned bright around her at maximum output.  The ground beneath her feet began to disintegrate, concrete rising into the air around her and boiling away into nothing, and her fellow Heroes stepped back as Kyoka stepped forward.

“Then prove it,” she said, and All for One laughed at her.

“Earphone Jack, hold on a second!”  Hawks cried, horrified.  But Kyoka didn’t wait. 

Instead, she explosively launched herself right at All for One, who blocked her kick deftly with a yellow energy disc.  Kyoka expected that this time, so she kicked off it and blasted him with sound.  He released his shield and darted away in the air as Kyoka held herself there for a moment.

Then everything went to hell as both the Nomus and Gigantomachia moved to attack.  Kyoka kicked her leg and moved to follow All for One as he flew around the side of the Landmark Tower, daring her to follow.  She hit the corner and kicked off the side of the building, only to be met with a cascade of black and red tendrils.

She released Float and backflipped beneath them but it was a close thing.  One of them bounced off of her armored boot.  She silently thanked Izuku in that moment as she caught herself again with Float and kicked towards the building once more, intending to use it like a backboard to ascend into the storm at the apex of the tower.

“Earphone Jack, do you have a plan?”  Endeavor said into the radio, and Kyoka grit her teeth as she kicked off the building to dodge a boiling purple laser attack.  The laser glanced across the building and left a molten trail as the glass and concrete shattered.

“Yeah, kind of,” Kyoka said as she flew.  “I’m going to fight All for One.  You’re going to defeat Gigantomachia.”

All for One launched some kind of air blast attack at her and she twirled to the side in mid-air to dodge.  She wasn’t as well-practiced in aerial combat as she wanted to be but what she could do had to matter.  All for One darted away again, cackling maniacally and reveling in the fact that he had more long-range attacks at his disposal than she did.

She blasted soundwaves out of her hands behind her as she kicked backwards towards the sky and that sent her flying like a cannonball towards the building.  All for One lanced more purple lasers down the side of the building as Kyoka darted straight up the side and his aim was only barely off.

She was lucky she was fast.

The sky kept getting darker and darker as the storm All for One conjured got stronger in the air.  Kyoka saw a lightning bolt crash into the building and cursed her lack of fine control in the air.

Hawks came darting through the sky, skirting the edges of lightning bolts, and tried to cut All for One in half with a feather blade.  All for One blocked the attack with a yellow disc of light and sparks flew as Hawks’ feather blade disintegrated in his hand.  Then All for One reached out and grabbed Hawks by the face and he yelped in surprise, muffled by All for One’s entire hand over his mouth.

Kyoka came flying from the building and punched All for One in the chest, forcing him to release Hawks.  Then she grabbed All for One with Blackwhip and spun around in a hard arc, sending him crashing right back into the building.  An impact crater shattered through the side of the building, centered on where All for One hit it, and every window for twenty stories exploded like hail.

They were about halfway up it now and, for a moment, Kyoka and Hawks just hung in the air.

“Don’t let him touch you,” Kyoka scolded, and Hawks shook his head to get the dizziness out.  “Go help Endeavor, this is my fight.”

“You don’t have to do it alone,” Hawks said, his tone and expression completely serious.

“Yeah, well, this is my destiny, not yours.  I’m just taking a page out of your book anyway, Bird Brain.  Go!”

Hawks scowled, then he complied, darting back downwards like a missile and cutting two flying Nomus in half with feather blades as he did so.  Kyoka turned her attention back to the building and watched as All for One exploded out of it; not on the side he’d crashed into and several floors higher.

She growled in frustration and kicked her leg back, flying towards the building at incredible speed.  Then she darted up it on her feet, planning to go all the way to the top and engage him at the top.  As she darted and jumped, several floors at a time, she saw All for One fly around the corner above her, then fly back out of her sight.

Abruptly, All for One crashed through the building again and tried to impale her with a fan of his tendril attacks.  Kyoka cried out in surprise and kicked off to the side, then All for One was interrupted when Lemillion came shooting out of the building, directly towards him as a red, white and yellow blur.

“Power!”  He yelled as he cracked All for One right in the face.  Lemillion didn’t have super strength but he was a strong man and his attack dazed All for One.

All for One reached out, trying to grab Lemillion, only for the Hero to phase through his hands with a laugh and fall away down to the ground, where Kyoka knew he would land safely with Permeation.  She recovered and kept moving up the building as All for One threw more attacks at her.

She blasted sound back at him as she neared the sixtieth floor and that forced All for One to block.  Then he flew out of sight again, around the corner of the building, as she kept moving up. 

As Kyoka neared the top, on her last jump, she shot her hands backwards and used sound to propel herself right over the edge into a twirl.  She was met with All for One, already in the air.  She kicked her leg back on the spin and flew right at him, bringing her right arm back and hardening Blackwhip like swords.  She focused all of One for All at the tip of the blade.

A blade to slay the beast, as she got within a meter of All for One, intending to end the threat to peace, stability, and life.

Then he suddenly dropped his shield and intercepted her attack, knowing it away with one hand and grabbing her by the neck with the other.  Kyoka kicked her legs, stunned, and tried to hit him with One for All but he was strong and he held her away from him.

“This is how it ends, Earphone Jack,” All for One declared, and she felt his consciousness and the raw force of All for One, the quirk, hit her.  She felt it pulling, trying to take.  When she tried to scream, it came out as a gagging noise as he tightened his grip.  “This is when the world will watch me reclaim what is mine.”

And then her world went black as she was pulled into the dream of One for All with All for One.

Chapter Text

Kyoka Jirou is dreaming.

It isn’t new or bizarre anymore.  She isn’t surprised but that is to be expected.  She is exactly where she anticipated she would be, yet she is frustrated.  She knew better - she should have seen that attack coming - but she let herself be blinded by her anger at All for One.

Now she is at the center of the ethereal dream space of One for All… and he is the interloper here.

“Are you ready, Jirou Kyoka?”

Kyoka turns and is met not with Nana but with One for All.  He smiles at her, his features feminine and soft.  He wears a long-sleeved, plain light colored shirt and some dark pants, looking entirely normal.  The incongruity of it is almost startling, how he seems just a regular man ready for a regular day in the face of true infinity itself, as they stand in a sea of unending stars and the darkest night.

They stand and prepare to face his brother.  It is the showdown that One for All has always known was coming but not the one he wanted, the dream provides.  One for All has never wanted revenge, necessarily; it’s never been about killing or defeating his brother for the sake of it.  One for All wants to see a world where no one will be hurt anymore by his brother’s machinations, first and foremost.

His personal desires come secondary.

“My brother tried to take One for All two times before this.  Both times he failed because his will was insufficient.  I am not sure if, with the combined will of himself and Nine, he might succeed this time.”  Kyoka frowns and looks down.  She wears her Hero costume - she is herself - and she wonders, how can she challenge the man who would be king like this?  Does her quirk work here?  What can she do?  “Your power works here, Jirou Kyoka.  This is your dream… but that doesn’t mean he is powerless here, either.  It isn’t about physically hurting him… it is a battle of will.”

That's when Kyoka sees it.  She turns and watches as All for One, wearing Nine like a second skin, walks into the dream.  His smile is horrific, stretched to the edges of his face - wait.

His mask is gone.  She sees Nine’s true face or maybe it is what All for One is using it for his own purposes like a marionette, spinning on invisible strings in the infinite black.  His grin is toothy and stretched and a palpable darkness begins to drip from between his teeth.  He is something born of nightmare and One for All begins to burn like purple smoke and rising heat around Kyoka.

She will not die so easily, here at the center of everything.

“Do you remember the hint I gave you, Kyoka?”  That is Nana, and Kyoka turns her head to the other side and finds her standing there.

But there are two others:  a man wearing a heavy coat and a shaved-head man next to him.  Kyoka turns back the other way and sees other people next to One for All:  a man with spiked hair and heavy gloves, a man with a ponytail pulled high on his head, and a man with long hair and a distinctive scar on his face.

On the end, Toshinori stands, made of fire and light but present all the same; his beauty is awe-inspiring.

They stand as nine, together, around her… and the power radiates off them in waves as they prepare to defend her.

But that’s not it.  It can’t just be about defense.  She can’t just stand and let others fight her battles.  They must stand together - she’s not alone - but… it is her destiny, not theirs.

They already failed.  The torch was passed on.  A new bearer for this sword borrowed across generations, a blade to slay the beast.

The words are quick, like arcing lightning through the dark, and they sound like One for All speaking in her mind.

He smiles.

What was Nana’s hint?  Kyoka thinks hard as darkness begins to blot out the night around All for One and she concentrates on metaphysically building barriers and keeping him away in his mind.  How does she fight All for One when the physical doesn’t matter?  How can she fight when fighting is pointless?

But then she turns to Nana and she smiles, too.  Nana smiles because Kyoka has got it.  She smiles because she believes in Kyoka.

Your hint… was that memories are a weapon, Nana.

And then, reality shatters like glass.

Now they stand at Kyoka’s first school festival but the crowds have blurred out faces like they are being viewed through a camera in motion.

The crowds step aside and Kyoka smirks as she watches the expression on All for One’s face spoil like milk.  He is furious, his expression contorted, and veins begin to pop out on his skin.  Kyoka sees that the veins are dark because his blood is dark and black, just like his soul.

Tell me, All for One.  Do you even understand what you fight anymore?  Do you even understand what you claim as ‘yours?’

All for One scoffs, laughing even though it is silent in the dream.  The dream students begin to step away further but Kyoka picks out her friends, wearing those special uniforms they wore to put on a show.  There is Momo, Ochako, and the other girls, Shouto, Katsuki, Eijiro… Denki and Hitoshi; somewhere behind her, in the sound booth, her dream recreation of Izuku and Mei will be there, too.

They will be there… cheering her on.

You think that this parlor trick will affect me?  I am the Greatest Demon Lord, the Symbol of Terror!  You cannot hope to stand against me, no matter how many shades you conjure!

Tell me, is this really the best you can do?

Kyoka just smiles.  She realizes that he doesn’t know.  He doesn’t know about true infinity and he doesn’t know about Nana.  He thinks he is facing Kyoka’s subconscious; he doesn’t know that this is real.

He doesn’t see how Nana has become more powerful than he ever would’ve dreamed in death.

He doesn’t see the butterflies or are they moths?  They flutter around him on gray wings and All for One doesn’t see how he’s in hell now, too, how he’s the one trapped here with them, not the other way around.  The moths flutter around his head and body but he cannot see because he is blinded by his own obsession, his hatred, his selfishness.

To All for One, it was always about taking, so he wasn’t granted the blessing - and the curse - of true infinity.  To One for All, it was always about giving, so he gave everything to reality itself to protect those who could never hope to protect themselves.

Come now, foolish girl.  Quit stalling and give over what is mine… or will I have to take it from you?

But then Kyoka is not there anymore.  She darts forward or does she disappear?  She processes it as movement but All for One is stunned as if he cannot tell what is happening at all.

He reaches out to snatch at her and she holds up her arms in a cross-shape.  His hand is big and he picks her up by her forearms, laughing maniacally.

So you really did just give up, did you?

Kyoka responds by kicking hard and upwards, right into his chin.  There is no physical pain here in the dream but the feedback to the mind is sharp and All for One grunts in his mind as he steps backward.  Reflexively, he nurses his jaw as Kyoka lands on two feet, unimpressed with him.

She is in danger, she knows; at the precipice of death, even.  But she doesn’t feel like she is anymore because she knows she is not alone and All for One is.  He never had friends, real family, or anyone he truly cared about; he only had things and all he ever cared about was using them.

You’re pathetic, she thinks, voicing her conclusion as a coherent thought, and All for One snarls at her in the dream.  And she means it, too.  But not because he is weak, as the power of All for One is overwhelming.  No, he is pathetic because he is a monster but not a monster for a cause or for a dream.  He is a monster because he wanted to be and that is pathetic.

Rivet Stab - the dream provides the name for her - comes flying at her, hundreds of black and red tendrils in the dream like a fan of knives, and she jumps upwards into the rafters.  They crash into the ground and leave no marks, crash into the crowds and have no effect.  All for One cannot affect her dream now, she realizes, but she can.

Blackwhip hardens like swords and she begins cutting the rafters as she runs.  The metal falls fast and All for One is smashed by steel.  He explodes out of the pile just as Kyoka launches towards him and she punches him in the face hard, with all of One for All.

The effect is mental, not physical.  It doesn’t leave a mark but All for One’s thought of anguished pain howls through the dream as Kyoka laughs silently and darts away again.  She is taunting him - this doesn’t matter - but it feels good.

She feels One for All laughing, too, as he watches his successor get the best of his brother.

But what does she do?  She wonders if maybe she misunderstood Nana, as All for One shoots purple lasers at her.  She runs over the wall - she can’t leave this space, there is nothing ‘outside’ - and dodges; where the lasers hit, there is no remnant.  The inability to affect things clearly irritates All for One, as he thinks another challenge in a strangled inner voice.

You can’t just run forever!  I will catch you!

Kyoka is thinking to herself behind walls, though, as the lasers and Rivet Stab tendrils come faster and faster.  How does she damage someone whose hatred is so strong?  And what is the difference between hate and will?  All for One clearly doesn’t think there is one but…

He does not see how the past matters, too, how the past changes the future before it is ever written… nor does he see how memories are a weapon…

A memory is just a future that already happened, though past, present, and future are relative terms for an absolute truth.

Kyoka comes to a skidding stop as All for One cackles at her, silent in the dream.

Shimura Nana?  That fool is still here?  Good, good, she can watch me kill another successor - another child - and watch as her everything is taken away once more.  The sun will never rise and tomorrow will never come for you, Shimura.

The answer that comes is Nana’s voice, not her thoughts, and it is deafening in the dream.

“No, All for One.  I already know what it’s like when my sun will never rise and tomorrow will never come.  But you?  You don't understand loss because you've never loved anything or anyone.  You’re just a footnote now.”

He is just a footnote because Kyoka figured it out.

Hey, All for One?  Have you ever wondered what true infinity looks like?

All for One’s sneer is disgusting but he clearly doesn’t understand how deep into the circles of hell he is.  Kyoka smiles, though, and she feels all eight Bearers smile with her.

They know what’s coming.

Pure light runs at All for One suddenly, like runaway trains through the dream.  They are memories and they are her memories, her happiest and saddest memories, her everything that has ever meant anything to her.  They are all of her friends, her family, the way that she learned to play music, her fears, her hopes, her dreams.

They are Momo’s smile in the morning when Kyoka wakes up feeling loved.

But they are not just her memories, as All for One screams in pain and horror and confusion.  They are every Ninth Bearer’s memories, all at once, forward and backward and sequentially and simultaneously.  Time means nothing in the face of true infinity, as All for One is subjected to the raw soul of everyone who ever bore the weight of all of One for All.

All for One made a mistake.  Nine’s will is weak and his hatred is weak.  He is an insufficient vessel and Kyoka feels All for One realize that in the dream.

Then All for One screams and Kyoka can hear it now as sound comes roaring back to the dream.  It is devastating, like a raw wall of sound, but she is used to that.  She smiles as she watches All for One cave under the combined weight of so many realities at once.  He is existentially and metaphysically crushed and Kyoka darts forward and speaks.

“You said this quirk is yours?  Well, tell me All for One, if you’re so weak that you can’t even handle the truth… why do you even deserve it?”

Her punch hits All for One in the chest, the memories surrounding him like moths, and he is sent flying onto the stage of the school festival building.  There is a crash, audible and ground-shaking, but Kyoka is already on the stage, Blackwhip hardened around her right hand.

All for One is panicking, freaking out, batting at the air at things he cannot see and yet cannot unsee at the same time.  Kyoka grabs him by the collar, regardless of their height difference, and she screams, too.

Then she stabs him in the chest with Blackwhip and the dream fades to ash and white, burned away by a quirk lost to a little boy named Tenko Shimura:  Nana Shimura’s original sin and All for One’s greatest transgression against god.

But now?  It is his end.

Kyoka Jirou woke up.

She almost fell over from the sheer disorientation and from the sheer feeling hitting her body again like a meteor.  In the dream there was no hunger, thirst, pain, or exhaustion but all of that came roaring back just like sound and she wanted to throw up.  But she didn’t because she wasn’t done.

Around her, she saw that there was a yellow energy shield shaped like a bubble.  It rippled and wavered, then shorted out.  That was when she realized her ears were ringing.  She refocused and watched as All for One fell over, flat on his back, onto the roof of the building.

The building; the Landmark Tower, she remembered.  All for One had been hovering his right hand over her face - he must have changed their positions when he tried to take One for All - and Kyoka rubbed her neck and the soreness there from him choking her.

“…Earphone Jack?  Earphone Jack!  Kyoka!”

Kyoka smiled and shook her head, caught between waves of nausea and her happiness at hearing that voice as she coughed a bit.  It was Izuku and that was exactly who she needed to hear, as she brought her hand up to her earpiece to reset it and change the channel.

“Hey, Izuku… Melissa… Can you do me a favor?”

“We have control over his broadcast!  We got it while you were… Whatever he was doing.  You were in that shield for twenty seconds, are you okay?!”  Melissa said.

“I’m fine.  You said you’ve got the broadcast?  Is it still running?”

“Yeah!  Do you want me to shut it down--”

“No, Izuku.  I want you to turn the fucking volume up.”

There was silence on the other end.  Kyoka reached up and turned her earpiece off as the camera drones floated around her and All for One.  All for One was rousing himself and Kyoka glared death down at him as she prepared to put an end to All for One, once and for all.

Have you ever heard of hysterical strength, Kyoka?

“You asked me, All for One, if that was the ‘best I could do,’” she began, as she walked towards him, the camera drones following her movements.  The biggest audience she would ever have was watching her in that moment… and she intended to put on a show.  One for All began to burn bright around her as her hair rose off her head in purple light.  She picked All for One up with one hand, then smashed him hard into the roof of the building, sending him through several floors.  “And I have an answer for you.”

She looked down into the hole that was left and saw through cloudy debris that All for One was bloodied but quickly recovering.  That was good; he would be able to know what hit him.

“My name is Jirou Kyoka…”

She raised her voice towards the drones, staring intently at All for One, as she threaded her earphone jacks into her jacket.

“I am the professional Hero, Earphone Jack…”

All for One sent Rivet Stab crashing through the ceiling and it flowed around Kyoka like blood in waves of crimson lightning.  One hit her leg, another hit her arm, and another hit her side.  She grit her teeth and put her arms crisscrossed around her sides.  Her costume ran red and pain shot through her body but she didn’t care because it didn’t matter.

“I am the Ninth Bearer of One for All…”

Blackwhip sharpened and lengthened on her hands, then she thrust it out in a cross formation, shattering Rivet Stab like glass around her.  Black and red tendrils darkened and faded, then disintegrated into dust as the crimson lightning died.  The lightning was drowned out in purple light as blood and dust hovered in the air.

“And this is the best I can do, All for One.”

Blackwhip dissipated around her hands.  She dropped to one knee and slammed both of her palms down onto the roof.

Thump, thump.

The first shockwave, at all of One for All, rippled through every floor of the Landmark Tower as every remaining window shattered in sequence--

Thump, thump.

The second shockwave shattered concrete as the outer façade of the building began to crumple like a can--

Thump, thump.

The steel supports of the building began to bend out of place in the face of the sound of Kyoka’s heartbeat and the sound of her soul as the Ninth Bearer of One for All--

Thump, thump.

All for One couldn’t stand as the roof began to collapse under Kyoka’s feet.  She suspended herself with Float and ignored the second fan of Rivet Stabs.  One hit her in the thigh, another grazed her neck, and there was blood--

Thump, thump.

The top supports of the building gave way and the top floors began to collapse straight down in a shower of concrete and smoke, like rolling ocean waves but she didn’t stop, despite how much everything hurt--

Thump, thump.

The Landmark Tower was going down and Rivet Stab fell away as All for One was systematically crushed by two hundred thousand tons and seventy stories of skyscraper--

THUMP, THUMP.

And like that, Kyoka finally stopped.

The camera drones still focused on her as she hovered in the air but she was spent.  The blood was soaking her clothes and her breathing was labored but she was smiling.  And she looked at the cameras and she smiled as Hawks flew up towards her.  Her vision was blurring and her eyelids were too heavy but she smiled as he grabbed her and prevented her from falling.

“Hawks…”  She said, but really it was a whisper and the world was falling away.

“Don’t talk, you need a doctor--”

“Hawks, make sure… Make sure he’s dead…”  She said, cutting him off.  He was the only thing between her and the claim of gravity but all she cared about was making sure.  She had to make sure she had fulfilled her destiny… and her promise to Nana.  She had to make sure Nana could still believe in her.

But her world went black once more as she passed out in Hawks’ arms.

Kyoka was dreaming again.

But it wasn’t the same as normal.  She didn’t feel like a ghost or like she wasn’t entirely there.  She didn’t feel like she was at the edge of night, touching the fabric of reality itself and wondering if it was really infinity or maybe it was tiny.  Maybe they lived in a tiny space; maybe they were insignificant in the face of the absolute truth.

Her thoughts were strange and she floated and slept on a bed of stars.  She looked down:  she had no body, there was nothing.  That made her confused and frustrated as she tried to look around.

Relax, Kyoka.  You did it…

But Kyoka didn’t remember… What did she do?  Was it for Momo?  Was it for Izuku?  She couldn’t… She couldn’t recall and she began to panic.

Young Jirou, I am so proud of you…

That was Toshinori, so Kyoka’s panic stopped cold.  He was proud?  So she must have done well.  But what… what happened?

You lived up to my faith in you.

Kyoka smiled at Nana’s voice; she smiled in her mind despite not having her body.  But she didn’t want to wake up yet.

You don’t have to wake up.  Not if you don’t want to.

One for All, the First Bearer, spoke and his voice was so kind.  But Kyoka also felt something else there - an underlying sorrow and longing - and she perked up, her reality coming into sharp focus.

What’s wrong?  She asked, thinking out into the void.

You don’t have to wake up if you don’t want to.  But you should.  I’m… proud of you and I love you.

There was a purity and honesty to One for All’s voice and it thrilled Kyoka, made her want to cry, and made her so angry that he had been taken so soon.  He had deserved so much better but now…

I lived a good life, in spite of it all.  I am grateful for what I received, even if I lived in my brother’s shadow.  But you… You are as worthy as you choose to be.  You are the Ninth Bearer only by your own choice.

There was a brilliant purple glow, drowning out all of the night around her.  Suddenly, Kyoka could feel again and she reached out towards the light, hesitating only at the final centimeters.

I… I think I’m worthy, One for All.  But thank you.  I’ll… I’ll miss you.

It wasn’t really a goodbye because One for All wouldn’t be gone.  But it was an understanding, perhaps, that Kyoka didn’t need the guidance of One for All or the other Bearers anymore.  Perhaps, Kyoka did not need Nana anymore.  Nana had fulfilled her promise and her destiny by helping Kyoka fulfill her own promises and destiny.

Would Nana go away now?  Kyoka flinched away from the light in spite of herself.

But she felt it, the absolute warmth radiating from the light as it glowed brighter and brighter like a hug in the shape of a star.

I’ll always be here, Kyoka.  I love you, too.

Kyoka smiled… and she reached out and took the light.  It materialized into a sword in a shocking white radiance, then it dulled merely to all of the colors of the rainbow at once, like the greatest kaleidoscope she had ever witnessed.  Kyoka stared at the sword, unsure of what to do.  But the dream provided what she was unsure of.

So she held it out, the tip of the blade pointed out towards the expansive night and thought the truth:

I choose to go home.

Beep… beep… beep…

Kyoka blinked and found herself staring at a ceiling.  It was a fairly plain, conventional white drop ceiling and, between that and the beeping, she deduced that she was in the hospital… again.  She had been spending too much time in the hospital, she thought distantly, though the way that her throat was bone dry was distracting her.

She tried to sit up slightly but only accomplished moving her head and neck.  Groggily, she blinked a few more times, then turned to find Momo, sleeping gently and passed out over the bed.

Her hair was messy and fanned out across Kyoka's legs and it made Kyoka smile as she watched for a moment.  Then she looked around as much as she could by craning her neck.  It was dark out but getting brighter; it must have been very early in the morning.

As her eyes adjusted, she quickly realized she was covered in bandages and had IV lines stuck in her arms, so she probably wouldn’t be going anywhere.  So she laid her head back down and stared at the ceiling.

She wondered, what would happen now?  She remembered… She remembered All for One revealing One for All to the world.  Her secret was out and briefly, panic began to rise in her.  What would happen?  What would she do?  How could she go on like that?

Had she failed?

No, Kyoka.  You did not fail.  Some things simply cannot stay buried forever, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.  Not if you wish to be the light of hope for those you care about.

Kyoka blinked and slowly calmed down.  Maybe… maybe things would be okay.  Maybe she could do this.  Maybe, just maybe, she could deal with change.

Maybe her dream had changed… but it wouldn’t be the first time.

She fell back asleep.

Kyoka is standing on a skyscraper.

She looks around and sees that it is Landmark Tower but there is an ethereal beauty to the sunrise.  This is not reality and she can sense the unreal stillness in the air.

Nana, you said you couldn’t tell me what was going to happen… So why did you?

Kyoka turns on the roof to Nana and watches as her cape billows in the silent wind.  Nana turns to her as well and uses her index fingers to push her smile up comically.

"I cheated, Kyoka.  Nobody said I couldn’t give you a hint."  Nana winks mischievously at her.

Kyoka laughs, silent in the early morning air.  For a long time, they stand together and watch the sunrise.

Thank you, Nana.  I’m glad I got to meet you.

"I’m glad I got to meet you, too, Kyoka.  Now go out there and make people happy.  I know you can do it."

And like that, Kyoka wakes up again.

Kyoka’s eyes fluttered open and she was greeted with a close up of Hawks’ face in turn.

“Gah!”  Kyoka said incoherently, and her throat hurt.  Hawks stepped away from leaning over her, shocked, and made a similar noise of confusion as he flailed his hands.

“Hawks!”  That was Momo, and Kyoka and Hawks both turned to her.  She stood at the entrance to the room and Kyoka noted she now wore different clothes than when Kyoka last woke up.  Now she had business casual clothes on and her hair down as she frowned severely at Hawks.  “What did I tell you about trying to draw on Kyoka’s face?”

“Oh come on, I’m not even using a permanent marker…”  Hawks said, and Kyoka grunted in horror.

“Don’t worry, love, he didn’t actually manage to draw on you,” Momo said, looking at Kyoka.  Then she glared at Hawks.  “Sit down or I will make a sword and stab you.”

Hawks plopped into the guest chair without another word as Momo walked over and gently handed Kyoka a cup of water.  Kyoka drank it like it was a religious offering, then made a satisfied ‘ah’ noise when she finished.  Then she, too, glared at Hawks.

“Dick,” she muttered, and Hawks snorted and looked entirely without remorse.

“Look, I just thought it’d be funny if you went into your first national press conference after killing All for One with a little red feather on your cheek,” he said, and Kyoka contemplated sending out a Blackwhip tendril to stab him in the neck.  “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for two days, cut me some slack.”

“No!”  Momo said, and Hawks began to chuckle, clearly thinking he was hot shit.

“Cut it out, Bird Brain, or I’ll tell Shouto that his future brother-in-law is a child and that Fuyumi needs to be protected.”

Hawks shut his mouth with a click.

“Alright, so what’s the damage?”  Kyoka asked, still glaring at Hawks.  Hawks now looked appropriately cowed as he scratched his temple.  He wore his Hero costume, though Kyoka noted that the whole left side of his head had been shaved.  Kyoka raised an eyebrow.  Many bandages littered his skin, covering his cheek, his neck, and his forehead.  “You look like shit,” Kyoka added as an afterthought, and Hawks pouted.

“Thanks, Earphone Jack.  Says you, from a hospital bed.”

“Remind me which one of us dropped a skyscraper on the devil and which one of us is a bitch?”

“…Duly noted,” he replied sullenly.  “And the ‘damage’ is:  Endeavor is in the hospital, in another room on your floor.  He, uh… He got banged up pretty good fighting that big one but I think he’ll be alright.  Some other Heroes got banged up, too, but I don’t think any of ‘em are career-ending injuries.  Honestly, you might’ve been hurt the worst.”

Hawks frowned at her, looking serious and sincere for the first time.

“You’ll recover, according to the doctors, but… you might be out of commission for a minute here.”

Kyoka sighed; she remembered getting stabbed… more than a few times.  It was to be expected, she supposed, when she was reckless and foolhardy.  She could only hope that Recovery Girl didn’t get a hold of her.

“Your, uh… moment with All for One was broadcast live to international television.  Cat’s out of the bag, with regards to One for All.  I dug through the wreckage myself to find his body but he, uh… He was real dead when I found him, you got the job done at least.”

“But the Prime Minister and several high-level ministers of his party were killed by All for One,” Momo added sadly.  “We lost sixty-two civilians and we have another ninety in critical condition.  All for One hit the conference hard and the American envoys died, too.  It’s turning into an international incident.”

Kyoka raised an eyebrow at her fiancée, expecting her to continue.  Momo took a deep breath and grabbed her right forearm with her left hand.

“They expect you to do a press conference with Endeavor, probably in the next few days, and assure the people that… things will be okay.”

“Do what?”  Kyoka asked incredulously.  But then she pulled her lips to the side for a moment and thought about it.  “Fuck,” she added, not really sure what the hell else to say, and Hawks snorted in amusement.

“You’re up, kiddo.  This is your moment now.  I’ll follow you and we’ll keep this country sane, I guess, but… they just watched a villain ‘expose’ All Might and kill the Prime Minister on national television.  Things are rough.”

“There have been riots,” Momo said quietly.  “The Meta Liberation Army is attempting a comeback and we think that what is left of organized crime is coordinating, hoping to take advantage of the chaos.  We… we need you, Kyoka.”

They need you to be the Symbol of Hope, Kyoka.  Only you can decide what that means.

Kyoka blinked at Nana’s words, then smiled softly at Momo.  Momo smiled back, a tiny thing, and her posture was hesitant and small.  It hurt Kyoka to see her like that.  It hurt her to see Momo without confidence.  Momo was a leader but now she was looking to Kyoka for leadership.

Kyoka wouldn’t let her down.  She motioned to Momo to come closer and Momo promptly did, giving a feather-light touch of a hug so as not to hurt Kyoka.

“Thank you,” Kyoka whispered, and Momo made a noise of confusion, “for being you.”

“Same to you, love,” Momo said, as she pulled away to look at Kyoka’s face up close.  They kissed gently, a light and chaste thing, then Momo straightened.  They both turned to Hawks, expecting him to say something witty or snarky, but he was looking vaguely away, staring at Kyoka’s heart monitor as it beeped.

“You can do it, Earphone Jack,” Hawks said quietly.  He turned back to Kyoka with a smile, small and genuine as opposed to his usual fake ones.  “You can be the Symbol.  I’ll support you, just like I supported Endeavor.”

“He’s not dead, y’know,” Kyoka said, her tone only slightly sarcastic.  Hawks, however, just smiled a little more earnestly.

Like he was in on a joke she didn’t understand yet.

It was four days later that Kyoka and Endeavor calmly walked out onto a carpeted press stage together.

Both of them wore simple, fitted black and white three-piece suits.  Endeavor was polite enough to let Kyoka lead and she bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement to him as they walked.  She hadn’t had a chance to speak to him since her conversation with Hawks but Hawks had conveyed via text that Endeavor sent his regards.

Maybe he was a dickhead and a bad dad… but maybe people deserved second chances, too.

The weight of my sins is immense, Kyoka.

Kyoka frowned as she took a seat at the table that had been set up for her.  Endeavor sat down calmly on her left.  He had a noticeable scar on his face now, apparently from a Nomu attack, and he walked with a slight limp.  It wasn’t clear to Kyoka if that was permanent or not but Hawks had also mentioned lung damage for him, too.

Both of them had a variety of microphones sitting in front of them and, as they took their seats, the reporters began to snap hundreds of photos.  The flashing lights were disorienting and Kyoka grit her teeth in annoyance but did not visibly react as much as she could.

Endeavor was absolutely impassive, his expression solemn.  They had stood together for a few minutes before entering and he hadn’t said a word.

Shouto let her know that he had been very quiet in his room as well.  He spent a lot of time staring out his window and Shouto confessed that, privately, he wondered if Endeavor would have preferred to have died.  Kyoka couldn’t imagine what that was like.  She couldn’t imagine how heavy Endeavor’s sins were in his own mind.

But Rei had visited in the hospital with the rest of the Todoroki family; the first time they’d seen each other since Rei had formalized their separation, according to Shouto.  And… Rei had smiled as she brought Endeavor some blue flowers.

Kyoka did not understand what that meant but Shouto explained that it was significant.  She didn’t know what that meant for the two of them, if anything.  Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all, she considered as the first reporter stood.  Maybe they couldn’t be healed; maybe the damage was done.  But that was for them to decide.

It was their future to make and no one else’s.

“Earphone Jack, what can you tell us about One for All?”

“Earphone Jack, you said you were the ‘Ninth Bearer.’  Who were the other Bearers?”

“Endeavor, you failed to prevent the death of the Prime Minister.  Have you seen his family?”

“Endeavor, you were recently divorced.  What does your ex-wife think about what happened?”

“Earphone Jack, will this affect your recent engagement?”

“Endeavor, do you have any comments about your inability to pass All Might in the Hero rankings in light of One for All?”

“Earphone Jack…”

“Endeavor…”

“Earphone Jack…”

“Endeavor…”

The questions came quick and layered and the reporters barely gave them a chance to answer.  Half the time, Kyoka was halfway through an answer when three other people would yell.  Slowly, she was getting fed up and it came to a head when one reporter went too far.

“Earphone Jack, All for One asserted that you were a ‘poor successor’ because you are a part-time Hero.  Is there any validity to that?”

Kyoka opened her mouth, not sure if she wanted to make a snippy reply or to just scream.  Instead, she closed it again when Endeavor abruptly stood up and the entire room went silent.

“To the people of Japan,” Endeavor said calmly, with his hands at his sides, “I am the pro Hero Endeavor.  I have been a pro Hero for… a long time.  And I have experienced many failures in my life.  I failed to protect the Prime Minister and by extension, the nation, and for that, I am sorry.”

He turned his head slowly to look at Kyoka.  Then he nodded just a tiny bit at her, before he looked back to the press.

“Earphone Jack did not fail.  Earphone Jack is not a bad Hero because of how she has chosen to approach our profession and duty.  Earphone Jack did what she was meant to do.  She defeated All for One and now our nation is safe.  You have no right to question her.”

Kyoka was speechless.

“I am announcing my retirement as a pro Hero, in light of the changes to the pro Hero landscape.  But I am confident that I am leaving our nation in good hands, with young Heroes like Earphone Jack, Hawks, and Frostfire to lead the way.  Change is coming… but we will be safe with them.”

He bowed at a ninety degree angle for a few moments, before straightening again.

“Please, forgive me for my failures.”

The room was perfectly silent and Kyoka’s jaw was on the floor.  Endeavor… Todoroki Enji eyed the crowd of reporters, waiting for a reaction.  No reaction was forthcoming.  So, calmly and silently, he stepped to the side, pushed in his chair, and walked away.

There was a long silence before the room exploded.

Kyoka stood up as well and the room went silent once more.

“You heard the man,” she said simply.  “I am the Ninth Bearer of One for All and All Might chose me.  I will be your Symbol of Hope and I… I will lead us into a future that is safe, where everyone can be happy and free and not worry about whether or not villains will come for them in the night.  Where people don’t feel forced to become villains because they have no other option.”

Kyoka clenched her fists at her sides, feeling like her suit was chafing her.  But she was determined to see this through.

“I will see things change, so that we can live in a better, brighter tomorrow.  I only ask that you trust in me and the young Heroes like me and we will keep you safe.  Thank you for your time… and for your trust in me as a Hero.”

She bowed as well, mimicking Endeavor’s style.  When she straightened, the looks on all of the reporters’ faces was torn between awe and wonder and horror and confusion and pride.  Here they were, a room full of mostly middle-aged, older adults, watching a twenty year old woman proclaim that she would lead them.

And she meant it.  She felt Nana’s smile as she walked off the stage.

Chapter Text

It took six weeks for Kyoka to recover fully, with the help of some doctors with healing quirks.

In that time, the country went a bit mad.  That was to be expected, she supposed, when the devil himself went on television and killed the Prime Minister for fun but it was still inconvenient.  Kyoka got to watch on television as her friends and fellow Heroes struggled against intensifying riots, between the resurgent Meta Liberation Army and coalescing organized criminal gangs.

They saw the situation as one ripe for opportunity, as the reactionary MLA riots clashed against reformist protests aimed at the government.  The police forces didn’t distinguish between the two, to Kyoka’s dismay, and she was treated to scenes of police forces tear gassing and spraying water cannons at civilians regardless of their intent on national television.

It was a nightmare.  The government effectively collapsed for those six weeks because the head of government and all the major ministry heads were assassinated and the American government was also trying to exploit the situation.  The American Secretary of State died in All for One’s attack and the United States was trying to influence the weak transitional government of Japan for concessions.

Most of the political elements were conveyed to Kyoka through Momo, since television talk-show hosts were largely useless for discussing politics seriously.  Momo, recognized for her leadership during the battle at the Landmark Tower, quickly shot up to the top of the list as far as Heroes who were taken seriously.  When the pro Heroes went on to the streets to try and calm the riots and stand up to the MLA, it was Momo and Itsuka who were leading them.

The women of UA’s former Class A and B were still at the forefront, even two years out from graduation.

Ochako was out there, too, along with Hawks, Shouto and Katsuki and the other heavy-hitters, trying to stop the riots from turning into major fires or other disasters and putting down major villains.  Kyoka chafed while watching her friends struggle on television while she had to sit and rest.  But there was nothing to be done about it; Momo would have killed her if she went out too early.

The Hero Commission was rudderless because the President of the Hero Commission was one of the leadership figures who died in All for One’s attack.  Traditional chains of command among Hero agencies fell apart and, for a moment, it looked like the entire system would fold in on itself.  There would be no one to protect people, both from the MLA and from the police, it became increasingly clear.

Then Sir Nighteye stepped in.  He offered his agency to Momo and Itsuka to serve as a base of operation.  Shouto and Katsuki were struggling, having been thrown the Endeavor Agency on the fly.  However, between the two agencies, they formed the core administrative and organizational system of the Heroes left standing.

It was good that Endeavor had retired, though.  His limp was permanent and, while he could still theoretically fight, his time as the top Hero was now over.  He had given that away to stop Gigantomachia; his last ‘Prominence Burn’ was the one that brought down the hulking villain.

It took six weeks for Kyoka to recover fully.  But now, she was ready to go out, as she donned her new Hero costume once more.

Izuku had been nice enough to fix it for her while she waited.

“We stand for the glory of Re-Destro!”

The villain was huge, easily nine meters tall.  Not only did his quirk make him giant, he also had spikes growing out of his shoulders and his back.  He led about two dozen other villains, standing in the middle of the four-way intersection.

In one direction stood a line of police in riot gear, flanked by JSDF APCs mounted with water cannons.  They formed a phalanx with their riot shields but it was likely that, if the villain was of the mind to, he could simply step on them.

In the opposite direction, there was a different group of villains, led by a man with purple fire rising from his right hand.  They wore bizarre animal masks and they were members of an up-and-coming villain gang that was seeking to capitalize on the chaos to recruit people and expand their operations.  The villain with the purple fire had an injector gun in his left hand and it glinted crimson in the midday sun.

“You won’t be able to stop us, police scum!”  The giant villain roared, heedless of the fact that he was picking a fight with two different armed groups.  The Meta Liberation Army’s new recruits were happy to be martyrs for their twisted cause and they were seeking to build up enough power to try and break Re-Destro out of Tartarus.

That was when Kyoka dropped down gently from her perch on one of the buildings above.  She landed gracefully and silently using Float and none of the MLA villains even registered her at first.

Above, a news helicopter circled and Kyoka smiled, knowing that the nation would see this.  They would see her return and know that there was a reason to have hope again.

“Hey, big guy.  You’re being loud as hell,” she said, and all of the MLA villains spun around.

Then she kicked the giant villain as One for All spiked like a purple mirage of heat and he went flying like a massive cannonball into the corner of the nearest building.  The building shattered under the weight and half of it crumbled on top of the man.

Kyoka was already moving.  She landed, then stepped forward and twirled around in an arc with Blackwhip, gathering up all the MLA villains in a single spinning swing.  Then she completed her arc and slammed them all back over her head, cracking the concrete, and none of them dared to stand back up.

She turned and saw the purple fire man injecting his Trigger.  She took one step forward as One for All burned bright, then disappeared in a thunderclap of air buckling.  She met the purple fire man open palm to face and slammed him right into the ground with an explosion of asphalt.

She held that position, hunched over with her hand on the now-unconscious villain, and carefully surveyed the crime thugs as they stood in place, horrified and shocked and afraid.

“Anybody else?”  Kyoka asked.  The men dropped their weapons and put their hands up in surrender as the police ran over finally to begin cuffing the villains.

Kyoka straightened and surveyed the scene.  Satisfied with a job well done, she brought her hand up to her earpiece and switched to broadcasting to all channels.  That way she knew the news helicopter would pick her up.

“This is the professional Hero Earphone Jack.  Today, this chaos ends… because I am here.”

It took another four months but, in the end, they were able to pick up the pieces.

That didn’t mean it was a painless process.  Many people died and were injured in the chaos and the fighting in the streets.  Most of the older generation of Heroes retired in waves.  They were not up to the task of trying to put Hero society back together; to build something new and better and beautiful on the ashes of the dead thing they had left behind.

But Kyoka and her friends were up to the task.   So, for four months, they defeated villains, performed disaster relief, and quelled MLA riots.

After four months, there was an emergency election and a new government took up power in Japan.  They cleanly broke ranks with the former Prime Minister’s policies and rejected the overtures of the American government.  Supported by the new generation of Heroes, Japan stood alone and began to build something different.

Things didn’t stop all at once.  It started slowly; one day, there were fewer riots.  The next week, the number of fires and car pile ups fell sharply.  By the end of the month, the riots had ceased as the MLA lost momentum and people began to whisper and gush about their new truth:

They had a new Symbol of Hope and she wasn’t slowing down for anyone.

Working as a Hero full-time was strange for Kyoka, at first.  She was not used to the ‘go, go, go’ attitude, to waking up at the crack of dawn every day and returning home bruised and filthy, to barely seeing Momo for days at a time.  She didn’t like it but then, she had a duty to fulfill.

Izuku and Melissa and Mei made her more costumes and repaired her gear and Kyoka kept going.  She refused to stop until the job was done.

After six months, when the new government took power formally and began to make changes, Kyoka was finally able to announce that she was going to go back to part-time Hero work.  There was an uproar at this, as the pundits and talk shows went on about how society would go back to shit if the Symbol of Hope wasn’t a constant presence.

Kyoka made her speech - Momo was nice enough to help her write it - about how the time for Hero society to stand on the shoulders of one person was long past.  How she would be there, with One for All, watching over them still.  But Hero society would be safe under the watch of her friends, too, and together they would make a better world.

Her friends made good on that promise as the new government began to clean up the mess.  New infrastructure was built, new buildings were raised, and old foes - like the MLA and corrupt super corporations like NAMM - were vanquished.  The American government wailed and gnashed its teeth at the new Japanese government, threatening political intervention on behalf of its corporations.  Kyoka, in her speech, dared them to try it.

They weren’t keen to take her up on her offer, with the video of her destroying the Landmark Tower viral on the internet.

The press was relentless, though.

Kyoka had liked living in an apartment with Momo.  It was very normal and Kyoka had always hoped to remain someone normal.  Not the Symbol of Hope or the Ninth Bearer of One for All but just another Hero who did her job and went home to a normal, simple apartment.  But then All for One decided to ruin it for her, so she and Momo had to buy a house.

Buying a house in a gated community screamed ‘selling out’ to Kyoka.  She kind of hated it.  But the alternative was going out into the hallway of her apartment building and finding poorly-disguised photographers trying to take pictures of her when she just wanted to get her damn mail.  They already followed her and Momo everywhere else and it was intolerable.

They were lucky she wasn’t a villain.  Sometimes she considered taking Himiko’s advice and stabbing them.

Eight months after the death of All for One, Kyoka and Momo spent their time unpacking their things.  Their friends had been nice enough to help them move but now they had the somewhat daunting task of putting things away, putting up pictures on new walls, and rearranging furniture.  They’d only been in the house for two days and Kyoka was already exhausted.

“Oi, ladies.  I was fuckin’ summoned!”  Kyoka turned at the voice and snorted when she found Katsuki standing at the open door.  He gave a silly little wave, his face twisted in a scowl, and Kyoka smirked at him.  Wearing a Red Riot t-shirt and black jeans, he looked pretty decent today and she noticed he’d gotten his ear pierced and he had a distinctive red earring in.

“Nice, Blasty.  New accessory suits ya,” she replied sardonically.  He just scoffed but she saw the ghost of a smile there.  Then he stepped in, popped his shoes off, and walked towards the pile of boxes.  Filing in after him came Eijiro, Izuku, and Ochako, so Kyoka jumped up to give all four of them hugs in turn.

Eijiro matched his fiancé, wearing Ground Zero merchandise and sporting a newly-pierced ear with an orange earring in it.  Kyoka distantly wondered if his quirk would fuck up his piercing but decided she didn’t want to know the answer to that.  Besides, Izuku probably would ask that question.

Ochako had that damn limited-edition All Might hoodie on, like it was the last piece of clothing she owned.  Izuku, accordingly, wore a black and pink Uravity sweater and they were just the cutest thing together.  All four of them were perfect, Kyoka decided as she directed them to which boxes were what and where she wanted them.

“Y’all are too cute,” Kyoka declared as they began.  Katsuki sputtered and Izuku turned pink.  Meanwhile, both Ochako and Eijiro answered her in unison.

“We know,” they declared, and they began to cackle as they gave each other a high-five.  Kyoka just rolled her eyes… but she really did love her friends.

They spent that afternoon chatting and unpacking and Kyoka made some food along with Ochako and Katsuki, now the master cooks of Class A.  It was good food and Momo made it home just in time to join them.  They had to sit around on the floor and eat on paper plates but Kyoka decided that was fitting, in a way.  It was just like when they’d moved out of the dorms and Kyoka…

Kyoka felt like her world was bending back into place, the best it could.

She felt like she was home.

It was nine months after the death of All for One that Kyoka and Momo finally had their wedding ceremony.

And what a ceremony it was.  It wasn’t large but everyone that Kyoka wanted to be there came and that was what mattered to her.  Momo was the planner for the wedding, naturally, assisted by Itsuka, and things went quite well, accordingly.

Itsuka, Setsuna, Mina, Shouto, and Ochako were Momo’s bridesmaid party.  Izuku, Katsuki, Melissa, Toru, and Eijiro were Kyoka’s.  All of them wore matching tuxedos - Momo’s wore royal red ties and flowers and Kyoka’s wore dark purple ties and flowers - and they got to take silly pictures together wearing sunglasses and pretending to be spies with finger guns, once the formal pictures were taken.

Kyoka and Momo’s picture, back-to-back with finger guns raised and stupid sideways grins on their face, became Kyoka’s new phone background after the fact.

The rest of Class A and B were there and little Eri got to be the ringbearer.  Toshinori agreed to officiate and Kyoka’s dad sobbed like a dork when he walked her down the aisle.  It was perfect and beautiful and they even managed to keep the gawkers and attempted picture-takers out of the ceremony, assisted by Hawks and his feathers.

He gave Kyoka a little wave as they were mingling during the reception.  Fuyumi was with him, wearing a striking white dress and holding his arm, and she gave a little wave and a smile, too.  Kyoka waved back with an earphone jack, glad to see that they were doing well… even if Hawks was still a bird-brained dork.

Hilariously enough, Tsuyu caught the bouquet that Momo threw and Himiko was red in the face for an hour as Kyoka chatted with Tsuyu about her now clearly impending marriage.  But they smiled together the whole time and Kyoka was proud of them.

Himiko hadn’t had an easy life or path to get where she was and it made Kyoka happy to see that Himiko had made it, too.

Just because something wasn’t meant to be, doesn’t make it not worthwhile.

“Hey, Kyoka!”  Kyoka turned and found Izuku, a big smile plastered on his freckled face and a cup of punch in his hand.  “You and Momo did so well today, I told you that you’d be able to memorize your lines!”  He sort of whispered that last part and Kyoka mock-scowled at him.

“Shush, don’t say that part out loud,” Kyoka whispered back, and he chuckled at her.  “How is the party?  You aren’t nervous or anything, are ya?”

“I’m having fun,” he said after shaking his head, still smiling, and Kyoka felt a welling pride in her.  He always used to dislike parties, always hiding in the corner.  But now he looked like really was on top of the world and she had a good idea as to why that was.

Kyoka opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Izuku knew about One for All now.  Everyone did, of course, but it was different that he knew.  She’d never had the courage to tell him about… about the rest of it.  About what was meant to be and what would never be.  Part of her so desperately wanted to tell him but part of her remembered what Nana had said.

Would that make him happy?  Looking at him now, she doubted that very much.  He had a happy life now, One for All or not.  He mattered and he was important, regardless of having power or being a Hero or not.  And, in his own way, he still was a Hero to her, even without a quirk or a costume.

Kyoka couldn’t help the nagging, needling guilt in the back of her mind, though, as Izuku gave her a confused expression of curiosity.  She wondered if he had a right to know, regardless.  But she wanted him to be happy.

“Nothing, it’s nothing.  Hey, let’s go find 'Chako, I wanted to ask her something,” Kyoka said, and Izuku nodded and led her away.

The rest of Kyoka and Momo’s wedding was delightful and, when they eventually returned home from their honeymoon, they were greeted as legends on talk shows.  Kyoka never liked getting interviewed but Momo had insisted.

Kyoka managed to only trip over her words a few times, which was an achievement as far as she cared.

Kyoka is dreaming again.

She looks around and finds herself standing at the school festival again but her real memory of it now.  Her friends are there, frozen in celebration in the dream, and Kyoka smiles at the sight.  This was such a wonderful time - the first time she’d been brave enough to perform for a meaningful audience - and it fills Kyoka with pride to see again.

She was terrified at the time, though.  It’s funny how things change.

The memory begins moving and Kyoka’s ghostly form is teleported.  One moment, she is standing among the crowd; the next, she is on the stage, looking at herself singing.  The dream is silent but little Kyoka is so enthusiastic as the music plays, and Kyoka’s adult self smiles wistfully.

But her attention is directed then to little Momo and Kyoka’s breath hitches as she sees little Momo watching little Kyoka.  Her expression is a gradient, awe and wonder and love and beauty, with a subtle glint in her eyes and a big smile on her face.  Kyoka looks at little Momo and sees that she loves little Kyoka already, with all of her being, and it takes Kyoka’s breath away entirely.

“You’re doing just fine, Kyoka.  I won’t talk to you again for a long time, I think… but I still believe in you.”

Kyoka turns and sees Nana, standing on the stage as her cape billows in a silent, non-existent wind.  Nana smiles at her and gives a little wave with her yellow-gloved hand, so Kyoka grins.  She grins and she cries and Nana cries, too, but they are tears of joy because Kyoka has never felt more loved in her entire life than she feels right now.

And like that, Kyoka wakes up.  She wakes up… and she feels Nana’s smile still, as she goes to work on new music.

Kyoka threw herself into her music as the one year anniversary of the defeat of All for One came up.

Her hope had always been to succeed in the music world on the basis of her music being actually good.  She never really wanted to succeed because she was a popular Hero.  But now she had been named the number one Hero and she was mad as hell about it.  Her music was insanely popular and she always had that needling self-consciousness of:  was it because of her work as a Hero or because her music was actually good?

But this was something new.  She tried her hand at making political punk rock music, resolving to try and influence the public.  Using her position as a Hero to mess with things was something she didn’t really like.  She didn’t want to stand above people as a pro Hero or use the power and prestige that came with that to make her voice the loudest.

But she thought making music was fair.  It was art and the words came from her soul.  So she wrote music and thought about the little boy who couldn’t afford to go to art school, of Izuku, of Himiko, and about everyone else who had been abandoned and left behind in their Hero society.

The government pitched a fit, with political reactionaries accusing her of trying to buy influence using her Hero name.  But the album sold well digitally and Kyoka felt more than a little pride when she was invited onto talk shows and, for once, they wanted to talk about music and not One for All.

New elections were scheduled soon and Kyoka officially endorsed the coalition of reformist parties that opposed the MLA and quirk supremacy.  It was kind of weird to be endorsing a political party but she came to that decision after a lot of chatting with Momo.  She didn’t actively campaign for them or appear in commercials but she made her stance clear when asked.

She wanted to see change.  She wanted to see things get better.  And change, she would say if asked, didn’t come from people in costumes punching villains in the street; it came from society itself working to do better.

Kyoka felt pride from Nana but she wondered if this was what Nana actually intended for her to do.  Then again, maybe ‘intended’ didn’t matter much.

Kyoka had a fate - or, at least, she assumed so - but she didn’t worry much about that.  She never asked Sir Nighteye again to look at her future and he never offered.  Kyoka decided that the future would proceed however it was written and all she could hope to do was keep moving forward.

She would be more than a Symbol.  She would be a leader, just like Momo always was.

It was a bit over a year and a half over the death of All for One that Kyoka found herself standing at the mall with a rather confused-looking Izuku.

“I swear, the internet said this store was right over… there!”  He said, and he abruptly picked up his pace.  He was a bit taller than her, so Kyoka dropped her hands from the top of her head, where they’d be lounging, to hurry and catch up.

“Slow down, Greenie, jeez.  I’m short over here, cut me some slack,” Kyoka said, and Izuku slowed down just a bit to throw a sheepish smile back at her.  Kyoka looked up from him and snorted when she saw the store he’d brought her to.

It was a ring shop.

“Y’know, if you had asked, I could’ve recommended you a ring shop,” Kyoka pointed out.  Izuku just shrugged as he fell into step next to her.

“Eijiro recommended it to me!”  Izuku chirped, and Kyoka giggled.  Eijiro’s ring for Katsuki was, frankly, gaudy as all hell.  It suited them but Kyoka didn’t think that was really Izuku and Ochako’s style.

“Well, I guess it’s good you brought me here to supervise, isn’t it?”  Kyoka said, and Izuku quickly and unironically nodded like a bobblehead.  God, he was hopeless; Ochako was in for it now.

He pushed open the door to the store and Kyoka was greeted with display after display of glittering jewelry.  Izuku was lucky she wasn’t like Mina and Toru; those two would’ve immediately been lost for hours in all the pretty possibilities before them.

Speaking of which, Kyoka made a mental note to have Momo check her dress size one more time.  Toru and Mashirao’s wedding was in a few weeks.  About a month after that, Katsuki and Eijiro’s wedding would follow.  Kyoka was going to be in both weddings as a bridesmaid and she had a different dress for each one.  It was a bit of a nightmare and, looking at Izuku, Kyoka realized that was another wedding she would have to go to and maybe, if she got lucky, be in.

But then, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.  At least there would be cake.

“This one is pretty,” Kyoka pointed out.  It was a ring made of black metal with little pink gemstones in it.  Izuku grabbed his chin as he looked at it, leaning over the display, and Kyoka smiled at him.

He wore a Uravity t-shirt today and Kyoka kind of wondered if he had bought more of her merchandise now that he could get away with it or if he already had it and was just hiding it away.  She didn’t plan to tease him about it but the thought was sufficient to make her smirk to herself.

She was glad to see that the pair of them were so happy and she knew, too, because Mina never stopped pestering Ochako about it at gatherings.

Gatherings that Ochako now made it to regularly.  She had started seeing a therapist and was feeling markedly better than she used to.  It was wonderful to see and Kyoka’s smile softened as she watched Izuku without really seeing him.

“--Kyoka?  Kyoka!  Are you okay?”

“Huh?  Yeah, yeah, sorry, I was spacing out there…”  Kyoka said with a sheepish shrug.  Izuku nodded, unperturbed; he was a person who spaced out plenty, too, so he was never offended when others did.

They began to walk down the displays, looking at other options.  None of them were really speaking to Izuku, though, and Kyoka was slowly getting more annoyed.  Not at him but more so at the store; she really wanted him to get this right.

After about twenty minutes, Kyoka stopped dead in front of one of the displays as she felt a metaphysical pull like Nana herself had grabbed her arm.  She almost fell over from the feeling and Izuku turned with a hand out in case she needed help.

“You okay?”  He asked again, concern deep in his voice.  Kyoka blinked slowly, recovering, then turned and looked at the display she stopped next to.

There, glittering in the display lights, was a black ring shaped like an infinity symbol, with pink and white gemstones up and down it.  Kyoka felt a purity of focus wash over her, like this was one of the most right moments she had experienced in her entire life, as she looked at the ring.  Then she pointed it at it with one index finger and turned her gaze back to Izuku with absolute determination.

“This one.  Buy this one,” she said flatly.  Izuku leaned over and inspected it, his hand on his chin, and she watched his face slowly light up as he understood its appeal.

“I like it!  Thank you, Kyoka, good find!”  He chirped, and she nodded, then turned away to hide her smirk.  She would never be able to tell him how not responsible she was for that one but, in a way, she supposed that didn’t matter.

For a fleeting moment, she was granted a vision of a phantom memory:  Izuku, wearing a UA PE uniform, watching in awe as Ochako sent a little ball into the stratosphere, never to be seen again.  A memory that happened but it meant so much more to Kyoka to see him there, too, like he should have been.

She watched Izuku buy the ring, then they proceeded to walk aimlessly around the mall for another hour, window shopping and chatting.  But Kyoka’s mind was faraway in outer space and she turned to Izuku with a blank expression when they reached the exit to the mall, prepared to go their separate ways.

“Izuku?”  She asked, and he turned to her and nodded for her to continue.  “Do you… feel like you’re home?”

A strange look crossed his face, something like confusion, then horror, then awe, then recognition… then he smiled kindly at her.

“Yeah.  Yeah I do.”

She smiled back because that was what she wanted to hear.