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Oboro isn't quite sure when he attached himself to Shouta.
One moment he was alive, rushing in to save the day as a hero does. The next he was floating above the destroyed building looking down at his own lifeless body as Shouta screamed and begged and the rain poured down around them.
He was not sure what exactly he was supposed to be doing with himself. There was no bright white light, or tunnel, or even a river with a boat on it directing him to where he was supposed to go next. There was just rain and nothingness. Then he blinked and he was no longer floating over the scene of his death but instead hovering near the ceiling in Shouta's room as his friend sat on the edge of his bed staring straight ahead, tears dry, but clearly not doing well with what he had just been through. All while his mother tried to comfort him and his father yelled.
After that, he followed Shouta around for a while. It's not exactly following because he's not actively doing it. He just seems to end up being where Shouta is. He doesn't actually travel with him he just blinks out of existence where he was and then in whenever Shouta stops moving for longer than a few seconds. He has no memory of it and he has no control over it. It just happens.
He wishes he has control over it. Wishes he could use that control to comfort his grieving friends as they struggle to move on past his death. But he can't. He can't physically, if you can even call it that, move anywhere. He just floats and blinks in and out of existence. It's hard to tell the passage of time in this form. No way to tell if just a few days pass or if it's a month later when things suddenly start to change and the purpose of all of this suddenly slots itself into place.
He's floating over Aizawa as he climbs up and down the length of his capture weapon. His hands are raw and bleeding but that doesn't stop him. He doesn't listen to his teachers, to Nedzu, when they tell him to take a break. He just leaves and then sneaks back in an hour later to get back to his training. His only supervision during these moments is Hizashi who really isn't doing much supervising as he sits on the floors above the gym listening to music loudly in his headphones mostly lost in his own grief. Oboro can't get close to him no matter how hard he's tried. He wants to go with him, to make sure that he's doing okay too, but he can't. It's the same with Nemuri, with Nedzu, with his own parents. He can't do anything but hover near Shouta and he doesn't understand why it's like that, only knows that it is.
Something is keeping him attached to Shouta. Something important.
He's hovering as he always does when it happens. He's not even paying attention to Shouta. He's trying again to get closer to Hizashi. Then he hears a cry and turns around just in time to see Aizawa crashing towards the ground apparently having lost his grip on the capture weapon with his blood and sweat-soaked hands.
Oboro can only watch in horror as Shouta hits the ground, thankfully covered in a thick mat, with a hard impact. Hizashi is up and moving. He launches himself off of the level he'd been sitting on just barely managing to catch onto the capture weapon before he propels himself down it. He lands softly and throws himself at Shouta who is staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes. He pleads with Shouta to stay with him as he fishes for his phone but Oboro knows it's a losing battle as dark eyes slip shut and he can feel himself blinking out of existence. He prays softly to himself that the next time he blinks back in his friend won't be hovering next to him.
He's not.
Not much time seems to have passed since he'd blinked out this time. Shouta is in Recovery Girl's offices. His father is slinging threats of lawsuits in their Homeroom teacher’s direction and his mother, white as a sheet, is clutching his arm as Recover Girl presses a kiss against his forehead. Hizashi is sitting on the edge of Shouta's bed like he's afraid that he might still disappear if he doesn't stay close. His hands were bandaged, probably sliced open when he descended the captured weapon. He feels like he's fading again as Recovery girl's quirk beings to take effect and Shouta is pulled under again.
Much more time seems to have passed the next time he blinks back. He's in Shouta's room and his friend is in the middle of a heated argument with his mother. Oboro can't really hear what they're saying, but he's relieved to see the fire in his friend's eyes again. He's lost control of his quirk, hair floating as it activates, then she's pulling him into a tight hug and his hair falls and he buries his face in her neck and starts sobbing.
"I just want you to be safe," she pleads. "I...I see what his parents are going through and I don't want to go through that too, Shouta, I don't think I'd be as strong as they are and if this helps then we're going to do it and keep doing it as many times as it takes until we find someone who can help you."
Shouta makes a face over her shoulder but he wraps an arm around her and Oboro knows that whatever she's asking of from him she'll get her way.
He blinks out again and when he comes back to reality he finds himself hovering up near the corner of the ceiling of some kind of office. Shouta is sitting on one of the chairs with a clipboard in his hand filling out a form that's attached to it with a sour expression on his face. His mother is speaking with the green-haired woman sitting behind the receptionist desk. They were speaking in hushed tones and the woman behind the desk kept smiling in a reassuring way but her gaze kept sliding towards where Shouta was sitting looking a bit sad and maybe a touch worried. Finally, a man stuck his head out of the door that led to the back and Shouta's mother sent her own worried glance in Shouta's direction but then went with him.
The woman turned back to her work, entering stuff on the computer, but her gaze kept sliding back to where Shouta was sitting. She was muttering softly to herself and eventually seemed to come to some kind of decision as she stood up and walked out from behind the desk. She said something softly to Shouta as she approached him, her tone gentle and soothing, she gestured towards the forms he was filling out. He looked at her tensely for a moment and then nodded and she settled down next to him. She didn't say anything, just sits as a silent, comforting presence next to him. Every once in a while he would grow tense and would lean the clipboard in her direction and they would have a soft conversation about whatever he was trying to fill out and then he would grow contemplative and start writing again. With her help, he finished the forms in a relatively quick fashion and she took it back from him. A hand hovering over his shoulder like she wanted to squeeze it for a brief moment before she seemed to reconsider and left.
Oboro felt himself drifting towards her side of the room as she moved. She was such a warm comforting presence and he felt the sudden need to be near her. He glanced in Shouta's direction as he settled in behind her. There was a little bit of guilt as he watched his friend almost seem to curl in more on himself as he left but he couldn't stop the drift when he tried.
Her desk was tidy, but not immaculate. There wasn't much that gave away anything about her personality. Just a name tag that said “Inko” and a picture next to it. It was of a sleeping baby. All chubby, freckled cheeks and wisps of green hair like his mother’s. Oboro doesn't know how he knows that. How he knows this baby is her son. There's something else that he knows that he has no idea how. It's a single thing. A name.
Izuku.
He didn't know this woman. As far as he could remember he'd never met her while he. Nor had he ever heard his parents mention anyone named Inko. So why he would have this knowledge so readily he didn't know. But as the name echoed through his consciousness he felt something change. He felt the invisible strand connecting himself to Shouta dissolve and be replaced by one connecting him to her. As he felt this new connection slide into place he could already sense that it was not permanent. That he was not meant to be with her for long.
He mourns the loss of his connection with Shouta as he watches his friend leave a few hours later after having gone back to speak to the doctor in an attempt to begin the healing process. Somehow deep inside him, he knows this won't be the last time he sees them. Something tells him they're destined to meet again. He doesn't know how he knows this or how long it will be until that time comes but still, he knows it is the truth.
He hovers in the corner of the office watching Inko work. She is diligent and during lulls, she pulls out something thick-looking textbooks and studies them. She chats on the phone a few times with someone named Hisashi and Izuku's name comes up during these conversations. He tries to listen but can't really focus on the words. Instead, he settles on watching the joy on her face as she speaks about her son. She is so happy. It's clear that the boy brings her so much joy.
Oboro can't wait to meet him.
He stays with her for most of the day only blinking out once she's packing up her belongings and leaving for the night. As he's fading away he feels an intense surge of excitement trail through him. The first real emotion other than fear that he's felt since his death.
That feeling is still with him when he blinks back in. He's in a completely unfamiliar place. A nice-looking house on what seems like a peaceful street as he glances briefly out the window. She's being hugged by a man he assumes is Hisashi. He's tall and has freckles and for some reason a face hidden in shadows.
Oboro had run into this before. Sometimes people in the mortal world did not fully appear to him. Normally this wasn't something that normally bothered him but something about this man caused him to ripple in and out of reality. It wasn't quite fear that went through him as he does so but it's something. The faceless man is holding a small child a bit older than the picture but from the way Inko's whole body lights up when she sees him it is undoubtedly Izuku.
He feels a bit better when Inko takes the child away from her husband. The child snuggles close to his mother, happy and content that she's home again. Oboro wants to go closer but something about the man keeps him back even if everything within him is urging him forward. The man kisses his wife's forehead and brushes his hand against the back of the boy's head.
Oboro feels nothing but thick, hot rage course through him for a long moment and then he blinks out again.
It's dark when he blinks back in. He's in Inko's bedroom. She's alone. He realizes almost instantly that there is no longer a thread that connects them.
He drifts out of the room, knowing from experience that he could phase through walls. He's not sure what to do. He hasn't been free like this since the moment he died. Had he done something that changed things? He'd felt emotions today had that somehow shifted whatever he was into a real ghost now?
He drifted through the house and ended up in the living room. The man, his face still hidden in shadows, was sitting on the couch with a laptop on the coffee table in front of him. He was currently paying it little attention instead seems focused on the TV which was playing at a low volume. He was drinking from a glass of amber liquid, muttering softly to himself. Oboro let his attention drift from the man to the images on the TV. Shouta wasn't much for the TV which meant that he hadn't had much of a chance to watch it recently.
He was only mildly put out when he noticed that the news was on. The irritation disappeared when he realized that it was a news report on a recent All Might battle. Something about a warehouse being used as a villain's base of operation being raided. It seemed to be a front for some sort of lab if the men and women in lab coats being led out of it in handcuffs were anything to go by. The silence of the room was suddenly interrupted by the shattering of glass. Oboro whirled around as a curse followed, the man had jumped up from the couch and was hurrying to the kitchen. There was glass on the floor and liquid seeping into the keyboard of the laptop. He was going to drift closer to take the opportunity to investigate what was on the screen when he heard a sound coming from deeper inside the house.
It takes him a minute to realize it's a heartbeat.
It takes him only a second longer to rush from the room following its trail with eager excitement. He follows it into a smaller room next to the room that Inko is currently sleeping in. It's Izuku's room, that much is clear instantly from the stuffed animals and framed prints of cartoony stars and moons. The room is dark save a small All Might-shaped nightlight near a low bed in the corner. In the light of the night light, he can make out the shape of a small figure on the bed.
Izuku.
The heartbeat grows impossibly loud in the silent room. It calls to him and pulls him closer. It's not like the connections he'd had with Shouta and Inko though. Not just a thing that tethered him and pulled him along. No this was like a song and it sings through him like the air he used to breathe.
He doesn't hesitate to move forward. It's quick and easy to slide across the room like a current of air is pushing him along. As he gets closer the heartbeat softens and rushes up to meet him. A thick feeling of warmth encircles him. It glows brightly in the dark room. He can see the color of it, it's green, warm, and earthy. It rushes around him happily. His own glow, something he hadn't even really noticed until just this moment, softer and blue rushes out to meet it to dance and play in bright colorful swirls.
He drifts still closer to the bed, as he does he feels his own heartbeat rising up to match the one singing through him. He knows it's impossible, he no longer has a heart to beat, but somehow at this moment, the impossible is possible.
He's finally close enough to make out the figure in the bed, illuminated in the light of their shared glow. He's still impossibly small, his hair thick and fluffy, there are freckles on the skin underneath the eyes. The eyes that are open. They are large and wide and green like his hair. They shine brightly in their shared glow or maybe that's just how bright the boy's soul is. Because the instant their eyes meet Oboro knows that's what the glow around them is.
Their souls.
He's heard of soulbonds. Knows that it's something that exists in the world. But It's rare that a person actually meets their soulmate though, so achingly rare. There are so many people on earth that the thought you could just randomly find that one person walking around living your life normally seemed impossible. No one quite understood how they worked. They weren't common enough to have formed any sort of knowledge database. People who met them said they felt a pull towards the person and then when they met them just...knew...but exactly what that pull meant or how it had been initiated was beyond any scope of comprehension, even of those that had experienced it.
Oboro knows that if he could be questioned about this moment somehow that he wouldn't be able to put into words what had drawn him to Izuku. He was DEAD and yet he'd still been pulled here. To this child, he probably never would have had a reason to meet otherwise.
The boy regarded him with those wide, green eyes seriously for a long moment. It seemed to last both forever and for no time at all. Then they lit up as bright as the sun as an impossibly wide grin stretched across his face and a bubbly, musical laugh filled the room. Oboro feels the place inside him where his heart should be swelled even larger at the sound.
For a brief moment, he is filled with immeasurable sadness that he would never know this boy the way that he should have been able to. The things they would have shared, the things he could have been able to teach him, just everything that they could have been had they shared the bond while he'd been alive. Yet one more person that had been hurt because of him.
The light swirling around them fades slightly, his own retreating as his sadness threatens to overwhelm him. He can feel himself pulling back like he did before he blinked out of existence but this time he didn't know what would happen if he allowed himself to fade. There was nothing tethering him to reality anymore. Whatever it was that had been keeping him here, guiding him to this moment, allowing him to meet Izuku, had released its hold on him once it had fulfilled its purpose. Instinct told him that if he faded now he would not be coming back.
The child thrusts out a chubby hand. His eyes are huge, glowing fully now in a way that doesn't seem to be just a reflection, full of trust and hope. Oboro finds himself drawn towards the hand. He reaches his own out towards it and as he does his own glow grows brighter mirroring the boy's eyes. He hesitates for a brief second as his hand almost touches the boy's. Whatever happens next will be permanent. He doesn't know how but he knows it. He's not the one that will have to live with this decision. His own path has ended, but the boy’s still stretched for a lifetime ahead of him. It seems wrong to have to ask such a young child to make such a permanent and potentially life-changing decision.
Izuku does not hesitate. Another wide grin stretches across his face as his fingers curl around the energy and light making up Oboro's fingers. For a moment nothing happens just the soft hum of their swirling energies. Then Oboro feels a swift tug at his entire being and the light encompassing both of them flares brighter and warmer. He can feel himself fading again but this time it's not into nothingness and he is no longer afraid.
The last thought he has before their souls rejoin is of coming home.