Work Text:
By the end of his fight with Fulmination, Izuku realizes he’s going to die.
He doesn’t want to die. He wants to go home, fall asleep to Shoto’s gentle smile. They’ll complain about their day, how frustrating that one villain was to defeat. Shoto will try to make him dinner and fail miserably. They’ll go to the cat café where Izuku first fell in love with Shoto, and Izuku will propose to him there. Shoto will say yes—probably—and Yaomomo will have so much fun planning their wedding.
Izuku is supposed to go shopping for an engagement ring with Ochako and Tenya next weekend. He’ll never get to do that now.
3-A’s annual gathering is next month. Hitoshi will get to come this time; he’s finally done with the year-and-a-half infiltration mission into Fulmination’s crime syndicate. Izuku misses him; and even though the purple-haired man would never admit it, Izuku knows Hitoshi misses his friends too.
He’ll never know if Hitoshi and Denki will ever manage to get together.
Aizawa-sensei will be so disappointed that he doesn’t manage to survive with his quirk taken from him, despite all the training 3-A has done on scenarios exactly like this one. He’ll scold Izuku for being reckless, probably—for not managing to dodge that quirk-erasing serum. He’ll be relieved, though, that Izuku managed to survive long enough to be scolded.
Izuku doesn’t want to die. He has too much to live for.
Life has never been good at considering what Izuku wants.
The purpose of One For All is to defeat All For One and his empire. Now that All For One is dead, the purpose of Izuku’s quirk is fulfilled. It doesn’t matter if Izuku dies before passing on his quirk; not that it’d be easy to find someone who can house a quirk as powerful as One For All currently is.
Izuku supposes there’s something poetic about this; the last holder of One For All dying to take down the one who claims the fallen king’s vacant throne.
It’s as good as he’ll ever get.
The story goes something like this—pro hero Deku, the No. 1 hero, sacrifices his life in a fight against the up and rising Symbol of Evil.
He stalls long enough for backup to arrive, despite having his quirk taken from him, and the S-rank villain who has coerced and murdered her way to power. He saves hundreds of lives; with less than ten casualties in the entire operation despite the collapse of several buildings.
Deku dies as he lived. He dies being a hero.
This is where the story is supposed to end; with Deku going out in a blaze of glory.
But it is merely the beginning of a new story.
As Izuku takes his last breath, the green swirl of mist that represents him in One For All solidifies.
Izuku dies, and a version of him wakes up in the quirk.
This version of Izuku wakes up in the remains of a vault, surrounded by the vestiges. It feels like a strange parallel of the first time they met face-to-face.
He is confused. The last thing he remembers is the pain of lightning hitting his chest, and the absolute certainty that he is going to die. And then…his chest doesn’t hurt now. In fact, no part of him hurts; even the ever-persisting ache of his arms has disappeared. There is no hole in Izuku’s chest, no bruises on his torso from when he was thrown into a building, no creaking of his bones from whenever he used One For All for too long.
Izuku hasn’t felt so good in a long, long time.
Frowning, Izuku looks down, and blinks. He remembers this costume. It’s the version he wore during his third year at UA, when All For One—possessing Shigiraki’s body—attacked UA.
It’s the costume Izuku was wearing when he finally defeated All For One.
He swallows. He’s in One For All’s dreamscape, but this time as a vestige, not a visitor.
Izuku is dead.
“Huh.” Fifth booms, his voice, as loud as ever, interrupting Izuku’s thoughts. “We’re still here.”
In between First’s enthusiastic exclamations of ‘my nephew!’ and Second’s exasperated eye-rolling, Izuku gets the sense that they aren’t supposed to still be here.
Like all quirks, One For All is supposed to disappear when its host dies. That makes sense; after all, quirks are simply an extension of one’s physical body; when one’s body dies, so does their quirk.
The vestiges’—and Izuku’s—continued existence…does not make sense. One For All is supposed to die with Izuku. They should’ve disappeared the moment Izuku died—and Izuku did die; they were sure of that.
But then, One For All has never been good at following the rules that most quirks are bound to.
Izuku settles in for a long eternity with the vestiges, people who have been inhabiting his body for the past decade or so. They are both familiar and not; despite having been with him for so long, Izuku doesn’t know any of the vestiges personally.
Well. There’ll be eternity for them to rectify that.
At some point, it sets in that Izuku’s well and truly dead.
For all that he knew he’d most likely die in the line of duty, knowing something and experiencing it are two very different things.
He’d never see Shoto again. He’d never witness his soft smile, never snuggle up to his left side during cold winter months, never hear him rant about his conspiracy theories about who is related to who. They’d never get to be married, never grow old together, never tell stories to their children and grandchildren about the adventures they had.
He’d never get to hug Kaasan again, never get to eat her katsudon, never find bentos delivered to his hero agency because Kaasan was worried he wasn’t taking care of himself. He’s her last relative, and he just left her alone in an empty apartment, with a son who will never come back home.
And Toshinori—he was just admitted to a hospital. Izuku promised him he’d come to visit the next time he had a holiday. How lonely Toshinori must be now; hospitals are so cold and empty when one has nothing to look forward to. Izuku hopes his friends will take care of Toshinori for him.
Izuku never got to adopt that hamster he wanted since childhood, the one that Kaasan wouldn’t allow because she’s allergic to fur.
Never, never, never.
The realization hits him like an enhanced punch to the chest. It drags the breath from his lungs, leaving him with a gut-wrenching sense of emptiness within him.
Izuku’s breath hitches. Before he knows it, tears are pouring out of his eyes, and his body is wracking with sobs.
An amused smile. “You’ve always been such a crybaby.”
The dead don’t need to eat, or sleep. They never get tired, or dehydrated, or hungry. Izuku can cry like this for eternity, and nothing can stop him.
Eternity is a long time without those he loves by his side.
Nana-san visits him, when he has calmed down enough that he’s no longer in danger of flooding the dreamscape with tears.
“Does it ever get better?” Izuku asks. He misses 3-A. Are they still holding that reunion party without him?
Nana-san is silent for a long time.
“…no. It doesn’t.” She finally says, her voice deathly quiet. “We’re dead. The past is all we have left.”
Izuku doesn’t know how long it has been since he died. The wound in his chest is still as fresh as the day he died, but Izuku has learnt to live with it.
He spars with the others, sometimes. Mainly Daigoro-san and En-san. Sometimes he wins, and sometimes he loses.
There isn’t much else to do here.
He doesn’t expect to find a vault outside the remains of the one he first manifested in. But there are apparently two vaults in this dreamscape—one whole and the other not.
A feeling of malice hatred suffering permeates the air near this vault. Something in Izuku’s chest clenches. He remembers this sensation.
This is what being near Shigiraki felt like, the first time the man turned an entire city to dust. This is the suffering wails of nomus, of blood and flesh turned into monsters. This is the fear and frustration of citizens, as civilization burnt and the heroes that they believed in for so long turned out to only be human.
It is the terror felt when nomus began to bombard UA’s defenses. It is Izuku’s horror when he found out All For One is his father. It is his classmates’ fear when Izuku took to the skies to fight All For One—worry about who would come out of the encounter alive.
Izuku has a very, very bad feeling about what’s in the vault.
He tracks down one of the other vestiges. “Is that…is the thing in the vault All For One?” He breathes.
Second grunts. “The bastard manifested here the moment you killed him. Yoichi stuck him there so he’d stop bothering us, and also, to quote his exact words, ‘get a taste of his own medicine, that fucking jerk. See how he likes being stuck in a vault!’” He pauses, then adds. “I never got to congratulate you for killing him. Didn’t think you’d have the guts.”
“I see.” Izuku says faintly.
He…doesn’t regret killing All For One, not exactly. The man has ruined so many lives, hurt so many innocents, and nothing short of death was about to stop him. He abandoned Kaasan too; left her struggling, trying to juggle a job at Musutafu General Hospital and raising a quirkless son.
Aizawa-sensei once told his class non-lethal capture is not always an option. One day, they’d be forced to choose between saving their own lives, the civilians’ lives, or a villains’. When that day comes, they can and should do whatever it takes to ensure their own survival, and that of the civilians they were tasked to protect. It’s a brutal truth, but one better learnt in the comfort of a classroom rather than on the field.
For Izuku, that day came when he faced All For One for the last time.
Still, some small, hidden part of Izuku remembers the man who played heroes and villains with him when he was small. He remembers the father who taught him to analyze quirks, who indulged him when he wanted to talk about heroes for hours on end, who bought him his first notebook.
If Izuku had a choice, he wouldn’t have killed All For One.
Izuku tries not to go near the vault again.
The landscape shifts, so gradually that Izuku almost doesn’t realize it.
The world becomes more real, somehow. The dreamscape grows more textured, expands until the black void is replaced by a blue sky and an endless grass field.
“One For All is stockpiling.” Third says, curiosity embedded in his words. “But that would mean…”
That would mean there’s a new holder, which is impossible. Izuku would know if he passed the quirk on to a successor before he died.
The issue remains unsolved for a long time.
And then, the answer hits Izuku like a train:
Reincarnation.
It isn’t the most obvious conclusion, but it is the only one that makes any sense.
For eons, people have wondered about the existence of souls and where they go when a person dies. Reincarnation is one of the predominant theories, one that transcends cultures and centuries.
It figures one of the most prevalent theological answers to life after death would have some truth to it.
Izuku has died, but a current holder of One For All still exists. He hasn’t passed the quirk on to anyone else, so the current holder must still be him, to a certain extent.
What if a version of him has been reincarnated, and the other Izuku became the tenth holder of One For All?
When Izuku mentions this to the other vestiges, Second scoffs, but Yoichi is fully willing to try and connect with the mysterious new holder.
And so they do.
Elsewhere, in the middle of a desperate battle, Ladybug activates One For All for the first time.
That night, Other Izuku—Marinette, as she is called in this world—manifests in One For All’s dreamscape.
Nana welcomes her, and First is all too excited for their new guest, even though he doesn’t act like it.
Izuku hangs back, smiling at the other him—her.
He doesn’t know why, but the appearance of Marinette makes something in him curdle.
It’s jealousy, Izuku realizes.
He’s jealous of Marinette’s ability to move on. She has new friends now, loving parents who aren’t villains, and a new crush. She has a new life, a chance to start over despite the mistakes he made. And more than that, Marinette is happy.
Despite all the time that has passed, the gaping hole in Izuku’s chest still hasn’t healed.
Izuku can’t forget about his family, no matter how hard he tries. Every day, he thinks about Shoto and what could’ve been. Every night, he wonders if Kaasan and Toshinori are feeling lonely.
Izuku hasn’t moved on. Marinette has.
He doesn’t think he will ever move on. He doesn’t think he can.
Izuku isn’t real, he realizes belatedly.
He thinks he’s known this for some time now, but wasn’t willing to confront the fact.
He is different from the other vestiges. For the rest of them, a copy of themselves manifested from the moment they passed on their quirk. When they died, their souls traveled along the connection between them and the copy, and they became entwined with the very essence of the quirk.
The versions of them that Izuku sees, the versions that he interacts with every day, are the real them. The other vestiges consist of their souls, their minds; all they lack to be called genuine humans is a physical body.
But for Izuku, his soul has obviously been reincarnated. But then, what is he? All he embodies is a set of memories, a photo of his mind captured in the moment he died.
Izuku can’t move on. Maybe that’s why.
He is a memory of Marinette’s past, and nothing more. And you can’t change the past.
Maybe he isn’t meant to move on.
During their third year at UA, Aizawa-sensei had a conversation with them about ghosts of the past.
Let them motivate you, he said, but never, never let them weight you down. If you do that, you’ll miss the opportunities in the present and the future. You’ll never be able to move forward, never be able to improve. It’s a disservice to the dead. If they really loved you, they wouldn’t want that to happen to you.
But what should Izuku do when he is the ghost?
The vestiges gather to view Marinette’s life. Yoichi drags Izuku to watch as well.
It’ll be fun, he said. A nice change of pace from Izuku’s moping, he said.
It isn’t fun.
Marinette is a hero in this universe too. Her hero name is Ladybug, and she wears a red-and-black costume, with the same base elements as all his costumes. She has a partner, Chat Noir, who focuses on evacuation while she fights akumas, people possessed by the villain in this universe.
She has a move called Miraculous Ladybug, which can restore all property damage, injuries and even deaths that occur during an akuma attack.
It isn’t a fix-all button, Izuku knows. Miraculous Ladybug doesn’t erase people’s memories; the psychological trauma of akuma attacks remain.
Still, Izuku can’t help but think. How many more people could he have saved if he had this…?
Aizawa-sensei would be so disappointed in him for lingering on what-ifs.
Even so, every time Izuku sees Marinette’s friends and partner and family, he feels something tug at his heartstrings. It’s the glimpses of a better world, maybe. One where Izuku isn’t bullied as badly as he was, where he has a non-absent father who isn’t a mass murderer, where he has a happier childhood. He wishes he could’ve shared this world with his family.
He should be glad for Marinette, he knows. He should be grateful that at least one version of him gets to be happy. He would’ve, before he died.
But Izuku is a memory, a remnant of Marinette’s past. And the past cannot be changed.
Then, All For One nearly breaks free from his prison.
The vestiges gather at the accursed vault, using all their willpower to hold the prison together. It leaves Izuku with a pounding headache, the first sensation he had since dying and waking up in this dreamscape.
Marinette has a nightmare at the same time, one caused by All For One’s failed prison break. She dreams of what All For One tried to do to Izuku, to his friends; a taste of what could’ve happened if All For One succeeded in capturing his classmates. Even through the underdeveloped link between her mind and the vestiges’ dreamscape, they can feel her terror, her desolation and despair.
Her anguish breaks through Izuku’s shields of grief and jealously. And then, suddenly, it is like a flip has been switched on.
Izuku remembers…he remembers why he chose to become a hero. It’s to prevent pain like what Marinette dreamt of; to save people with a smile on his face and bring hope of a better future.
And Izuku might only be a fragment of Marinette’s memories, but this core fact—this core belief that they should save people no matter the cost—is an integral aspect of their very being. Not even death should destroy this belief.
After all, being a hero is what Izuku lived for. It’s what Izuku died for, too.
Izuku cannot—will not—regret this fact. If he is to reject this, he is rejecting everything that makes Izuku him.
He might be dead, a sentient memory with nothing but the past to his name. He might forever be stuck in the past, unable to move on; but even if he cannot look forward to the future, he will not let death erase this fundamental aspect of his being.
Midoriya Izuku is a hero. And he will continue to be a hero for the rest of eternity, until he either dissipates into nothingness or the multiverse ends.
The next time Izuku sees Marinette, he doesn’t feel jealous of her anymore.