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There had been a funeral service shortly afterward, but already Toshinori found that he could barely remember it, as if it had happened in a dream. “We’re keeping it very small for now—just the inner circle,” Centipeder had told him beforehand. “We’ll arrange a larger memorial for later.” Then his antennae had shivered awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to sound as though you wouldn’t be welcome. Certainly you would, if you wish it. That is—we hope to see you.” Toshinori had thanked him. He vaguely recalled standing apart at the tiny ceremony, watching the three of them from Nighteye Agency go through the motions, feeling as though he himself were a ghost observing the rituals of the living. Those ashes are meant to be mine, he had thought. This is the wrong story. When he felt someone take his hand, he turned his head, certain for half a breath that it would be Mirai, standing beside him in the ghost world. But lowering his eyes, he saw that it was young Midoriya, his hand solid and very warm.
Weeks later, he was heating water for tea in the teacher’s lounge when Midnight came in. “Hey, big guy.” Toshinori acknowledged her with a vague smile. Of all the younger faculty at UA, she had perhaps surprised him the most. The first thing he’d noticed was that she never spoke of her students behind their backs unless it was to praise them. Eventually, he realized that he appreciated how she cracked mild jokes at his expense, as though he had not been Japan’s top hero for the past two decades. He could not always tell what about him amused her—it did not seem to be his own wit—but her teasing felt convivial, not cruel, despite the whole dominatrix thing. Back when he’d still been able to teach wearing All Might’s oversized form and persona, each of them had found a playful counterpart in the other, and some of that theatrical chemistry had somehow leaked into the rest of their interactions. He had not relished the thought of being this brash girl’s colleague, of all things, but once he saw her every day without Nighteye standing between them, he had found it oddly impossible not to like her a little.
Yet now that he was gone, it was suddenly as if he did stand between them again. After it happened, Midnight had offered him a brief, uncharacteristically formal expression of condolence and had swiftly found somewhere else to be. Since then, they’d avoided each other’s company. And so Toshinori was a little stunned when Midnight did not leave, but said to him, “So, can I talk to you about Nighteye for a second? Uh, about the memorial, I mean.”
Pain flared up in his side; sometimes it needed no excuse except nerves. He shifted his weight. “Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.”
Midnight went to the espresso machine and brewed herself a pod, maybe to give her hands something to do. “Right, so—Centipeder and I are arranging something for everyone to come to. You know, the kind of thing that needs, like, a speech.”
Toshinori started to think he would be sick all over his shoes. He did not want tea anymore. “Okay. Good.” Shit, he thought, don’t say it. He knew she was going to.
“And…” Clearly, she did not relish her next words either. “We thought you were the natural choice.”
Fuck me. First Gran Torino telling him it was only natural he should step in and handle Togata—to whom he still hadn’t spoken more than a few words at a time—and now this. “Why?”
She stiffened and looked at him directly, speaking with a studied patience. “Well, you were partners for five years. Plus, you know, you’re you.”
“Sure, but that was years ago. And it’s not like I’m really me anymore. Speechifying, that was a thing for the other guy.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Midnight was beginning to sound exasperated. “Listen, nobody wants to see a big hero get up there and do big hero oratory.”
He made a face. “Are you kidding me? That’s exactly what everyone wants to see. Especially if it’s me. And I…” Toshinori began to think that perhaps a little honesty was called for. “I just don’t think I have it in me. It’s been a rough time.” Rough time did not really capture I feel like a ghost haunting my own life, but it would do.
Except that for Midnight, it would not do. She drank off her coffee in a gulp and said, “All Might, sit down.”
He took a seat on the uncomfortable vinyl settee by the wall, bewildered by why he had felt compelled to do so. His bafflement increased when Midnight stepped over and sat directly beside him. There was very little room on the couch. He had nowhere to go.
She was striving for patience in her tone again. “Come on, it’s really not that hard. Share a good story. Tell a couple jokes. Say three nice things you actually mean, and then go back to your seat and have a drink.”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before.”
“I’ve done three,” she replied smoothly. “Witchblade, Bullet Train, and True North. You bother going to any of those?”
He sighed. “I was at Bullet Train’s. I’m sorry, I forgot that was you.”
“Sure. All the big names showed up at that one because he had just cracked the top ten a month before it happened.” This was not why Toshinori had come to pay his respects, but he decided he didn’t care to say so. Midnight exhaled the edge that had crept into her voice. “Look, you’re right. They suck to do. But they’re still doable.”
“Were any of them your exes, though?” He made himself look directly at her when he said it, but she only gave him a withering look. He grimaced. “My apologies.”
Midnight was merciful. “I’m not trying to make out like it’s the same. I know things ended pretty rough. And I know it was, like, intense.” He blinked, and she cleared her throat. “But that’s why you have to do it. Everybody knows you guys were a big deal, even if you only count the public-facing stuff. And the other stuff wasn’t really secret either, you know.”
He shrugged. “I get it. But I also feel like that’s why reasonable people might let me off the hook. For all of that.”
Midnight glowered. “All Might, I’m gonna be straight with you.” She leaned even closer, and he could see the muscles of her face were strained. “Night always kept his work with you at the core of his professional profile. What people really know for sure is that you mattered to him. They know he loved you.” Toshinori stared at her. “This is your chance to even things up, set the record straight. Your last chance, unless you wanna write a big-ass brick of a memoir or something, which honestly sounds like something you would do. But my point is that you owe him this.” He could feel anguish in his throat, and anger twisting his face, and he could tell he was a moment away from the petty retort that she had no business saying what he owed to Nighteye. But she was still not done. “And someone else will step up and do it if you won’t, maybe Centipeder or maybe even me, though I really don’t want to do a fourth one of these, not now and not for him—”
She stopped haranguing him, and Toshinori realized that it was because she had started crying. For several seconds, he sat paralyzed beside her, watching her shoulders shudder as she wept very quietly into her hands. Finally, not knowing what else to do, he draped one arm loosely around her shoulder, patting it in an irregular rhythm. When Midnight shocked him again by leaning into the touch, his other arm volunteered itself too, pulling her infamous curves lightly against his skin and bones in the weirdest hug of his too-long life.
“I did love him,” he said lamely as he held her, not sure how he had been reduced to defending his feelings to Midnight. “I do. There’s never really been anyone else.”
She sat back up and away, with a sniff and a swallow. “I know. I mean, I figured.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “You should know there was nobody else for him either. Not after you, anyway.” Seeing his expression, she added, “I don’t mean—well, you know he liked sex, but—”
God, could this get any more awkward. “You don’t say.”
“—but he was crazy for you, and that never stopped.” She laughed ruefully. “You kinda ruined him for the rest of us, if you want the truth.”
“Midnight,” he sighed without bitterness, “have I ever said I wanted the truth from you?”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “But you’ll do this for him. Right?”
He set both his hands on his knees and looked down at them. “Yeah. Okay.”
She patted his chest. It was narrower than hers, now. “Good boy.”
“On one condition. Please don’t ever say that to me again.”
Even though her eyes were still wet, her lips quirked into a grin. “You got it, big guy.” As she rose to go, she added, “Centipeder says Night kept a professional contact list, including civilians, but can you think of anyone else who might want to be there? Someone we might miss?”
“No,” Toshinori answered, and then he thought better of it. “Maybe one person. I’ll handle it.”
***
He picked Mrs. Nakamura up himself and drove her with him to the event hall Nighteye’s agency had booked. She brought along a striking arrangement of red spider lilies, but she had also made two of her camellia blossoms into boutonnieres, one for herself and one for him. “He always complimented me on these,” she told Toshinori as she pinned it in. “I remember,” he said.
When they arrived, her hand pressed his arm—maybe to reassure him, maybe because she herself was stunned. Toshinori wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Honestly, he’d been trying not to think about this memorial thing much, for fear he’d lose his nerve. But he guessed he’d counted on something modest, given the size of Nighteye Agency. This wasn’t that. The meeting room was packed: with people he knew personally, people he knew by sight, and people he was pretty sure he didn’t know at all. It was like a macabre version of one of their old conferences or gala dinners.
Everyone who had been on the Shie Hassaikai raid crew was there—Rock Lock, Ryukyu, Fat Gum, their trainees. Nighteye’s own people, of course. But there were also many other pros, some of whom he wasn’t aware had any connection to Nighteye. He realized, as what was left of his stomach clenched, that he’d never really stopped thinking of Nighteye as small-time. Not in a derogatory way, but still. I should be used to being wrong by now, Toshinori thought. The biggest surprise, sitting apart to one side in a hopeless attempt to be inconspicuous, was Endeavor. Why would he be here? He checked Mrs. Nakamura’s face: she looked amazed, but not overawed.
He spotted Tsukauchi, not on his own but in the company of a large contingent of civilian officers, along with Gran Torino. Midnight was there, and Nezu, and Aizawa, but so were other UA faculty he couldn’t fully account for. There were students scattered around the room too—some in Aizawa’s company, some seated near their work study mentors. He had expected Midoriya, Uraraka, Asui, Kirishima, Togata and his friends; he hadn’t expected young Bakugo, slumped close to Kirishima in an effort similar to Endeavor’s.
What really made his heart pound, though, was a cluster of faces he used to see daily, until suddenly he had stopped seeing them at all. Kutsuki had passed away three years ago, and Renho only last year, but Yamato was there, and Hina, and Miss Ogano, and many of the others. With them was a large group of younger people—some in couples, some with families—whom he thought he didn’t recognize. But a few looked familiar, and then it struck him: the kids from the writers’ team. Of all the gazes he’d felt the weight of as he entered—and let’s face it, he’d felt all of them—none were as heavy as those of his old staff. Their staff. He made himself look back, raised a hand to all of them and forced a sober smile. He felt strangely grateful for Mrs. Nakamura at his side, like a kind of shield. He sat down in one corner at the front of the room, installing her in the only chair next to his.
When it was time, he walked up to the podium and heard himself say, “Good evening.” In all this time, he had never quite grown used to the sound of his old big voice coming back at him through a microphone, and now he had to endure the alien echo of the other one too. “I’m here to do what I can to honor Mirai Sasaki. Nighteye.” He had feared that this moment would come and he would be unable to speak, but that was not happening: he felt himself slipping behind a well-worn mask of affability. Here was something that had to be done, and here he was to do it.
“I guess a lot of you probably just called him Sir.” The room rippled with low, polite laughter of acknowledgment. “Fun fact, uh, I…” He did falter, then. His old irony of using sir himself wasn’t that fun a fact, was it? He felt embarrassing, like a fad long since played out. He glanced at Midnight, and she gave him a small nod. A couple jokes. Three nice things you actually mean. “I know you all respected him. I’m sure a lot of you were probably scared of him. He scared the heck out of me, anyway.” He got some smiles at that, so he went on, “I mean, the way he’d look at you when you’d said something stupid, am I right? Man. I’d rather take on ten tigers, just the way you see me right now.” This time the laughter he heard was warm and sincere.
It didn’t sit quite right with him, though. He cleared his throat. “Okay, but in the name of honesty, that’s obviously not true. If I could see him glare at me for screwing something up one last time, I’d give anything for that.” They were all quiet again. Toshinori took a deep breath. “Nighteye was my sidekick, but being his partner was the greatest honor of my life, and… and the greatest happiness. He was intimidating and exacting, but when he smiled at you, you knew that was real.” He saw many nods.
“I don’t mean to keep referring to myself, but I was the one that people knew for smiling, right, and he was the one people knew for being severe. In spite of that, though, he loved to laugh. We were always laughing at something. I can’t say much for his taste in jokes, since he laughed at mine, but…” He trailed off, letting people chuckle. “He was also… a profoundly kind person.” More nods. “He didn’t kill bugs, did you know that? I’m sure some of you did.” Centipeder inclined his head appreciatively. Next to him, Bubble Girl exchanged smiles with Togata as she wiped her eyes. “He was always scooping them up and letting them out the nearest exit. Who does that? Nighteye did that. Before I knew it, I was doing it too. He made me better.”
Toshinori looked around the room, freshly amazed by how full it was. His mental notes no longer felt sufficient. “When I die,” he found himself saying suddenly. Right away, an uncomfortable silence chilled the air. “When I die, I guess there’ll be memorials like this in every city. Shrines popping up all over the place with little figures on them, you know.” The crowd was a sea of grave faces; some looked puzzled or put out. He didn’t dare check the place where Midoriya sat, surrounded by young friends. “Sorry. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, is all. I suppose thousands of people will show up to remember me. But hardly any of them will be people that knew me. People I loved.”
He swallowed. “I see a lot of people here that Nighteye loved. Some of it I witnessed myself. Some of it I know secondhand, and some of it, uh, I don’t want to know in detail, maybe.” He looked down at the podium, to avoid seeing who smiled at that one. Then he raised his head again. “Or, I don’t know, maybe he didn’t like you, and made sure you knew it. But he cared about everyone, even the people he didn’t like. If you ever felt like you mattered to him, even for a second, it’s because you did. He let you into his life, into his heart.”
He did look at Midoriya now. He was shedding big tears, as was to be expected, between Asui and Uraraka. Toshinori smiled at him. Then he looked back at Midnight. She had shut her eyes and was holding the hand of the woman beside her. He took one more deep breath. “The one other thing I have to say about myself is that I loved him. A lot. I never really understood why he cared for me the way he did—because he was ready to give All Might up for this guy,” he gestured at himself, “who’s no great shakes. All I know is that I was lucky. And if I’d had my way—but it’s for the best I didn’t. He did so much more by himself—and, and with all of you—than he could ever have done with me.”
Toshinori could feel himself rambling. He reckoned he was past the point when he should have stopped, but words kept stumbling out of his mouth. “The rankings are nothing, you know,” he told the room abruptly. “They tell you who can hit hardest, fly fastest, live longest against all the odds. But they don’t tell you a thing about someone’s heart, or their courage, or their willingness to offer everything they have for someone else. Mirai Sasaki took care of people, and he saved people, and he was my number one hero. And now that I’ve said that out loud, okay, it sounds cheesy as hell. But I just want to say, if you’re a pro, or even if you’re not, ask yourself who your number one is. And then make sure you tell them.”
He felt, for the first time since he had started speaking, that he too might cry. He guessed that was his cue. “Thank you. That’s all I have to say.” He went quickly back to his seat, wishing very much that he could indeed have the drink Midnight had recommended. Instead, Mrs. Nakamura held his hand.