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Yuuga doesn’t quite remember how he died, but he assumes he must have.
His last memory is of being out with a few of his classmates. Midoriya was there, he knows that much, and maybe Iida? The rest are a blur of color. Maybe he hit his head, maybe this is how memory works when you die. It almost doesn’t matter.
Maybe he should’ve expected damnation because of all the horrible things he did to his friends. Of course, he wasn’t really thinking he would die before he turned seventeen, so he hopefully would’ve had time to redeem himself in some way. He really didn’t expect his current situation.
Yuuga is dead, and apparently hell is a laboratory.
It’s dark. The main light sources are the occasional overhead lamp and weird glowing tubes. He really wishes he didn’t know what was in those tubes, actually.
Bodies, dead or otherwise. His own body is in one of them.
Apparently the League wasn’t satisfied with his service in life, and All For One’s doctor stole his body after he died.
It isn’t fair.
Nothing in Yuuga’s life was fair, though. Why shouldn’t that continue?
He’s entirely unable to leave the lab, so Yuuga’s time is mostly spent curled up in a lonely corner of the room trying not to think about anything. There are shadows of others around their own tubes, but they don’t seem able to communicate. Or, if they are, they see his UA uniform and turn away. They’ll whisper to each other, though, and cry, and sometimes scream.
Will he be like them, when the work is done?
Occasionally, the Doctor will come in to work on one of the bodies. Sometimes, it’s Yuuga’s turn, and he’ll shut his eyes tightly and hold his hands over his ears.
He doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to know.
As far as Yuuga can tell, no one is allowed in the lab except for the Doctor and his patients.
It’s strange, then, when Kurogiri comes down to visit.
The Doctor is out. Kurogiri calls for him and receives no response. The villain sits on the Doctor’s stool to wait.
This is the first time Yuuga has seen anyone other than the Doctor in ages. He comes out of his little corner to observe, just until the Doctor gets back.
He sits up against a machine and watches. Kurogiri didn’t bring anything to do while he waited. He doesn’t have a newspaper, or a phone. Maybe he’s lost in thought or something, but his posture is so perfect that it’s almost creepy.
Yuuga’s so busy trying to figure out the villain’s deal that he fails to notice the other presence in the room.
“Hey there!” a voice chirps next to him.
Yuuga doesn’t scream. He doesn’t, and no one can prove otherwise. But he does jump.
He whirls around, and there’s another ghost crouched next to him.
He’s young, probably Yuuga’s age. He has wispy, cloud-like hair and blank white eyes. He’s wearing an aviator jacket over a martial arts gi, and has a breathing strip on his nose like the ones Maman used to make Papa wear while he slept.
The outfit as a whole looks remarkably like a hero uniform.
“I haven’t seen you around here before. I thought I knew everyone already. I’m Oboro, what’s your name?”
For a moment, Yuuga’s mind refuses to work. No one has spoken to him since he first appeared in the lab, and here’s this nice looking boy talking to him like they’re just… somewhere normal, like a school club.
He doesn’t realize he responded until Oboro says “Nice to meet you, Yuuga! Mind if I sit?” and then, without actually waiting for an answer, he plops all the way onto the ground. He sits with his legs criss crossed, hands resting on his knees.
As a first impression, Oboro seems nice. Certainly not someone like Yuuga who deserves to be here. Would it be rude to ask…?
Oboro sighs. “This place is pretty gloomy, yeah? I’m pretty lucky that I get to leave, but I’m sure there’s not a lot of friendly faces for you. I’ll do my best to make up for that, so don’t you worry!”
It seems that Kurogiri came for some kind of checkup. According to the Doctor, it’s one that will last an extended amount of time.
It seems very thorough, with lots of machinery and tests.
“Hey,” Oboro says. He doesn’t bother whispering. The Doctor can’t hear them anyway. “Check this out.”
When Yuuga was alive, this statement by a classmate would often end with someone taking a trip to Recovery Girl. They’re already dead, though, so that’s not really a concern.
Oboro reaches for the Doctor’s instrument tray while the man’s back is turned. He slams his fist down on the edge, flipping it up into the air and spilling the contents.
“Damn it,” the Doctor says, “not again! I just sanitized those!”
He stoops over to pick them up. Oboro kicks a pair of tweezers away from his reaching hand.
“I swear this only happens around you, Kurogiri,” the Doctor mutters.
“I am doing nothing,” Kurogiri says.
The Doctor only grumbles in response.
On the way back to Yuuga, Oboro sticks his arm into a machine, clearly messing up the readings. The Doctor curses again and rushes over to recalibrate it.
Yuuga smiles a bit. If this is something he can do too, maybe he should give it a try.
“You’re a UA kid, I see,” Oboro says. “What’s your hero name? Mine was Loud Cloud.” His smile widens. “I’m loud, and my quirk was clouds, so it wasn’t too hard to come up with! How about you?”
“‘Can’t Stop Twinkling’ was mine.” He’s still proud of it, even if he never really got to use it. “Rather a mouthful, I know. Midnight-sensei had me shorten it, it used to be even longer.”
Oboro whistles, a strange smile taking over his face. Is his hero name really that bad?
But no, this is about something else.
“Midnight- sensei, huh? Y’know, I thought I saw her at– it’s just. Wow. Time flies when you’re not paying attention.”
Yuuga blinks. “You knew Midnight-sensei?”
Oboro leans back on his hands. “Oh yeah, we were tight. She was a year ahead of me in school, and we had the same internship mentor. She was pretty great. I miss those days a lot, y’know?”
Only a year ahead? If Midnight-sensei is in her thirties, then that means Oboro should be close to that.
“How long have you been dead, Oboro?”
The other boy’s smile droops. “Come on, dude, don’t make me do math,” he complains. “I know it’s been at least twelve years? Maybe fifteen or sixteen. I was in my second year, if that helps.”
Oh. Oh wow.
Oboro really was just a bit older than Yuuga.
“Your teacher is Aizawa Shouta, right? What’s he like?”
The question feels like it comes out of nowhere. Oboro stares over towards Kurogiri, not at Yuuga like he usually does.
“Aizawa-sensei? Well, he threatened to expel someone on the first day of school, and then said that he was lying. I don’t know if he really would’ve done it or not, but it certainly was a unique first impression.”
Personally, Yuuga thinks that if Midoriya hadn’t impressed Aizawa-sensei at the last second, he would’ve been gone.
Midoriya did so much for the class– for Yuuga– that it would’ve been a huge mistake.
“What else?” Oboro asks gently.
“He almost died for our class the very first week. He always has this giant yellow sleeping bag. He’s a hard-ass, but he’s fair… he’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.”
Oboro smiles at him. “I’m glad to hear he’s doing well.”
Yuuga shakes his head. “Probably not now. He would always get so angry when someone did something especially reckless. He’d threaten to expel them. I don’t even remember what happened, but I probably did something reckless. And now I’m dead, and he probably hates me for it.”
“If he hates you, then he for sure hates me. And I don’t think he hates me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shouta was one of my best friends in school. Him and Hizashi– Present Mic– we were all supposed to be heroes together, even have our own agency. Then I died. I did something reckless and got myself killed. I don’t regret it, though, ‘cause I saved people. I don’t think there was anything else I would’ve done differently. I just wish I hadn’t fucked them up so much, y’know?”
Yeah, Yuuga can see it. “I hate to think how my death impacted my class,” he says. “I hope they didn’t take it too hard.”
They probably did. They were such kind people, even if he didn’t really deserve their kindness.
“Maybe you’ve inspired them to be better, somehow,” Oboro says. It’s weak, and they both know it.
Death is awful, for the alive and dead both.
“Why are you here?” Yuuga finds himself asking.
Oboro taps his chin. “Y’know, that’s an excellent question. Why are we here? Why did we come back as ghosts? Do all dead turn into ghosts, or are we particularly lucky? Why-?”
“No,” Yuuga says. “I mean, why are you in this lab with me? And why haven’t I seen you before now?”
“Oh! Well, that’s an easier question. Now, I know you’ve met that guy over there.” Oboro points to Kurogiri. “But what you probably don’t realize is that he used to be me! He’s a Nomu.”
Oh.
If Yuuga still had the ability to be nauseous, he probably would be sick. It’s one thing to be surrounded by Nomu in various stages and another to know that it’s happening to you. It’s a third thing entirely to know that a notorious villain is actually the desecrated corpse of a hero student just like you.
“Holy shit,” Yuuga whispers, hands over his mouth.
“Oh crap,” Oboro says. “I didn’t mean to freak you out, I guess I’m more desensitized to this than I thought. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re- you’re fine, mon ami. I’m just a bit overwhelmed at, well…”
It’s not Oboro’s fault Kurogiri exists. It’s All For One and the Doctor who did this to him. And he’s had a lot of time to come to terms with it. Yuuga has had weeks at most.
“Yeah,” Oboro says. “Yeah, I get it. It’s scary and it’s not fair. It’s not fair that this happened to us.”
Yuuga shakes his head. It’s not fair to Oboro, no, but for Yuuga…
“I think I deserve this,” he says.
“You wanna run that by me again?”
“I betrayed my class and my teachers. I’m the reason the League knew anything. It’s all my fault, and then I died , so don’t I deserve this?”
Hands touch Yuuga’s face. There’s no temperature to them, but the pressure is grounding. Oboro turns Yuuga’s face until he’s staring right into blank white eyes.
“Yuuga, you do not deserve this. Nobody deserves this. All that other stuff might be true, but that doesn’t mean you’re bad! I’ve seen a lot of All For One’s bullshit, okay? He manipulates the hell out of people because he thinks it’s funny. He’s to blame for everything, not you. ”
Tears run down Yuuga’s face and evaporate into nothing. Maman and Papa were always quick to blame themselves, but Yuuga was the one who was born quirkless. It was all his fault… wasn’t it?
Oboro says no. Oboro says All For One is to blame, not Yuuga or Maman or Papa.
“It’s not fair,” Yuuga whispers.
“It’s not,” Oboro agrees. “I think if life was fair, you would’ve had Loud Cloud as your favorite teacher. Instead, we got stuck with Kurogiri. Life’s not fair. But we’re still around, yeah? And we’re gonna keep going and hope that one day All For One grabs a quirk that lets all us ghosts kick his potato-head-looking ass.”
Yuuga actually laughs at that. For the first time since he died, he laughs.
The worst thing about being a ghost is that they have to stay within a certain range of their bodies.
The Doctor finishes Kurogiri’s “tune-up”, and Yuuga knows his time with Oboro is running out. Oboro knows it too.
“Hey,” he says, “we’ll be back eventually! We’ll see each other again.”
Yuuga nods, but…
What if something happens, and Yuuga’s body gets moved? What if Kurogiri doesn’t come back?
“I hope it’s soon,” Yuuga says. He doesn’t want to jinx anything. “It’s nice to have you here.”
Oboro smiles. “Likewise,” he says. Then Kurogiri warps away, and Oboro disappears.
Being alone now is worse than it was before. The dark, empty room of loneliness is even darker and emptier once you’ve had a warm light to fill it. It’s almost impossible to go back.
If only he could fill his time with sleep, but he has no way to even pretend. His mind is active. Always. Thoughts of his parents, his home, his mistakes, his friends. Including Oboro.
Yuuga curls up in his little corner of the lab and cries.
The lab shakes. Instruments and chemicals fall off of their shelves. Yuuga is startled out of his spiral.
Something is happening. Someone is here .
That or it’s an earthquake. He shouldn’t get his hopes up.
Then the door gets knocked off its hinges. Two figures stand silhouetted in the doorway, and one has a really tall head– wait, no, that’s hair.
It’s Present Mic. And the one next to him is Aizawa-sensei .
Is it a coincidence? Do they somehow know that Yuuga is here?
Seeing his teachers actually manages to fill him with hope.
They rush into the lab, heading right for the stasis tubes. They walk right past Yuuga’s body.
No.
What was it that Oboro did earlier? Didn’t he interact with the living world?
Yuuga knocks on the tube’s glass. There’s an actual sound.
Please, please notice!
Present Mic keeps moving, but Aizawa-sensei stops.
“Did you hear that?” he asks.
Yuuga knocks again, harder. Aizawa-sensei turns and starts to backtrack. He almost passes Yuuga again.
Yuuga reaches out and grabs for Aizawa-sensei’s arm. He makes contact.
Sensei whirls around and comes face to face with Yuuga’s body, floating in the stasis tube. For a second, it almost seems like he sees Yuuga too. His eyes widen.
“ Fuck, ” he says. “Mic, I found him! Come help me.”
Present Mic sprints back. “Shit,” he says. “This is so fucked up.”
They drain the tank and open the tube. Aizawa-sensei actually checks the body’s pulse as they wrap it in a sheet.
Yuuga feels something rhythmic in his chest, a pounding that was absent for far too long.
Could it be possible? Can he still be saved?
Sensei carries Yuuga’s body in his arms as they head towards the door.
Between them and freedom, though, a swirling portal coalesces. Two figures step out, one made of darkness and one almost glowing.
“Eraserhead, Present Mic. I cannot allow you to escape,” Kurogiri says.
Oboro’s eyes drift over the teachers, locking on Yuuga’s body in Aizawa-sensei’s arms. His hands are over his mouth.
“Let us go,” Aizawa-sensei says. “You know this isn’t right.”
“You must not be allowed to escape,” Kurogiri repeats. He steps forward. “The Doctor will make great use of all of you.”
“ No! ” Oboro shouts. He leaps onto Kurogiri’s back. “Shouta, go! Go now! ”
Kurogiri struggles with a foe he cannot see. Aizawa-sensei and Present Mic take the opportunity and run out the door.
“Thank you,” Yuuga says. Tears roll down his face. He can stay behind for a few more seconds.
“Become someone incredible, for all of us who couldn’t,” Oboro says. “And tell them ‘hey’ for me, would you?” He smiles.
The tugging becomes too great for Yuuga to ignore. He leaves Oboro behind in that dark, awful laboratory.
He finds his teachers loading his body into an ambulance. The paramedics swarm them, shouting commands.
As they drive away, Yuuga’s consciousness fades. It’s just like falling asleep.
Yuuga wakes up in a hospital bed, hooked up to far too many machines and infusions. Papa looks far more unkempt than he’s ever seen him. Maman looks ill.
They both cry when they see that he’s awake.
The doctor– not All For One’s– says it’ll be a long time before Yuuga fully recovers. Even then, it’ll be different because of what was done to him. He’s incredibly lucky to be both alive and himself.
The room is bright and warm, made colorful with flowers and cards from his classmates. He’ll be able to see them soon. Apparently Tooru already tried to sneak in.
The first visitors that he requests, though, are his teachers. His saviors .
Oboro’s friends.
“Aizawa-sensei… Mic-sensei… thank you for saving me.” His voice is weak, but he needs to talk to them.
Aizawa-sensei shakes his head. “We should’ve found you sooner. Those damn frauds told us you were dead. ”
“I was.”
Present Mic cringes. “Nah, little listener. Apparently it was close, but-”
“I was dead,” Yuuga insists. “My body was dead, but I was a ghost. I was trapped in that lab until you rescued me. For a while… for a while I wasn’t alone.”
“Aoyama…” Aizawa-sensei doesn’t believe him either. But they both will, soon enough.
“I met Oboro,” he says.
His teachers both freeze.
“How do you know-” Present Mic says.
“He told me his name. Kurogiri came in to visit the Doctor for a while, and Oboro came with him. We talked, he told me about how you all went to school together, with Midnight-sensei. He asked how you were. And at the end, he held Kurogiri back so you could escape. He said to tell you ‘hey’.”
Yuuga is losing stamina. He catches his breath while Aizawa-sensei and Present Mic process.
“Shit,” Aizawa-sensei says.
Personally, Yuuga agrees.
“He was very kind. I wish we could’ve brought him with us. I’m sorry for bringing up such pain.”
“Nah, this was important,” Present Mic says. He rubs his forehead. “Thank you for telling us.”
It’s because of Oboro that Yuuga has a second chance to live, to love and grow and become a hero.
Yuuga won’t squander it, and he’ll never forget.