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Shouta's knuckles bleached white as he gripped the crumpled note, the paper straining under his anger. He tried to stay calm—that would be the logical approach—but each time his eyes traced over those handwritten words, his control slipped further. The fury bubbling beneath his skin demanded release.
And the man standing beside his bed—All Might in all his deflated glory—was the perfect target for his rage. The words replayed in his mind, over and over in Midoriya's trembling voice, that desperate, pleading tone that Shouta couldn't shake from his memory no matter how hard he tried.
The tone he'd only heard in the depths of battle, when children were fighting wars they should never have to face.
“Please don't come after me, Aizawa-sensei. I know you'll think I'm being irrational, but to me, this makes perfect, logical sense. If leaving U.A. means keeping everyone safe—my friends, my teachers, my family—then that's exactly what I have to do. Thank you for everything you've taught me.”
Shouta inhaled sharply, his one remaining eye fixed on Yagi. Still getting used to the darkness where his other eye had once been, he channelled all his fury through that single glare. Either way, it must have worked—Yagi seemed to physically shrink beneath the intensity, his already gaunt frame somehow folding in on itself even further.
He'd later blame the phantom ache where his leg used to be for his outburst, but right now, all Shouta cared about was ripping into the hero standing before him.
“Let me get this straight, All Might,” the name laced with venom as it left his lips, making the once-Symbol of Peace wince. “You handed a quirk to a 15-year-old kid—this One for All power—knowing full well there was some villain out there with a vendetta against it? These quirks have been locked in some twisted battle for centuries, and you didn't think to even mention that little detail? Not to him, not to his mother, or even us—just made him swear to keep it all secret? Christ, Yagi, you led a child straight into a centuries-old blood feud, and the poor kid had no fucking clue what he was walking into?”
At least All Might had the decency to look ashamed, until he opened his mouth. “I thought All for One was dead—”
“I don't care!” Shouta snarled, rage surging through him like wildfire. His fingernails bit crescents into his palm as he clutched the note tighter. “You dumped this burden on a kid who had no idea what he was signing up for, and now you have the audacity to stand there with excuses? He never had a chance to understand what he was walking into, and you expect me to just nod along because you assumed All for One was dead?!”
Shouta's body ached with every motion, every pulse of anger—pain radiating from his missing eye, his leg replaced with a prosthetic he was still getting used to. But physical pain was nothing compared to the blazing hot agony of knowing he'd failed one of his students so completely. Because that's what this was—a failure. His failure to see what was happening right under his nose, his failure to protect a child who'd been turned into a sacrificial lamb.
And now that child was out there, alone, believing his absence would somehow protect everyone. Izuku Midoriya was being hunted by probably the most powerful quirk user in history, without a single person to support him.
Suddenly, Shouta jerked forward in the hospital bed, ignoring the pain that shot through him. “The worst part is, you knew this power would make him a target—you knew what it meant to carry One for All—and you still picked a quirkless, defenceless child who’d never say no to becoming a hero. Who has broken his bones over and over again for your approval! Did you ever consider what would happen if things went wrong? Or were you too blinded by finding your ‘perfect successor’?”
The air between them was heavy, laden with Shouta’s words. He could see the impact of his accusations as Yagi’s face crumpled with guilt and shame. Good. He should feel ashamed. This whole mess traced back to his stupid choices.
“I…” Yagi began, voice barely above a whisper as he struggled for the right words. “I thought… I was giving him a gift. A chance at the life he wanted.”
“What you gave him was a death sentence,” Shouta snapped back. “And now he’s out there, running because he thinks sacrificing his own health will protect everyone else. That’s not heroism, Yagi, that’s not the shit we stand for—that’s a child who’s been manipulated into thinking his life is worth less than others.”
Shouta tossed the note onto the hospital tray. It landed with a soft whisper, seeming to fold in on itself—an echo of his failure as the boy’s teacher. He pressed a palm carefully against his face, dragging it down slowly, mindful of the bandages, as exhaustion overtook his anger for a moment. “We need to find him. Now.”
Yagi hesitated, and Shouta’s stomach churned.
“What?” He asked, voice dangerously low.
“We're... letting him stay out there,” Yagi muttered, refusing to meet Shouta's gaze. “Sending him supplies, whatever he needs. We tried talking him into coming back to UA, but when that failed, we figured the next best option—”
Shouta’s voice died in his throat, cold fury replacing the exhaustion from moments before. If he still had both legs, Shouta would've gotten to his feet in an instant.
“You’re what?”
The temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees as Shouta’s glare intensified. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, soft—dangerous like the calm before the storm.
“So, instead of bringing a child back to safety, you’re enabling his self-sacrifice? Making him feel like he’s doing the right thing by isolating himself? What kind of heroes are we if we let a teenager face this alone?!”
“It’s complicated,” Yagi protested, shifting uncomfortably. “One for All—”
“I don’t give a fuck about your quirk!” Shouta hissed, cutting him off. “This isn’t about power, or legacy, or whatever heroic narrative you’ve constructed. This is about a kid who deserves protection, not exploitation. And don’t you dare try to tell me this is what he wants. He’s fifteen, Yagi. Fifteen-year-old kids don’t get to make life-or-death decisions like this.”
Despite the pain, Shouta swung his legs over the side of the bed, leaning forward for the prosthetic leaning against the wall. His still-healing body protested at his sudden movement, but Shouta pushed through it, grim determination hardening his features.
“Where is he?” Shouta demanded, working to fit the prosthetic in place where his lower leg should’ve been. “And don’t even think about lying to me.”
Yagi hesitated again, conflict evident in his tired, sunken eyes. “Aizawa, please understand. We’re trying to keep him safe while respecting his choice—”
“His choice?!” Shouta echoed, fighting to push himself to his uneven feet. He turned on Yagi then, eye dark with rage. “What choice did he ever have? From the moment you picked him, has he ever truly had any other option? Or has he just been following the path you laid out, trying desperately to live up to impossible expectations?”
“Well, I—I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean to? You didn’t think? That’s the problem!” Shouta exclaimed. “You don’t think.”
The hard plastic of his prosthetic dug into what remained of Shouta’s own limb as he reached forward, grasping for a neat pile of clothes that sat on nearby chair. The room swayed slightly, his body still not fully accustomed to his new sense of balance, but he refused to sit back down. Not when one of his kids was out there alone.
“I’m going to find him,” he announced, voice steady despite the way his hands trembled. “With or without your help.”
Yagi lurched forward, hands raised placatingly. “Aizawa, you’re in no condition to—”
“Don’t,” Shouta stopped him with words as sharp as razors, slightly breathless as he struggled to get his clothes on. “You don’t get to tell me what condition I’m in. I’ve fought villains with worse injuries than this—taught classes barely held together by bandages. If you think missing an eye and a leg will stop me from finding my student, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention.”
The former Symbol of Peace slumped, deflating further, becoming incredibly small despite his size.
“What if bringing him back puts him in more danger?” Yagi asked softly. “What if it puts everyone else in danger too? I—… I lost my mentor not too long after I inherited One for All. I don’t know how to do this.” He admitted, voice catching in his throat.
For just a moment, something in Yagi’s expression made Shouta pause. The man in front of him wasn’t just the former Symbol of Peace, or even the hero who’d made a terrible mistake—he was someone who’d lost his own mentor, someone stumbling through uncharted territory and making a fool out of himself. Shouta’s sympathy only stretched so far when a child’s life hung in the balance, but he tried to reign in his anger.
“Then we learn,” He said simply, voice softening just slightly. “Together. We learn how to protect him properly. Not by hiding him away, or letting him sacrifice himself, but by facing this threat as heroes should—side-by-side, with proper strategy and real support.”
Shouta managed to finally pull his shirt over his head, wincing as the fabric caught on the bandages hiding still-healing wounds. “I understand the concern about putting others in danger, but think about the message we’re sending—not just to Midoriya, but to all of our students. That self-sacrifice is the first option, not the last resort.”
He struggled getting his legs through the fabric of his pants, pulling them up with a short huff, his coordination still off from inactivity and his injuries. The room had fallen silent, save for Shouta’s laboured breathing. He could see Yagi wrestling with himself, the weight of decades of hero work—and the trauma that came with it—evident in every line and crease of his gaunt face.
“We don't exactly know where he is,” Yagi admitted finally, his bony shoulders slumping like a puppet with cut strings, “but there are ways we can track him down.”
Shouta nodded. Either way, he’d been leading this classroom of difficult teenagers for over a year now—if anyone could track down a self-sacrificing problem child, it was him. Despite his injuries, despite All Might's hesitation, he would find Midoriya and bring him home.