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The morning after the war ended was a cold one. Quiet in the way that not many days had seen in a very long time.
There weren’t people in the streets, no heroes or villains wandering about, just a calm vigil for everything they’d lost.
Izuku still wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
He was still in the hospital. He would be for a long time. They all knew that, including the doctors, no matter how many hopeful lies that were told.
His arms had returned, thanks to Eri, but the rest of his body was still actively falling apart at the seams from the years of neglect it had seen throughout both high school and the war. He wouldn’t be back to full strength for months, maybe longer if there were more issues.
Even then, though, he still didn’t have One for All.
He was a mess while he had One for All, that was a fact. Even by the end of the war, he’d never gained as much control over the entirety of the quirk as he would have liked.
In fair part, it was likely due to the fact that the quirk was killing him from the inside out, but he still missed it more than he could express.
He’d looked crazy, from an outside perspective, speaking to the air and knowing more than he ever should have about the man who was tearing apart Japan, but the vestiges had, in many ways, been his family.
Even in his worst moments, they’d always been there, even before he could even register the presence and hope beside him as their spirits. They gave him so much more than a strategy and a way to fight All for One; they’d given him hope and a guarantee that even when everything else had gone to shit and he was completely and utterly alone on the field, they would still be there.
Despite the fact that he’d only had One for All for a year and half, he wasn’t sure what to do without it. He could be a hero still, that much was certainly true, but his life would always be tinted with the memories of what could have been, of what he used to have.
He would always miss Nana, softly combing through his hair with intangible fingers when he broke down crying in the middle of the night because he wouldn’t ever be able to save everyone no matter how hard he tried. Nana, who forced him to make the tough calls and accept that everything wouldn’t always work out. She wouldn't be there anymore.
He would miss En, who always seemed to be able to say just the right thing to break him out of a spiral.
He would miss Banjo, who was the only light in their group no matter how somber things got. Banjo, who taught him to be stronger and focus his pain into strength.
He would miss Hikage for protecting him and always ensuring that he was safe and knew where the danger was. Hikage, who was the first to acknowledge that One for All would kill him some day.
He would even miss Bruce and Kudo, no matter how reserved the two had been from him.
Perhaps most of all, though, he would miss Yoichi. Yoichi, who had been the one to be fully honest with him despite the odds. Yoichi, who was always supportive of him, no matter what he chose to do. Yoichi, who was willing to let Izuku kill the only family he had left.
Yoichi, who was simply always there.
In many ways, he hated remembering them, remembering the mess that they were all together, simply because he missed it.
He wouldn’t ever get them back. No amount of rewinding from Eri could save them, not when the vestiges gave everything they had to help him win.
He didn’t regret that final fight. He never could, when everything he did for a year and half was all to build up for it.
All he wished, truly, was that he had gotten more time with them. He wished that he had gotten to see Nana’s face light up with joy when they went back to where she first met Yagi. He wished he could have read the Demon Lord comics that Yoichi loved oh so much. He wished that he could have become their family in the same way that they were his.
Because by the time that Izuku could begin to see and speak to them, the seven vestiges already had a rhythm within one another that he always felt like he was slightly intruding on, no matter how much they tried to make him feel welcome.
Ever so carefully, he stood up from his hospital bed, groaning at the pain that shot up his limbs as he began to balance his weight on them. The chronic pain and the stress fractures were a part of him now and wouldn’t be going away; he had to get used to them.
He hobbled over to the window to get a clearer view of the streets outside.
It seemed like the whole of Japan was mourning today.
Tears slowly began to drip down onto his battered hands. He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying; the process had barely registered against his thoughts.
He carefully wiped them away, taking note of the ever-decreasing dexterity in his hands.
A soft knock came at the door, and Izuku turned, using one hand to brace himself against the wall.
“Kacchan?” he said softly as the door opened. “You shouldn’t be up.”
“Neither should you,” his best friend grumbled, giving him a soft smile that didn’t match his words and moving ever so slowly to sit in one of the guest chairs next to Izuku’s bed.
Izuku just responded with a half laugh and moved into the opposite guest chair, not wanting to resign himself back to the medical cot quite yet.
“Got something on your mind?” Kacchan asked him after they had both been sitting for a few minutes.
“I miss them,” Izuku admitted after a few moments, the words catching in his throat. Kacchan was one of the few who knew everything that One for All was to him.
Kacchan just nodded like he already knew the answer. “You can still be a hero, with or without them.”
Izuku’s breath caught in his throat. “Yeah, I know.”
They didn’t need to say anything else.
For just a little bit, their world was quiet. They were utterly alone. It’d always been the two of them, through thick and thin, despite everything they’d done to one another.
And now, after the battle with the dust settling miles away, they were back to that.
He wouldn’t ever have the vestiges back, he wouldn’t ever be able to go back to that family, but maybe, just maybe, he already had one. With Kacchan, with Shouto, with Ochako, with all of 1-A, who’d continued to stand by him no matter what.
It wouldn’t be the same, he knew that. He hadn’t ever been more than a thought away from the vestiges. But 1-A wasn’t going anywhere, either.
He could miss his family, his mess of vestiges, but there was a new life with 1-A waiting for him on the other side.
Everything would be okay.