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“There will come a time when even the whole of Hero Society won’t be enough to stop Him,” they inform him, their features grim even under their hood, and though Oboro wants to shake their shoulders and demand to know who this Him is beyond the vague description of 'All for One', they continue, “Not even the best."
"Not even the top ten? Or All Might?" he frowns. Since his debut all those many years before Oboro had been even born, the Number One Hero had never faltered, or not dealt with a villain before. Sure, he'd been away for a few months this year, for a time, but he'd come back just a while later, easily picking back up the pace. They could trust him to handle this, right?
They tense.
So maybe not.
"Not even the Number One Hero. Especially not the top ten, either; none of them are special enough to be on the Symbol of Peace's level," they confirm, and Oboro tenses, too, biting his lip thoughtfully. "I will not lie to you. Your friend's quirk is exceptional, especially to someone like All For One."
Oboro thinks his best friend's quirk is exceptional, too.
Doesn't mean he wants to steal it for himself.
Honestly, he still can't put two and two together when it comes to imagining quirk theft as a thing someone can viably do.
Yet, the simple principle of Erasure alone is enough to remind him that anything is possible. Even permanence.
The 'traveller' pauses. "If that beast gets his hands on Erasure…”
The implications are not lost on him. Oboro gets the message.
Even if they're degrading Shouta to just his quirk, something Oboro despises, knowing how much pressure Shouta places on his own shoulders for how 'powerless' he is, whispering it aloud to himself when he thinks no one else's ears are pricked up... the question of 'why' is halfway to being comprehensible.
Yeah. It's understandable.
As much as he wants to back away, bolt out of the alleyway and pretend that he’d never been wrapped up in all this -- never been dragged here by the curse of an anonymous tip, been nudged away by his mentor for experience -- it would crush him.
What happens if he ignores this?
What if all of this is actually true? He'd already quizzed them on a lot, so far, and they'd answered every question besides lottery tickets with too much detail and much too quickly for them not to be certain in what they're saying.
If there's even the sliver of a chance that they're somehow speaking the truth, he...
What if he ignores this?
...
Losing the world would be terrible.
Losing Shouta would be worse.
Since the day they'd met, since the day Shouta was on the brink, Shirakumo has never wanted anything more than for his friend to continue winning.
Ignoring it is the equivalent of waving a white flag and waiting to die on the finish line.
“If this..." He pauses. "If this 'All For One' fellow gets ShoUTA--” Oboro cuts himself when his voice pitches up at the end. Like a stupid teenager.
Because that’s what he is; a teenager, a hero still in training.
Why is he being told this? And not a proper hero? All For One sounds like the real deal. Not the sort of petty villain you'd meet on a corner shop and take care of easily.
Or the kind he can whip up a cloud and chase after. Like he's been practicing. Practicing sounds awfully juvenile, too, to make matters worse.
Even when he knows a proper hero could do this, it's still not an option; who knows whether they'll make a break for it the moment his eyes even linger towards too-much-doubt, itching as soon as he turns away to go call for back up.
Why? Why, why why why, is he being told this?
The other flashes him a pitying look with just their mouth.
Clenching his fist pale, he sucks in a breath, and starts again. Calmly.
Do what Sensei taught you, Oboro reminds himself. No need to get alarmed! Be as carefree as you usually are. Think about Shouta being happy, just for a bit.
An image of Shouta feeding Sushi filters into his mind instantly. Hand held steady as he fed the milk dripping from the bottle made obviously for kittens in particular, screaming about Shouta's careful preparation -- to the point where even Shouta's own verbal confirmation that he'd pre-planned everything, all the things needed to take care of a cat, betraying his clear care for the cute, fuzzy creatures, well, did nothing much but make Oboro, Hizashi and Kayama laugh.
Blissful visuals are wished away and tucked into a dusty cupboard when the 'traveller' remains quiet. Eyes under their hood visible enough to bore into him with an expectation to speak.
A sigh. So much for that plan.
Just go for it. With intention, you can do anything -- even confirm that if your buddy dies, the world goes blam, too.
The other free hand, distinctly red from the maddening heat crawling up his body lands on Oboro's lapels and pulls at the fur. “If he gets Shouta…”
He can’t die.
He breathes in.
“If he dies, it won't just be Hi--" Do not give away that type of information. "Mic, Midnight and I that will have to grieve. Will it?"
They look stricken.
Shaking his head, he prods further, for there’s nothing else to do in the face of being told society will collapse if the unthinkable happens.
“Will it?” he presses, snapping.
For just how helpfully talkative they’d been earlier, it’s a damn shame they fall quiet so easy.
—
Oboro drags a hand down his face.
There’s no way in hell he won’t be able to tell Hizashi or Shouta about this-- but there’s also no way in hell he can go to them for this either, he realizes, mildly incredulous when it occurs to him.
It just can’t happen.
As much as he wants to lean on their shoulders--
“Hey, come on, Shouta, Hizashi! We’ve gotta get that agency. If the three of us are together, two of us can always cover for the other if he makes a mistake!”
--he can't. The weight will give out on them.
Definitely not a story worth telling.
He isn't like one of those prophets from Greek tales who can remain detached. Waiting in the wings is the equivalent of asking him not to be a hero. To not plant his heels into a shovel and dig into the dirt, cover up the grave they keep trying to show him.
To not be a friend, who’s heard terrible things, and knows how to stop them.
He doesn’t know how to stop this terrible thing.
“There’s a way of saving the world.”
Blue eyes snap up to meet theirs in a tizzy of confusion, grief and-- he doesn’t know.
Had they read his mind?
"How?" he demands, firstly, voice low. Lines blur between scathing and desperate. "I'm not All Might. If even he can't do it, then how can I?"
They hum. "That is true. You're not All Might, nowhere near it... but you have heart. And you have something he doesn't. There's a way of saving the world, Oboro Shirakumo."
Saving the world? Is that what he wants? Isn’t it every young hero’s dream? His dream?
Why the hell do they even know his name, anyway?
He elects to tell them a half-truth. “I don’t care about the world that much,” he admits, rubbing the nape of his neck.
Maybe it’s something contradicting of him, from the way their eyes widen, but omission is better than pure deceit; that’s what Shouta had told him. Always tells him.
If they could see through him anyway, they would know what he was leaving out.
"People are always saying something between the lines, y’know,” Hizashi drawls out, pen tapping away at his English sheet, before hanging his head back and flashing him a knowing grin and a thumbs up.
Past Oboro looks at him dubiously. “Really?”
It doesn't seem like Hizashi is lying. But if people were saying other things all the time, would the world continue to spin, stay round? How would that work?
Wait, is he saying other things all the time?
Oboro doesn’t know if he knows. Memories don’t tend to know the future. Pen in hand, Hizashi taps his own temple. “Yeah! Like, for example, just now, ya sounded skeptical, but I still reckon you still believed me even a teensy bit. Your voice pitched up, sure, but you had this look in your eye."
"Oh, seriously, you got all that just from hearing me?" Past Oboro blinks, mouth falling open, before he snaps it shut. Nudging Hizashi, he chances to tilt his head at him. "Wow," he comments. "That's something. Is it your quirk?"."
Hizashi nods. "Uh huh," he says, sounding proud. "You can tell it in their voices, the way they say things, the way they look. I can hear them ‘cause of my quirk, yeah, but ya can do one better, man!"
Hizashi flicks a finger into Oboro's chest, making past Oboro snicker. "Not to be corny or anything, but you're special, man. So it's up to you to read them."
The Oboro who knows better just looks on blankly.
(Shouta does not come when he is called. No memory of him bursts forward to assist in this roundabout u-turn of distrust.
Only the sun rises. Never the moon.
Is that a sign that the tides are giving out already?
That he's given out?)
Will Shouta get to tell him again?
Oboro glances away. Lets whatever emotion he’s feeling hike up to his face as he stares off into the distance. Eyes the dumpster in the corner, ignores the cat dipping out from under the chute, lest he think of Shouta and stumble on his words too much. As long as he doesn’t look at their whiskers, or this other person’s face, he won’t burst into tears.
“But if the world is saved, so is Shouta’s life,” he figures out.
A hiss. “Yes.”
Heat rushes to his face. Nausea crawls its way up his ribs and settles there, fisherman with no bait and all hook. It must show on him, for when Oboro takes a risk and looks back at them, their mouth is down turned in something that looks disconcertingly close to shame.
Clenching his fist, watching absently as it pales and creaks scarlet from beneath his fingernails, he huffs.
There’s a cost. This can’t be that easy.
“Being a hero means giving up what matters most to you sometimes,” a teacher informs him dully, hazy in the shine of daydreams and the decrepit hallway he’d long since run from, “Don’t take it to mean you have to destroy yourself, kid, but sacrifice is necessary in this line of work. Whether it be your time, your money, hell, even your life…”
What matters most to him, he wonders?
(Packing up his bag, Shouta and Hizashi wave at him from the doorway. Humming, a cloud’s sent over to ruffle their hair up, chanting out a laugh from him as Hizashi throws up a hand in protesting revenge and Shouta tucks his in his pockets, walking away. Oboro tosses his arms over both of their shoulders when they’re in the hallway. They don’t take up the whole corridor, but just about.)
What matters most to y o u?
“It’ll be a trade,” he guesses. Not letting them answer, holding up a hand, he continues. “An exchange, ‘cause there’s always a catch.”
There usually always is. In those Superhero movies from times much, much older than he is -- not that he's much so, but he's not that young, either -- there's always a sacrifice. A promise to be kept. Something foretold.
A prophecy fulfilled.
...But at a cost. Usually huge. Substantially so.
His bo is still sheathed on his back.
Oboro is a 2-A student, and has been a student at UA, training his heart out, for roughly 2 years now.
They could still be lying.
If he times it right, he could catch them by surprise and shack them off to the nearest police precinct for attempting to swindle him.
Haul them to a prison cell and let them rot. For attempting to lie. For coming up with such detail to derail him, make him an accomplice.
(They have so many dreams, and so much time together.)
Something within him recognizes there’s only one thing to it. Plain and simple.
Hope.
They extend their hand. Familiar from a distance, the scars around their pads trail off into burns at the edges of their wrist, a pale pink over pale skin. The hues intertwining against each other makes him want to ask where they'd gotten it from. “Do you want to know what you have to do?”
He doesn't answer at first.
"I'll make it easy to understand," they promise, voice raspy. "You just have to be willing to do anything."
.
.
.
Oboro doesn't believe that at all. But, still.
Not reaching out yet, he searches their face for one last lingering trace of a lie.
When he finds none, he tells them, “I’ll do anything,” because it’s true.
(You can do anything you put your mind to, Shouta.
You hear me? Anything. Kayama-senpai knows it. Hizashi knows it. I know it. If Sensoji can’t see it, well, he’s a blubbering fool anyway, you know! Don’t let the world doubt your skill!)