Archive of Our Own

Izuku woke up in a hospital. His body was screaming at him. Pain lived everywhere, deep beneath his skin, in his bones, behind his eyes, in places he couldn't even name. Every breath dragged against something bruised and broken. His muscles felt as though they had forgotten how to belong to him.

But none of it mattered.

Not really.

Because his heart hurt more.

Izuku opened his eyes. Fluorescent lights stared back at him from the ceiling. They were too bright. Painfully bright.

White light flooded his vision until everything blurred at the edges. He should have looked away. He knew he should have. The light was making his eyes ache, making his head pound, but somehow he couldn't make himself move.

So he stared.

One light.

Then the next.

Then the next.

He counted them without meaning to.

One.

Two.

Three.

There were tiny imperfections in the plastic casing above him. A faint gray mark near one corner. A small crack in the ceiling tile beside it.

He focused on those things. Anything but his memories. Because his memories hurt.

They came anyway.

The war.

The screaming.

The rubble.

The smell of smoke.

His classmates.

Heroes.

Villains.

People running.

People falling.

The world ending around them and somehow continuing anyway.

They had won. That was what everyone would say. They had won. Shigaraki was gone. All For One was gone. The fighting had stopped.

Japan had survived.

But when Izuku tried to make the word won fit inside his head, it felt wrong. What kind of victory left so many empty spaces behind? What kind of victory left cities broken open like wounds? What kind of victory took so much from everyone who had fought for it?

His throat tightened.

And then the memory came. Not the battlefield. Not Shigaraki. Not All for One.

Kacchan.

Izuku's breathing stopped.

Kacchan had died.

The thought didn't feel real.

It couldn't.

His mind rejected it every time it tried to form the sentence.

Kacchan died.

No.

No, that wasn't right.

Kacchan was supposed to be there. Kacchan was always there.

Even when they were children and Izuku was trailing behind him, even when they were teenagers screaming at each other across training grounds, even when they stood on opposite sides of a battlefield with the entire world collapsing around them.

Kacchan was there.

He had always been there.

Somewhere.

Ahead of him.

Beside him.

Yelling at him.

Calling him Deku.

Alive.

And now there was nothing.

Izuku swallowed. His throat burned. There was a hole inside his chest. He couldn't explain it any other way. It wasn't just sadness. Sadness felt too small.

This was an absence so enormous that it seemed to have its own gravity. Something had been torn out of him, leaving behind an empty space that shouldn't have been physically possible.

Like someone had taken his heart and punched straight through it.

Except the hole didn't stop there. Every time another memory surfaced, it grew.

Kacchan falling.

Kacchan fighting.

Kacchan getting back up.

Kacchan-

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut.

No.

Don't.

Please.

His fingers twitched against the hospital sheets. He couldn't do this. Not yet. He wasn't ready. He didn't know if he ever would be.

He opened his eyes again. The fluorescent lights were still there. They hadn't changed.

Five minutes.

Maybe ten.

He didn't know. He had been staring at them for so long that his eyes were burning.

He should blink.

He knew that.

He tried.

Nothing happened.

His eyes remained open, fixed on the ceiling as though the lights could somehow keep him anchored to the world.

If he looked away, maybe the memories would become real. If he looked away, maybe he'd have to see where he was. Maybe he'd have to see who wasn't there.

His eyes stung.

He wondered if he was going to cry. He didn't think he could. There was nowhere for the tears to go. They would disappear into the hole inside him.

Everything would.

His thoughts.

His memories.

His voice.

Himself.

He felt numb. So numb that it frightened him.

His body hurt, but somehow the pain belonged to somebody else. His arms felt distant. His legs felt distant. Even his breathing felt like something his body was doing without asking him.

He was here.

But he didn't feel here.

Izuku wondered if anyone else had died.

The question came quietly.

Almost politely.

Did anyone else die?

He didn't want to know. But he needed to know. He hoped not. Please, please let there be no more names. He didn't think there was room inside him for another one. The hole was already too big. It had swallowed everything.

And then he noticed something else. Something that should have been there.

The vestiges.

For years, whenever the world became too loud, there had always been voices inside One For All.

The previous users. The people who had carried the same impossible burden. They had been there when he was afraid. They had been there when he didn't understand.

They had watched.

Guided.

Fought beside him.

And now… nothing.

Izuku searched for them instinctively. He reached inward. There was only silence. The empty space where One For All had lived felt colder than anything else.

They were gone.

All of them.

They had given everything to defeat Shigaraki. They had disappeared so that he could keep fighting. So that he could win.

Izuku's fingers curled weakly into the sheets.

He had given up One For All too. He had done what he had to do. He had given away the power that had shaped his entire life because it was the only way to save everyone.

To save Japan. To save the world.

He knew that. He understood that. He would make the same choice again. But understanding something didn't make it hurt less.

Because there was one question he couldn't answer.

What was the point of saving the world if Kacchan wasn't going to live in it?

His breath caught. A tear finally slipped from the corner of his eye. It traveled slowly toward his ear, disappearing into his hair.

Izuku didn't wipe it away.

Another followed.

Then another.

He still didn't move.

The fluorescent lights blurred above him.

Maybe it was the tears. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it didn't matter. He thought about all the mornings that were supposed to come after this.

Graduation.

Being a hero.

Seeing his classmates again.

Walking through Musutafu when the streets were rebuilt.

Eating dinner.

Laughing.

Growing older.

A future.

He had spent so long fighting for a future. And suddenly the future looked impossibly large. Because Kacchan wasn't in it. There would be no more arguments. No more irritated shouting from across the training field. No more footsteps beside him. No more Deku. No more red eyes glaring at him when he pushed himself too far.

Izuku's chest tightened until he couldn't breathe. He turned his face toward the wall. And finally, finally, he cried.

Not loudly, there was no scream. No dramatic sob. Just a broken sound escaping his throat as his shoulders began to shake. He covered his mouth with one trembling hand, as though he could somehow hold the grief inside.

But there was too much of it. Far too much. It poured through him.

And somewhere beneath all that grief, beneath the pain and the exhaustion and the terrible emptiness, one thought remained.

The world was still here.

People were still alive.

The sun would rise tomorrow.

The world would keep turning.

And Izuku would have to keep turning with it.

Even if his heart had been left behind on a battlefield with a boy who had spent his entire life running ahead of him.

A boy who had died saving the world.

A boy Izuku would give anything to hear yell at him one more time.

Just once.

Just-

“Oi, Deku.”

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut.

For one impossible second, he almost heard it.

And that hurt more than anything.

His mind was playing tricks on him. That had to be it. Grief had a way of doing that, didn’t it? It reached into the quietest parts of a person and filled them with things they desperately wanted to hear.

Stupid voice.

Kacchan was dead.

He was gone.

Izuku stared at the ceiling, refusing to let himself think any further than that. If he thought about it too much, if he let himself remember the battlefield and the way Kacchan had looked, then the hole in his chest would become unbearable again.

So he tried to focus on the hospital.

The sterile smell. The faint beeping of the machines beside him. The uncomfortable weight of the blankets.

Anything real. Anything that could prove that he was here.

Then the voice came again.

“Oi, Deku! Don’t ignore me!”

Izuku's entire body went still.

For a moment, he wondered if he had imagined it again. His heart had been doing strange things since he woke up, racing and stuttering whenever a memory slipped through his defenses. Maybe this was just another cruel trick his mind had decided to play on him.

But the voice had sounded so real.

Not like a memory. Not like something distant. It had sounded irritated.

Impatient.

Alive.

Izuku swallowed.

His lips barely moved when he whispered, “K-Kacchan?”

There was a pause. Then the voice answered with exactly the amount of annoyance Izuku remembered.

“Yes! Dumbfuck! Who else?”

Izuku's breath caught.

He stared at the ceiling for another second before slowly pushing himself upright. His body protested immediately. Pain tore through his ribs and shoulders, and something in his arm screamed when he moved it, but he barely registered any of it.

“Kacchan?”

“What?”

“You're...” The word wouldn't come out. He couldn't say it. He couldn't make himself say dead. Not when Kacchan was speaking to him. Not when that familiar voice was suddenly inside his head, as though the war had never happened.

“I'm what?”

Izuku's eyes burned. “How are you here?”

There was silence on the other end. Long enough that Izuku could almost imagine Katsuki frowning.

“I don't know.”

Izuku's brow furrowed. “What do you mean you don't know?”

“Exactly what I said. I don't know.”

The irritation in Kacchan’s voice made something painfully familiar settle over Izuku's chest.

It was him. It sounded exactly like him. But something about it was wrong. Not wrong in the way Izuku had expected. There was something missing, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Kacchan sounded like Kacchan. But he didn't sound like the Kacchan Izuku had known during the months leading up to the war.

There were gaps.

Izuku could feel them. “You said you don't know how you're here.”

“I woke up here, didn't I? One second I was fighting that bastard, and the next...”

He trailed off. Izuku's breathing slowed. “Fighting Nine?”

There was a pause. “Yeah.”

Izuku's heart sank. Of course. Kacchan didn't know. He couldn't.

The only reason Kacchan existed inside One For All at all was because of that one impossible moment months ago, when Izuku had transferred the power to him during the fight against Nine.

Kacchan had only possessed One For All for minutes. Maybe less. That was all this vestige could remember. The realization settled over Izuku with a strange kind of sadness. Kacchan wasn't remembering the war. He wasn't remembering their years at U.A. He wasn't remembering the battles they'd fought together afterward, the arguments, the apologies, the quiet moments that had somehow become more important than either of them ever admitted.

He didn't remember becoming the person Izuku had known.

This Kacchan was frozen in that moment. A piece of him caught inside One For All from the brief time he'd carried it.

Izuku closed his eyes. “So you remember Nine?”

“Obviously.”

“And... that's it?”

Silence settles inside of Izuku’s brain.

Kacchan’s voice was quieter when he answered.

“I remember getting One For All from you. I remember using it. I remember fighting alongside you.”

Izuku's throat tightened. “And after that?”

“Nothing.”

The answer was simple. Almost careless. But Izuku felt it like a knife.

Nothing.

Kacchan didn't remember the years between then and now. He didn't remember how much they had changed. He didn't remember all the times Izuku had looked at him and thought that somehow, despite everything, they had found their way back to each other.

He didn't remember dying. He didn't even remember the life that had led him to his death.

Izuku lowered his head. For a moment, the silence between them felt heavier than the hospital room ever had.

Then Kacchan spoke again. “Oi. What the hell is going on?”

Izuku looked up. “What?”

“You sound weird.”

Izuku almost laughed. It came out as something closer to a breath. “You always notice.”

“Notice what?”

“Never mind.”

Kacchan made an irritated noise. “Deku.”

Izuku froze. The way he said his name was so familiar that it hurt.

“Where am I?”

Izuku looked down at his hands. His fingers trembled slightly. “You're... inside One For All.”

“But you said One For All is gone.”

Izuku's chest tightened. “I didn’t”

“You did, you thought about it!”

“I mean, yeah, it is gone.”

“Then how the hell am I here?”

“I don't know.”

Kacchan went quiet.

Izuku could almost picture the expression he would have been making, brows drawn together, lips pressed into a thin line as he tried to force an answer out of a problem that didn't have one.

Except Izuku didn't actually know what expression Kacchan was making anymore.

He couldn't see him.

Not yet.

And suddenly, he realized something. “If you're inside One For All...” He swallowed. “Then the vestiges...”

Nothing.

No answer.

“Kacchan?”

Still nothing.

Izuku closed his eyes.

He reached inward.

It was instinct more than anything else. He had done it countless times before, back when One For All had been something alive inside him, back when the previous users had existed in that strange space between memory and consciousness.

He searched for them. For the familiar presences. For the voices that had once surrounded him.

For Nana.

For Banjo.

For Shinomori.

For the others.

Nothing.

Only silence.

They were gone.

Izuku already knew that. They had given themselves to him in the final battle. They had burned themselves away to reach Shigaraki from the inside, sacrificing what remained of them so that Izuku could finish the fight.

But knowing it and feeling their absence were two completely different things.

The vestige world had once felt crowded. Now it felt abandoned.

Except for one presence.

Kacchan.

Izuku concentrated harder. The darkness behind his eyes began to change. The hospital faded. The pain faded. The sound of the machines disappeared.

For a moment, Izuku felt weightless, suspended somewhere between waking and dreaming. Then his feet touched solid ground.

He opened his eyes. The vestige world stretched around him. It was familiar, but it no longer felt the same.

The strange sky above him was almost completely still. There was no sense of movement, no presence pressing against his consciousness from all directions. The places where the other vestiges had once stood were empty now, leaving behind an emptiness that somehow felt even larger than the one inside his chest.

Izuku slowly turned.

And stopped.

Someone was standing several feet away.

Blond hair.

Red eyes.

A familiar posture.

Hands shoved into his pockets.

Kacchan looked exactly as Izuku remembered him from that distant memory from Nabu Island. Not the Kacchan who had fought beside him in the final war. Not the Kacchan who had changed over the years. Not the Kacchan who had died. This was a Kacchan frozen in time. A Kacchan from months ago. A Kacchan who had no idea what had happened after One For All returned to him.

Izuku's eyes filled immediately. He  didn't care. He couldn't look away.

Kacchan stared back at him, clearly irritated by the way Izuku was looking at him. “What?” he demanded. “Why the hell are you staring at me like that?”

Izuku opened his mouth. Nothing came out. There were too many words. Too many memories that Kacchan didn't have. Too much time between the person standing in front of him and the person Izuku had lost.

So instead, Izuku whispered the only thing he could. “Kacchan...”

Kacchan’s expression softened for the smallest fraction of a second, though Izuku wasn't sure if he had imagined it.

“Yeah,” he said. “It's me.”

And Izuku finally understood the cruelest part of all. Kacchan was here. He could speak to him. He could see him. He could hear that familiar voice whenever he closed his eyes. But the Kacchan standing before him didn't know what they had become. He didn't know the years they had shared. He didn't know how much Izuku loved him. He didn't know that he was dead.

He only knew that, once upon a time, for a few brief minutes, he had carried One For All.

And somehow, that tiny piece of time had been enough to leave him behind.

“Why the hell are you crying, Deku?”

The voice was rough.

Familiar.

So painfully familiar that Izuku almost wished it wasn't.

He stared at Kacchan through the strange, endless space of the vestige realm, unable to make himself answer. There was something almost cruel about hearing that voice again. It was the voice that had followed him through childhood, through U.A., through battles and arguments and moments neither of them had ever known how to name.

The voice that had shouted at him when he was being stupid.

The voice that had called him Deku.

The voice he had been certain he would never hear again.

And yet here Kacchan stood.

Alive in every way that mattered to this strange place.

Izuku swallowed, but his throat felt impossibly tight. “I... I don't know.”

Kacchan frowned. “That doesn't make any sense.”

Izuku almost laughed. It came out broken instead. “I know.”

Kacchan stared at him for a moment longer, clearly irritated by the tears running down Izuku's face. He looked exactly like Izuku remembered him, right down to the permanent crease between his eyebrows whenever he was frustrated.

Except there was something wrong.

Something Izuku couldn't ignore.

Kacchan was looking at him like a stranger.

Not completely. There was recognition there, but it was shallow, like recognizing someone's face from a photograph without remembering when the photograph was taken.

“You said you don't remember anything,” Izuku whispered.

Kacchan crossed his arms. “I told you. I remember Nine.”

Izuku nodded slowly. “The fight.”

“Yeah.”

“The island.”

“Yeah.”

“Us having One For All.”

Kacchan's expression shifted slightly. “Yeah. I remember that.”

Izuku looked down.

That was the problem.

Kacchan remembered the moment they had shared a power that was never supposed to belong to both of them. He remembered fighting beside Izuku, remembered the feeling of One For All rushing through his body, remembered Nine.

But everything after that was gone.

Not forgotten.

Gone.

Like someone had taken a pair of scissors to Kacchan's life and cut everything away after that single memory.

“What about U.A.?” Izuku asked.

Kacchan's eyebrows pulled together. “U.A.?”

Izuku's chest tightened. “Yeah.”

“Obviously I know what U.A. is.”

“No, I mean... do you remember being there?”

Kacchan was silent. Izuku watched the answer appear on his face before he ever spoke.

“No.” The word was quiet. Far quieter than Izuku expected.

Izuku looked away. “What about Kirishima?”

Nothing.

“Uraraka?”

Nothing.

“Todoroki?”

Kacchan's eyes narrowed. “Who the hell is Todoroki?”

Izuku's breath caught. He knew this already. He had known. But hearing Kacchan say it out loud somehow made it real. “They were our classmates.”

Kacchan stared at him. “Our?”

“Class 1-A.”

Kacchan's expression became more confused. “I don't remember any of that.”

Izuku nodded, forcing himself to keep breathing. “Yeah.”

There was a long silence between them. The empty vestige realm seemed even emptier now. Izuku had once thought the absence of the other vestiges was the loneliest thing he had ever experienced. He had been wrong.

This was worse.

Because Kacchan was standing right in front of him, and Izuku knew so much about him that Kacchan didn't know about himself.

He knew how Kacchan had changed.

How he had grown.

How he had learned to save people without needing anyone to praise him for it.

He knew the person Kacchan had become.

And Kacchan didn't.

“I knew you,” Izuku whispered.

Kacchan scoffed. “Obviously.”

“No.” Izuku looked at him. “I mean... I really knew you.”

Kacchan's expression softened by the smallest amount.

Izuku rubbed at his eyes. “You were still loud. You were still angry all the time. You still called me Deku.”

“Sounds about right.”

“But you changed.”

Kacchan looked away. “How?”

Izuku smiled sadly. “You started saving people because you wanted to.” Kacchan didn't answer. “You started worrying about everyone.”

“Bullshit.”

“You did.”

“I didn't.”

“You did,” Izuku repeated, almost laughing through his tears. “You just pretended you didn't.”

Kacchan looked annoyed, but he didn't argue again.

Izuku's smile faded. “You became a hero.”

Kacchan looked at him for a long moment. “Was I good?”

The question nearly broke him. Izuku's eyes filled again. “You were incredible.”

Kacchan looked away. “Damn right.”

Izuku laughed weakly. “Yeah.”

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Almost.

Then Kacchan looked back at him. “So what happened?” Izuku froze. “After Nine.”

Izuku's fingers curled against his palms. Kacchan watched him carefully. “What happened to me?”

Izuku couldn't answer.

Not immediately.

He looked at the person in front of him and thought about everything Kacchan had done after the memories this version of him possessed.

The battles.

The injuries.

The arguments.

The apology.

The moments where Kacchan had stood beside him when Izuku thought he had to stand alone.

And then the war.

The final battle.

Kacchan's body.

The desperate hope that had filled Izuku when he realized Kacchan was still alive.

The fear.

The relief.

And then nothing.

Izuku closed his eyes. “Kacchan...”

“Deku.” His voice was quieter now. “Tell me.”

Izuku opened his eyes. And took a deep breath to steady himself. “You died.”

Kacchan stared at him. There was no dramatic reaction. No shouting. No explosion of anger. Just silence.

“I died?”

Izuku nodded. “During the final war.”

Kacchan's eyebrows drew together. “I don't remember a war.”

“I know.”

“I don't remember dying.”

“I know.”

Kacchan looked down at his hands. For the first time since Izuku had entered the vestige realm, he looked genuinely lost. “So this is...”

“Not really you,” Izuku whispered. Kacchan looked up. Izuku's throat tightened. “It's you, but... not all of you. It's the part of you that was left behind when you had One For All.”

Kacchan stared at him. “So I'm a memory.”

Izuku shook his head. “No.”

“A ghost?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell am I?”

Izuku didn't know. That was the terrifying part. “I don't know.”

Kacchan gave a humorless laugh. “Great, you're crying over a guy who doesn't even know why he's here.”

Izuku's face crumpled slightly. “I’m crying because you're here.” Kacchan went still. Izuku stepped closer. “Because I thought you were gone.” His voice broke. “And you are. I know that. I know you're not really... you're not the Kacchan I lost. You don't remember all those years. You don't remember everything we went through. You don't remember the war.”

He wiped his eyes. “But you're still you.”

Kacchan didn't say anything.

Izuku stared at him. “You're still the person who stood beside me.” His voice became quieter. “And I don't know how much longer you're going to be here.”

That finally made Kacchan's expression change. “What do you mean?”

Izuku looked around the empty realm. “The other vestiges disappeared.”

Kacchan followed his gaze. “All of them?”

Izuku nodded. “They sacrificed themselves to help me. To beat Shigaraki.”

Kacchan's jaw tightened at the unfamiliar name. “And me?”

Izuku looked at him. “You're the only one left.”

Kacchan was silent for a long time. Then he looked at Izuku. “So why?”

Izuku frowned. “I don't know.”

“No. Think.”

Izuku did. He thought about Nabu Island. About the moment he'd transferred One For All. About Kacchan wielding that power. About the strange way the quirk had eventually returned to Izuku. About everything that had happened since. Then something occurred to him.

“When you had One For All...”

Kacchan raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You had your own quirk too.”

“Obviously.”

“And One For All contained your quirk factor.”

Kacchan stared at him. “So?”

Izuku's eyes widened slightly. “When One For All transferred back to me... maybe something stayed.”

Kacchan looked at his hands. “My quirk?”

“Maybe.”

“And that's why I'm here?”

“I think so.”

Kacchan was quiet. Then he gave Izuku a crooked, almost disbelieving look. “So you're telling me that even after I died, my stupid quirk was too stubborn to leave you alone?”

Izuku laughed. It was small, and broken. But it was the first real laugh he'd managed since waking up. “Yeah.”

Kacchan smirked. “Sounds like me.”

Izuku looked at him. And for one fragile moment, the emptiness inside his chest didn't feel quite so endless.

Kacchan was gone. Izuku knew that. But somehow, impossibly, a piece of him had remained. And maybe that was enough to begin learning how to live with the hole he had left behind.

“So, we’re both in U.A., Class 1-A, and villains kept attacking us from the beginning of our first year, all the way until the end of our first year, where we all had to participate in a war which I died in?”

Kacchan summarized it with the same bluntness he used for everything else, as if he were trying to make sense of a story that had been told to him by someone else.

Izuku stared at him for a moment. “Uhm... yeah, basically.”

Kacchan's face twisted. “That is the stupidest school experience I've ever heard.”

Despite himself, Izuku laughed. It was barely more than a breath, but it was a laugh.

Kacchan noticed. “You're laughing.”

Izuku wiped underneath his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Don't apologize for laughing, dumbass.”

Something inside Izuku twisted at the words. He hadn't realized how much he had missed hearing them.

The insults.

The irritation.

The way Kacchan somehow managed to make even the most ordinary words sound like they carried an argument inside them.

For so long, Izuku had thought he would give anything just to hear Kacchan's voice again.

He hadn't expected to get it.

Not like this.

Not inside the remnants of One For All, in a world that felt less like a place and more like the memory of one.

Yet somehow, impossibly, Kacchan was here.

And for the first time since Izuku had opened his eyes in that hospital bed, the emptiness inside him didn't feel quite as enormous.

The hole was still there.

It was still deep.

It still ached somewhere beneath his ribs, an absence so enormous that Izuku wasn't sure his body had enough room to contain it.

But it wasn't growing anymore. That was something. Perhaps the hole was slowly beginning to close.

Not disappear.

Never disappear.

Izuku knew better than that. Kacchan was dead. There was no changing that.

No matter how much Izuku wanted to pretend otherwise, no matter how much he wanted to reach through the strange vestige realm and drag Kacchan back into the real world, the person standing in front of him was not a miracle that could undo death.

He was a fragment.

A memory given a voice.

A piece of Kacchan that had somehow survived inside One For All.

And yet, somehow, speaking to him was healing something.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Like stitching a wound that had been left open for too long.

They kept talking. Well, mostly Izuku talked. Kacchan asked questions. A lot of questions. Some of them were simple. Some of them were not.

“So you seriously had no idea I could do that?”

“No! I mean, I knew you were strong, but-”

“I was always strong.”

Izuku smiled. “Yeah. You were.”

“What about the others?”

“Which others?”

“My class.”

And so Izuku told him.

He told him about Kirishima, about how stubborn he was and how fiercely loyal he could be. He told him about Kaminari's terrible jokes and how much he had grown. About Sero, Jiro, Momo, Mina, Tsuyu, Tokoyami, Shoji, Ojiro, Sato, Koda, Hagakure.

He told Kacchan about Todoroki.

Kacchan interrupted that one several times. “So this guy can make fire and ice?”

“Yes.”

“And he actually uses both?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Then Izuku told him about Uraraka. About how kind she was. About how strong she had become.

About how she had helped him when he needed someone to remind him that being a hero didn't mean he had to carry everything alone.

Kacchan listened.

Sometimes he laughed.

Sometimes he scoffed.

Sometimes he called Izuku an idiot for something that had happened years ago.

And sometimes he simply stared at Izuku as though he were trying to picture a life he had somehow lived but could no longer remember.

“Aizawa?”

The question came quietly. Izuku looked up. “Sensei?”

“Yeah. You mentioned him earlier.”

Izuku's expression softened. “Aizawa-sensei.” He smiled. “He was our homeroom teacher.”

“Was he any good?”

Izuku let out a small laugh. “He was terrifying.”

“Sounds useful.”

“He cared about us a lot.”

Kacchan raised an eyebrow. “You're saying that like it's surprising.”

“It was.” Izuku's smile faded. “Aizawa-sensei sacrificed so much for us.”

He began telling him. Not everything. Some memories were still too raw to touch.

But enough.

He told Kacchan about the times Aizawa had put himself between them and danger. About the way he had pushed himself beyond his limits for his students. About the exhaustion hidden underneath his dry voice and tired eyes.

Kacchan listened without interrupting.

When Izuku finished, there was a long silence.

“He sounds like a good teacher,” Kacchan finally said.

“He was.” Izuku looked down. “He is.”

The distinction hurt.

Everything hurt when Izuku remembered that there was a difference between was and is now. There were so many people in the world who could still be described with the present tense.

Kacchan wasn't one of them.

And somehow, that simple grammatical difference felt crueler than anything else.

So Izuku kept talking.

He talked because silence meant remembering.

He talked because every time Kacchan asked another question, Izuku got another few seconds where the world outside didn't exist.

He told him about U.A.'s dorms.

About their training.

About stupid arguments and late-night conversations.

About festivals and exams and the tiny moments that didn't seem important when they happened, but had become precious now that Izuku knew how quickly everything could disappear.

He told Kacchan about people he loved.

About people Kacchan had loved too, even if this version of him didn't remember them.

And Kacchan listened.

Sometimes Izuku caught him smiling. Sometimes he looked frustrated because he couldn't remember. Once, he went completely quiet when Izuku told him about something Kacchan had done during the war.

“I really did all that?”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah.”

Kacchan looked away. “Sounds like a pain in the ass.”

Izuku smiled sadly. “You were.”

“Was?”

Izuku's smile faltered. Kacchan noticed. His expression changed. “Right.”

The word settled between them. Neither of them spoke for several seconds.

Izuku hated that word.

Was.

He hated how often it appeared now.

Kacchan was.

Kacchan was a hero.

Kacchan was his classmate.

Kacchan was his childhood friend.

Kacchan was-

Izuku shut his eyes.

No.

He couldn't think like that.

Not yet.

So he talked again.

He talked until his voice became hoarse. He talked until the strange world around them felt almost warm. He talked until the hole inside his chest no longer felt like it was swallowing him whole.

For a little while, Izuku forgot about the hospital. He forgot about the destroyed city outside. He forgot about the war. He forgot that there was a world waiting for him beyond this place. Most importantly, he forgot that Kacchan wasn't waiting there.

He didn't want to leave.

The thought came so quietly that at first Izuku almost ignored it.

I don't want to leave.

He looked at Kacchan.

Kacchan was sitting a short distance away, listening to another story Izuku was telling him.

Izuku stared.

He wanted to stay here.

He wanted to remajn inside his own mind where Kacchan could still exist.

He didn't want to wake up.

He didn't want the nurses.

He didn't want the doctors.

He didn't want the questions.

He didn't want to know how badly Japan had been destroyed.

He didn't want to know who had survived.

He didn't want to know who hadn't.

He especially didn't want to know whether there were any more names that needed to be added to the list of people he had lost.

Out there, responsibility was waiting for him. The world was waiting for him. There would be people asking what happened. People asking what came next. People who needed a hero. People who needed answers.

And Izuku didn't know if he could give them anything. All he wanted was to sit here, with Kacchan.

Forever, if the vestige realm would let him.

“Deku.” 

Izuku looked up. Kacchan was watching him. “What?”

“You've gone quiet.”

Izuku swallowed. “I don't want to leave.”

Kacchan frowned. “Leave where?”

“The vestige realm.”

Kacchan stared at him. “You have to wake up.”

Izuku's eyes burned. “I know.”

“Then wake up.”

“I don't want to.”

Kacchan's expression hardened. “Deku.”

“I don't want to know.”

“Know what?”

Izuku looked away. “If anyone else died.”

The words barely made it past his throat.

Kacchan didn't answer.

“I need to know,” Izuku continued. “I know I do. I need to know who survived. I need to know what happened to everyone. I need to know if they're okay.” His fingers trembled. “But I'm scared.”

Kacchan remained silent.

Izuku laughed weakly. “Isn't that pathetic?”

“No.”

The answer came immediately. Izuku looked at him.

Kacchan's expression was unusually serious. “It's not pathetic to be scared of losing more people.”

Izuku's eyes filled again. “I don't think I can do it.”

“You can.”

“I don't want to.”

“I know.”

That hurt more than encouragement would have. Because Kacchan wasn't telling him it would be easy. He wasn't telling him that everything would be okay. He was simply acknowledging that Izuku didn't want to do it.

And somehow, that was enough.

Izuku lowered his head.

The hole inside him was still there. It had stitches now, fragile ones, barely holding together the edges. But he knew what would happen when he woke. If someone else was gone, those stitches would tear.

They would rip apart everything he had managed to hold together in this little corner of his mind, and the pain would come rushing back.

He could almost imagine it. The hole opening again. The stitches snapping one by one, puncturing his flesh until he drew blood. The pain flooding through him until there was nowhere left to hide from it. Then laying in his own blood until his heart could feel again.

But he had to wake up. Because the world was still turning. Because people were still alive. Because there were people who needed to know that he was alive too.

And because somewhere beyond this place, in a hospital bed beneath harsh fluorescent lights, Izuku Midoriya was still breathing.

He looked at Kacchan. “I don't want to forget this.”

Kacchan frowned. “You won't.”

“You don't know that.”

“No,” Kacchan admitted. “But you won't.”

Izuku smiled through his tears. It wasn't much of a smile. But it was real.

He reached toward Kacchan, hesitated for a moment, and then let his hand fall back to his side. “I wish you remembered.”

Kacchan looked at him. “So do I.”

And somehow, that was the cruelest thing he could have said. Because for the first time, Izuku realized that maybe Kacchan wanted to know too. He wanted to know the people he had become friends with. He wanted to know the person Izuku had become. He wanted to know the life he had lived after Nine. He wanted to know why Izuku looked at him like he was the most precious thing left in the world.

But he couldn't.

That Kacchan was gone.

And this Kacchan was all that remained.

Izuku closed his eyes. “I'll come back.”

Kacchan scoffed. “Where else are you gonna go, dumbass?”

Izuku laughed softly. Then the vestige realm began to fade.

And for the first time since waking up, Izuku was afraid to open his eyes.

The moment his eyes opened, the fluorescent lights hit like a blade.

Izuku flinched and immediately squeezed his eyes shut again, his face twisting as the harsh white light burned through the darkness he had just left behind.

For a few seconds, he didn't move. He could still hear Kacchan's voice.

Where else are you gonna go, dumbass?

The memory was so fresh that Izuku almost expected to hear him again. Almost expected the vestige realm to still be there when he opened his eyes. But when he finally forced them open, there was only the hospital ceiling.

White, sterile, and very real.

His stomach dropped. The vestige realm was gone. Kacchan was gone.

Izuku stared at the ceiling until his vision adjusted, breathing shallowly as the reality of where he was slowly settled back onto his shoulders.

The hospital.

The war.

The aftermath.

Kacchan.

His eyes moved across the room.

There were machines beside his bed, wires disappearing beneath the blankets and into monitors. The quiet beeping had been there before, but now that he was awake enough to notice it, the sound seemed almost unbearably loud.

Then he realized something. He wasn't alone. Someone was sitting beside the window.

Izuku's eyes widened.

Messy black hair. The familiar capture scarf. The tired face that somehow looked even more exhausted than usual.

“Aizawa... sensei?”

Aizawa's head lifted immediately. Their eyes met. And something inside Izuku broke. There wasn't even time to stop it.

Tears spilled down his face before he could take a breath, hot and immediate, his body reacting before his mind could catch up.

Aizawa froze. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Izuku stared at him through blurred vision.

Aizawa was alive.

He was alive.

That realization should have brought relief. Instead, it made Izuku cry harder. Because if Aizawa was here, then this was real. The war had really happened. Kacchan was really dead. The people who hadn't made it back were really gone.

Aizawa slowly stood from his chair. “Midoriya.”

Izuku tried to answer. Nothing came out. His throat closed around the sound.

Aizawa crossed the room and stopped beside the bed. He didn't immediately touch him. He simply stood there, looking down at one of his students who had woken up carrying far more than anyone his age ever should have had to carry.

“You're awake,” Aizawa said quietly.

Izuku nodded. Then he started crying again. “I-” His voice broke.

Aizawa's expression tightened. “Don't force yourself to talk.”

“But-”

“You've been unconscious.”

“How long?”

Aizawa hesitated. “Several days.”

Izuku's heart sank. Several days. He had lost several days. His eyes moved around the room again. “Everyone...?”

Aizawa knew what he was asking. He always did. “There are people who are still unconscious,” he said carefully. “Some are recovering. Some have already been discharged.”

Izuku's breathing became uneven. “And the others?”

Aizawa's eyes lowered. There was something in that silence, something Izuku immediately understood. His fingers clenched around the blanket. “Kacchan.”

Aizawa didn't answer. Izuku already knew. “I know,” Izuku whispered.

Aizawa's eyes flickered. “You know?”

Izuku nodded. “He's dead.”

The words sounded different when spoken aloud. In the vestige realm, Izuku had been able to say them while looking at Kacchan. Here, in the hospital, they felt like a sentence being carved into stone.

Aizawa pulled the chair closer and sat down. “Yes.”

Izuku's tears wouldn't stop. “I talked to him.”

Aizawa's brows drew together. “In your sleep?”

“No.” Izuku swallowed. “In my mind.” 

Aizawa didn't dismiss him. He never had. “Tell me.”

So Izuku did. He told Aizawa about the vestige realm. About the empty space where the other vestiges had once been. About how Kacchan was the only one left. About how Kacchan remembered fighting Nine and nothing beyond it. He told him that Kachan didn't remember U.A. Didn't remember Class 1-A. Didn't remember Aizawa. Didn't remember the war. Didn't remember dying.

And somehow, saying that last part made Izuku's chest hurt worse than anything else.

“He didn't even know he died,” Izuku whispered.

Aizawa stared at the floor. “That might be a mercy.”

Izuku shook his head. “No.” His voice was firmer now.“I don't think so.” Aizawa looked at him. “He deserved to know.”

There was a long silence.

“He deserved to know how much he changed,” Izuku continued. “He deserved to know how many people he saved. He deserved to know that everyone was proud of him.”

His voice trembled. “He deserved to know that I was proud of him.”

Aizawa's expression softened. “He knew.”

Izuku shook his head. “He didn't.”

“He might not have remembered it in the vestige,” Aizawa said, “but that doesn't mean he didn't know.”

Izuku stared at him.

Aizawa sighed.

“The people we become aren't always contained in our memories, Midoriya.”

Izuku's eyes burned.

“Aizawa-sensei...”

“I saw Bakugou during the war.” Izuku went still. Aizawa looked toward the window. “He fought.” His voice was quiet. “He kept fighting when he had every reason to stop.”

Izuku's lips trembled.

“He was scared,” Aizawa continued. “So was everyone.” He looked back at Izuku. “Being afraid doesn't make what he did any less brave.”

Izuku covered his face with one trembling hand. “I wasn't there.”

Aizawa's eyes narrowed slightly. “You were.”

“I wasn't there when-”

“You were there.” Aizawa's voice was firmer now. “You were fighting too.”

Izuku lowered his hand. “You cannot turn this into a list of things you should have done differently.”

“But if I-”

“No.” Aizawa's voice cut through him. “No more if I had. No more I should have. The war is over.”

Izuku stared at him. Aizawa's face was exhausted. “You survived.”

The words hit harder than Izuku expected. “I don't know if that's a good thing.”

Aizawa was silent. Then he leaned forward slightly. “It doesn't have to be a good thing yet.” Izuku blinked. “You don't have to be grateful that you're alive today.” His voice softened. “You just have to stay alive long enough to figure out what tomorrow looks like.”

Izuku's face crumpled.

He cried again.

Aizawa let him.

He didn't tell him to stop.

He didn't tell him to be strong.

He simply stayed.

Eventually, Recovery Girl approached the bed, carrying her medical bag. “Well,” she said gently, “I suppose I should see what condition you've managed to wake up in.”

Izuku gave a watery laugh. “Sorry.”

“You're always apologizing.” She carefully checked the monitors before examining him. “You've recovered more quickly than expected, but you're still in rough shape.”

“I need to go back.”

Aizawa immediately looked at him. “No.”

“But-”

“No.”

“I need to see everyone.”

“You will.”

“I need to know who's okay.”

“You will.”

Izuku's fingers tightened around the blanket. “I don't want to be here.”

“I know.”

Recovery Girl glanced between them. “Fortunately, I have a solution.”

Izuku looked at her.

She smiled faintly. “I can use my Quirk to accelerate your physical recovery.”

Izuku looked hopeful.

“But there are limitations,” Recovery Girl added. “My Quirk accelerates healing by using the patient's own energy. It won't magically erase exhaustion, and it certainly won't fix emotional trauma. But I think you already know that.”

Izuku's expression fell slightly. “I know.”

“Good.” She adjusted the blanket.

“I can, however, get you physically stable enough to leave the hospital considerably sooner than you otherwise would.”

Izuku looked toward Aizawa. “How soon?”

Aizawa sighed. “Midoriya.”

“I need to go back to U.A.”

Recovery Girl exchanged a glance with Aizawa. “School won't be the same as before.”

“I know.”

“There are still repairs happening.”

“I know.”

“Your classmates are recovering too.”

“I know.” Izuku swallowed. “But I want to see them.”

Aizawa studied him for several seconds. Then he nodded. “Fine.” Izuku's eyes widened. “But you're following medical restrictions.”

“I will.”

“And if Recovery Girl says you're not ready, you're staying here.”

Izuku nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Recovery Girl smiled. “Then let's get started.”

As she pressed a kiss on his forehead, Izuku felt the familiar warmth of her Quirk spread through his body. For the first time since waking up, the pain in his muscles began to loosen. His body started repairing itself faster than it should have been able to.

But his heart remained untouched.

Recovery Girl had warned him about that.

Healing could close wounds.

It couldn't return the dead.

Izuku stared toward the window while the warmth moved through him. Somewhere inside his mind, he could almost hear Kacchan's voice again.

Where else are you gonna go, dumbass?

Izuku closed his eyes.

“I'll see you again,” he whispered.

Aizawa looked at him. “What?”

Izuku opened his eyes. He shook his head. “Nothing.”

But for the first time, the thought didn't feel like a lie.

Kacchan was gone.

Izuku knew that now.

And he would carry that absence with him for the rest of his life.

But somewhere inside him, buried deep within the remnants of a power that was slowly disappearing, a piece of Kacchan remained.

And for now, that was enough to take the next step.

Even if every step hurt.

After a few days of recovering, Izuku was finally allowed to return to U.A.

The doctors had called it progress. Recovery Girl had called it stubbornness. Aizawa had called it finally.

Izuku wasn't sure what he called it.

He was still tired. His body had recovered far faster than it should have, but his mind seemed to have fallen behind somewhere along the way. There was a strange heaviness inside him that sleep couldn't touch, and sometimes, when he woke in the middle of the night, he would lie completely still and wonder if the entire war had been some terrible dream.

Then he would remember Kacchan. And he would know it hadn't been. He still hadn't been able to speak to the vestige again. Izuku had tried. More than once.

Every night, he had closed his eyes and reached inward, searching for that strange place where the remnants of One For All had once gathered. He had expected to see Kacchan standing there, arms crossed and already annoyed that Izuku had taken so long to return.

But there had been nothing.

Only darkness.

Izuku assumed his body was still using everything it had to heal. One For All itself was barely there anymore, its presence quieter than it had ever been. Perhaps the connection to Kacchan was simply too weak.

Perhaps Kacchan was still there, waiting. Izuku had to believe that. Because if he wasn't, then Izuku had lost him twice. The first time had been on the battlefield. The second would be every time he closed his eyes and found nothing.

So he stopped searching, at least for now. There was something else he needed to do. He needed to go back. He needed to become a hero. He had already made up his mind about that.

Even if his body was forced to keep moving long after it begged him to stop, even if his mind carried scars that would never fully disappear, Izuku would become a hero.

He would become the hero Kacchan never got the chance to become.

It wasn't fair.

Izuku knew that.

Kacchan should have been the one walking through those doors. He should have been complaining about being late. He should have been sitting at his desk, glaring at everyone and telling them to shut up.

He should have had a future.

Instead, Izuku was going to have to live his.

And he would carry Kacchan with him through every part of it.

When Izuku opened the classroom door, every head turned. For one brief second, the room became completely silent.

“Izuku!” Uraraka's voice broke through the silence. She shot up from her seat beside Tsuyu and almost ran straight into him before catching herself.

Izuku barely had time to smile before she stopped in front of him.

Her arms lifted slightly, but she hesitated. “Can I...?”

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. Izuku saw what she was asking.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah, of course.”

Uraraka wrapped her arms around him. It was a careful hug at first, as if she was afraid of hurting him, but it quickly became tighter.

Izuku closed his eyes. He could feel the bandages beneath her uniform.

There were still some across her arms and shoulders, just like there were on almost everyone else in the classroom.

They were impossible to ignore. Every strip of white was a reminder. The war had happened, they had all been there, they had all paid for it.

Uraraka rested her chin against his shoulder. “We missed you.”

Izuku swallowed. “I missed you guys too.”

He wrapped his arms around her. For a few seconds, he allowed himself to simply stand there. Then Uraraka pulled away. Izuku looked around the room. Everyone was here.

His eyes moved from face to face. Every person he had been afraid he would never see again was standing in front of him. Relief flooded through him. They had all survived, every single one.

His chest loosened. And then the realization came. Everyone had survived.

Everyone except Kacchan.

The hole inside his chest seemed to open again. It wasn't as enormous as it had been in the hospital, but it was still there, waiting. A stitch snapped, Izuku almost felt it. The phantom sensation of something sharp pulling through his chest.

He forced himself to breathe.

Uraraka noticed. Her expression changed. “There’s something we wanted to show you.” Izuku looked at her. She glanced toward the back of the room. “We... made something for Katsuki.”

Izuku's eyes followed hers. Kacchan's desk. There were flowers around it., small notes, photographs. A few things that Izuku couldn't immediately identify.

Uraraka's voice became quieter. “We know you knew him the longest out of all of us.” Izuku looked at the desk. “So we left some space.” His throat tightened. “You don't have to put anything there if you don't want to. We just thought...” She swallowed. “We thought maybe you would want to.”

Izuku couldn't speak. Uraraka continued. “And we gathered pictures.” She pointed toward his desk. “They're in a box.”

Izuku turned. There was a small cardboard box sitting neatly on top of his desk.

Written across the lid in uneven handwriting were the words:

For Izuku, for all the memories you shared.

His vision blurred. “Oh.”

That was all he managed. He walked toward it slowly. Each step felt heavier than the last. When he reached his desk, he sat down. His fingers trembled as he lifted the lid.

Photographs.

Dozens of them.

Some were printed copies.

Some were clearly taken on phones.

Some were blurry.

Some were crooked.

Some had people half out of frame.

They were perfect.

Izuku picked up the first.

The summer camp. He and Kacchan were arguing over food. Izuku stared at the photograph. Then, despite everything, a tiny smile appeared. He could hear the memory as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

Kacchan shouting.

Izuku protesting.

Everyone else trying not to get involved.

His thumb brushed over the edge of the photograph. “You hated sharing food,” he whispered.

Nobody answered. Of course nobody answered.

Izuku picked up another. Their house arrest. Both of them carrying bags of garbage, looking absolutely miserable.

Izuku laughed, a real laugh. It escaped before he could stop it. His classmates looked at him. The laugh faded into a shaky breath. “Oh, we hated that.” He looked at the picture again. “You complained the entire time.”

A tear landed on the photograph. Izuku quickly wiped it away. Another picture. Another memory. Then another. Most of them were ordinary. That was what hurt the most. Kacchan sleeping in one of the dorm common rooms. Kacchan arguing with someone. Kacchan glaring at the camera. Kacchan standing beside Izuku. Kacchan and Izuku eating together. Kacchan and Izuku fighting over something completely meaningless. There were no grand heroic moments. No dramatic battles. No photographs of the two of them standing beneath explosions or surrounded by crowds.

Just them.

Living.

Existing.

Being teenagers.

Having a life.

Izuku's fingers trembled as he turned another photograph over. He wished Kacchan could see them. He wished he could bring the box into the vestige realm and put every photograph into his hands.

Look.

This happened.

You were here.

You were happy.

You had friends.

You had a life.

You had me.

Izuku's eyes burned. He hoped Kacchan was somehow watching. Even if he couldn't remember. Even if he couldn't see through Izuku's eyes. Some part of him had to know. He needed him to know.

By the time Izuku reached the last photograph, tears were running freely down his cheeks.

He placed it carefully back inside the box. Then he closed the lid.

“Thank you.” His voice cracked. Everyone remained quiet. “Thank you,” he repeated, looking around at them. “Thank you so much.”

Momo smiled gently. “You're welcome, Midoriya.”

Izuku nodded. Then he looked toward Kacchan's desk again. For a moment, he imagined Kacchan sitting there.

Quit crying, Deku.

Izuku almost smiled. Almost.

Aizawa entered the classroom a few moments later. He stopped when he saw Izuku. His eyes moved to the box. Then to Kacchan's desk. He understood immediately. He didn't interrupt. He simply waited.

When Izuku finally placed the box on his own desk, Aizawa walked to the front of the classroom. “Alright.”

The class slowly settled. Aizawa looked at all of them. His students His children, whether he would ever admit it aloud or not.

“You've all been through something none of you should have had to experience.” The room became silent. “You survived.” His eyes moved across them. “That doesn't mean you're fine.” Izuku's throat tightened. “You don't need to pretend that you are.” Aizawa paused. “Grief isn't something you finish.” His gaze lingered briefly on Kacchan's empty desk. “You learn how to carry it.”

Nobody spoke. Aizawa's voice softened. “And you carry it together.” 

Izuku lowered his eyes. Somthing about those words stayed with him. They spent the rest of homeroom talking. Not about assignments. Not about training. Not about becoming heroes. They talked about the war. About what they had seen, what they had lost. What they were afraid of. Some students spoke, some didn't. Nobody was forced to.

Izuku listened.

And for once, he didn't feel like he had to pretend he was okay.

School was almost normal, that was the strange part.

Classes continued.

Teachers taught.

Students complained about homework.

People laughed in the halls.

Life kept moving. But there was a hole in the classroom. A space that nobody could fill. Kacchan wasn't there. And every ordinary thing reminded Izuku of him.

The seat.

The arguments.

The noise.

Even the silence.

Lunch felt different.

Training felt different.

The walk between classes felt different.

U.A. was still U.A.

But it wasn't the same place anymore.

Izuku wondered if it ever could be.

By the time school ended, Izuku was exhausted. He made a beeline for his room. He placed the box of photographs carefully on his desk. For a moment, he simply looked at it.

Then he turned toward his bed. All he wanted was sleep. And maybe, if he was lucky, Kacchan would be waiting for him somewhere inside his mind.

He lay down. Pulled the blankets over himself and closed his eyes.

Nothing.

No vestige realm.

No Kacchan.

Only darkness.

Izuku eventually slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It couldn't have lasfed very long. A tremendous sound tore through it.

Izuku's eyes flew open. For a moment, he didn't understand where he was. His heart hammered against his ribs. Smoke filled the air. Something smelled burned.

Izuku sat upright.

His night-light was still off, leaving the room in darkness. He reached over and turned it on.

Then he froze. His bed was scorched. The wall beside it was blackened. A section of his blanket had been thrown onto the floor.

Izuku stared. His breathing stopped. Slowly, he looked down at his hands.

Nothing. His palms looked normal.

But there was still a faint warmth lingering beneath his skin.

A warmth he knew. A warmth that made his stomach drop.

Before he could make sense of it, someone knocked on his door.

Izuku flinched. “What?”

“It's Uraraka. Can I come in?”

Izuku looked around his room.

At the scorch marks.

At his hands.

“No.” he said shakily. “Um... I mean, i-im good!.”

She sounded worried when she spoke again. “We heard a really loud explosion.” Her voice sounded sad and it shook a bit. “At first, we thought it was Katsuki, but...” She stopped. The sentence died between them.

But Kacchan is dead.

Izuku's chest tightened.

Uraraka's voice immediately softened. “Sorry.”

“No.” Izuku stared at his hands. “It's okay.”

But his voice wasn't steady. Because she had said something that made no sense.

They had thought it was Kacchan. For one terrible, beautiful second, they had heard an explosion and thought Kacchan was still here.

Izuku looked back at the scorch mark.

His heart began pounding.

Because now he knew something they didn't.

He knew exactly whose explosion it had been.

And that realization frightened him more than the sound itself.

“Oi, Deku. Did you just use my Quirk?”

Kacchan’s voice came from somewhere inside his head.

Izuku froze.

For a moment, he could only stare at the scorched wall across from his bed, his breathing caught somewhere between his chest and his throat. The faint smell of smoke still lingered in the room, mixing with the familiar scent of his sheets and the cool night air coming through the cracked window.

Wait.

Kacchan?

“U-uhm…” Izuku glanced toward the door. “Uraraka, I’m okay! You can go now.”

There was a short silence from the hallway.

“Okay, if you say so!” Uraraka called back. “But remember, you can always come to us if something’s bothering you!”

“I know. Thank you.”

He waited.

One second.

Two.

Three.

He didn't move until he could no longer hear her footsteps.

Only then did he whisper, “Kacchan?”

“Yes, dumbass. Did you use my Quirk?”

Izuku's eyes widened. “You're really here.”

“Obviously.”

“But how?”

“I don't know. You're the one who was asleep.”

Izuku looked down at his hands. They were shaking. “I… I think I did.”

“You think?”

“I was sleeping.”

“No shit.”

“I woke up because there was an explosion.”

“Yeah. I felt it.”

Izuku swallowed. That was the part that frightened him. Not the explosion. Not even the fact that he'd apparently used Explosion in his sleep.

Kacchan had felt it.

Which meant that somehow, somewhere inside the dying remains of One For All, Kacchan was still connected to it.

Still connected to him. “I need to see you.”

There was a pause. Then Kacchan's voice became quieter. “Then close your eyes, shitstain.”

Izuku did.

The world disappeared.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in the vestige realm. Except it wasn't the same anymore. The strange world of One For All had become almost completely empty. There were no towering silhouettes of the previous users. No traces of their voices. No distant figures waiting in the darkness. Nothing remained except an endless, pale space and the faint golden light beneath Izuku's feet.

And Kacchan. He was standing several meters away.

Izuku stared at him. For a second, neither of them spoke.

Then Izuku ran.

He crossed the distance between them so quickly that Kacchan barely had time to react before Izuku threw his arms around him.

Kacchan stiffened. “Oi-”

Izuku held tighter. “I thought you were gone again.”

Kacchan's hands hovered awkwardly for a moment before settling against Izuku's back. “I'm right here.”

“I know.”

“You're crying again.”

“I know.”

“Tch.”

But he didn't push him away.

Izuku stayed like that for a while, breathing shakily against Kacchan's shoulder, until eventually he managed to pull himself back.

He wiped his face with his sleeve. “I used your Quirk.”

“Yeah.”

“But I don't have your Quirk.”

“You apparently do.”

“No, I mean-” Izuku looked down at his hands. “Kacchan, One For All is disappearing.”

Kacchan's expression changed. He glanced around the empty vestige realm. “Yeah.”

“The others are gone.”

“Yeah.”

“And the Quirks they left behind…” Izuku flexed his fingers. He could still feel them.

Fa Jin.

Danger Sense.

Blackwhip.

Smokescreen.

Float.

The remnants of abilities that had once belonged to people whose voices had filled this place. He had inherited all of them. And now, one by one, they were fading.

“I'm losing them,” Izuku whispered.

Kacchan didn't answer immediately. Instead, his eyes dropped to Izuku's palm. “Show me.”

“What?”

“Your hand.”

Izuku held it out. At first, nothing happened.

Then a tiny spark snapped between his fingers. Izuku flinched. Another spark followed. Then another.

Kacchan's eyes narrowed. “That.”

Izuku stared at his hand. “I didn't do that on purpose.”

“I know.” A faint orange glow gathered between Izuku's fingers before disappearing again. Kacchan stepped closer. “That isn't One For All.”

“I know.”

“It's mine.”

Izuku's heart twisted. “Kacchan…”

“Don't make that face.”

“What face?”

“That stupid one.”

Izuku looked away. “I don't want to take something from you.”

“You're not.”

“But-”

“Deku.” Kacchan's voice was firm enough to stop him. “You didn't steal it.” Izuku looked back at him. Kacchan stared at his hand. “I think…” He frowned, searching for words. “I think whatever's left of One For All is running out.” Izuku nodded slowly. “And because my Quirk is still connected to it… The embers are carrying it.”

“Yeah.” Izuku looked down. “So I'm not actually getting your full Quirk.”

“No.”

“I'm getting whatever is left.” Kacchan nodded. Izuku's fingers trembled. “How long?”

Kacchan didn't answer. That was answer enough. Izuku closed his hand. “So it's fading too.”

“Probably.”

Something inside Izuku hurt. Not the same pain as before. This wasn't the hollow agony of waking up to a world without Kacchan. This was quieter, almost gentler.

Because he understood what was happening now. The embers of One For All were disappearing. And whatever remained of Katsuki's Quirk factor within them was doing something strange.

It wasn't resisting. It wasn't disappearing with everything else. It was pushing out every last bit of energy it had. Trying to leave something behind.

For Izuku.

“You're using the last of your energy to give me your Quirk,” Izuku whispered.

Kacchan frowned. “Looks like it.”

“But why?”

“Because apparently even dead, I'm still annoying.”

Izuku let out a broken laugh. Kacchan smirked. Then the smile disappeared.

“Or maybe…” He looked at Izuku's hand again. “…because it's the last thing I can give you.”

Izuku's breath caught. The tiny ember in his palm flickered. Kacchan stepped closer. “Don't waste it.”

“I won't.”

“You don't even know how to use it.”

“I can learn.”

“From who?”

Izuku looked at him.

Kacchan rolled his eyes. “Right.” He held out his hand. “Come here.”

Izuku stepped forward. Kacchan grabbed his wrist and positioned his hand. “Don't force it.”

“Okay.”

“You're trying to make the explosion happen instead of letting the Quirk do what it already knows how to do.”

Izuku frowned. “But I don't know how it works.”

“Your body does.” Izuku looked at him. Kacchan's expression was strangely serious. “You've got my Quirk inside you now. Not all of it. Probably not for long. But it's there.”

Another spark appeared.

“Let it happen.”

Izuku took a breath. He relaxed his hand. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then a tiny explosion burst against his palm.

Izuku's eyes widened.

Kacchan stared, then he grinned. “See?”

Izuku laughed. It was small and shaky, but it was real. “I did it.”

“Barely.”

“I did it!”

“Don't get excited, Deku. That was pathetic.”

“You're impossible.”

“Yeah.” Kacchan smiled.

And for just a moment, Izuku could almost pretend that nothing had changed. Almost.

Then he looked around the empty vestige realm. There were no other voices. No other figures. No remnants of the people who had once stood beside him.

Only Kacchan.

Only the last ember.

And Izuku finally understood something. Kacchan wasn't being brought back. He wasn't going to wake up one day and walk out of this place. The vestige wasn't a second chance at life. It was a goodbye that had somehow refused to happen all at once.

And the Quirk, that was something else.

It was Kacchan's last piece of strength, burning itself away so Izuku could carry something forward after the embers of One For All finally disappeared.

Izuku looked at the faint sparks still dancing across his palm.

“I'll use it properly.”

Kacchan raised an eyebrow. “You better.”

“I'll become a hero.”

“I know.”

“For you.”

Kacchan's expression softened. “Don't become a hero for me.” Izuku looked up. “Become one because you wanted to.”

The words settled between them. Then Kacchan gave him a small shove against the shoulder. “And I'll teach you how to use this stupid thing before it disappears.”

Izuku smiled through the tears gathering in his eyes. “Okay.”

Another spark jumped across his fingers.

And somewhere deep inside the fading remains of One For All, something burned a little brighter, not enough to last forever, but enough to leave one final thing behind.

Explosion. Kacchan's Quirk. Kacchan's last gift.

And, for now, something Izuku could carry with him.

The next few days fell into a strange routine.

Izuku would spend his days at U.A., trying to keep up with classes while pretending that the empty space where Kacchan should have been didn't hurt every time he looked at it. At night, when the dorms became quiet, he would close his eyes and return to the vestige realm.

Kacchan was always waiting for him. And, apparently, so was the worst training session Izuku had ever experienced.

“Again.”

Izuku stared down at his hand. “I just did it.”

“You made a pop.”

“It was an explosion.”

“It was pathetic.”

Izuku frowned, rubbing his palms together before trying again. He concentrated on the feeling in his hands, on the faint pressure gathering beneath his skin, but the more he tried to understand it, the further it seemed to slip away from him.

Kacchan watched him for several seconds before sighing. “You're thinking too much.”

“I’m trying to understand the mechanics.”

“It's an explosion, Deku. You don't need a fucking thesis.”

Izuku looked up at him, offended. “There are different factors involved depending on the amount of sweat, the direction of the force, how much pressure-”

“Stop.”

“But-”

“Just do it.”

“I am doing it.”

“No, you're thinking about doing it.”

Izuku glared at him, and Kacchan actually looked amused. It was amost normal. That was the dangerous part.

For a few minutes, Izuku could forget that the person standing in front of him was dead. He could forget the memorial in Class 1-A, the empty desk, the hospital room, the war, all of it. Kacchan was just Kacchan again, impatiently teaching him something while insulting him every few seconds.

Eventually, Izuku relaxed his hand instead of forcing it. A tiny spark flickered between his fingers. His eyes widened.

Kacchan's expression barely changed. “Better.”

“I did it.”

“Barely.”

“But I did it.”

A smile escaped Izuku before he could stop it, and for a moment he felt almost happy.

Then Kacchan flickered.

It lasted less than a second, but Izuku saw it. The edges of his body blurred before settling back into place.

The smile disappeared. “Kacchan…”

“Don't.”

Izuku swallowed. “You're fading.”

“I know.”

“Every time I use Explosion, I can feel it.”

Kacchan looked at his hand. “The embers don't have much left.”

“So they're using whatever energy they have to give me your Quirk.”

“Looks like it.”

Izuku's fingers curled into a fist. “It feels like I'm using you up.”

“You're not.”

“But you're teaching me something you won't even be here to see me master.”

Kacchan went quiet.

Izuku looked at him, his eyes already beginning to sting. “What's the point of me learning it if you're going to disappear before I can show you?”

Kacchan's expression softened, though only slightly. “Because you don't learn it for me.”

Izuku stared at him.

“You learn it because it's yours now,” Kacchan continued. “Whatever's left of my Quirk is going to disappear eventually, but while it's there, you use it.”

“I don't want to lose you.”

“I know.”

“I don't want to do anything that makes you disappear faster.”

Kacchan stepped closer and looked directly at him. “Deku, you're going to lose me whether you use it or not.”

The words hurt because Izuku knew they were true.

Kacchan sighed when he saw his expression and reached out, flicking him lightly on the forehead.

“Ow.”

“Stop making that face.”

“What face?”

“That one where you look like the world's ending.”

Izuku gave a watery laugh. “It kind of feels like it is.”

“Then keep practicing.”

Izuku wiped his eyes with his sleeve and raised his hand again.

This time, he stopped trying to force the Quirk into doing what he wanted. He remembered the feeling from before, the instinct that seemed to live somewhere deeper than memory, and let his body follow it.

The explosion that came from his palm was still small, but it was stronger than the last one.

Kacchan's eyes widened for just a moment. “There.”

Izuku looked at his hand, almost disbelieving.

Kacchan nodded toward it. “That's what you're supposed to be doing.”

Izuku smiled.

It wasn't a big smile, and there were still tears on his cheeks, but it was real.

For tonight, Kacchan was still here.

For tonight, that was enough.

The next morning, Izuku woke up with the strange feeling that something was different.

For a few seconds, he simply lay there, staring at the ceiling while pale sunlight slipped through the curtains. His room was quiet, almost unnaturally so after the noise of the previous weeks, and for once he hadn't dreamed about the war.

He sat up slowly and reached for the glass of water on his desk. His fingers brushed against it.

A familiar pressure gathered in his palm.

Izuku froze.

There was a tiny flash between his fingers, followed by a sharp little crack that knocked the glass sideways.

“What-” He caught it before it fell, staring at his hand in disbelief. For a moment, he didn't breathe. Then a laugh escaped him. It was quiet and almost disbelieving, but he couldn't stop it.

“Kacchan.”

There was no answer.

Izuku waited.

Nothing.

He knew Kacchan wasn't always there anymore. The connection seemed weaker during the day, and sometimes he could only feel the faintest trace of him somewhere inside the fading embers of One For All.

Still, Izuku smiled. “I did it.”

The thought of Kacchan's voice telling him that it was pathetic almost made him laugh again. He got ready for school with a strange warmth in his chest.

It didn't last long. Because when he entered the training grounds that afternoon, everyone noticed.

They had been practicing their Quirks in small groups, the atmosphere considerably quieter than it had been before the war. Nobody was quite the same anymore. They laughed sometimes, and they still teased each other, but there was always something underneath it now, something everyone carried without speaking about.

Izuku stood a little apart from the others and looked down at his hands. He had been thinking about trying it all day. Kacchan had told him to use it, so he would.

He breathed slowly and remembered what Kacchan had taught him.

Don't force it.

Izuku lifted his hand. A small explosion burst from his palm.

Everyone stopped.

Izuku stared at his hand.

Uraraka was the first to speak. “Since when can you do that?”

Izuku looked up. “What?”

She pointed at his hand. “That!”

Kirishima's mouth had fallen open. Todoroki was staring too, his expression unusually difficult to read. Even Iida had stopped in the middle of whatever he had been saying.

Izuku looked around at all of them and suddenly wished the ground would swallow him. “I, uh…”

Another tiny spark flickered between his fingers.

Kirishima's eyes widened. “Was that-”

“Explosion,” Izuku said quietly.

Nobody spoke. The word seemed to hang in the air. Uraraka's expression changed first. She looked at him, then at the empty space where Kacchan would have been standing if he were still alive.

“Oh.”

Izuku's throat tightened. He knew exactly what she was thinking. So did everyone else.

“I can explain.”

They gathered around him slowly, nobody pushing, nobody demanding an answer. Eventually they sat together near the edge of the training field, and Izuku found himself staring down at his hands while he tried to figure out where to begin.

“The embers of One For All are still inside me,” he said. “They're fading, but they're not completely gone yet.”

Todoroki nodded. “You told us that.”

“Yeah.” Izuku swallowed. “But there was something else inside them. Something that shouldn't have been there originally.”

Nobody interrupted.

“Kacchan's Quirk.”

Silence.

Izuku explained everything.

He told them about the transfer during the fight against Nine, about how Kacchan had temporarily possessed One For All, and how that had apparently left something behind. He told them that when Kacchan died, that fragment somehow became a vestige inside the remaining embers.

He told them about the empty vestige realm.

About finding Kacchan there.

About how little Kacchan remembered.

And eventually, he told them the part that hurt the most.

“He doesn't remember you.”

Kirishima's face fell. “What?”

“He doesn't remember U.A.,” Izuku continued, his voice getting quieter. “He doesn't remember Class 1-A. He doesn't remember Aizawa-sensei. He doesn't remember anything that happened after Nabu Island.”

Todoroki looked down. “And us?”

Izuku nodded. “No.”

Nobody spoke. Kirishima's eyes began to shine. “But… he remembers Nine?”

“Yeah.”

“That was it?”

“That's all he has.”

Kirishima wiped quickly at his face, but it didn't help much. “He doesn't even remember becoming a hero?”

Izuku shook his head. “He remembers wanting to win. He remembers fighting Nine. He remembers having One For All for that short time.” Izuku paused. “Everything after that is gone.”

Todoroki was quiet for a long time before asking, “Does he remember you?”

Izuku looked down at his hands. “No.” The answer hurt differently when he said it aloud. “He doesn't remember the person I became. He doesn't remember everything we went through together. He doesn't remember…” Izuku's voice caught. “He doesn't remember who we became to each other.”

Uraraka reached over and gently took his hand.

Izuku held on.

“But he still knows me,” he added. Everyone looked at him. “He knows my voice. He knows how I think. He still calls me Deku.” A small smile appeared on Izuku's face. “He still gets annoyed with me every five seconds, so some things apparently survived.”

A few weak laughs moved through the group.

Kirishima laughed too, although tears were still running down his face. “Yeah,” he whispered. “That sounds like him.”

Izuku looked at his hand again. A tiny spark appeared between his fingers. “He's teaching me how to use Explosion.”

Kirishima covered his face. “Oh, man.” His voice broke. Izuku looked at him. Kirishima lowered his hands, tears openly running down his cheeks now. “I just…” He shook his head, trying to laugh through it. “It's just so like him. Even after everything, he's still finding a way to yell at you until you get stronger.”

Izuku laughed softly. “Yeah.”

Todoroki watched the spark in Izuku's palm. “So when the embers disappear…” Izuku knew what he was asking. “He'll disappear too.”

Nobody said anything after that. The silence wasn't uncomfortable.

It was grief.

Shared grief.

For the first time since Kacchan's death, Izuku didn't feel like he was carrying it alone. He closed his fingers around the fading spark. “He won't remember you,” Izuku said softly, “but I can tell him about you.” 

Kirishima looked at him. “So he knows.”

Izuku nodded. “I'll tell him everything.”

And somehow, that made the empty space beside them feel a little less empty.

Izuku started avoiding Explosion.

At first, it was subtle. He simply stopped using it unless someone specifically asked him to. Then he stopped practicing it altogether, choosing Blackwhip or Fa Jin instead whenever they trained. Nobody questioned it, and Izuku was grateful for that.

Kacchan did.

The next time Izuku entered the vestige realm, Kacchan was already waiting for him, arms crossed and an irritated look on his face.

“You haven't used Explosion.”

Izuku looked away. “I've been busy.”

“You used three of the other Quirks today.”

“I know.”

“So why didn't you use mine?”

Izuku's throat tightened. He had rehearsed an answer several times, but none of them seemed possible to say out loud. Finally, he whispered, “Because I don't want to lose you.”

Kacchan went quiet.

Izuku stared at the ground.

“Every time I use it, it's taking something from you. The embers are disappearing, and you are disappearing with them, and I just…” His voice broke. “I don't want to make it happen faster.”

“You're going to lose me anyway, dumbass.”

Izuku looked up. The words hurt, even though he knew they were true. Kacchan's expression softened when he saw his face.

“I'm sorry,” he muttered. “But you know I'm right.”

Izuku wiped his eyes. “I just want a little more time.”

“I know.”

“I finally got you back.”

“You didn't get me back.” Izuku froze. Kacchan stepped closer. “I’m not alive, Deku.”

“I know.”

“I'm what's left.” Izuku's eyes filled again. “And you don't have to spend whatever time you have left trying to keep what's left of me alive.” He said.

“But what am I supposed to do?”

“Live.”

The word was so simple that it almost made Izuku angry. “How?”

Kacchan shrugged, but his voice was quieter now. “The same way you've been doing it.”

“I haven't been living.”

“You have.”

“I wake up and remember you're dead.”

“Yeah.”

“I go to school and see your empty desk.”

“Yeah.”

“I train and think about what you would say.”

Kacchan gave him a small, almost sad smile. “Probably that you're doing it wrong.”

A laugh escaped Izuku despite himself, breaking apart halfway through. Kacchan looked at him for a moment before continuing. “You're going to miss me. That's not something you can fix. You don't have to.”

Izuku looked down at his hands. “I don't want your wuirk to become something I'm afraid to use.”

“Then don't be afraid of it.”

“What if using it makes you disappear?”

“Then it disappears.”

Izuku's breath caught. Kacchan reached forward and rested a hand against his shoulder. “The Quirk isn't me.”

“It feels like you.”

“I know.”

Izuku closed his eyes. “I don't want to lose another piece of you.”

Kacchan was silent for a moment. Then he pulled Izuku into a hug. It was strange, being held by someone who shouldn't have been there at all.

“You're not losing me,” Kacchan murmured. “I mean, you are,” Izuku clutched the back of his shirt. Kacchan's voice was almost too quiet to hear. “But you don't have to lose yourself with me.”

Izuku cried against his shoulder. For once, Kacchan didn't tell him to stop. He just stayed there.

And when Izuku finally pulled away, Kacchan looked down at his hands. “Use it.”

Izuku hesitated. “For you?”

“No.”

Kacchan met his eyes. “For you.”

A tiny spark appeared between Izuku's fingers.

This time, he didn't pull his hand away.

He let it burn.

The vestige realm had become quieter.

Izuku noticed it the moment he arrived.

There was no wind, no sound, nothing moving in the pale emptiness around him. Even the faint golden light beneath his feet seemed weaker than it had been before, as though One For All itself was slowly forgetting how to exist.

And Kacchan was different.

He was standing a few steps away, but his outline was faint now, almost translucent around the edges. Izuku could see the space behind him through parts of his shoulders and arms, and the sight made something inside his chest sink.

He knew.

Neither of them said it. They both knew, this might be the last time.

Izuku walked toward him slowly, afraid that if he moved too quickly, Kacchan might disappear before he reached him.

“You look like shit,” Kacchan said.

Izuku laughed quietly, though his eyes were already burning. “You always say that.”

“Because you always look like shit.”

“You're not supposed to be able to insult me when you're fading.”

“I'll insult you whenever I want.”

For a moment, they simply stood there.

Izuku wanted to remember everything.

The exact shade of Kacchan's eyes. The way his hair stuck up in every direction. The familiar irritation in his expression, the little crease that appeared between his eyebrows whenever he was thinking. He wanted to memorize the sound of his voice because he knew there would eventually come a morning when he would wake up and realize he could no longer hear it, not even here.

So instead of speaking, Izuku stepped closer. “I want to tell you something.”

Kacchan raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

“About you.”

Kacchan looked almost uncomfortable immediately. “Why?”

“Because you don't remember.”

The words made Kacchan go quiet. Izuku looked down at his hands.

“You remember Nabu Island. You remember fighting Nine. You remember having One For All.” He swallowed. “But everything after that is gone for you.”

“Yeah.”

“So I want you to know.”

Kacchan didn't interrupt.

Izuku began with the small things.

He told him about Class 1-A, about the dorms and the ridiculous arguments they had over everything from chores to food. He told him about Kaminari's stupidity, Kirishima's endless enthusiasm, Todoroki's strange comments that somehow always managed to make everyone stop talking. He told him about Uraraka, about how much she had changed, and about Aizawa, who had somehow managed to remain exhausted and terrifying through all of it.

He told him about Kacchan.

About how loud he was.

How impossible.

How competitive.

How he could turn something as simple as training into a personal war.

Izuku smiled through his tears as he remembered.

“You were always the first one to complain when something wasn't good enough,” he said. “But you were also always the first one there when someone needed help.”

Kacchan looked away.

“You saved people.”

“That's what heroes do.” He said.

“I know. But you didn't always do it because it was your job.”

Kacchan said nothing.

Izuku continued. “You protected people even when nobody was watching. You kept getting back up when you were terrified. You changed, Kacchan. You changed so much.”

His voice trembled. “I was so proud of you.”

Kacchan looked at him then. For once, there was no teasing expression on his face.

Izuku smiled sadly. “You became someone I was proud to call my friend.”

Kacchan frowned slightly. “...Friend?”

“Yeah.”

Kacchan studied him. “That’s all?”

Izuku's smile broke. “No.” His eyes filled completely.

“Then what?”

Izuku looked at him for a long moment, trying to find a word that could possibly hold everything Kacchan had become to him.

There wasn't one.

“You were my person.”

Kacchan didn't understand. Izuku could see that in his face.

He didn't remember the years that had led them there, the things they'd survived together, the quiet moments between the arguments, the trust that had been built so slowly neither of them had noticed it happening.

But somehow, Kacchan seemed to understand that the words mattered.

He looked down at his own hands. “I wish I remembered.”

Izuku's breath caught. “I know.”

“I wish I could remember all of it.”

“I know.”

Kacchan looked back at him. “But I'm glad you do.”

That was enough to break whatever Izuku had left holding himself together.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Kacchan, holding him as tightly as he could, even though some part of him knew there was nothing he could physically hold anymore.

Kacchan hugged him back.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Izuku felt something change.

He pulled away.

“Kacchan?”

The edges of Kacchan's body were fading. Not quickly, not violently. Just quietly, like light disappearing from a room as evening settled in.

Izuku's face crumpled. “No.”

Kacchan looked at him calmly. “It's okay.”

“No, it's not.”

“Deku.”

“I don't want you to go.”

“I know.”

“I just got you back.”

Kacchan's expression softened. “You didn't get me back.”

Izuku shook his head, tears running freely now. “I don't care.”

Kacchan almost smiled. “You really are an idiot.”

“I don't want to leave you.”

“You have to.”

“I can't.”

“You can.”

Izuku stared at him. Kacchan nodded toward the darkness beyond the vestige realm. “Go back.”

Izuku shook his head immediately. “No.”

“Deku.”

“No.”

“You have a life outside of here.”

“I don't want it.”

“You do.”

“I don't want a life without you.”

Kacchan's eyes softened. “You're going to have one anyway.”

Izuku looked down at his hands. A faint spark flickered between his fingers. The last traces of Explosion.

Kacchan looked at them. Then he looked back at Izuku. “You're not leaving me behind.”

Izuku's breathing shook. Kacchan's voice was barely more than a whisper now. “I'm already there.”

Izuku closed his eyes. The tears slipped down his cheeks. When he opened them again, Kacchan was still smiling. Not the arrogant grin he used when he won. Not the irritated smirk he wore when Izuku said something stupid. Just a small, tired smile. The kind Izuku wished he could have seen more often.

“Go become a hero, Deku.”

“I will.”

“Not for me.”

Izuku swallowed. “For me.” He said.

Kacchan nodded. “Good.”

His outline grew fainter.

Izuku reached for him one last time, but his fingers passed through Kacchan's hand like it was made of smoke.

“Kacchan…”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

Kacchan's eyes widened slightly. For a second, he looked like he wanted to say something. Instead, he smiled.

And that was the last thing Izuku saw.

The vestige disappeared quietly, leaving no great flash of light, no final explosion, nothing dramatic enough to match the size of the hole it left behind.

One moment Kacchan was there.

The next, Izuku was alone.

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Izuku stood in the empty vestige realm with his hand still raised, staring at the place where Kacchan had been.

For a while, he couldn't move. Then he looked down. A tiny spark flickered across his palm. Izuku closed his fingers around it. It  wasn't Kacchan. He knew that.

It wasn't enough to bring him back, and it never would be. But it was something he had left behind. Something that had once belonged to Kacchan, and now belonged to him.

Izuku finally closed his eyes.

For the first time, the vestige realm didn't feel like somewhere he could hide.

It felt like somewhere he had said goodbye.

So he turned around.

And walked back toward the light.

Several months passed.

U.A. slowly found its way back into something that resembled normal life, though normal was a word none of them really trusted anymore. The war was still there in the quiet moments, in the scars people carried, in the names that were no longer answered when someone called across the classroom.

Kacchan's memorial remained at the school.

Izuku still stopped there sometimes.

He didn't always have anything to say. Sometimes he simply stood in front of it for a while, letting the silence exist between them. He had learned that grief didn't disappear just because the days kept moving. Some mornings were easier than others, but Kacchan was still there in the back of his mind, woven into so many parts of the life Izuku had continued without him.

One afternoon, Izuku stood alone in front of the memorial, his hands tucked into his pockets.

He looked at Kacchan's name for a long moment.

Then he raised one hand.

A tiny spark flickered against his palm.

Izuku smiled. “Sorry, Kacchan.”

He released it.

The explosion was barely more than a pop, just enough to chip a tiny piece from the edge of the memorial stone.

For a second, Izuku stared at the little mark he had left behind.

It wasn't destruction.

It was a reminder.

Something small, something unmisakably Kacchan, left behind beside his name.

Izuku turned and walked back toward the others.

He still had explosion.

It had become weaker over the months. The last embers of One For All were fading, and Explosion was fading with them, sometimes leaving nothing more than a brief flash in his palm. Izuku knew it wouldn't last forever.

Still, he used it.

Not because he was trying to become Kacchan.

Not because he thought it could replace him.

He used it because it was something Kacchan had left with him, and because Kacchan had once told him not to be afraid of losing him.

One afternoon, after training, Kaminari watched Izuku release a small explosion into the air.

He stared at him for a moment before asking, “Why do you call it Explosion?”

Izuku looked down at his hand. A faint warmth remained against his palm.

He smiled. “Because that's what Kacchan called it.”

His fingers curled slightly before he lifted his hand again.

The explosion was small, but bright enough to light his face for a moment.

And somewhere in the quiet space between one heartbeat and the next, Izuku could almost hear a familiar voice.

Not bad, Deku.

His smile grew.

Kacchan was gone.

But he hadn't left Izuku empty-handed.

He had left him something to carry forward.