It was the brightest light that Izuku had ever seen.
Beside him, he saw both his mother and grandmother cover their eyes, hissing and wincing, as if they were in pain, and though a small part of him understood that a bright light spreading out from the confines of the ship might not have been pleasant for their senses, Izuku couldn't help but feel differently about, as it washed over his skin.
For him, it almost seemed to radiate a sense of peace.
For them, it was harsh and sharp, painful enough to turn away and cover their eyes, and yet all Izuku could feel was its warmth.
He breathed in deeply, as he waited for the canopy to finish lowering itself, and he found that despite the brightness of the light, he simply couldn't tear his eyes away from it.
It just felt right.
It felt like home.
The humming noise being emitted by the ship quieted, as the canopy finished its descent, leaving the pod open, and Izuku finally let out the breath that he didn't realise he'd been holding in. It was with a shaky inhale that, for the first time he could ever remember, Izuku found himself looking inside of the vessel that had once carried him to Earth.
Carried him straight into Inko's arms.
This was the vessel that had decided the course of his entire life.
The hairs on his arms rose up, allowing him to see them standing on end for the first time he could ever remember happening, as he slowly inched closer to the open pod.
He didn't know if the ship could tell that he was nearby, or if it was simply a matter of timing, but as he grew closer, growing more and more determined to see what it held within, the harsh light began to fade, no longer a brilliantly harsh, softening until it was just bright enough to light up the area around itself, leaving the rest of his grandfather's old workshop to return to being illuminated by the small overhead lights.
Izuku barely noticed the change.
For Inko and Ima, it made a great deal of difference, as it once again allowed them to make use of their eyes without wincing, but Izuku's entire focus was being taken up by the ship's open canopy, his feet taking him closer, until he was finally capable of seeing what was contained within.
The half-spherical shape of the canopy extended all the way to the inside, with the pod that Izuku had once flown in forming a perfect sphere. The entire thing seemed to be made of the same silver-grey material as the rest of the ship, only the inside had a series of glowing symbols being displayed, softly rotating around the interior. They were not quite golden, but it was a shade of yellow close enough to be called as much.
He had no idea what they meant, as his eyes rolled over them, as they continued to slowly spin in a circle, before blinking when he realised that he'd seen several of the symbols before.
They were identical to the ones on the metallic slab that his mother had already shown him. The topmost line of the interior used the same symbols as the slab, in the exact same order. It made sense, he supposed, knowing that she'd taken the slab from the ship on the days she'd found him, but know he wondered what they meant.
Given that they'd been used twice, he knew that whatever message they held had to be important.
"Ci ti u es tas Kal El de Kryp ton, ni a in fa na fi lo, ni-"
The three of them flinched in harmony, taking a step backwards in surprise, as Izuku's ship revealed that it was no longer content to just display the symbols contained within, but was now also broadcasting a speech to go along with them.
Izuku wasn't a betting man, but if he were, then he'd be willing to wager that the speech now being broadcast to them, correlated to the symbols that were being displayed on the inside.
"-a las ta es pe ro. Bon vo lu pro tek ti lin kaj sa vi lin-"
Behind him, he heard his mother speak, her voice a hushed whisper, "What… what's it saying?"
"-de mal bo no. Ni es tos kun vi, Kal El, dum ci uj ta goj-"
He swallowed, the noise audible in the small space; his own voice as murmur as he answered her, "There are symbols on the inside. They match the ones on the slab you showed me. I think this is what they say".
"-de vi a vi vo. Sur ci ti u tri a pla ne do de ci ti u ste lo-"
"Really?"
She couldn't keep the surprise out of her tone, the two women moving closer to him, as they peered over the top of canopy, wanting to catch a glimpse for themselves.
"-Sol, vi est os di o in ter ho moj. Il I es tas mi sa ra so. Re-"
"Fascinating", his grandmother mused, also whispering, though she sounded much less nervous than her daughter and grandson, "they sent you with a recorded message, but it's that you can't immediately comprehend", she said, her head flicking towards him as she spoke, "maybe they thought we would be able to".
"-gu il in per for to, mi a fi lo. Ti ku sas vi a gran de co".
There was a pause as the broadcast stopped, but it only lasted a moment before it continued, and Izuku realised that was starting up again from the beginning and told his guardians as much. They continued to listen for a few moments longer, Izuku feeling unsure what he was supposed to be doing, before Ima shook her head, her expression telling them both that she was already annoyed by the sounds she was hearing.
"Right then, Izuku tell that thing to shut up and then shut itself. We three can then talk about this like civilised people", she turned around, already making her way back to the house, tapping the ground with her cane with every step she took, "Inko, come. You can make the tea".
"Yes, mother".
The two older women left Izuku behind, as they began to make their way back to the house. Izuku still didn't know why the ship's technology seemed to work on thought, and he had to think that even if he found a way of learning how it worked, the process of understanding it would take years, but for now, he was content with simply knowing that it would.
Resting his hand on the metallic shell, he wondered if he could ask the ship to stop the broadcast, right before the message stopped playing, and the interior lights switched themselves off, leaving only the plain material of the ship to be seen in the relatively dim lights, hanging from the workshop's ceiling.
It was only when the lights switched over that Izuku was finally able to notice the small, shining blue object that was nestled into the bottom of the pod.
It looked like a diamond.
Or at least, it looked like the kind of diamond that he might've drawn as a child.
It was five-sided, but longer at the point than a traditional pentagon would be. It was a shining blue colour, rather than having the clear cut of a normal diamond, in addition to being almost flat, and not just in appearance, but as Izuku plucked it free of its slot, he realised that it barely had any depth to it, being thinner than any of his fingers.
The material felt like a crystal, rough and delicate at the same time, and light seemed to shimmer as it passed through it, but unnaturally so, given the low amount of light that was in the workshop to begin with.
Still… it was an alien crystal.
Tossing a loose sheet, which he assumed had been used for maintenance over the ship, he heard the sound of the canopy closing over, as he turned away, following after his mother and grandmother.
Despite everything else that he had felt over the course of the last week, (had it really not even been a full week yet?), and all of the things he'd discovered about himself recently, he had to admit that holding an alien crystal in his hands was pretty cool.
=== === === === ===
"So… what am we supposed to do now?"
Izuku's voice broke the silence in the room, but only for a moment, as neither of the women in his life knew what to say to their youngest family member. By unspoken agreement, (and Ima's demand for tea), they'd all chosen to settle within the kitchen, sitting at the dining table together, before he'd shown them the crystal he'd seen at the bottom of his pod, and his mom had served them both the tea she'd prepared. There had been a few murmurs shared between then, but after that, they'd all lapsed into an uneasy silence.
While it was still fresh in his mind, he'd taken a few moments with his phone to type out the message that the ship had been broadcasting, or at least, he'd tried to write out each syllable as best he could, having no idea what each word actually was, or even where each one stopped and started.
But beyond that, Izuku didn't know what was supposed to come next.
A part of him understood his mother and grandmother's reasoning that they'd thought he would simply understand how to use the ship when the time came, after all, it wasn't as though anyone had been sent along to teach him, and the technology was obviously very advanced, but it was ridiculous to think that knowing how to pilot a spaceship was something that just appeared in your mind.
It would have been nice if everything had just slotted into place in his head. That there was some way of simply downloading the information he wanted directly into his brain, but as far as he knew, that was impossible.
Instead, all Izuku had to understand where he came from was an audio recording that he couldn't understand, a bright blue crystal that he didn't know what to do with and more questions that he didn't have any answers to.
He still didn't know where he came from.
Or why he had been sent here.
"Maybe we're supposed to do something particular with it", his mother offered, "I know that, in ancient times, people used to use crystals for healing. Maybe it's meant to be used for some kind of healing, in case you ever got injured".
"Didn't those old civilisations use them in jewellery? Amulets and rings and stuff", Izuku mused, "maybe it's just meant as some kind of good luck charm. I suppose it could just be decorative", he turned to face his mother more fully, "and why do you know about ancient civilisations?"
Inko smiled, "I read about a lot of them when I was looking into those symbols. Some things stuck, I guess", she shrugged, "and they did use a lot of crystals and gemstones them for decorations".
"It's not a decoration", Ima cut in, and though he hadn't been lucking at her in the moment, Izuku knew that the older woman was putting all of her effort into not rolling her eyes at them, before she turned to meet his gaze with her own, "whoever it was that sent you here - and I'm assuming that it was at least one of your biological parents - they planned everything out perfectly. They picked a world where you could eat the food, drink the water and breath the air without issues", she ignored the way Inko fidgeted at that last part, fully remembering how much it had sounded like Izuku couldn't breathe the air when he was still a baby, "and they could have put anything they wanted to in that pod with you. They chose to place that crystal inside. Trust me, it does something - something important - we just don't know what that is yet".
"You don't think it could just be something superstitious?"
"It's not impossible", Ima agreed, before shaking her head at Inko's idea, "but no, I don't. Otherwise, why not add more things inside, if that's the case? Whoever these people were, they were advanced enough to create a spaceship that doesn't need a pilot. Who's to say that that crystal isn't more than it appears to be".
"So… what do you think I should do with it?"
"For now? Nothing".
"What?"
This time, she didn't bother trying not to roll her eyes at him, "Let me ask you this, what do you think you should do?"
"I, err, I don't…"
"Should you run around like some sort of headless chicken, doing dumber and dumber activities with that thing to see what it does? Say it is used for healing, what are you going to do to check it? Injure yourself? Find a way to put your life in danger?"
"No", Inko interjected, "he won't be"
"I won't", he agreed.
"Right now, the smartest thing to do is to wait and see", Ima told them, using that same tone she always had that brokered no argument from either of them, "we don't know what this thing is, or what it does. Maybe time will tell. Maybe one of us will have a brainwave on what to do. Maybe you're right, and it doesn't actually do anything at all, but for now, short of running around like a bunch of crazed lunatics, there's nothing to do".
"I think you're right", Inko agreed, smiling softly at him, "come on Sweetie, let it rest, for now, at least".
"Okay Mom", he agreed, setting the crystal down on the table, "for now".
"For now", Ima echoed.
=== === === === ===
When you had a superpowered son, you got used to taking extra precautions.
Izuku had wrapped the crystal up in one of her mother's old handtowels, before placing it in his backpack, where he felt it would be safest, and then he'd followed their instructions and went to bed, too worn out by the day to argue with them.
Inko wasn't going to pretend to know anything about crystals, (or strange alien rocks, as it were), but it seemed safe enough to store that way. Izuku had taken his backpack with him, perhaps worried about it being too far away from him, or wanting to try and study it in secret, but it was only when she and her mother were certain that Izuku had actually fallen asleep that they met on the porch decking, bundled up in coats and a blanket between them and being warmed by a thermos of fresh tea.
"You really don't have any idea what the crystal could be used for?"
Inko wasted no time in breaking the silence of the night, leaving her mother to sigh at her impatience.
"I already gave you several ideas of what the crystal could be used for. As I remember it, you had a few of your own as well".
"I know", she replied, her voice quiet, even in the hush of the night, "but crystals could be used for healing-"
"Don't", Ima said, her tone one of warning, "even think about it".
"-but, Mother, it could-"
"Inko, I am an old woman", she told her daughter, cutting off whatever else she was about to say, "I am sixty-nine years old. My parents are dead. I've outlived my husband. Even Sherubi's gone now-"
"-but if-"
"-and I've lived long enough to know that the only surprise left for me in this life is when it's going to end".
"-but if this crystal could heal you, then why won't you even consider-"
"Inko Midoriya", she snapped, and on instinct, Inko felt her teeth clack together as she slammed her mouth closed, "you. Are. A. Nurse", she said, emphasising each individual word, "act like it. You know full well that death is an inevitability. I already told you: I'm old. Whether it's to my cancer or something else that comes along, I don't have that much time left before I wander off this mortal coil-"
"Mom".
"-and if by some miracle that that crystal is meant to be some kind of healing… thing, emergency or otherwise, then there's no way in hell that I'm going to take it away from my grandson".
Inko opened her mouth, trying to prepare a retort on her lips, only to find that she had nothing to say, and after a moment of standing there with her mouth wide open, before she slowly began to close it, until her lips were pressed tightly together in a thin line.
She wanted her mom to be healthy, of course she did, but she also didn't want to take away something that could one day save Izuku's life.
She sighed, resting her hands on the handrail, her head dropping in what felt like defeat, as beside her, her mother huffed, but she could hear the amusement in her breath.
"It just… it just doesn't feel fair".
"I know, but that's life sweetie. Some days are good, some days are bad. Some days you find out you have cancer, but on others, you find an alien baby in a field. It's all a bit of a mixed bag".
She didn't know if it was the excitement of the day, her exhaustion and the compounded stress of the last few days finally catching up with her or both, but there was absolutely no reason for anyone to hear that sentence and then begin laughing as hard as she did.
=== === === === ===
Though he didn't know her reasons; whether it was simply because she wanted to spend more time at Grandma's house, she missed spending time with her mom, or even just because she found Endo was more peaceful than Musutafu, Izuku hadn't objected to his mom telling him that they were going to spend the rest of the day at Grandma's house even if it meant making the drive home later that day.
Endo was in the Chiba Prefecture, just north of Nago and Masaki. The drive took at least three hours on a nice, clear day, but if his mom wanted to wait until later in the evening, or even possibly the night, then he wasn't going to be the one to tell her, 'No'.
He loved being out in the smaller village. Musutafu wasn't a megacity, it certainly wasn't the size of Tokyo, or even large enough to be considered on par with Yokohama and Osaka, but it was still a city; built using concrete and steel, filled with millions of people, with cars and buses everywhere.
Izuku loved where he had grown up, he did, but Endo, on the other hand, was surrounded by forest, and there was something about being in the outdoors like that, which had always served to make him feel at ease.
Walking outside, the bright sun shining down on his face, Izuku felt more at ease there than he did when he was surrounded by tall buildings and skyscrapers. Thanks to his Quirk, (or should he be calling them something else now that he didn't know he was human? Powers? Abilities?), he never really felt cold, he noticed when the temperature changed, but Izuku found that he remained personally unaffected, which meant that he could enjoy the feeling of the wind in his hair, without shivering from the cold.
His mother and grandmother had hunkered down together in the kitchen, and they were reviewing a few sets of very official looking paperwork when he'd last seen them. He'd left them there, as they scrambled to cover the papers from his view, grabbing his jacket and beginning to walk up one of the gravel paths.
He'd been hearing the story of his birth for years, and now he knew the actual story of his arrival, which meant he had a pretty good idea of exactly where it was that he had landed. It took him an hour to make his way down on foot, and he missed the company that Sherubi would have offered him when he was a kid, running about, playing fetch, always seeming to match his boundless energy, but it seemed quicker than it was, before he looked out onto the field he'd touched down in.
There'd been reports of a meteor shower on the day he'd arrived, and while it was likely that they'd mostly burnt up on entry into the Earth's atmosphere, some of them must've landed somewhere on the planet. He wondered where they'd came from. Had they always been on course to hit Earth, or had his ship managed to pull them along its course?
It could be fun to find out.
He didn't really have a plan for what he was going to do, now that he'd laid eyes on the spot. He'd wanted to see it to satisfy his sense of curiosity about the place, but now, he didn't know what to do, other than look out at the field.
It was green.
It was filled with grass.
And that was about it.
It had been well over a decade since he'd arrived, so he shouldn't have been surprised that any evidence of what had once been here was gone, having lost itself to time and the elements, but he couldn't help the faintest pangs of disappointment that resonated within him, as he took in the sight of the barren field.
"At least it looks nice".
"Nature always does".
"WHAT THE-"
Izuku leapt around, his head snapping out to find the source of the voice, only to find his grandmother's neighbour walking up towards him, his lips stretched out in an amused grin.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you quite so much", he told him, the clear amusement in his eyes and on his face, belying his apologetic words, as he drew level with him, "how are you Midoriya Number Three?"
"Good morning, Mister Hayashi. I'm doing fine", he told him, ignoring his racing heartbeat, "thank you and how are you?"
"Don't worry about that and don't look so glum, chum", the older man told him, "and do tell, what brings you all the way out here?"
"Err… the field, I guess. I just wanted to see it".
"Oh?"
"Yeah, that's all…"
"Right", Hayashi said, walking past him for the moment, "your Grandma finally told you, then?"
"Wha-", he felt his heart leap up into his throat, "you know?"
"Of course", he said, his tone filled with delight, "I'm the one who found them out here, years ago?"
He swallowed, frowning, "Found them?"
"The meteor pieces", he told him, turning around, a matching frown on his face, "what did you think I meant?"
"Oh, not that", his mind scrambled to come up with something else, "it's just… this is where mom went into labour with me. I guess I thought I should see it".
"Oh", for a moment, Hayashi looked generally put out, "sorry".
"Don't be, I mean, meteors are pretty cool".
He grinned, the near fifty-year-old man looking more like a boy of fifteen when he did, "Right?! One of them landed here years ago, and I was the one who found it. I spent a few days poking around before the government came in and tried to clean it all up as best they could, but I still remember it happening", he shrugged, "it would've been back when you were a baby though".
"Still cool though".
"Want me to show you exactly where it all came down?"
Izuku smiled, "Yes, please".
=== === === === ===
Izuku couldn't say that he knew Hikaru Hayashi well. Other than the rare moments growing up where he'd passed them as they were arriving or leaving his grandmother's home and had greeted each other, Izuku couldn't say that they'd interacted at all.
They walked in silence, which was a tad uncomfortable for both of them, but he knew the area well, guiding Izuku over to the point that Izuku knew marked where he had landed on the planet.
Hayashi seemed happy enough to guide him, and would have finished, if Izuku hadn't started feeling sick.
He'd never been sick before, but this is what he imagined it felt like.
Hayashi had left his side momentarily, leaving their amiable companionship to venture off the path and grab a cool looking stone he'd spotted, one that he thought looked particularly nice, perfect for his rock collection, but by the time he'd returned to his side, only moments had passed, but Izuku had become nauseous and felt that he was about to vomit.
He'd never done that before either.
"Shit, kid, you don't look so good".
"Ugh".
"Come on", he slung his arm over his shoulders, practically carrying him away from the field, "let's get you back to your grandmother's".
=== === === === ===
Ima knew that she and Inko needed to tell Izuku about her cancer at some point, but the boy had a lot on his plate at the moment, and she didn't want to add to it. In a very short space of time, Izuku had taken and passed the hardest high school entrance exam in all of Asia, taking first place twice over, in what she felt was an incredibly impressive performance. After that, he'd discovered that he was adopted. After that, he'd discovered that he was an alien.
There was only so much that your mind could take before you snapped.
And she was very worried that he was approaching that point.
She still had plenty of time left before she wandered off the mortal coil, and hopefully, her hormone therapy should help her gain a bit of extra time, so she felt comfortable in waiting, and though they hadn't discussed it yet, she knew that Inko felt the same.
She'd just sat down to show Inko the paperwork she'd been given, explaining her treatment plans when Izuku had stuck his head into the kitchen, letting them know that he was headed out for a walk to clear his head. When Inko had scrambled to cover the papers, ignoring the fact that they could be explained away as two nurses, one current and one retired, talking about patient treatment procedures, Izuku had very graciously taken one look at the table and chosen to ignore what was going on.
He'd seemed to be doing well, certainly better than he had when he'd arrived, which was why it was so surprising when she saw him outside of her house, one of his arms slung around Hayashi.
"Inko", she snapped, her head gesturing towards the front window, "look".
"IZUKU!"
She had already opened the door by the time Ima had managed to stand.
By the time Ima had managed to gather her walking stick and cross the floor of her house, Hayashi had brought Izuku inside and laid him out on the couch, only for Inko to (not-so) gently brush him aside, and was already working herself up into a panicked frenzy.
Ima shook her head; a nurse should never panic like that. Admittedly, she'd never treated her own daughter when she was working, but still, her point stood.
"What happened?"
She aimed her question straight at Hayashi, ignoring Inko's panicked mutterings to Izuku, who was pale and shaky, and looked nothing like the bright young man she was used to seeing. She couldn't remember Izuku ever getting as much as the sniffles, not even a tickle in his throat. She'd always chalked that fact up to the idea of him being unaffected by Earth's viruses and bacteria.
Apparently, that wasn't the case.
Not if the way he was struggling for every breath he was trying to take in was any indication.
"Not sure", Hayashi said with a shrug, which had her eyeing him up, looking for the oddity that was tickling the back of her mind, that feeling she got of something being 'off' about Hayashi finding its ways back to the forefront of her mind, just like it did every time she saw him, "we were walking up on the old field - the one beside the expressway - he said his mom told him about going into labour besides where the meteors came down", he shrugged, "that couldn't have been more than a few days apart, actually, and he said he went out to see the place".
She frowned, "And then…?"
"And then he started feeling sick, keeled over and I brought him here. Figured you two would want to know he was being sick".
"We do", she murmured, her gaze lowering to where Inko was whispering to Izuku, trying to soothe him, worried by the pained grimace on his face, "thank you", she added on, "for bringing him back".
"Course, no problem. You need me to move him for you?"
"No, no, we'll be fine", she told him, "you can go now".
"Are you sure? I can still-"
"I'm sure", she told him, ushering him to the door, "we'll be fine".
"Well, okay… if you don't-"
"We don't and thank you".
She shut the door in his face.
She ignored Inko's fussing for the moment, instead focusing on the sight through her front window. She watched as Hayashi made his way back towards his ridiculously sized car, and it was only when she saw him drive away that Ima felt herself relax.
Even now - especially now that Izuku had fallen ill in his presence - despite them having been neighbours for most of her life, Ima still felt that something was just plain off with that man.
She didn't like him.
While she'd made sure that Hayashi was leaving them alone, Inko had busied herself tending to Izuku. First, she stripped him of his jacket, leaving his arms bare and covered his lap with a blanket. She'd also moved him, until he was lying down on the couch, facing the large windows of her front room, and then, Ima watched on as she crossed the room and pulled her curtains open, as wide as they could go.
For a moment, she wondered if she was looking to lay her eyes on Hayashi, but he was already gone, instead Inko pulled her blinds up, letting as much natural light into the room as possible. Ima knew as well as her daughter that rest required a dark and cool room, so she really had no idea why she was opening the room up, unless she thought he had a Vitamin D deficiency.
"Do you want me to get him some milk?"
Inko nodded, not looking away from her son, who Ima had to admit, was already looking better than he had a few moments before, "Yes please, thank you".
"Alright then", she murmured, "I'll go and get that".
She didn't keep much milk in the house, and she used even less of it, so giving the last of what she had in her fridge to Izuku wasn't even a question she needed to ask herself, pouring it into a glass without a second thought and tossing in a straw. In the minute it took her to retrieve his drink, Izuku had already stopped sweating, and was already seeming much more comfortable.
"Here", she said, passing Inko the glass, who carefully placed the straw up against his lips. After a moment, she heard him drinking, so she assumed he was even more on his way to feeling fine and found her gaze now drifting to Inko.
"He has a Vitamin D deficiency?"
"What?" She blinked, several times, replaying the question in her head, "Vitamin D? No", she shook her head, "why do you think that?"
She gestured towards the window, "What was that all for then?"
She shrugged, turning away from her, "I just thought he'd prefer it".
"Really?"
Inko turned to look up at her, nodding, her hands settled in her lap and offered her a smile, "Yes, really".
"Okay".
Satisfied, Inko turned away from her, missing the way Ima was now frowning.
Ever since Inko had been a teenager, Ima had known when she was lying. She had the habit of playing with the nailbed of her left thumb when doing so, and Ima had never bothered letting her know about her tell. As a nurse, it wasn't a factor that had to be considered, simply because her job often needed her to have or hold things in her hands, but the habit had remained, and Ima knew what it meant.
Inko had opened those curtains and window blinds for a reason.
"I just thought he'd prefer it".
And for some reason, she wasn't telling her why.
=== === === === ===
It had been lunchtime when Hayashi had dropped Izuku off at their house and it wasn't until dinnertime that he had started to rouse from his slumber.
Ima had been sat in her favourite chair opposite him, while Inko was preparing soup for them all. He groaned, not for the first time that afternoon, before slowly sitting up, his hair even messier than usual, trying to blink away the bleariness from his eyes.
"Good afternoon, sunshine".
"Huh?"
He brought a hand up to his face, wiping at his eyes, before a voice laced with exhaustion managed to ask, "What happened?"
"We were hoping you could tell us".
"I don't really-"
"IZUKU!"
Before he could say anything further, he found himself with two armfuls of upset mother that he needed to placate.
"I was so worried about you".
"I'm fine, mom, really".
Without saying anything, Ima left the pair of them alone in her sitting room, as she took up the task of watching over the soup. Thankfully, it didn't take long to finish, and she ordered them to join her at the kitchen table, where Izuku seemed perfectly capable, even if he wasn't eating with his usual gusto.
For a while, there was only the soft clink of soup spoons against porcelain bowls, as the three of them savoured their meal, and while it was a comfortable sort of silence, it lasted only long enough for Ima to decide to break it, "So", she began, in between sips, "what happened out there?"
He shrugged, "I don't know".
"Izuku", she warned, but the boy waved her off before she could go any further.
"I really don't. One moment we're walking up the path, the next I just felt awful", he visibly shuddered and Inko didn't hesitate to reach for his hand, "there was just this wrongness about everything. It hurt and then I couldn't feel my arms and my legs, and then I think I passed out".
"You think?"
He shrugged, "The next thing I remember is waking up here, right beside your beautiful face".
"Oh, don't even try pulling that crap with me boy".
"Sorry ma'am".
"But", Inko squeezed his hand tightly, "you're feeling better now though, right?"
"I feel fine", he told her, "honest", he added, when she looked like she didn't believe him, "I feel normal. I just don't know why I felt bad earlier".
And judging by the looks on their faces, neither did they.
Izuku took advantage of the gap in conversation to make a start on eating his soup, and after a few more moments of hesitation, he was glad to see his mother and grandmother join him. He knew from experience that his mom forgot to eat when she was particularly worried about something, and he also knew exactly who she'd inherited that particular behaviour from; seeing them eat the soup was the only indication he'd get that they'd eaten at all.
As hungry as he was, he wasn't surprised to have finished before them, even with having been given a slightly bigger portion. His mother seemed to be enjoying it, but Grandma was taking her time, barely touching it.
She looked exhausted.
He really had worried her, hadn't he?
"Gen-Ed".
"Hmm?"
"I'm sorry".
"Gen-Ed", Izuku repeated, "at U.A., they offered me a place in their General Education course. It's too late in the school year to start applying anywhere else, but if I take their course this year, I can take the exam and transfer to Seijin next year. A year at U.A. with good grades will still look good on my future resume and this way, JJ and I can go through their media and journalism classes together".
"What about your heroics-"
"Can you not go and study medicine instead"?
"Mother".
"Being a surgeon pays very well and the boy's usually good under pressure", Ima sniffed, "steady hands too. He'd make a fine surgeon".
"He doesn't want to be a surgeon".
"Lawyers are also very well paid and well respected".
"That part wasn't the point", Inko bemoaned, before turning her attention back to her son, "Izuku, they offered you a place in their heroics course. That's been your dream ever since you were old enough to know who All Might is".
"I know", he murmured, staring down at his empty bowl, "but heroes - especially heroes who can do what I do - live their lives in the spotlight. Everything about them isn't just a matter of public record, it's public knowledge. Their childhoods are the answers to trivia nights and passkeys to forums and watch lists. You can find out everything you could ever want to know about them in a matter of minutes. If I do that, I might as well draw an arrow pointing to my childhood saying, 'LOOK HERE' and asking people to look into it", he shook his head, "we can't have that".
"Sweetie-"
"It's not just me at risk, Mom, it's you and Grandma and then, Grandpa and Sherubi and everyone else we've ever met. I just - I can't - be the reason everything we've ever known gets blown up".
"I…", Inko swallowed down what she wanted to say. Ever since the day when Izuku's ninth birthday had been… interrupted, Inko felt she had no choice but to resign herself to see Izuku entering the field of heroics. That she had no choice but to see her baby get hurt; that she would see him cry and bleed in a field where not everyone made it home to their mothers safely.
But if this was it, if this was her chance to see Izuku away from that life and into something (anything) else, where he could not only still indulge in his boyhood dreams, but also be safe doing so, didn't she have the right to take it?
As his mother, the one person in the universe who was supposed to protect him above all others, didn't she have the obligation to do so?
Even if it meant steering him away from his dream?
She didn't know.
"I… think it sounds like an excellent idea", she heard herself say, the words feeling like sand on her tongue, "and I know JJ would love to see you in Seijin as well".
"Yeah", Izuku said, smiling, but even across the table, Inko could see the tightening in his face, as his smile, usually so vibrant, failed to meet his eyes, as he settled her nerves by agreeing to spend his life doing something that wasn't what he had spent his entire life dreaming about, "it sounds good, Mom".
She was a horrible mother.
=== === === === ===
Author's Notes:
We've done it! We've seen the inside of the ship!
And we still have no answers!
We do have a crystal though… I wonder what that'll be used for.
And Izuku felt sick. In a field. Where his ship was. Along with pieces of meteor rock.
I'm sure that little factoid's never going to find a way to be relevant ever again.