It begins with the thaw.The snow melts in slow, steady lines, carving narrow streams through the fields that stretch between the northern forests and the sea.Water gathers, finds paths, joins other rivers, and keeps moving — never asking where it's going, never stopping long enough to question why.
I follow it.It feels right.After a lifetime of fighting, leading, and walking, there's comfort in letting something else decide the direction.
The world has changed again.It always does.
The scavenger outposts I passed years ago are now towns — small, sturdy, self-sufficient.The new generation builds without ceremony, without manifestos.They plant windmills beside gardens, use old metal to craft tools, and laugh without worrying whether their laughter is allowed.
They don't recognize me anymore.The face is older now — lined, weathered, unimportant.Good.Legends shouldn't outlive their usefulness.
A storm rolls in one evening, low and slow across the hills.I take shelter in an old structure — the skeleton of a bridge that never finished being built.The rain falls soft through the broken beams, and the air smells of iron and earth.
I sit, pull the small charm Lina once gave me from my pocket — wire and glass, dulled by years of wear.It still catches the light when the fire flickers.
"You held on longer than I did," I whisper.
The charm doesn't answer.It doesn't have to.
When morning comes, the storm has passed, and the river beside the bridge runs full.It's faster now, fed by snowmelt.The sound of it fills everything — deep, endless, patient.I follow it north.
Each step takes more effort than it used to.The weight of my coat, the ache in my bones, the shortness of breath — all reminders that even endurance has its limit.I don't fight it.You can't fight a truth that's earned its right to exist.
By dusk, I reach the delta.The river widens, stretching into the sea — a boundary that looks like freedom itself.Here, the world ends not with walls or wars, but with open water and quiet air.
I sit on the shore, the tide brushing at my boots.The horizon glows faintly gold.It looks like every morning I've ever chased, and every dusk I've ever survived.
"You made it," I say to no one."All of you did."
I think of Rai, gone but still walking somewhere in the stories people tell.Of Uraraka, probably teaching a generation that never knew what control felt like.Of the children who turned machines of war into toys, of the nameless who built, argued, loved, and carried on.
They don't need to know who I was.They just need to keep doing what I couldn't stop doing —walking.
The wind shifts.My breathing slows.The ache in my chest deepens, not painful, just heavy — like the final note of a song that knows it's ending.
I take off my coat and lay it beside me.The river's edge laps at the hem, claiming it piece by piece.
The charm in my hand warms slightly, or maybe it's my imagination.I close my eyes.The world is smaller now — not in size, but in noise.It feels… complete.
"No one needs to remember me," I whisper."Just remember why I walked."
The air fills with the steady rhythm of water meeting shore.For a moment, it feels like everything breathing at once — earth, river, sky, me.Then the rhythm continues without me.
When they find the spot months later, there's no body — only a coat tangled in reeds, and a small charm of wire and glass resting on smooth stones.The villagers build no shrine.They simply clear the path to the river and leave it open,so travelers can stand there, listen to the current,and remember what it means to keep moving.