The downpour raged without mercy, transforming the streets into violent rivers. Cars, tossed like discarded toys, lay overturned on the broken asphalt, their metal frames groaning under the weight of the storm.
The road itself had fractured, jagged fissures splitting the earth as if the world could no longer hold itself together. In the distance, sirens wailed, a chorus of fire trucks, ambulances, and police; their piercing cries cut through the chaos, too late to mend what had already been shattered.
Amid the wreckage, a small figure knelt, trembling. Izuku Midoriya, his green hair plastered to his forehead by the relentless rain, clutched his mother's lifeless body. Inko Midoriya's once-warm features were now a pale, waxy mask, her matching green hair tangled with rain and blood.
A brutal wound marred her stomach, the cruel work of a villain's rampage. His small hands, slick with crimson, pressed uselessly against the injury, as if his sheer desperation could somehow suture the wound.
His sobs were stolen by the wind, dissolving into the storm, unheard.
"Why did we go out…?"
The words tore from his throat, raw and broken, swallowed by the downpour.
"This is all my fault."
Tears blended with the rain, streaking down his face, each drop a silent accusation.
"If I had a Quirk… if I were stronger… she would still be here."
His fingers twisted into the fabric of her drenched shirt, his entire body wracked with tremors that had nothing to do with the cold.
"I'm sorry, Mom… I'm so sorry…"
He pressed her against his chest, as if his own fragile body could shield her from the world that had already stolen her away.
Then, a shadow fell over them.
Izuku looked up, his vision blurred by tears and rain. Towering above him stood Edgeshot, the ninja hero, his usually sharp and composed features twisted with a palpable guilt.
The man's spiky gray hair clung to his forehead, his dark gray eyes heavy with a remorse that seemed to bow his shoulders. His blue robe, usually a symbol of hope, was soaked through, the red shinobi gear beneath spattered with the grime of his failed battle.
"I'm sorry, kid," Edgeshot said, his voice a low rasp. "The villain… I couldn't reach him in time."
For a long moment, Izuku simply stared, his expression utterly vacant. Then, quietly, he whispered:
"It's fine."
Edgeshot stiffened. He had expected anger, blame, the raw, justified outburst of grief. But the boy's voice held no accusation, only a hollow, bone-deep resignation.
And that, somehow, was a thousand times worse.
"Is there anything I can do?" Edgeshot asked, though the moment the words left his mouth, he braced himself. Grief made people ask for the impossible.
Izuku's head snapped up, his emerald eyes burning with a sudden, fierce intensity. "A burial," he said, his voice cracking like ice. "Not a temple plot. Not fire. I want her in the ground. Where it's quiet."
Edgeshot's jaw tightened. "Kid, you know Japan hasn't allowed in-ground burials in decades. The laws, the space even if I wanted to—"
"I don't care about the laws!" Izuku's fists clenched, his nails digging into his palms. "She deserved more than a numbered box in some corporate ossuary! So either help me, or don't waste my time!"
The air between them went sharp enough to cut. Heroes upheld order; that was the pact. But the boy in front of him wasn't a villain, just a son, stripped raw.
Edgeshot exhaled, a slow, measured breath through his teeth. "Two days," he conceded, his voice barely audible over the rain. "Give me two days."
. . . .
The key was stiff in his hand, its cold metal grooves crusted with a flaking, rust-brown film of dried blood. With a shaky breath, Izuku turned it in the lock, pushing open the door to the empty house.
For a fleeting moment, he saw her, his mother, standing in the doorway, her smile warm and familiar. "Welcome back," she said, her voice a ghost in the halls of his memory. But the vision dissolved into the sterile air, leaving only a silence that screamed.
Izuku's throat tightened. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him with a final, hollow click that sealed him in the tomb of his old life. Flicking on the light, he scanned the living room. Everything was perfectly in place, untouched. A museum of a happiness that had just been murdered.
His fists clenched, nails biting half-moons into his palms.
"Mom… I'm sorry." His knees hit the floor, his body folding under the weight of a guilt he could no longer carry. A choked sob tore from his lips as he slammed his fist against the polished wood. "This is all my fault!"
'Why did I ask her to go out with me?'
'Why did I ever believe I deserved this, a second chance, a happy life with a kind, caring mom?'
The cruel irony of it burned through him, an acid in his veins. One choice, one moment of selfish normalcy, and everything had unraveled.
"Muscular…" The name was a curse, his voice raw and trembling with a fury that felt like the only thing holding him together. "Wait for me. I will make you regret it."
Gritting his teeth until his jaw ached, Izuku forced himself up, his body trembling with barely contained violence. He stumbled toward the shower, the water scalding as it sluiced over his skin, stinging but failing to cleanse. It washed away hers, his blood, he didn't even know anymore, swirling in a pinkish vortex at his feet before disappearing down the drain.
Memories flashed behind his closed eyelids, more vivid than the present.
"Mom, get out! I can wash myself!"
"Honey, are you embarrassed?" Her laughter, light and teasing, filled the steam-filled room. "I'm your mother." That smile, so full of love it made his chest ache with the memory.
A single, hot tear mixed with the impersonal stream of water.
Clean clothes did little to ease the leaden weight pressing down on his soul. As he stepped out of his room, the shrill ring of the house phone shattered the silence like glass.
Izuku hesitated, his hand hovering over the receiver before lifting it to his ear.
"Who is this?" he asked, his voice a hollow echo in the empty space.
"Izuku… is that you?" His father's voice, strained and distant, crackled down the line.
"Yeah."
"Are you… are you alone?" The question was a fragile thing.
Izuku exhaled, a slow, weary sound, his grip tightening on the plastic. "It's fine, Otou-san."
"It is not fine." Hisashi's voice cracked under the weight of the words. "I'll be there tomorrow, okay? I'm coming home."
A faint, bitter smile tugged at Izuku's lips, not touching his eyes. "Are we… moving to the U.S.?"
"Yes. Unless… you don't want to?"
He swallowed hard, the decision solidifying in his gut. "Just… give me two more days."
A pause, filled with the hum of the trans-Pacific connection. Then, softly: "Alright."
Two Days Later
The air atop Mount Kamui was thin and cold, biting at Izuku's exposed skin as he knelt before the raw, freshly turned earth. The stone marker stood stark and solitary against the gray sky, her name carved into it with a finality that stole the breath from his lungs.
'This is my fault.'
The thought was a closed loop in his mind, a truth he could no longer escape. Tears burned tracks down his wind-chapped cheeks, but he didn't wipe them away. His fingers dug into the dark soil, clenching around cold roots and stones, as if he could tunnel down and pull her back into the light.
"Mom… I'm sorry." His voice was a shattered thing. "If I hadn't begged you to go out…"
Kamihara Shinya stood a silent vigil a few paces behind, his ninja's composure a thin veil over a deep, churning guilt. The boy's broken confession struck him with the precision of a kunai. 'So that's the source of his guilt. He never blamed me because he was too busy blaming himself.'
'Kid…' The word was a silent ache in his chest.
Midoriya Hisashi watched his son, his own sorrow a crushing weight in his own chest. His wife was gone. But right now, his son was shattering before him, and that was an agony he could not endure. He forced his voice into something steady, turning to the hero.
"Thank you," he said, bowing deeply, the gesture laden with a grief that warred with his gratitude. "For honoring my son's impossible request."
Shinya shook his head, his gaze fixed on the small, trembling back of the boy. "Don't. I should've been faster. I failed her."
"No." Hisashi's voice was firm, his eyes flickering to Izuku's hunched form. "The only one at fault is the villain who took her. Not you. Not my son." He paused, then added, lower, just for Shinya's ears: "I'm taking him to the States. Tomorrow."
"Did he refuse?"
"No. He's… resigned."
But Izuku wasn't listening. His world had narrowed to the mound of dirt and the name carved in stone. His fists were clenched so tightly his ragged nails scored half-moons into his own palms, the sharp pain a welcome anchor.
'Muscular.' The name was a brand seared onto his soul. 'Wherever you are… wait for me.'
Izuku rose slowly, his knees damp and stained with the earth that now held his mother. With a final, rough swipe of his sleeve across his eyes, he smothered the last of his visible tears and steadied his breath. His voice, when it came, was quiet but clear. "I'm ready."
Hisashi moved then, kneeling beside the fresh mound. His broad shoulders trembled as his fingers, gentle despite their size, traced the cold, damp soil. "Your smile," he whispered, the words meant for her alone, "could light up my darkest days from across an ocean."
A choked sob escaped him. "I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me most." He leaned down and pressed his lips to the earth in a lingering kiss, the taste of soil and unspeakable loss mingling on his tongue. "Our son…" he vowed, his voice dropping to a fierce, private whisper, "I will protect him now. I swear it on my life." His tears fell freely, consecrating the grave with his promise. "Goodbye for now, my love."
With deliberate care, Hisashi wiped his face, the gesture one of a man assembling his broken pieces into a new, sturdier whole. He stood, the immense weight of solitary fatherhood settling firmly onto his shoulders.
"Let's go, Izuku," he said, his voice thick but unyielding.
The two figures, one tall and newly resolved, one small and burning with a cold fire, turned and walked away from the secluded gravesite. They did not look back. Life, relentless in its forward march, carried them down the mountain, toward a future shrouded in grief and the grim promise of vengeance.