Chapter Text
Kyoka Jirou sat in her apartment and drummed a new beat out with the fingers on her right hand as she rested her chin in her left hand. Her earphone jacks gently swayed with the beat, like two little snakes on her head, as she tracked the movement of the other person in the apartment with her from her couch.
Her roommate and perhaps girlfriend, Momo Yaoyorozu, hummed along as she worked on putting together their newest piece of furniture. Kyoka would say ‘perhaps girlfriend’ because to be honest, even to this day, she wasn’t entirely sure what the drop-dead gorgeous bombshell that was Momo saw in the spunky little musician, and yet here they were.
Kyoka should have been helping with the furniture but Momo lived for the minor thrill of assembling that shit. She learned the directions - down to the little copyright notice and everything - then she would assemble it from memory. If Momo found a piece lacking, she would make a new one out of more suitable materials. Upon completion of her task, she would go and have some ice cream or some other heavy food to replenish her lipids.
They would sit together on the couch and watch television together while Momo snacked and Kyoka tapped out a new beat with her fingers on Momo’s leg. Maybe Kyoka would con Momo into making out with her or maybe Momo would attack Kyoka first, though Kyoka did not hope to be so lucky even though it happened fairly regularly. Either way, they would end up snuggling in bed, enjoying the new life they had about a year out from graduation.
“How’s it coming, Yaomomo?” Kyoka asked conversationally. She knew the answer was ‘flawlessly’ because Momo did everything flawlessly but it still felt polite to ask the question.
“It’s going wonderfully, dear!” Momo responded happily without looking up from her task. Kyoka enjoyed the little butterflies she felt when Momo used pet names for her, even a year and a half into dating the black-haired creation Hero.
Kyoka had a little smile on her face as she continued to drum her fingers, absently working out the new beat she wanted for her latest song. She should have, she figured, been really happy. She had an absurdly beautiful, smart, and kind girlfriend, she was a talented musician who could play multiple instruments and who had a quickly budding career, and Kyoka herself was a well-respected, freshly minted sidekick in the Hero world.
But she was kind of… lukewarm on life. Part of it was that she had this huge, nagging complex regarding Momo, like she was afraid she really wasn’t good enough for the creation Hero and one of these days the other shoe was going to drop on the vague joke being played on Kyoka’s life. Part of it was that Kyoka felt really insecure about her career, too. She knew she could make it as a professional musician and she knew she could - and felt a duty to - be a good pro Hero that saved many people but she wasn’t sure if she could swing both.
And she felt so, so obligated to be a good Hero first and foremost, even if the prospect of doing that full-time was moderately unappealing to her. She couldn’t deny how great it felt, how much pride and happiness she derived from saving people and assisting in disaster relief and all the other things that pro Heroes did. But she felt distracted when she did too much Hero work, always thinking more about the songs she could be writing or performing instead of whatever the assigned duties for the day were as a newly graduated sidekick.
Then there was the thousand pound elephant that came with her everywhere she went as a Hero: Kyoka Jirou was the Ninth Bearer of One for All.
Kyoka had taken to the borrowed power of the former Symbol of Peace better than she’d thought she would. She had to get in a lot better shape to do it and that had been a whole entire other challenge. For somebody who already had body image issues, sculpting her body into something leaner, with hard edges and lines, had been really difficult and still left her feeling insecure about it to that day.
Kyoka had been so, so damn sure that the punk rocker girl who just wanted to be a Hero on the side was unfit to be the successor to the greatest Hero who ever lived but Toshinori was a reasonably supportive teacher all things considered. Kinda sucked at teaching, on balance, and he was a huge dork even into his retirement but she still loved him all the same.
Her chance meeting with Toshinori Yagi a year before taking the entrance exam to UA had changed her life. Kyoka was just still not sure, even to this day, if it had been entirely for the better. It made her reevaluate herself, her place in the world, her dreams and wants and desires… Perhaps she needed that kind of introspection but it didn’t make it any easier for her to stop doubting if maybe the plan she had always envisioned in her head might not be suitable anymore after all.
“Something wrong, love?” Momo asked, and Kyoka jumped a bit.
Kyoka wore a black t-shirt and some gray leggings, while Momo wore one of her preferred lime green… robe things. God, Momo was so damn pretty, with her hair tied up and her little reading glasses on. Momo sat down on the couch to Kyoka’s left and set two steaming mugs of tea down, too. Momo was just fucking perfect and maybe, just maybe, that was entirely the problem after all.
“Ha, no, I’m good,” Kyoka lied through her teeth with a smile, and Momo smiled back.
Kyoka stuffed down an urge to frown as Momo turned the television on and began playing the show they had been halfway through binge-watching. It was some kind of horror anthology series and they were on the season about witches and shit. Ochako introduced it to them and Kyoka loved it but Momo was a big baby, afraid of the barest hint of fictional blood. The fact that it made Momo more cuddly than usual might have been part of the appeal, if Kyoka was being honest.
Kyoka was at the point where she was contemplating writing sappy songs about how she couldn’t figure out what to do with her life. When did it come to this?
Why did the girl who had everything feel like she had nothing?
She dreams of falling that night. She is falling from great height into the sunset.
There is a city below her and she is falling towards the highest and brightest skyscraper in the skyline.
She can fly. Why is she falling? She doesn’t know but she can’t stop herself.
She wakes up before she hits the rooftop of that skyscraper.
Kyoka sighed as she stepped into the elevator of Shield Industries.
It was a little bit like going to see her crazy cousins and she wasn’t quite looking forward to finding out all the new and wonderful ways they had found to destroy the kitchen at grandma’s house. Okay, that was a lie. She was looking forward to it, at least a little bit.
Kyoka wore her Hero costume, which was a bit of a stretch description-wise when all it really was, was a leather jacket and pants, a pink shirt, and some black boots with advanced speakers in them. She did have her fancy earphones meant to protect her ears as well as her gloves that had her Amplifier Jacks attached to them but really she pretty much just looked like a nineteen year old girl listening to music when she walked down the street.
That was how she liked it, though. Nobody ever bothered her - and few of them even recognized her - when she did patrols. She also, realistically, was listening to music.
In this case, she was listening to some calm piano music, hoping to get some inspiration as she wanted her next album to have some piano parts on it. The fact that Momo loved piano and wanted to potentially participate if possible in making music with Kyoka was definitely a consideration, too.
Shield Industries was a newer company. Melissa Shield founded it when she moved to Japan two years ago, then she hired on some graduates from UA’s Support Department as she got herself established. It was still a small thing and they were headquartered in a five story building but every trip to Shield Industries was an adventure to Kyoka.
She liked Melissa. Melissa was super nice. A bit of a nerd and not quite Kyoka’s type but that was why she and Mei stuck together like glue. Then there was Izuku and, between Mei and Izuku, there wasn’t a day that went by that something didn’t get blown up in the Shield Industries workshop. Kyoka privately suspected Melissa had an entire section of her budget dedicated just to cleaning up after the other two geniuses.
When the elevator opened and Kyoka stepped off, she reached up and tapped the button on the right earphone to pause her music. Then she narrowed her eyes when she realized there was still music playing, albeit faintly. She took off her headphones and held them under her left arm as she walked down the white, well-lit office-style hallway towards the source of the music, which got much louder without her headphones on.
Kyoka poked her head into the doorway and raised her eyebrows and earphone jacks in unison. She noticed three things immediately. First of all, nothing seemed to be destroyed or exploded today; that was suspicious. Second of all, Mei, Izuku, and Melissa were all there in a line, facing her but not looking at the doorway. They had their eyes closed… and they were dancing? They were doing some kind of routine, all in sync, raising their legs in turn and spinning their arms around with index fingers raised, eyes closed and smiles on their faces as they danced to the music.
Third of all, they were dancing to one of her songs.
“Hey, what the heck are you three up to?” Kyoka could feel the heat in her face as she interrupted them. All three of them stopped dead in unison and looked at her with a mechanical swivel. Kyoka knew they were all the same wavelength but honestly couldn’t even stop the laughter that escaped her at the sight, as her earphone jacks fell. Then they reacted as was appropriate for them each: Melissa smiled and chuckled nervously, Izuku turned beet red and started stammering quietly and incoherently, and Mei looked unabashed as she threw her hands into the air and called back.
“Earphone Jack! You’re just the person we were waiting for!” Mei wore her usual: a thick, dark gray tank top and some light gray overalls with the top part of the overalls wrapped around her waist. She also had some boots and work gloves on as well, and she had her weird google things she used for her quirk. She ran over first and Kyoka had just enough time to step into the doorway properly and brace herself before she was attacked in a hug.
“Oof, Mei, relax!” She said as Mei laughed maniacally. Mei wasn’t really strong enough to knock Kyoka over - Kyoka was strong, these days - but she was strong enough to be inconvenient. Still, Kyoka hugged the pink-haired girl back and she both rolled her eyes and smiled just a little bit. Then Mei skipped away, her expression turning into that dangerous, deadly one that meant she was about to discuss a new ‘baby.’
“Hey, Jirou! Sorry about that, we, uh… were practicing for a surprise for you?” That was Izuku, who Kyoka affectionately referred to as ‘Greenie.’ He really was a sweetheart and he and Melissa made an excellent little team along with Mei to give them a bit of that eccentric spice. He had come into his own in UA’s Support Department and, between him and Mei, they’d designed the updated Hero costumes for pretty much all of the graduated Class A before they even started working with Melissa.
“Oh yeah, Greenie? Is that the dance routine or a gadget that’s gonna blow up again?” Distantly, Kyoka thought that might sound mean out of context. But when half of what Mei and Izuku made exploded, it was really more than fair in her opinion. Appropriately, Izuku smiled and also blushed like a dweeb. He was always blushing and Kyoka didn’t pay it any mind. She knew who he had eyes for and she was more of the gravity-defying persuasion than Kyoka’s own sound-based powers, even if he studiously denied it.
“Both!” Melissa chirped happily.
Izuku wore the same kind of gray overalls Mei had, though he was wearing his clothes properly. Melissa also had hers on but the top was unzipped to show off the white t-shirt with Shield Industries’ logo on it she had underneath. The three of them were like their own little flight crew and Kyoka smirked at the thought.
“Alright, well, I saw the dance routine. Not bad, if I might add.” Melissa jumped up and down a bit and clasped her hands together in excitement at that, while Izuku awkwardly scratched his head as he smiled and looked away. “So what else do you got, Melissa?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Came Mei’s voice from Kyoka’s left. Kyoka swiveled her head to the left and raised her earphone jacks in a defensive stance. Mei had a little remote in her gloved hand and, when she pressed it, a floor panel in the center of the room opened up.
The room was very well lit and also conspicuously clean. Both Mei and Izuku were messy workers in the lab, so that meant Melissa had probably moved things into their proper places and swept in preparation for this day. There were some diagrams pinned to corkboards on the wall, a tall fake plant in a pot in the far corner, and some bookshelves placed generously away from the main work area. The main work area had some work tables along the wall, along with some rolling stools to sit on. It was very similar to how UA’s Support Department was set up, all and all, and had bright white lighting, too.
But still, suspiciously clean today; no half-built doodads or broken robots. And as something rose out of the little hole in the ground, Kyoka raised an eyebrow as she realized why.
It was a full-body mannequin attached to a little steel stand and it wore what looked like her Hero costume, though it was modified. It had two shirts - a white tank top underneath the pink shirt - and the pants and jacket were still black but a different material now. The boots had what looked like finer speakers in them as well as a different material. Also, the headphones were a different color, now black and dark purple with pink highlights that matched the shirt.
But what struck Kyoka most of all and made her frown was that the Amplifier Jacks were gone, replaced by full-cover black gloves on the mannequin’s hands.
“Okay… I’m skeptical, guys. Tell me what I’m looking at here,” Kyoka said slightly hesitantly. She did realize she’d had her earphone jacks up in a defensive stance the whole time, though, so she awkwardly dropped them. Mei started to go off but got as far as opening her mouth when Melissa glared at her.
“Midoriya is supposed to explain, Mei,” Melissa said in a very stern tone, and Mei visibly deflated. Kyoka might have felt bad for her if Mei didn’t routinely steamroll any and all tech demos. Let Izuku have a chance, Kyoka figured. Izuku cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“So, uh… I’ve never presented a costume like this to a pro Hero, so I hope it’s okay if I go a little slow?” He asked, and he had visible apprehension in his green eyes. He really was a little ray of sunshine, though, and Kyoka made a mental note to tease the shit out of Ochako later when Kyoka saw her next.
“Course, Greenie. I’ve got time,” Kyoka said. That was true, too. Besides, she wanted him to get this right. He deserved it with how hard he worked on his support gear designs.
“Alright… So, as you can see, the material is different now. It’s bulletproof to small arms, though we had to add a second shirt to your torso for that. It’ll also be warmer in the colder months,” he began, and he walked around the stand and looked at Kyoka with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. Izuku lived for work, though, and the more he spoke the better he got.
“It’s basically fireproof, the jacket has special slots in the sleeves for you to hook your jacks into and hide them, it should breathe easier and be easier to move in, and the boots have a sturdy composite alloy in them so if you kick somebody they won’t break as easily now and they’ll cushion your falls better. The speakers have been enhanced to output far higher potential sound waves and your new headphones appropriately can noise cancel more efficiently and dynamically, to compensate.”
By the time he got to the headphones, he was going too fast. Kyoka made a little lowering motion with a flat palm and he made an ‘oh’ noise of understanding.
“Sorry… the biggest thing is the gloves, though.” He reached over and took one off the mannequin to hand it to her. She flipped it over and found what looked like a small, circular speaker on the palm. “You told us ‘no armor,’ so we made this out of the sturdiest material we could work with that would still feel like fabric. It might be a bit stiff at first. I was able to miniaturize the Amplifier Jack into that little speaker there,” he pointed at it in her hand, “and you can string your earphone jacks within your jacket to the new gloves to protect them and still use the gloves. The port for gloves is on the inside of the top of the wrist.”
“Well damn,” Kyoka said as she turned it over a few times. It did feel a bit stiff; definitely not regular fabric but not unacceptably so. Not having to have large devices on her wrists would make movement less clunky and also make it easier to punch people when she needed to. “That’s pretty damn cool.”
“Yeah!” He said, entirely enthusiastically. “They also have ports for the, uh…”
He trailed off and Kyoka laughed nervously. He meant Blackwhip but he didn’t know about One for All. Melissa did, though, and she generally handled the special considerations for that. Melissa nodded behind Izuku and gave a little thumbs up and a smile.
“Right. Thanks, Greenie,” Kyoka said, sparing the both of them from that awkwardness. Izuku gave her an adorable little thumbs up, too, as he was liable to do, then he gently took the glove from her and stuck it back on the mannequin. Kyoka put her hands on her hips and walked around the mannequin for a bit as the three engineers waited with bated breath. “Well, it certainly looks good. I’ll have to go punch some bad guys or something to know if it works, though,” Kyoka said, and all three of the engineers gave a little fist pump and cheered in unison.
God, Kyoka loved the three of them. Her life would be so much harder without them. All of Class A’s would be, even Katsuki, despite how he had bitched endlessly during their first year about having to go to the same high school as Izuku. He got over it, though, after he was relentlessly mocked for being such a killjoy by Class A and put in his damn place. Eijiro becoming the Katsuki Whisperer and showing him the Power of Love really helped, too, and it never stopped being the funniest goddamn thing to Kyoka.
“So, do you wanna take it for a spin?” Mei asked enthusiastically, and Kyoka grinned at her.
“Sure do. But first, I want you three to show me your dance routine from the top so I can critique it,” Kyoka replied mischievously. Both Izuku and Melissa turned red and looked mortified but Mei threw up her hands in excitement.
Guess I know whose idea that was, Kyoka thought with amusement as the three of them got back in their little line. Kyoka started the song over on their little stereo and they took it from the top.
It was about three hours later that Kyoka walked into the apartment of Toshinori Yagi.
“Toshi? Toshi! I brought you some more food…” She called out as she stood in the front hallway. All she heard was a muffled groan and Kyoka couldn’t help the eye roll that came over her. “Are you being a drama queen again?” She called out, and she heard a slightly pained grunt.
Toshinori Yagi, formally the Symbol of Peace, All Might, was one of her favorite people in the world. Really, it was true and she looked up to him a lot as a kid as all young people in Japan did in their superhuman society. But as a young adult, knowing the real him and how much of a massive dork he was, she couldn’t help but tease him.
She wore her new Hero costume with her headphones around her neck and held two plastic bags filled with various goodies. She had texted him towards the end of her patrol and asked him if he needed anything from the store and he let her know he wanted to make some kind of American food. He really was such a nerd for American stuff; his apartment had red, white, and blue everything, his costume had been red, white, blue, and gold, and even his damn car had a little American flag on the license plate.
It was hilarious. The only thing she’d ever seen that was funnier was the first time she’d visited the Support Department dorms in her second year and saw Izuku’s dorm room with all the All Might nerd shit he had in his room. She had gone to play some board games with Mei and Izuku and some of the other Support Department kids and she wasted no time in mocking Ochako endlessly for how much her future husband was a fucking massive dork just like their teacher was.
Ochako still hadn’t gone on a date with Izuku and that was funny as hell, too. The two of them were utterly hopeless, though she held out hope for the two yet. She wasn't quite Mina… but she was willing to push people along sometimes.
Kyoka walked around the corner into Toshinori’s kitchen and was hit with a wave of disorienting déjà vu. Because there, on the floor, was Toshinori, face down in a puddle of red with some broken glass around him. It reminded her exactly of how she’d met Gran Torino and the juxtaposition of teacher and master would’ve been funny if it wasn’t unnerving.
“Toshi! What the hell?!” Kyoka yelled out, raising her earphone jacks. She jabbed one into the wall and listened around but nobody else was in the apartment. Toshinori just continued to lay face down into the floor, though he raised his right hand to motion vaguely.
“I was gonna make you some food from the American South but I tripped and broke the sauce bottle all over myself,” he grumbled into the floor. She could smell it now and, whatever it was, it smelled rather tangy and savory.
“So what, you’re just gonna lay there and scare me half to death?” Kyoka asked incredulously.
“I think so, yes, Young Jirou. Go on without me. I trust the future of Hero society to your capable hands,” he deadpanned solemnly. Kyoka snaked out an earphone jack in response and jabbed him in the shoulder. He yelped and got up quite quickly, then glared at her half-heartedly.
“Quit being a dweeb,” Kyoka said with a smirk, and Toshinori chuckled in response. His front was all covered in sauce, though it looked like he might have cut himself on the glass while he was at it and Kyoka’s smile morphed into a frown. “You should clean up and check those cuts,” she continued in a more serious tone.
“I will. Please, feel free to take a seat,” he said kindly. Then he padded off to go change in the bathroom.
Kyoka worried a lot about Toshinori because his health still wasn’t the greatest since he retired from Hero work after their first year in high school. Melissa, Mei, and Izuku, the mad scientists that they were, had worked on various gear and items to try and help Toshinori out but… damaged was damaged as far as the human body went.
It took Toshinori about twenty minutes to go do what he needed to do and, in the meantime, Kyoka contented herself with putting away the food she’d bought for him and cleaning up the mess in his kitchen. She knew where all his stuff was - he had lived in the same apartment since his retirement, after all - and it was mindless, pleasant busywork that she kind of needed at that moment. Once she was done sweeping and mopping, she grabbed one of his dark towels and manually dried the floor. She wasn’t about to have Toshinori fall twice because of her work.
That was about when Toshinori came back in, wearing fresh clothes and a smile on his face. He had a noticeable bruise on his chin, though. Kyoka tapped her own chin and looked at him.
“Gonna go to the doctor?” She asked, and he grinned in response.
“I have an appointment tomorrow, anyway. I’m fine, really, it’s no big deal. I may have used my muscle form as I fell to cushion the impact,” he replied matter-of-factly. Kyoka blinked a few times in confusion and laughed.
“That’s kinda awesome,” she said, and they shared a smile before they got to cooking. Kyoka enjoyed cooking with Toshinori quite a bit. He used to suck at it before he retired; she knew because, the first time she invited him over to her parents’ home for a family dinner, he managed to burn the food he tried to help make. But a few years of retirement and extra time on his hands helped a lot and Kyoka had learned to cook along with him in her free time.
It took them about an hour but they made some delicious smelling food that was primarily based around a chicken-dish and some biscuits and gravy. Since Toshinori managed to lose the sauce, he had to change gears on what he wanted to make but it worked out and when they sat down at his table to eat Kyoka hummed in contentment at the first bite.
“Good job, Symbol of Food, this is delicious,” she said mischievously, and Toshinori snorted at her joke.
“I appreciate your approval, Young Jirou. Thank you for coming to spend time with me,” he said, and Kyoka just smiled.
“Of course, silly. Where else am I going to eat food like this?” She said sarcastically, and they both laughed at that. “So, tell me how the new class at UA is going,” Kyoka followed up with as she cut herself off another bite.
“It’s going. Aizawa only expelled two students so far and Nezu brought both of them back by the end of the day, so it could be worse,” Toshinori admitted in a very calm voice. Kyoka chuckled at that. Aizawa never expelled any students from her class at UA, though that jackass Mineta had come close more than a few times before he grew up and got over himself in their third year.
“Got any firebrands like Katsuki or Todoroki in there?” Kyoka asked after she finished chewing. Toshinori just shook his head, though.
“No, this class is very subdued. Things have been quiet since the Meta Liberation Army was defeated. It’s really calm and I only sometimes have errant projectiles thrown at me during training exercises.” Toshinori gave her a toothy grin after he spoke.
“You shouldn’t be doing those anymore, you know,” Kyoka said, and she pointed her fork at him for good measure. “Katsuki and I aren’t always gonna be there to protect you from falling rocks.”
“I am aware, trust me. I make a point to stand near Aizawa or Kan at all times when we do exercises now,” he said, though Kyoka just rolled her eyes, knowing that argument was pointless. Toshinori was a reckless, foolhardy man and nobody was ever going to tell him otherwise even though he wasn’t a Hero anymore. Then again, he was still surprisingly quick all things considered and Kyoka considered whether or not he might always be a Hero, in his own way. Old habits died hard, after all.
“So tell me, has something been bothering you? You usually schedule more in advance for our dinners - not that I am complaining, of course,” Toshinori said with a glint in his vivid blue eyes, and Kyoka sighed as she set her fork down.
“I dunno, it’s weird. I’ve been feeling weird recently about my plans and stuff as a Hero and with… other stuff.”
“Are things going well with Young Yaoyorozu?” Toshinori asked, and the corners of his mouth barely pulled into a smirk. Kyoka groaned before responding properly.
“Yes, they are. That’s the weird part! I just… I dunno, I feel inadequate, I guess…” She sort of mumbled that second part, and Toshinori grimaced in response.
“Do you remember what you asked me when we met?” Toshinori said, and Kyoka rolled her head back towards the ceiling to think.
“I believe my exact words were, ‘All Might, why are you acting like such a weirdo?’” She said, and Toshinori sputtered. She brought her gaze back down to him and he looked appropriately defeated.
“No, not that part. The question you asked me about being a Hero!” He said indignantly, and Kyoka chuckled.
“I asked you if… if someone could still be a Hero but also have a normal life,” Kyoka said after a moment, and Toshinori nodded enthusiastically.
“Exactly. And remember how I told you that I was utterly struck by that? That I realized that I didn’t have a normal life and had suffered for it. I realized that not having any kind of normalcy in my life hurt my ability to serve and protect the people,” Toshinori said, and Kyoka bobbed her head back and forth horizontally in consideration as he spoke.
“Okay but Toshi, it’s One for All. I feel like every moment I spend writing songs or recording music is a moment I could’ve helped somebody!” Kyoka frowned after she spoke, but Toshinori just shook his head.
“That’s how I felt, too. But I didn’t realize I was running myself ragged and burning out until I saw how successful you were as my successor.” He stopped and pointed his index finger up in her direction; not at her but more so to accentuate his point. “One for All was made to defeat All for One… and we did it!” He added, and he gave her another smile. She didn't bother to correct him by pointing out that he did it, well before he met her.
“However,” he continued, “you can’t save everyone and you can’t just work forever. I learned that the hard way; ask Mirai sometime, he’ll be happy to complain about my insane habits, I’m sure. If I could go back and do it over, I think I would’ve liked to be like you: to learn an instrument, learn to cook, have friends and family…” He looked at her with a meaningful, toothy smile. “Have a wife.”
“Toshi, don’t be embarrassing!” Kyoka said, feeling like her uncle was talking to her about her love life at a family holiday.
“It’s not embarrassing at all! Love is good and I’m thrilled to see how happy Young Yaoyorozu makes you!”
“I just feel like I don’t make her as happy as she makes me,” Kyoka admitted quietly. To her surprise, Toshinori just scoffed at that.
“Young Jirou,” he said severely, “do you have any idea how Young Yaoyorozu looked at you in your third year? The teachers bet fifty thousand Yen on how long it would take for her to ask you out! You are her whole world and it’s beautiful!” Kyoka felt her whole face turn red and hot at that and she looked away in a pout, her earphone jacks coming up in a defensive stance unconsciously. Toshinori just chuckled at her. “I rather wish I had met somebody who looks at me like how Young Yaoyorozu looks at you, young lady. You should cherish that because it is a wonderful thing.”
“Is the man who has never gone on a date in his life lecturing me about love?” Kyoka teased once she had composed herself. Toshinori smiled at her when she looked back at him.
“I haven’t been teaching for very long but let me tell you, seeing as much young love as I do at UA… It really puts things in perspective,” he said in a quiet voice. Kyoka rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know… I just feel really worried, like I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing anymore,” she admitted, and Toshinori nodded in understanding.
“And I am sorry for that. I suspect that giving you One for All probably derailed your plans, didn’t it?” Kyoka returned his nod with a sigh. “But I will say that I don’t regret doing so at all and I’m proud of the work you’ve done. You are a wonderful successor and you will be whether you decide to be a full-time Hero or to pursue your love of music as well.”
Kyoka smiled softly at Toshinori for that.
“Thanks, grandpa,” she said with amusement, and Toshinori looked appropriately mortified.
“I am not that old,” he said defensively, and Kyoka openly laughed at him.
They stopped talking about heavy topics after that and Kyoka enjoyed their idle chatting. Toshinori described the new class to her, what their quirks were and how they were shaping up as Heroes, and who had been elected the class representatives. Kyoka smiled fondly; Momo was their class representative and it was something Kyoka always kind of looked up to her for. Kyoka might have, if pressed, admitted that she had a thing for women in positions of authority, however small.
Eventually, Kyoka and Toshinori finished their food and she did the dishes for him. He protested but she threatened him with earphone jack jabs until he sat in front of his television with a grumble. Once she finished his dishes, she said goodbye with a hug and went back to her apartment. It was early evening by that point and Kyoka felt a little better.
Not resolved but a little better, all the same.
“Hello, sweetie!” Momo called when Kyoka walked into the apartment. Kyoka smiled to herself as she took her shoes off.
“Hey, Yaomomo, how was work today?” Kyoka called back as she unlaced her boots and set them in a pair next to their other shoes. Momo had… a lot of shoes. Kyoka had some shoes, don’t get her wrong but… Momo had a lot. She had an organizing system for her shoes.
“It was good! I’ve got a job lined up soon to help Itsuka on a case against an up-and-coming villain gang soon!” Momo called from the other room. Kyoka blinked in confusion and tilted her head. That wasn’t really Momo’s style; not the 'working with Itsuka' part, those two were a killer team, but the ‘villain gang’ part.
“What’s up with that?” Kyoka said, her volume falling as she spoke. She walked around the corner to stand in the doorway to their kitchen and found Momo trying very hard to cook. “Do you… need help?” Kyoka added with only the slightest undertone of teasing.
Momo was never a very good cook. That would happen when people cooked for her all the time growing up, Kyoka figured. But she was determined to get better and Kyoka took just a little bit of pride in being objectively better at least one thing than Momo was.
“No, no, it’s fine! I’ve got it!” Momo chirped, and Kyoka smirked, though Momo didn’t turn around to see it.
“You remembered that I had dinner with Toshi, right?” Kyoka asked slyly. Momo stilled and turned around with a groan.
“I didn’t look at my phone! Drat!” She moaned, and Kyoka giggled a little.
“Well, if you manage to stick the landing on that,” Kyoka began, and she gestured with both a hand and an earphone jack at the same time towards the now-smoking pan on the stove, “I’ll try some with you. If not,” Kyoka jiggled the plastic bag she was still holding in her left hand, “I’ve got leftovers.”
Momo slowly turned her head from her smoking pan to the plastic bag and back again, then reached over and turned off the stove.
“I’d rather have Yagi’s cooking, honestly,” she said without a hint of shame, and Kyoka snorted at her and started snickering.
“Good choice, beautiful,” Kyoka said, and she enjoyed how Momo turned pink. Momo wore a t-shirt and pajama pants and she looked fabulous even already dressed for bed. “What’s up with this case?” Kyoka added, and Momo’s smile fell a tiny bit.
“We’re not sure yet,” Momo admitted frankly. “Whoever they are, they seem big. They… Well, I’m glad you asked, actually.” Kyoka blinked in confusion and tilted her head, her earphone jacks swirling around her for a moment. She had been planning to bring up her conversation with Toshinori and how she’d been feeling recently but that was forgotten now. Momo didn’t usually talk about work at home and, when she did, Kyoka listened. “The, uh, the villains? They… We’ve got reports of them somehow stealing quirks.”
Kyoka took in a sharp breath, then narrowed her eyes; not so much at Momo, just in general.
“Impossible. Toshi defeated All for One five years before we even started at UA. He was dead and buried before I became the Ninth Bearer, Yaomomo,” Kyoka said with as much confidence as she could muster. Momo pulled her lips to the side in a slight pout.
“I don’t think it’s All for One. Not the ‘proper noun’ man All for One, anyway. But I think it’s possibly a quirk like his,” she admitted quietly. “We haven’t gotten any good photo or video evidence yet but… I’m worried, Kyoka,” Momo said quietly. Kyoka shifted on her feet and stood up straight, stepping away from the wall she’d been leaning on.
“Well, how ‘bout this: if you need me, let me know and I’ll help you out,” Kyoka began as she strode forward, feeling confident, and gave Momo a hug. Momo hugged her back and Kyoka squeezed affectionately. “But it’s your case, so if you don’t need me, that’s okay, too.”
“I know you’d be there for me,” Momo whispered, and Kyoka felt an incredible amount of warmth and love and affection rising in her. “I’ll let you know but I would plan to get involved at some point.”
Kyoka went on to warm up the leftovers for Momo, not feeling very hungry herself. Between the possibility of someone else with the ability to steal quirks and her minor fear at talking to Momo about her own insecurities, Kyoka didn’t feel like eating or talking much. But they sat together on the couch and Momo snuggled up to Kyoka while they watched their television show and Kyoka at least felt loved and safe, which was really what she wanted at that moment.
When she slept that night, she saw something new and unexpected.
Kyoka Jirou is dreaming but in a new and bizarre way she is not accustomed to.
What the hell is this? She thinks to herself. The scene is familiar: she’s backstage at an event venue and she looks down and finds that she’s wearing her new Hero costume she just got. She looks up again and both her eyebrows shoot up to her forehead at what she sees.
It’s
her
but she’s an awful lot younger. Little Kyoka wears a dark blue band t-shirt and some black jeans, only just a third year in middle school. It’s a little more than a year before she will take the UA entrance exam… and Kyoka remembers this day like it’s yesterday.
Her older self marches straight over to her younger self and snaps her fingers, then realizes to her own confusion that there is no sound. Her fingers move and she feels her fingers but there’s no sound and, for a Hero whose powers are all sound-based and built around hearing, the effect is almost nauseating.
Her younger self does not react at all to the older Kyoka, even when she reaches over and waves her hand insistently in front of her younger self’s face.
This isn’t cool, Kyoka thinks a little bit like an idiot, feeling utterly bemused and unsure of what else to think. She turns and a familiar face bursts into the room. He is silent, too, but she remembers the conversation perfectly as the dream provides the words for her.
“I am here, entering this backstage area because I am very lost!” All Might, the Symbol of Peace, booms and comes flying in, wearing his silly costume; the one with the cape, for maximum effect, of course. Little Kyoka turns and looks torn between awe and pure incredulity.
“All Might, why are you acting like such a weirdo?!” She shrieks, stunned by his appearance as she jumps and flails in surprise. All Might is also stunned, and now watching this happen as a young adult, the older Kyoka bursts out into silent laughter at the sight of All Might being so surprised by a little girl.
“Uh, hey, kid. I’m supposed to be going up to the stage in about twenty minutes but I don’t know where the heck I am. Can you help me out?" All Might asks awkwardly. Little Kyoka blinks in confusion at him and frowns.
“My parents are already on stage and ready to start! What do you mean you don’t know where to go?!” She says, shocked and appalled. All Might looks appropriately horrified, realizing that Kyoka is with someone who is in the show. It is a charity event and All Might is meant to be appearing along with some other pro Heroes, while her parents are part of the musical team.
“Look, kid, just help me out here. I don’t want to ruin your parents’ show, now!” All Might pleads. Little Kyoka narrows her eyes at All Might and cannot help but blurt out the thing that’s been on her mind. She is meeting the Symbol of Peace, the greatest Hero who ever lived, so she’s gonna take her shot.
“I’ll help you if you answer a question.” All Might nods cautiously. “Can you… Could I be a Hero and still have a normal life?”
All Might looks appropriately, utterly blown away by her question. Kyoka’s older self watches in sheer, enraptured curiosity. Even though the scene is so ethereally quiet, she remembers every word and seeing it in this new light is fascinating to her.
All Might surprises little Kyoka by trudging over. Little Kyoka had been sitting on a bench in the backstage area and All Might is comically too huge to share it with her, so he just crouches down and looks preposterous as he tries to be level with her. Still, his smile shifts a bit; it becomes not the practiced, fixed smile he uses to inspire hope in people but a genuine smile just for her.
“Well, young lady, I’ve never really thought very much about that. I suppose I would say no but that’s just… what has been true for me.” Kyoka looks intently at All Might. Both versions of her do at this moment. “What were you thinking about doing with your life?”
Little Kyoka looks down to the floor in indecision.
“Well… I have a really cool, powerful quirk and I… I feel like I should help people with it. But making music is my dream and I want…” Little Kyoka pauses for a moment and looks back to All Might with surprising determination. “I want to make people happy, whether that means saving them or making music to inspire them.”
All Might stares back at her for a few moments and purses his lips and the expression is almost surreal on his usually carefully controlled face.
“That sounds like a lovely dream, young lady. I… I feel like you’ve got the right idea there, even if it’s a different approach than mine!” He admits with forced cheer. Little Kyoka blinks in confusion at All Might but her older self feels tears running down her face. As a young adult she can understand now. She sees what All Might was trying to convey, even if words were never quite his strong suit. He saw himself in her, a new symbol for people.
A symbol who might not toss their whole life away to inspire people like he did.
“Thanks, All Might. I wanna try for UA and… I wanna make life better for people, in some way. I’m just worried I won’t ever be good enough…” Kyoka says in a tiny voice. All Might frowns at that.
“Young lady, what’s your name?”
“Jirou Kyoka, sir,” little Kyoka says shyly. All Might beams at her in turn.
“I think you’ve got the right idea there, Young Jirou, when it comes to being a Hero. How about this: I’m going to go help out with the show and, after that, why don’t you introduce me to your parents and I can offer you some tips on how to be a Hero?” All Might holds out his giant hand to little Kyoka, who looks down at it, dumbfounded, before shaking with her relatively tiny one. “Deal?”
Kyoka’s older self smiles at the memory. She had no idea how significant that moment would be in her life. She just wanted to be validated by the greatest Hero she’d ever known.
“Deal.”
“That’s how you became the Ninth Bearer of One for All, little Kyoka.”
Kyoka’s older self nearly jumps straight out of her own skin and to the ceiling at the voice. It’s a new, different voice; a voice she’s never heard before but, more significantly, she can hear it, physically. She slowly spins with wide-eyed horror, only to find an unusual sight.
It’s a… woman. A woman who seems awfully familiar, like Kyoka has seen pictures of her before but can’t place why. Faint, phantom memories dance behind her eyes in the dream and Kyoka can’t help but tilt her head and stare slack-jawed at the woman. She is a Hero, that much is certain, with her black and red costume and pristine white cape. Her cape billows as if she is outdoors and flying even though they’re inside. She's utterly gorgeous with her raven hair and she smiles so kindly and warmly at Kyoka, with a shocking amount of presence in the dream.
Around them, the memory freezes and begins to fade away as the world turns to ash and white begins to bleed around them.
“You’re doing just fine, little Kyoka. I’ll talk to you again soon.”
Kyoka doesn’t get to respond, feeling instead like she abruptly falls through the fabric of reality itself, and she wakes up with an image of beautiful gray eyes staring into her soul.