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Midoriya Izuku glared down at the prosthesis. The prosthesis, lacking eyes, did not glare back, but Izuku got the distinct feeling that they were smug all the same.
They were well designed. There was no denying that. Izuku worried that if he even thought otherwise, Hatsume-san would hunt him down for bad-mouthing her 'babies'. And his healing was going well too. Recovery Girl had him working with experts in the field to rebuild his muscles and improve his writing.
But that wasn't the issue.
Every morning when Izuku woke up, he painstakingly slowly opened his phone and checked the news. Heroes repairing and rebuilding Japan, subduing villains, helping people.
And here Izuku was, lying in bed. Quirkless once again. Helpless. Hopeless. Useless. His visitors didn't bring up his mood either. His classmates, taking time out of their own recovery to check on him after his fight with Tenko, sharing stories about what class was like now that the war was over. His teachers, bringing him schoolwork and reassuring him that he wouldn't fall behind his peers. People he'd saved, showing up with tears in their eyes and cards in their hands.
Seeing the relief on their faces when they learned he'd be able to return to normal life... Izuku didn't feel that relief. He could regain his arms, his place in U.A. It could never bring back what he'd lost in that battle. The last of that childhood joy that came with being a Hero, as the Quirk he'd been blessed with by All Might turned to dust beneath Tenko's fingertips. He couldn't even blame anyone, because he'd chosen this path. It was the only way to save what was left of that little abused boy who called for help. Izuku had never been able to resist a call for help. Even when it cost him One for All, and its legacy.
Maybe that was why Izuku felt so empty. The loss of One for All.
That electricity in his veins, that power in his blood. The freedom having a Quirk brought him. Coming to terms that it was gone... hurt. He felt as though he was a skinny little fourteen year old middle-schooler again. That all of that growth he went while training, vanished in a second. His friends all reassured him that they didn't care he was originally Quirkless, that he was again, he was still Pro-Hero 'Deku'. Yagi-sensei had taken his cold metallic hands in his own brittle aged ones, and pleaded with him to understand that even with the legacy put to rest, they were still connected deeper than blood. That those events weren't erased.
He couldn't believe that.
With a sigh, Izuku unclenched his fists and swung his feet to the floor. Ignoring the pins and needles racing up his legs, Izuku made his way over to his desk. It felt jarring to be back in his childhood room, without the shine of the obsessions in his youth. No posters, figurines, anything Hero themed. It was all still in his dorm at U.A. If that wasn't ironic, he had no idea what was. Everything that had brought him joy, untouched and forever resting where his dreams came true. And Izuku was stuck here, back where it all began, where that dream grew, but now it was empty. Drained of life.
Izuku sat down heavily, and stared blankly at the desk's contents. A framed photograph, and a pile of notebooks.
The photograph was one he'd taken at the trash beach with Yagi-sensei. Izuku, still wimpy. Yagi-sensei, in his skinny form. Arms around each other, grinning with exhausted triumph. Izuku knew that, if he took the photo out of the frame, he'd see the date scrawled across the back. Two months into their training.
His eyes stung, but he was too tired to cry. Not even the Midoriya tears came easy any more.
Instead he turned to the notebooks. The accumulation of his childhood dream. What he spent so long working on. He wouldn't have gotten so far without the notebooks.
He paged through them, not quite registering the content. He knew them like the back of his hands. Well, his old hands. But knowing the answers to the questions he'd asked as a child, having worked alongside some of the Heroes he gushed about, made something in his heart seize. In the process of gaining a Quirk, he lost his love for them.
Izuku sighed harshly through his nose, and picked up the notebook at the bottom of the pile. The very first notebook his mother ever bought him. Before his fourth birthday, he'd begged his mother for a way to write about All Might. The different costumes, his most famous fights with infamous villains, the records he broke and the records he set as Japan's Number 1 Hero. His mother wrote the kanji in this notebook. Kacchan did the drawings. But this entry was the beginning, and the end.
He idly tapped a rhythm on the page.
Would Tenko have enjoyed hearing about his thoughts around All Might? Would Tenko have played Heroes with him and Kacchan?
Could he and Tenko have become the world's first Quirkless Heroes?
The air stilled.
Izuku rapidly flipped through the notebooks, spilling them across the desk. He pulled out pages, not caring that some of the writing tore away. He jerked the drawer open and grabbed a container, nearly dropping thumbtacks across the floor. He scrambled over to his bed, standing on the mattress and pinning the pages to the wall. Page upon page of Hero designs, Support Items ideas, Hero names. The earlier designs by Kacchan, the later ones by himself. The quality varied, some stained by tears and blood, some blurry from time. Some high quality, some midnight brainstorms.
He took a step back, and proceeded to fall backwards off his bed. Landing on the floor with a painful thump, he laid there on the floor breathless, staring up at the wall.
Even as his mother rushed into the room, panicking and kneeling beside him, asking what happened, he continued to stare at the pages on the wall.
His childhood dream.
He was already a U.A. student.
He had a Hero license.
He would need to train even harder than ever before, and ask Hatsume-san for a few more favours, but he doubted she would complain about free advertising.
He would keep on moving forward, and become the world's first Quirkless Pro Hero. In spite of it all. No matter what the world threw his way. He had survived All for One, he could handle anything with his classmates by his side.
He didn't need to be Number 1. He just had to do it.
For all those Quirkless kids across the world to have someone to look up to.
For Shimura Tenko's memory.