y o u

p r o l o g u e

The door slammed with a disapproving grunt, and locked with an unamused click.

The terrified screams of civilians still rampaged in his head. Alone and scared and dead. They were dead. They were all dead and he couldn't do a single thing to help.

All Might's comforting, cracked words were drowned out by his devastating loss and defeat in Tokyo that morning. The city in ruins, buildings on fire, and his own heart crumbling into the disembodied ashes of its former youth.

"You can't save everyone, Young Midoriya". His ragged breathing and raspy voice had caught him by surprise that afternoon. To anyone else he was a regular old man that showed up to the wrong place at the wrong time and spoke to the wrong person. Just another casualty on the list. Just another dead in the midst of a war that no one would ever win.

Just another that wasn't saved in time.

But to Izuku, things were different.  Different in a way that only he could understand. Different in a way that made is skin curl whenever he arrived on the battle field and bloody corpses were already lying on the road like stringers at a child's birthday party.

Death was not a decoration to him: Another number on the report a police officer would have to write.

It was real and serious and scary in a way that made him take the long way home every night.

Who'd have to learn of their death? Who was there waiting for them to come home for dinner only to find the news on television that they'd be eating alone? Who'd loved them? Who would miss them when they were gone?

Everyone had someone that cared for them. Whether they knew it or not, there was always someone waiting, crying, listening for them. Looking for a sign that they truly hadn't left. A ghost of a trace that meant they were still there, looking after them.

Izuku couldn't afford to be that foolish. At one point, he had wanted to be. He had wanted to not know the victim or who missed them. He didn't want to know that the person he couldn't save was the one who ran the flower shop he went to for his mother's grave or the hotel clerk he'd spoken to just once.

He didn't want to know the full weight of the job as Symbol of Peace; He just wanted to be Izuku. The one that still wrote notes in his Hero Diary for upcoming sidekicks or Heroes-in-Training. He had lost count of the times he locked himself inside his house and cried and mourned and destroyed his living arrangements. Then, he'd collect himself and move somewhere else. Somewhere more secluded and alone.

He had gone from a house in a child's neighborhood to an isolated apartment complex at the edge of the city in just a few months.

Midoriya ran a heavily scarred hand through his unkept green hair he'd wanted to burn more than one time. The same hand that paved his way to heroic victory and hair that branded his mother's influence into him like hot iron.

Every punch to a villain and strong smile to a freed hostage was another step to his end goal that was the Number One Spot.

But Number one meant nothing to him now. He was getting reckless and one slip up could cost lives. That was the currency he was not willing to pay. He'd put his life on the line to save one, but one hundred could go in the blink of an eye. Quirks were steadily becoming more and more dangerous and flawed and scary.

The percent of quirkless people in the world had dropped to 9%, along with the ever increasing quirkless suicide rate of 61%. He could have been part of that 61% if he listened to Kacchan so many years ago.

The heroic victory he envisioned, to save everyone's problems, had not come. Every smile to a saved child or worried mother was covering up his cracked mask that shattered too long ago. Every punch was rebounded, and the top spot was becoming harder and harder to keep.

His life as a Pro had not been how he'd expected it. Thinks broke, people cried, and the burnt victims were a lot scarier than the stabbed corpses.

He mentally prepared for this every day when he put on his rough green suit and iron soled shoes, strutting out onto the blood-stained streets that'd been washed just enough to not stain crimson. He pretended like he didn't read the Obituaries late at night or know the names of everyone who was murdered that day like he knew his friend's birthdays.

Birthdays he missed and had forgotten.

He'd been so focused on his job as Deku that he'd forgotten to be Izuku just as much. Izuku needed help but Deku had others to save.

Deku was one to save others from the cracking cliff beneath their feet but couldn't stop to notice themselves falling too.

He had grown up enough to know the cracks were inevitable, and his efforts to save himself resembled trying to glue a rock back together with Elmer's glue.

He is no longer a child. His days at UA were numbered, and the sweet release from the constant clutter of schoolwork and tests was also a release of friends and a girl who disappeared a little too early for his liking.

He was weak, frail and quiet. He had grown up since then, but he had always feared it would all come crashing back on him. The constant fear when he walked through alleyways hadn't gone away, just like the twitch of his hand when someone opened a door, or the helpless glint in his eyes when a fan got a bit too close.

He hated it. He hated what Katsuki Bakugo had done to him all those years ago when he was still an egotistical brat, he hated how Ground Zero could still laugh at the pub after they'd just barely captured a villain that day. The only thing he didn't hate was the actual Ground Zero he had drinks with every other night.

He didn't hate Kacchan for being a bully twelve years ago. He didn't hold a grudge against his best friend he sparred with just yesterday.

He'd changed. They'd both changed. Rivals to friends and friends to brothers that fought, dared and ridiculed each other for sport.

Kacchan was a good guy with a heart of gold, but sometimes only certain people got to see the gold under layers and layers of tough stone and rock.

As hard as it is to notice, Katsuki values Izuku like a friend more than a pebble in his path, because that pebble had been given All Might's power and had twisted and changed and transformed into a boulder even the arrogant Ground Zero couldn't lift.

But arrogant didn't mean blind. Deku was an unmovable force, but he wasn't completely invincible. So when Izuku Midoriya didn't show up to the pub that night, Katsuki Bakugo knew the only person who could shatter the boulder was itself.

The cracks beneath his feet widened, and that night, he fell. He fell into himself and the boulder had started to crumble.

"Young Midoriya, you can't save them all." All Might had said that day: skinny, sick and bloody.

He had cried more than he ever had today, over Toshinori's frail body, still dusty from the rubble and smoke choking him like thick unwanted tobacco.

"Enough with the waterworks, my boy." Even with a wound deeper than any ravine, he could still smile with blood dribbling from his throat onto the dead pavement.

Izuku hated today. He hated what happened today amid the destruction and bloodcurdling screams that played like music. He looked out the window towards the rainy city that cried for tonight's fallen soldiers. And a general.

"You always said I couldn't save them all, All Might," He whispered to the foggy window, cold to the touch. His dangerously soft whisper attacked the frosty window and he watched the fog appear and disappear with hollow green eyes.

"But you never said that included you."