The door shuts behind him. The sound is soft but it echoes louder than it should.
Bakugo doesn't stop walking immediately. He moves down the corridor, steps quick, and sharp and controlled but not calm, hands shoved into his pockets, not relaxed but clenched.
His thoughts are loud again. But different from before. Not spiralling. Grinding.
'Given.'
The word sits wrong and heavy, uncomfortable.
'He didn't hide it. He didn't have it.'
Bakugo clicks his tongue, jaw tightening.
"…Bullshit."
The word comes out low but there's no real bite or edge behind it. Not like it usually would.
He turns a corner.
The hallway still empty. Quiet. The noise of the main building is somewhere far ahead, distant and irrelevant. He stops and leans against the wall, head tilting slightly upward, eyes closing for a second.
'Midoriya. That useless—'
The thought stops itself.
'No. That… idiot.'
His eyes snap open, sharp and more annoyed at himself than anything else.
'Midoriya was chosen.'
All Might's voice. Steady and certain.
Bakugo exhales slowly through his nose gaining control over his thoughts.
"I don't need to be chosen," he says quietly, to the empty hallway. The words come out firm. "I'll earn it."
His hands tighten in his pockets, fingers pressing into his palms.
'Stronger. Faster. Better.'
Not just than Midoriya. Not just than Izumi. Everyone. Every obstacle. Every ceiling.
His eyes sharpen fully with burning clarity.
"Not losing again."
This time it isn't a reaction.
It's a decision.
He pushes off the wall and starts walking again, steps steadier now. Behind him, the hallway is silent.
Ahead of him, everything else.
***
All Might sits alone in his office.
The light through the half-drawn curtain has shifted, the evening light being consumed by darkness slowly but surely.
He sits.
Outside, the school has gone quiet. The corridors empty. The day done.
The second cup of tea is cold.
He stays still for a while.
He thinks about Bakugo, jaw set and eyes hard and somewhere underneath all of it, a mind sharp enough to arrive at the right conclusion when given enough space to reach it.
He thinks about Midoriya, the way he moved three weeks ago compared to now, the difference visible not just in output but in something harder to measure, the way a person holds themselves when they are beginning to trust the thing they are carrying.
He thinks about Izumi standing in front of him and saying those words.
He reaches for the cup. Finds it cold. Puts it back down.
The couch across the table is empty.
He looks at it for a moment. Then he exhales, long and slow, the kind that comes from somewhere below the chest.
And he speaks.
"They're something, aren't they?" he says quietly. To the chair. To the room. To the silence that has followed him his whole career, the silence of the space between him and the person that taught him his smile, the space that death makes and that time does not close.
He can see her if he lets himself.
Nana Shimura, sitting on the couch, straight-backed and easy at the same time, the way she did everything, like she had made a decision about how to occupy the world and was simply carrying it out. Her hero costume. The familiar lines of her face. The expression she wore when she was thinking something she wasn't going to say yet.
He has imagined this conversation more times than he has counted.
"A boy who talks to me like he already knows what it costs," he says. "And another one who is going to be extraordinary if he doesn't break himself getting there. And Midoriya." He pauses. "You would have liked Midoriya."
The seat is still empty. It is always empty. He knows that.
He looks at it anyway.
"I've been thinking," he says, "about what Izumi proposed. About whether there is another way for this to work. Whether the weight of it can be distributed instead of being carried by one." He is quiet for a moment. "He believes it. And from what I have seen, he is not someone who believes things carelessly."
Outside, something moves in the corridor, footsteps at a distance, a door closing somewhere further down the wing. Then quiet again.
"But that is for after," All Might says.
His voice is gentle when he says it. Not defeated. Not resigned. Gentle, the way someone is gentle with something they have decided about a long time ago and have made peace with.
"There is still one thing left for me to do," he says. "One thing that belongs to my generation. My fight. My failure that I have to finish, because I am the one who failed to finish it the first time."
He looks at his hands. The right one, which has its own history, its own damage that most people don't know about.
"He is still out there," he says. "Older now. Angrier, probably, if something like him experiences anger. Stronger, certainly. And I am not what I was when we last met." He folds his hands together. "I know that. I have known it for years. The numbers tell me clearly enough."
He does not say this with self-pity. He says it the way a soldier says the name of the terrain, plainly, because accurate information is more useful than comfortable information, and because Toshinori Yagi has never been someone who preferred comfortable to true.
"But these children," he says. "These extraordinary, furious, gentle, stubborn children who walked into my school and are already becoming things I didn't expect." He stops. "They need the path cleared. They need the thing that has been sitting in the road since before they were born moved out of the way so they can walk forward without it." He pauses. "That is my job. That is what I have left."
The light through the curtain is no more, the last of the evening gone, the room dim and quiet and the city outside beginning its shift into night.
He looks at the empty chair.
"I'm not afraid of it," he says. "I want you to know that. I was, once. Afraid of what the injury meant. Afraid of the clock it started. Afraid that I would reach the end of what my body could sustain before I had done enough to make the next generation safe." He pauses. "And then the boy came and told me what I had hoped was not true. And somehow, knowing it for certain was easier than not knowing." He exhales. "I'm not anymore. I know what I'm walking toward, and I know what I'm walking toward it for."
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped, eyes on the seat.
"I will do this one last thing," he says quietly. "I will stand up one more time and put myself between these children and what is coming for them, because that is what I have always done and because this time it matters more than any time before it. And then." He stops. "And then I will rest."
He says it without drama. Without ceremony. The way you say something you have been meaning to say for a long time, and have finally found the right room to say it in.
"I'll rest," he says again, softer. "And I'll come find you."
The seat is empty.
It is always empty.
But he has never quite been able to stop feeling like she is in it when he needs her to be, and tonight he decides that is not a weakness. Tonight, he decides it is simply what it is, the way that love persists past the point where it has anywhere to go, the way it finds the shape of an empty seat and fills it anyway.
He sits back.
He reaches for the teapot and pours a fresh cup, and this time he drinks it while it is still warm, the small discipline of a man who has decided that there is still time to get small things right.
Outside, somewhere distant in the school building, a door opens and closes. A student, probably. Heading home late. The small sounds of a normal day finishing itself.
He listens to it.
He thinks of Midoriya, running in the dark months ago on a beach that smelled of salt and rust, running until his legs gave out and then getting up and running again, with nothing to his name except the decision to keep going.
He thinks of Izumi standing in this room an hour ago, fifteen years old, telling him not to bow his head.
He thinks of Bakugo walking out of the door with something planted in him that he will spend the next several years trying to outrun, not knowing that outrunning it is exactly what will make him into what he is supposed to become.
He drinks his tea.
One more time, he thinks. Stand up one more time.
Then you can rest.
He sits in the quiet of his office until the cup is empty and the evening is complete.
Then he stands, straightens his jacket, and turns off the light.
***
The crowd outside the main gate has been there since morning.
Reporters pack the street shoulder to shoulder, cameras and microphones raised overhead, angled toward the school like instruments waiting to strike. They have been standing in rotating shifts for two days, and whatever patience they started with is thinning fast.
The moment a student appears, the crowd surges forward.
Questions fire from every direction.
"Hey, you!" A microphone appears from nowhere, thrust into a student's path. "Can you tell us what it's like learning directly under All Might?"
"Has he shown you any special techniques?"
"How does the Symbol of Peace act behind closed doors?"
Most of the upperclassmen with their experience dodge the questions and the reporters and get inside without breaking stride.
The first years are a different matter.
They have only been at U.A. for three days. Most of them are still adjusting to the idea that attention follows them now.
Midoriya ends up learning that lesson first.
He is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, close enough to the front that the crowd locks onto him immediately. Add in the fact that he looks approachable and reacts just a little too honestly, and the reporters converge like they've found an opening.
"You there!"
A reporter materialises at his shoulder. A microphone appears almost against his face.
"How does it feel studying under the Symbol of Peace?"
Midoriya freezes.
"W-What?"
"Has he already started teaching advanced hero techniques?"
"What's All Might really like behind the scenes?"
Seeing that they have finally caught a student, the rest close in, microphones extending from every angle.
Midoriya's eyes go wide.
"U-um, sorry," he stammers, stepping back as carefully as he can. He points behind himself. "I actually have to go to, uh, Recovery Girl, she's — the nurse's office, yeah, she's waiting for me, so —"
Without waiting for a response he slips through the nearest gap, ducks under the outstretched hand trying to catch his collar, and breaks into a walk that is technically not running but is doing its best impression.
The reporters shift immediately.
A new target presents itself.
Unfortunately for Uraraka, she happens to be the next student through.
"Young lady!"
A microphone swings in front of her.
"W-What?!"
"Are you one of All Might's students?"
"Uh—yes?"
"What's the Symbol of Peace like in person?"
She thinks for a moment, turning the question over with genuine effort as the pressure builds around her.
"Um… what's he like." A pause. "Well… uh —"
She flexes. Both arms, biceps engaged. Trying best to demonstrate.
"He's super muscley! Yeah!"
The reporters stare at her.
Uraraka flexes harder, more confidently.
"Like REALLY muscly!"
Two full seconds of silence pass.
Then, almost in unison, the reporters turn away.
"Let's move on.."
Uraraka slowly lowers her arms.
"…Was that not helpful?"
"No."
Tsuyu walks past without slowing.
"Not really. Ribbit."
A few students later, the reporters find a far more enthusiastic participant.
"Excuse me!"
A microphone extends toward Iida.
"What is it like studying under All Might?"
"An excellent question!"
Several reporters perk up.
'Finally. Someone cooperative.'
They fire more questions.
"How is he faring as a teacher?"
"What are the students learning?"
"I'm glad you asked," Iida says, His glasses catch the light as he adjusts them. "His leadership and wisdom are a daily reminder of the privilege it is to attend the world's most prestigious educational institution. Of course, he exemplifies the honour and integrity one would expect from the Number One Hero, but what I find particularly remarkable is his willingness to —"
The reporters' smiles begin to fade.
"Every day under his guidance inspires us to pursue greater heights while embodying the ideals expected of future heroes!"
The smiles are gone.
"His conduct is exemplary, his standards unmatched —"
One reporter slowly lowers her microphone.
"— and furthermore —"
Another is already looking for a different student.
"— his educational philosophy demonstrates remarkable —"
By the time he finishes, the reporters have fully moved on.
Iida pauses, blinking once.
"…I had more prepared," he says quietly, watching them leave.
The questions continue to ripple through the crowd.
A reporter asks Hagakure if it's strange being trained by a hero everyone idolises and receives a response she cannot attribute to any visible speaker.
Sero answers something briefly and keeps moving.
Juzo declines politely and disappears into the flow of students.
Then a reporter reaches Bakugo.
"Excuse me, kid! Are you in All Might's class? Oh — hold on." The reporter squints. "Aren't you that Sludge Villain kid? From last month?"
Bakugo stops walking.
The crowd behind the reporter senses something and goes slightly quieter.
The reporter swallows.
"…Right?"
Bakugo stares at him.
"Walk away," he says.
The reporter opens his mouth.
"I said walk away."
He closes it.
Then —
A sudden commotion erupts somewhere behind him.