Collision; a BakuDeku story

Chapter 12

"And that's how I got permanently banned from Mongolia."

Toshinori's laugh echoed through the room as Midoriya scratched his head in a nervous manner, blushing a bit.

The nurse in the room paid no attention to their ghostly figures sitting down and leaning on the wall, and once she was finished checking out the unconscious Midoriya's stats she left the place.

Midoriya and Toshinori continued chuckling until their voices died down.
For Midoriya it was nice having company in this reality where his presence was invisible. But as much as he was enjoying the seemingly endless talks, whenever his eyes glanced over at his body he was painfully reminded of the situation he was in.

And there was the dark mist as well.
At first it remained somewhere deep in the white fog but it began moving little by little, until it eventually reached the room Midoriya was in. After that it remained there, not as something sinister but rather as a reminder that Midoriya will eventually need to face his past.

"Still no good? " Toshinori asked, shifting his eyes to the dark mist Midoriya was eyeing.

"No..."
Midoriya brought his knees to his chest, curling into a ball. He just needed a bit more time to muster the courage.

He averted his eyes from the dark matter to Toshinori's skinny figure.
"Sorry for dragging you into this."

Toshinori just chuckled a bit, nonchalantly flickering his wrist.
"It's fine young man, besides it's not like I got anywhere else to be."

Midoriya gave a small side smile, but it dropped as he thought about the said words.
"So, how's life on the other side? "

"It's..." Toshinori paused, his eyebrows narrowing while he searched for the right word, "peaceful."

And as if to back it up, a restful smile appeared on his relaxed face.
"That's really the best way to describe it, it's peaceful and full of warmth."

His eyes watched the ceiling while his mind obviously went somewhere else.
"People there, they let go of the pain and the earthly desires that once chained them down, and now they get to just enjoy the infinity of time I suppose."

"But there are those who return to an earthly life." he added.

"Like me? " Midoriya asked.

Toshinori eyed Midoriya with a frowned expression.
"Hmm not sure in how much detail I can go in," he spoke with caution, as if some higher force will punish him if he says too much, "then again" his face eased up "there's no guarantee you'll even remember most or any of the things here."

Midoriya wasn't really sure how to feel about that.

"No young Midoriya, not like you." Toshinori began by answering his question. "There are those who truly suffered in life, and they carry such deep scars that they deserve to have a new chance at a life without them." His eyes wandered into the distance again, melancholy appearing in them. "To balance out the suffering they endured in a previous life they are granted a new one; they are reborn into a different body and time, into a place where they don't remember the past sorrows, so that they can experience a life of happiness and fulfillment."

Midoriya didn't say anything once Toshinori finished, he just let the words sink in for a moment.

A chance for a new life...

"I..." he heard his voice but it was like someone else was speaking instead of him. "I never had a quirk of my own, and I don't think there's anything I ever wanted to have more than that." A painful smile appeared on his face "I wanted to be a Hero so bad, one that people could rely on," he clenched his throat, trying to stop the tears from overflowing "one that would make people smile and put them at ease with just my presence alone."