Before this chapter begins, I just wanted to say that I listened to In This Shirt by The Irrepressibles (slowed) and I have not been the same. So, if you're looking for a song recommendation, there it is :)))
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Nana Shimura stared out at the lake before her, hands on her hips as her chest rose and fell; disappointment written through every poised inch of her body. Her face was hard, full of strong resentment for the boy she had taken in as her own.
She checked her watch, furrowing her eyebrows as she mumbled about how she ought to beat that boy's skull in.
She placed her hands back onto her hips; not turning to greet the blond boy who stumbled from the brush behind her. He tripped, turning to swat at the berry bush that had snagged him by the ankle of his sweatpants. His day was already bad enough... but being attacked by a berry bush? He grumbled, bringing his foot back as he swung at the roots. There was a loud cracking sound when it snapped in half, berries flying through the grass beside him. He huffed, rolling his eyes as he turned to jut his hands into his pockets.
He kept his head lowered, a shameful fact hanging over his head that nobody besides him and the girl knew of. Something he planned on keeping hidden.
He glanced at Nana, sighing as he glanced out at the water she seemed so intent on watching. His mouth fell slightly agape at the tight air, swaying on his feet as he glanced out at the water; waiting for a fish to jump out or a duck to soar by. But there was nothing.
Finally, he softly spoke up. "Master?"
"Kazumi Okuma... is she pregnant?"
He gasped, watching her glare never fade from the water before them. His master was terrifying enough but... her standing before him with her chest puffed out and bearing her famous hero costume... his knees trembled before him. This woman was like his mother after all, how could he have ever thought she wouldn't find out!?
His face burned, his body beginning to tremble as he threw his hands into the air and began to walk towards her. She sighed, closing her eyes as she held a single hand up to stop him from moving any closer. Still, he was determined to spew some sort of lie and keep his unborn child a secret just a little bit longer. "It was a mistake, master. I-"
"Save your lies, I don't wish for my image of you to be ruined more than it already has. Toshinori, do you understand what you've done!? I thought my own battle of having to send my child away would have been enough to scare you into never even looking a woman's way. Have you no respect? Do you understand what kind of life you've just created for this baby? Do you understand the horrid fate you've caused the mother and child!?" She was tearing up now, her lips quivering as she stared down at the now terrified boy beside her. A tear ran down her face and quickly she wiped it away, turning back to the water. She was silent again, a quick sniffle and a small chuckle before she glanced down at the boy in shame. "Do you have anything to say for yourself!?"
"I can protect the baby," He stated. "I'll get stronger. I'll keep her safe, I'll-"
"Toshinori, that woman went behind your back. She was going to get rid of that baby. You had to offer her compensation just to spare that unborn child's death! You should have let her do it," She spat. "You might've saved the baby a slow and painful death."
Nana never meant what she said but... she was so terrified at the fate of this child that all she could think was- how easy it's life would be if it never began to experience it in the first place.
"Don't talk about her like that! Like she's just some nuisance... She already has a name, I'd like for you to use it." He snapped back, growing red in the face with anger as his fists shook at his sides.
"Oh god. You've already named it," Nana's body erupted with a quiet sob, a pitiful laugh of pain as she stared at the water before her. "Well, go on Toshinori. Tell me the damned child's name," She cried.
"Asami," He smiled, clenching the hem of his sweatshirt in order to contain his excitement. His cheeks burned, the simple thought of spending birthdays with pink hair bows tied into his hair and days of teaching her how to throw a punch already causing his heart to race. That stupid idea... well it made his chest swell with pride more than anything.
"Asami, huh? What's that supposed to even mean," She muttered, scoffing as she rubbed her eyes.
"It means Morning Beauty," he smiled. The wind blew through his hair as he uttered the meaning of his child's name. In that moment, he took it as a sign from God that this name was a good one. A fitting name. "One day... I'll buy the two of us a big house and her and I will watch the sunrise every morning. I'll wake her up and the two of us will share a pot of coffee... We'll joke about the boys at school that I'll have to threaten off of her," He chuckled, wiping his eyes that had begun to ache and grow damp just at the mere thought of something so innocent being his. "Every Sunday... I'll buy her a bouquet of Morning Glories. How's that sound, master?" His cheeks burned, looking to the woman he saw as a mother as he waited for her approval. That had to win her over. Right? Morning Glories were her favorite. The idea of a child that would grow to be her granddaughter... The image of her had to make the women's heart squeeze... Right?
"Sounds to me like a childish and naive dream, Toshinori. You cannot protect this child against the evil forces that will pine after her like the lottery. Do you understand me? At all!? They will tear that baby limb from limb and parade her like a trophy if you choose to keep her in the life you've chosen to live. Is that really what you want!? Don't you think I would've enjoyed a life like that with my son!?" Tears poured down her face, her chest aching at the thought of her only child. "His father was murdered for the life I lived, do you want that for the mother of your child!?"
"I don't care about her mother. She agreed to pass Asami off to me as soon as she is born," He explained, his mind beginning to race as he wondered how he was ever going to get through to the woman beside him.
Nana was silent for a moment, glancing over her shoulder to the boy who looked at her pleadingly; begging for her to tell him that there was a way.
She sighed, looking out at the sky as she wondered if her son was watching the same sunset as her. "Kotaro would be forty today," She sighed.
All Might cocked an eyebrow at her, forgetting that this was simply the ghost of Nana. The woman who had passed away years ago. No matter if she died, Nana still came to this very spot every Sunday at seven o'clock exactly. Just to watch the sunset that she hoped her son watched as well.
All Might sighed, finally remembering this was simply a ghost that he was enabled to see with the power of One For All that still flowed strongly through his veins. Time was dwindling... his time to face All For One quickly approaching.
"Do not let the blood of that baby girl stain your hands, Toshinori. Send her far away. Get her away from that mother of hers that will eventually bring about the demise of that baby. Kazumi Okuma is a wild child; a drug obsessed and introverted woman who spends her time in alleyways and speaking to masked men in tongues. How you fell to lay with that nuisance, I'll never understand. You've always had a thing for deceitful women. That life you live as a bachelor is over. If you want to see that baby ever again; you must defeat All For One and rid this world of evil. Rid this world of anything that could ever cause harm or scar the child. Then, and only then, may you bring Asami home." She glanced over to him, reaching a hand out and offering a pitiful smile. Silently, tears fell from his eyes as he reached out and embraced the cold hand of a ghost. "I like her name, Toshinori." She smiled, squeezing his hand one last time before she began to fade away.
"Wait- master! Don't go!" He yelled, swiping his hands through thin air as he tried to grab her and force her to stay with him.
"Toshinori, I will protect Asami Yagi. That, I can promise you." With a final smile, she melted away to nothing.
Toshinori screamed, a painful and horrid cry that made every bird within a hundred-mile radius take flight into the skies around him. His fist slammed into the concrete below him in a flash of yellow lightning; the once impenetrable ground turning to dust as he fell to his knees in a fit of despair.
He sat there for a moment, letting the tears roll off his cheeks and nose and onto the rubble below him. He'd ripped his sleeve to shreds during his fit, something he hadn't done in a long time.
He knew what he had to do. Though he could never directly be in Asami's life- he vowed to watch her from afar until the day she turned of age. Of an age that he could pretend to be her successor and become the father she would want.
Eventually,
Nine month's time had passed.
As October fifteenth rolled around, Toshinori Yagi found himself "volunteering" in the local children's hospital. Dressed in his hero costume, he walked the hallways of the labor and delivery unit. His heart was pounding, practically beating through his chest every time he passed room number, 47.
There was a woman behind the door; one he had watched fly in through an ambulance. It was snowing that day; two feet of snow found itself nestled outside the hospital as the patients found themselves locked in.
Toshinori, in desperate need of a way to even hear his child's first cry, scrambled for an idea.
Just years before, All Might had found himself saving a young Rei Himura from a car crash in the town of Musutafu Japan. The wealthy family of snow and ice quirks; devoted themselves to owing him a favor of which he so chooses. Now, just a few years later, he found himself asking the family to create a flurry so strong that patients of the Shimura Memorial Hospital would be forced to stay in for the night.
The family happily obliged; still elated and living off the high that their daughter Rei Todoroki and husband, Enji Todoroki, had welcomed a baby boy just a few months before. Too elated to even ask questions as to why Toshinori Yagi would ask for them to lock Japan down in a fit of snow in mid-October.
Toshinori was sweating, rubbing his hands together furiously as the nurses watched him peek through the window of the delivery room. They didn't ask questions when he shed tears. Didn't ask questions when he phoned David Shield and Sorahiko Torino in a fit of elated cries and hushed whispers.
After all, who could ever question the number one hero?
He stood outside the door, pretending to hand out blue-colored lollipops to children passing him as they all crawled all over him and begged for pictures. Toshinori, too elated with his child's birth to give a damn, of course , happily gave in. He cried cheerfully, bouncing the children through the air and asking to see their quirks as he glanced through the window every few moments.
Finally, as the night died down and the children locked in for the night found themselves sleeping soundly in their assigned rooms- All Might found himself pacing the hallways. He wanted to see Asami... but he wasn't sure how. He followed every nurse that went out of the 47th room, careful to not be seen as they ignored his presence and boiled it down to simply being his caring and inquisitive nature.
Toshinori was relentless. This only proved to work in his favor. He hid behind a corner; watching Kazumi Okuma stumble from her delivery room with an IV Bag still attached to her arm. He didn't bother to follow her and see where she wandered off to; she wasn't the girl he cared for.
All Might watched as a nurse exited the room; cursing the baby's mother up and down as she bounced the bundle of pink blankets in her arms. All Might was practically gushing at the sight; something so innocent and fragile- actually his.
And she was right there.
He kept tabs on the nurse; careful to keep an eye on where she had wandered off to with his baby in her hands. He hummed happily; singing along to a lullaby he had memorized just to teach to her one day. He greeted every passing person; offering hugs and high-fives to everyone. Big and small, evil and good, young and old- he didn't care.
He was on his way to find his baby after all.
He stopped at the room labeled, "NEWBORN NURSERY."
He smiled, humming to himself and pressing his hands to the glass as he found the nurse from earlier laying Asami into an empty bassinet. Asami cooed; a happy baby with perfect skin and bright blue eyes. She had pink cheeks, a voice already so soft and loving that it made her father's knees weak. He swooned at the sight of her, one hand pressed to the swelling heart in his chest as his other hand quickly swept away at the tears pouring from his eyes.
The nurses fawned over Asami, desperate to pinch and prod at her chubby cheeks as she playfully grabbed at their fingers. Finally, they were all ushered away by a doctor as he was finally given a clear view of his daughter.
She looked directly at him, their eyes interlocked as she seemed to recognize her father almost immediately. She began kicking playfully against the blanket swaddling her; making grabby hands at the man watching her before plopping them into her mouth and beginning to lull herself to sleep with the suckle of her fingers.
"Is she yours? She's beautiful," Toshinori looked over, finding a short and thin woman waving playfully to his daughter as her eyes glimmered in the lighting.
Toshinori was smitten just at the sight of this woman.
"Don't worry, I won't tell a soul. You can't convince me otherwise, nobody looks at a baby like that without being a parent," The woman laughed, coddling her hands over her chest lovingly as she glanced between the number one hero and the baby. Toshinori simply stared at her... beginning to feel his hands' sweat and his words fumble before he even spoke to her. "I'm Inko Midoriya," She smiled, meeting the man's eyes as she reached her hand out to him.
Toshinori stumbled over his words, wiping his hands off before softly taking her hand and shaking it, unknowingly stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.
He wasn't sure if he was smitten over this woman... or simply so overcome with love at the birth of his daughter that he was willing to share it with anyone. "I'm Toshinori Yagi," He smiled, quickly swallowing the nervous lump in his throat as he glanced her over once more.
She giggled, "I know who you are." She pressed her hand to the glass as she stood on the tips of her toes to get a better look at his baby. "She's got your eyes," Inko sighed lovingly.
She always seemed to have a thing for All Might's eyes...
"She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Toshinori said proudly, his eyes falling back onto his daughter who had yet to look away from him.
"What's her name? If you don't mind my asking," She asked softly, the two of them watching the baby before them.
"Asami," he said. "Asami Nana Okuma."
"A middle name? That's uncommon in Japan. Still, a pretty name for a pretty girl," She smiled.
"I enjoy American culture."
Inko laughed loudly, latching her small fingers onto the sleeve of his costume as she pulled him to her height. She sighed, tsking her tongue at how her heart surged at the sight before her. "Look!" She laughed. "That's my son beside her... it seems he's just as smitten with the girl as her father."
Toshinori looked beside Asami's bassinet, finding a boy with green eyes and thick, curly green hair beginning to coo and make grabby hands at his daughter. "He must be older?" Toshinori asked, cocking his eyebrow at the small bundle.
"July fifteenth. He's three months today." She smiled, speaking proudly of her son as she glanced up to find Toshinori tapping on the glass as he tried to retain the attention of his daughter.
Retain the attention of his daughter who was now looking through the cracks of her bassinet for the boy beside her.
Suddenly, there was a loud crashing from down the hallway and a series of angered screams and cries. He recognized the voice threatening everyone touching her; immediately making his skin crawl... Kazumi.
All Might looked back to his daughter, flattening his hands against the glass as he suddenly became terrified that he would never get to see her this up close again. He grit his teeth, a soft angered pain of agony seeping from the depths of his throat as he watched his daughter innocently make eyes with the boy beside her.
"Look at me, please," He cried, tears streaming down his face as he curled his hand into a fist, slowly dragging it down the glass. He bit down on his bottom lip as it began to quiver; too afraid that he would cry aloud and expose his presence to Asami's mother.
"Toshinori- are you okay?" Inko asked from beside him, tugging on his sleeve as she looked up to meet his tearful and reddened eyes.
"I have to.. I enjoyed our time but I must... I- I-"
"Go." She smiled. "Izuku and I... Well we'll make sure Asami is okay." She hummed, crossing her arms as she watched the two bundles lovingly.
"Thank you," All Might said with a shaky voice.
He gasped, looking up to find the ghost of Nana standing beside Inko, her hand pressed to the glass as she smiled lovingly at her student's daughter. "She's beautiful, Toshinori."
Suddenly, all seven users of One For All turned to face him, smitten at the sight of his daughter as they smiled.
"Toshinori, I vowed to protect Asami." Nana smiled.
Then, in unison, they all spoke, "We all will."
With the safety of his daughter ensured between not only his predecessors, but the mother and child he had met by fate- Toshinori took off from the hospital into the snowy night air.
He cried, his voice thundering loudly in the quiet of the snowstorm as he soared through the skies. Tears streamed down his face, falling through the air behind him as he allowed himself to violently sob at the loss he had just suffered. His voice choked, screaming one last time as he burned the image of his daughter into his mind.
In one final fit of desperation, Toshinori Yagi screamed at the top of his lungs as he vowed to protect his daughter to his last breath.