People once believed that, when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.
Devil's Night. October 30th.
He could smell the fires burning from here, the restless blazes taking down nearby buildings only blocks away, as if the fires had come straight from Hell itself. Yet even those seemed to be nothing compared to the scene pro hero All Might was standing in right now.
He was quickly approaching middle age, his long hair shades lighter than his skin, and his form that of a well-exercised man gone slightly to seed. Beneath the blue, white and red of his hero uniform, which made him look like s relaxed symbol of hope, he was sweating. That perspiration had nothing to do with the hundred-plus fires that were spreading quickly across the inner city, however. Instead, it all had to do with the horrible scene unfolding all around him.
He looked down upon the scene unfolding six stories below where he stood, merely an extension of what was going on behind him – a young man dead on the ground as curious bystanders gathered around the man's body, even while paramedics covered the body up before taking it away. Turning back to the loft apartment, All Might couldn't help but take everything in here as well. The cops were dusting for fingerprints on whatever they could find among the mess the once-beautiful and spacious apartment now was, more cops starting to cradle a woman, her form and face bloody and bruised and only barely managing to breathe steadily.
Among the flotsam and jetsam of destroyed furniture, All Might came across one of the only things that survived relatively unscathed: a wedding invitation on engraved white paper for the two people that had suffered through this horrific scene.
"Hey, All Might?"
"Yeah", All Might answered, turning to the cop that had called for him as said cop pointed to a beautiful, ivory dress that cloaked a dressmaker's mannequin. "Momo Yaoyorozu and Izuku Midoriya. Their date was tomorrow night."
"Who the fuck goes out on a date on Halloween anyhow?"
"Nobody", All Might stated regretfully, focusing his attention to the woman – Momo – as she was being lifted onto a stretcher, an oxygen mask being fitted onto her as two more cops looked on in fear. One of them, a pale young man, looked up at All Might to say, "Sir, we've gotta move her."
With a nod, and knowing he'd have to face hell for it later, All Might simply stated, "Do it." At his words, the paramedics lifted the stretcher on which Momo laid and slowly escorted it downstairs to the ambulance.
"Devil's fuckin' Night", All Might heard one of the officers mutter. "What's the count so far?"
"143 fires", he answered begrudgingly.
"They're slackin' off from last year."
"Well, only three hours to go; they're probably just slow starters." Even as he said these words, All Might knew that it wouldn't take long for the gang responsible for these blazes to make up for their lost time. It seemed everyone in the inner city knew who they were, what they were notorious for.
Judas Priest, for his affinity with bayonets.
Grape, formerly known as Minoru Mineta, from his addiction to sex.
F-Bird, formerly known as Katsuki Bakugo, the main ringleader who always drove the car his nickname came from.
And Kirishima, F-Bird's friend who looked as though he'd killed his family.
As horrible as they were, All Might knew that simply dwelling on what they had done would get no one anywhere fast right now. Following the stretcher downstairs and outside, he defated to to Toshinori Yagi as his want to see Momo be relatively safe became swept to the side when he heard a man with long black hair in a sleeping bag and all black just out on the street.
"...weren't supposed to move her yet. There are rules for this sort of thing!" Finally Shota Aizawa better known as the quirk removing hero, Eraserhead, noticed Toshinori standing by the head of the stretcher. "This the victim?"
"No, Aizawa, it's Kyomi Takada. We found her and you missed it", Toshinori fired back, very much annoyed. Ever since they had first been put together, Aizawa and Aizawa had not gotten along in any sense – where All Might not only wanted to do his job, but live and work by the moral code that came with it. It was because of that moral conscience that he applied to his job that Toshinori as All Might had saved the city again, a couple of years prior.
"I know what her name is! I can see why you are slowly getting weaker.", he finished, referencing the incident Toxic Chainsaw a couple years ago.
"Yeah, because I was Strong enough but it was Toxic Chainsaw", Toshinori sarcastically responded before turning back to Momo, just as he noticed a brown haired teenage girl dressed in dark skater's clothing – t-shirt, pink jacket, black jacket, and black boots – glide up to the scene on her skateboard. "Come on, guys, let's go", he told the medics.
"Momo?" The girl's voice was only mildly shaky with fear and sadness at the scene. Even as he told her to keep back, Toshinori made no effort to stop her past that.
"Where's Izuku?" A hoarse, once-musical voice emanated from just behind the hanging oxygen mask covering the beaten woman's face.
"Just don't worry about him."
But Toshinori's attempt at calm gave no pause for Momo, her hoarse voice rasping out as All Might removed the mask for a brief moment to hear her more clearly. "Tell him to take care of Ochako", she requested of Toshinori.
He looked back to the brown haired teenager standing next to him, even as the medics placed the oxygen mask back on Momo's face. "I will, don't worry." Then, as they loaded Momo into the back of the ambulance and strapped the oxygen mask back onto her face., Toshinori turned to the young brown haired girl. "You're Ochako Uraraka from Class 1-A, right?"
"Yeah", she responded, silent tears beginning to flow down her young face and onto her black hoodie.
Doing his best to keep himself under control, Toshinori reassured her, "Listen, your friend ...she's going to be fine.
"Momo takes care of me...her and Deku." Her gaze flickered down from the cracked pavement and up into Toshinori's face.
"You lied to her about Deku." There was no questioning in her voice.
"I had to", All Might finally stated.
"And you're lying to me about Momo", Ochako stated, the sadness creating a slight crack in her voice. "She's going to die, isn't she?"
As much as he wanted to reassure Ochako that everything was going to be fine with Momo and Deku, All Might knew he couldn't lie to her any more than he had already tried. Izuku Midoriya, the successor of One for All being dead was a no-brainer – he'd taken a bayonet to the chest, a burn mark near his heart, and a toss out of the sixth story window of his loft. And Momo....
"Hey...it's ok", Toshinori said as he reverted back to All Might finally managed to get out, patting Ochako's shoulders in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "Everything's going to be fine. Because I'm here!"
But All Might found out the hard way that even that was a lie.
The staff working at Inner City Hospital already had their hands full with other victims of the Devil's Night devastation, but somehow they were able to find room for Momo. As All Might waited testily for news on her condition, he still managed to pay attention to the many doctors, nurses, and orderlies rushing about to their respective areas of call.
For what seemed like the thousandth time, he looked through the double bulletproof glass that separated the intensive care unit from the main part of the building. All Might couldn't see much of Momo over the shroud that covered her body and the doctors and nurses that rushed about her in their attempts to keep her alive, but he knew that whatever happened, they were trying their best. All he could do was follow their lead and wait.
The sounds of the hospital – intercom signals, calls from nurses and doctors across halls, gurney wheels clattering – blurred in and out of his slowly diminishing attention span, but All Might kept forcing himself to stay conscious of his environment – part out of his hero training, but mostly out of wanting to hear any news of Momo.
He got it, all right.
"All Might?" A skinny, orange haired man approached All Might, his mild face betraying the regret he must've been feeling inside. Even as he asked, All Might was sure he already knew the answer.
"How's she doing?"
"They've been trying to revive her for the last thirty hours. She's suffered some pretty severe injuries – concussion, lacerations all across her body, heavy bruising and bleeding. We tried everything we could – blood transfusions, IV, AED—"
"Just get to the point, kid. Is she going to be ok?"
At this, the kid looked down at the floor as if a weight had slowly been attached to his head. "I'm afraid not. No matter what we did, she never fully came around. And just now...she finally just gave it up. There was nothing else we could've done. She's dead."
She's dead.
Dead.
At first, the words had no meaning for All Might. Momo Yaoyorozu, a beautiful young woman with a heart as big as all outdoors, a heroine-to-be with a great eye for the world's natural beauty; and her hero-to-be boyfriend with an easy smile and warmer temper to match, were actually gone from this earth only because she had wanted to stand up for the rest of the people living in the building they did...
It was unthinkable, if only to him. Even now, All Might was half-expecting Momo to limp out of the room, trying to manage her bright white smile. It was hard to accept that he'd never see that smile again. He'd never hear the booming drums or wailing guitars of Izuku's band again. Nor would he ever hear his warm gravelly voice that, although well fitting of his band's music, sounded like it should've belonged in a chorus hall.
At that point, All Might's mind focused on only one thing – a line from one of Deku's songs. It seemed so ironic and untrue now.
It can't rain all the time.
Yet All Might had no idea just how right that quote would prove to be in just one short, succeeding year.