….
Wrapping up a few more proceedings on his way - Dabi was moving again, intent on finding a certain winged Hero - Hawks, whose agency was based in Kyushu near Fukuoka.
He was currently in Osaka, where Stain's [Red Justice] Agency operated and where, coincidentally, Nighteye's office was also located.
The distance between Osaka and Fukuoka was roughly five hundred kilometers, taking about three and a half to four hours by bullet train or around ninety minutes by air.
The question was why he actually had to go at all.
"Yeah, yeah. I am on my way to get the autograph, Miss Eri. With a photo of your favorite hero." Dabi held his phone between his ear and his shoulder.
When he said the word favorite, the corner of his mouth twitched.
On the other end, the little girl sounded like she was bouncing off the walls. ["Thank you, Papa! You're the best! You're really really going to get it?"]
"You've really figured out how to make people do whatever you want, haven't you."
["Hehe. Big sis Fuyumi taught me well."]
Dabi sighed through his nose.
He was being pulled back into everything he had spent years avoiding, and it was becoming clear there was no way out.
["Also, Papa."] Her voice got smaller, the way it did when she was being serious. ["Take care, okay? And, um. Safe travels."]
"Don't worry about me. I will be back home without a scratch."
["You promise?"]
"I promise."
The call ended.
While that was the main reason for his visit, he also hadn't been lying when he told Stain he needed to check on his student.
As he continued down the thoroughfare, he looked around–
Billboards lined the street, and the sidewalks were occupied by kids everywhere, running around with stuffed toy versions of Pro Heroes, and dragging their parents towards their favourite posters.
One kid was hugging a Hawks plushie to his chest like it was the most important object in the world.
Dabi looked at it. "What's so great about being the number three hero." he muttered. "I could have that overgrown pigeon on the ground in one move."
But before any of that, he had to survive a one-hour flight.
"....anything for the little princess."
Hopefully he wouldn't throw up halfway there.
….
.
[The Nighteye Agency]
"So you're Midoriya? From Class 1-A?"
"Yes! And you're–" Midoriya looked at the older student standing in front of him, clearly trying to place his face and coming up empty. "I am sorry, I don't think we've..."
"I am also from U.A. Third year–"
Midoriya's brain caught up about half a second later, his spine went ramrod straight and he threw himself into a bow so fast he nearly headbutted his own knees. "You're our SENIOR? I am so sorry for not recognizing you! That's so rude of me, I should have… I mean, I…!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy!" the guy held up both hands, laughing, his face going a little pink.
"You're fine! Seriously, there is no way you would recognize me if we have never met. Don't worry about it." He scratched the back of his head. "Come on, let's get moving. Sir's not really the type who likes it when people show up late."
They started walking, and the older student turned to him with a grin that stretched across most of his face.
"Right, I guess I should start with a proper introduction - my name is Mirio Togata."
"Also known as the Comedy Hero, Lemillion - I am in Class 3-B at U.A."
Midoriya stopped walking. "Wait!!! Hold on a second, Togata… Lemillion..? That's, you're one of the Big Three?! That's ….oh my god, that's incredible, I have heard so much about–"
Mirio laughed again, louder this time, rubbing the back of his neck. "Man, you're gonna make me blush for real. Cut it out."
"Sorry! Sorry, I just… I can't believe I am actually meeting one of the–"
"Y'know what, Midoriya? I think I already like you." Mirio clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. "You are a good kid. I can tell."
They reached the entrance to Nighteye's office.
A woman was waiting near the front, blue skin, professional posture, a look on her face that said she was used to managing things that didn't want to be managed.
"Lemillion." She gave Mirio a look. "You're awfully cheerful today. Even for you."
"Am I? Haha, I guess so! Hey, is Sir inside?"
She nodded. "He is in his office, and this is the new intern?"
Midoriya stiffened up so fast his heels practically clicked together. "Yes, ma'am! Thank you very much for having me here! I will do my absolute best to–"
Bubble Girl held up a hand, smiling a little. "You're polite, that's good. But you might want to head in now if you don't want to begin on the wrong foot, because he is already waiting."
She turned to Mirio. "Sir said you can head out on patrol once you've dropped him off."
"Roger that." Mirio turned to Midoriya and gave him a thumbs up. "Hey. You will be great in there. Don't overthink it, okay? Just be yourself."
"Thank you, Togata! And good luck on your patrol! Stay safe out there!"
"See you around, Midoriya!" Mirio was already jogging away, waving over his shoulder.
Midoriya took a breath, then another one and he went inside.
Sir Nighteye sat behind his desk, reviewing paperwork without looking up as the door opened or when Midoriya stepped in and stopped before him; only after finishing the page and setting it aside did he raise his gaze, studying Midoriya like a problem already solved, with a result he found disappointing.
"I wasn't wrong about you." Nighteye said. "You don't have what it takes to wield One For All."
Two months ago, they would have knocked the air from Midoriya's lungs, leaving him flinching, stuttering, and scrambling to defend a worthiness he barely felt.
But now? He didn't even blink.
Dabi was worse. Dabi said things to your face with a jagged, zero-hesitation cruelty that didn't soften a single syllable.
And then there was Rumi, who had told Midoriya the exact same thing Nighteye had just said, except she had been eating an apple at the time and hadn't even slowed down chewing.
Compared to the 'Underground Ghost' and the 'Rabbit Hero,' this was just a conversation.
"I am doing everything I can." Midoriya said. "All Might trusted me with this, and I am–"
"And if this is truly everything you're capable of, then it simply isn't enough." Nighteye said, his tone flat and clinical, as though he were reciting the outcome of an evaluation. "All Might would have been better served choosing Dabi - or even Lemillion, for that matter, as either of them would have been a far more suitable successor."
Midoriya blinked. "Dabi-sensei? And... Lemillion?"
"Ah." Nighteye leaned back in his chair. "So he never told you, which means you really believed you were the first candidate - that All Might simply saw you one day and made his decision on the spot."
Midoriya didn't answer. His mouth opened, then snapped shut.
"Lemillion didn't know it at the time, but he was the prime choice." Nighteye continued, adjusting his frames. "And as for Dabi, he was offered One For All outright - and he refused it."
He let that sit for a second.
"In my assessment, Dabi was the most suitable candidate… By a wide margin."
This wasn't a blind claim. Nighteye had used his [Foresight] on Dabi once.
The vision had been unusually unclear, more so than any he had ever experienced, yet what little he could discern was undeniable:
Dabi would have become a Hero of such magnitude that the term 'Symbol of Peace' would have felt small.
Greater than All Might.
…and when Nighteye tried to recall the specific details, only blurred, grotesquely majestic images remained.
A clash, perhaps, not merely a fight but two creators colliding… One wreathed in fire, its breath devouring everything in its path.
And then, afterward… stillness and peace?
Whatever lay in Dabi's future, it was a horizon Nighteye had never seen before.
"It was a genuine waste that he refused the offer." Nighteye continued, folding his hands on the desk. "If not him, then Lemillion, that was the intended course, and how matters should have proceeded, until you appeared unexpectedly and–"
He cut himself off. "Well. Here we are."
'Dabi-sensei refused One For All?' Midoriya remained quiet. A thousand thoughts collided in his head.
He knew nothing of 'Lemillion' beyond the last fifteen minutes, but Dabi?
He saw Dabi almost every day from the past year.
He trained under him, observing how he moved, thought, and handled threats with a terrifying, effortless efficiency.
It made perfect sense.
Of course All Might had considered others - candidates who, on paper and in practice, by every measurable standard, far surpassed a quirkless kid who couldn't even throw a punch without breaking his own bones.
Why didn't I think about that before?
Nighteye studied him, reading the boy's face for the telltale signs of a crumbling spirit. He saw the uncertainty and straightened slightly, a faint hint of vindication in his posture.
Then Midoriya said–
"It doesn't matter."
"Excuse me?" Nighteye's eyebrows twitched.
"I said it doesn't matter." Midoriya looked at him directly. "Who was considered? Who was offered? Who turned it down? None of that changes the reality of right now. Because right now, I am the one holding it."
His hands trembled - a visible, frantic vibration, and he made no move to hide it.
"All Might was fully aware there were stronger candidates, people like Dabi-sensei or Togata-senpai, and he still chose me."
"I don't fully understand it, and maybe I never will, but I can't stand here chasing what-ifs when I already carry this power and people are depending on me to move forward." he said, swallowing hard before steadying himself. "I have made my decision - I am going to become the greatest hero in the world, no matter what the odds are."
Nighteye studied the boy before his desk - hands trembling, voice steady, and an expression far too stubborn for someone with his track record.
"You're cocky." Nighteye remarked. "And you have absolutely no basis for it."
"I am well aware of my shortcomings."
"...fine." Nighteye reached for a pen on his desk and held it up between two fingers. "Take this from my hand. If you can do that much, I will acknowledge your presence in this office."
Midoriya looked at the pen, and then at Nighteye.
"I don't need you to acknowledge me." he said. "But I want you to acknowledge that All Might wasn't wrong."
Nighteye's expression remained a mask of stone. He kept the pen aloft.
In the next heartbeat, Midoriya moved.
A blur of green laced with a crackling red edge, gone from where he had been standing before Nighteye could blink.
The sonic pressure hit a half-second later, ruffling the papers on the desk and violently flipped the pages of the document Nighteye had been reading.
The pen was no longer between his fingers.
Until that exact millisecond, Nighteye hadn't used his quirk on Midoriya, relying instead on his own judgment - because if he had, he wouldn't have underestimated him to this extent.
But the instant Midoriya said he would prove All Might wasn't wrong, Nighteye activated Foresight, and by then, it was already too late–
He saw the frames play out in advance: Midoriya's knees bending, numbers slipping under his breath as the power climbed - ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, layered with the same [Total Concentration Breathing] Dabi uses.
Every frame played out before it happened… and still, Nighteye couldn't react fast enough.
Even if he had tried to adjust, moved the pen to his other hand, held it at a different angle, shifted his grip, the result would have been the same.
His quirk was passive - it showed him the future but didn't make his body fast enough to change it.
A sharp crack echoed against the far wall.
When the dust settled, Nighteye turned slowly in his chair.
Midoriya was braced against the fractured plaster, the pen gripped tightly in his left hand. His right arm was trembling violently from pushing a percentage his muscles weren't ready for, and his knees were scraped raw from the high-velocity landing.
But he was smiling.
"I won." Midoriya said, holding up the pen.
Nighteye's gaze shifted from the boy to the impact site on the wall.
"At the last moment, you veered left in midair and threw off your trajectory, so I want to know why you made that adjustm–"
He cut himself off, as his gaze settled on what hung directly behind where Midoriya's shoulder would have struck: a vintage All Might poster, limited edition, hand-signed.
"Hm?" Midoriya tilted his head, still breathing hard. "Sorry, were you saying something?"
Nighteye looked from the poster to the boy on the floor - who had cracked his wall, stolen his pen, and still veered midair at that speed to avoid damaging a piece of memorabilia.
"...nothing." he said, and shook his head. "Absolutely nothing."
.
….
[To be continued…]
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