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Toshinori Yagi, better known by his hero name All Might, had been the symbol of peace for years. He worked hard every day to keep the smile on his face and to make people happy, but it was beyond hard….You see, Toshinori was never a healthy man, he was always working too hard, getting hurt, hardly eating. There was only one person who ever kept him on track with his health.
Sadly, she was long gone, never to come back. But he managed to cope all those years ago by throwing himself into his training.
Nana Shimura was a kind and amazing woman in Toshinoris eyes. She was the only mother he had, so he looked up to her and saw her as the best mentor and hero in the whole world...But amazing people like Nana couldn't really live forever, and he hated that.
Toshinori was the one who tried to comfort Nana when her husband or so many years was killed by All for One. He was the one who trained by her side in every waking moment that she allowed him to. It was wonderful and he loved every moment he spent with the motherly woman….And it was over fast.
One battle...One wrong move...One hard hit...That was all it took for Toshinori to see his Mentor collapse to the ground, pointing at him as symbolism for him to fight All for One next one day. It was a brutal death, and it scarred him and burnt into his mind. Seeing her collapsed to the ground and let out her last breath made him tremble and sob. Her death broke him obviously, broke him hard, and he threw himself into training, only stopping for classes or the small amount of times he was forced to eat something.
Even as Toshinori grew up, graduating and becoming the Number One Hero, he wrote multiple diary like entries about his days. He'd go to her grave at least one day of the month when he wasn't overseas working. He always brought a backpack of lunch and his notebook to tell her all about his fights, his agency work, and everything he could write down in general. It helped him relax after his nonstop working, and he could sit there for hours at a time just talking to himself regardless of any kind of weather.
He would do anything to bring the motherly figure in his life back, but sadly he couldn't. He couldn't do much at all, he didn't know anything about her still living family so there was no way he could speak to them. All she knew was that she had a son that she hardly raised at all, mainly to keep him safe from the nightmare that would happen if All for One learned. He had heard her speak of her grandchildren before though, the way she rambled about them and beamed when he asked about them. Those were some of his favorite memories, just watching her face light up in the most pride he had ever seen on the woman's face. Though he didn't actually know much about them but he Nana had left her son and...he didn't seem very happy about it.
But time passes, as Toshinori learned. People leave, titles change, life moves on...
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Izuku Midoriya, a bright smiled freckled boy, always bouncing around from one topic to the next in conversation. He was so determined to be a hero even while quirkless, and Toshinori saw a bit of himself in that boy running to save his friend. In that single moment he knew, that was the next holder of One for All, and Toshinori couldn't have picked a better kid than the one he got to see beam at him every morning during class.
Izuku was a social boy, being able to flash one of his toothy childish smiles and light a single room up with it. He could talk to someone, anyone, and become their best friend in just a few seconds...And even Katsuki, who seemed to despise the boy, could be comforted immediately by Izuku is anything went wrong...Toshinori found it amazing, know the boy would be a well loved hero in no time.
Toshinori trained Izuku hard, but the weirdest part was that Izuku would force himself to train harder and harder which made Toshinori proud...and also very concerned...So the hero had to make sure he was taking breaks and drinking water. Doing everything necessary to keep himself healthy, while Toshinori wasn't taking care of himself at all.
As the time that the Hero and apprentice dou knew each other grew, their relationship evolved. It had just been a simple Fanboy meeting his Hero who fulfilled his dream...Then it went to Izuku calling him Toshinori instead of All Might and the Hero calling the short boy Izuku. By the summer before Izukus last UA year, he was calling Toshinori dad.
Though, as Toshinori had once found out, Izuku was about to find that good things can't always last.
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Everyone at this point knew Toshinori was an unhealthy man, it wasn't a secret. He was skeletal, had one useless lung that made it hard to breath, and to top all that off, his appetite had declined drastically in just the past few months. So when the new UA school year started, he was nowhere to be seen.
He had been put in a hospital room, IVs covering his arms and an oxygen mask placed firmly on his face, as well as having feeding tubes...He was there for about a week, having ignored Izukus calls and messages the whole time. Though, one of the teachers must have told Izuku where he was, which would have been nice if he was just short of passing.
But Izuku came, cried when he saw and heard how little time his Hero had. So he sat, telling the weak man all the shenanigans his friends had been up to, who was dating who now, what drama was happening, and Toshinori listened closely with a bright smile on his face. Being beyond happy that the green haired freckled boy didn't have to watch him die suddenly in battle, at least he had time to prepare.
The next day, Toshinoris last day, was a peaceful one for him. For Izuku though? Not so much. The boy came with a backpack, it hardly had anything but a ukulele that Katsuki had taught him to play years ago...And he came in, forcing a bright smile and talking about the day, asking Toshinori how he felt, the answer was always "Amazing", before pulling out the ukulele.
Izuku played song after song, for nearly an hour, just to watch how Toshinori beamed with pride and happiness...And then the happiness was over, the soft song he was playing and singing to abruptly ended at the long, almost deafening sound of the heart monitor. Izuku couldn't do anything but sob as he packed his things and stumbled back to UA.
There was a funeral, but Izuku didn't go since it was for the public and would have been so crowded. What he did do was visit Toshinoris grave as often as he could...Toshinori would have laughed if he could see Izuku doing the same thing at his grave that he did at Nanas. But Izuku found comfort in updating his only father figure.
Years later, Izuku continued his visits, telling Toshinori about his own little successor. He rambled about how they were going to be even better than any other holder. Beaming as he spoke about how young children would say they wanted to be like him.
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Though he knew that his successor needed to learn to work through the past. And when Izukus death comes they would...just like every other holder.