The dead keep trying

4: Meeting the successor

After running home, Maria joined Inko for dinner, eating a simple fried fish meal as outlined in the regiment. Finishing the meal, and placing the dish back in the washer, Maria decided to do some extra training, and ran to Dangbou Beach to lift a few more appliances to the local dumpster. While doing so, her mind wandered to random place, not noticing the tall, blond skeleton watching from the sidewalk. Once she got an extra microwave in the garbage, she went home to find Izuku waiting in his bedroom waiting for Maria to ask where she went.

'And where were you? Inko has been screaming for the last 5 minutes!'

"I was at the beach cleaning more okay? I just want to finish this chore as soon as possible."

Sighing to himself, knowing she's as overbearing on herself as on him, he relents. 'Fine. Just know you can't rush this.'

After the short exchange, and a cry-fest from Inko, Maria studied a bit before sleeping.

The next ten months fell into a blur for Maria. Go to school, get scolded and beat up, have Izuku prank them every once in a while, go home, eat, clean the beach, get scolded by Izuku for pushing herself too far, study, go to bed, wake up, rinse and repeat.

Maria went to the beach 2 days before the UA exams only to see... A blond skeleton, a buff tin-tin, and a clean beach. Maria decided to strike up a conversation to kill time.

"Hello mr. Skeleton, and mr. Tin-Tin. How are you two today?"

The tin-tin smiled and replied "Hello there miss. I'm Mirio, and this is my trainer Toshinori!"

The skeleton waved, and Maria decided to play along and ask blond Mario why he was here.

"So Mario, why are you here? Training with your sparking quirk? My name is Maria."

"It's Mirio, and Maria is a nice name. Yes, I'm training my quirk in a sense."

"What do you mean by that? is your body too weak for the quirk?"

"Well, that's about right."

'Maria, it's Izuku. I've seen these two talk before, and the skeleton is All-Might, and they are training the quirk All-Might gave Mario so he doesn't break his bones.'

"And you knew this for how long?"

'One day...'

Maria couldn't really hide her shock that well after the exchange, and wanted to know more, so she asked about things in a roundabout way.

"So Toshinori, is there any connection between you two besides a trainer-student relationship? There's something connecting you two much closer than that."

"Well...." Mirio averted his eyes and silently asked Toshinori to make up something.

"Young Maria, I understand your question. Me and Mirio are actually quite good friends, and I offered to train him because I went through the same issue of a self-harming quirk."

"Oh! Ok then! So All Might, why did you pass your quirk to Mirio?"

'Blunt much?'

All Might and Mirio stared at Maria for a second before realization dawned on them, and they quickly talked her ear off to try and tell her to never talk about that again.

Maria giggled at this before she laughed and assured them that she would never.

"I just wanted to ask if I could train with you as well."

All Might quickly agreed and the training started, but halfway through, Mirio asked the dreaded question Maria always hated answering.

"Hey Maria, what's your quirk?"

Maria sighed internally before answering in a monotone voice.

"My quirk is *Ghost Whisperer*. it allows me to hear the thoughts of the dead, and I can free them from hell to let the roam."

"That's pretty cool Maria. Do you have any ghosts with you right now?"

"I do. His name is Izuku. Died from suicide, and he's how I know about your secret. Including the wound."

"Can he show a sign or..."

Izuku sighed and took this as his que to write his name at Mirios feet, then poke his leg. Mirio looked down and around before asking Izuku what his age was. From there, Izuku nerded out with Mirio by writing in the sand.

Maria sighed and sat down with Toshinori following suit, and they watched the 2 fanboy/ghost talk about quirks, hero, strengths, weaknesses, and other things.