The End Of The War

Chapter 19

Izuku and Ochako were sitting on their cots back at the base. Ochako had tried explaining to everyone that what happened to Izuku was him completely losing himself to the Dark Side, but they didn't understand. They had said they were going to discuss whether they could stay. Izuku felt immense guilt at what he had done. He couldn't bear to talk to anyone the entire rest of the mission. Now he was holding Toshinori's now completely broken lightsaber in his hands, the guilt still weighing heavily on his mind and heart.

His lightsaber was still with Ochako, who was also just staring at it. She wasn't contemplating what to do with it. She was instead focused on how true the symbolism was. His life was in her hands. Unlike when they had unintentionally done it on Nevarro, she wasn't scrambling to give it back to Izuku. She wanted to hold on to it. She wanted to treasure it. Not just it, but the person to whom it belonged.

"Ochako, I--" Izuku started.

"Izuku, you don't have to apologize," Ochako said, "it wasn't your fault."

"But -"

"You fell to the Dark Side. You gave into anger and became someone else. I don't blame you. I blame the Tenth Brother for pushing you there."

She heard sniffling coming from him. She rose from her cot and walked over to Izuku, placing her left hand on his right shoulder. He brought his left hand up to it.

"When we first met, I thought that the idea of the Light and Dark were nothing more than extremes to fit everything into easy to understand categories," Ochako said, "while to some extent, I still believe so, I do believe now that there's more truth to your beliefs. Being driven by hatred, that's something that is fully wrong. Being mad at someone or something isn't. The Jedi were wrong to force you to suppress your emotions. While, yes, some aren't the best to have, emotions are still what make us human. It's natural to be angry, to hate, to love. And there is a danger to letting some emotions dictate our actions. But they still make us human," she walked around and knelt in front of him, gazing into his eyes, "so, please, stop beating yourself up about it. It's only natural that we should get carried away from time to time. What's important is that we find a way to come back from being consumed by those extreme feelings of hate. After all, we're only human."

Izuku felt tears streaming down his cheeks. He fell off of his cott and held her in a hug. She hugged him back.

"Thank you," he whispered, "I really needed that."

They stayed like that for a long time, and he just cried into her shoulder. Through a tiny opening in the door, Mina watched the two. She let out the quietest aww she could.

"Hey, horns, get back here. We need to discuss them," Katsuki called from the opposite side of the Dynamight.

Mina walked from the doorway, underneath the ship, to the group. Katsuki was standing with his arms folded while Camie stood next to him with her left hand on her hip, right hip out. Shoto and Momo were sitting on a pair of crates leaning forward, Denki and Kyoka were sitting on a crate that used to hold some of the cycler rifles, leaning back, and Eijiro was on the floor, cross legged. Mina sat next to him. What was basically the trial of Izuku Midoriya, and by proxy Ochako Uraraka, began.

"I think we should keep them around," Mina said, right out the gate.

Katsuki and Camie were the only ones who looked at her like she lost her mind.

"Did you lose your memory when you hit your own stun bolt?" Katsuki asked.

"Kitty-Kat, it's Mina. You know why she wants them to stay. It was just like with... What were their names? Sleepy and Joker?" Camie asked.