absolution.

flourish.

a/n: uhhhh immediate manga/anime spoilers !!! i think. it's about toshinori's mentor (does this count as spoiling myself if i haven't gotten to this point in canon but i'm writing abt it and taking creative liberties???)

also !! drug use [one-time for a minor, mostly by an adult] and minor prostitution(?) tw/cw!!!!! it's also in a section entirely centered around mineta, so like. when you get to the end of ojiro's section ["When Minoru's cleaning up like this for Mount Lady..."] skip that. there's a tiny tiny tiny section at the end that's important, but yeah !! if you wanna know what happens w/o gettin into the nitty-gritty, read the italics in the a/n

anyway please enjoy :]]

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Toshinori is not a good man. Nor is he an inherently bad one, he thinks, but he knows that he's not like how mostly everyone sees All Might as. Following this, Toshinori is also not a perfect person like All Might. He's just... himself. A man. One that should've died ages ago, but a man nonetheless.

On that spring day, standing on that rooftop, Izuku had looked at him with stars in his eyes, with an admiration that leaned towards reverence in his smile. With his black hair, green highlights, freckles, and green eyes, he looked nothing like Toshinori.

But Toshinori still saw himself. Bright-eyed, youthful, looking at Nana with awe, excited that she chose him, of all people, as her student. He was treated with more respect than most Quirkless people were, maybe because of his height or his natural strength, but that never meant he didn't get scorn. Even then, Toshinori kept his ambitions and let them fuel his every move, hoping that someday, one day, he'd be something more than just Quirkless. If that same ambition lurked in Izuku, no matter how small, then...

Toshinori thought of himself, looking at Izuku, very much reminded about how history repeats, and then thought of what Izuku could be in the future if he said yes. A vigilante, most likely, for most hero schools didn't accept Quirkless students and he wouldn't get into U.A.'s hero course. He'd go out at night and do all he could, possibly to spite those who said he couldn't. Maybe he'd get minor injuries from minor incidents, maybe he'd never be caught at all, but he'd catch the public's eye in due time.

At that point, maybe no one would want to stop a small-time vigilante like Izuku. He'd be considered a waste of time by other bigger villains and vigilantes and heroes. All of them except for Toshinori, of course, who'd most likely end up teaching Izuku. Maybe Toshinori would mentor him alongside the next holder of One for All. Maybe he wouldn't, deciding to teach them separately. It'd be horrible drama if it got out, anyway, and he thinks about headlines that dramatize Toshinori teaching a Quirkless vigilante as much as they can.

But then someone like All for One would come along, all dominating strength and true evil and power, and Toshinori would be weak, his protégés not yet strong, and—

(Fire all around them, ash in his hair, heat wild and raging, All for One standing before them, unwounded, Nana with cuts that go as deep as her bones and scrapes that rend her skin off, her smile so uncharacteristically soft as it stretches the cracked blood on her face, and then her hand pushes Toshinori away desperately, weakly, and Gran Torino's tugging him further back, Toshinori writhing in his arms and don't do this, please, Toshinori had begged, reaching out more, All for One's laughter ringing around them as Gran Torino—PLEASE, let him go, he needs to help, Toshinori has to—blasts up in a gust of pressurized air, and they pierce the sky, Nana and All for One far below them, and no, no nO NO NO NO NO, NANA, NANA, NANA—)

(Izuku would not last a second.)

(...Toshinori should be encouraging dreams, but Toshinori, weak and miserable and just a man, is not All Might.)