All the Light That Can't Be Seen: A My Hero Academia Fanfiction

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT.

DAYS turn into weeks and weeks bleed into months. Spring comes and goes in a whirlwind of activity, exams stressful while still continuously working to better themselves. Summer crawls past in a fog of heat and humidity, Aizawa as merciless as ever during the training camp exercise. Autumn creeps into the mornings, chilling the summer sun, but the afternoons are still hot as ever.

Izuku doesn't notice the change very much until he realizes one day that he's gotten taller than the girls. He's pretty much accepted that the only guy he's going to surpass in height is Mineta, but it's a surprise when he realizes that he's a solid two or three inches taller than Uraraka one day, when he's talking to her.

Time travels swiftly.

~...~

He can't quite remember the way his mom said his name anymore. It's been months since he last heard the sound of her voice, and it makes him want to cry, but he's cried so much that he doesn't think he has any tears left to cry. So he goes silent instead, as he tries and fails to remember.

Even his phone number changed, and whatever voicemails she left him are long gone. All he has left of him is that letter and the few things he's inherited.

He wishes he listened to her more, he wishes he had paid more attention to her words, but he hadn't.

Hindsight is fifty-fifty for a reason.

~...~

Izuku hovers by the door to the staff room, back flat against the wall, as he listens in on his teachers' conversation. Uraraka and Iida hover beside him.

They had all come down here to get permission to go off the school grounds this weekend, to buy presents for the upcoming festival. They hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but Izuku had heard them talking about the villain activity, and he had shushed them.

Not even Iida protested. But then, Iida must feel just as desperate as Izuku to at least get some news from the outside world. Izuku had been stuck in his head, had barely noticed the lockdown on the school, had barely noticed how all the news reports seemed oddly quiet about villain activity, but he's starting to realize that something is not right.

He doesn't quite expect to stumble on Aizawa-sensei and Ms Joke-sensei talking in the lounge. He doesn't mean to eavesdrop on them at first—it honestly started innocently, at Uraraka's softly spoken "maybe we'll be able to figure out what Aizawa-sensei might like," and then it kind of just— spiraled on from there.

And here they are now.

Eavesdropping, shamelessly.

"The government is serious?" Ms Joke says—or, at least, Izuku assumes it's her because the disembodied voice is definitely female and not male.

"Quite. They don't even want us to explain to the third years that they're being targeted by All for One."

"They've limited our transparency with the public, told us not to tell news feeds about whether or not we're defeating villains, and now they're expecting us to not even warn our students that they're in danger?!"

"It's starting exactly how Sir Nighteye predicted. The prime minister is growing increasingly paranoid about the state of affairs between the League of Villains and heroism, after the fall of All Might."

"Just wonderful. How am I supposed to protect my kids when I'm unable to do a single thing to stop these monsters?"

"I don't know. But I will protect my students if it comes down to it, with any means necessary, even if I am labeled a villain by the government."