Requiem of the Broken

Chapter 5: Monument

About 30 minutes later, she had managed to navigate her way back into the city and to All Might park. She walked through the gates into the park proper, where she saw a large number of people milling about, all in formal attire similar to her own. Some were sitting on the ground chatting; others were off alone just standing around or sitting. All of them however were either congregated roughly around the statue of All Might or around the massive highly polished granite and obsidian memorial.

She walked over towards the statue first and simply stared at the statue. She recalled the day she had first seen All Might on tv as a small child. He had inspired her and many others to be a hero when she grew up. Later, she would come to admire Thirteen immensely, his quirk, similar to her own (sort of) had made her realize there was more to heroes than battling villains. He had used his admittedly powerful quirk to instead primarily save people and to stabilize the unstable areas. He was her inspiration to use her quirk to save people as a hero. Then she got into U.A. and she had actually gotten All Might as a teacher. It had been a surreal moment to actually see him in the same room as her class and to be their teacher as well. He had continued to inspire and awe her, even as he died before her and the world at large, he had continued to inspire her. He died not only a hero's death but a martyr's death as well, in his death he had become a figure of legend. Someone who would go down in history as quite possibly the greatest hero of all time. Oh, how she wished he had lived, his presence, his power, could have possibly ended the war before it began. So many lives might have been saved, so much death and destruction prevented. But he had died, and so it had fallen on the shoulders of others to try and live up to his example. Needless to say, no one truly had managed it. Endeavor had come close, his death had been just as heroic and awe-inspiring as All Might's had been, but he hadn't lived long enough to accrue the same level of legend All Might had built up over time as Symbol of Peace. With a final, sad sigh, Ochako turned and walked towards the memorial.

As she got closer, she could see her friends close-by. They were standing around together and just chatting. It was a testament to the solemnness of everything that even Bakugo wasn't being very loud. Instead, he was relatively quiet from what she could see. She walked towards them, weaving in out of the groups of people. As she got closer, she could see Momo was talking to Tsuyu who stood nearby.

"It was pretty calm after that; we actually had a couple of days where we could-" Momo broke off when she spotted Ochako approaching. "Ochako! We were wondering where you were." Said Momo.

"Sorry everyone, I got held up on the way here." Said Ochako with a sheepish expression.

"Whatever, let's just get this over with." Said Bakugo gruffly, turning away and walking towards the monument.

As the group started down the path towards the monument, Ochako fell into step beside Tsuyu who was trailing behind everyone else. Tsuyu hadn't changed much in recent years, her biggest change was in her choice of hairstyle. Being in close combat often in the past, she had taken to having short hair to prevent villains from grabbing her hair. Her long hair proved a hindrance, especially since she used to keep her hair in a bow-like shape which made for convenient handholds. Ochako missed the hairstyle sometimes, but she had gotten used to the shorter hairstyle. She had to admit that Tsuyu looked very cute with the shorter hair in civilian clothes.

The biggest change Ochako noticed from when she had last seen her was the fact she was walking. Last, she had seen, Tsuyu had been forced to move around with the help of crutches. Today though she was walking unassisted, even if it was relatively slow and a tad unsteady. Tsuyu had adapted well to the prosthetic, it had been difficult to make one that fit her amphibious physiology correctly, but Nezu had made sure all of his students were well taken care of. When he had learned that Tsuyu would be unable to afford a prosthetic after getting a prosthetic right hand as well, he had come forward and paid for it himself. Now Tsuyu could walk around and interact as normal, even if she couldn't do hero work anymore. Not that Tsuyu had let that weigh her down, ever practical, Tsuyu had started looking for work.