"Another sleepless night, Toshi?"
David Shield's voice, filtered through the intercom, was heavy with familiar concern. From the large window of his private study, Toshinori Yagi watched the reflection of the futuristic city on the calm waters of the sea.
"Something like that, Dave," he replied, his own voice a hoarse whisper. "I'm just... thinking."
"You've been 'thinking' since you got back from Japan. At this rate, you're going to wear a hole in the floor with all your pacing. Why don't you come down to the workshop? A little noise and engine oil might clear your head."
"Maybe later. Thanks, Dave."
Toshinori cut the communication, and the silence returned with greater force. In his skeletal form, he felt as fragile as the city's reflection, a flickering image of what he once was. The weight of his time, running out relentlessly, was a constant pressure on his chest. His trip to Japan in search of a successor had ended not just in frustration, but in a disappointing silence.
He had returned to I-Island to recover, to think, but had only found the same old doubt, now with new shades of despair. Every candidate he had considered, every promising young hero, seemed to be missing something. An indefinable spark that he couldn't name, but whose absence he felt deep in his soul.
A soft beep pulled him from his melancholy. A new message had arrived at his terminal, highly encrypted. Origin: Principal Nezu, U.A.
With a tired sigh, he sat in front of the screen. It wasn't a simple email. It was a full report, a detailed analysis of the "Potential Development Project" he had reluctantly approved before leaving. A project that, at the time, had seemed like a distraction, centered on the strange boy with the training Quirk, Izuku Midoriya.
"Let's see what kind of madness Nezu has cooked up this time," he muttered to himself.
He began to read, his eyes scanning the technical data, progress evaluations, and growth projections. He saw the name of the candidate the boy had chosen, a choice that made him raise an eyebrow.
"Selected Candidate: Ibara Shiozaki. Quirk: Vines. Profile: Underestimated growth potential, but with a spiritual strength and purity of intent rating in the highest percentile recorded in U.A.'s files."
Interesting. An unusual choice. The boy hadn't gone for brute force, nor for popularity or spectacle. He had chosen a girl known for her pious nature and her defensive Quirk.
Then, his eyes fell on an excerpt that Nezu had highlighted with an attached personal note: "Toshinori, I know you are busy, but I thought this perspective from one of our most unique projects might prove… enlightening. Sincerely, Nezu."
Below the note was the direct quote from Midoriya's justification.
Toshinori read the words, and the world around him stopped.
"I'm not looking for the strongest or the flashiest. True heroism isn't about having a perfect Quirk. It's taking an imperfect Quirk, a Quirk the world sees as weak or strange, and still having the heart to choose to do good. My goal isn't to find the right power. It's to find the right heart."
The sentence hit him with the force of a Texas Smash.
The air escaped his lungs in a hiss. He had to grip the edge of the desk to steady himself, his knuckles white. He reread the sentence. And again. And a third time. The words didn't just make sense; they were the perfect articulation of a truth he had felt his entire life, a truth that had been the foundation of his own heroism, but that, in his desperation to find a replacement, he had forgotten how to express.
The right heart, not the right power.
He realized, with a clarity that was both painful and liberating, that his entire search had been flawed from the start. He had been looking for a "vessel." Someone strong enough to contain the power, like the young and brilliant Mirio. He had been looking for the right power to inherit more power.
He had been asking the wrong question all this time.
Restless, Toshinori stood up and began to pace, the movement a physical necessity to contain the storm raging inside him. The young Midoriya's words echoed in his head. He walked the silent halls of the research complex, his steps barely audible on the polished floor, each one marking the rhythm of a memory emerging from the depths of his mind.
His mind flew to the past. To a woman with a perpetual smile and a mole beneath her lip. Nana Shimura. His predecessor.
"You? You want to be a hero?"
Nana's voice echoed in his memory. He was just a teenager then, scrawny, Quirkless, with nothing more than an almost foolish idealism burning in his chest.
"Yes! More than anything in the world!" he had answered, his voice cracking with passion. "People… they seem scared. Even with all the heroes out there, they still don't feel safe. I want to become a symbol. Someone who, just by smiling, makes everyone know they're safe. I want the world to have a pillar to lean on!"
He remembered her look. She didn't see a weak, useless boy. She had seen beyond his frail body, beyond his lack of power.
"You have the heart of a fool, Toshinori Yagi," she had told him, and then her smile widened. "And that's exactly what's needed. A hero isn't someone who is never afraid, but someone who smiles in the face of fear so others don't have to. Power can be trained, it can be transferred. But a heart like yours… that can't be taught."
She hadn't chosen him for his strength. He had none! She had given him the power not because he was a worthy vessel, but because his spirit was already that of a hero.
"How could I forget?" he thought, a wave of shame washing over him as he stopped in the middle of the hallway. "Nana… I've failed you. I almost made the same mistake."
His steps, now with a new purpose, led him past one of the main biomechanics labs. Through the large observation window, he saw a light on. Despite the late hour, someone was still working.
It was Melissa.
She wasn't doing anything spectacular. She wasn't inventing a world changing device or deciphering a revolutionary equation. She was standing next to a young researcher, a boy named Robert who looked about to pull his hair out in frustration. On the table, a prototype support gauntlet lay inert, smoking slightly.
"It's useless, Shield-san," Robert was saying, his voice tinged with defeat. "The power matrix is unstable. Every time I try to calibrate it, it overloads the capacitors. I've been at this for three days. Maybe the base design is flawed."
Toshinori watched from the darkness of the hall. He saw Melissa, with infinite patience, place a reassuring hand on the young man's shoulder.
"The design isn't flawed, Robert-kun," she said, her voice soft and firm. "You're very close. Look."
With a quick motion, she projected the schematic onto the nearest holographic screen. Her fingers moved across the interface, isolating a tiny section of the circuitry.
"The problem isn't the matrix, it's the flow regulator. You're trying to force too much energy through a single channel. But if we bifurcate the output here," she pointed to a spot on the diagram, "and add a secondary micro heat sink here, you'll not only stabilize the flow, but you'll increase efficiency by fifteen percent."
Robert stared at her, his eyes wide. "Really? But that's... that's brilliant. Why didn't I see it?"
Melissa smiled, a genuine and kind smile. "Because you've been staring at it for three days. Sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes. Come on, try it. I'll help you with the soldering."
It was a small, selfless, anonymous act. An act purely dedicated to helping someone else succeed, to easing their burden without expecting anything in return.
Toshinori stood there, motionless, watching her. And in that simple scene, he saw the living embodiment of Izuku Midoriya's words.
He saw a hero's heart.
A heart that, just like his own, had been born without a power, but had never let that stop it from fighting for others. A heart that had dedicated its entire life to helping, to supporting, to creating tools so that others could be the heroes she could not be.
The doubt, the agony, and the uncertainty that had tormented him for months… evaporated.
His expression, once tired and filled with uncertainty, transformed. A calm, absolute certainty settled on his face, erasing the lines of worry.
The search was over. The answer had always been here.
David Shield's private workshop was a chaos of tools and prototypes. David was bent over a workbench, his concentration absolute as he adjusted the delicate circuits of a new bionic arm.
"Dave."
Toshinori's voice startled him. David turned and saw him standing in the entrance. His skeletal figure seemed even more fragile under the harsh workshop light, but it wasn't his physique that caught David's attention. It was the look on his face. The storm that had been raging in his eyes for weeks had calmed. In its place was a serenity David hadn't seen in years.
David turned off the welder. The buzzing stopped, leaving a sudden silence, broken only by the soft drip of lubricant into a container.
"Toshi," he said, his voice cautious as he set his tools on the bench. "What is it? You seem… different."
Toshinori walked into the workshop, his eyes scanning the symbols of his friend's life, a life dedicated to building, to repairing, to supporting.
"You were right," Toshinori said, his voice barely a whisper but clear in the silence. "I needed a little noise to clear my head." He stopped in front of David. "I'm scared, Dave."
The confession, so direct and unadorned, hit David hard. Toshinori rarely admitted fear. David wiped his hands on a rag and leaned against the workbench, giving his friend his full attention.
"Scared of what, Toshi? Is it your injury again?"
"No, it's… the future," Toshinori answered, looking at his own trembling hands. "The evil in the world is growing. I can feel it. And my own time… the embers of the power I have left… they're dying out. My trip to Japan to find a successor was a failure. I felt like every candidate, no matter how strong, was missing something. I came back feeling empty, like I had failed everyone who came before me."
David listened, his heart aching for his friend's pain. He knew that burden; he had seen it up close for decades.
"But tonight… something changed," Toshinori continued, and now his eyes met David's, and in them burned a new flame. "I received a report from U.A. about the approach of a new and promising mentor. A boy who reminded me of a lesson I nearly forgot in my desperation. He reminded me that it's not about finding the strongest vessel, or the most compatible Quirk. It's about finding the right heart."
He paused, taking a deep breath, gathering the courage to say the words that would change everything, not just for him, but for the entire world.
"I've been searching all over the world, David. All over Japan. And I've been a fool. A complete and utter fool. The answer, the spirit, the heart I've been so desperately searching for… it's always been right here. Right in front of me, all these years."
He paused, his voice thick with overwhelming emotion, the culmination of months of anguish and a lifetime of duty.
"It's Melissa."
The name fell into the silence of the workshop. David stood completely still. First, pure shock stole his breath. Then, an immense and uncontrollable wave of pride and joy surged in his chest, so intense it nearly choked him. Melissa… his Melissa… All Might's successor? It was the wildest dream she had ever had since she was a little girl, the secret dream they both knew was impossible.
And then, as quickly as it came, the pride was crushed by the weight of fear. A paternal, primal, and absolute fear.
"Toshi…" he managed to say, his voice hoarse, almost unrecognizable. He straightened up, his expression hardening. "Toshi, do you know what you're saying? Do you realize what this would mean for her?"
"I know better than anyone, Dave."
"No, you don't!" David retorted, his voice rising. "Melissa isn't like you! It's... it's everything she's ever dreamed of, yes. But the danger... the weight of that power... it could destroy her! That power tears apart bodies that aren't prepared! She's Quirkless, Toshi! She's a normal girl!"
"So was I!" Toshinori shot back, his voice firm, not backing down. "I was nothing! Less than nothing! And she is not a 'normal girl.' She has a brilliant mind and a spirit stronger than any hero I have ever known."
"Spirit doesn't stop bullets! Spirit doesn't protect you from the man who gave you that wound!" David snapped, pointing to Toshinori's side. "The enemies she would make. The target she would become. He… All For One… if he finds out there's a new holder, he will hunt her down. He'll tear her apart just to hurt you!"
"That's why we'll train her," Toshinori said, his voice becoming softer, more pleading. "You and I. We'll prepare her. Her mind is her greatest weapon. She'll build her own gear, her own fighting style. The power will just be a tool, not her only option. And the fact that she's Quirkless… is an advantage. A blank canvas. The power won't fight against an existing Quirk. It will be purer in her."
David ran a hand over his face, the internal struggle evident in every line of his body. "But why her? There are so many capable young heroes in the world."
"Because none of them understand what it's like to be powerless," Toshinori said, his voice filled with conviction. "None of them have spent their entire lives watching from the sidelines, wanting to help but not having the tools. She has. She understands the value of saving someone because she has lived without the power to do it. She will not take this power for granted for a single second. Her heart is the right one, Dave. I know it. I feel it here." He thumped his chest with a fist.
It was the conversation of two old friends, two fathers in their own way, discussing the fate of the person they loved most in the world. And in the look they shared, amidst the tension, fear, and hope, a decision was made.
"Call Melissa," Toshinori said finally. "It has to be her choice."
David nodded, defeated but also with a spark of the same hope he saw in his friend's eyes. He turned to the intercom on the wall. "Melissa, honey, could you come to my workshop for a moment, please?"
"Sure, Dad. Is something wrong?" her voice came through the speaker, cheerful and innocent.
"Just come," David replied, his own voice sounding strangely serious.
A few minutes later, Melissa walked into the workshop, wiping her hands on a rag. "Are you two done with your secret meeting? Robert-kun finally stabilized the prototype, by the way. He was so happy he almost cried." She stopped when she saw the solemn expressions on the faces of the two men. Her smile faltered. "Dad? Uncle Might? Is everything okay? You guys look… really serious."
"Melissa, sit down," David said, his voice soft but carrying a weight she had never heard before.
She obeyed, unease beginning to form in her stomach. She sat on a stool across from them, looking from one face to the other. Toshinori took a step forward. And as he did, he seemed to change. The air around him thickened. He stood up straighter, and though his body was still frail, the presence he projected was unmistakably that of All Might.
"Melissa," he began, his deep and solemn voice filling the room. "There is something I must tell you. A story that very few in this world know. The story of my Quirk."
With a gravity that left her breathless, he told her the story of One For All. It was not a speech about an incredible power. It was the confession of a sacred duty, a secret passed from generation to generation in the shadows of history. He spoke of a "torch," a flame of power and will that had been passed from master to student for over a century, growing with each transfer. He spoke of the echoes of the wills of generations of heroes living inside him, giving him strength when his own faltered. And he spoke of the shadow that torch had created: an ancient evil, a man named All For One, who could steal and grant Quirks at will, and who had been the origin of this long and secret war.
Melissa listened, her mind struggling to comprehend the magnitude of what she was hearing. The true nature of her hero's power, her uncle's. It wasn't a Quirk he had been born with.
When All Might finished his story, the silence in the workshop was absolute. He looked at her, his sunken eyes glowing in the dim light with a fierce intensity. He did not ask her if she wanted a Quirk. He asked her if she was willing to accept a burden.
"Melissa Shield. You have always had the heart and mind of the greatest of heroes, even without a power of your own. Your desire to save and protect others is as pure and as strong as any of those who came before me. That is why, with the full weight of history on my shoulders, and with your father's blessing, I must ask you…"
He took another step closer, and despite his gaunt form, his presence was overwhelming. The shadow of All Might completely covered her.
"Would you accept my power? Would you accept the burden of One For All and become the ninth holder?"
Melissa's world stopped. The distant hum of machinery faded. The smell of oil and metal disappeared. All that existed was the question hanging in the air and the intense gaze of her hero, waiting for an answer.