Chapter 50 ~ Symbol Of Peace 2.
The steam from the green tea spiraled lazily into the stagnant air of the small, soundproofed reception room tucked away in the faculty wing. It was a space designed for private counseling, claustrophobic and quiet, cut off from the vibrant energy of the school hallways.
Sitting on a plush leather sofa, Toshinori Yagi—the skeletal, true form of the Symbol of Peace—slumped forward, his oversized clothes hanging off his bony frame like curtains on a wire. Beside him, Midoriya sat with his hands on his knees, vibrating with anxiety, his eyes darting between his mentor and his classmate.
Opposite them, Aokiji sat alone in a single armchair. He held a porcelain teacup with elegant, long fingers, bringing it to his lips for a slow, deliberate sip. He didn't look shocked anymore. He looked resigned.
He lowered the cup, the china clinking softly against the saucer.
"I see," Aokiji murmured, his voice devoid of any warmth. "So that's how it is."
Toshinori wiped a speck of blood from his lips with a handkerchief. His sunken eyes looked weary, carrying the weight of a secret he had guarded with his life.
"The world... needs a Symbol," Toshinori rasped, his voice a shadow of his hero persona. "If the public knew the state of my body... if the villains knew... society would crumble into chaos within days. That is why this must remain a grave secret, Young Kuzan."
Aokiji stared at the emaciated man. He looked at the hollow cheeks, the black sclera of his eyes, the frail wrists that looked like they could snap under a heavy breeze.
"A grave secret..." Aokiji repeated dryly.
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling. A bitter, cold smirk twisted his lips.
"You are the Number One Hero. The man everyone, maybe even myself, pinned their hopes on. The man who is supposed to save everyone."
He let out a short, harsh scoff.
"What a farce. Honestly... I feel like the small flicker of hope that ignited in my chest during the exam has just been extinguished."
Toshinori blinked, taken aback by the harshness of the judgment. "What do you mean?"
Aokiji stood up abruptly. He placed the teacup on the low table, the movement final.
"Never mind," Aokiji said, sliding his hands into his pockets and turning away. "I can't bet everything on this. Not after what I've just seen and heard. If the pillar is already crumbling, it can't support the weight I need it to carry."
He walked toward the door, his posture slouching again, the determination from the battle gone.
"I won't tell anyone your secret," Aokiji said over his shoulder, his hand reaching for the doorknob. "You have my word. But... forget I said I wanted to talk to you. It seems pointless now."
"Young Kuzan, wait," Toshinori called out weakly, trying to stand up. "You clearly have something on your mind. As a teacher, I still want to help—"
Aokiji stopped. His hand hovered over the handle.
He paused for a long heartbeat, weighing his options. He looked back at the frail skeleton of a man. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was a final test to see if this broken hero knew the true darkness of the world.
"In that case," Aokiji said, his voice dropping to a low, serious octave that seemed to freeze the air in the room.
"Does the name All For One sound familiar to you?"
The reaction was instantaneous and violent.
CRASH.
The teacup in Toshinori's hand didn't just slip; it was crushed by a sudden, spasmodic clench of his hand before falling to the floor. Ceramic shards exploded across the carpet. Hot green tea splashed onto his shoes, staining the fabric dark.
Midoriya jumped, startled by the noise. "All Might?!"
Toshinori didn't answer. He didn't move.
His eyes—those deep, sunken blue voids—widened until they looked like they would tear. His pupils contracted to pinpoints. His breath hitched in his throat, choking off the air.
For a second, it looked like he had lost consciousness with his eyes open. The sheer trauma attached to that name hit him like a physical blow, dragging him back to a bloody past, to a hole in his stomach, to a rain of blood and the death of a mentor.
"All... For... One..." Toshinori whispered, the name tasting like ash in his mouth.
He trembled. It wasn't fear of a fight. It was the horror of a ghost returning from the grave.
Suddenly, the trembling stopped.
Toshinori's head snapped up. The weakness vanished from his face. His expression transformed into something terrifyingly sharp—the look of a veteran general who hears the enemy trumpet.
"Young Midoriya," Toshinori said. His voice was no longer weak. It was commanding. Absolute.
"Get out."
Midoriya flinched. "Huh? But—"
"LEAVE!" Toshinori roared, a flash of his buff form's intensity breaking through the skeletal frame.
Midoriya scrambled up, terrified by the sudden shift. He looked at Aokiji, then at his mentor, and bolted out the door, closing it behind him.
Izuku stood on the other side, staring at the wood grain. His heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
His features were extremely bewildered, bordering on panic; he couldn't recall ever having seen All Might so enraged before.
All For One.
The name echoed in his mind, foreign yet terrifyingly familiar. It felt wrong. It felt like a distorted reflection in a cracked mirror. One For All... All For One. The linguistic antithesis was too precise to be a coincidence. And the reaction—All Might, the man who smiles always in front of the villains, had looked like he'd seen a ghost.
Midoriya turned and began to walk down the corridor, his footsteps heavy. The victory of the exam felt distant now, replaced by a growing shadow.
Inside the soundproofed room, the air was stagnant.
Aokiji stood by the door, his hand still in his pocket, looking down at the emaciated figure on the sofa with open skepticism.
"I'm not sure if I should be betting the fate of my family's souls on a skeleton," Aokiji muttered, his voice laced with his usual blunt honesty.
"Sit down, Kuzan."
The command didn't come from a weak man. Toshinori Yagi didn't transform, he didn't flex a single muscle, but his sunken blue eyes suddenly burned with a pressure that felt heavier than gravity. It was the gaze of a man who had held the country on his shoulders for decades.
Aokiji paused. He scratched the back of his head, sighing.
"Fine. Fine."
He walked back and dropped into the armchair, crossing his long legs.
"Tell me everything," Toshinori ordered, leaning forward, his hands clasped tightly together.
"Have you heard about the explosion at one of the Kuzan estates in Hokkaido?" Aokiji asked.
"I have been... preoccupied," Toshinori admitted, his voice raspy. "I haven't been following the news closely. Was it an accident?"
"I figured. The Number One Hero has a busy schedule, after all," Aokiji said dryly.
"Get to the point, Young Kuzan."
Aokiji took a breath. For the first time, he let the mask slip. He recounted the entire week. He spoke of the trip to Hokkaido, the assassin named Pyre, the battle in the snow, and the deception of the gas explosion that leveled his ancestral home. He spoke of the message sent to his father, the blackmail, and the silence of the Kuzan clan.
And then, he delivered the punchline.
"I spoke to him on the phone," Aokiji said, staring at his boots. "All For One."
Toshinori's breath hitched. "You... spoke to him?"
"He said he wants my Quirk," Aokiji said quietly. "That's the reason for all of this. He threatened to slaughter my family if I didn't hand it over quietly. My parents... they didn't go to the police. They didn't call the heroes. They know that one wrong move means death."
Toshinori clenched his jaw so hard a vein bulged on his skeletal forehead. "What could that bastard possibly want from a teenage boy..."
"He wants to turn into ice," Aokiji finished. "He wants the elemental invulnerability. If he gets it... well, I imagine he becomes unstoppable."
Toshinori squeezed his hands until his knuckles turned white. He was shaking.
"One of my students..." Toshinori whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and grief. "One of my students has been facing the devil himself, all alone? While I sat here grading papers, ignorant of the darkness closing in?"
"Well, logically, you couldn't know unless I told you," Aokiji reasoned calmly. "This is a problem outside your scope. It's a personal—"
"NO!"
Toshinori stood up. The movement was sudden, violent.
"You know nothing. It's not your problem alone..."
Aokiji watched him, startled by the outburst.
Steam began to hiss from Toshinori's skin. The oversized clothes began to fill out. The skeletal limbs thickened, the sunken chest expanded, and the shadows around his eyes were burned away by a blinding inner light.
"That bastard is still alive..." All Might growled, his voice deepening into the booming baritone of the Symbol of Peace. "And here I thought it was over. I thought I had ended it."
He looked at Aokiji, his eyes glowing with electric blue fury.
"I AM HERE!"
BAM!
All Might slammed his fist onto the low coffee table.
It wasn't a table anymore. It was dust.
The impact was catastrophic. A shockwave erupted inside the small room, blasting the air outward with the force of a grenade.
[Boys' Locker Room]
The walls shook. The benches rattled against the floor.
"W-What was that?!" Mineta screamed, dropping his towel and clutching his head. "An earthquake?!"
[School Corridor]
Midoriya stopped dead in his tracks. He felt the vibration travel through the soles of his shoes. He put a hand on the wall to steady himself.
"Is that... an enemy attack?" he whispered, looking back toward the faculty wing.
[Reception Room]
The sofa behind All Might was blown against the back wall. The armchair Aokiji had been sitting in was overturned.
Aokiji himself had shattered into a thousand shards of ice from the sheer force of the shockwave, instinctively reforming near the window a second later. He stared, wide-eyed, at the destruction. The floor beneath All Might's fist was cracked, the wood pulverized into splinters.
Aokiji realized then—the All Might he had fought in the exam was holding back. This was the anger of the Strongest Hero.
All Might stood amidst the debris, steam pouring off his massive frame like a steam engine. He was breathing heavily, but his gaze softened as he looked at Aokiji.
"Fear not... not anymore," All Might said, his voice thick with emotion. "Kuzan Boy."
He stepped over the ruins of the furniture. He approached the student who had built walls of ice around his heart to survive his cold family.
All Might reached out.
He didn't punch. He didn't pat him on the back.
He pulled Aokiji into a crushing embrace.
It was warm. Overwhelmingly warm.
"You did well," All Might whispered, his hand cradling the back of Aokiji's head, pressing the boy's face into his massive chest. "Bearing all that pressure... all that terror... by yourself. You did well to survive."
Aokiji stood stiffly, his arms at his sides. He wasn't used to this. His father's touch was a handshake. His mother's touch was a cold adjustment of his tie.
"But I am here now," All Might vowed, the words vibrating through Aokiji's chest. "For you. For your family."
The Hero pulled back slightly, gripping Aokiji's shoulders with hands that could crush mountains but were currently as gentle as a father's.
"I will show you what the Symbol of Peace really means..." All Might looked him in the eye, his smile gone, replaced by a fierce, protective vow.
"...my son."
Aokiji froze.
The word hung in the air. Son.
It wasn't logical. It wasn't biological. But it carried a heat that Aokiji's quirk couldn't regulate.
For the first time in his life, the perpetual chill that Aokiji carried deep in his gut—the defense mechanism against a world that saw him as an asset—began to thaw.
He stood there, silent, his black eyes wide and glistening. Perhaps, deep down, the teenage boy who pretended to be lazy, who pretended not to care, had been waiting for someone to say exactly that in this exactly time...
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