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They knew when they entered this war, that not all of them would leave it. That families would be torn in two, that teachers would leave with so much more to teach lost to time, that mentors would be ripped from mentees, friends left with no one to mourn with, some groups so devastated that even those who would mourn are lost.
The battle was long fought and hard won, loss of life and limb common. The Paranormal Liberation Front gone, multiple cities decayed, civilian deaths in the thousands, heroes in the hundreds. Not even the hardest of criminals was out on the day of mourning, hell hath no fury like a powerful man mourning his love, and every hero in the country lost someone in that battle, that war. It lasted two weeks, yet the waves will be felt for decades.
Today Japan will remember the fallen, and tomorrow it will begin to rebuild. Today a procession of twenty seven families walks through the gates of UA. Aizawa had not seen the halls marred with such darkness since the fall of his cloud fifteen years ago, and if that was crushing, this pain was atomising. He sees the families of those walk through the procession as all staff and students create a final arch. Each of them were heroes, no matter what their role in the war, their lives were lost in the pursuit of a brighter future. Some faces are vaguely familiar to Aizawa, the parents of a third year support student who went down in a bombing while fixing support gear for the front lines, the sister of a second year student who was on internship with a news company when the fighting first began, the PLF none too happy to be broadcast before they were ready, that boy game them enough time to prepare a defence at a nearby hospital, he saved hundreds.
Others. Others Aizawa knows too well. Yayorozu and Fatgum holding a purple cushion, on it a simple domino mask, Aizawa can feel a tear fall from his remaining eye at that, the only thing left of one of his oldest friends, collected by the students she trained, collected by the daughter she worked so hard to protect, now carried through her final rites. A small family of four carrying a box of ashes cloaked by a perfectly folded white coat, he remembered when the news broke on the twelfth day. Recovery Gir, who had been working non stop for 52 hours, pushing more and more energy into the heroes, supplementing their healing with her own, exhausting her quirk and her body, her own healing factor so diminished that her heart simply failed. Her stunt allowed enough heroes to be able to push the vIllain’s defences the next day, her body left behind in the urgency, collected days later when it had already bloated, eyes shriveled and flesh overrun with bugs.
Aizawa almost wishes there were more staff members lost, yet most that pass are the friends and family of students they were sworn to protect, he was sworn to protect. As silent sobs start to bubble up his chest, he feels the hand in his tighten. ‘Zashi was safe, sporting dozens of new scars, but alive, alive and safe. And down to his left his little girl is safe, her white hair cleaned of blood that should never have marred her, her eyes glossing with unshed tears of a war she shouldn’t have seen at her age, at any age.
Then comes the last leg of the procession, this one a full coffin. One of the “lucky” ones who managed to receive a full corpse. But he knows what is in there, full is a strong word when not even all limbs were attached anymore. The snapping of ligaments and crunching of bones still echoing when the world gets too quiet. The simple wooden coffin, so plain for such a strong presence, was held by three people, a woman with green hair, not a tear in those eyes that would so readily cry any other day, the redness betraying her composure. Ms. Midoriya, or he supposes, seeing the band on her left ring finger, Mrs. Yagi. He wonders if they actually got a chance to say their vows before the battle began. Behind her is Bakugou, his hands shaking slightly, his gait off with a limp on unhealed injuries that AIawa knows he was told not to walk on. On the left where usually two or three would be needed to carry the weight, instead the coffin rested upon the shoulder of a teen, a teen whose mind is far too scarred and aged by battle for such a small body. The boy sporting a wavering smile, still holding it up, just as his mentor taught him. On the other side of the honour walk Aizawa can make out the forms of Gran Torino and Tsukauchi, they both look defeated, Gran was never meant to outlive his mentee.
He can hear the quiet whisper of “sorry” to the teen as he walks past, Eri’s voice barely louder than the breeze of what would be a pleasant day, the weight of the coffin not breaking his stride, the weight of the world crushing his soul. Aizawa wants to console her, but can’t bring himself to break the silence, to let it be real yet, can’t believe the battle ended like that, that he failed to save him, a hero of hope who went into the battle knowing he would die but went in anyway.
-=+=-
Aizawa would later visit the grave, the soil still loose, would let his mind finally consume him, opening the floodgates of memories. His eyes peeled wide in an attempt to level the playing field as the monoliths battled, a stray piece of rubble of all things flying into his eye, making him blink for only a second. He remembers the scream, the way it pierced his very being. He remembers Shigaraki cackling as the boy tried to stand, the decay spreading up his leg, he remembers him falling in a puddle of his own blood. He remembers All Might burning his final embers to buff up and punch the villain, to protect his successor for even a second longer as the boy’s body flakes, him hacking up blood as his broken arm hung loosely at his side, so similar to the first time Aizawa ever saw Izuku, he wonders how it took him so long to realise that All Might was training the boy. He remembers All Might cradling the boy to his chest, the man’s ribs crackling with power and strain, his body swaying from blood loss and quirk overuse of a quirk never made for his body.
He remembers Eri, who should never have been at the epicentre of the battle as she ran in, crying over the mangled boy and crying blond, he remembers her quirk glowing and him not being able to stop it, lest Shigaraki heal, he had to focus on the biggest threat.
He remembers the final blow to Shigaraki, a shoot style kick to the head. Quirkless primordial red shoes caving in his skull, further proof of how suddenly the fight started.
He remembers only one One for All user exiting that battle alive, the other not much more than butchered meat, blood long since stopped dripping from the most gruesome wounds he has seen in his entire career.
He hopes Eri knows that she is only a child, that saving even one of the two was incredible, he wished grief wasn’t such a horrible thing, that the teen didn’t shout “it should’ve been him”, yet he doesn't get what he hopes, he gets what he has.
Standing from the grave laden in spider lilies, he wonders how the news stations can call the heroes victorious, how can they say they won? How while the corpses of their comrades rot, they can celebrate? How when he goes back to his class of twenty students he can feel like he has won? Eyes scanning over the grieving kids he sees only one head of green, the corner that was once full of mumbling and heroes theories, now dull and quiet, a boy thrust into a war he had no idea he’d be a part in, a boy taken from his mentor so suddenly, a boy burdened b a legacy he hardly understood with an enemy as old as quirkes themselves, a boy sitting, where the ghost of his other once sat.
Aizawa remembers. He remembers the war. He remembers the procession. He remembers the grave. He remembers the first student he had to bury in his career. He remembers explaining to a deaged Yagi Toshinori that 43 years had passed. He trains the new blond, seeing far too many similarities to his successor.
Aizawa remembers the plain coffin, for a boy that was anything but plain. He remembers the cloying blood and the miasma of fear when he died. He remembers Midoriya Izuku and he asks himself if they really won the war?