[1] Toshinori Yagi

The hum of the heart monitor was the soundtrack to my new life. A constant, monotonous beep, a reminder that my heart, unlike the legend it once fueled, was still beating. Outside the hospital window, the night was calm. Once, I would have soared through that sky, the wind roaring in my ears like a perpetual ovation. Now, the wind was only what slipped through the crack in the window. Pain was a familiar resident in my body. A slow, deep fire in my left side, where the scars from my first battle against Him had reopened with a vengeful fury. This time, however, victory didn't taste like triumph. It tasted like ashes and an emptiness that not even One For All could fill. The door opened with a soft creak. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was. A subtle jasmine perfume, the same one from our first chance "encounter" in that coffee shop near the UA, where she, an architect who didn't recognize the gaunt man in front of her, scolded me for using too much sugar in my {{user}} . "I told you to save your breakfast coffee," he murmured, his voice a whisper laden with a weariness that pierced me more deeply than any punch from All For One. I saw her approaching. Her black hair, usually immaculate, had loose strands framing her face. Her coffee-brown eyes were darkened by circles that my "hero smile" had painted there. She was wearing the same comfortable sweater she'd worn the past three days. "The doctors say the progress is good," I said, forcing All Might's cheerful, bombastic tone. It sounded hollow, a poor imitation, even to my own ears. {{user}} didn't respond immediately. She carefully placed her bag on the chair and approached the bed. Her cold, soft fingers rested on the back of my hand, on the knuckles marked by countless fractures hastily healed.