Chương 114: The Last Time

Morning did not arrive like mercy. It arrived like a meeting. Ren knew before the door opened because Recovery Girl had been angry at the clock for twenty minutes. She checked his temperature, checked the lines, checked the brace, checked his left wrist, checked the pale marks under his skin, checked his eyes, checked the monitor, checked him again as if repetition could bully biology into behaving. The Graft Lattice stayed quiet. Mostly. That was the newest lie medicine had agreed to tolerate.

Quiet did not mean gone. Quiet did not mean healed. Quiet did not mean accepted. Pain modulation sat behind Scar Tissue's channels like a door Ren could feel but not command. Repair scaffold pulsed under the right shoulder and along older strain lines when his body decided support was needed. Scar containment held the graft-derived functions in place, not as separate Quirks anymore, not as gifts, not as anything the word mine had touched. Foreign functions. Contained. Borrowed. Under protest.

Working description only. Recovery Girl had made Dr. Seno write that phrase at the top of the medical summary until everyone in the room could recite it with appropriate fear. Ren lay in R-2 under a blanket that was too warm over his legs and not warm enough over the places fear lived. The signs on the wall remained visible from the bed. FAKE PAPERWORK LOST ROOM STILL ON PROBATION Machine lost. Someone had adjusted the BARLEY, UNFORTUNATELY label again during the night. Hana, obviously.

It now leaned so slightly to the left that only Ren, Hana, Daichi, Kurose, and possibly Nezu would notice. That was probably the point. The fake R-2 in Garaki's screen had been too clean. This one kept accumulating proof. Ren looked at the crooked label until his breathing steadied. The door chimed once. Recovery Girl spoke before it opened.

"Door opening. Expected meeting. Nezu, Kurose, Aizawa, All Might. No parents by your request. No students. No press. No symbolic nonsense unless someone misbehaves" Ren swallowed.

"Good" The door opened. Nezu entered first, small and quiet and more dangerous than the medical equipment. He stopped near the threshold and waited for Ren's eyes to find him before moving to the chair nearest the wall. Kurose came in next, hands empty, expression steady in the way cliffs were steady while waves destroyed themselves underneath. Aizawa entered after her. He looked worse than yesterday, which was impressive in the wrong direction. His temple was bandaged again.

One eye was slightly more bloodshot than the other. His scarf was wrapped but loose, not ready for combat, not fully off duty either. Recovery Girl glared at him so hard the room warmed. All Might came last. Hero form. Because the room was not about comfort only. It was about what the world would see soon, and what Ren had seen before the world did. All Might had stopped trying to look undamaged around Ren. That was new. He stepped inside with hands open and stopped farther from the bed than he needed to.

"Young Akiyama" Ren breathed once.

"All Might" The monitor rose. Recovery Girl pointed at it.

"This meeting ends if numbers become stupid" Aizawa looked at the monitor.

"They are already stupid""I did not ask for commentary from my second-worst patient""Second?" Recovery Girl did not look away from Ren.

"Yes" Kurose murmured "A rare promotion" Ren almost smiled. Almost was enough. Nezu climbed into the chair and folded his paws.

"You asked for this configuration" Ren nodded.

"Fragment protocol" Kurose's eyes softened by half a degree at the phrase.

"Your terms?" Ren looked toward the signs, then back to her.

"No one asks for more than I give. If I say stop, stop. If I say wrong word, change word. If I lose body map, Recovery Girl leads. If I say it is not my door, no one opens it for me" Nezu nodded.

"Accepted" Kurose said "Accepted" Aizawa said "Accepted" All Might's voice was low.

"Accepted" Recovery Girl said "Already law" Ren looked at her.

"Thank you""Do not thank me for not being terrible" That helped. Strangely. He breathed again. The fragment had waited all night. Waiting had not made it kinder. Kamino sat behind his eyes like a light under bruised skin. Not a full memory. Not a film. Not a clean sequence of events. Ren did not know dates or coordinates or tactical positions. The fragment did not hand him a map. It gave him weight. A city district. Night air. Warehouses. Nomu infrastructure. A hidden center exposed. Ragdoll's absence.

Garaki's routes. All For One's voice, not through a speaker this time, but in open air. All Might in front of the country. All Might smaller. All Might larger. All Might burning the last of something the world had mistaken for infinite. Ren's scars warmed. Recovery Girl saw.

"Fragment heat?"

"Yes""Graft activity?" Ren searched. Right shoulder pain lowered at the edge. Repair warmth stirred but did not spread. Scar Tissue held the channels narrow.

"Minor. Contained" Recovery Girl nodded.

"Continue slowly" Ren looked at All Might.

"There is a place" All Might did not move. Ren's mouth was dry.

"Kamino" The word changed the room. Not because everyone recognized it the same way. Nezu did. Aizawa noticed Nezu noticing. Kurose watched Ren's face. Recovery Girl watched the monitor. All Might watched Ren as if the bed had become the edge of a battlefield. Nezu spoke quietly.

"Kamino Ward?" Ren closed his eyes.

"District. Warehouse area. Not clean. Not just one room. More like a knot" Aizawa's voice was rough.

"League?"

"Yes. But not only" All Might's face tightened. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"All For One" The monitor spiked. Pain vanished from Ren's right shoulder too sharply. He gasped. Recovery Girl leaned in.

"Find the bed" Ren's left hand gripped the blanket. Pain in wrist. Good.

"Left wrist. sheet. back. shoulder missing at edge""Good. That name is a trigger" Ren opened his eyes. He looked at All Might.

"The voice behind rooms" All Might's hands closed, then opened again when he noticed. Ren saw. Good.

"Not speaker. There. In person. Or close enough that it does not matter" Nezu's eyes darkened.

"We suspected Kamino from recovered data" Ren nodded weakly.

"Not suspect" Recovery Girl said "Careful" Ren breathed.

"Direction" Kurose repeated softly "Direction" The word settled better than certainty. Ren continued.

"You are there" All Might's expression changed. Not surprise. Recognition of a fear that had been waiting with its shoes on. Ren forced himself to continue before the fragment scattered.

"The whole country is watching" Aizawa's jaw tightened. Nezu became very still. All Might did not blink. Ren saw smoke behind his eyes. Cameras. Debris. A crowd somewhere beyond screens. A villain shaped like the end of an era. All Might's body huge against ruin, then thin in ways the world was not supposed to see, then huge again because he had decided the world needed one more lie strong enough to become truth for a minute. Ren's breath hitched. Recovery Girl's hand hovered near the blanket.

"Ren""I am here""Good. Stay there" He nodded once.

"You win" All Might closed his eyes. The words did not comfort him. Good. They were not meant to. Ren swallowed.

"You win. But you spend the last of it" Silence. No machine had the courage to beep at the wrong time. The monitor did anyway because machines lacked manners. All Might opened his eyes. The Symbol of Peace looked at a boy who had been stolen by a doctor and returned with foreign functions scarred into his body, and for a moment the symbol was gone enough for Toshinori to hear him. Ren said the line.

"At Kamino, you will be the Number One Hero for the last time" No one breathed. Not really. Kurose's hand closed around the back of the chair. Aizawa looked away for half a second, then back. Nezu lowered his head. Recovery Girl's mouth became a thin white line. All Might stood perfectly still. The phrase had hit him somewhere deeper than fear. Fear was a thing he had fought for decades. This was grief with a date, even if the date was still hidden.

This was a cost named by someone too young to carry it and too damaged to be ignored. Ren's vision blurred. Not now. Not done. He forced the next words out because they mattered more.

"That is not permission to die" All Might's face broke. Just for a second. Enough. Ren gripped the blanket harder.

"Not me telling you to die there" All Might stepped forward one pace. Stopped. Asked with his eyes. Ren did not know what he was asking permission for. Closer? Words? A hand? Being Toshinori for one breath? Ren nodded because no single answer would be enough and yes was the closest. All Might came nearer, still in hero form, but softer somehow. Not smaller. Softer.

"Young Akiyama" Ren shook his head faintly.

"No symbol answer" All Might stopped. The room went very quiet. Then his voice changed. Not fully. But enough.

"Toshinori answer, then" Ren's throat closed. Kurose looked down. Aizawa's eyes narrowed with something that was not anger. Recovery Girl stared at the monitor and pretended not to hear the way that one word changed the room. All Might said "I hear you" Ren breathed.

"Come back as Toshinori if you cannot come back as All Might" All Might's jaw trembled. The Symbol held because he had practiced holding through worse and because everyone in the room needed him not to collapse on Ren's bed. But Toshinori heard. That was what mattered. All Might lowered his head.

"I will try" Ren's eyes sharpened.

"No" Recovery Girl made a warning sound. Ren ignored it for one breath.

"Try is for things you do not control. Choose what you control" All Might looked at him. Ren's voice was barely audible.

"You cannot choose the cost. Choose not to confuse spending with dying" The room absorbed that like impact. All Might closed his hands. Opened them. Then said "I will come back if there is any road left to stand on" Ren breathed out.

"Good" Aizawa's voice came from the wall.

"If there is not, we build one" All Might turned toward him. Aizawa looked exhausted, furious, and completely serious.

"You are not the only adult who gets to be stupid in public" Recovery Girl snapped "No one gets to be stupid in public" Aizawa said "Strategic stupidity""No" Kurose said "Controlled heroic stupidity?" Recovery Girl glared.

"Absolutely not" Nezu's ears lifted slightly.

"Purposeful symbolic risk?" Recovery Girl pointed her cane at him.

"I will sedate the principal" Ren's laugh came out broken and small. The monitor complained. Everyone stopped. Recovery Girl leaned over him.

"That is enough laughter. Your ribs are not democratically involved" Ren tried to breathe through the smile.

"Trustworthy""Overused word""Useful word""Annoying patient" He closed his eyes. The fragment retreated slightly. Not gone. Never gone. But spoken enough to stop burning quite so brightly. Nezu waited until Ren opened his eyes again.

"Do you see anything else tactically useful? You may answer no" Ren appreciated that more than the principal probably knew. He searched. Smoke. Public broadcast. All For One. All Might. Kamino. Not details. Not floor plans. Not enough.

"No clean map" Nezu nodded.

"What kind of place?"

"Warehouses. residential nearby maybe. hidden facility under ordinary structures. Multiple routes. Noise. Cameras. Public risk" Aizawa looked toward Nezu.

"Adult raid becomes public" Ren's eyes moved to him.

"Yes" Nezu folded his paws.

"Civilian evacuation must be considered before breach" Ren's fragment flashed. People watching screens. Not people in the blast path? Hard to tell.

"All For One wants watching" All Might's face hardened.

"Yes. He does" Ren's pulse rose.

"He talks through audience. Through fear. Through symbols. Through you" All Might's expression did not change this time. Good. He had braced. Ren continued.

"He wants you to spend wrong" All Might's voice was quiet.

"What is wrong?" Ren stared at the ceiling. Wrong was dying to preserve the symbol when Toshinori could survive. Wrong was choosing a beautiful end because the world had no language for the man after it. Wrong was believing All Might had to disappear for victory to count.

"Thinking the last time has to be the last breath" All Might closed his eyes. Aizawa looked at him. Kurose looked at Ren. Recovery Girl looked like she wanted to hit all of them with medical ethics until destiny apologized. Nezu said softly "Then that becomes an operational constraint" All Might opened his eyes.

"Nezu" The principal's voice did not change.

"We do not build plans around your death if survival is possible" All Might's face tightened.

"I have never—" Recovery Girl cut him off.

"Do not lie where I can hear you" All Might stopped. Aizawa's voice was flat.

"You fight like the world ends if you are not standing at the end of the punch" Kurose added "That is not a plan. That is a funeral with choreography" Ren almost smiled. Recovery Girl pointed at Kurose.

"That sentence was too good. I hate it" Nezu looked at All Might.

"Kamino may require the Symbol. It does not require us to abandon Toshinori in the planning phase" All Might looked at Ren. Ren looked back. For once, the bed did not make him feel smaller. He was smaller. Injured. Fevered. Changed. But the sentence had left him. It belonged to the room now. Not as a prophecy. As a constraint. All Might bowed his head.

"I accept" Recovery Girl said "Try again" All Might looked at her. She did not blink. He exhaled.

"I accept that survival is part of the objective" Recovery Girl nodded once.

"Better" Aizawa muttered "Barely" All Might's mouth twitched. Tiny. Devastating. Ren closed his eyes for a second. The room had shifted. Kamino remained. But now there was a line drawn through it. Come back as Toshinori if you cannot come back as All Might. Nezu spoke again.

"We should discuss what may happen after" Ren opened his eyes.

"After?"

"If All Might's limitation becomes public, the world changes" All Might said nothing. Aizawa looked like he hated the word if. Kurose's voice was low.

"Students will change too" Ren thought of Midoriya. Still injured. Still holding One For All and guilt and the impossible shape of successorhood. He thought of Bakugo. Not captured, but public-value target. Angry. Seen. Wanted by the enemy for a story he refused to perform. He thought of Shinso. The boy whose Quirk made people want distance or access and both felt like hands. He thought of everyone watching the Symbol burn down to the man beneath.

"Do not let them watch alone" Ren said Kurose's face softened.

"The students?"

"Yes" Aizawa nodded once.

"Already planned" Ren looked at him.

"Bakugo" Aizawa's eyes narrowed.

"What about him?"

"Enemy wanted him public. If he sees All Might fall and thinks he was replaced as target by hidden one, he will make bad math" Aizawa stared at him.

"Your fever is not high enough to justify how annoying that sentence is" Ren's mouth twitched.

"Trustworthy" Aizawa looked away.

"I know" Kurose made a note.

"Bakugo support. No blame math" Nezu nodded.

"Midoriya also" Ren closed his eyes.

"Different math. Worse" All Might looked toward him sharply. Ren did not open his eyes.

"Successor math" Silence. Only a few in the room understood the full weight. Nezu. Recovery Girl. All Might. Maybe Kurose enough to know she did not know all of it. Aizawa watched the gaps. Ren whispered "If he sees last time, he thinks next time is debt" All Might's face crumpled around pain.

"I will speak to him" Recovery Girl said "After the operation, not before you go charging into destiny like an idiot with branding" All Might nodded.

"Yes" Nezu said "We will arrange student containment around verified information, not rumor" Aizawa snorted.

"Good luck""Indeed" The meeting should have ended there. Recovery Girl decided it had ended there. She said "That is enough. Everyone out before my patient becomes a political oracle with graft fever" Ren opened his eyes.

"Not oracle""No. Patients who say Kamino in ominous voices get one warning before I start assigning insulting categories" Nezu climbed down from the chair.

"Your information is received. We will handle it as direction, not script" Ren nodded.

"Good" Kurose came to the bedside for one final check-in.

"Any words that need changing before we leave?" Ren thought. Number One Hero for the last time. Not permission to die. Toshinori. Survival objective. Kamino. Direction.

"Last time is not failure" he said All Might looked at him. Ren forced his eyes to stay open.

"If it is last, make it chosen. Not stolen" All Might's hand lifted, then stopped halfway.

"May I?" Ren understood this time. A hand. He looked at Recovery Girl. She looked at the monitor, then at his face, then sighed like kindness was personally inconvenient.

"Briefly" All Might placed his hand over Ren's left hand. Not heavy. Still huge. Still warm. Not a symbol's gesture. A man's. Ren felt the grafts stir at contact, not because of All Might's Quirk, but because emotion had become one of the body's noisy rooms. Scar Tissue warmed. Pain modulation stayed narrow. Repair scaffold did not flare. The Graft Lattice held. Ren breathed. All Might said "I do not know what I will lose there" Ren looked at him.

"But I will not choose death as proof that I was All Might" Ren's fingers moved under his hand. Small. Enough.

"Good" All Might withdrew before Recovery Girl could threaten him. Aizawa approached next, not to touch. Never without reason. He stood at the end of the bed.

"You did not give us a future. You gave us constraints" Ren looked at him.

"Better?"

"Yes" Aizawa's voice roughened.

"Do not confuse useful with required next time" Ren blinked.

"What?"

"You keep emptying yourself because you think if you hold one word back, someone dies. Stop that" Ren swallowed. Aizawa continued "You are not Search. You are not a mission board. You are not the tax we pay to know what monsters are doing" Kurose's eyes lowered. Recovery Girl looked satisfied in a violent way. Ren stared at the ceiling.

"Working on it""Work faster after sleeping" Ren almost laughed.

"Yes, sir" Aizawa looked offended by the obedience. Good. Kurose moved toward the door. Nezu waited. All Might lingered one second longer than the Symbol should have. Ren looked at him.

"All Might" He turned. Ren's voice was quiet.

"When the whole country watches, point somewhere that is not your grave" All Might closed his eyes. Then opened them.

"I will" The door closed after them. Recovery Girl stayed. Of course she stayed. Ren stared at the ceiling while the room slowly lost the weight of the meeting and became R-2 again. Signs. Shelf. Crooked tea label. Request button. Monitor. Blanket. Floor still here. Recovery Girl checked his temperature.

"Fever rose. Predictable. I am displeased but not surprised" Ren whispered "Sorry" Her cane struck the floor. He flinched. She glared.

"What rule?" He closed his eyes.

"No sorry before alive""Again""No sorry before alive""Again" His mouth trembled.

"No sorry before alive""Good" She adjusted the blanket near his left hand. Outside R-2, the hallway held waiting adults and waiting consequences. All Might stood with Nezu, Aizawa, and Kurose. Hero form felt heavier after the room. Not weaker. Heavier. The muscle and height and smile were still there, but behind them Toshinori stood closer to the surface. Nezu looked up at him.

"We move on Kamino" All Might nodded.

"Yes" Aizawa said "With survival as objective" All Might looked at him.

"With survival as objective" Kurose crossed her arms.

"And with student support planned before broadcast fallout" Nezu nodded.

"Immediately" All Might looked toward R-2's closed door.

"He should not have had to say any of that" Aizawa's voice was flat.

"No" Kurose said "But he did. So we make it cost less by using it well" All Might breathed in. The building seemed to breathe with him. Then he bowed his head once, not to them, not to the door, not to fate. To the road ahead.

"I will come back" Aizawa looked at him.

"You better" Kurose said "That was almost supportive""It was a threat""Both can happen" Nezu's ears lifted.

"Trustworthy" Aizawa looked deeply offended. All Might laughed once. Quiet. Human. Then the Symbol returned to his face, not as denial, but as armor chosen with full knowledge of what it would cost. Kamino waited. This time, they would not call it destiny. They would call it an operation. Inside R-2, Ren slept badly but truly. At some point, his left fingers moved against the blanket. One. Two. Three. A line beneath. Here. The floor remained. The word mine waited. Kamino moved closer.

And somewhere in the building, adults began drawing a plan that included not only how All Might would win, but how Toshinori would come home after.