"The worst feeling is regretting having not done something

when you had the chance to."

-Unknown

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Toshinori Yagi, or as the overwhelming majority knew him as nowadays, All Might, was...

Tired.

It wasn't a physical kind of exhaustion; despite his weakened powers and injured body, he cleaned up villains by the dozen easily. All of them, without hardly any exception, were mind-numbingly slow in his eyes, after all. Although, he supposed that being able to create a tornado of force, simply from the air pressure of his fist was a hard standard to acquire in this world. This incredibly cruel, innately unfair world that they lived in.

(It was a type of unfairness that he had felt, liven in once upon a time, but the sensation was blanketed by so much time and change that he couldn't even remember it anymore.)

No, the tiredness that seemed like it came from his very soul came from the mental side of things, not the physical. His lungs burned and his stomach ached for every minute that he was alive, but that never dampened his desire to save other people; he didn't even see it as a possibility to get exhausted over. But this once... This once he wished that he could just stop. He just... regretted it so much, more than anything else. That day. That accursed day...

The day where he laughed in the face of a young lad's dreams and denied him of everything he, of all people, deserved to have. He was the one person in this world who had the chance to change Young Midoriya's fate as a quirkless as his beloved master had once done for him, but he had forgotten. He had forgotten what being a quirkless felt like and he forgot that it had only gotten worse over time.

(Even if One for All wasn't something to be passed on out of pity or mere sentiment... He should have at least tested the boy! He should have put more weight in the boy's hopes, in the boy's dreams, and exactly what they meant to him. What his words, as a role model, as a Hero, meant to the boy... He had no doubt now, with the benefit of hindsight and seeing the boy's actions, misguided as they were but so heartbreakingly good at the boy's core... He would have passed his test. More than anything else, that haunted him.)

And that choice of his that he made that fated day... Everything culminated and overflowed in the form of this day.

The day where every single godawful thing was brought to light, and for the first time, he found himself truly understanding how Izuku Midoriya had turned out the way that he had.

He also found out exactly what role the blonde young teen played in Young Midoriya's life.

He wasn't supposed to be biased against his students, or let their past as impressionable young youths who would grow with time affect him, but he... He couldn't help but take it personally. A sense of true and tried loathing engulfed him, only dwarfed in size by the hatred he left for All for One and himself. Regardless of the fact that the young youth who was nowhere to be found from the very moment the article dropped... Regardless of the fact that all heroes had kicked their gears into high while searching for the lad, whereas All Might lay motionless in injury and in less than professional feelings. He, Toshinori Yagi, the Symbol of Peace and the Top Hero.

He wasn't ignorant of the irony.

"Some Hero that I am..."

Tosinori sighed as he mindlessly stirred his long since cold coffee with a peculiar flare of misery.

Nursing the cold cup in his hands, he took a sip of it, not even caring about the less than warm aspect of it. He needed the caffeine, he supposed, to get out of this funk he was in. All of this in regards to Young Bakugo... It wasn't like him. Even when facing even the most dastardly of villains and the most heinous of evil-doers, he was capable of putting aside his personal feelings and simply doing his job. While he wasn't to the point where he was refusing to look for him—his time limit had been growing shorter and shorter, even more now since he had made Young Mirio his successor but a few days ago—he also just... didn't want to.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He was sure (hoped) that if his body permitted him, he would be looking, but...

It was because he held such feelings so strongly and so close to his chest that Toshinori was disappointed in himself.

He took another sip of his coffee, long and slow, doing his best to put the matter out of mind. Whatever the hypothetical, it didn't matter, after all. It still didn't change that he was physically incapable of searching now, as skeletal as his frame was, and assuredly, he'd regain himself once he had got some distance from the issue, and-

He fell forward, wheezing as if he was about to cough a lung out but unable to; his body rocked back and forth and his coughs would ring loud to anyone but the deaf, but he just couldn't stop coughing. Even after twenty seconds, his coughs continued unabated, squeezing out each and every bit of air that he had and then some more. It just wouldn't stop.

His fingers reached out shakily for something, anything, amidst his sudden episode, only to hook around the bare ceramic cup and send it crashing to the ground. He winced at the impact, but still, his coughing and wheezing wouldn't end.

In what could have been both a mere minute and an eternity, Toshinori finally felt his boiling insides begin to settle down as he learned to breathe again. He blearily sat up, body limp like cooked spaghetti, as he just laid there for a few moments, deaf to the world. His throat ached. His chest ached. His head, no, everything just hurt. Still, it was a massive improvement from before when he could do nothing but try to spit up his lung. Anything was better than that.

Didn't mean he had to like the experience.

Suddenly exhausted, he wiped away the liquid around his lip with noticeable strain, somehow not all that surprised when his hand came away with blood and dead tissue.

Nor was he that surprised when Nezu broke into the room, Eraserhead keeping the curious and worried teachers at bay where they couldn't peer into the room. No, he wasn't surprised in the slightest.

Toshinori Yagi was just tired.

Incredibly, incredibly, tired.

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"You gave us all a big scare there, Toshinori-kun."

Nezu peered down at him from the seat he stood on, eyes peppered with the slightest hint of worry yet still sipping his tea as he always did anyway, and actually taller than the Number 1 Hero for once in the process. Toshinori suspected that was the main reason he was standing on the chair; even as he laid in a hospital bed, the mouse-like creature couldn't reach past the bed from purely his own middling height.

He ignored the mouse(ish) for a few moments, choosing instead to scan over his body. He tried twitching his arm. That was okay.

The torso though?

'Ouch.'

Looks like he wasn't going to be sitting up for a while, if only not to torture himself further than necessary.

'I would like to know exactly what happened though...'

He eyed the foot of the bed with such an intense glare that it might as well have bored holes through the wood.

Nezu, seeing his plight, helpfully handed the medical chart at the foot of the bed to him. He gave him a thankful eye-wink thing, seeing as his neck was still tremendously sore, and grabbed the packet with his, thankfully, still mobile and not-achy hand. But his once thankful eyes turned downcast as he read through the sheet more and more, eyebrows scrunching up unconsciously.

'It... It wasn't nearly as bad during the last checkup I had on my injury..!'

Nezu's voice startled him out of his reverie.

"Recovery Girl said that the progressed damage was partially expected. With both your fight with All for One and your newest addition of a successor, a great deal of new damage was expected from the strain. It was why we made sure to do checkups immediately after the fact. But not coughing up your organs, Yagi!" Toshinori winced. The Principal hardly, if ever, used his first name. "Recovery Girl said that it was stress. While I don't mean to sound insensitive, you've never been so stressed from your condition that it's become worse, Toshinori."

Nezu looked him dead in the eye.

"What in the world is happening for you to be as stressed as you are?"

He was as silent as a clam for the next five minutes, eyes darting from side to side and mouth clamming up. He didn't... He didn't feel comfortable sharing such a failing as what he had done to Nezu, even if he was certain the Principal was a creature of great counsel. No, he wasn't uncomfortable; there was a small, insecure portion of him that hadn't disappeared since he was a boy that questioned whether the latter would abandon him after the dust settled. He was scared, plain and simple.

But when Nezu sighed and turned to leave, well...

The words just spilled from his mouth.