Days sped by like an autumn breeze.
Several statues were placed at the school's entrance to commemorate those who had helped largely during the fight. Monoma laughed hysterically as he stood beside his, as if showing it off.
Sora was seriously considering drawing Slytherin's insignia on it.
The weekend came, and with it, Aoyama's farewell party.
He sat at the center of the dorm's living room, clapping happily as he fought back tears, wearing a party hat that had a shining ball at the top, while trying to hold back tears.
Eri took up the stage next, followed by Jiro and her guitar. She clutched a small microphone in her hand. She trembled slightly, looking from her audience and then to Jiro, who gave her an encouraging smile.
The girl burst into motion, singing and jumping around, much to everyone's surprise.
Sora had to admit the little girl had talent, although it didn't befit a farewell party, to Aoyama's dismay.
The efforts to help rebuild the country were still progressing.
Not just heroes...
Civilians, as well, did whatever they could to ease their burden...
Heroes weren't those who help others...
Those who help others were the heroes...
As the seasons changed, the leaves changed colors, fell, and new ones grew in their stead.
It was a short year, their second. Beginning in Jun and ending in March as usual.
They studied, sat for tests, participated in the sports festival for the second time, watched the Pro Heroes take their next steps, and saw some of their friends taking a step closer towards their dreams.
In short...
It was so much, squeezed in such little time.
When the snow began to drift at the end of February, signaling that the year was about to end, Bakugo began to regain some of his right arm's functionality through his hard work.
Sora's grandmother was up and about on her own feet again, running her dojo and looking after the garden, as usual.
She encouraged Sora to head back to the dorm because she, too, didn't want to hold her granddaughter back.
She had already decided, from that day she saw her flying away to find her friend.
Sora never visited Tartarus again, although Yui did.
She had no reason to.
For her, the only family she had was her grandmother.
Perhaps she should have comforted her mother.
But she chose not to.
She didn't hold any grudge against the woman. However, she had long since moved on from her.
A new book was out, titled 'The League of Villains'. The reviews were as controversial as they could be.
But she liked it.
It was a stark contrast to all the analyses and discussions of the previous fight, which were mostly one-sided.
Because it made her see the battle, not from her side, but from the other side.
This is so much like what Tadashi had said... she thought, closing the book after reading it aloud. We should stop and consider the other side.
She placed it on the bedside and looked at the boy sleeping beside her. " Did you like it? I bet you did. And I know you would want to read it yourself soon."
Her hands reached for his, and she held it gently.
It had grown thin.
Over the past year, she had never skipped on her regular visits, telling him everything that happened, hoping he was listening.
Hoping he would wake up.
More than once, she had run into his parents just as they were about to leave.
His brother was almost always around him.
Their friends visited whenever they had the chance to.
" How long are you going to keep us waiting..." She asked, but she got no answer, as usual. " I miss you... Please come back..." A tear rolled down her face as her voice cracked and her lips quivered.
Everything changed.
Everyone grew up.
Yet only he...
Remained asleep...
Only he...
Stayed a first year...
________________
Time and space held no meaning to them.
What mattered...
Was the board of chess between them both...
The pieces were not the usual ones.
They were Centaurus, dragons, phoenixes, and the like.
On either side of the board sat the two competitors.
A huge Asian Dragon with glimmering scales like the ocean waves, and gleaming yellow, sharp eyes, and an old man with long white hair that covered his eyes and a shaggy beard.
Everything else beyond the board was utterly white.
The man scratched his beard before moving a dragon.
" Typical..." the real dragon spoke as a phoenix levitated to its new position, blocking the dragon.
The old man continued to scratch his beard in thought before reaching for a sphinx.
" For how long do you think you can go on like this?"
" You clearly ask the wrong question." He swapped the phoenix for his sphinx and placed it aside. " We established that there is no time in this realm."
The dragon tilted his head, and a Centaurus moved forward, taking down the sphinx.
" Technically, every time is in here. Past, present, future." He looked up, and the old man vanished, replaced by a toddler who was scratching his head, his eyes focused on the board.
" Exactly." He next moved a nymph, and the white dragon across from the board gave a roar and turned red. " Which means, how long has little meaning since this is every time possible. This same move, you used it 2000 years ago, yesterday, and a moment ago at the same time."
" Hm..." The dragon was lifted aside, swapped with a white siren, and its roars subsided. " It seems you became well-versed in our principles."
" I've spent nearly hundreds of years here," the old man said, pushing his phoenix forward. " Yet it still feels like I only spent a few moments, so probably I don't know as much as you do." The toddler was back.
The time was so warped that he had spent enough years running all over the empty place till he had gone mad. And at the same time, it felt like he didn't spend more than a few minutes strolling around.
The only constant to him was that board and the dragon he played against.
" What do you know then?" The Centaurus threatened the black dragon.
" I know that, if you didn't bring me here, I would have been lost." The toddler grew up, his purple eyes scanning the board carefully while his right hand, made of flesh and blood, moved another dragon to protect the bigger one. " You protected my ego from being torn apart in the torrent of spirits by making it a part of you."
" You're sacrificing your Queen?" The dragon asked, moving an elf. It sang, and the dragon piece crumbled. " Anyway, you clung strongly, yourself. It wouldn't have happened had you not had the strength to make it possible. That's practically the fundamental rule in the spirit world."
" It was necessary." The boy dusted the remains from the board and put a single fox forward. And the white dragon grew red with rage again.
The dragon tilted his head left and right before glancing at the boy. " You defeated me. I concede the match. What's the count?"
" 151433 losses, 1751 draws, 89096 wins consecutively." He answered automatically as he rearranged the pieces.
" Think it's enough then," the dragon stated.
He quirked his eyebrow at that.
" It's time."
" It's always time here."
" I'm not speaking of that." The dragon's eyes settled on the boy, who was slightly older. His arm, which was flesh moments ago, became black metal, and a small scar manifested over his right eye.
Most importantly...
He began to fade...
" Your ego recovered just fine. It managed to settle on who you are, after all. And now, your body is calling upon it."
" Is it?" He looked down at his fingers that grew transparent.
" That's, unless you wish not to heed the call. I might appreciate the company, but I doubt you would like to spend an eternity playing chess."
Yuu looked down at the pieces as they slowly faded into dust.
" Has it been 10 years already..." His eyes trailed over to the dragon, and he seemed to be growing smaller, or further. The white void around him became so bright. " Will I remember all of this?" He asked.
" You will remember what you only need to remember," Seiryuu told him. " Some secrets... ought to be kept secret..."
Were his last words before he faded completely, the brightness swallowing him whole.
Yuu wanted to shield his eyes from the light, but he couldn't. His arms won't move, and his eyelids won't close.
As though held by something.
His mind focused as he got accustomed to the brightness, spotting a large shadow looming over him and holding...
A penlight...
" About damn time you woke up."...
________________
The last of the snow had already melted away, and it was getting slightly warmer.
Sora, wrapped in a white coat and a blue scarf, noted as she made her way to the hospital.
It was a way she had memorized by heart now.
" Next month, we will be third years." The idea excited and terrified her in equal measures.
It would be their final year at UA, and they would be free to walk their own paths in life from there.
Many of them had already grasped what they wanted to do.
But she didn't.
She wanted to enjoy their time together without worrying much about it.
She reached the hospital and peeled off her coat and scarf.
She greeted the receptionist with a bow and made for the elevator.
She had frequented the hospital enough that she was almost well known among the staff.
Just as she pressed the button and waited for the door to open, a call drew her eyes from the number panel above the lift. " Sora-chan."
She looked to her side, finding Yuusuke walking up to her.
The man seemed to have grown a lot over the past year. He grew a stubble, and his usually neat brown hair grew long and messy.
Lines formed under his eyes, probably a testament to how weary he grew. But he always wore a gentle and reassuring smile whenever he met her.
Sora had wondered if all the doctors practiced that smile in the mirror every morning, to reassure the patients and their families.
But Yuusuke's was too genuine for that.
He even took to calling her ' Sora-chan', given how much time they spent together.
" Yuusuke-san," she greeted him with a bow.
" Could I perhaps borrow you for a moment? I need your help with something."
The bell of the elevator rang at that very moment as the doors opened, but she paid it no mind.
" Sure."
He navigated her through the hallways of the hospital, taking her deeper and towards the back.
" How is school? Going to be a third year soon. Have you considered your career after that?"
Sora tilted her head slightly.
Mostly, heroes had no university to attend. They would work as a sidekick for a while before going independent. Some, however, who would want to broaden their work chances, opt for courses that might be useful, like computing or data science.
" I'm not sure. Perhaps I will continue to work at Ryukyu's agency after I graduate."
" No plans for university?" He looked back at her.
" Not at the moment," she shook her head. " But I might change my mind soon."
The man hummed, and he looked out to the garden, his eyes slightly open.
" After everything that has happened, it's not wrong to want to take it slow. Everything seemed to pass by in a rush: the rebuilding, fixing, healing. Even your school year had been crammed. Taking a moment to breathe might be good sometimes." He stopped in his tracks. " Many are now looking to the heroes who picked themselves up and reassumed their work after the big battle, but none of them are speaking of the other side."
Sora looked down.
True, after that battle, many heroes had also stepped back.
Not just due to injury, like Endeavor...
They had a lot to grapple with themselves and wished for a reprieve, whether it was brief or not.
One such case was Dobutsu Ai from class B.
She had dropped off the hero course one week after they started the new year, heading back to her home village.
Hound Dog, the school counselor who had been working with many of them ever since the war ended, only told them that she needed to go back home and rethink her choices again.
He didn't know if she would ever come back, but no one took her seat, Kendo had assured her.
Their class would not allow it.
Ai was their classmate, no matter what.
Their class was and would always be the 22 of them.
Much like Yuu's.
When a seat was open in the hero course, the school would usually fill it in by transferring someone from general studies or the like, just like what happened with Aoyama.
Though they were told it was he who suggested Shinso take his place.
But Nezu didn't do the same with Yuu and Ai.
And she was thankful for that.
She was hardly getting used to Shinso taking Aoyama's seat.
She couldn't imagine her friend's seat being taken by someone else. She couldn't bear the idea of her eyes drifting unconsciously across the classroom to find somebody else sitting there.
Even if it was only an illusion in her mind, for now, that seat only belonged to Yuu.
She thought as she looked out the window as well...
And she froze...
Her eyes widened...
Yuusuke, beside her, stood still, seemingly oblivious to her state.
Although a smirk betrayed otherwise as she raced past him and through the door he so conveniently stopped beside.
" Life had been racing at full speed since that day..." he whispered, looking up and letting a long, tired sigh. " But perhaps it's time for a brief reprieve... for everyone..."
As she ran down the path to the garden, caring nothing for the coat and scarf she had shed, she felt the warmth of the air; she noted the bright colors of the trees, some of them in bloom already.
Had spring come so early?
Was the world that bright?
Or was she the one who was seeing the world in dull colors?
She had no answer...
And she cared not...
She focused her eyes on that single patch of vivid purple among the green leaves of the tree.
He sat there, wrapped in a purple Cardigan and overlooking a bunch of kids kicking a ball back and forth and laughing loudly.
She stopped a few feet from the wheelchair, breathless, hesitant to reach out, as if afraid she was in a dream, and it would all break apart if she did.
It took a few moments for her to find her voice and call out to him. " Yuu..."
The boy snapped and turned back his head, his hair growing slightly longer during the year.
As his eyes landed on her, a small smile of recognition formed on his face. " ... Sora..." his voice was weak and hoarse from the lack of usage over the year.
But it didn't matter at all.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she returned his smile. " Welcome back... Yuu..."...