Chapter Text
She’s dead.
Scratch that…she’s technically dead. On paper somewhere, she is technically dead. The hero Soar was killed in the line of duty and one Shimura Nana was listed as deceased in the obituaries without saying what the cause of death was.
To be fair, she did actually die. Three times to be in fact. Her heart stopped three times in the ambulance and in the hospital before they finally got her stabilized enough that it could beat on its own.
She hadn’t expected to wake up after that last showdown against All For One. She’d actually had a DNR signed up and everything should things go horribly wrong. Don’t get her wrong. She didn’t want to die, but All For One had a bad habit of leaving his victims in a vegetative state and that is not a condition she wanted to live through.
She was in a medically induced coma for two weeks in some hidden away hospital deep underground. The news was released about her death and the few who cared about her mourned her passing. A precaution, one she wasn’t awake to stop, but is still begrudgingly grateful for. If All For One even had a hint that she was alive, he wouldn’t have stopped until she was truly dead.
Which meant Toshinori and Gran both thought she was dead. It burned to know they mourned her. Only her weakened state and some fast words kept the suits that were in her room after she woke up and learned what had happened from being punched out of the room.
It didn’t take her long to realize her hero days were done. Besides not having One for All anymore, passed onto Toshinori, Float was gone. That place she always felt the warmth unfurl when she activated it was cold and lifeless…a parting gift from that bastard. He couldn’t get One For All from her so he took her quirk instead.
Not that her body could handle hero work anymore either. Her left leg was gone from just below the knee, damaged beyond even a healing quirk’s ability. Her right arm had been repaired…mostly, but the nerve damage was extensive. Only an experimental surgery and some internal cybernetics at precise points gave even a small amount of functionality back to her arm. She’d never have very good fine motor control in that hand again.
It was nearly six months later, after weeks of healing naturally and through quirks, along with physical therapy to get her up and moving again, before Toshinori and Gran were allowed to know. It was a very emotional reunion. She hated to that she hurt them so, but at least she was alive to earn their forgiveness. Neither blamed her for the decision. They know how deadly All For One truly is and how tenacious he can be.
Nearly a year after waking up in that hospital, she was finally ready to be released only to learn that it wasn’t back to her old life. Of course not. Shimura Nana and Soar were dead. If they made a miraculous comeback, it would only place a target on her back and this time she had nothing to defend herself with: no quirks, not even a functioning body. Her boys couldn’t watch her twenty-four-seven.
Protective custody: a new name, a new identity. Somewhere rural and away from All For One’s usual haunts. It was nice, quiet…boring. She spent a lot of time relearning her new limits and pain tolerance. She relearned how to navigate the world as a quirkless cripple.
She’d always wondered what it was like for Toshinori before he got One For All. Now she knows firsthand the life he must have faced. At least out here in the rural areas, quirks aren’t so front and center. In the city, everything revolved around quirks. She doubts it would have been quite so pleasant had she been relocated to a more urban setting.
Then word came.
Toshinori did the unthinkable. He took down the Shadow Emperor of the Underworld. The Demon King himself. She wept openly when Gran told her what her stupid, caring, selfless boy had done and the price he paid to do it. It seems the curse of One For All struck again. If it didn’t kill you, it crippled you into an early grave.
She’d already died a few times. A slow death by boredom was not how she imagined she would finally go.
Still, All For One is gone. His network is still out there, but they’re scattered, regrouping and a task force is already starting to chip away at it. She doesn’t need to hide and so as soon as she’s given the all clear, Nana moves back to Musutafu. She was born in this city, raised in it, fought for it. She wanted to live here damn it.
She has a small fenced in home. It is single story with a spare room should one of her boys stop by for a visit, a small yard attached to it. It’s close enough to the local grocery that she can walk there and grab her things whenever, or have them delivered if she’s having a bad day (she never does, but the option is there).
It’s nice to be back in Musutafu and see the familiar skyline, even if she’s forced to see it from the ground now. She doesn’t regret her life and her actions that led to this moment. It’s just she hadn’t realized how much she’s settled in life, dealing with a malfunctioning body and pain on a daily basis. She didn’t realize how much she’s in need of a wakeup call until it barrels into her life.