CHAPTER 1: Two Paths, One Foundation

POV: Momo Yaoyorozu

Eight years after the Final War, hero work had settled into a new, steady rhythm. The skyline of Musutafu no longer bore the scars of crumbling buildings or the dark, suffocating clouds of decay that had once threatened to swallow everything we loved.

The streets were safe, children ran to school without fear, and the system we had fought so hard to rebuild was stronger, fairer, and more reliable than anyone had ever dared to hope. But peace never meant rest—not for us.

The work of protecting, supporting, and healing never truly ended, and over the years, it had pulled Shoto and me down very different paths, even if we always ended up right where we started: side by side, in every way that mattered.

I am Momo Yaoyorozu, known across the country as the No. 19 Pro Hero Creati, and for the last five years, I have served as the head of the National Hero Support & Strategy Division.

Our headquarters is a sprawling, sunlit facility located in the heart of Musutafu, just a ten-minute walk from the main Hero Public Safety Commission offices—glass-walled, bright, and filled with the hum of activity that I had come to love more than anything.

My office was on the top floor, with a wide view of the city below, lined with shelves of technical manuals, blueprints, and framed photos from our days at U.A., alongside prototypes of gear I had designed over the years.

My days were nothing like the chaotic, adrenaline-fueled shifts I remembered from our early years as sidekicks. I spent most of my time here, behind a desk or at a design station, hunched over blueprints, analyzing data, or leading meetings with engineers, logistics coordinators, and representatives from smaller hero agencies across the country.

My work revolved around prevention and support: designing and manufacturing advanced hero gear tailored to every type of quirk and mission environment; coordinating supply lines for disaster zones and rescue operations; developing new technologies to help both heroes and civilians; and leading tactical planning for large-scale missions, from villain apprehension to mass evacuation efforts.

It was exactly where I had always wanted to be. I had long ago realized that my greatest strength was never raw power or frontline combat, but my ability to build—to create solutions, systems, safety nets, things that would protect people long before danger even arrived.

I used my quirk every single day, but rarely in the way I had as a teenager. Back then, I had only ever thought of it as a tool to make small supplies or weapons mid-battle, always worrying that it was secondary, that I wasn't as "useful" or as strong as the heroes who could level buildings or fly or outrun explosions.

Now, I used it to produce entire batches of specialized gear, complex medical equipment, durable shelters, and high-tech devices, refining every creation down to the smallest detail, ensuring that every hero who stepped out into the field had everything they needed to come home safe.

I still remembered the girl I had been at fifteen: hands shaking before a mission, voice wavering when I had to give orders, constantly second-guessing myself, terrified that I would make a mistake that would cost someone their life.

I remembered how I had looked at the other students in Class 1-A—at Izuku, at Bakugo, at Shoto—and seen strength that I thought I could never match. I remembered how I had spent months convinced that my quirk was nothing more than a support ability, that I would never be fit to lead, never be worthy of standing alongside them.

But that girl was gone now. The work I did, the trust that the Commission and heroes across the country placed in me, the lives I had helped save by ensuring operations ran smoothly and safely—all of it had taught me what Shoto had been telling me for years: that leading didn't always mean standing at the front of the line. Sometimes it meant building the ground everyone else stood on.

Across the city, and almost always across the country, Shoto Todoroki walked a very different road. He was the No. 2 Pro Hero, second only to Lemillion, and one of the most beloved and respected heroes in Japan, celebrated nationwide as the master of fire and ice, the hero who could tame blizzards, stop floods, freeze wildfires, and stand his ground against even the most powerful villains.

His agency was based in the northern district of Musutafu, but he was rarely there for long. His specialization was large-scale disaster relief, search and rescue, and high-risk frontline combat—work that took him all over the country, often keeping him away for days or weeks at a time.

While I spent my days in climate-controlled rooms, surrounded by screens and blueprints, he spent his knee-deep in freezing floodwaters, waist-deep in heavy snow, standing amidst the wreckage of collapsed buildings, or facing down dangerous criminals head-on.

His work was raw, physical, exhausting, high-stakes—the kind that demanded every ounce of strength, endurance, and focus he had, the kind that left him bruised, tired, and covered in dirt or ice or ash at the end of every shift.

We were still the same two people we had been at fifteen, just grown fully into our own separate callings: I built the plans, the tools, the strategies, and the systems; he carried them out.

I was the mind behind the operation; he was the steady, unshakable force that made it all real. I was order and creation; he was power and balance. We were two sides of the same coin, two parts of one whole, even when we were hundreds of kilometers apart.

And through every change, every promotion, every new responsibility, every loss and every victory, we had remained exactly what we had been since that first year at U.A.: the closest of friends, each other's most trusted person, the one constant in each other's lives.

There was no one else in the world who knew me the way Shoto and Jirou did, no one else who had seen me at my most terrified, my most unsure, my most exhausted, and my most proud. And there was no one else who knew him—not just as the No. 2 Hero, or Endeavor's son, or the boy with two quirks, but as Shoto: quiet, sincere, kind, carrying a weight that most people could never understand, always striving to be better, to do better, to be something more than the legacy he had been born into.

It was late afternoon, the sun is dipping low and casting long golden shadows across my desk, when I finally closed my laptop and let out a long, soft sigh, my shoulders dropping as the tension of the last twelve hours began to fade.

The last design for upgraded cold-weather gear—thicker, more durable, insulated against extreme temperatures, and lined with a heat-resistant weave I had spent six months perfecting—had been sent to production that morning.

The supply schedule for next week's patrols and relief missions had been approved and distributed to every agency in the region. My meetings were done, my reports filed, and for the first time all week, my schedule was finally clear for the rest of the day.

"Leaving already, Yaoyorozu?"

I looked up to see Aiko, one of my senior engineers, grinning at me from the doorway, her tool belt still slung over her shoulder, ink stains on her fingers. "It's almost six. You usually stay until seven at least."

I smiled, reaching for my bag and slinging it over my shoulder. "I have plans. And I promised myself I wouldn't take work home tonight, remember?"

She laughed, nodding. "Right. Your weekly meeting with Todoroki. Go on, then—we've got everything under control here. Tell him the new gear worked perfectly in Hokkaido last week, by the way. The rescue teams said it held up even in the worst of the blizzard."

My chest warmed at that. It was always good to hear that our work was making a difference, but hearing it tied to something Shoto had been a part of meant a little bit more. "I will. Thank you, Aiko. I'll see you all tomorrow morning."

I walked out of the office, waving goodbye to the rest of the team, and made my way down the quiet corridors, past display cases filled with prototypes and awards, past the common room where a group of young sidekicks were laughing over coffee.

As I waited for the elevator, my hand drifted automatically to my phone, and I smiled softly when I saw the unread message waiting at the top of my screen, sent exactly ten minutes earlier—plain, straightforward, no extra words, exactly like him.

Back in the city.

Finished for the day.

Same place?

I typed back immediately, my fingers moving automatically, familiar as breathing, the words I had sent hundreds of times over the years.

I'll be there in ten minutes.

Our "same place" was a small, quiet café tucked away on a narrow side street, halfway between my office and his agency, far enough from the main roads that it was almost always empty, far enough from the hero districts that we never had to worry about cameras or fans or reporters crowding around.

We had found it completely by accident when we were twenty, fresh out of U.A., both of us still adjusting to life as pro heroes, still figuring out who we were and what we wanted to do. We had stumbled in out of the rain, cold and tired after a long joint training exercise, and immediately fallen in love with the soft lighting, the warm tea, and the complete silence that felt like a luxury back then.

It had been our meeting spot ever since. Every week, without fail, no matter where we were or how busy we were, we made time to meet here. It was our ritual, our safe space, the one place where we didn't have to be Creati or Dual Force—we just got to be Momo and Shoto.

The drive there was short and quiet, the streets of Musutafu busy with people heading home from work, families walking together, shop owners closing up for the night. I rolled down the window, letting the cool evening air brush against my face, and my mind drifted back, just like it always did, to how far we had come.

I remembered the first time I had really spoken to Shoto properly, back during the USJ attack in our first year. I remembered the chaos, the villains swarming us, the fear that had tightened my chest, and then Shoto stepping forward, calm and unyielding, freezing half the plaza in seconds, creating a barrier between us and the attackers, protecting all of us without a second thought.

Back then, I had looked at him and seen someone powerful, untouchable, someone carrying a pain I couldn't name, someone who seemed to exist entirely apart from the rest of us. I remembered thinking that I would never understand him, never be able to reach him.

I remembered the Sports Festival, how he had refused to use his fire, how bitter and hurt he had been, how everyone around him had only ever seen him as Endeavor's son, as a rival, as a weapon—until I had walked up to him after his match, and told him softly that he didn't have to use his quirk if he didn't want to, that his way of fighting was enough. I had meant it, too. Even then, I had seen past the power to the boy underneath, the one who just wanted to be his own person, the one who was hurting more than anyone knew.

I remembered when he's telling me that with Izuku and Ida during the Hero Killer Stain incident, fighting side by side for the first time, seeing how strong he was, how fast he thought, how he trusted them instantly when they suggested a plan, how he had stepped between them and danger without hesitation.

That was the first time I realized how perfectly they fit together—how I could see things he missed, how he could do things I couldn't, how they balanced each other out in every way that mattered.

And I remembered the Final War, the worst days of our lives, when the world was falling apart around us, when buildings crumbled and people screamed and it felt like everything we had ever worked for was going to be destroyed.

I remembered he's telling me over at Dabi in the middle of a battle, seeing him fight with everything he had, protecting civilians, protecting our friends, protecting his families from Dabi, even when he was exhausted, even when he was hurt. I remembered how, in the quiet moments between fights, he had found peace, had said simple, steady words that had kept me going: You're doing well. Keep going. I've got you.

That was Shoto. He didn't say much, but he always said exactly what you needed to hear. He didn't make grand gestures, but he was always there, always reliable, always steady.

I parked my car around the corner and walked the rest of the way, pushing open the café's wooden door to the familiar chime of the bell above it. The air smelled of roasted tea and sweet pastries, soft jazz played quietly in the background, and there were only a handful of other customers, none of whom paid me any attention.

He was already there, sitting at our usual table near the back, the one in the corner by the window, where we could see the street but no one could see us clearly. His hero costume—sleek, practical, the red and white design refined over the years, with small blue accents that I knew were a quiet tribute to his brother—was folded neatly on the empty chair beside him, swapped for simple dark trousers and a plain white shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

His red-and-white hair was loose and falling messily over his forehead, just like it had been when we were teenagers, and his expression was calm, neutral, the way it almost always was in public. But the second he saw me walk toward him, his eyes softened, just a little, and he nodded in greeting.

I sat down opposite him, and immediately noticed the marks of his latest mission: a faint, raw scrape along his jawline, dark and fresh, and a large, purple bruise blooming along his left forearm, visible where his sleeve had slipped down. There were faint smudges of dirt and ice dust on his—

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