A few decades ago, in the very first large UA academy complex...
Ikumi Midoriya was in the oval office of her boss and director of the UA academy, sorting through the files of the very first candidates of the world's first hero academy and checking nezu's very busy schedule over the next three months. Her long, tousled green hair fell over her shoulders, and her glasses slipped over her small, aquiline nose.
Her green eyes were squinted with boredom and melancholy. She sighed as she stretched as the morning sun passed through the huge windows, making her eyes and hair sparkle like jade.
"Midoriya?" called nezu as he entered the office, a flip phone in his hands.
"I need document number 345, which is in file 39. An important executive job for a CIA envoy." mechanically ordered the white-furred chimera as he sat down on his huge desk, which surely would have been adorable if he wasn't the most influential mastermind on earth!
"understood Mr. Nezu..." said the assistant with a small sigh.
"Hmm... Are you okay Midoriya?" Nezu asked with a semblance of neutrality.
"well.... It's just that we haven't seen X in so long, you know how much I admire him, he's exceptional, wonderful, extraordinary, charismatic, funny, cool, endearing... There are not enough phrases to describe its magnificence! And... I only have seen him once..." she said with palpable sadness, her eyes lowered on the keyboard of her computer where she typed the letter X continuously.
Nezu looked at him with a half-amused, half-contemptuous expression.
"It's really the nature of humans to get attached to this point... Would you be in love with X?" asked Nezu as he drank his tea, and Izumi hurriedly filled the cup.
"what? No! I love X like a fan! I'm convinced I'm the biggest X fan on earth!!" exclaimed Ikumi with a pout and a deep blush.
"Indeed..." Nezu said simply.
Ikumi sighed as he played with the wedding ring on her finger.
"After several years of failure, I finally found the right person. I'm going to get married at 40, can you imagine? I wanted to get married young, and I really feel like an old maid..." She said, her eyes shining with pain, old wounds that never really healed.
Nezu stared at her for a few minutes, he understood what she was saying through the prism of his cold and mechanical reason but it was still quite difficult to sympathize. He wanted to try but he couldn't.
Izumi was the only person he let him touch, besides X. Their relationship was strange, a mixture of professional coldness and implicit attachment. Nezu gave her orders and she carried them out. She rubbed his fur, took care of it with carefully studied cosmetic products, cooked his meals designed for his physiology... in short, for him, Ikumi was important but he was unable to show how much this was the case.
Ikumi was aware of this and always remained loyal to his boss.
Unfortunately, Ikumi died at the age of 60, as a result of Alzheimer's disease and a deep depression due to the death of one of his sons, at the time a respected hero addicted to trigger, a powerful drug that artificially increases the power of a Quirk.
Ikumi never forgave herself for this and died alone, in the silence of her home in Hokkaido...
At least, that's what you'd think...
...X....
Hokkaido, in a cemetery...
Nezu had gotten out of his limousine, the cemetery stretched out into this horizon of shrubs and flowers, the sky was an intense blue without clouds, the sun was at its zenith, the rays penetrated Nezu's fur and he put on a coat under his sober suit.
The crickets sang in the interstices of the tombs eaten away by time.
Nezu stopped next to a man with short black hair and glasses, dressed in a dark suit, he watched the man roast incense and pray with his eyes closed, deeply bowed.
A few minutes later, the man straightened up and stared at nezu with a wistful smile.
"Are you okay, principal? It's been a long time, huh? " he asked softly.
"X... So that's your true appearance when you don't have white hair..." Nezu said simply, unsurprisingly, as he approached Izumi's tomb.
"Did you grill me just with the sound of my voice and my body language? You are really amazing..." X laughed softly.
A strange silence took place, disturbed only by the sound of crickets and flies.
Nezu looked at izumi's tomb with an indecipherable gaze, his eyes scanning the izumi's name carved into the stones, followed by things like "grandmother and mother extraordinary, a woman like no other"
For nezu, she was only his assistant, an assistant who left too soon, too suddenly...
The silence was broken by the voice of X.
"I stayed at her bedside, you know? For the last 3 months of her life, I stayed with her, she was so happy if you saw her... I couldn't do anything but be there, offer my presence to my biggest fan, the one who saw me as her hero" says X with a small sad smile.
"It was the best gift you could give her..." Nezu said, clenching his little fists.
"3 months over an eternity is nothing..." says hero number 0 as he cleans his glasses and then puts them back on.
"I..." Nezu began, drooping his ears, his head lowered on his orange boots, ants passing in single file, carrying a butterfly with metallic green wings.
Nezu lost himself observing them, each micro detail clinging to something more logical, mathematical than what he felt inside him. This chemical cocktail in his brain…Feelings, as humans like to call it.
"I don't think I'll find anyone as competent as Ikumi Midoriya..." said Nezu in a muffled voice, little tears streaming from his black eyes.
X took him in his arms and consoled him by patting his head.
"It's okay, I'm here..." he said with a sweet smile.
.... ...…X....
In the present...
"I never took an assistant again after that..." Nezu said with a hint of sadness and nostalgia as he finished his tea in the thermos he had brought.
Izuku had listened to him with eyes shining with emotion, clutching the cover of his hospital bed with a tearful smile.
"It's totally crazy, I never thought I'd be connected to X in this way...." Izuku said, lowering his head, upset.
"Young Izuku..." Toshinori said, clutching his successor's shoulder.
Nezu sat up and looked out the window. The sun's rays were fading across the sky and filtered through the gaps in the shutters.
"You look a lot like her young izuku, she mumbled a lot, and adored heroes, especially X. She had that greatness of soul that few people have. Unfortunately, I was never able to be present, I was unable to really understand her feelings and I regret it today," said Nezu melancholy.
Izuku nodded with a smile.
"You're really not like other izuku, you've known X since childhood which makes you the only person in the world who really knows him, apart from me and yagi. You caught the eye of the symbol of peace and you received the One for all, you also saved the whole city from an attack of titanic magnitude with trinity X...", Nezu listed with a serene smile.
" I have to admit that only incredible things happen to me, it's crazy how much I went through all this before I even joined UA!" laughed Izuku
"Indeed!" Laughed All Might.
Nezu also sneered before silently observing The two OFA bearers. He thought of his friend and clutched the coin engraved with an X and took it out of his pocket.
"We all got this coin, X doesn't give it to just anyone, does it?" he whispered.
"By the way..." Izuku began with a smile and All Might and Nezu looked at him.
"One day, I'd go to Hokkaido to see my great great-grandmother, I'd tell her all I'm going to accomplish...," Izuku said with a determined smile as he clutched the coin engraved with an X that he took out of his pocket.
All might smiled as he ruffled izuku's hair and nezu nodded with a serene smile.
To be continued...