It was snowing again.

It was oddly nostalgic, really. Around the time he was first inducted as a villain, it had been winter as well. The 'Final Battle' so to speak had also been accompanied by the snowy backdrop of an ever-distant wonderland.

When All for One died.

When Yuganda Itoku died.

When... Gray died.

It had always been snowing. Always.

So much had happened in that single year; he had been broken, wrecked beyond belief until he could do nothing but hold onto a few shards, uncaring of how they cut into his palms. But he couldn't do anything else but hold on, even as it hurt, because they were all he had left.

He had learned to breathe with that fact, learned to live with it. Not just exist.

He still had bad days, still had days that threatened to swallow him whole in their unflinching anguish, but he had good days too. Days where he was able to forgive himself, if only for a few moments, and that... That felt so, so good that it brought tears to his eyes.

He was truly and genuinely okay in those moments. It wasn't just a lie he made up when the bad got worse and made him scramble for driftwood—for excuses to live just one more day—with all the desperation of a drowned man.

Learning to forgive himself, loving oneself as she had so earnestly requested... That was one of his hardest fought lessons to learn, but it was also the best one. It was one that made him melt into himself with such relief that he felt like a child again in his mother's arms, as she whispered to him that everything would be okay, and he believed it.

Dear God, he believed it.

(He could believe in something again, and wasn't that a beautiful thing? He could truly, genuinely, earnestly believe it would be okay again. He hadn't had the ability to do that since Middle School.)

It made his chest ache with a pleasant sting as he truly, genuinely smiled on those days, those days of bliss and contentment and inner peace. His mind was silent. More than anything, he savored that. Being able to just exist without anything else weighing on his conscience.

Being able to live.

(And wasn't that interesting that he liked that now? How the times change.)

Today...

Wasn't one of those days.

Because despite his recent gains in his ability to forgive, he wasn't quite alright yet. He doubted he ever truly would be. Forgiving everything he had done seemed nigh unattainable; loving himself even more so. At least at the moment.

Well... In many moments.

Alone in a snowy, soundless world of his own, Izuku Midoriya exhaled a white puff of air, green pupils like dull emeralds shining brightly nonetheless.

"She gave me a hard one, didn't she?"

He stared at the scars sashaying around his wrist, like that of a drunken artist, swishing his brush right and left without a rhyme or pattern; some thick, some thin. Some deep, some shallow. It was an immutable tale of his past, of his mistakes and moments of weakness that would never vanish as long as he lived.

While others would have flinched at it, he merely stared at it, irises dancing with mirth.

Yes, it wasn't easy.

Yes, he will never be the same.

Yes, it hurt in places humans should never hurt.

"But this is your punishment to me, after all, isn't it? It would be weird if I enjoyed it. As you said, life isn't easy. For me, it may as well be hell itself, but... I can't run away from it anymore either, huh."

The whisper of an amused sigh seemed to brush past his ears, and he smiled.

It was a thin, wane thing, but for once, it was a true one.

"Well, I'd best get back to work now, or else the interns are going to yell at me again."

Standing up, he stretched his limbs from side to side with a satisfying pop, his sudden movement having the added benefit of shaking the small layer of snow that had piled up during his stay outside. With it, the name tag on his chest became clear as well.

DR. MIDORIYA IZUKU

PSYCHIATRIST

"See ya later, Gray."

I'll be waiting.

Afterword:

It's been a long haul with as many difficulties as one can expect from such a journey, but it's not been without its joys either. One of the main things I've learned from writing this, I suppose. But gee, who expected this? I certainly didn't— I was the kid who wrote a high score of 12 chapters, got tired, and never could give their ideas the chance to be anything more than a daydream to distract myself from math class.

Even this, this (hopefully) grand little saga with lots of admittedly heavy problems, switch-a-roos, and hard-fought life lessons...

I didn't dare dream that I would actually do it.

Yet, here we are.

I won't deny that while I gradually wanted to complete something for the sake of completing something that was mine, it was all you guys who led the charge. Heck, the third chapter only came out since I got a dm from someone who simply wanted to see more.

So take pride, kiddos. This exists because of you all, and I certainly want to thank you for it as well.

I learned a lot as a person as I wrote this as well. I can't say how many times that ending of my daydreams morphed and transformed (my spot-checker friend can probably tell you; I told him so many times about this awesome new ending in mind that he stopped being surprised) because it was no longer quite right. 

There are absolutely mistakes that exist in this, plot holes that need to be filled, and a few promises I failed to answer due to me having absolutely no idea how to write a long-running, entertaining novel of a fanfiction. More than a few have been turned off along the journey by character choices and perhaps choices of my own that were mistakes to some. But I find myself being proud of what it ended up in the end, and I hope you all feel proud as well.

That said, I never actually liked the MHA fandom! HAHA! One hell of a crazy bastard, that I am! Feels good to get that one off my chest though. As some of you have probably guessed with my plot points and general... 'me-ness' that seeps into my writing, I'm pretty nit-picky. To the point I got rid of the things that ranked me the most about the world-building in MHA. I'll spare going into detail about all my grievances though.

<3

Hope to see all you guys on the next adventure!

(oh, keep an eye out for RP: SS. I finally have some foreseeable time and that shall perhaps be updated. ;))