"...All Might." Inko muttered quietly. "I want to tell you about a dream I had once, when Izuku was about six years old."
Toshinori blinked, and did some math. "Ten years ago?" He checked.
"Nine, but yes." Inko nodded. "I remember it was late at night. I was sitting at home, watching television, when I got the feeling that I should make sure Izuku had remembered his bedtime." Inko brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and chuckled dryly. "He loved to marathon your debut video, and it only got worse when he was... Well, misdiagnosed as Quirkless."
Inko sighed, and stared past Toshinori. He followed her gaze to see it was a family photo on the wall. A very small and very adorable Izuku was grinning widely, an All Might action figure gripped in his tiny hands. To his right was Inko, who was younger and thinner, but no less attractive than she was now. To young Izuku's left was a reedy man in a suit, slightly taller than Inko.
However, that was the only detail of him that existed; his face had been completely excised from the photograph, not torn out but carefully cut away, an entire corner of the portrait removed from history.
"When I got to Izuku's room," Inko continued, "I saw Hisashi standing there. I never heard him come home, and he was… Wrong." Inko shuddered slightly. "That's how I figured it was a dream, you know - Hisashi wasn't nearly as tall or as broad. He was standing over Izuku, and had his hand on his face. I remember…" Inko flushed slightly. "I remember I got mad at him, because he wasn't wearing the right tie. He left home that morning wearing a green tie, so why was it red?"
Inko shook her head. "This is where the dream took a turn: I said, "Hisashi, who's tie is that?" or something similar, and I tried to grab out with my Quirk to pull him to me by his tie." Inko gulped before continuing. "I must have missed, because i grabbed something… Else instead."
"What else?" Toshinori found himself asking as he leaned forward.
"I grabbed his face." Inko revealed, covering her mouth with her fingers. Her face wasn't horrified, simply... Unfocused. Lost in the memory. "It just ripped off of him, like cheap latex. But there wasn't a skull or muscle or anything under it; it was another face."
A chill went down Toshinori's back. He hated ghost stories.
"Those eyes…" Inko gulped. "It's the one thing I remember about the face. Those piercing red eyes that seemed to leech the light away from everything else…"
Inko paused, then continued.
"And then I woke up." Inko finished. "I was on top of my bed, and Izuku was sound asleep. Hisashi wasn't around, and I later learned he spent the night in a hotel." Inko scoffed. "Of course, I divorced him. Told him I never wanted to see him ever again. He sends money from America, but…" Inko trailed off. "I never told Izuku what happened. How do you explain that you got divorced over a dream?"
