Dear Master
Dear Shimura
Dear Ms Shimura

Master

I don't know what to do.

Is this what it was like to be you? Feeling their hopes riding on your shoulders even as you fell, knowing you wouldn't last forever, but the least you could do was go out in a blaze of light? Did your heart ache like this? Did I have those same stars in my eyes, the day you finally agreed that even a quirkless boy like me could be your successor? How did you stand it, that earnestness, that hope? How did you not break down, then and there?

He's fifteen. A first year. The same age I was, maybe younger. I'll never forget what that was like, but I couldn't have guessed what I would feel standing on the other side.

He's so young. So was I.

Were you afraid, Master? When you told me to go? When you realized you wouldn't be coming back? I worry I won't be enough for him, and I'm not even dead yet still alive to teach.

Sometimes, I wish you could write back. That I could ask you for advice, come to you in moments like these. Some days I am more a symbol than a person, but on others I feel like I am just your student again, stumbling and running like the half-grown youth I was. There is so much danger waiting for him.

But maybe I am doubting and worrying too much. I've seen fire in this young man's eyes as well as stars. I believe in him, I really do. I believe he can be the symbol of peace someday, just as you believed in me. And, Master...

I think you would have liked him.

(The letter folds neatly into half, a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth. It fits neatly into a crevice in the overstuffed desk drawer, and he does not read it again. He does not need to.)