Chapter Text
Chapter Seventeen
“When the past gets its teeth into our daily life, it may get to grips with an astringent reality and adjust our timeline. By recognizing ourselves in the light of our history, we become aware of what we are. ("Going back to yesterday")”
― Erik Pevernagie
Mirai Sasaki had a dilemma on his hands.
It felt as if he was standing at a crossroads while blindfolded. No, even then, he might be able to discern how to best move forward and deal with what might come. Blind folded at a crossroads would be an improvement from his current situation.
He rubbed his temple with the lower part of his palm to futilely push back the migraine that always followed from an overuse of his quirk. He had always said an hour was his limit once the conditions for his quirk were met, but that was a half-truth based around his awareness of his own limitations and the… drawbacks of trying to push past the time limit.
Understandably, considering some of the potential drawbacks of prolonged usage included permanent damage to one’s quirk factor. Since his quirk factor was relegated to his eyes, that not only risked damaging his quirk but his eyesight as well, so he’d never allowed himself to push past that hour once his limitations were realized.
He had pushed it by an extra hour before the migraine had forced him to stop. Once was less likely to cause permanent damage - seventy eight percent - but he knew better than to push it much farther than he already had,
Yet, despite all of that, he was still faced with more questions than answers.
It wasn’t often that he was faced with a problem whose solution was evasive and just out of his sight.
As he had told Toshinori’s (unfortunately) chosen successor, by knowing what would occur, he could put into motion his own actions to counteract them. The actions leading into what he’d seen would always be there; fate was inevitable, as he well knew, but his own reactions were the ones that could be considered unaccounted for. If he knew the boy would inevitably swing up a kick from his left, it would still occur, but Nighteye could sidestep out of its way without a care.
That was how Foresight worked. The future was set in stone, but the way that he reacted to it was not. Therein laid its use for combat as well as reconnaissance.
His eyes slipped over to the approved application for an internship resting on his desk, his stamp glaring up at him, bright red against the strikingly white paper, accusingingly. A frown tugged his lips downward, his hands folded in front of him on the desk.
Except things hadn’t worked out quite as he’d expected, the three minutes he’d allotted for the test to showcase the futility of the boy’s hopes and dreams having ended after mere seconds.
____________
“I will not fight back at all. Come at me with whatever sort of attacks you wish. Any amount of damage to this room is acceptable so long as you steal my seal.”
The sooner this was over, the sooner things could get back on track to how they should be.
Except when he let himself see using Foresight, there were two reels running side by side instead of one.
_____________
He could only use Foresight on one person once per twenty-four hours. Those were the limitations on his quirk. Yet there were two reels running side by side. He couldn’t dispute what he’d seen even if he lacked the understanding to reconcile just what he had seen.
Something else that he was unused to.
He closed his eyes, the reels playing through his memory once more even with the effects of his quirk having long since worn off.
There was the boy - the successor - planning on a feigned frontal assault to instead attack him from above. In the same moment, there was a young man talking to what appeared to be Tomura Shigaraki, the leader of the League of Villains. Discomfort could be seen in the way he held himself, though his face was largely obscured by a partial facial mask and obnoxiously large goggles, so that was as far as Mirai could venture there.
It was also hazier, less clear than the images from the left reel. He’d never had an issue with clarity before when using Foresight so it was… unsettling, to say the least.
But they were clearly separate people considering he was only focusing on seconds within the future rather than minutes or even hours, and the boy was clearly in front of him.
Yet, for some reason, the boy’s future and this young man’s were being registered as the same to Foresight.
He had been knocked out of the moment by the feigned frontal assault he had predicted seconds before as the stamp was plucked from his grip without much resistance.
____________
The shock on Mirai’s face was mirrored on Midoriya’s, the boy’s eyes wide as his feet touched the ground again. “I - I’m sorry.” He glanced at the stamp in his hand as if uncertain that he’d done what he was supposed to.
Mirai blinked away the dual reels in front of him and turned his head away to hide just how shaken he actually was. “For what? You accomplished your task, didn’t you?”
The boy frowned, his eyebrows furrowing. “Well, yeah, but…”
He pushed up his glasses with two fingers. “Well what?”
He knew what the boy was thinking though. He could read it just off of his frown. It was too easy. And it had been. There was no reason he should have been able to land a hit on him.
None save for Mirai’s own distraction with that… anomaly.
“Are you sure that’s it?” Green eyes met his, searching them as if they were looking for some kind of trick.
“I allowed myself to get distracted by another matter, but I’m a man of my word and you did acquire my stamp.” He studied the boy for a moment, making no move towards the application on his desk.
His lips curved downward into a deep frown. Was it a fluke? While he had to consider that possibility, he also knew how unlikely it was for such a fluke to only show up now after three decades of using it. It would be irresponsible for him to approach the matter with anything other than the utmost seriousness.
And to do so, he had to approach the incident as if it were any other activation of his quirk to see if he could find what linked the two reels.
What linked this boy to someone within the League of Villains in a way that should be impossible.
Now more than ever was he convinced that Toshinori had made the wrong choice in successor.
He cleared his throat. “Well? Are you going to hand me your application or not?”
He needed to get the boy out of here immediately so that he could examine the matter in private.
At least to the boy’s credit, he didn’t seem to be losing himself to his victory. If anything, One for All’s successor looked cautious as he approached him with the application, that crease in his brow even more pronounced. While he didn’t approve of him, approved even less now after that disturbing anomaly, he could at least acknowledge that the boy had some measure of good instinct there.
The last thing the world needed was someone wielding the power of One for All who rushed into situations without thinking.
Midoriya watched as he stamped the application before asking slowly, cautiously, “Is something wrong, Sir Nighteye?”
A foolish question, but at least that he couldn’t fault him for. It was likely politeness that had him phrasing it in such a manner.
“I suppose we’ll see, now won’t we?” His eyes searched the boy’s face once more, looking for answers he knew he would not receive. When he looked through Foresight, he could see Mirio taking the boy out for a celebratory lunch. And he could see the other one adjust accordingly as well, the timeframe selected for one affecting the other. The masked young man was in a minimally furnished room, black tendrils sprouting from him. Tomura Shigaraki was next to him, and across from him…
...was Kai Chisaki. Overhaul.
Interesting.
“Lemillion is no doubt waiting just outside. Go,” Mirai ordered, jerking his chin towards the door. “I expect you to be here at eight o’clock sharp tomorrow. Is that understood?”
“I - yes, Sir.” Midoriya nodded firmly. “I’ll be here.”
“Good. Now go,” he repeated, shooing him away. “And tell Lemillion and Bubble Girl that I’m not to be disturbed for the rest of the day.”
The boy’s frown deepened but he nodded again, that wariness still present in his eyes.
Good. If there were any secrets he held regarding what Mirai had witnessed then he was more likely to slip up.
And if not, at least the boy had a brain. He didn’t suffer fools lightly.
___________
Mirai exhaled slowly and resisted the urge to seek out something stronger to drink than the water on his desk. Images were still flickering across his vision, faster than he could handle, ingrained in some sense to his memory like most of his quirk.
When you look too close, you might not like what you see.
Who would have thought that the old adage would prove itself twice in his life?
There was a reason he’d stopped looking so far into the future after all, but he couldn’t resist when examining the two reels in real time showed him very little to help understand what was going on save for a confirmation that the League and the Shie Hassaikai were indeed in league with one another.
Turmoil bubbled up within him as the scene played out once more from the boy’s reel. He was fighting Overhaul. It had been hard to see much of his surroundings while trying to pay attention to Midoriya himself, but he did catch sight of Mirio in the background, unconscious on the ground and in front of a small girl who couldn’t be more than a handful of years old.
Then, movement from the shadows that he couldn’t quite make out. Just barely on his periphery. The edges of it looked familiar but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, as infuriating as that was to acknowledge.
And then it always ended moments later with blood splattering into the air, the shot going dark, and the reel running out.
Simultaneously, he’d tried to study the corresponding scenes in the other reel, observing the young man racing across what appeared to be some kind of compound, blood caked on the side of his head and his mask torn. It was hard to view each reel separately, his quirk trying to take them in together to the point where they blurred within his vision, so he knew he was missing out on most of the finer details.
He got glimpses of a fight with Overhaul that preceded the one in the other reel. (So maybe not as allied with the Shie Hassaikai as assumed from a first glance). Glimpses of Tomura Shigaraki and the man known as Kurogiri appearing.
Another glimpse of the young man unconscious with Shigaraki peering down at him.
And then the moment the other reel went black and ended, it did too.
They were linked. That much was clear. But the how and why were eluding him.
His lips thinned. He would have to try again tomorrow. And the next day if that was what it took.
After all, it seemed Mirio and Midoriya were both fated to be a part of his investigation into Shie Hassaikai. It was better to take control of this from the start.
But just what had Toshinori gotten himself into by choosing Izuku Midoriya as his successor?
~*~
Izuku sneezed suddenly. He blinked beneath his goggles.
“You know, if you sneeze, it means someone’s talking about you,” Amaru informed him wisely.
His lips twitched as he looked down at the little girl. “Is that so?”
“Mmhm.” She didn’t look up from her current task which was painting his nails a dark red. (“Like blood,” she’d told him when she first held up the nail polish she’d swiped from a store. He’d made a silent note to make sure to keep her and Toga away from one another).
“Hope they’re saying something nice, at least,” he said simply.
“Nice is boring.”
“Oh?” Izuku raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you said I was nice.”
“You are.” And there was that faint, mischievous smirk he’d figured was just waiting to sneak out.
“Ouch, okay.”
“It’s okay,” Amaru agreed. “I don’t hold it against you.”
A faint hint of warmth filled his chest, covering up the ever present cold just a little bit. He leaned his chin on his hand and watched her for a moment, eyes flickering over her face briefly. Then, quietly, “Don’t forget what I told you, alright? If you don’t hear from me by this time a week from now, you need to go to the shop. The old lady there will look after you, got it?”
Amaru’s yellow eyes narrowed, utterly unimpressed. “Don’t forget I’ve been watching my back since before you came around, Frowny-san. I’ll be fine.”
Izuku sighed, knowing he couldn’t force her to do anything. “Just think about it, okay? Please?”
She hesitated before looking away, the nail polish brush lowering from his nails. “...What you’re doing is that dangerous, huh?”
He should tell her the truth. He knew that. Yet…
He flashed her a soft grin and reached out to ruffle her hair, ignoring her squawk of outrage as he did. “Nah, I just might have to go underground for a little bit is all,” he lied.
It was still his job to smile so that kids like Amaru wouldn’t be afraid.
That was the job of a hero.
“People everywhere have to think I'm never afraid. But I just smile to hide the fear inside, when the pressure is high.”
Izuku knew he needed to keep doing better. He needed to live up to what Toshinori expected of him.
Even if he had to do that from the shadows now. Even if it was dangerous to let his light shine too brightly. He would still find a way to live up to his predecessor.
“If you say so.” Amaru didn’t sound entirely convinced, but she went back to painting his nails, so at least that was one step forward, he guessed.
“I do.”
At the end of the day, Izuku was still a hero, no matter how tarnished his light was, and he would keep on pushing through.
He had to since starting tomorrow, he and Toga were going to be stationed with Overhaul as part of Shigaraki’s little deal.
~*~
Izuku had spent hours thinking about going off plan, off script, and just snatching Eri from Overhaul during his initial meeting with his younger self and Mirio. It would be too easy too.
But the moment he did, not only would he lose his in with the League, but he wouldn’t be able to tell what kinds of waves it might end up creating. Would he be able to protect both Mirio and his younger self without civilians getting in the way too?
If he used all of One for All, he knew he could beat Overhaul, but once that secret was out, that was it.
And it shouldn’t matter because there was a little girl in danger who desperately needed someone on her side, someone to rescue her.
Except it did when a small mistake could land her right back into Overhaul’s hands again.
Izuku purposefully took a few even, measured breaths before another panic attack could sneak up on him. He wasn’t always sure what would trigger them, but he was pretty sure the scene was set for a good one.
He needed to keep himself together. He swallowed hard. There was no room for error in this. Healing… Healing could be done once everyone was safe.
Not until then.
In the end, as much as he hated it, it was probably a blessing that Overhaul had wanted him as one of the two League members loaned to him since it meant he would be able to stay close enough to protect Eri while protecting everyone else too. He didn’t think he was going to be able to get around the big raid, so the least he could do was use his knowledge of it to protect everyone there.
Save Nighteye.
But he knew what he was going to need to do first. No one could afford going into this blind. Certain secrets he would keep close to chest still. It was too soon for everything.
But he also couldn’t just stand back and hope for the best in the events leading up to it especially since there was no way he was going to be able to get word out once he was inside the compound. He knew how paranoid Chisaki was when it came to the secret of Eri.
He and Toga would both be watched closely.
Aizawa had asked for a meeting in two days, for him to gather what information he could, but they didn’t have two days.
Izuku exhaled slowly before calling Aizawa, his eyes drifting upward to watch a passing cloud. “We need to meet immediately. Today. I have some information about Er--the girl.”
Aizawa, to his credit, didn’t waste time questioning him. Not that Izuku thought he would, especially if news of his younger self’s encounter an hour ago had already reached him.
Since it was daylight instead of late at night when they usually met, however, a change of scenery had to be used with Aizawa suggesting the forest a couple miles away from the campus. It was secluded enough that no one would see, but it was also home terrain that he knew best in case Izuku was setting a trap for him.
Not that his old teacher said any of that, but Izuku knew him too well not to know what was going on in his mind, and it made him smile a little.
Some things just never changed.
“So the rumors about the League and the Shie Hassaikai joining forces are true?” Aizawa asked, never one to beat around the bush.
“Yeah.” Izuku rolled his shoulders before turning around to look at him. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
Aizawa raised an eyebrow, though the rest of his expression was carefully guarded. “You mentioned a girl.”
As if he hadn’t already heard the report from Sir Nighteye.
“Her name’s Eri,” he said quietly, “and the focus of whatever you all are planning needs to be on getting her out. And I just so happen to know right where they’re located and how to get in.” He frowned slightly after a moment. “But that’s not the only thing I wanted to warn you about.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Whoever you currently have on your line-up,” Izuku began, ignoring the way Aizawa stiffened, already knowing the man was wondering how he knew about the emergency meeting that was called, “will just barely be enough, but even then, you’re going in blind.”
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“There’s a lot I’m not telling you,” Izuku agreed, flashing a smile beneath his mask, just barely noticeable in the way the material stretched with it. “But I’m on your side. Always have been.”
He exhaled slowly after a moment before pulling out a notebook from his jacket that he’d put together while sitting in the park with Amaru. He tossed it over to him. “In there is everything you need to know about Overhaul’s abilities,” he explained as he watched his old teacher carefully bend down to pick it up without looking away from him. “… and those of the Eight Precepts of Death. I’ll be out of contact for a while, so don’t try to reach me. I just wanted to make sure you had that before whatever you all end up planning.”
Sir Nighteye was only injured as badly as he was because backup didn’t get there in time. Izuku was already planning on finding some way to step into the fray himself, but just in case he failed, there had to be another plan in place.
(Even if it gave away more than he was comfortable with.)
Instead of opening the notebook, Aizawa’s eyes scanned Izuku’s face for a moment, his expression unreadable. “You’re starting to become more of a problem child than my own students.”
“Isn’t that what heroes do best?” Izuku grinned beneath his mask. It softened, after a moment. “I’m being assigned to their main base. If I see any of your students in there, if you guys end up raiding the place or something, I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for them.”
Instead of looking relieved at the promise, the corners of the man’s eyes tightened instead, his lips tugging downward slightly. “I can’t promise anything on my end.”
“I figured.” Izuku shrugged. He would do his best to disengage if any of the heroes found him there. He definitely wasn’t fighting them if he could help it.
That didn’t seem to settle Aizawa any, the frown deepening, his grip seeming to tighten on the notebook. Wariness flashed within Izuku’s hidden eyes as he tried and failed to figure out what was going on inside of Aizawa’s head.
What Izuku didn’t expect were the words that came out of his mouth next.
“I have a proposition of my own for you, kid.”