Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Himari is no stranger to death.

It was something she faces on a daily basis. People come to her regularly to ask for her services. Her Quirk is the best next substitue for death. She makes a lot of money off of it.

You see, Himari’s Quirk was the ability to look into the threads of the multiverse, and, in a way, pull on them. Pull the threads close enough together that things could cross from one string to another, or in this case, people.

Her job is to take people from one universe to another. It’s gruling, it’s caused her a lot of pain, but, she believes it’s better than death, which is what many people who see her wish for.

She thinks she’s doing a public service. The Lord’s work, if she will.

Of course, life is never that simple.

A boy shows up at her doorstep one day.

Her business is pretty underground, so usually, children don’t show up at her door. This is strange.

He’s small, is the first thing Himari notices when she opens the door. He hardly reaches her nose.

The second thing she notices is the UA uniform he’s wearing. Then, the green hair. Then, the freckled face.

She slowly drinks in the sight of this tiny, shivering boy, standing in front of her in the middle of a december night.

It’s very melodramatically sad. Like a scene from a shitty movie.

“Can I help you?” She asks, in her usual business tone.

“Y-yeah.” The boy’s eyes are somewhat unfocused, as if he’d somewhere else, on another plane of existence. “I heard a-about what you do-and I was wondering-”

“You’d like to make a deal?” She asks, surprised. He’s a UA kid. Why is he here?

“C-can I come inside?” The boy looks up at her with his stupidly cute face, and Himari takes pity on him.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re sitting in her kitchen with a cup of tea. Himari finds it best to be courteous, but not ask too many questions. That was her jobs motto.

“So-the...deal.” He mumbles to himself, almost as if he doesn’t exactly want to say it. This is normal. Most clients can’t believe they’re doing this. Himari is no stranger to this either.

“Yes.” Himari says in her businesslike tone, then realizes she might have made a mistake, seeing the kids petrified expression. Himari doesn’t find herself intimidating, besides her height, but this kid seems like he’s terrified of everything. So she softens her tone a little bit.

“Are you here on behalf of someone else?” She says softly, like you’d talk to a frightened animal.

“No-No! I’m here because… of me.” His tone trails off into a quiet mumble again.

This kid is peculiar. Himari can’t help herself.

“Why?” She presses. “You’re at UA, right? That’s-that’s like a dream school. I wanted to go there when I was a kid.” She can’t stop the bitterness from leaking into her tone.

His glassy eyes dart up, like she just threatened to attack him, and she immediately regrets it.

“You don’t have to answer. I’m just curious.” Be courteous, don’t ask questions. “I didn’t mean to push.”

The boy looks down at his lap, mug in hand. It’s a cat mug. It reads; Check Meowt!

“No-it’s fine.” He brushes a hand through his mess of green curls. “I just-I’m sort of done with this whole Heroes-and-Villains thing.” His breath hitches. Oh god, she hopes he’s not about to cry. Himari hates it when her clients cry, because she doesn’t have a damn clue what to do.

“It-I-I had a revelation-and I sorta realized I was just a cog in the machine, y’know? You get that feeling?” Himari nodded, and took a sip of her tea. It was bitter, but soothing. She liked tea more when it scalded her tongue.

“I met this-guy.” The boy’s words come rushing out, like a river, and Himari has a hard time keeping up with him.

“And-he told me that some Heroes aren’t worthy, and that they just want money and fame. And-he’s kind of right, I mean, I don’t hate Heroes, I think they’re great, but it’s just that I can’t tell when Hero is a label or something someone’s earned through hard work and sweat. I didn’t earn my place at UA through hard work, just happenstance, and stupid stuff I did-you ever feel like you cheated, even when you technically didn’t?” Himari nods again. Her Quirk was a lot like that, when she used it to see answers in different universes and such, almost like foretelling the future.

“And I know Heroes-people who want to be Heroes,-who have done a whole boatload of shitty things and no one’s called them out for doing all the bad things, and I hate that!” His words come out now as harsh, sharp poisonous needles, and his eyes are full of anger and a deep, deep rooted sadness.

“I wanted to fix it-but I can’t. And now-I just want to get out of it. All of it.” He puts emphasis of all, and Himari’s familiar enough with this boy’s words and stance to realize he’s is probably an abuse victim. Perhaps it’s his parents, but Himari knows that this could be good pay, so she keeps her trap shut.

“So here.” He tosses a roll of yen, about one thousand, on to the table. “I don’t have much more-I’m not the richest kid ever-is that okay-”

“Sure.” The words were out of Himari’s mouth before she even registered them. But something, something about this kid, moved her. She’d heard enough sob stories to become desensitised to them, but he-he was just a child.

But… he sounded desperate.

And this might be cruel to him in the long run.

But this might be a cruel mercy.

“Oh-okay.” The words sounded hollow. Himari despised that hollowness, one that robbed men and women of their people, passion, and eventually, their lives.

A child should never speak with that hollowness.

His back is scarred.

In order for this to work, she needs to touch the bare skin on the back, and people had to take their shirts off.

A few people left their shirts behind. She kept them as a memento.

“Are you sure?” The question had lost its meaning after years of doing this. But she had to make sure.

“Yes.” The boy’s face is determined. Himari knows it’s pointless to argue with that face.

“Okay. Any universe requests?”

“One without me.” That goes without saying. She wasn’t going to be faulted for the collapse of another universe.

“And… anything else?”

“Um…” He sighs.

“One without Quirks.”

That was an odd request. But, then again, this was an odd boy.

“Sure.” Here comes the tricky part.

In her mind, she sees the strings, pulling, pushing, and vibrant, pulsing with a color she could never describe, like a language no one else but her was fluent in. Her mind searches, ad looks, and finally, she finds one.

She doesn’t look at the specifics of the worlds rules. She knows that there might be magic there, but she isn’t quite sure.

She removes a glove to touch the boys back. But she has one last, unscripted request.

“Name?” She asks.

He looks at her funny, the first color of emotion filtering into them.

“Izuku Midoriya.” He says.

Her fingers make contact with scarred flesh.

There’s no flash, no sparkle. In her mind, she can see the strings tangle, and connect. He’s simply there, then not. Her fingers grasp empty air.

The room feels very empty without him, for some reason.

Himari sighs. This would be one customer she’d never get out of her head.

No use thinking about it now. She goes to the kitchen to finish her tea.

Chapter Text

He’s at a train station.

It’s empty. The trains are still wheeling through, but no one is on them.

How’d he get here?

His mind drifts back to the conversation he’d had with-Himari. Right. That was her name.

“Well, it’s about time.” He turns to his left to see a tall figure standing right next to him, holding a pocket watch and checking the time as if they’d been waiting for years. Their hair is long, and pink.

“Who am I?” The figure looks at him before the words have even formed. Smirking, they puts the watch back in their pocket. “I am… the Stationmaster. That’s what you can call me.”

“It’s been ages since I’ve directly talked to anyone, much less anyone as important as you.” The Stationmaster laughs.

He’s confused. Important? Him?

“No one ever jumps worlds anymore, except on accident.” The Stationmaster stretches, and checks their watch again. “Seven minutes until your train. That should be enough time.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. He just can’t seem to form them.

“So, you want to leave? Not exist? Die?” The Stationmaster questions. “Everyone has so many reasons. It’s interesting.”

He just wants to not be there.

“Interesting. I can see why you’d have become the way you did-that is-if you hadn’t given up.” He can’t seem to decide what color the Stationmaster’s eyes are. Red? Blue? Pink? It seems to shift.

“You want to go, but you’re so determined not to die. Are you scared? Of death?”

He frowns. Who isn’t?

The Stationmaster looks out, away from him, at something that only their eyes can see.

“I’m not.” They say quietly.

He hears the rushing before he sees it. A train glides out of one of the tunnels and screeches to a halt before him, doors opening. The inside of the train is empty.

“You’re running on borrowed time, Izuku Midoriya.” The Stationmaster says, eyes darkening. “When I see you again, it probably won’t be so friendly. Unless Time puts in a good word for you.”

The Stationmaster laughs, as if the very idea is preposterous.

“Now hurry up and get on your train. Unless you want to stay?”

He shakes his head vigorously, so much so that his head starts to hurt once he stops.

“Good.” The Stationmaster is there, then he’s not. No flash, or sparkle. Like an image blinking out of view.

He gets on the train. The silence is eerie, something he’s not used to, the sound grating into his ears. He picks a seat by the door, and curls himself into a ball, wishing he could disappear.

It’s like a rug being pulled out from under his feet. The train simply just stops being there, and he’s falling, through a bluff of colors that form around him, into a scene.

And it’s raining.

Izuku is on a park bench, it’s raining, and he’s wet.