Work Text:
None of them saw it coming.
None of them knew a thing it seemed, or just didn’t notice the signs.
He had kept them well hidden though, always seeming to smile his big grin no matter the situation.
Tsuyu had no idea she would be the last to talk to him, not until it was too late.
It was Kaminari that found him, according to investigations he had been only an hour too late. The electric blond beat himself up over that constantly since the incident, when he found Sero he could hardly get to his contacts on his phone trying to see through tears and try to think at least semi-clearly. Calling whoever he ended up on, which had been Ashido, who rushed over at once after hearing Kaminari barely able to get out through sobs, the words, “H-help, S-Sero h-he’s… h-he’s...a-apartment, c-chair..”
Ashido had contacted some of their other friends and rushed to Sero’s apartment, upon arriving seeing the scene for herself. Not long after all of their former classmates and some of their old teachers were informed.
Tsuyu felt awful.
Not only had she been the last to speak to him, she lived not too far from him and had even been home at the time of his death, with no idea of what happened. If she had known what the words in his last message really meant, she would have gone dashed right over, prevented everything, Kaminari finding him, losing him, everyone losing him.
She should have hung out with him more, he wasn’t too far away she could have popped by his place more often or invited him over or something when they both weren’t busy with Hero work. Maybe she would have noticed how he was doing if she had hung around him more in person.
Instead now here she was, sitting on her kitchen floor staring at his last message he sent her.
Can’t wait to hang with you and everyone else again! It’s really been too long
Haha yeah… Probably won’t be seeing me for a while though…
Oh? Sounds like life’s got you busy
I’m sorry
It’s alright, we all get pretty busy with Hero stuff
-Read, last Wednesday
Tsuyu let out a sob as she read it for what felt like the millionth time now. If only she had known, maybe if she had been around more, if only she had realized what his last messages had really meant. She couldn’t imagine what the rest of the Bakusquad was feeling, she knew they all talked and hung out together probably more than anyone out of their former classmates. Even Bakugo had taken a leave of absence from Hero work.
She’d do anything to see his smile once more, that big goofy smile he always had. What she’d give to hear his jokes, hear his laugh, his voice, anything to talk to him once more. The funeral hadn’t even been held yet, it was scheduled for the next day. It was hard to believe it had been a week since the incident.
Tsuyu let out a deep sigh, wiping away some tears from her face and standing up. She was starving, she hadn’t eaten yet that day, she needed to make herself eat something. Trudging over to the fridge and not finding anything except for expired leftovers she groaned, she hadn’t gone shopping. It was hard to leave her apartment without hearing something or seeing something about Sero’s death, she ended up avoiding going out at all costs.
Now she had to go out, she had to get something to eat, she wasn’t going to text one of her friends and ask them to bring her food, she was supposed to be one of the people that was there for others in their group, people came to her when they needed help. She couldn’t show herself to them right now, she could do this, there was a cafe just down the street she could grab a quick bite at.
Dragging her feet over to her room, she changed into some more suitable clothes, grabbing a hat as well hoping to not draw too much attention to herself and get hounded by reporters or fans trying to get her word on what happened with her former classmate.
Eventually, she finally got dressed and made her way out of the apartment and down to the street. She was sure she was a mess, had her quirk not been frog she probably wouldn’t have even bathed in the last week. She just had to make it to the cafe and back, simple, she would be fine.
At least, until she heard a loud noise and more commotion across the street and looked over to see what looked to be the beginning of a villain attack.
Just her luck.
The frog girl stood there staring for a moment, she had to go help, she didn’t have her costume or any gear but that didn’t matter, what mattered was making sure no one got hurt. Snapping out of her daze she quickly hopped over to the other side, making her way past the people that were running away from the scene.
Arriving on the scene, she found smoke pouring out of the nearby jewelry store, rushing into the shop and just barely being able to make out two other figures in the shop through the smoke, looking like they were shoving everything they could into bags. Unaware of what the smoke contained, she decided it would be best to get this over quickly before it spread far.
If she squinted she could see the gas appeared to be shooting out of the front of one of the figures, sneaking up on the robber to tackle and pin them down on the ground, hoping to clear up the smoke by doing this, other Heroes would surely be here any moment to take care of the other she hoped. What she hadn’t expected was the other robber who had been on the other side of the store to react to quickly.
Tsuyu felt herself grabbed and started being pulled off of the robber she had been holding down, she probably should have thought her plan through more, the other villain had been on the opposite side of the shop so she didn’t expect them to hear her right away, or get over to her so fast.
Nor had she seen what happened next coming.
She had been about to retaliate against the other villain when she was thrown off of the pinned one, but not just thrown off, but it was almost as if she was just thrown through a portal. A portal to nothingness, just darkness, the portal closed in front of her before she could whip out her tongue to reach the villain to make her way out of wherever she was now.
The frog girl started to panic, she was floating, it was so dark she could barely see her hand in front of her own face, nothing but more darkness around her. Would she get out of here? Was the villain’s quirk temporary? Or Was she stuck here forever due to her carelessness.
Her mind wasn’t in the right place, she never should have engaged the villains on her own in her current state, she hadn’t been thinking clearly and rushed in without thinking. Now she was possibly trapped here forever, she’d never see her friends again, she would miss Sero’s funeral, she would cause their friends to lose another member of their group, they already were all over the place after Sero, how were they going to react to losing someone else within the same short period of time?
Tsuyu clutched her chest and tried to breathe, it felt like she couldn’t get enough air in, she felt sick to her stomach thinking about the pain she might cause everyone. She could feel the tears rolling down her face, her heart racing. She had to make it out of here, she couldn’t be trapped here forever she couldn’t do that to everyone she didn’t want to be the cause of their pain. She had to calm down but she couldn’t, thoughts accelerating through her head, the feeling of dread of knowing the possibility that she might not make it out of here kept overtaking her and prevented her from thinking clearly enough to calm herself down.
Then all of a sudden, she opened her eyes.
Tsuyu opened her eyes to no longer see darkness, but instead she found herself back in her apartment, sun shining through the blinds of her window into the room as she looked around, still in a panic over what just happened.
Had she dreamed it?
The green haired girl realized she was sitting at the counter in her apartment and continued looking around, had she fallen asleep while sitting there? the events had felt so real it couldn’t possibly have been a dream could it? She grabbed her phone from the counter and stood up, walking to her bedroom and laid down, after a few minutes finally being able to slow her breathing. Maybe today would be a stay in bed day.
At least that’s what she thought, until her phone went off after she had just set it down previously.
Groaning she reached over and grabbed it, noticing two things.
First, the date wasn’t right, it was a week earlier… the day Sero…
Second, the notification she got read
SpiderMan Jr.
I’m sorry
Tsuyu blinked, what kind of sick joke was this, was she still dreaming?
Or… Had she really gone back in time?
Was this the work of the Quirk? Had she not dreamed it? Was any of this real or was it some kind of fake universe created by the Quirk.
Whatever it was, she couldn’t not try to help Sero. She had to get to him. If she had the chance to help him she was sure going to try, whether this place was real or not.
She quickly typed up a message, getting out of bed and rushing to her front door.
There’s nothing to be sorry for, I’m sorry for not realizing how you’ve been sooner
She pressed send, something in her head telling her not to tell him she was on her way, she didn’t know what would happen if she told him that, she didn’t know what he was thinking, what if she was already too late, she didn’t know how long she had after his last message, she didn’t have time to think she had to get to him.
She was running down the stairs, putting her phone in her pocket, no she didn’t have time for stairs, what was she doing. Quickly switching to her leaping stance she hopped to the bottom of each flight of stairs to quickly get down to the first floor and rush out of the building.
Now that she was outside what was the fastest way to Sero’s? She hadn’t been to his place enough to remember exactly where it was, but she knew the way to the area and she’d know it when she saw it.
Making large hops down the street she shouted out apologies as she made her way past people, hopping over entire crosswalks when it wasn’t time for pedestrians to cross, she didn’t have time to slow down and stop, she didn’t know how much time she had at all, if she received penalties for any of this so be it she had someone to save and they were worth whatever punishment this could get her.
If she recalled the way correctly, it should have taken her about ten minutes if she walked at a normal pace. The hopping girl wasn’t sure how long it would take her at the fast pace she was going now, hopefully she would make it in time, she was already just about halfway there.
The frog girl kept pushing herself to go faster, taking to hopping to the side of buildings and hop off to avoid large crowds of people, eventually turning at a corner, she was almost there now, she knew this area, she was so close to his apartment building.
She pushed herself to hop even farther and faster now, only one thought, one goal on her mind.
There, she could see his building, she hoped she wasn’t too late as she rushed into it, quickly finding which number his apartment was and rushing up to his floor and finding Sero’s door, not even bothering to knock, she burst through the door.
Immediately she was greeted by a view of Sero standing on a chair in his living room, a noose around his neck connected to the fan on the ceiling.
But
He was alive.
The sight of seeing him still alive brought Tsuyu to tears.
Sero hadn’t noticed her yet, for whatever reason he was wearing wireless earbuds Tsuyu almost didn’t notice, also noticing his phone across the room.
“Sero don’t! Stop!” the frog girl quickly exclaimed, not wanting to make any sudden movements in case something went wrong if she were to do that.
Things went wrong anyways.
Very, very wrong.
Through whatever he had been listening to, Sero, despite not having heard the door open, heard Tsuyu’s voice call out to him, the black haired man looking over and being surprised to see her.
“Tsu?!”
This was his last word before in his surprise at seeing someone in his apartment, he lost his footing on the chair, the chair ended up flipping over, causing Sero to…
Tsuyu couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed, and it was her fault this time that it had happened.
She caused it and she saw it happen.
The frog girl graped her chest and fell to her knees, sobbing at the fact she had failed, she had been so close and it was all her fault now. She surprised him and caused the chair to move. It all happened so fast she didn’t have time to stop it. She had been so close, she almost had him. How was she to tell anyone what happened, how was she to tell anyone she was sent back in time and had the chance to save him and failed and caused his death instead?
Sent back in time….would the villain attack happen again? Would she have another chance to save him? What if the villain's quirk only worked once on a person and she didn’t have another chance. No, if that was the case she could explain it to someone and hopefully if they didn’t think she was crazy they would get hit by the quirk themselves and there would be another chance to save him.
Tsuyu continued to think about how to save him in efforts to calm herself down. She had to calm down so she could call people…
She had to make sure Kaminari wouldn’t come, she’d nearly forgotten he was the one to find Sero the first time, he could be on his way right now she couldn’t let him see this again. She would also be able to prevent Ashido from seeing it too.
The green haired frog girl pulled out her phone once she was able to, taking a deep breath and unlocking it, finding Kaminari in her contacts to message him.
Hey, don’t go to Sero’s, something happened. I’m going to write a message in the class group chat saying what happened.
After just a few moments she got a response back quickly.
??? What’s up with Sero?
She took in another deep breath and moved to the old class group chat.
I regret to inform you all that Sero is no longer with us.
She started typing, she didn’t know what to include in the message, does she tell the whole story, leave it vague? Did it really matter if she could just go back in time again?
Unsure what to do, she just typed whatever came to mind, deciding against telling the whole story right now if she could still fix this.
It wasn’t a villain attack or an accident in hero work or anything, today Sero's hung himself
Tsuyu didn’t know if she was saying too much or if she was using the wrong words, her mind still wasn’t clear enough to think properly, the only thing keeping her somewhat calm was the hope she had another chance to save him.
After sending the message she ignored all the texts that came flooding in, ignoring calls she suddenly started getting. She had to get Sero taken care of so she could start planning for her next attempt to save him.
It was a long week, but the day was finally here again, the day the robbery happened.
Tsuyu had planned all week for today, she invited Ashido to the cafe by her apartment, making sure she would be having Ashido arrive shortly after the robbery already started, giving Tsuyu enough time to try to get hit with the quirk again herself, and if it didn’t work she could run out quickly explain the situation to the pink hero, and send her into get hit instead.
She was sure she had all her bases covered, she had a plan, she had a backup plan, nothing could go wrong right?
When it was time, the green haired girl made her way to the jewelry store, seeing it once again filled with smoke, so far so good. Tsuyu made her way into the building, recalling where the person causing the smoke was, and repeated her actions that got her sent to the past the first time, pinning the smoke villain down until she felt herself thrown into the portal again.
Okay good, she could be affected by the quirk more than once.
She found herself back in the darkness, this time being able to not panic about where she was, since now she knew the full effects of the quirk. While she waited for the quirk to send her back to the past again, she did find her mind wandering again, during the past week she had found herself often thinking about what if she failed again, how many times would she fail, would it be possible for her to even succeed? Or was there some law of time travel that would forever prevent her from saving Sero.
She hoped that wasn’t the case, she didn’t know what she would do if she found out all of her efforts were for nothing and there was no possible way to save him, if there was any possibility of being able to save him she would gladly keep returning to the past and reliving the same week over and over until she saved him.
Once this was all over with, Tsuyu made a promise to herself that she would be there more for others, she would check in with all of them more, pay more attention to each of them. She didn’t want their group to lose anyone again. Whatever it took she would be there for everyone, no matter what.
Eventually, Tsuyu opened her eyes, finding herself back in her apartment again.
She had no time to lose, Sero would be texting her any moment, now that she knew she was in the past she had a little bit more time to get to him. She had planned out her path ahead of time and had practiced making her way over there, she knew she could make it before he was gone, but she needed more time once she was there. She didn’t want a repeat of last time.
Making her way up to the rooftop of her apartment building, she began to jump her way across the rooftops making her way to Sero’s, filled with determination to succeed.
She failed.
And failed again.
She didn’t want to keep count of how many times she failed, it seemed that no matter how fast she got there she was bound to fail. She had spent countless days feeling just awful about failing multiple times, and how in the end it would be her fault that Sero was gone. She had a hard time talking at all to her friends during the days she waited for the jewelry store robbery, she felt like a big failure and that she didn’t deserve their friendship right now.
She wondered if it truly was even possible to save him. She didn’t like thinking about that possibility, she didn’t want to give up on him.
She wasn’t going to.
She would keep on trying until she succeeded, she had spent multiple weeks going through the emotions of failing to save her friend over and over. Whatever toll this was taking on her mental state she didn’t care, she’d deal with that after, right now she was too focused on planning her next attempt.
There was an hour left before it would be time to head down to the jewelry store again, and Tsuyu was up in her apartment trying to figure out where all her plans were going wrong and why no matter how fast she got there she failed.
Then it hit her, something so simple she should have tried to do before. She felt like an idiot for letting all these days go by and she hadn’t thought of it at all, she had been so focused on speed and getting there fast she hadn’t considered other things she should be doing.
With this new realization in mind, Tsuyu revised her plan, thinking more about other things she should do instead of just trying to get to him faster. Her panicked brain hadn’t thought of things before, she had been so determined on being quick her brain was unable to think clearly and allow her to think of other things to help.
Eventually it came time for the robbery again, hopefully to time travel for a final time. She could only hope it would be, but even she had doubts it wouldn’t be the last, if it wasn’t she would just try again, and again, and again until she got it right.
She wanted to see his smile again, hear his laughter, she missed the jokes and pranks Sero and Kaminari would come up with when the group would hang out.
She missed him.
She realized she didn’t really know too much about him, despite being in the same classes as him, they didn’t hangout one on one often, they texted each other sometimes to check in if one was bored and looking for someone to talk to.
She wanted to get to know him better, he seemed like quite the interesting person and when they did end up talking to each other during class or a group activity she enjoyed talking to him, she enjoyed their texting when it would happen, Sero was a nice guy.
She had to succeed this time, she wanted everyone to keep making memories with him, she wanted to make more memories with him. She wanted to be there for him, help him get through what he had been going through for who knows how long.
She was going to succeed, even if it wasn’t this time around, she wasn’t going to give up on him, he was worth everything she was putting herself through.
Tsuyu got down to the jewelry store, repeating the actions she had done multiple times now to get herself sent to the past, finding herself in the darkness and then back in her apartment.
Immediately she grabbed her phone, went to Sero’s contact page and pressed the call button and started making her way up to the roof to start her route towards Sero’s, listening as the phone rang.
“Come on, please pick up…Let this work...”
Soon she heard her call be answered, and Sero’s voice came through the phone.
“Hello? Tsu? What’s up, why'd you call?”
She was so glad he answered and it hadn’t gone to voicemail.
“What are you doing right now?”
If she distracted him long enough, perhaps she would make it there before he was even standing on the chair this time.
“Oh uh, just uh, rearranging furniture?” he fibbed.
She knew that was a lie, but she couldn’t tell him that, she had no idea how he would react.
“Sounds fun, I’m just doing some exercise. It gets kinda lonely when I’m doing it by myself so I thought I’d give you a call to entertain myself.”
“Oh, are you out jogging? Is that what all that noise is?” Sero questioned, Tsuyu thought he might hear background noise and figured with the excuse of exercise she could continue on her way while keeping him on the line without a clue what she was really up to.
“Yeah you could say that.” It was more of hopping, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Ah I see… What made you call me?” he asked,
“I figured why not since we were just texting, why not move to talking, easier to talk and jog than it is to jog and text.” Tsuyu responded to him, she was almost there, she just had to keep him distracted a little longer.
“Ah makes sense, well uh, as much as I would uh love to talk, I’m kinda in the middle of something.”
She couldn’t let him hang up now, who knows what could happen in the little time left it would take her to get there, she couldn’t risk it.
“Can’t you put the phone on speaker while you’re rearranging furniture? Or maybe I could come over and help, it wouldn’t be a bother at all.”
“No no no, I got I’m good, you don’t have to trouble yourself by helping me, I-I’ll be fine.”
Tsuyu could see his apartment now, but she still wasn’t going to let him off the call.
“It wouldn’t cause me any trouble at all to help you, I would gladly help any of my friends with anything, anything at all. I’m here for you and everyone else.”
Then she didn’t hear anything back right away, which made her worry a bit and speed up a bit.
“Sero? Are you there?!”
She heard nothing still for a moment, then what sounded like a sniffle.
“I-I’m here, I-I’m fine, I-I have to go.” the black haired Hero said before hanging up not giving Tsuyu a chance to say anything else.
Not that it mattered anyways, she was one jump away from being on the balcony attached to his apartment.
Hopping over and landing on it, she quietly opened the glass door and let herself right into the apartment, she worried a little about freaking Sero out by just entering out of nowhere, but she had freaked him out much worse before.
Entering the apartment from the balcony and right into the living room area, she didn’t see Sero standing on a chair at all, instead he was sitting on the floor against the couch, head buried in his knees. She could hear him sobbing and sniffing slightly.
Having been successful at her quiet entrance, he didn’t seem to notice she was there yet. Carefully she approached him, crouching down to get to his level on the floor, and in a soft quiet voice she spoke.
“Sero? Are you okay?”
The taping hero looked up, his face red and eyes full of tears, a bit surprised but slightly glad to see Tsuyu. Not saying a word, or even questioning how or why she was there, he simply responded to her question with a small shake of his head.
Tsuyu moved a bit closer to him, moving her arms to offer a hug.
“Want to talk about it? I’m here to listen.”
Sero let out a sob and accepted her hug offer, nodding and moving to hug the frog girl. Tsuyu held him close, rubbing his back.
“Whenever you’re ready, I’m here, I’ll be here for you.”