Chapter Text
息子を救う時が来た!
Musuko wo Sukuu Toki ga Kita!
It’s time to save my son!
[Inko]
Holy—!
Darkness.
A bright flash.
Colorful patterns and shapes.
Maddening sounds.
Gasp .
Pale yellow. Chesty labored breathing.
Inko’s eyes feel like they are going to pop out of their sockets.
She can't blink. Part of her feels afraid to close her eyes again.
That was— I don’t even know what that was .
Whatever she just went through, it had been the most something of all things she's ever went through. It had been a lot.
Like too much of a lot of something. If that even makes sense.
Breathe Inko. Breathe .
Why did that sound like Toshinori?
Weird.
Her body lay in a bed, but where?
Right, pale yellow ceiling with a brown cloud-shaped spot on the right corner…
Wait.
Oh God, no .
With a wince she lifts both hands in front of her eyes. She already knows the answer to her predicament, it doesn’t make it any easier.
“Ah… so small…” Tiny hands stand in front of her eyes. It was that damn spot on the right corner that gave it away.
She sits up and pulls her legs from underneath the white comforter and winces once again at the pale pink Magika Rosella pijamas.
“Oh God.”
Her small legs can’t even reach the floor on the side of her bed.
With tentative steps, she makes her way to obnoxious rococo style dresser where an oval shaped mirror will pass on her sentence.
“Fuck.” A normal Midoriya Inko doesn’t swear.
But there’s nothing normal about this situation, so to Hell with it.
Staring back at her is the reflection of a young Nanahashi Inko.
Big round green eyes, chubby cheeks and long green hair braided on both sides.
That’s not how this was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to have come this far!
Fuck! How old was she anyway?!
Scanning the small room, her eyes soon fall on a leather satchel hanging from a green coat rack. This is so bizarre. Is this what it feels like to dig up a time capsule after thirty years? Oh my ! Is that her sunflower planner she lost in rush hour that one time? And her bunny water bottle!
The more items her little hands pull from that bag, the more she feels like a drunken pirate who accidentally stumbled upon a treasure box.
The handkerchief her mom had sewn for her! The one with her initials and a little wind-up bird! Oh— ! Her Pasmo green card holder with the purikura from her outing with her friends, Megumi-chan and Yona-chan!
No .
Was that?
“My limited edition Magika Rosella Krystal Fantasy Revolution pencil case,” heavenly bells sing in her ears and she can feel warm tears welling up in her eyes. As carefully as her small shaky hands permit, she gently pulls up the metal lid “with the entire Puella Warriors limited edition colored pencils” God .
She was really crying now.
Ok. Inko .
Focus .
Holding her precious pencil case close to her heart and giving it a tight squeeze, she places it on top of her desk and finally pulls “my Magika Rosella Time Reversal Journey To A Distant Past limited edition Babi-chan wallet!” Where she keeps her school ID.
Nanahashi Inko
Nabu Middle School — Hosu City
1st Year, Class B
Internal scream number 1.
She quickly flips through her planner until she reaches the past written page, where she finds a date.
Internal scream number 2.
Her knees hit the floor and soon her face is covered by her hands.
Inko flushes in agony.
“I can’t believe this. I’m 11 years old.”
Well, physically yes.
Mentally she’s 42.
‘Mō nakanaide kudasai, sekai o sukuu node…’
Reality slaps her hard in the face as the Magika Rosella Fantasy Origins ending song starts playing from the exclusive table clock alarm she got at some anime convention she went with her friends. Stupefied, Inko gets up from the floor, stops the alarm and sits in front of her dresser.
Her childlike reflection stares back at her.
“I could really use a drink right now.”
There’s something absurd about saying that while looking like a child and she actually starts laughing. But before it can get manic she’s startled by a soft knock on her door. The hairs at the back of her neck stand, alert, frightful.
She hadn’t really thought this through. She hadn’t had enough time to emotionally prepare for—
“Inko-chan?” Her mother’s gentle face pops from behind the door. “Oh my goodness! Why are you crying sweetheart? What happened? Oh—yes, yes, it’s okay Inko-chan.”
She breathes in jasmine and white tea, hugging her mother’s small frame before she can even process what’s happening. Her senses are so blurred.
“You’re making mom worried, should I be worried?” Inko shakes her head and rubs herself even more into her mother’s sweater. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Yeah. I suppose she had, in a way. So she nods.
Silent tears stream down her face.
The last time Inko saw her mother (and her father) she was seventeen years old. She had been busy with mid-term exams during her junior year of High School when Nanahashi Eiko and her husband Mitsue both died in a car crash on their way back from their anniversary gateway. A truck driver had a heart attack and crashed them off a cliff. No bodies were ever found.
Orphaned and completely alone, no grandparents, no uncles and no distant family members, Inko’s life took a hard turn. Inko’s family was not rich by any means, they lived a modest life in a small two story house in the suburbs of Hosu. Inko’s father, an earnest hardworking salaryman, left her with enough money to support her throughout her senior year. After graduating she ended up selling their family home and moved into a tiny apartment. Any personal dreams and ambitions turned into old memories from the past and she started working as a waitress.
Until she met Hisashi, at the age of twenty four.
The timeline!
“Mom.” It’s like looking at a viridian mirror. “Sorry to make you worried.”
“That’s no problem sweetheart. It must’ve been a nasty bad dream. I mean, mom knows you’re a crybaby just like dad.” Inko’s heart swells at her mother’s amused tone “And also like your grandma before him, but it’s been a while since mom has seen you cry so much like this. Not even with your show, what is it called again? Hibiscus magical—”
“Magika Rosella Krystal Fantasy Time–”
“Yes, that one.” Her mom interrupts before she can go on a tangent. Inko looks up at the woman as if she’s telling her the very secret of life. She’d completely forgotten how her mother used to get slightly fed up with the names of her favorite shows. Her eyes get misty but she swallows back her tears. She chooses to smile instead.
“Anywho, is there anything mom can do for you, love? Maybe some pancakes?!”
Her mother’s pancakes!
Inko’s expression is probably the answer her mother’s looking for.
“Pancakes it is. Now you take your time sweetie, it’s a beautiful Sunday. No school! Mom’s gonna need a hot minute for the batter to be done, so no rushing, ok?”
Her small hands squeeze her mother’s arms as the older woman bends down to give her a kind kiss on her forehead and then one on each of her cheeks.
At the sound of a soft click, Inko feels resolute.
Mission time.
Empty notebook, one prized limited edition Magika Rosella pen and the memorized database in her head. She’s not even halfway done by the time her mother calls her to come downstairs to eat her pancakes.
She cries again when she sees her dad. He cries because she's crying.
“Inko, you can do this.”
The small girl whispers to herself for what must be the tenth time. Her eyes flick to the family plate just to make sure (again) that she’s in the right place.
Himura wasn’t an unusual name, as a matter of fact she found a total of four distinct families with the same last name.
But there were only a few residential streets in Hosu City that had a cherry blossom corridor.
“You grew up in Hosu as well? One of my fondest memories were the many cherry blossoms lined up in the street of my childhood home. I would often be late for school during the beginning of the term because I would take extra time to gaze at them.”
She was sure that in some parallel universe, a wise monk was sitting in a thousand year old monastery with a severe look on his face while explaining to his most outstanding disciple. “ Meddling with time is a dangerous thing, you must never alter too much of the past. ”
But fuck that.
Part of her feels giddy about these spontaneous fucks .
There’s just something so liberating about swearing, even if just mentally.
She’s starting to understand Mitsuki and Katsuki a bit more.
Her heart feels heavy at the memory.
“You can do this!” Her cheeks sting from a twin prep slap.
“Mom, look at me!”
She rings the doorbell.
It took Inko about two weeks to get the entire thing organized.
“I’ve sent back a total of five people. They all eventually made it back here at some point in their lives and I’ve always asked about the time-leap. I got the same answer from all five, ten years.”
She was never supposed to go back thirty one years into the past.
So, after frying her brain, going over all data she had written down which, thankfully, included events predating these ten years. Then also talking to herself about personal interactions she had during her… Future life? Previous life? Inko decided to flip the tables.
She was going to do this her way.
The front door opens and she sighs in relief as the exact person she’s been looking for comes out.
Well, a younger version of her anyway.
“You know, part of me always wondered what my life would’ve been like if I’d pursued that career. I suppose I was just never encouraged to do anything.”
“Hello, may I help you?”
Pale skin, long white hair and curious grey eyes.
“Himura Rei-san! My name is Mi–Nanahashi Inko and I’d like to talk to you!”
つづく