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Izuku ran his hand along the bottom edge of the chain fence, feeling for the loose edge. When his fingers tugged upward, pulling the wires with them, he saw that the ground under the gap was already scuffed. Someone had been here recently.
Crouching, Izuku bent the fence up and ducked his head. It was harder to fit through the gap than it used to be. Once he had waited for someone to hold the wire, then walked under. Today his foot slipped and he fell backward into the other side. The fence scraped his arm as he pulled it past.
In his pocket was a worn scrap of paper, folded and unfolded so many times that was starting to tear. Izuku hadn’t had anything else to do with his hands as he walked. He had found it tucked under the foot of his desk chair at school, where his backpack had been. He had left his backpack leaning against his desk before he stepped out, but when he returned, there had only been the slip of paper, pinned under the foot of his chair. By the creek, it said.
Izuku wondered if he was stupid sometimes.
Being here was kind of disorienting—he could see buildings through the trees, other walls lining the edges of yards or parking lots—and it made this unkempt space feel too small to be the spot from his memories. He’d gotten lost here before. Now he couldn’t help but see the city circling the edges. Reality crept up like that when you got taller.
It didn’t take long to spot them—Kacchan and his friends, Odaki and Kariage—and a girl Izuku didn’t know. The gap in the ground that marked the creek bed trailed behind them. Kariage had Izuku’s backpack, but it was just sitting there on the ground, leaning against his leg. Yellow was the color that caught human attention the easiest. Had they given up on hiding it because of that? If he was fast enough, maybe he could run and grab it before someone noticed him.
Izuku took a cautious step forward, and his foot landed on a dry branch. Kacchan’s head snapped up. Odaki saw him look and turned.
“Hi guys,” Izuku said. He tried to wave, but his hand was too limp and his shoulders had gone all stiff.
“Deku,” Kacchan said, “Get over here.”
That was a good thing, probably, because if he could get close enough he could still grab the backpack and run. He’d surprise them if they didn’t realize what he was planning.
“Is that who we’re waiting for?” the girl asked. She had a plain face, and her dark hair faded into grey at the tips, and her hands twisted in her skirt like they were trying to hide there.
“That’s him,” Kariage said. Izuku risked a glance at him—it was normal to look at someone when they spoke—and saw that he was standing on one of the backpack straps. That was a problem.
“Hi then,” the girl said, bowing slightly, “I’m Kaisato Haru, and uh—Kariage, he’s my second cousin.”
“Um,” Izuku said, feeling a little unprepared for this turn of events, “Hi also—I mean, um—it’s nice to see, um—I’m Midoriya and—why are you, what brings you here? Right now?”
“She’s visiting,” Kariage said.
Izuku glanced around, at three bullies and a witness who didn’t know Kacchan well enough to be scared. “Okay?”
“She has a time travel quirk,” Kacchan said, which was a really intriguing comment, since those were kind of rare, but didn’t actually do anything to answer Izuku’s question.
“It’s not like that,” Kaisato said quickly, waving her hands as if to wipe away the words. “I mean—I guess it is time travel—but it’s really limited.”
“How so?” Izuku blurted, and immediately regretted it. This probably wasn’t the time to get distracted by a cool quirk.
“I can only pull someone from the future if I can touch them, and only for twenty minutes or so” Kaisato explained, counting out the limitations on her fingers, “And after the quirk wears off, everyone forgets what happened.”
“So how do you know what your quirk does?” Izuku continued, because if he was going to get beat up or something, at least he would have an interesting thing to think about after. “I mean, if everyone forgets the whole experience—”
“You can still feel that something happened,” Kaisato said, “It’s kinda like waking up from a dream—even though you can’t remember—“
“Enough of that,” Kacchan said, stepping forward, “Use it on me already.”
Odaki snapped his fingers. “Wait, final call. I think your costume will be red.”
Izuku’s breath caught. It was terrifying to keep standing here, waiting and waiting for everything to turn sour. He wanted to see this girl use her quirk. He wanted to meet future-Kacchan. This couldn’t be it.
“Yellow,” Kariage said.
“That’s a dumb color,” Kacchan said.
Odaki laughed. “You don’t have any idea—you just saw Deku’s backpack and—”
“Shut up!” Kacchan snapped. Then he turned back to Kaisato. There was something creeping into his voice, into his posture, that Izuku couldn’t quite place.
Kaisato reached out, grabbed Kacchan’s arm, and closed her eyes. There was a blur in the air, the way everything looked whenever Izuku had been pressing his palms against his eyelids, and suddenly another person had joined their group.
Black costume, Izuku thought.
Then future-Kacchan took a step backward and lost his footing on the bank of the creek.
“Are you okay?” Izuku asked. His socks were wet, because he was standing in the creekbed. He didn’t quite remember jumping down.
Future-Kacchan was propped on his elbow so that only his head and shoulders were above the water. He looked different now—his face was all relaxed, and a broad scar drew down one side of it—and he just laid there, squinting up at Izuku. The canopy had a different distribution around disturbances like a creek. Maybe the sun was in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” normal-Kacchan demanded. Izuku jolted—but Kacchan wasn’t looking at him.
Odaki laughed. “He looks so confused! Deku, I bet he doesn’t even remember you.”
The water splashed. Izuku turned and saw that future-Kacchan’s arm had slipped—his face had slipped down under the surface. For a second, Izuku just stood there, sure that Kacchan would push himself up again, that he would get mad if Izuku tried to interfere. Then nothing happened, and Izuku couldn’t stop himself from reaching down, grabbing his shoulder and hauling him up.
Future-Kacchan came up sputtering, but he got his breath back easily. It hadn’t been long. Izuku didn’t let go of his shoulder. Standing over him like this, he cast a shadow onto future-Kacchan’s face, and even out of the sunlight his skin looked weirdly pale.
“Is he—is there something wrong with him?” Kaisato asked.
Kariage scoffed. “What, with Bakugou? With Pro-Hero Bakugou?”
“Give me your hand,” future-Kacchan said. It wasn’t quiet, but it wasn’t a proud announcement or a yell, so it took a second for Izuku to clock the voice’s owner.
“Hey,” normal-Kacchan demanded, “Get out of the water already!”
“Sometime this century,” future-Kacchan continued.
With a start, Izuku reached out his free hand.
Future-Kacchan grabbed it. “Heh,” he breathed, smiling like this was a major accomplishment. Then he looked up at Izuku. “Now—pull.”
Izuku pulled, but nothing really happened. He tried again with both arms, bracing his feet and throwing his whole body weight back. After a moment, future-Kacchan got his feet turned the right way to bear weight, and by the third or fourth tug he was standing up in the water.
Immediately, he staggered and fell against the bank.
“Um,” Izuku said, because at this point he was sure that something really was wrong, “Kaisato, does your quirk have a disorientation effect?”
“No,” Kaisato said, looking pensive.
“What do you mean, there’s no effect?” normal-Kacchan said, “I thought nobody remembered anything?”
With great effort, Future-Kacchan slung his arm up and over the top of the bank. He tried to wedge his foot into the slope and push himself over, but it was too muddy to get good traction, and his movements weren’t very coordinated.
“Here,” Izuku said, and he laced his fingers together, palms up, and crouched. “Step there.”
“You should have told me this could happen,” normal-Kacchan continued, in direct contradiction of the really insightful analysis he had just offered.
“Yeah, why didn’t you say?” Kariage added.
Kaisato threw up her hands. “I didn’t know! And this was his idea!”
Future-Kacchan had turned to stare at Izuku. It was hard to tell if he was offended that he had been told what to do, or if it really took him that much concentration to follow instructions right now—but he put his foot in the right spot and pushed.
Izuku almost lost his grip, but he braced his hands against his knee just in time. Then he looked up, and said, “Can you guys—”
Normal-Kacchan was glaring at him now, with the special look he reserved for Izuku and for containers of food that had gone wrong in the back of the fridge.
“If you pulled it would help,” Izuku finished, trying not to wince.
Odaki and Kariage knew better than to interfere when Kacchan was in a state like this, but fortunately Kaisato didn’t. She grabbed future-Kacchan’s arm before he could overbalance, and together they got him up and over the edge.
“That was stupid,” future-Kacchan said, but there wasn’t any heat in it. It was hard to figure out what he might be thinking—from this angle, Izuku couldn’t see his face at all.
“So you’re a Pro-Hero,” normal-Kacchan demanded, which was good because it meant he wasn’t paying attention to Izuku anymore.
Future-Kacchan snorted. “Obviously.”
Izuku stepped back, then ran and jumped up at the bank. He wasn’t particularly strong or athletic, but it actually wasn’t so hard to get his elbows over the edge and pull himself up. That was relieving. Watching future-Kacchan struggle had made him a little worried he was going to get stuck down there.
Normal-Kacchan grinned, “And Deku—”
“What’s the quirk?” future-Kacchan said. He was still lying on the ground, but it looked like he had rolled away from the bank a little. Without all the water Izuku had a better view of his costume—it had two big orange stripes that crossed on the front, and a sleek metal brace on his right forearm. Izuku was just thinking of how he would draw it in his analysis notebook when he remembered that he was going to forget what it looked like and that future-Kacchan had asked a question.
“It’s Kaisato’s,” Izuku said, “It brings people from the future for twenty minutes or so, but—”
“Hey!” normal-Kacchan said, hands popping at conflict escalation level three, “I said—”
“Shut up,” future-Kacchan said, “The quirk. What’s the limitation?”
“Um,” Izuku said, suddenly considering the terrifying implications of a fight with Kacchan on both sides and also not totally sure which of them it would be worse to offend. He looked to Odaki and Kariage, but they must have been struck by the same dilemma, because they had grabbed Izuku's backpack and stepped a little ways away. So Izuku let his love of quirks decide for him. “Well, nobody remembers what happened under the quirk’s effects.”
“Tell them Deku doesn’t become a hero,” normal-Kacchan said.
Somehow, Izuku had managed to forget about the note in his pocket, even though he'd started by warning himself to remember. That's how he knew he must actually be kind of stupid—he never quite managed to brace for a blow, even when he got to stand there and watch it coming.
Future-Kacchan hadn’t said anything yet, and Izuku was quickly realizing he’d rather have a different conversation, so he turned back to Kaisato. “Um, sorry, but you didn’t get a chance to tell me before and—how do you know what your quirk does if nobody ever remembers anything?”
The second he had finished speaking, future-Kacchan said, “Of course he does.”
“Because I’ve finally had it for ten years,” Kaisato said, “Um, that’s how far in the future it pulls people from.”
Izuku couldn’t quite parse out what any of her words meant. He was too busy running of course he does over and over in a circle, trying to find the hidden part that would make it not mean the thing it seemed like it did, because if he didn’t find it quick he was going to burst into tears.
“You know that already,” future-Kacchan continued, sounding genuinely confused.
In the part of Izuku’s brain that wasn’t exploding, he heard Kaisato say, “My Mom got pulled back to my quirk manifestation a couple months ago, and she remembers.”
“Hang on” Future-Kacchan said, and his voice sounded more like normal-Kacchan than it had this whole time, “Did you think I was gonna lie for you?”
“What is wrong with you?” normal-Kacchan said, and Izuku finally placed the thing that had been haunting Kacchan’s movements, making him a little too quiet, creeping into his voice when he did talk. He was nervous.
“Time travel girl,” future-Kacchan ordered, “Use your quirk on Izuku."
Caught as he was in the middle of a compound existential crisis, Izuku didn't really have time to react before normal-Kacchan shoved himself between him and Kaisato. "Don't listen to him," Kacchan told her, "He's all loopy for some reason. Can't even stand up."
"It's an emergency," future-Kacchan said, and he must have meant it, because he followed it up with, "Please."
That was when Izuku snapped out of his own head and remembered that something was dreadfully wrong.
The quirk was touch based, so when normal-Kacchan grabbed his shirt to forcibly shove him out of the way, Izuku threw his arm over his shoulder. Kaisato grabbed his hand. By the time normal-Kacchan turned around, the air had already gone all blurry.
"What did you just do?" normal-Kacchan demanded. It was more of a reprimand than a question.
"Sorry," Kaisato told him, "but you're starting to get on my nerves."
Future-Kacchan started laughing, but before normal-Kacchan could yell at him too, future-Izuku was standing in the middle of all of them. He was just wearing normal clothes—not a hero costume—and he must have been in the middle of brushing his teeth when the quirk took effect. When he saw them, his eyes went all wide, and he leaned over to spit out the toothpaste in his mouth.
"Future me," Izuku blurted, "Do you feel at all weakened or disoriented by this quirk's effects? Because I think something's wrong with—"
Normal-Kacchan shoved his hand over Izuku's mouth. Before Izuku could decide whether biting it or spitting into it would be a more effective escape strategy, normal-Kacchan tripped and let go. Izuku stepped back and saw that future-Kacchan had grabbed his ankle and pulled.
"What is going on?" future-Izuku demanded.
"It's my quirk," Kaisato explained.
"It summons people from ten years in the future for about twenty minutes but only the people from the future remember what happened under the quirk's effects," Izuku said, "And we used it on Kacchan first but something's wrong with future-him."
"Umabara two nineteen thirty, Korusukanto seven twenty nineteen, Moruchisu nine thirteen six," future-Kacchan said.
For a moment, nobody said anything. Izuku imagined they were also trying to figure out what missing piece of information would make any of those half addresses sound relevant—except for normal-Kacchan, who was trying to stand up. He had almost made it when future-Kacchan pulled his leg out from under him again.
“Hey ankle-biter,” future-Kacchan said.
"Kacchan, you aren't being very helpful," future-Izuku said, shoving his toothbrush into his pocket.
Normal-Kacchan scoffed. “Ankle-biter? What, are you in kindergarten?”
“Maybe I’d say something more explicit,” future-Kacchan said, “If I thought you’d matured at all since then.”
Future-Izuku stepped carefully around the circumference of normal-Kacchan’s flailing limbs and crouched down on the other side of future-Kacchan. "Don't you have anything better to do than fight yourself? And am I supposed to know any of those places you just mentioned? Wait, why are you all wet? And what happened to your arm brace?"
"You should raid them," future-Kacchan said, "They're villain bases. In Geonoshi Ward."
Future-Izuku had already grabbed future-Kacchan’s arm without the brace and pulled open the sleeve. Now that he was really looking at it, Izuku could see that it had been torn. A complicated piece of clear plastic had been attached at his forearm, like an IV port without the line.
"Were you kidnapped?" future-Izuku asked. His shoulders had gone all rigid. "Where are you right now?"
"I just said," future-Kacchan said, "Pay attention." Then he turned his head to make sure that normal-Kacchan wasn't trying to escape again.
Normal-Kacchan had gone really still.
Izuku consciously unlocked his knees, but that just made them all wobbly. He had really believed this was an emergency, but everything had been happening so quickly that he hadn't stopped to consider what an emergency must look like if you were a Pro-Hero.
"That was three different places," future-Izuku insisted.
"Probably one of them," future-Kacchan said.
"Okay," future-Izuku said, putting future-Kacchan's arm back down, "Okay—what was in the IV?"
"No idea," future-Kacchan said.
"When's the last time you ate something?"
"Donno."
"You aren't being very helpful," future-Izuku said, voice a little strained. "Okay—why don't you let go of my friend Kacchan."
"You said that already," future-Kacchan said, but he let go of normal-Kacchan's ankle.
Grabbing his shoulders, future-Izuku dragged future-Kacchan a little ways and leaned him up against a tree. Then, as if the universe had taken Izuku's mental mantra of this is the strangest ten minutes I have ever had in my entire life as a personal challenge, a black tendril erupted out of future-Izuku's hand, shot through the air, and snatched Izuku's backpack.
"The whole time!" normal-Kacchan shouted, jumping to his feet and turning to grab Izuku, "You had a quirk the whole time!"
"I—I didn't!" Izuku managed, "I mean, I never—I don't—"
Something jerked normal-Kacchan away. Izuku blinked, found his footing again, and realized that future-Izuku's quirk had picked Kacchan up and set him down next to his friends. With his free arm, future-Izuku had future-Kacchan's shoulders pinned against the tree.
"Both of you stop moving," future-Izuku demanded. Then he reached into the backpack and started rummaging around again—he’d already pulled out half the contents while Izuku wasn’t looking. “Have you started stashing protein bars in here yet?"
It took a moment for Izuku to realize he was being addressed, and another to decide that now was a bad time to mention that Kacchan had destroyed the protein bars three days ago. He finally settled for, "Um, there might be something in the first aid kit?"
Future-Izuku ripped open the first aid tin and pulled out a singular pack of fruit gummies. Future-Kacchan snorted so hard he had to put down Izuku’s water bottle and cough.
“Um, my allowance is—it’s in the secret pocket,” Izuku said.
"There's a secret pocket?" Kariage blurted.
Future-Izuku turned to face Kacchan’s friends, the money already in his hand, "Kariage, Odaki—run down to the convenience store and get nuts or jerky—quirk, before the quirk wears off.”
“Did we know them?” future-Kacchan asked.
Odaki stepped forward to take the money, but then his feet got stuck. “Katsuki, we hang out all the time.”
“Huh,” Katsuki said, taking a better look at him, “I don’t remember you at all. Don’t get me walnuts.”
“I know that,” Odaki insisted, snatching the money. He stared at future-Kacchan for a second—then at normal-Kacchan—then he turned and ran toward the fence. Kariage was already moving after him.
“I’ll go with them,” Kaisato said, but as she walked by, future-Kacchan kicked her foot.
“Time travel girl,” he said, “Thanks.”
Kaisato smiled briefly—then she took off after her second cousin without saying anything. She must have gotten wise to the dangers of a Kacchan on Kacchan conflict.
In the meantime, Future-Izuku had pulled out Izuku’s math notebook and started ripping out pages, placing them corner to corner to form a big sheet and drawing thick lines across them with Izuku's favorite pen. "I need you to describe the general area of those addresses you gave me," future-Izuku said, "In case I forget part of them—so we don't end up at the wrong spot."
"Just google them," normal-Kacchan said.
Izuku jumped. Normal-Kacchan hadn't tried to explode anybody in the last thirty seconds, so Izuku had forgotten he was there. He didn't normally let himself fade into the background this much. Maybe the whole situation was unsettling him as much as it was unsettling Izuku, or maybe he didn't want anybody to realize that he couldn't get future-Izuku's quirk unwrapped from his waist.
"What?" normal-Kacchan said, face scrunching up into its normal posture again, "It's only a ten year gap. City can't have changed that much."
Izuku dug in his pocket to hand over his phone, then remembered that it had been in his backpack. That and his hero notebook had been the fatal anchors that kept him from simply ignoring Kacchan's summons. He turned to tell future-Izuku where to find it—but he was using it already. In any other circumstance, it would have been really annoying to have somebody else messing with all of his carefully arranged stuff like this—but right now, Izuku only felt like he was looking at his reflection in unpolished metal, unable to see through the cloudy spots, but watching the shapes mirror him anyway.
Future-Kacchan was still tugging at the plastic packaging of the fruit gummies—he couldn't quite hold his hands still long enough to get the right leverage. Suddenly he looked up and said, "Oi, punk brat me, what's your password for hero forums?"
"Hah? I don't have an account. Why would I have an account? That's a stupid nerd website!" normal-Kacchan said, but Izuku could see in his face that he was lying.
In the time it took Izuku to wonder if he'd ever interacted with Kacchan online, and if they'd maybe even be able to have a normal conversation in a setting like that, future-Izuku reached over and ripped open the fruit gummies.
"Moron," future-Kacchan said, "Not like Izuku's gonna remember this. You're the one who's gonna be locked out." He popped one of the gummies into his mouth, then made a face.
"Um, it might be—is it old?" Izuku said, tapping his fingers together. He didn’t want to be giving people sub-par snacks. He had just noticed that future-Kacchan had been calling him by his real name.
"Tastes like an eraser," future-Kacchan said, but he didn't spit it out.
"I don't care that you're a pathetic loser," normal-Kacchan said, voice both steadier and more intense than it's usual taunting tone, "I don't care what you tell me about the future. I'm better than Deku, and I'm better than everyone—and I'm gonna be number one! You got that?"
It wasn't until normal-Kacchan paused to suck in a breath that Izuku realized pathetic loser hadn't been directed at him.
"Hah!" Future-Kacchan said, grinning, "Somehow, this is the least mad I've been at you. What about you, Izuku? Got a declaration for the future?"
"I'll be a hero," Izuku said automatically, then grimaced. Future-Kacchan had already said that would happen. Would he think Izuku didn't believe him?
"It was Korusukanto seven twenty nineteen, right?" future-Izuku asked, drawing a circle on one of the papers, and Izuku suddenly realized he was sketching out a map, that he must have been doing it from memory before he pulled out the phone.
"We're back!" Odaki yelled, running up to them with a plastic shopping bag around his wrist. He paused in the clear space by the bank of the creek, brows furrowing.
"Where were you?" Kacchan demanded.
Izuku opened his mouth to remind him, then realized that he didn't know either, and that drawing Kacchan's attention was always a bad idea.
Odaki turned back to Kariage and Kaisato. Kariage shrugged.
"It was my quirk," Kaisato said, "I bet I used my quirk."
While they were distracted, Izuku started scooping up the fallen contents of his backpack and shoving them indiscriminately into the biggest pocket.
"Were you shopping?" Kacchan asked, sounding more confused than angry.
"Hey," Kariage said, pointing, "Is Deku supposed to have that?"
Izuku grabbed his backpack and booked it for the fence.
He heard sudden scuffling behind him, but it didn't form into the steady thumping of a pursuit. So maybe the point of bringing him here had just been to see whatever Kaisato's quirk revealed, and that seemed to have happened already—though he wasn't sure if that had worked out like Kacchan wanted. He could feel the weight of it stirring inside him, like the thing that came when he woke to see sunbeams streaming through the window, and the ghost of a story filled the air—the dream that only his body remembered.
It might have been because he was facing the other way, or because he was running for his life, but Izuku couldn't see any buildings. He could barely see the overgrown lot around him. It was just him, and the weird feeling growing in like tree roots, settling in like an old layer of leaves: that the future was strange and terrifying and good, and that he was right to hope.