Chapter Text
Gentle bird call twigged at his senses. Izuku’s face twitched as he slowly registered new sensations. His limbs felt like lead. He was lying on something comfortable. His nose itched and he put a hand on his face. A sunbeam, he faintly noted. His eyes twitched beneath their lids as he slowly woke from a deep slumber.
Ever so slowly, his eyes cracked open and the world shifted into focus. Izuku blinked. He stared dumbly at the clean, uncracked roof over his head. What in the world?
He sat up abruptly and began to observe his surroundings. Illuminated by sunlight was… an All Might shrine?
Wait- it was his All Might shrine! His room, he meant. Izuku looked down at the blanket pooling his torso. He was on his bed. He was on his bed- how? His apartment was decimated in the first attack, and his mother had become one of the refugees staying at UA.
Maybe he was dreaming? Normally he would assume that he was under the influence of a quirk, but, well, nobody else was exactly around to use their quirk. After all, for around a whole year it had just been him and- Aizawa! Where was his dad?
Izuku rested a hand on his forehead as he wracked his brain for his most recent memories. A growl from his stomach reminded him of the ever-present hunger. Right, yes, they were looking for food. They were looking for food in a space research complex and… his hand dropped. The odd metal rig.
Oh. Izuku had no idea what it had done, but what he did know was two things. He was in a room that had been destroyed two years ago, and that Aizawa wasn’t here. Izuku’s eyes dulled as his thoughts grew sombre. He quickly shook himself out of that. Wallowing in sadness wouldn’t get him more answers. Plus, he was alive (he thinks), so surely his dad was too?
Izuku felt for his quirks, assuring himself that he was ready to activate one should he need to, and slowly got up from his old bed. He stepped towards the door, black whip at the ready, and reached to the handle. He froze. Caught in his peripheral, was an arm with much too few scars to be his.
He held his arms out in front of him. Almost all of his scars were missing. Bewildered, Izuku noted that he only had a few scars on his right hand. They were his first scars, from breaking and rebreaking his fingers during the sports festival.
Another absence suddenly clicked. His chronic pain was gone. He’d had pain in his arms since the training camp in his first year!
Izuku was no idiot. Even with quirks, the situation he found himself in should have been impossible, going against the very laws that dictated the world. But between the hunger in his stomach, and the buzzing of his quirks, Izuku could tell that he was very much alive, and very awake.
He released a ragged breath.
Izuku Midoriya was in the past.
~~~~~~
He was staring at a ghost. At a face he’d dare not think about during the darker hours, when the losses hurt the most. Green eyes that echoed his own glanced up at his entrance into the room, brightened, and narrowed in concern at the tears that were no doubt beginning to fill his.
“Izuku?”
He let out a sob.
“Izuku?! Honey what’s wrong?”
She slowly approached him as he stood in the space between their living area and his bedroom, head ducked, and wiping the tears that had become a constant flow at the sound of his (alive!) mother’s voice.
When he looked up, he saw his mum, hands hovering in a way that Aizawa’s had only a few hours ago. The thought made his chest heave harder. He fell into her arms and clutched at her cardigan, releasing one-and-a-half year’s worth of grief as they stood in the little hallway.
It must have been well over half an hour before Izuku felt coherent enough to speak, and by that point, his mum had led them both over to the couch, cradling him in a comfort she hadn’t had to provide since Izuku was four, and freshly diagnosed as quirkless.
“Izuku, honey, can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Mum.” he warbled out. “I- I’m sorry, just give me a moment.”
Inko looked on worriedly at her son who had begun taking measured breaths. What had happened during a single night to cause so much distress?
Izuku finished calming himself and considered what he was going to say. If he really was in the past there was only one option.
The complete and absolute truth.
He had already faced his regrets on leaving his mum out on the biggest part of his life, with her not finding out about the origin of his quirk until after the first wave, when she was already a UA refugee and Kacchan had been killed trying to save him from Shigaraki. UA didn’t last long after that anyway. She spent most of what should have been a long life with Izuku in the dark, and only found out in her final days. He would change that. He loved her so much and didn’t want to shut her out any more.
“Mum. I need to tell you some things. I’m going to sound completely crazy but I need you to know how truthful I’m being. Tell me you’ll believe me.”
Inko was already open to what he had to say- his distress was real. But the weight of the look he gave her as he spoke is what really sold her. It was a haunting look, as though he had seen the fate of the world, and that somehow, the weight of it was on his shoulders. She mustered up her resolve
“I will believe you.”
His look of relief made her want to cry.
“Mum… there’s no easy way to say this, but I think I traveled back in time from two years in the future.”
Inko couldn’t keep all her confusion off her face. Izuku looked the same he had yesterday. But she looked again at her son. The way he held himself… it was new. His back was straight in a show of self-confidence. Something that had been building, but was not quite at that level. The weight in his eyes was still there too. It spoke of lessons learned the hard way, and while she had no idea what to expect, and while she was so scared for her son, she would hear him out in full. It was the least she could do.
“Okay, okay. I believe you Izuku. What happened?”
Encouraged, Izuku began to speak a bit faster.
“Before I tell you about the future, I need to fill you in on some other things. This quirk… I’m sure you noticed it’s not anything like yours or… Hisashi’s.”
Inko was confused about Izuku calling his father by his name but nodded in confirmation. His quirk was a bit strange considering her weak pull quirk and her husband’s fire breathing quirk.
“It’s because I’m quirkless. You knew that already, but I mean it in the way that the doctor was correct. I was never going to get a quirk.”
Izuku began to feel nerves dancing in his stomach. The last time he shared the secret was after a war. But it was okay. This is his mother, who raised and loved him despite her fear of his dream. She was trying her best, and he would too.
“This quirk… it was passed down throughout generations. It’s a stockpiling quirk at its heart, and what I can use is not only the power stored in it, but the quirks of previous users.” Izuku let out a small amount of black whip to prove his point and Inko’s eyes blew wide.
“Remember the diet plan I had when I was training for UA? That was from All Might. He trained me, prepared me so that I could receive his quirk. He was the eighth holder of One for All. I’m the ninth.”
Okay Inko was feeling a bit faint now.
“A-A-All Might?!” She blurted out.
He gave her a sheepish grin and laughed gently.
“I felt the same, back then.”
He had a wistful look on his face that sobered Inko right back up.
“Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
His face dimmed.
“The quirk in its original form was just one that could be passed on. But at the dawn of quirks, the holder of the quirk had a brother, whose quirk could give and take quirks. He gave his brother a stockpiling quirk creating One for All. The first holder died all the way back then, but the brother who could give and take quirks became the first supervillain, and built a criminal empire over 200 years. We assume he stole a longevity quirk. This brother calls himself All For One.”
Inko felt the weight of his words, and gestured for Izuku to continue.
“All Might had asked me to keep One for All a secret because it is a coveted power.”
Inko had a thought and moved to interrupt before Izuku cut her off.
“Before you say anything, All Might thought All for One was dead when he passed his quirk on to me. Don’t worry, I promise he wouldn’t knowingly hurt me like that.”
She relaxed against the couch.
“We found out All for One was still alive, and that not only did he still want to end One for All, but that he had a successor too. Near the end of my first year at UA- this year- he launched a massive attack with the Meta Liberation Army. Tons of heroes quite, or were killed. Most of Japan was destroyed and you and hundreds of other people had to stay at UA which had become a sort of fortress.”
Izuku took a shuddering breath. “Kacchan was killed to save me. And then the rest started dropping like flies. Eventually the first wave ended, with a quarter of my class dead or permanently unable to continue fighting. It was- it was hard.”
Both Izuku and Inko were crying at this point. Inko engulfed her son in a hug and he tucked his face in the crook of her neck, trying to get his breathing under control again. After recovering, he continued.
“It was a continuous fight for about half a year. By that point, everyone was gone, except for five people. Myself, my homeroom teacher, Present Mic, and two villains, Kurogiri, and All for One’s successor, Tomura Shigaraki. But there was something special about Kurogiri.”
“See, All for One had a doctor who created Nomu, a sick genetic experiment that created powerful creatures with multiple quirks. Aizawa sensei and Mic sensei told me that they had found out Kurogiri was made from one of their best friends who they’d thought was dead. They talked him out of the programming that made him forget who he was, and the four of us finally managed to take down Shigaraki.”
Their tears began to flood the apartment.
“After that, it was just me and sensei. We spent a year and a half, just the two of us trying to find food, and live. In all that time, we never saw another living soul.”
“Why didn’t other countries send in heroes to help? For there to only be the two of you left in the whole of Japan…”
“They did. All their heroes were killed too. I assume by the time that only two of us remained, they had given up.”
Inko dabbed her eyes with tissues from the sixth box.
“I can’t believe you had to go through that Izuku. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Mum.” He gave her a gentle smile. “Even if it was hard, I was happy. Sensei took great care of me.”
His mother’s eyes softened in realisation. So that was why he referred to Hisashi by name. She had a thought.
“Izuku… did you come back alone?”
Izuku’s expression fell at the thought.
“To be honest… I’m not sure. He was there, but we were split up. Though… if I’m back in my past body, maybe he is too.”
His mum paused to consider something.
“I don’t want to be selfish, but you have school tomorrow. My heart’s been pulled apart and I need you here. Can we spend the rest of today together? I promise to discuss shared custody with your teacher sooner rather than later.”
Izuku’s face went red from being caught out and he hid it in her neck. He nodded softly.
“I need to see you too. It’s been a while.” He whispered.
Tomorrow he will face the rest of his peers, and figure out how to move forward with his knowledge from the future. Tomorrow, he’ll find out if his dad came back with him or if it was another loss he had to face. For now, though, he needed to spend time with his mum, and come down from an emotionally charged conversation.
He breathed. His mum did too.