Chapter Text
August 30, 2268
Izuku sighs to himself as he walks up to the new Heights Alliance dorm buildings Nezu had built for the students. Converting the school into a boarding school is something that his dad has been trying to do for years now, but just like almost anything else he tried to do, the HPSC blocked it. Izuku was glad that the Commission finally backed down and approved it, though he wishes it hadn’t taken multiple attacks on a single class.
“Wonderful, aren’t they?” Nezu chirps from his shoulder. “Okumura-San was extremely helpful with the interior design.”
“I didn’t know Haru helped with them.”
“Indeed she did,” Nezu says, grin audible in his voice. “She has a particular talent for it. I wonder if she would be willing to help redecorate the entire school…”
“That’s not all that surprising though,” Izuku muses, running a hand through his white hair to get it out of his eyes, “given her Quirk.”
“Quite,” Nezu agrees. “Well, let’s go inside now. I’m sure the girls are waiting for us.”
“Do you think Shota or Zashi are inside with Toshi?” Izuku asks as he grabs the handle. Before his dad can answer, a blond streak dashes through the door and nearly topples Izuku over as it hugs him. Ah, he should have expected this.
“Dad!”
Laughing and making sure that Nezu didn’t fall off, Izuku leans down some and hugs his attacker back. “I just saw you an hour ago, Himi.” The teenager’s only reply is to hug him harder.
“Sensei! Principal Nezu! Welcome! We weren’t expecting to see you today,” Tenya says from just inside the door. “Please, come in. Would you like me to assemble the class?”
“That will not be necessary, Tenya,” Izuku replies, reaching out to ruffle his hair.
“We are simply here as family helping Himiko get settled,” Nezu says, hopping down onto Himiko’s shoulder, giving her head a pat as he settles into place.
Stepping inside, Izuku feels like he’s stepping into a mansion. Directly in front of him is a large set of stairs, splitting off to either side from a central landing as they go to the separate halves of the upper part of the building. Curiously, Shota is propped against the wall on the central landing in his sleeping bag, probably faking being asleep again. To the left, is a rather spacious living area with multiple couches positioned around a massive tv on the wall, small coffee tables in front of each couch. To his right, Izuku sees a window into an open kitchen that would make any cook salivate just looking at it. In front of the window, is a large dining table with a single person sitting at it, a woman with long, orange hair crouching on her feet in the chair instead of sitting in it, positively devouring a plate of curry.
Izuku walks up behind her and brushes her hair aside to kiss her on the cheek. “Hey babe,” he says as he pulls out a chair next to her and sits down. “How goes the move in?”
The woman turns to face Izuku smiling, she quickly finishes chewing and swallows before leaning in to kiss him back. “How many times have I said not to sneak up on me when I’m enjoying my curry?”
“Too many times, Futaba,” Izuku laughs, returning the kiss. He laughs more at the exaggerated gagging he can hear from Himiko behind him. “Is that Ren’s curry?”
“The move in is going about as well as teaching Inari to budget,” Futaba answers his question as she turns back to her curry. “And, yes, my brother sent us off this morning with enough curry to feed the entire class.”
“Oof,” Izuku winces as he grabs a fork, “that bad?”
“Yeah,” Himiko says as she sits down with her own plate of curry, “we weren’t able to do more than get my stuff upstairs before somebody overheard Mom talk about the Phantoms. Tenya and Uncle Sho were barely able to get them to stop long enough for us to come down to eat.”
“I did see Sho on the stairs,” Izuku hums, stealing a bite from Futaba’s plate and smirking at the glare he gets for it. “I’m assuming he’s intimidating your classmates to stay upstairs?”
“At least until you were here and they finished with their rooms,” a deep voice says as the person it belongs to walks into the room.
“Thanks for the help, Uncle Sho,” Himiko beams as she mixes a small bag of blood into her food. “I could tell that Mom was getting pretty overwhelmed, but nobody except Chako, Toshi, Tenya, and Momo would listen to me when I told them to back off.”
“Sounds like we need to run them through some more situational awareness courses,” Izuku hums, “wouldn’t you agree, Sho?”
Izuku looks up and sees Shota’s devilish grin on his face and the horrified faces of the entirety of 1A staring at them.
“I would agree, Izuku,” Shota says. Without turning around, he adds, “Your rooms had best be done, hellions. If I turn around and see you, then that means your room has been finished. If it isn’t, then you’re running extra laps in training tomorrow.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku can see Nezu chuckling as he settles down on the table with his own plate of curry. How his dad is even able to eat it without getting sick is beyond him. Maybe a side effect of his Quirk? Or maybe the experiments… best not to think about that.
Izuku finds himself chuckling as well when he sees some of the students, specifically Kaminari, Ashido, and Kirishima, bolt back upstairs while everybody else stays where they are. Taking stock of the students, Izuku notices that Shoto, he refuses to call him by his family name after finding out what his ‘father’ put him and his siblings through, is the only one he hasn’t seen yet today.
“Where’s Shoto?” he asks, turning to Himiko.
“Oh, he decided to completely remodel his room, so he’s still up working on it,” Ochako answers for her, walking up and grabbing a spare fork only to steal a bite of Himiko’s food with it. Himiko glares at Ochako for the act and gets a smirk in return.
“They’re just like us,” Futaba whispers into Izuku’s ear. He can’t help but hum in agreement at the thought, especially because he just did the same thing to his wife.
It’s not long before conversation and laughter fills the dining room as Ren’s curry is passed out and devoured. Eventually, after all of the students have come down, the meal is finished, and everybody moves to the common room, the conversation turns to Futaba and the Phantom Thieves again.
“What are they like?” Ashido asks excitedly, barely keeping herself from flying out of her seat into Futaba’s face. “I met Noir the other day, and she was so cool! She also scared the crap out of me at the same time.”
Feeling Futaba shrink into his side a little bit, Izuku answers for her. “Yeah, Noir can be a bit… much… at times.”
“You’re telling me,” Shota quietly shudders.
“Oh! Do you know them as well, Yamashita-Sensei?!” Shoji asks.
“Indeed I do, Shoji,” Izuku replies. “At least, I sure hope I do. If I don’t, then who have I been working with for the last 13-ish years?”
“You work with the Phantoms?!” Kaminari exclaims in shock.
“Yep,” Izuku nods, “I have since my third year of high school.”
“Ooh! Tell us how you met them!” Ashido demands.
“Well, to do that, I would have to start back in my first year,” Izuku muses, running a hand through his hair before putting it on Himiko’s head and messing with her already messy hair. “You know what?”
“What?” multiple students ask.
“I’d better start at the beginning of my third year of middle school,” Izuku nods his head like he’s made a decision. “That would have been a year and a half ago now.”
The dorm common room devolves into a mixture of confused chatter and Nezu’s chuckling before Shota silences all of the students.
“Let me explain,” Izuku says, wrapping an arm around Futaba as he pulls them both back into the couch.
April 15, 2267
“I’ll see you tonight, Mom!” Izuku called out behind himself as he walked out of the door for school, not bothering to lock it behind him. He knew his mom would be leaving for work soon, after all. He takes a moment to gather himself, running a hand through his dark green hair, before tightening the straps on his backpack and making his way to the train station.
Just one more year in Aldera, then it’s on to UA and becoming a Hero!
Izuku is just getting to the train station when he sees a crowd gathered and hears the sounds of battle. It must be a villain fight! Rushing up to the crowd, he sees two Heroes fighting a massive villain near Tatooin Station. One of them he easily recognizes as Kamui Woods, the other he can’t quite place. She seems to be wearing a pink and black costume, a domino mask, and a wide-brimmed hat with a rather large feather sticking out of it. Izuku watches as she runs up beside Kamui Woods, throwing her arm forwards and wrapping a large, green vine around the villain’s waist as Kamui does the same thing with his chest. Before the pair have a chance to do anything more, another Hero Izuku doesn’t recognize comes barreling in and drop-kicks the villain onto an empty road, knocking him out.
As he leaves to make his train on time, he hears the new Hero introduce herself as Mt. Lady. Quickly jotting it down in his notebook, he manages to get through the ticket gate and onto the train before it leaves. Managing to get a seat, Izuku pulls out his notebook again and works some more on the entry for Mt. Lady.
It’s not long before his stop arrives, and Izuku has to put his notebook away. While he’s leaving the train station, Izuku has to quickly step back to avoid getting trampled by a running man. Before Izuku can step back out into the street, another man, this one in a white domino mask with a black trench coat and red gloves runs past, tackling the man.
“Really, kid?” the masked man asks the young man he was chasing before getting off of him and hauling him to his feet. “I’ll let you go, but you need to return what you stole and apologize to the store owner.”
Ah, this is another Hero. Izuku feels like he should know him, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.
The Hero has it handled, so Izuku continues on the rest of the way to the school.
The school day starts out absolutely spectacularly. In homeroom, the teacher starts talking about how they need to pick their careers before saying that Izuku had put UA’s Hero Course on his career sheet last week.
Great.
By the time lunch rolls around, Izuku’s arms are tired from constantly having to catch himself when his classmates trip him. He goes up to his usual spot on the roof to eat, pulling out a box of instant ramen and making it in the microwave one of the school clubs keeps up here. Izuku’s favorite part of the school day is lunch because he gets to sit on the school roof and watch the city in peace as he eats and works on his journals.
Izuku stops eating momentarily when he hears shouting and the roar of a motorcycle right next to the school building. Slowly peeking his head over the edge of the roof to look, he sees a motorcycle with two masked figures on it, one of them is shouting at the other.
“Damn it, Skull!” the female in a red suit and mask shouts. “We lost them! I told you to turn right, not left!”
“Sorry, Panther,” Skull, apparently, replies, “I thought I saw them go this way, that’s why I turned.”
Panther looks like she’s about to say something before she jerks her head up to look down the street and puts a hand to her ear. “Yep, loud and clear, Oracle. What’s up?”
Izuku watches the masked figures tilt their heads slightly, as if listening to somebody in their ear.
“Shit,” Skull curses, turning the motorcycle back on. “We just saw them! What kind of trouble could those two have gotten into in the last five minutes?!”
“Can it, Skull,” Panther says, hopping back on the bike. “Hang on Queen, Fox, we’ll be there soon.”
With that, Skull takes off, the engine roaring as they go. What an odd pair, Izuku muses, they seem to be Heroes, though Izuku doesn’t recognize them. He finds it odd that he’s seen so many Heroes he doesn’t recognize today. He doesn’t have much time to think about it though, as right then the bell rings, signaling the end of lunch.
The afternoon is much the same as the morning. Every time Izuku tries to do anything, he gets tripped and his classmates keep making fun of the useless Deku thinking that he can actually be a Hero.
Izuku is busy looking at the news to try and see what the fuss at lunch was about when a pair of hands slams down onto his desk, exploding a pair of pencils.
“Listen to me when I’m talking to you, Deku!” Kacchan spits out at Izuku before looking down and seeing the notebook open to a page on Skull. He snatches it off of the table and looks it over. “You still making your shitty stalker notebooks? I thought I told you not to bother since I’m the only one from this shitty school getting into UA. Besides, you can’t even apply, don’t they have that rule against Quirkless people?”
“T-They got rid of that rule a co-couple years a-ago,” Izuku stutters out as he stands up to try and reach for his notebook. Before he can grab it, Kacchan closes it and sets off a pair of explosions on either side before tossing it to the side, straight out of a window.
“Don’t even think of applying, you useless, shitty Deku.” Kacchan sneers before scoffing and walking towards the door and his waiting lackeys.
As Kacchan turns to leave, Izuku dejectedly starts walking towards the open window to see where the journal landed. Before he can get there, he hears Kacchan stop and turn around.
“You know, there might be another way for you to be a Hero.” At that, Izuku turns around and looks at Kacchan in a mix of amazement and confusion, only to take a step back at the smug smirk plastered across his face. “Take a swan dive off of the roof of the building and pray for a Quirk in your next life.”
Izuku is stunned into silence. Did… did Kacchan really just say that? Judging by the winces his lackeys are sporting, he really did. He can’t believe Ka-Bakugo would say something like that. He watches Bakugo leave and his lackeys barely glance in Izuku’s direction before they follow.
Numbly, Izuku goes outside and around to the back of the building underneath his classroom window. He’s lost count of the number of times Bakugo has thrown his notebooks out of that window and into this koi fish pond. He looks at the cat perched on the side of the pond, a black cat with white patches of fur on its feet and mouth wearing a yellow collar, and notices that it’s staring hungrily at the koi.
Izuku carefully reaches into the pond and pulls out the notebook that the koi had started nibbling on. The action startles one of the fish and it splashes water up onto the cat, which yowls and darts off through the barrier hedge around the school.
Izuku winces and calls out an apology after the cat, only to be met by silence. After a moment, he thinks he can hear somebody, a young boy, yelling something about “That little twerp got me wet!”
Brushing it off as kids playing in the park behind the school, Izuku takes stock of the journal, flipping through it some. Rats, he’s going to need a new journal. There’s a bookstore he frequents on the way home from school, he can make a quick detour that way to get a replacement journal. Making up his mind, Izuku starts walking.
“Sorry kid, without a Quirk, you can’t be a Hero. If helping people is what you want to do, then look at becoming a doctor or police officer. They’re both fine professions. Realistic options for somebody without a Quirk,” All Might sighs, holding a hand over his injury. “I’ll leave the door open for you so you can come down.”
Izuku watches the skeletal All Might walk down the staircase behind the door, only allowing himself to break down and cry once his idol was out of sight. What can he do if even All Might says that the Quirkless can’t be Heroes?
He sits on the roof, arms around his knees, for a while, crying. Izuku looks up through his tears to the spot against the fence where All Might had been sitting. Was his dream really that hopeless? Getting up and slowly walking to the fence, Izuku grasps the top of the fence and peers over the side. He can just make out the skeletal form of All Might turning a corner at one end of the street, disappearing from sight once again.
Then, Izuku realizes just how tall this building actually is. He quickly backs away from the fence, unwanted images of shoes left alone and a sickening crunch invading his mind. Even the thought of doing… that… to his mom makes him want to puke. She is the shining light in his life, the only good thing he has going for him aside from his notebooks. There is no way he would ever even consider doing that to her.
Vaguely, Izuku can make out a pair of figures on a roof across the street, backed by the afternoon sun. One of them is much taller than the other, with broad shoulders, a mop of messy hair, and propped on some sort of cane. Beside them is a short figure with an almost metallic glint around the sides, a long chain of what looks almost like hearts coming down from the back of their head.
Deciding to ignore them, Izuku looks over his shoulder, eyeing the door that All Might made sure to leave open for him and walking through it. Descending countless stairs, he leaves behind everything that happened on the roof. It was a rather tall building, so it took a little bit for him to get all the way to the bottom. Taking a look at the map on his phone, he figures out where he was and starts making his way home.
It’s not long before he comes across a villain fight in a shopping arcade not too far away from his apartment complex. Looking at the fight, he sees the same sludge monster that All Might had saved him from before the whole thing on the roof. Before he can really figure out much more than that the villain has a hostage, he hears a massive crack from above him. Looking up, he sees the source of the sound, a large sign has just broken free from the arcade’s roof, directly above him.
The next thing he knows, Izuku feels a sharp pulling sensation from his shoulder. He’s barely registered the sensation when he sees a large hand in between himself and the sign, then absolutely nothing except white. No sounds of screaming or explosions, no shapes or colors except blinding white, not even the stench of smoke and burning plastic.
Is he dead?
July 15, 2252
Nezu is not happy right now. It’s a Thursday, he should be at UA working on keeping the school in top shape, not on the road coming back from a meeting with the Hero Public Safety Commission over an issue that could easily have been resolved with a handful of emails. He would have refused the meeting if he could, but the Commission President threatened to reduce funding over this.
He may like meticulous plans and pushing people’s buttons, but let it never be said that Nezu enjoys politics and posturing.
And, to make matters more complicated, his normal driver wasn’t available because she was at home with a nearly one month old baby girl. Hagakure-San was his favorite driver, since her Quirk let her turn herself and anything she was wearing invisible, which made it incredibly easy to prank people. Not that he finds any fault in her for being unavailable, that would just be unreasonable.
Fortunately, he was able to get another person to help drive him places while she was on maternity leave. Unfortunately, despite being an incredible Hero with a long career behind him and an equally incredible teacher, Masao Kubo, better known as the Chivalrous Hero: Crimson Riot, doesn’t really have the best sense of humor, nor is he the greatest conversationalist. As such, he finds his near daily rides with the other Hero quite boring, this one being no exception.
Until, that is, Kubo suddenly calls out a warning and slams on the brakes, sending Nezu lurching forward in his seat, safety belt snapping taught as he does so to catch him. Nezu is opening his mouth to ask Kubo why he stopped so suddenly when something, a human teenager by the looks of it, crashes into the windshield, sending spiderweb cracks across the glass. The two Heroes briefly share a look before they both undo their seatbelts and leave the car to check on the child.
Laying eyes on the young boy, Nezu can see that he is wearing a gakuran, and based on the buttons, is a third year in middle school. Taking in all he can about the green haired boy, he quickly pulls out his phone and presses his speed dial. The phone rings once before the person on the other side picks up.
“Nezu, what a surprise,” the aging female voice on the other side says curiously. “Aren’t you still on the road? Why are you calling me?”
“Chiyo,” Nezu says quickly, worry bleeding through his voice that few can pick up on as he puts the phone on speaker. “We are seven minutes from campus and we have a young teenage male here looking at major bodily trauma and a likely concussion.”
“What happened?” the school nurse asks, and Nezu can hear the sound of her starting to run. “Where are you? How bad is the boy?”
Kubo puts a hand to the boy’s neck and leans in to listen as Nezu sends a location tag to Chiyo. “The boy is still breathing, but it is weak. As is his pulse.”
“Shit,” Chiyo curses. From the quickened pace of her breathing coming through the phone, Nezu guesses she has gotten to the school ambulance. “On my way, I’ll be there in five. And you never answered my question. What happened?”
Nezu represses a chuckle as Kubo gulps, rubbing at his head where Chiyo had smacked him many times over the years with her cane. “I am not certain how it happened. What I do know is that the boy fell out of nowhere and hit our windshield at just below highway speeds. I slammed on the brakes as soon as I saw him, but we were still going quite fast at the time of impact.”
“Ok, keep him awake,” Chiyo demands. “I’m almost there.”
“I told you to keep him awake, you idiot!” an older, feminine voice Izuku doesn’t recognize yells, accompanied by the sound of metal hitting something hard, making his head throb from the noise. “You’re lucky his concussion wasn’t worse, or you’d be getting one of your own.”
“I apologize, ma’am,” a deep voice responds, vaguely familiar to Izuku. “I am glad to hear that he is stable.”
“Quiet, please,” a high pitched voice says, almost making Izuku wince with how close it is. “I do believe our guest is waking up.”
He tries to open his eyes, but is met by a blinding light instead, making him wince and shut them back again.
“Deary, can you hear me?” the first voice asks softly.
Izuku goes to nod his head, but stops when the motion causes his head to throb. Instead, he just gives a thumbs up in the voice’s general direction.
“Ok, good,” she continues. “You were hit by a car. You’re in the infirmary at UA High School right now.”
Hit by a car? That can’t be right. He was about to be crushed by a sign. And he was on the other side of Musutafu from UA when it happened, why is he here? Wait a minute…
“I-”
“Hold on now, deary,” the voice says quickly. “Don’t try to speak yet. Let’s try and get some water in your system first. Kubo, get this child some water.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Izuku hears some shuffling on the other side of the room and a faucet being turned on for a moment. It’s not long before Kubo comes back with the water and Izuku is carefully sat up and leaned against something incredibly soft.
“Thank you, deary,” the first voice says. Izuku feels something being pressed against his lips, presumably the cup of water. “Now, here. Drink slowly. We don’t want you throwing this up.”
There is silence as Izuku grabs the cup, wincing through the motion, and drinks the water, sighing in relief as it goes down.
“T-thank you,” Izuku barely manages to say after he’s finished the water.
“You’re welcome, deary,” the voice replies. “You just take it easy now. Is there anything you need before these two start asking their questions?”
Pondering the question for a moment, Izuku decides to try opening his eyes again, only to snap them shut yet again because of the light. “C-can you turn the light off?”
“Of course I can,” she says. After a moment, Izuku can see the light get turned off through his eyelids, so he tries to open them again. Thanks to the lower amount of light in the room, he is able to do so with little issue.
“Is that better?”
Looking at the source of the voice, Izuku sees an older woman standing beside the bed. He recognizes her as Recovery Girl, but there’s something not quite right about her. She almost seems taller than the pictures he’s seen of her. And her hair isn’t fully gray either, there are small patches scattered throughout that are a very dark purple. It’s almost like she’s younger… But that wouldn’t make sense… Whatever it is though, this is definitely Recovery Girl.
“The child is confused, Recovery Girl,” a voice Izuku recognizes as Kubo says. “Might he be experiencing any lasting effects from the concussion?”
Just past Recovery Girl is the last Hero he ever expected to see, Crimson Riot. But, that can’t be right, Crimson Riot died almost six and a half years ago in a massive battle in Tokyo. Every kid in his neighborhood growing up had heard of the Chivalrous Hero’s death. Most, himself included, had even seen it on live television. Whoever this was, it wasn’t Crimson Riot.
Although, paired with the seemingly younger Recovery Girl…
Izuku doesn’t like where this train of thought is taking him. It shouldn’t even be possible! But, Quirks can have any sort of power imaginable, so… maybe? But, every Quirk he’s ever had the chance to dissect have been confined to the laws of physics. Sure, they use those laws like a jump rope, but they still have to follow them. But… this… surely that can’t be possible…
“Oh hoh,” the high pitched voice chirps. “Quite the interesting mind you have there, young man.”
Izuku freezes, suddenly pulled from his thoughts by the voice. Slowly, he turns his head to his left, where he had heard the voice coming from. There, standing in a chair next to his bed, is Nezu, the Principal of UA, staring at him like a mouse stares at cheese.
It doesn’t matter what anybody says, Izuku did not squeal. But, if he did, would you blame him? It’s freaking Nezu! The Principal of UA High School, the school that produced All Might, and where Izuku has been dreaming of going for his entire life.
“Nezu!” Recovery Girl calls out, frustratedly. “Give the child some room!”
Seeming to ignore the nurse for a moment, Nezu continues to peer straight into Izuku’s eyes before stepping backwards in his chair. “Apologies, Chiyo, I fear I got ahead of myself there. Am I a dog? A mouse? A bear? That’s not important. What is important, is that I’m the principal!”
“Ignore his antics, deary,” Recovery starts, looking at Izuku’s vitals. “Now, I’m afraid we haven’t gotten your name yet. There was no way to identify you from what you had on you.”
“Um, my name is Izuku Midoriya.”
“Wonderful, Midoriya-Kun,” Nezu chirps. “Now, what was that you were saying earlier about something not being possible?”
“I…” Izuku pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts. “I don’t think I should be here.”
“No, you shouldn’t be,” Crimson Riot says. “And you would not be if I had not hit you with that vehicle. For that, I offer you my sincerest apologies.”
“That’s…” Izuku trails off, stunned. Crimson Riot hit him with a car? “T-That’s not what I meant. And there is nothing to forgive, Crimson Riot, sir. I know you did everything you could to not hit me.”
“What did you mean then?” Nezu asks, tail twitching slightly in what Izuku could best guess as excitement.
“Before I answer that, I have a question. What is today’s date?”
“Today’s date is July 16th,” Recovery Girl answers, looking at her watch. “It has been for almost an hour now.”
“I believe I know where you are going with this, Midoriya-Kun,” Nezu chirps, excitement visible on his face. “To answer your true question: it is July 16th 2252.”
Izuku pales. How? How was he sent back in time almost fifteen years? Because that confirms it, he was sent back in time. But how? Wait! Izuku finds himself grabbing his left shoulder. He felt a sharp pulling sensation from there just before the sign would have crushed him.
“I do not understand what is going on,” Crimson Riot states, and Izuku can see Recovery Girl nod along with him before the two turn towards Nezu and Izuku.
“I…” Izuku starts, mouth once again feeling dry, “I was born yesterday.”