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Just a Memory

The first time it ended with five fingers pressed to her face like the five points of a star.

Asui flinched slightly, a small but noticeable twitch that the Dekusquad observed. Each member sent her quick looks of comfort and support.

He remembered thinking of her facial expressions as being blank before, with her wide eyes and her flat mouth, but he didn’t think he would ever think that about her face again, not when he remembered this moment in the future—and he would certainly remember this moment in the future.

Shigaraki’s Quirk was not fast enough to stop the screams.

Her screams pierced the cinema, a vicious pained cry full of agony. The class startled and paled at the sight of her face decaying in front of their eyes, others slammed their hands over their ears, and some of the weaker stomached individuals lurched forward to bury their heads in the bins that had appeared under the cinema's chairs.

Aizawa's expression contorted into a frown, reminded of how closely this scene mirrored events that could have unfolded in their universe. He recalled how near he had come to failing in his duty to protect a student.

All Might shifted in his seat, his side flaring up as if to remind him why he had been almost too late.

Izuku was naïve. He was fifteen and he wanted to be a hero and he was naïve, but he was not a fool. The bit of One for All he’d funneled into his right arm was not going to be enough to save her, so he let it go, power fizzling out of him like the wick of a candle after it had been capped.

Todoroki shot Midoriya a look “Isn’t your quick called Superpower?” he whispered.

“Now isn’t a good time to ask,” Ida said sternly, chopping his arm between them.

There was blood in the water.

“Oh,” Shigaraki said, his voice dragging against itself like nails on a chalkboard. “It’s a little late for that, Eraserhead.”

Across the way, Aizawa was staring at them, blood dripping slowly into his glowing red eyes. The giant monster had a fistful of his hair in one hand and an arm in the other, poised and ready to snap. He was in worse condition than Izuku originally thought, but nothing was worse than—

Izuku closed his eyes.  

Just a memory.

“Tsuyu-san, are you alright?” Yaoyorozu questioned, worry etched onto her features.

Asui let out a soft kero “I am fine Yaomomo-chan, it is in the past and we all made it out alive” Her voice was steady, but Midoriya who was sitting next to her, was close enough to notice the faintest of tremors in her hands.

“It is still a ‘what if scenario’ that’s a bit too close to home isn’t it?” Jiro chimed in, shooting Asui a sceptical look from her place next to Yaoyorozu, Midoriya could only guess that Asui’s heartbeat had given her calm facade away.

‘Far too close to home indeed’ Midoriya thought turning back to the screen.

Time…was just a memory.

Memories were different from video recordings, different from pictures, different from artifacts and texts that served as windows to the past. They weren’t concrete like these things were—if you caught a picture of someone tripping over their own feet they couldn’t deny it happening later, or convince themself there had been a kid’s toy or a banana peel there instead—but memories…

Memories could be changed—memories did change, actually, frequently and often. The more you thought about them the more you could think yourself into believing something else happened entirely. Minds were untrustworthy, thoughts were flimsy, and memories were flexible.

And time—time was the same way.

 

“Wait!” Ashido exclaimed, a grin spreading across her face. “Is this a time travel story?”

Kirishima shrugged. “If it’s all about the day of USJ, doesn’t it feel more like those movies where the same day keeps repeating?”

“Like Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow” Ojiro and Tokoyami chimed in together, sharing a glance.

“Both work” Kirishima agreed.

Their light-hearted conversation helped lift the heavy atmosphere that had been surrounding them.

Izuku opened his eyes, and for a moment, it was almost like nothing had happened at all. His thoughts were quiet, his mind was calm. Morning light was streaming through the window of his bedroom in his mom’s apartment as his alarm clock softly beeped. He would have thought it hadn’t worked, if it wasn’t for the date on his phone, staring back at him the longer he looked at it.

It was the same date as it had been yesterday.

“Dude, you were right!” Kaminari cheered, while Ashido pouted.

“Time travel still works” she mumbled.

There had been blood in the water—

No. Not this time.

Izuku quietly switched off his alarm clock.

“I usually speak my mind—kero,” Asui said, on the bus heading towards the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, not that any of Izuku’s classmates knew what that was yet.

He’d somehow ended up sitting next to her again, despite several of the other seats being shuffled. Kirishima was on his other side instead of across from him, for instance, and Kaminari and Kacchan had somehow ended up next to each other.

“Why are you sitting next to me Dunce Face” Bakugo huffed, sending a heated look towards the electric user “Looking to die when you open your mouth?!”

Jiro snorted “Oh yeah, you called Bakugo’s personality flaming trash”

Kaminari shrank in his seat.

Izuku had been avoiding looking at her. He needed to remember his failures just a little longer.

He wondered what he should say to her. What had he said last time? He didn’t remember, just that he’d been nervous when she started talking to him the first time around. Maybe he could go for that again? “Ahhh,” Izuku said, fidgeting with the hem of his gloves. He still felt self-conscious about being the only student here that wasn’t wearing his hero costume. This time around though he couldn’t help but wonder why Hagakure wasn’t wearing her sports kit too —it wasn’t like invisibility really offered her that much of an advantage when it came to rescuing people from disasters.

Hagakure huffed from her spot at the front of the cinema. “Because we just got them!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms out in exasperation. In doing so, she accidentally smacked both Aoyama and Ojiro on the shoulders. “The novelty hadn’t worn off yet!”

“I like it when she wears her costume,” Mineta muttered.

Shoji shot him a look before adding, “It was definitely an experience wearing them for the first week.”

“Do…you?”

She did. He hadn’t known her for very long, but he knew that this much was true. “Your Quirk is a lot like All Might’s,” she said.

“We do both have the super strength thing going for us,” Izuku said. “Though—"

“Though All Might doesn’t break his own bones!” Kirishima interrupted, leaning over Izuku slightly to look at Asui as he did.

Oh, right. Izuku needed to figure out how not to do that this time around. That would probably help with keeping everyone alive.

Aizawa let out a weary sigh from the back of the room. ‘You needed to stop breaking your bones in general,’ he thought.

“Your Quirk is super cool, though,” Kirishima said, nudging Izuku as he did. “I wish I had something flashy like you.” He hardened a bit of his arm, just like he’d done the first time, turning it to and from as he looked at it. “My Quirk is useful, but boring. Nothing like yours, man.”

Izuku wondered if Kirishima was going to doubt himself like this every time.

No, no. This would be the last one. He would get it this time.

“Your Quirk is amazing, Kirishima-kun,” Izuku said.

This time, he noticed the flash of doubt in Kirishima’s expression before the conversation changed.

“See!” Ashido exclaimed. “Other people agree, your Quirk is awesome, Kiri!”

Kirishima held up his hands up in defence. “I promise I don’t think that anymore.”

“You better not, Shitty Hair!” Bakugo snapped, his palms sparking faintly to emphasize his point.  

“Aww, see? Even Blasty cares!” Ashido said, completely ignoring Bakugo’s shouting.

Maybe that was something else he could work on, after—

For the first time he made eye contact with Asui, unbidden, as he looked towards her reflexively as he thought about her. Her eyes were dark and wide, gleaming a bit under the lights of the bus, and she tilted her head curiously when they crossed gazes. Maybe it was something in his expression giving him away—that tended to happen, sometimes, when he reset like this. He’d learned long ago that he couldn’t really force his expressions to be something they weren’t—so when he was thinking about these things…it showed. Nobody else ever had the context he did, but they could still interpret the change.

“I can imagine that would be quite hard,” Yaoyorozu remarked.

Shoto added, “I think even I would have struggled to control my expression if I had found myself in that position.”

Izuku looked away quickly.

He pretended not to notice Asui’s soft, curious kero as he did.

Izuku tuned out Thirteen’s speech as they entered the USJ. He was trying not to act suspicious, but it was hard to stop himself from glancing towards the center of the facility, trying to keep tabs of when the portal he knew was going to open actually did. Aizawa noticed it pretty quickly last time, but maybe, if he was keeping track of it, he could point it out even sooner. Maybe they could all be slightly more prepared—

Oh, he was an idiot.

“You are the furthest thing from an idiot, Midoriya-san,” Ida stated, casting him a meaningful glance. Midoriya returned the look with a grateful smile.

He should have tried messaging All Might to come here sooner, maybe then he could fight the monster instead of Aizawa and Aizawa could erase Shigaraki’s Quirk. Actually…could All Might even fight the monster? Or would he fail at that too? The villains did say that they came there to kill All Might. If he had to guess, that monster was probably part of their plan to succeed at that. And he already knew that All Might was out of time for the day, too, so even if he came…he might not be able to help.

“Nezu gave me quite the lecture for that” All Might said, drawing a few curious glances

Aizawa grumbled in response, “You deserved it.”

…Izuku would try to alert him somehow next time. No, he wouldn’t need a next time— Aizawa noticed the villains before Izuku did and shouted a warning, just like he’d done the first time, his capture weapon flaring around him as he leapt into battle. Izuku twitched for a moment—he had seen Aizawa’s face before he rewound last time and he knew he would get injured again—

No, he needed to focus. Aizawa would get injured but Asui would die, he needed to make sure he was—

“You’re overthinking nerd!” Bakugo snapped.

“We need to go, Midoriya-kun!” Iida shouted.

Ah, right. He’d said that last time too.

Izuku turned, trying to remember where he was standing last time.

“All the small things you don't think you'll need to remember until they become necessary,” Yaoyorozu murmured to herself.

“Time travel is always a cruel twist of fate based on slight changes,” Tokoyami solemnly stated.

He needed to try to be in the same portal as Asui again—wait. What if she wasn’t the only one that died…? What if his other classmates had been picked off after they were separated too?

He shook his head. Even if they did, he could always reset again. For now, he just needed to figure out how to get through this with Asui, and he could worry about figuring the others out later if he had to.

He felt someone jostle him and he looked down. Asui, it was Asui, and Mineta was here too, which meant that the villain with the portals would split them up soon. He just had to stay with them.

Sure enough, no sooner had Izuku thought that than the villain appeared in front of them.

He would get it right this time.

He had to.

“You got this bro!” cheered Kirishima.

Izuku took a deep breath in as he fell, twisting so he could plunge in feet first this time. It was less painful than flopping in back first, at the very least.

He needed to think. He should really stop rushing into rewinds half-cocked and without a plan, but, well…it wasn’t really like his plans worked all that often anyway.

 

“Like rushing into an alleyway to confront a known serial killer?” Todoroki deadpanned, ignoring the choked noise from Ida and the deafening uproar from the rest of the class. “WHAT?” they exclaimed in unison.

There was movement to his left, but Izuku didn’t jump this time. It was the shark villain from the first round—it was sort of curious that he’d managed to get so many variables the same this time around. These reruns usually had a lot more variation.

Right, speaking of variations: He couldn’t assume that Asui would save him from the shark villain this time, even if he’d been lucky so far with repeats. Hadn’t he seen a news story once saying it was best to punch sharks in the nose to escape from them? Well, it was worth a shot, regardless. But should he use One for All, or should he—

 

“I’ll be there” Asui softly said.

Midoriya sent a small smile in return “I know”

No. He just wouldn’t use it. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t break his bones trying it again, and if he broke his arm this soon, it would be harder to save Asui.

And if it didn’t work—

Well. It wasn’t like Izuku couldn’t rewind for himself.

Izuku pulled back his fist, aiming to punch the shark villain directly in the nose whether it worked or not. Right as he was about to swing, though, feet appeared in his vision, and then the bright green of Asui’s hero costume, and then finally her face. She was already carrying Mineta, too, just like she had been the first time around.

“Midoriya-chan!” she shouted, right before she shot her tongue out to wrap around his waist.

Uraraka softly snorted, “A thousand yen he starts mentally mumbling about quirks.” Midoriya shot her a betrayed look.

“No sane person would take that bet,” Todoroki deadpanned, just as Kaminari shouted from the front row, "Bet!" Ida pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

…It was equally as awesome the second time around. He’d never researched the strength of a frog’s tongue before but he sort of wanted to now—it seemed insane that she was able to lift entire human beings with it. Beyond that she could actually fling him around—and Izuku was not light, he knew he was not light thanks to his training with All Might prior to receiving One for All—though, he supposed that could just be an Asui thing instead of a frog thing.

Though her Quirk was Frog, so theoretically, if she could do it, a frog probably could too—

“Pay up, Kaminari!” Uraraka cheered loudly before the onscreen Midoriya could finish his internal analysis. A familiar glint appeared in her eyes whenever money was involved. Kaminari groaned, digging around in his pockets for his wallet.

Todoroki sent a probing look toward Midoriya, having caught the mention of ‘All Might’ and ‘receiving’ his quirk—a detail that seemed to have slipped by the rest of the class during the commotion of the bet.

Izuku gasped for air as he crested the waves, then braced himself for the landing on the ship deck. He thought he took it a little more gracefully this time around than he did the first. It probably helped that Asui was much gentler with him when she dropped him than Mineta, who Izuku still winced in sympathy for when he slammed down on the deck with a vengeance. Judging by the disgruntled look Asui gave him as she climbed aboard the ship herself and his previous not-so-great behavior towards the girls, though, Izuku thought he probably did something to deserve the rough handling.

There was a bunch of laughter from the class that drowned out Mineta’s “I did not!”

“We’re all going to die!” Mineta wailed, as soon as he could sit up again. Asui hopped onto the ship deck with a kero, giving Mineta a strange look as she did. “Those are actual villains down there! They’re going to kill us!”

Izuku couldn’t help it—he tensed up, shooting a glance towards Asui.

“Wrong choice of words” Sato said while Mineta winced at his one-screen words and his past ones.

She didn’t seem to notice, thankfully, putting a finger on her chin as she looked at Mineta unblinkingly. “Are you sure you’re cut out to be a hero, Mineta-chan?”

“What, are you insane?” Mineta continued, gesturing wildly at the villains surrounding them now. “The villains said they had a way to kill All Might! There’s no way we’ll be able to fight them!”

Last time, Izuku remembered the villains had eventually given up on waiting for them to talk and sliced the ship in half with a wave. Actually, he wondered if he could find that villain again—his Quirk had been powerful, and would certainly spell trouble for them—ah, right there. He was on the other side of the boat this time, but still in viewing distance. He would have to make sure Mineta threw some of his balls over there this time when they escaped— Right. He should probably ask them about their Quirks again. It would waste time, but it would be less suspicious than if he just knew the inner workings of their abilities right from the start. Izuku had been called creepy for accidentally revealing he had those insights enough times to know better by now.

“Dude! I can’t remember anything from a single day! How could anyone possibly keep track of what was said in different timelines?” Kaminari groaned.

Sero flashed a playful grin. “The smart students, obviously.” Kaminari shot him a half-hearted glare.

Midoriya chimed in, scratching the back of his head, a slight blush creeping onto his cheeks. “Honestly, my on-screen counterpart will probably slip up at points too.”

Ida adjusted his glasses. “I’m pretty sure I would struggle as well, Kaminari-kun. We are not perfect,” he stated, and Yaoyorozu nodded in agreement.

“Shut it, Glasses!” Bakugo snapped, his temper flaring as he activated his quirk, filling the air with the smell of burnt caramel. “I wouldn’t have any problems!”

“Mineta-kun,” Izuku said, trying to keep his voice even enough that he could calm his classmate’s hysterics. It had worked last time, so it should work again, he hoped. “Whether or not they can kill All Might doesn’t matter to us specifically right now.”

“What?” Mineta said, sniffling slightly as he looked over at Izuku. “Don’t tell me you want to fight them too, Midoriya!”

Izuku looked over at Asui, blinking slightly as he did. Had she said that while he was finding the wave Quirk villain? Had she said something like that last time? He…honestly couldn’t remember.

 

“I didn’t” Asui pointed out, before putting her finger on her chin “Then again this is an alternate universe so I may have.”

He supposed that didn’t matter, either.

“Even if they can kill All Might, these guys here aren’t going to be the ones that can do it,” Izuku said, turning away from the villains in the water now to look at his two classmates instead. “If they really can kill him, it’s going to be one of the people in the plaza with that kind of strength.”

His money was on the monster with the exposed brains, or maybe even Shigaraki himself. Shigaraki’s Quirk could kill anyone, really, he just had to touch them. Izuku knew that to be true.

A shiver ran down everyone’s spines at the reminder of what they had witnessed, what that Midoriya had witnessed. A few turned pale and swallowed hard in an effort to keep their stomachs in check.

His eyes slid unbidden over to Asui again.

She ribbited softly and contemplatively, interpreting Izuku’s look as a cue to chime in. “Midoriya-chan is right. And we can’t sit here and wait for the heroes to come save us.”

“What do you mean we can’t sit here?” Mineta wailed, tears streaming down his face.

“Look down there,” Izuku said, pointing towards the villains still in the water. “They’re keeping their distance because they don’t know what our Quirks are right now, but they’re going to get tired of waiting on us to do something eventually and start trying to board the boat or get us back in the water. The good news, though, is that we have the upper hand because of you, Asui-san.”

“You can call me Tsuyu,” she said.

“…Right,” Izuku said. She’d said that last time too.

“And I’ll say it as many times as it takes for you to actually call me it - kero.”

“Ahhh, right! Asu-…“ Asui sent Midoriya a pointed look “Tsuyu-san!” he squeaked.

Actually, that could be problematic. If she corrected him every time, statistically, he would probably start just calling her Tsuyu to begin with, and if he called her Tsuyu before she told him he could, then she might get suspicious, and then—

"I could see how that would become a problem," Shoji said. 

“He's definitely going to stumble over that later,” Ashido exclaimed. The soft murmurs of the Bakusquad followed, likely signalling another bet in the making. Kaminari seemed intent on emptying his wallet of yen, given Bakugo's shouts of, "You idiot!" at the blonde.

He shook his head. He needed to stop worrying about that. In the meantime, he needed to steer this conversation closer to how it had been the first time, so it wouldn’t be unrealistically intuitive when he proposed their escape plan this time around too.

“We should probably talk about our Quirks,” he said, turning back to face them. “I’ll go first. My Quirk is fairly straight-forward—I have super-strength, but it comes at the price of my limbs, so I’ll have to use it sparingly.”

“I’ll go next,” Asui said, piggybacking off of Izuku’s explanation seamlessly. “My Quirk is Frog—basically, I can do everything a frog can—kero. I can leap and stick to surfaces, and shoot my tongue out twenty meters. I can also secrete a mucus from my body—it’s not toxic, but it can tingle a bit, though I don’t know how important that will be right now. Oh, yeah—I can also spit up my stomach and clean it, but we probably won’t be able to use that.”

Izuku nodded—that was almost a perfect match to the explanation she’d given the first time around, too.

“I have had to explain it many times – kero. You'd be surprised at how many kids wanted to know what a frog-based quirk could even do, especially since I'm aiming for heroics,” Asui commented. 

Uraraka wrinkled her nose. “I can’t imagine many kids reacting positively to the stomach or mucus aspect.”

“As frogs are already known to be slimy, I didn't bother censoring that part of my description. I would have been bullied either way – kero.”

Asui was brave; her ability to brush off most things instead of letting them get to her was a strength Midoriya admired. ‘If only I could have handled my bullies the same way,’ he thought.

Mineta started his explanation too—all the details he gave were the same as they were the first time around; balls, with varying degrees of stickiness depending on his mood and the quality of his recent bathroom trips, they stuck to everything but not to him, if he used too many his scalp would start to bleed. Izuku wondered if there was a way they could get around him making his scalp bleed this time, but he wasn’t sure—it was the fact that Mineta used his balls to stick all the villains together after Izuku created the whirlpool that made it so easy for them to escape the first time around.

Mineta started crying again as soon as he finished his explanation, just like the first time, but before either of them could reassure him, there was a voice from the water. “I’m tired of waiting!”

It was the same as before, even if the destruction was on the opposite side of the boat—a wave of water crashing into it and then causing everything to go off-kilter as the ship began to sink.

“Despite the dark undertones of this universe, it’s fascinating to see how the USJ turned out for others,” Yaoyorozu remarked.

“I know, right!” Hagakure’s seat shook, and by the way her shirt twisted, it seemed she turned around to look at Yaoyorozu. “I mean, I shared my experience!” Midoriya was pretty sure she glanced at Todoroki. “But everyone else was very tight-lipped or vague.”

Aoyama strangely twitched in his seat at that.

Right. It was time to do this.

“I have a plan,” Izuku said, scooting a little closer to both of them to make sure the villains didn’t overhear. “It’s a little risky, but it should work.” Especially with so many variables being the same as they were the first time around.

“We trust you, Midoriya-chan—kero,” Asui said, putting a finger on her chin as she did.

A soft round of agreement came from the Dekusquad, the trust in each of their eyes made Midoriya smile.

Izuku shot her a surprised look and then tried to mask it somewhat. Hopefully she would think it was just some generalized insecurity.

She hadn’t said anything like that, the last time they’d done this.

This was where Izuku ran into a problem.

The easiest way to save Asui from being disintegrated by Shigaraki was to steer her away from the main plaza. And Izuku wasn’t confident enough to believe that he would be able to fight any of the three big villains there—not the warping villain, Shigaraki, or the one with the exposed brains—even with Asui and Mineta helping (though whether Mineta would be much help at all, with his scalp bleeding as heavily as it was, was up in the air).

But Aizawa’s face—the blood in his eyes—he wasn’t really equipped to fight those three villains on his own, either.

“I will say it again” Aizawa pipped up “It is my job to protect you, not the other way around” his tone was stern.

The class chorused back automatically with “Yes Sensei!”

‘Though we would all most likely still try to help, being a class of hero students’ Midoriya thought.

“Please stop muttering,” Asui said, still dragging Mineta behind her by the cape. “It’s creeping me out.”

“Sorry,” Izuku said, slapping his spare hand over his mouth. He really should have known better. What if she had heard him talking about time travel? Was he talking about time travel?

 

“It’s not creepy – kero.”

Asui glanced over her shoulder at him, some edge of her expression softening slightly as she did. “It’s not you, Midoriya-chan—kero. It’s just with the villains around…I don’t like having my senses obstructed unnecessarily.”

Izuku blinked. She hadn’t explained herself last time, either. That did make sense though, if he thought about it—he probably wouldn’t like hearing his muttering if he were her right now either, and on edge about saving her. “I understand,” Izuku said. “I was just…thinking out loud.”

She gave him another look, this one long and difficult to interpret. He wouldn’t say expressionless this time, though, he definitely wouldn’t say she was expressionless. “You’re worried about Aizawa-sensei—kero?”

“Ah, yeah,” Izuku said, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand. “He’s not suited for group combat and he’s probably been fighting all the villains in the main area by himself for a while now—”

Aizawa grunted “No hero is a one-trick pony kid.”

“In Midoriya’s case he is a multi-trick pony” Kaminari joked.

“No way,” Mineta said, coming out of his stupor enough to shoot a look that was almost a glare at Izuku. “You can’t be serious. You want to fight more villains?”

“He probably isn’t fighting them on his own, Midoriya-chan,” Asui said, completely ignoring Mineta’s distress. “Thirteen was there too.”

Actually, Thirteen was supposed to be there. Thirteen hadn’t been at the main fight last time, though, and Izuku hadn’t thought to look around for her—had she been injured too? She had to have been, if she wasn’t helping, or too preoccupied with something else. Maybe getting students out of the facility? Thirteen did specialize in rescue and not combat, so maybe—

“You think Thirteen might be injured—kero? Why?”

“Thirteen isn’t a combat-oriented hero,” Izuku said, though he cursed himself again for his muttering habit. He would get better about that in the next run. He would have to, or he would give himself up. “There’s a very good chance that she might have been injured by the villains already. If they have a way to kill All Might, after all, they would probably be able to overwhelm someone like Thirteen, who isn’t used to combat in the first place.”

“The USJ and Thirteen’s injury are the reason’s I picked Gunhead for my work studies” Uraraka pipped up “I want to be a rescue hero but I quickly learned that combat is just as important.”

“Well said Young Uraraka!” All Might chimed in “A good hero is well-rounded.”

“If that’s the case, then Aizawa-sensei probably wouldn’t be doing well either,” Asui surmised.

“Mineta-kun is right though,” Izuku said. “We got lucky with the villains in the water. The main plaza would be a different story.” He took a deep breath, inhaling, eyes closed. In his mind’s eye, he could see the blood in the water, hear the screams, remember the way Asui’s face had twisted in pain. He couldn’t watch that again, no matter what.

“Ugh, I didn’t want to see it again either” Jiro grumbled, a few classmates chorused in agreement.

He opened his eyes, and Asui’s perfectly whole face greeted him, just as intact as it had been seconds ago.

Time was just a memory.

“That’s why you and Mineta-kun need to make it to the front and escape,” Izuku said. “Maybe you can get word to UA and get the other pros here, if no one else has made it out yet. I’ll go back to the main plaza.”

“Midoriya, don’t be stupid,” Mineta said. “You’re injured, you can’t go fight bad guys!”

“I hate to agree with Mineta in any fashion – kero,” Asui said, ignoring Mineta’s protest of “Hey!” in the background. “But you couldn’t control your quirk back then.”

Midoriya winced. “I know, but we’ve already talked about this during our USJ!”

Asui hummed, “All right, I’ll drop it”

Uraraka nudged Asui playfully. “I mean, it’s Deku-kun. He wouldn’t be who is if he didn’t try to save someone at any cost.”

“I’m not going to fight them,” Izuku insisted, waving both of his hands as he talked. “I’m just going to get close and try to pick off a few of the outliers so that Aizawa-sensei has a lighter load. I’ll be okay, I promise!”

This had worked last time, when he was trying to convince all of them to go to the plaza. Maybe it would work in this context too?

He could hope.

“Not a chance” chorused a few voices, Midoriya was surprised to hear Bakugo amongst them with the added ‘nerd’ at the end.

“Midoriya-chan, you’re being ridiculous,” Asui said. “You’ve already injured yourself and Mineta-chan is at his limit. If anyone should go try to pick off stragglers for Aizawa-sensei, it should be me.”

“No,” Izuku said, holding up both hands. “You can’t go! It has to be me. I’ll be fine.”

“Midoriya-chan—”

“No, really, I’ll be fine!” Izuku said. “And it has to be you that leaves, anyway, Asui-san—”

“Not very subtle man” Sero commented.

“Tsuyu.”

“Ts-Tsuyu-san!” Izuku corrected himself. “You have to leave, because you’re the fastest of the three of us. If nobody else has escaped, you would have the best chance of getting back to UA from here.”

Asui frowned, dropping Mineta as she did. He yelped as he splashed down into the water, no longer held up by her.

“Stop dropping me!” Mineta cried.

“No” Asui deadpanned in response earning her a few chuckles.

“Midoriya-chan, I’m the only one of us still in any kind of fighting condition—kero. Your Quirk breaks you and you’ve already used it once anyway, so if you went there alone, you would have to fight Quirkless, with only one or two hits with your Quirk before you reached your limit.”

Izuku made a frustrated noise. It didn’t matter if he was going into the fight Quirkless or not, he was the only one of the three of them that couldn’t die. But he couldn’t tell her, he couldn’t tell anyone—time travel was an impossible Quirk, no one ever believed him when he said that he had it.

“We can’t keep standing here arguing about this,” Izuku said. “The more time we waste, the more of our classmates lives might be at risk. You need to get out of here so you can get back to the school.”

Please, don’t make me watch you die again, I can’t—

“Then let’s both go—kero. Mineta-chan can escape. He might not be fast, but he can try to get a message back to UA.”

“No, you can’t—Asui-san, watch out!”

Izuku reached out at the same time the other, familiar hand in the portal that just opened behind Asui did, catching her hand. He dug both of his heels into the sand of the manmade lake he was standing up to his knees in, but the water made his stance weak and the grip on the hand with his broken fingers was poor, so Shigaraki won out, even with only four fingers around her arm, pulling her through the portal and sending Izuku plunging face first into the water as her hand slipped out of his.

She ribbitted, softly, as she went. He thought she sounded afraid.

“Déjà vu” Tokoyami muttered, Shoji silently nodded next to him. The sight of a classmate disappearing out of reach into that smokey purple portal was a familiar scene to a handful of the students, one that their on-screen counterparts would go through in a few months.

“Damn it!” Izuku yelled, shaking water out of his hair ferociously as he emerged from beneath the waves. “Damn it, I’m so stupid! Arguing in the middle of the lake like they couldn’t see us over here! I should have known he would use a portal to grab one of us, I should have known—”

And then he was running, not caring about stealth in the slightest as he splashed towards the main plaza, not heeding Mineta’s calls and warnings behind him as he went. He still had a chance—there was a chance that Shigaraki had decided to gloat or keep her as a hostage, there was a chance he could get her back still—

“Midoriya, stay away!” Aizawa shouted, as Izuku reached the edge of the plaza.

Aizawa was crying. The pain hadn’t been enough to cause him to cry last time, even though his injuries looked relatively similar, which meant something else had to be different, something else had to have changed—

“He’s too late” Uraraka whimpered, leaning into Asui for a side hug. Midoriya was tempted to do something similar, a reminder that he hadn’t failed the same way the other Midoriya had.

Shigaraki was laughing in the center plaza, hands spread apart as he ranted, as he raved, as he ignored the bit of blood on his shirt and the pile of dust at his feet.

“That’ll show All Might to not show up when I go through all this trouble to meet him!” Shigaraki said, his voice bright with manic glee. “That’ll curb his pride! Imagine how he’ll feel when he realizes he couldn’t save his own student!”

Izuku closed his eyes.

Just a memory. It was all just a memory.

He would get it right this time.

Izuku woke up in his bed the next morning, the light streaming through the window of his bedroom at his mother’s apartment. His alarm clock beeped softly in the background until he turned it off and rubbed at his eyes.

The date on his phone was the same as it was the day before, and the same as it was the day before that.

He would get it right this time.

He would.

“Time loops drive characters to a point of insanity and that’s in fiction” Ojiro flushed slightly when almost everyone looked at him, he continued “I couldn’t imagine living one”

Koda franticly nodded ‘Even if it was one of my own making’ he signed.

Izuku didn’t end up sitting next to Asui on the bus this loop. He found himself next to

Todoroki instead, on the outside seat, as Todoroki slept with his forehead against the window.

Normally Izuku would have been nervous to be beside him—Todoroki was Endeavor’s son, everyone with eyes and the ability to check hero forums knew that—and the other boy had an intimidating aura that made him impossible to ignore, even if he was usually fairly quiet.

“I wasn’t that intimidating” Todoroki said, ignoring the comment about being Endeavor’s son, Midoriya didn’t know at this point in time after all.

Ida opened his mouth to reply but Uraraka beat him with a watery chuckle “You were such a lone wolf emo child” Todoroki blinked in slow confusion.

‘A what’ he mouthed to himself.

Izuku paid him almost no mind today though, too worn out, too stressed, too worried about his friends surviving this trip to do anything else but stare at his phone with a hand over his mouth so he could think of plans without muttering them away and pretend like he wasn’t doing anything suspicious. He’d gotten good at this, over the years.

He hadn’t had to repeat days very often, but he’d done it enough to know the ins and outs of it. His longest loop had been four days, and that had been for the sludge villain.

“That slime bastard!” Bakugo grunted out, frown twisted in an angry grimace at his own memories of that day.

The first loop he had reset to save himself when he realized he was going to drown.

“Huh!” Bakugo exploded, shooting Midoriya a look, before Bakugo could continue Midoriya shot his own look back. Bakugo pulled a face before disgruntledly listening and sitting back down with a grumble. “You better tell me later nerd”.

The second loop had been the first one where he met All Might and asked him his question…but Izuku had learned rather quickly that time that the heroes weren’t going to step in and save Kacchan when the sludge villain attacked the second time.

Bakugo seemed to pale at the thought, he had only been able to not pass out thanks to Midoriya's timely appearance and quick actions that freed his mouth long enough to breathe once more.”

On the third he’d learned that All Might dropped the sludge villain whether Izuku jumped on his leg afterwards or not, though somebody else had died that time.

All Might let out a startled cough in surprise at that information, barely covering his mouth with his blood-soaked handkerchief in time.

The fourth had been nothing but luck and desperation, but Kacchan and Izuku both had survived. He hadn’t meant to end up with One for All.

There was a noise of confusion from the class at that but Midoriya pretended not to notice, nor the look Todoroki sent him, he wished the other Midoriya would stop mentioning One for All because he was sure Todoroki would send him a look every single time until it was explained.

He was beginning to feel like he might break his record with this one.

He wondered, actually, if he could.

This would be the last loop. It had to be.

Quirks didn’t come up in conversation this time around. Kaminari didn’t tease Kacchan, and nobody commented on his Quirk being similar to All Might’s.

He couldn’t help his gaze wandering to Asui every once in a while.

Izuku fucked up.

There was a grunt from the front of the cinema, which Midoriya sweared was Bakugo’s version of an amused snort or even huff of laughter. Obviously finding the fact Midoriya cursed amusing, even if it was internal and not out loud.

He’d gotten distracted, and he’d messed up, and he’d forgotten to make sure he was standing next to Asui and Mineta—and now he was in the main plaza with a group of his other classmates.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

He had to remind himself that sometimes this was what loops needed to fix themselves. The answer wasn’t always for him to be in the same place doing the same things he was in the first loop. Sometimes, things went even better without him. Sometimes, he had to relinquish control to make things right.

“Relinquishing control is a hard battle” Tokoyami mused.

All Might chimed in from the back of the room “Especially when lives are on the line, but a hero must know when to let someone else step in”

Aizawa shot him a red-eyed glare “Don’t go preaching what you can’t do yourself” he snapped “You were late to USJ for that exact reason”

All Might sunk into his seat at the reminder.

He found out what had probably been happening to Thirteen in the last two loops to make it so she couldn’t join the fight—portals and Black Hole didn’t mix well, apparently. It took everything in him not to restart that instant—Thirteen was still alive, he could restart at any point in the day, and it would be more beneficial to him to see how things played out instead of rushing to save everyone from everything.

Not every reset had perfect endings, and Izuku…had his own limits anyway.

They distracted Kurogiri—it was a good plan, and Izuku couldn’t help but wonder if this had always been their plan or if this was something new that they came up with because he was here. Iida escaped—it was good that Iida was here instead of warped to another area, since of their entire class he was definitely the fastest—but he couldn’t help but wonder if Iida would be fast enough.

“Every minute I spend running felt like an eternity” Ida started “because every second passed on the battlefield moves towards a tragedy and I was terrified I would not be fast enough to get help before that happened”

“Truly poetic” Tokoyami whispered.

Uraraka flopped over both Asui and Midoriya’s laps in order to hug Ida “You were fast enough, you got us help in time. You did good.”

A light pink dusted across his cheeks; Ida still wasn’t the best at receiving physical affection.

By Izuku’s estimates, he, Asui, and Mineta had made it to the main plaza in about fifteen to twenty minutes in the first loop. Aizawa hadn’t gone anywhere near the monster or the other two villains yet, even if Kurogiri had already gone back to Shigaraki’s side. He thought that about seven or eight minutes had passed, since the time when everyone had been transported to their different zones, according to Shouji.

That meant that Iida only had about ten to twelve minutes to get back to the school and return with heroes before the monster started attacking Aizawa, which…Izuku doubted even Iida could do.

He tapped his bottom lip with his index finger as he thought it out. He didn’t usually do this because events almost always played out unpredictably anyway…but maybe he should try to let this loop run its course in its entirety, even if something exceptionally horrible happened (even if she died again), just to get a feeling for timing. He didn’t have unlimited reruns, and his lack of knowledge about the event itself was hindering him.

“Lack of information is usually a problem in any situation” Ida said, having recovered from his slight embarrassment.

Todoroki glanced at him “In heroics that often leads to death.”

The mood dipped slightly at that comment, Jiro piped up in an attempt to bring it back up “Lack of information is why Kaminari is bottom of the class exam list” The room was filled with laughter at the expense of the electric user.

In the plaza below them, the monster launched its first attack on Aizawa. Aizawa stepped backwards frantically, hitting his escape window by a hair—there was something worth noting there. Something had taken Aizawa by surprise more so than it probably would have otherwise—maybe he had failed to erase the monster’s Quirk? Erasure wasn’t infallible— Izuku didn’t think it worked on mutation Quirks like Asui’s.

‘Good observation’ Aizawa thought ‘Then again the kid knew who I was the first day’.

At that moment Shigaraki rushed Aizawa too, and Izuku felt his heart sinking. That wasn’t a good sign—fighting two-on-one with villains of that caliber is probably where Aizawa’s luck ran out in the last two loops.

Sure enough, Shigaraki closed all five fingers around Aizawa’s elbow. The fabric of his hero costume crumpled first, and then his skin—Aizawa yelled in pain, his hair lifting again, and Izuku realized what had probably happened. Aizawa had blinked and Shigaraki had attacked while his Quirk was down, but Aizawa had also managed to stop the decay on his elbow from spreading further by erasing Shigaraki’s Quirk again.

That meant, theoretically, Izuku had more options than he thought he did. If Shigaraki got his hands on one of them in a…less lethal area and Aizawa managed to erase it, that person would probably survive. They would be injured, and would probably require a skin graft, but they would survive.

He…could live with that.

Especially if it was himself, he could live with that.

“You need to look after yourself Midoriya-san” Todoroki stared at Midoriya unblinking “You can’t save someone if you keep sacrificing pieces of yourself”

Midoriya swears Todoroki's eyes had darted to his scared hands, he understands, truly he really does but Midoriya can’t begin to imagine a future where he considers his own welfare before another’s, he doesn’t regret any of his scars. Even with the danger of now losing his arms.

Izuku saw the monster move again, so quickly he would have missed it if he’d been blinking, and he realized that this was probably the part where Aizawa’s face got bashed in enough to make it as bloody as he’d seen it in the first loop.

He couldn’t just watch. He couldn’t.

“Deku-kun, wait!” Uraraka shouted, as Izuku vaulted down the steps and ran towards where Aizawa was fighting. There were a few villains still around these parts, but they only stirred slightly as Izuku ran past them, too weak and too battered to be able to fight. He heard his other classmates screaming at him to stop as he went, but he went anyway.

He could just rewind if it didn’t go well. He could just rewind.

He couldn’t just stay up there and watch.

Okay, Izuku, he thought to himself, as he raced towards the monster. Remember the egg in the microwave. 5%, that’s all you need, just get him off Aizawa-sensei and you can figure something else out from there.

Egg in the microwave, egg in the microwave, egg in the microwave—

Sato shot him a questioning look “You do know that an egg will always explode in the microwave eventually?”

“Ahhh, yes” Midoriya sunk into his seat “It’s not the best analogy I know” his next analogy wasn’t any less weird, luckily it probably wouldn’t be exposed in this universe nor his ‘I have legs!’ moment.

Izuku leapt the last little bit of distance he had to cover, his right fist raised. He brought it down on the monster man’s back, power rippling through him and away, smashing into the monster’s purple skin and…being absorbed.

The monster looked down at Izuku, completely unaffected.

Izuku looked up at him.

Well. The good news was that Izuku had finally succeeded at using One for All without breaking his bones. The bad news?

“Noumu,” Shigaraki hissed, his voice made more menacing by the sound of his fingernails digging into the skin at his neck.

“That gave me chills” Koda signed, Ojiro translating out loud for him.

“He sounded even more unhinged with that voice” Jiro shuddered.

“Kill that brat.”

Izuku made a distressed noise as he brought his arms up into a cross guard to block…

Noumu? Is that what Shigaraki had called him? A second later and Izuku would have taken Noumu’s punch directly in the chest—and considering how Izuku just went flying with an increasingly familiar sense of pain in one of his arms—he probably would have died.

Izuku crashed into the ground by the fountain with a wheeze and a skid, his recently broken arm flailing aimlessly behind him as he did. He’d never actually had a clean break instead of just a fracture before, though he was fairly certain that was what this was.

“That’s your fucking thought process after barely surviving a near-death blow!” Bakugo roared whipping around to glare at Midoriya, his tone close to being considered exasperation. Small sparks popping from his hands.

“Midoriya!” Aizawa shouted.

Izuku laid there for a moment, his body airing many grievances with him over its recent treatment, and then he slowly sat up, moving his arm into a position that was friendlier to its recent break. That was stupid, risky…he should have just reset instead of taking that hit. Honestly, he still should reset, but he wasn’t going to die from his broken arm, and Iida had gotten out, so if the pros arrived before Noumu struck again, everything should be okay—

“You’re a resilient brat, aren’t you?” Shigaraki said. He dug his nails in harder as he scratched faster. “Noumu. Hit him again. Don’t miss this time.”

“Not mainly bro!!” Kirishima shouted.

Oh, no. Oh, no, oh, shit, oh, fuck— The Noumu was turning towards him.

Izuku looked towards the doors of the USJ. Maybe if he just lasted a second longer, the teachers would return, he needed an accurate assessment of what the timing of these things were before he reset again, so next time he could figure out where he needed to be and when and how long he needed to stall for— Noumu tensed, getting ready to leap.

He should reset, he should reset before he died—

The doors to the USJ burst open.

“Have no fear, students,” a booming, familiar voice declared as All Might stepped through the wreckage of the doors. “I am here.”

He wasn’t smiling.

Sero’s grin faltered “Still terrifying to witness”

“Dude, could you imagine how the villains feel!” Kaminari exclaimed.

He needed to see the fallout.

He knew that All Might had been injured—he could fight the Noumu and win, but he couldn’t fight afterwards, and Shigaraki had called his bluff. Izuku was trying to force himself to not think about it—if only he’d convinced himself to move, he knew that All Might was out of time, he could see Shigaraki hesitating to leave, he should have tried to buy All Might more time if he could have.

Next time. He would be a proper hero next time.

“My boy it’s alright” All Might called out.

Aizawa and Thirteen had also been injured, but Izuku had received confirmation from the police that they were fine.

He was going to reset anyway, for All Might’s sake, he just needed to find out if anybody else had been injured first.

He had to see if Asui had made it this time, at the very least.

Finally, he spotted her leaving the USJ by herself. Her hair and suit were wet, which was as good an indicator as any that she ended up in the shipwreck zone again, but Mineta wasn’t with her.

There was no need to panic yet. He could have just been transported to a different zone this time. Ojirou and Aoyama were still missing too, so Mineta could be with them. Resets never matched perfectly from one loop to the next, Izuku knew that much.

“Asui-san!” Izuku called, bouncing out of the back of the ambulance he had been sitting in while they wrapped his arm and bounding towards her. The paramedic that had been treating him shouted for him to come back, but he ignored them for the time being, letting the roll of wrap dangle from his broken arm weirdly as he approached.

Uraraka giggled “Seriously Deku-kun, you look silly like that”

She looked okay. For the first time in one of these loops, she looked just fine.

He made the mistake of allowing himself to hope.

“Midoriya-chan…?” Asui said, her voice lifting questioningly as he approached.

Izuku was suddenly painfully aware that as far as she knew, they’d barely spoken to each other and it was therefore extremely weird that he was approaching her now.

He shook his head, hoping some of his embarrassment faded with it. He was resetting anyway. It didn’t matter how weird she thought he was. “Sorry,” Izuku said, stopping in front of her. “I was just worried about you—and Ojirou-kun, Mineta-kun, and Aoyama-kun!” He winced at how awkwardly he tacked on the last three names. “Everyone else has been accounted for, but not the four of you. Are you alright, Asui-san?”

“Mon ami, I would be insulted, if I didn’t know exactly why you were so worried about the mademoiselle” Aoyama said, somehow managing to mix his usual flair with a more unusual seriousness.

Ojiro silently nodded.

She had been staring at his broken arm, but she looked up at him at her name, blinking once, then twice. Her face was still a little bit difficult to read, but he felt like this wasn’t right, she didn’t look nearly happy enough to be out of there if she wasn’t injured, or…

“You—you can call me Tsuyu,” she said, her voice catching on the words as she tried to say them. And then she pressed one large hand against her face, covering her mouth and her nose, and tears welled up and silently spilled from her eyes.

“Well shit” Jiro blurted out “something happened.”

Izuku started forward, raising his good arm in some sort of aborted expression of comfort before he remembered, again, that he was as good as a stranger to her this loop. “As—Tsuyu-san? What’s wrong?”

“I couldn’t save him,” she blurted out. She was usually so serious and stoic, it was strange to see her so close to hysterics instead. “I saved him the first time—kero—but then he—kero— the villains destroyed the boat and he—kero—he panicked and I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything—he already used up his Quirk and I couldn’t—I couldn’t—kero—”

Mineta whimpered as he and the class came to the realisation at the same time the on-screen Midoriya did.

“It seems bad luck hovers over you three like a dark shadow” Tokoyami hummed.

Ida frowned “It does seem that in this universe something always happens to your group” he stated.

The realization crashed into Izuku like a tidal wave. He’d been with her and Mineta the first two times he’d reset, he knew how Mineta got—he didn’t seem to believe in himself or his ambitions, and his first mode was to panic first. With both Izuku and Asui there, it was probably easier for him to find courage, but without one of them…

Izuku felt himself going pale.

She’d had to watch him die.

He was supposed to be the only one here that had to watch people die.

“Tsuyu-san,” Izuku said, giving into the urge to touch her this time. He rested his working hand on her shoulder, calling her attention to him. “I am going to fix this for you. Just…hang on.”

“No longer for All Might, for her huh Midori” Ashido teased, Midoriya flushed bright red as waved his hands franticly in front of him, stuttering so bad no one could make out his words.

“What—”

Izuku closed his eyes.

Just a memory.

Izuku woke up in his bed, listening to the soft beeping of his alarm clock.

He didn’t turn it off immediately, just let it beep, staring up at his ceiling, at all the different shapes the light was making on it as it filtered through his window.

He was on his third run, not counting the original.

He needed to stay with Tsuyu and Mineta. Tsuyu would be fine on her own—she was strong and she was capable, but she wasn’t enough to curb Mineta’s hysteria. Likewise, he couldn’t let Mineta die again.

That was two classmates he’d lost.

 

There was a solemn silence at that reminder, even if this was an alternate universe these still were their classmates.

Classmates that had died in ways that could have easily happened in their world, this could happened, they all could have died during USJ.

Kacchan, Kirishima, and Todoroki made it to the plaza, but none of them knew about All Might’s weakness and none of them knew to move to his aid when he ran out his time limit. That meant Izuku had to make it to the main platform, too. He couldn’t afford to argue with Tsuyu over which of them would go to the plaza, so he needed to take both her and Mineta, just like he’d done the first time, even if he hated putting them in risk.

And he guessed…he just needed to hope and pray that Iida would be able to make it out again.

“Have faith in me Midoriya-san” Ida said.

Aizawa and Thirteen would both get injured no matter what he did. All Might too, though Izuku could try to minimize it. And maybe he could convince All Might to use up less of his time in some subtle way—if All Might wasn’t already at his limit when he showed at the USJ, maybe he could prevent Aizawa at the very least from being injured. Maybe Thirteen

too…

Izuku turned off his alarm clock and sat up, throwing his covers to the side. He stood, then immediately stumbled, catching himself on his nightstand.

He had to get it right this time.

“You don’t look good” Shoji said, he’s right, the on-screen Midoriya was pale and sluggish.

“All quirks have drawbacks” Yaoyorozu piped up.

“Everyone line up by seat order!” Iida called, hands chopping fiercely through the air as he tried to direct people onto the bus. Izuku watched him quietly, unable to stop the fond smile he felt creeping across his face as he did. Three times and Iida always did this without fail.

Izuku was really glad he’d given him the class presidency. He deserved it.

Ida pushed his glasses up making them reflect the screen glare, there were a few reasons he did this but the slight twitch of his nose meant he was feeling emotional and trying to hide it “Thank you for your faith in me” his voice was steady, only the faintest fond note giving him away.

“Iida-chan is very orderly—kero.”

“He is,” Izuku agreed readily, before he processed just who was talking to him.

Hadn’t he been standing near Uraraka the last three times, during this part? He was fairly certain he had, but he’d somehow ended up six people away from her this time.

That wasn’t necessarily true. He knew why he’d ended up over here—your subconscious always had a way with betraying your priorities.

“I will admit I had my doubts as him as class representative before,” Tsuyu continued, propping one finger on her chin in that way she did. It was rapidly becoming very endearing to Izuku, in that same way that Iida’s arm chops were also endearing.

Well. Maybe not exactly the same.

“You’re very straightforward, Ts—” Oh, shit. “—A-asui-san!”

Ashido cheered loudly while the rest of the Bakusquad laughed at a miserable Kaminari, there was no exchange of yen, so there was a possibility they had betted a favour, their next meal or something else.

Tsuyu ribbited, the corners of her mouth lifting enough that she conveyed amusement. “You can call me Tsuyu, Midoriya-chan.”

“Sorry,” Izuku said, slapping himself in the face with both of his gloved hands. He really should be better at this time travel thing, considering how much he’d done it, by this point. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“It’s alright—kero. I prefer to be called by my first name anyway.”

So he’d been told. By her. Frequently.

“I feel like this would be a running gag no matter the universe” Uraraka said.

Asui let out an amused kero.

“Um,” he said, dragging his fingers down his face until his eyes were exposed again. “You— you can call me Izuku? If you want?”

She blinked, her already wide eyes widening just a little bit more, as a quiet kero escaped from her throat.

“And here we see a rare glimpse of a shocked Tsu-chan” Ashido said in her best documentary voice, earning her a few snickers.

Ah, he was stupid, he was so stupid. He’d been time traveling for so long and yet here he was, making rookie mistakes like he’d never done it before—

“Midoriya-kun! Asui-kun! What are you two doing?” Iida interrupted, one of his arms chopping consistently in their direction fast enough to cause a motion blur. “You should be getting on the bus!”

“He’s right—kero,” Tsuyu said. “Come on, Izuku-chan.”

“Right,” Izuku agreed, clenching a fist to his chest as he followed her.

He was an idiot, sure, but…things could be worse, he supposed.

Izuku fell into the water. He twisted so he landed feet first this time, the water washing over him as he slipped into it, cold and refreshing. It was almost nice to be back on the shipwreck zone. He had a good grasp on what the fight here was usually like, which was good, now that his limbs were starting to drag with exhaustion and his mind was starting to get a little hazy.

He could only reset himself to his last waking point, and he didn’t technically get any sleep between resets, even if he undid his injuries. Depending on how long his reset period was he could theoretically do more loops sometimes than he could others—for instance, if he’d only been awake for an hour or two before he looped, it was easier to manage. They went to the USJ for their afternoon heroics class, though—which meant Izuku was rewinding by several hours each time.

 

“That…” Yaoyorozu paused for a split second mostly likely thinking the facts over “That surprisingly is a logical weakness for this quirk.”

He had one, maybe two resets left.

There was movement to his right, and he turned, One for All already flaring to life in his limbs. It was somehow, miraculously, the same shark villain for the third time.

“Oh, goodie, I got one already!” the shark villain said as he hurtled towards Izuku, opening his jaws like he intended to take a bite out of him. Izuku didn’t think he normally said lines, though—or maybe the last two times he’d just been preoccupied with Tsuyu saving him.

Egg in the microwave, egg in the microwave, egg in the—

Izuku swung his fist as hard as he could into the shark villain’s nose. The shark villain let out a gargling screaming sound as he was flung backwards several feet, the water ripping him away with the force of One for All. It pushed back against Izuku a moment later, though softer, gently pushing him back about half a meter.

Asui hummed her tongue poking out slightly “I do not think I ended up in the flood zone this time”

“What makes you think that?” Todoroki asked.

“She would have saved me” Midoriya answered, Asui shot him a smile which he returned.

Izuku shook out his fist—another success on the “not breaking his own bones” front (once he’d gotten the hang of the feeling of 5% of One for All the first time, it was much easier to get it right again the second)—looking for Tsuyu. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen, though, so apparently, she wasn’t going to find him and rescue him in this loop. Or maybe she was, and he was just being impatient.

Either way, he couldn’t really afford to just continue to sit here, especially not when his air was wasting.

Ashido shuddered “Drowning is one of my biggest fears.”

Izuku pushed up towards the surface of the water, looking out for more threats. He heard a scream—that was definitely Mineta, on second thought—and changed direction slightly, so he was still heading for the surface but at an angle instead. He broke through the waves, gasping air as he did—

And then was immediately pulled back down.

Izuku kicked his foot, finding something very heavy was attached to it—upon examination it was another villain, though this one had some sort of deep-sea fish mutation, with sharply pointed teeth and bugging eyes and gills on their neck. They hissed at Izuku as they made eye contact, pulling on him even harder—

Which coincidentally put their throat right at Izuku’s toe.

“It was at this moment he knew, he fucked up” Kaminari memed.

He fired up One for All in his leg. The person holding him seemed to sense this was not going to go well for them, since they let go and backed off immediately. Izuku still kicked, though with the intent to blow them back like he did the shark villain earlier. It worked like a dream—his leg staying unbroken as well—and Izuku continued towards Mineta, buffeted by the waves from his own Quirk.

He…should have thought about trying to use resets to learn how to control One for All before, actually.

“You’re only now coming up with this idea” Bakugo huffed, which earns him a nudge from Kirishima.

A wave washed over Izuku, fiercer than the ones he’d made with One for All, pushing him back again. He raised one arm to defend against it reflexively—and something small, spherical, and purple latched onto his bicep.

He knew that Quirk. He knew this wave Quirk, too, actually.

Izuku continued swimming until he found Mineta. He was in the middle of an apparent dog pile—one villain was dragging him down while another with a squid mutation had filled the water with black ink. The villain with the wave Quirk was using it to send Mineta’s Pop-Off balls away, which he had frantically been tearing off of his head, apparently.

It explained why the villains had more or less been leaving Izuku alone, at least, but it was still unforgivably underhanded of them to all attack Mineta at once.

“Why me” Mineta cried.

“No offence man, but you look like the easier target” Sero replied.

Okay. Egg in the microwave. He could do this, he just had to use the water to his advantage, like he had been doing. Egg in the microwave. He could do this.

Izuku braced himself, One for All flaring to life in his arm again. At the last second he queued it up in his second arm as well—opposing waves would probably be best for clearing this mess out, since that was primarily what Izuku was trying to do here.

Izuku punched at the same time in opposite directions, the water expelling outwards from him as he did. He created enough waves to knock a lot of the villains away. He swam forward as quickly as he could, reaching for Mineta’s yellow cape desperately. He caught it with a fist, using it to haul Mineta behind him as he swam. It probably wasn’t good form for a lifeguard, but it was all he could do, really.

“Thank you Midoriya!” Mineta cheered.

Izuku broke the surface of the water again right by the ship, desperately reaching out for it. He got one hand against the smooth metal, flat and even, and was suddenly made very aware of the fact that he could not stick to walls like Tsuyu and Mineta could.

Wait. Mineta could stick to walls.

Izuku raised his arm with the ball from Mineta’s Quirk stuck to it and slapped it against the side of the boat. It was awkward because the ball was at the top of his arm, but it was doable. He pulled himself up with all his might, suspending basically all of his bodyweight on just one of Mineta’s balls and his arm, and prepared to launch Mineta up over his head.

“What am I? A ball? Why do you keep throwing me?!” Mineta screeched.

Ignoring his wailing Hagakure piped up. “Once again Midoriya is out here proving how fit he is, I couldn’t lift my weight on one arm like that.

“Especially at that awkward angle” Ojiro added.

Izuku paused at the last second as he remembered that Mineta wasn’t the best at thinking on his feet. Izuku should probably give him some kind of direction.

“Mineta-kun!” Izuku called, looking down at him. “I’m going to throw you! Use your Quirk to climb up the side of the ship!”

Mineta gave him a very, very distressed look, tears developing in his eyes. Over his head,

Izuku could see the villains recovering from his last attack. “What? Midoriya, don’t be—”

“Okay, in three, two—”

“Midoriya!” Mineta wailed.

His complaints fell on very deaf, very tired ears.

Jiro laughed “The way he just doesn’t care.”

Mineta sniffed miserably.

“One!” Izuku shouted, hurling Mineta up over his head.

He shrieked as he went, but somehow stuck the landing all the same, with a ball in each of his hands. Izuku hadn’t gotten him very far over his head, which, in hindsight, was a good thing.

“Are you insane?” Mineta demanded, glaring at Izuku tearfully.

“Sometimes I do question” Todoroki said, Midoriya shot his friends a betrayed look when the rest of them nodded in agreement.

“Climb, Mineta-kun!”

“No way! What are you going to do? You can’t even move and—”

“Just climb! I have a plan!” Izuku shouted, already frantically unzipping his sports kit jacket.

Tokoyami piped up “He always has a plan, even if they seem outlandish.”

“Also quick to adapt under fire” Shoji added on.

Mineta started to climb, pulling two more balls from his scalp and using them to leverage himself up the side of the boat. Izuku shook one of his arms free from the sleeve of his jacket, then slapped a hand over the farthest ball he could reach. He stripped the rest of the way out of his jacket and pulled himself up, then placed his other hand over the next ball he could reach. He shook off his right glove and then pulled his elbow pad down over his left hand in preparation before doing the same with his right elbow pad (though he had to use his teeth for that one). He grabbed the next ball with his elbow pad wrapped right hand, then the next with his elbow pad wrapped left, and then he grasped the railing and pulled himself the rest of the way over the ship.

Izuku collapsed flat on his back on the deck, now reduced to a shirt that said flannel shirt on it and several less layers of protective gear. He was drenched and he was tired, but he was alive for the time being, and more importantly, Mineta was too.

Aoyama dramatically sighed “You and those unfashionable shirts”

But time was not on their side, not this reset.

Izuku sat up, shaking the water out of his hair as he did. He’d been thinking it for a while, but he suspected that Tsuyu hadn’t been transported the shipwreck zone with them this time. Considering she hadn’t saved Mineta, and she hadn’t shown up to save Izuku at the same point either—and that she could clearly out-maneuver the villains normally—he felt that it was as good as confirmed.

This was bad for him and Mineta, but he couldn’t dwell on it. Maybe it would be better in the long run—he hated to say it, but Mineta would probably gladly abandon him at the plaza and go on to find help

Mineta gritted his teeth, frustration welling up inside him, not at Midoriya but himself. He breathed in before slowly releasing that frustration and piping up “I may have back then” his voice was steady and there was a glint of determination in his serious expression “But I am not like that now, I will not abandon anyone again.”

Sero shot him a soft grin “We know man.”

Mineta gives a determined nod before turning back to the screen.

…but Mineta had died once before. If Izuku left him on his own, he might die again—

Izuku shook his head again, clearing even more water from his hair and thoughts from his head. He couldn’t dwell on all the things that were going differently with this reset. He just had to do the best with what he had like it was any other reset, and this was what he had.

He hoped that Tsuyu wasn’t in the conflagration zone.

“I feel an ominous cloud hovering” Tokoyami commented.

“Midoriya, you’re insane,” Mineta panted from somewhere to the left of him. “Since when can you use your Quirk without breaking your bones, anyway?”

“Oh, uh, since…just now,” Izuku said, looking over at Mineta. He’d panicked with Tsuyu, apparently, which had ultimately led to his death, which meant Izuku should probably try to get him on board with a plan before the ship sank this time. And he and Mineta had just put their Quirks on full display for the villains to see, so if he had to guess, that was probably going to happen a lot sooner this reset than it normally did.

“Listen, Mineta-kun, it looks like we were the only two warped over here. This would be easier if we’d ended up with someone like Tsuyu-san, too, but—”

“Hold on,” Mineta said. “Tsuyu? Do you mean Asui? Since when are you on a first name basis with a girl?”

“Is that really what you should be focusing on?” Shoji asked.

Mineta looked up over his shoulder at him “I need something to focus on instead of having a panic attack over the possibility of death, which has happened!” he screeched.

“Um,” Izuku said, feeling his face going red with embarrassment. Gah, he didn’t have time for this. “I don’t know why I said that. I meant Asui-san. Anyway, our best bet is to get ourselves off of this boat before they get tired of waiting on us to attack and act themselves.”

“Dude,” Mineta said. “You’re kind of plain-looking, but you’ve got those nice guy vibes, so maybe you do actually do well with the ladies.”

Jiro snorted “Better than you, he actually respects us.”

“Plus he has all those manly scars” Kirishima exclaimed.

Mineta’s lust apparently ran deeper than Izuku initially thought.

“Mineta-kun, please focus,” Izuku said, making a frustrated noise. “Are you—I mean, do you have some sort of limit with your Quirk that you’re close too?”

“I don’t get why you’re so pressed to get out of here,” Mineta said, peering over the edge of the ship at the villains in the water. “They’re clearly too scared to attack us again, and we can just wait for one of the pros to come and save us, as long as they’re just sitting here.”

"Overconfidence leads to death on the field” Aizawa stated sharply.

“No, they’re going to want to—”

As if on cue, the wave from the wave Quirk villain rocked the boat. Mineta shrieked as it began to split apart.

If there was a moment to get him to calm down, it was now.

Izuku grabbed his arm. “Mineta-kun. Your Quirk will stick to other things, right?”

“You’re asking like you didn’t just use it climb the boat two minutes ago” Todoroki said.

“Yeah, it sticks to anything,” Mineta said. “Except for me—I just bounce right off. If I use it to much my scalp will bleed, though.”

“How close are you to that limit?”

“Close enough,” Mineta said.

Izuku made a face, looking back down at the villains in the water as he did. The balls Mineta had already released would just have to do, he supposed.

“While Aizawa-san is correct in that understanding your limits is necessary, pushing past them in order to survive is alright.” All Might said.

“Okay,” Izuku said, looking back at Mineta. “Climb onto my back. I only recently got control of this, so I don’t know how well this is actually going to work, but I think I can use my Quirk to jump far enough away that we can get away from the main action. I’m going to create a whirlpool here, and hopefully, when it sucks them all in they’ll end up stuck together because of the bits of your Quirk still in the water. Try to throw whatever else you can at them when I do it, too, just to be sure.”

“Midoriya, you can’t just—”

“In three,” Izuku said, funneling One for All into his legs. Mineta screeched behind him.

“Two.” Mineta climbed onto his back, thankfully, even though he was crying about how insane and unfair it was. That was fine. This was better than him dying. “One.” Izuku leapt into the air.

He ended up waiting on her again.

The main area was almost always cleared out of students first, and Izuku always found his way to the main area by the end. The zones were cleared next—starting with the landslide zone, where Todoroki usually went—most of the time they only found Hagakure there afterwards, but this time they found Ojirou there too.

“If I’m not there…” Ojiro trailed off glancing at Asui.

The mountain zone was cleared next, where Yaoyorozu, Jirou, and Kaminari had all been sent again—and then the squall zone, where Tokoyami and Kouda were recovered.

The only one left was the conflagration zone, and Tsuyu was the only one of their classmates that hadn’t been rescued.

Izuku was starting to panic.

He saw the stretcher.

“Oh no” Hagakure whimpered.

“This universe isn’t being very manly, can’t it leave you three alone?!” Kirishima shouted, frustration tinging his voice. It was understandable, all of them were starting to be worn down by all the deaths.

This time he’d broken one of his legs to try to save All Might from the villains, so he couldn’t approach the stretcher himself, much to his chagrin.

Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one that cared.

“Tsuyu-chan!” Uraraka shouted, immediately running for the stretcher. She was joined by Iida and Yaoyorozu, Ashido and Kirishima—basically everyone that could run up to her and check on her was going, unless they were the surly or introverted sort, like Kacchan, Todoroki, and Tokoyami.

“Step back!” one of the paramedics shouted.

“Is she going to be alright?” Iida asked, with his class representative voice, the kind of voice that tended to make stuff happen.

“Do you think he practices that voice” Uraraka whispered, her eyes are slightly wet, her voice shaky and she is pressed up against Asui in a hug, it’s a weak attempt at a joke but Midoriya softly smiled anyway.

“Oh, definitely” he responded, Asui let out a soft giggle. Ida doesn’t say anything at the teasing.

“Stay back!” the paramedic repeated.

The other one, however, seemed to sense that some sort of explanation was required, or they would never stay back. “She’s been severely burned and is unlikely to make a full recovery because of her Quirk—please move so that we can carry her through—”

Izuku closed his eyes as a ripple of nervous energy went through the entire class. Just a memory, it was just a memory—

He woke up to the sound of his alarm clock softly beeping.

He let it beep, his muscles heavy with exhaustion, his eyes dangerously close to drooping shut even as he tried to keep them open.

The last one. This had to be the last one.

He stood up and stretched, his shoulders popping as he did. He pushed down a yawn, struggling to stay on his feet.

Damn it, damn it, damn it—

He pulled out his phone. There was no really good way to do this, nothing he could really say that would convince All Might to not use up all of his time without Izuku telling him the truth…and that conversation, the one about his real Quirk and what it could do—he wasn’t ready to have it.

 

Midoriya Izuku [7:49 a.m.]: I’m really looking forward to class with you today, All Might!

 

He hoped that it would be enough.

All Might winced, he knew that wouldn’t change anything.

For the first time since his first reset, Izuku ended up sitting next to Tsuyu on the bus again. The conversation seemed to be going in the same direction it had been, though Izuku was hardly as invested the third time around compared to the first.

“Izu—”

“Ohhhhh~!” Ashido hollered “she is starting to remember~”

Tsuyu cut off abruptly, her mouth turning downwards, her eyebrows drawing together. Izuku felt a flicker of…somethingness. Something he hadn’t really felt before, that fell somewhere between a panicked realization that she had just remembered something from one of the loops and an equally panicked realization that the entire bus was looking at them now.

“Did you just start to call him by his first name?” Ashido asked, leaning forwards with a gleam in her eyes.

Ashido mimicked her on-screen counterpart, eagerly watching how this would turn out.

“I…guess that I did—kero.” Tsuyu shook her head slightly, then met Izuku’s gaze, something distinctly embarrassed about how she chose to peer at him through a few strands of her hair instead of looking at him directly. “My apologies, Midoriya-chan. I didn’t mean to, it just felt…right, for some reason.”

“It seems like Tsuyu-san might be having some sort of echo of a memory” Yaoyorozu commented “she doesn’t seem to remember but the amount of looping is starting to affect her, another side effect of this quirk or maybe just an effect of time travel” she trailed off a faint blush appearing on her cheeks at her excited nerd ramblings and the eyes of the class on her.

Izuku squirmed uncomfortably as everyone else turned to look at him now. “Um,” he said, rather eloquently, trying to pretend that everyone wasn’t staring at him. “It’s fine. You can call me that. If you want to.”

She gave him an extremely dubious look—which was fair, really, considering he knew he probably looked like he was ready to squirm out of his seat and never look at any of them again. “You can call me Tsuyu—kero.”

Ashido gasped softly.

Ashido looked like she was about to say something before Bakugo cut her off “Do not start with that shipping shit!” he barked out. Ashido wilted in her seat shooting him an annoyed look.

Izuku looked at the ceiling, trying to will some sort of divine intervention to end this interaction. “Right, ah…Tsuyu-san.” He might as well get it all over with, he supposed. “You were going to ask me something?”

“Yes—kero.” Tsuyu paused for a moment though, as if collecting her thoughts, and then spoke very deliberately. “I tend to say what’s on my mind, Izuku-chan—”

And I noticed your Quirk happens to be really similar to All Might’s.

“—and I just wanted to say that you seem very exhausted.”

On-screen Midoriya was pale, with eye bags that rivalled Shinso’s or Aizawa’s and somehow his green curls were more of a mess than normal. It was easy to see why on-screen Asui had mentioned it, Midoriya looked dead on his feet.

Izuku blinked, then blinked again, then stared at her. It wasn’t that conversation deviations weren’t normal in resets, because they were, it was just…deviations didn’t usually happen like that, where someone started to say the same thing they usually said, and then actually said something completely different.

“Oh,” Izuku said softly, looking down at his lap instead of up at the ceiling. He cupped the back of his neck with his hand. “Do I…?”

“Actually, you really do, man,” Kirishima said. “Are you gonna be okay to do rescue training today?”

“I’ll be fine,” Izuku said.

They all made concerned faces at him.

“I just had a lot of bad dreams last night,” Izuku explained, waving his hands in front of them, hoping to dispel their worries. It was kind of crazy to him still—he’d known all of them for only a few days, yet most of them were so kindhearted and caring. “They kept me up. But seriously, I’ll be okay, everyone.” He could tell that they didn’t really believe him.

But that was okay.

He would give them this day.

Kirishima fist pumped the air “This time Midori-bro, you got this!” he cheered.

Izuku swung his fist even before Shigaraki started reaching for Tsuyu this time.

Picture the egg in the microwave.

“Noumu!” Shigaraki barked, as he continued reaching.

Izuku felt his eyes widening, seeing where this was going before it even happened—Noumu could move in the blink of an eye, he could take a hit from One for All like it was nothing, if he blocked Izuku from hitting Shigaraki, then Tsuyu could—

Izuku’s fist slammed into a solid brick wall of purple abs, and wind pushed back against him, lifting his bangs off of his forehead. No— Shigaraki’s fingers connected with Tsuyu’s face.

The cinema erupted into a panicked roar at the sight of Shigaraki’s fingers reaching for Asui’s face, some classmates grabbed for their bins just in case, a handful peeking through their fingers as if they didn’t want to watch but it was like a train crash they couldn’t look away from.

Asui let out a light kero as the edges of her mouth curled up. She gave a soft knowing glance to Midoriya. This was a near replicate of their universe, they both knew Asui would be fine.

It was full circle, he’d come back to this moment again, he was going to have to watch this again—

Nothing happened.

A moment passed, then two, then Shigaraki turned his head, the hand attached to his face turning with him until the wrist was pointed at Aizawa. “You really are cool, Eraserhead.”

His head was lifted. There was blood in his eyes, but they were glowing red.

He’d managed to activate his Quirk in time, this time.

 

A collective sigh of relief escaped the class. “Wait, but what was the butterfly?” Kaminari questioned. A few classmates gave him confused looks “I mean like what changed?”

Aizawa let out a sigh “by throwing his punch early, the Nomu moved off me, freeing me in time to activate my quirk before Shigaraki made contact”

“Ahhh” Kaminari nodded in understanding.

Not everything was lost.

Izuku could still save this one.

The doors to the USJ burst open, and through them, All Might walked, a grimace painted on his face, the two upright strands of his hair blowing in some of the leftover wind from his Quirk.

“Have no fear, students. I am here.”

Everyone lets out a thunderous cheer for their on-screen All Might arrival.

Izuku nearly cried in relief. This part almost always went the same.

It would have to be enough.

The Quirk Izuku had been born with was named Time Loop. It was named that unofficially— on paper, Izuku had been Quirkless prior to his acquisition of Superpower when he was fifteen.

“Now you call it ‘Superpower’ Todoroki muttered.

“So your quirk mutated at fifteen in this…” Ida trailed off, his expression shifted as if something just clicked and turned to Midoriya with a look of disbelief “Midoriya please do not tell me your quirk came in at age fifteen in our universe!”

Midoriya couldn’t help but awkwardly nod.

Uraraka’s head whipped around to stare at him in horror “Does that mean the first time you used it was when you saved me!” he just sunk into his seat with a quiet ‘yes’.

Aizawa cursed under his breathe.

He had an extra joint in his toe that was thought to be associated with Quirklessness, and no visible Quirk factor. Beyond that, the ability to turn back time itself…it was more like magic than it was a Quirk.

There were times Izuku himself thought that it was magic, instead. For all he knew it was— but it was his power, whatever it was, and it was flawed and messy and sometimes more of a curse than anything else, since it meant he saw horrible things over and over again. It drained his stamina and probably wore on his psyche somewhat dangerously, but it was helpful. He liked it, for all that it didn’t always feel like a Quirk. It had always been his—since as far as anyone else was concerned, it didn’t exist.

“Sounds lonely” Koda signed.

It was a little bit lonely, though, to have a secret Quirk. Well, technically he had two secret Quirks, but One for All had always been something he’d shared with All Might.

Todoroki’s head snapped towards Midoriya, luckily he didn’t say anything. Midoriya tried not to look at the rest of the class, he could imagine some of the smarter students might start piecing things together.

For some reason, it had never occurred to him that his original Quirk wasn’t something he would keep to himself forever.

“Izuku-chan—kero.”

She found him this time, during what he’d come to call the ambulance scene in his head. He’d gotten through his final run without any broken bones, but with several scrapes on his body in general that were being tended. All Might was going to be mostly okay too, though Aizawa and Thirteen had the same injuries they ended up with every time. There was a cut in one of his eyebrows that kept bleeding, and, honestly, he didn’t even remember how he’d gotten it.

Tsuyu looked about the same that he did right now, with a bandage taped over her cheek and another taped over her hand (her gloves were latched onto her belt). She looked concerned— face pinched slightly around her mouth, eyes crinkled, tongue permanently stuck a little bit out in concentration. She didn’t look sad, though.

Nobody was grieving today, even if they were all worried for their teachers.

“Hi,” Izuku greeted her quietly. They stood there awkwardly for a moment, Izuku staunchly avoiding meeting her eyes as she studied him, both of them covered in bandages and looking worse for wear, but alive, so alive.

A hand gently rested on Midoriya’s arm, Asui gave him a small smile “Thank you for saving me” she whispered, quiet enough that only he heard.

Sure, he hadn’t done anything, it was his alternate self that had gone through it, but he kind of understood what she meant “Always” he answered.

She broke the silence with a soft, almost cautious sounding ribbit. “I generally say what’s on my mind.”

“I’ve…come to expect that from you,” Izuku said, feeling a little bit of a smile creeping onto his face.

“Some people don’t like that—kero.”

“I don’t mind,” Izuku said, finally meeting her gaze. “You can say it to me—whatever you’re thinking.”

“We will always welcome your thoughts Asui-san” Ida said.

“Thank you Ida kero.”

She cocked her head, her finger coming up to her chin. He was beginning to think she mostly did this when organizing her thoughts—sort of like how he tended to tap his bottom lip with his index finger as he mumbled. “I’ve been getting strange feelings about you today. Like I’ve…been here before. There was a moment—kero—where Shigaraki touched me, and I could have sworn it had happened before. I think it’s something you’re doing, but I’m not sure.”

Izuku was quiet, so she pressed on. “And earlier, I started to call you the wrong name—it felt right, like I’d been calling you that for days, even though I’m fairly certain I’ve only talked to you a few times before this—kero.” There was another long silence, as Izuku stayed quiet. “It’s something you’re doing, isn’t it? Some sort of time loop, causing the day to repeat? I’ve never heard of a Quirk that can do that before, and it definitely has nothing to do with your Quirk—but then again, two hundred years ago nobody had heard of a Quirk like mine either —kero.”

“It is interesting that Tsuyu-san instinctively remembers this much when no one else has” Yaoyorozu pondered “both Bakugo-kun and All Might-sensei seemed to show no signs based on context.”

“It’s not—" Izuku started, then stopped. All this time, he’d been trying to save them, trying to save her, and he found he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t lie.

Ah, well. It wasn’t like all the best things in his life hadn’t come from reckless choices, anyway.

“You’re not supposed to remember anything,” he said instead. “That’s…never happened before.”

Jiro gently nudged Yaoyorozu nodding her head towards the screen with a smirk. She received a small fond smile at the silent tease.

“Before—kero? How many times have you done this?”

Izuku jolted, then waved his hands. “Just five times total, for today. It’s the only time I’ve used it at UA.”

She studied him for several long moments, her face slipping back into the territory of unreadable, and Izuku swallowed.

Nobody had ever believed him before. Nobody had ever ended up with the memories he had before, even partially. There was some sort of breaking point at the end of this moment, and after that, a paradox: He wished she didn’t remember it. He didn’t want to do this alone anymore.

“Using your Quirk like this was very reckless and irresponsible,” Tsuyu said, and Izuku’s heart sank.

He looked away. “I see. I won’t ask you to—”

He cut off with a soft oomph as she collided with him, not forcefully, but surprisingly, her arms settling around his torso and her face pressing against his collarbone. He blinked for several moments, then went bright red as he realized this was a hug, and then his brain shut down entirely and no further thoughts were processed.

Hagakure let out a high pitched squeal “So cute!”

“They would make a cute couple,” Ashido said.

Bakugo kicked the back of Ashido’s chair for that comment, she just turned around and stuck her tongue out.

“Thank you for saving me—kero.”

Thoughts were processed again, and Izuku blinked once more. He brought his arms up, settling them around her shoulders. He was probably still blushing, but this was nice.

Together—that was better.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Izuku said, resting his head against hers as they embraced. “It was all just a memory.”

The screen went dark and the lights flickered on, signalling the end of the story.

Uraraka stood up, dragging Asui with her before giving her a proper hug, both of them were quiet. Midoriya hesitated awkwardly for a split second but he shoved his social anxiety down and joined in, he wrapped his arms around both the girls. There was a loud emotional sniff before Ida glomped them, Todoroki ended up squished in between Ida and the group looking awkward and unsure of what to do.

Once the group hug ended, other classmates came up to Asui to receive their own comforts or enjoy the fact their Asui was still alive.

A small group had moved over to talk to Mineta, Shoji stood by his side silently while Sero said something and Kaminari gave Mineta a fist bump.

Aizawa stood at the back of the cinema as his eyes scanned over his class.