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Wednesday didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like a funeral for a world that had died one hundred and forty-three times.
When the sun rose over the Heights Alliance dorms, it didn’t bring the usual jolt of terror. There was no sickening lurch of the soul, no sudden snap of reality resetting Izuku’s consciousness back into a bed he had grown to hate. For the first hour, the three of them didn’t move. They stayed tangled together on the floor of Izuku’s room, limbs intertwined, listening to the silence.
It was a heavy, terrifying silence. In the loops, silence was the precursor to a reset or the begining of a new torture.
"It's 7:00 AM," Denki whispered, his voice cracking. He checked his phone for the hundredth time. the date displayed 'Wednesday'. "It's really Wednesday."
Hitoshi tightened his grip on Denki’s waist, his head resting against Izuku’s shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot, the dark circles beneath them looking more like bruises. "Don't say it out loud yet," he croaked. "If we say it, the entity might hear."
"It's dead, Hitoshi," Izuku said, though his own voice was trembling. He felt like his skin was made of glass, ready to shatter at the slightest vibration. "Nezu-sensei saw the readings. We broke the anchor."
They didn't go to breakfast. They couldn't. The thought of seeing their classmates—vibrant, loud, and blissfully ignorant of the horrors they had witnessed—felt like acid in their veins. But they knew they couldn't stay hidden forever. The "bubble" had popped, and the vacuum it left behind was starting to pull.
***
In the teacher’s lounge, Aizawa Shouta dropped his mug.
It didn't just slip; his hand simply stopped functioning for a second as a flash of searing white light scorched the back of his retinas. He saw a subway station. He saw Midoriya standing in front of a screen, tears streaming down his face, screaming something about a "Loop 134." He felt a phantom weight in his chest—the feeling of being slammed against a wall by an invisible force while Kaminari screamed.
"Shouta?" Yamada’s voice was high, panicked. He was clutching his head, his glasses askew. "What was that? I just... I just saw Kaminari-kun... I saw him turn to dust. But he's fine, right? He’s in the dorms."
Nezu sat at his desk, his paws trembling. He wasn't seeing just one flash. He was seeing the math. He was seeing the variables of a hundred different Tuesdays beginning to align in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle made of jagged bone.
"It is coming back," Nezu murmured, his voice devoid of its usual chirp. "The temporal displacement was too severe. When the loop collapsed, the localized memory wipe began to fail. We are... we are remembering."
***
By the time 1-A gathered for homeroom, the atmosphere was suffocating.
The "trickle" had become a stream. It wasn't full memories yet—just flashes. Iida felt the ghost of a blade through his chest. Uraraka smelled ozone and burnt sugar. Bakugo was uncharacteristically quiet, his hands shaking as he stared at the back of Midoriya’s head. He had a memory of Midoriya looking at him with eyes that were thousands of years old, filled with a pity that made Bakugo want to vomit.
Then, it happened.
As Aizawa stepped behind the podium, his face pale and drawn, the "stream" became a flood. It wasn't a random memory. It was the one the entity had curated to be the most devastating. It was Loop 137.
The entire class gasped in unison. Some fell from their chairs. Others clutched their stomachs.
They saw the classroom. They saw themselves sitting in the same seats they occupied now. They saw the screens flicker to life with those impossible, soul-crushing puzzles. They felt the hum—that agonizing, high-pitched frequency that made their teeth ache.
They watched as Midoriya worked the puzzles, his fingers bleeding from typing so hard, his mind being shredded in real-time. They heard the entity’s voice—cold, mocking, echoing through the collective memory.
*“Your intellect is the cage, Midoriya Izuku.”*
They saw Shinso and Kaminari writhing on the floor in the memory, their bodies sparking and contorting under the weight of the entity’s "encouragement."
The most vivid part—the part that made Yaoyorozu sob and Kirishima slam his fist onto his desk—was Midoriya’s breakdown. The memory played back his scream, raw and shattered, as he turned to the class and confessed the horror of Loop 134.
The vision ended as abruptly as it began, leaving the real classroom in a state of absolute, traumatized silence.
Aizawa was gripping the edges of the podium so hard the wood groaned. He looked at the three boys in the middle row. They weren't looking back. Midoriya was staring at his scarred hands. Hitoshi had his eyes closed, his breathing shallow. Denki was curled into himself, looking smaller than he ever had.
"Midoriya," Aizawa started, his voice thick. "Kaminari. Shinso."
"Don't," Izuku whispered. The word cut through the room like a knife.
"We saw it," Ashido choked out, tears streaming down her face. "We saw what it did. Midoriya-kun, we... we didn't know. We were right there, and we couldn't do anything."
Izuku stood up slowly. His chair scraped against the floor, a harsh, ugly sound. He looked at his classmates, but his eyes weren't seeing them. He was seeing the one hundred and forty-two other versions of them that had died, mocked him, or forgotten him.
"You saw one loop," Izuku said, his voice flat. "One. Out of one hundred and forty-three."
"It said... it said something about Loop 134," Sero said, his voice trembling. "It said you were... that someone touched you. That they..."
"Stop sugar coating it and call it what it is, I was raped, Sero-kun," Izuku snapped, the words hitting the room like a physical blow.
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating. Uraraka hid her face in her hands, her sobs muffled. Aizawa looked like he had aged twenty years in a single second.
"Izuku, sit down," Hitoshi muttered, reaching out to grab the hem of Izuku's shirt.
"No, Hitoshi," Izuku said, turning to look at him. "They're getting the memories. They're seeing the 'horrifying bits.' They think they understand because they saw us get tortured for an hour in a classroom. They don't know about the rest. They don't know about the time I watched as Denki lived through a bloody eagle."
Denki flinched violently at the mention of it, his hands flying to his ribs as if he could still feel the phantom sensation of his chest being split open. "Izuku, please... not that one. Not today."
"Why not today?" Izuku challenged, his voice rising with a frantic, jagged edge. "It happened! It all happened! Every time the sun rose on a Tuesday, we were executed! We were hunted! We were used as playthings for a god that thought our trauma was a fun weekend project!"
"Midoriya," Aizawa said, stepping around the podium. He moved slowly, cautiously, as if approaching a wounded animal. "We know it's not your fault. You were trapped. You didn't have a choice in what happened to you or what you were forced to do."
Izuku turned his gaze to his teacher. It was a cold, piercing look that made Aizawa stop in his tracks.
"Look, we know it’s not our fault, Aizawa-sensei," Izuku said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm whisper. "We know we didn’t have a choice, but it doesn’t change the fact that’s what happened. It doesn’t change the fact that Denki can’t hear a high-pitched noise without wanting to claw his own eyes out."
Hitoshi stood up then, placing a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. He looked at the class, his expression one of weary, jagged exhaustion. "You’re all getting the 'trickle,' right? You’re seeing flashes of us dying?"
The class nodded slowly, many too choked up to speak.
"Good," Hitoshi said, a bitter, humorless smile twisting his lips. "Keep them. Don't let them fade. Because for one hundred and forty-two Tuesdays, we were the only ones who carried the weight of your deaths. We watched every single one of you die, over and over. I watched Bakugo get turned into a meat-shield. I watched Tokoyami lose control and tear Asui apart. I watched Aizawa-sensei get his head crushed."
Yamada, who had been standing by the door, let out a broken sob. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix a shattered soul, Yamada-sensei," Denki said, his voice small and hollow. He finally looked up, his golden eyes dull. "We're glad it's over. We're glad you're alive. But don't expect us to be the people we were on Monday. Those kids died a long time ago."
***
The day didn't get better. The memories continued to seep in, localized around the school. Nezu had declared a week-long suspension of classes, but nobody wanted to leave. There was a desperate, frantic need for the class to be near the trio, a guilt-driven desire to "fix" what was fundamentally broken.
The trio, however, drifted toward the only place that felt remotely safe: the rooftop.
They sat in a triangle, their knees touching. The air was cool, the sky a mocking, beautiful blue.
"They're going to keep remembering, aren't they?" Denki asked, picking at a loose thread on his pants.
"Nezu-sensei thinks so," Hitoshi replied. "The collapse of the loop was too violent. The 'clean' reset we did with the anchor points forced all that suppressed temporal energy back into the timeline. It’s like a dam breaking. The water has to go somewhere."
"I shouldn't have said that to Sero-kun," Izuku whispered, burying his face in his knees. "I shouldn't have lashed out."
"Yes, you should have," Hitoshi said firmly. "They were pitying us, Izuku. They were looking at us like we were broken toys. They needed to hear the reality. They needed to know that 'unfortunate' doesn't cover what happened in the dark."
"The 'bloody eagle' bit was a bit much," Denki said with a weak, trembling laugh. "I could feel everyone’s eyes on my back, checking for scars."
Izuku reached out, taking Denki’s hand. "I’m sorry, Denki. I just... I’m so angry. I’m so incredibly angry that the world just kept spinning for everyone else while we were in hell."
"We're together," Hitoshi reminded them, reaching out to complete the circle of their hands. "That's the only thing that's real. The loops are over. The entity is gone."
"Is it?" Izuku asked, looking up at the sky. "Or is this just Loop 144, and the torture is letting us think we won?"
The question hung in the air, a poisonous doubt that none of them could truly answer. That was the true legacy of the loop: the theft of certainty.
***
Later that evening, Aizawa found them. He didn't try to offer platitudes. He didn't bring tea or tell them everything would be okay. He simply sat down on the gravel of the rooftop, several feet away, and waited.
"The class is in the common room," Aizawa said after a long silence. "They’re making a list."
"A list of what?" Hitoshi asked.
"The memories," Aizawa replied. "They want to keep track of what they remember, so they can talk to you about it when you're ready. So they don't accidentally trigger you. It's their way of trying to help."
"They shouldn't," Izuku said. "They should just forget. It's better for them."
"We don't get to choose what we remember, Midoriya," Aizawa said, his voice softer than the boys had ever heard it. "I remember the classroom. I remember the feeling of failing you three. I remember the way you looked at me—like I was a ghost."
Aizawa looked at Izuku. "You told the class that we shouldn't sugar coat it. You're right. What happened to you in Loop 134... what happened to all of you... it was an atrocity. It was a violation of everything a hero school is supposed to stand for."
"You weren't there, Sensei," Denki said. "Not really."
"I am here now," Aizawa said. "And Yamada is here. And Nezu. We are going to find a way to help you carry this. It’s not a hero’s job to suffer in silence."
"We've been silent for years, if you count the loops," Hitoshi said. "We don't know how to be anything else."
"Then we'll learn," Aizawa said. "One day at a time. Starting with Thursday."
***
The "trickle" didn't stop. Over the next few days, more memories surfaced. Sato remembered the taste of poisoned cake. Shoji remembered having his extra limbs severed one by one. Iida remembered the entity forcing him to run until his engines exploded.
But the memory of the classroom remained the anchor. It was the moment they all shared—the moment the veil was lifted.
The three of them didn't return to the "old" versions of themselves. Izuku remained quiet, his eyes always scanning for exits. Hitoshi became even more protective, his hand rarely leaving the others. Denki’s laughter was infrequent and cautious, like a bird testing its wings after a storm.
They sat together in the common room a week later. The class was quiet, respectful.
Bakugo approached them, his usual scowl replaced by a look of grim resolve. He didn't apologize—he knew Izuku would hate that. Instead, he sat down across from them.
"I remember the one where I blew up the school," Bakugo said, his voice gravelly. "Loop 92. The entity hijacked my sweat glands. I couldn't stop it."
Izuku looked at him. "I remember. You were crying."
Bakugo flinched but didn't look away. "Yeah. I was." He paused, looking at the three of them. "You three arent as weak as you look"
It was the closest thing to a declaration of support they would get from him, and in a weird way, it helped.
The bubble had popped. The world was messy, traumatized, and filled with the echoes of a hundred different deaths. But as Izuku looked at Hitoshi and Denki, feeling the warmth of their hands in his, he realized that for the first time, he wasn't waiting for the world to reset.
They had been through the bloody eagle. They had been through the cage of intellect. They had survived the unspeakable.
And now, finally, they were allowed to be broken. They were allowed to be real.
"It's Friday," Denki whispered, looking at the calendar on the wall.
"Yeah," Hitoshi said, leaning his head back. "It's Friday."
Izuku took a deep breath, the air tasting not of ozone or blood, but simply of rain and old books. "Tomorrow is Saturday."
It wasn't a profound realization. It was just a fact. And in a world that had been stolen from them for so long, a simple fact was the greatest victory of all.