Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku’s steps were heavy, the sound reverberating in the stairwell. He could hardly hear it over his heart thrumming in his ears. He reached the top with a sense of dread. He pushed the door open, and dragged in deep breaths of fresh air. They really should lock it. The clean air didn’t help, and he still found it hard to breathe. Each breathe carried less oxygen than the rest.

He made his way over to the ledge, his backpack falling from his shoulders on the way. Should I take my shoes off? Is that a thing people do? He stepped up, his toes hanging over the side. He read somewhere that people often feel calm when they make this decision. He didn’t feel calm. He felt like the world was crushing him under its weight. 

Maybe he thought that someone would magically show up and stop him. Save him from what he was about to do. He briefly entertained the image of All Might pulling him away from the ledge, just as he took that step.

Deep down he knew that wasn’t going to happen. No one was going to save him. He was useless. Why would anyone bother? 

They would be glad he was gone.

Izuku took a shaky breathe and stepped forward.

For a moment he regrets not facing up. The sky would have been a nicer last image. 

He hits the ground with a loud crack, and then he watches as he’s suddenly pulled back up to the roof, his steps rewinding, his backpack rising back onto his shoulder. He goes backwards down the stairs and the further he goes the faster everything moves, blurring together until suddenly it all stops again. And he’s standing in front of Kacchan. 

“—Have a quirk in your next life…Go take a swan dive off the roof!” Bakugo turns and leaves the classroom.

Izuku stands there for a moment, not moving. What just happened? Izuku looks around in confusion. Did I imagine it? How do you just imagine something like that? 

Izuku leaves the classroom and makes his way to exit the school building. He absent mindedly goes to the pond to fish out his burned journal. He regards the soggy journal with disgust. He’ll have to copy all his notes into a new one.

Why should he even bother, though? He’s just a useless deku. He’ll never be hero without a quirk. Everyone’s told him. Not even his mother thinks he can do it. 

He looks up to the roof. Was it real or did he imagine it? It doesn’t make sense. He could jump again. If he didn’t imagine it, it should happen again, right? And if he didn’t, what does he have to loose.

He looks down to his dripping journal. No, he can’t do it. He’s going to prove everyone wrong. He’s going to become a hero. He has to at least try…

But didn’t he already do it? There has to be an explanation. Kacchan’s words echo in his head if you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life…go take a swan dive off the roof. Could he have been right? What if it was a quirk? What if he did jump, and then what? He undid it?

Could it be possible that he really does have a quirk after all. He didn’t have the joint in his toe, so it’s not impossible. But to have gone so long without knowing… quirks developing after someone turns six is practically unheard of. For him to have developed one now? Izuku was scared to get his hopes up.

He was so caught up in these thoughts that he hardly noticed as the shadow passed over him and suddenly his body was engulfed in a thick sludge like substance. 

“Don’t worry, I’m just hijacking your body. Calm down.” The sludge shoved its way into his mouth and up his nose. Izuku clawed at it, but it didn’t do any good. “It’ll only hurt for about forty-five seconds…then it’ll be all over.”

Izuku’s lungs burned and black spots started to dance across his eyes. Izuku couldn’t help but see the irony in this situation. It was just moments ago he was debating his death, looks like the decision is out of his hands now.

His limbs grow heavy and he’s not sure when exactly he stopped struggling, but his thoughts become muddled before he can really give it much thought, and slowly everything goes black.

Everything goes backwards until he’s standing alone in the tunnel again. Izuku doesn’t even have time to process this when his body is once again engulfed with the sludge. He struggles with it, but it does nothing. And once again his limbs grow heavy and everything gets dark.

He’s pulled backwards again, this time slower, and he’s disturbingly aware of the feeling of the sludge being pulled from his lungs and he’s alone again.

And then it repeats. He doesn’t struggle this time. Instead he tries to figure out what the hell is going on. What is the sludge villain even doing to him. It repeats again, and Izuku starts thinking that maybe it isn’t the sludge villain doing this. Maybe what happened on the roof really did happen. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy to think he’s got a quirk after all.

Izuku blacks out again, and this time he tried to grasp on to the feeling of himself moving backwards. At this point he expects it, and when the sludge villain comes up behind him, he jumps out of the way.

It buys him maybe ten seconds, but then it’s on him again. This time, just before he blacks out, he becomes vaguely aware of someone shouting before everything rewinds again.

Izuku jumps in a different direction this time, and wonders idly if he can control how far back he can go. If it’s his quirk then he should be able to control it. He went further than a minute when he jumped off the roof. 

This time when he rewinds he tries to hold onto the feeling of moving backwards for just a few seconds longer than before. When he stops, he immediately turns to run out of the tunnel. 

He makes to the the edge of the entrance before he hears the slime villain crawl up through the drain gate. The villain calls out to him, and he dodges as it lunges towards him. It grabs him and Izuku struggles again. This time, before Izuku blacks out he hears a familiar voice call out, “Texas smash!”

Izuku comes to with someone tapping his cheek. “Oh good, you’re okay! I was worried there for a second that I was too late.”

Izuku stared up at All Might and oh god it was All Might deep breathes, don’t freak out. Izuku opens his mouth to say something but words escape him.

“I apologize for getting you caught up in this little squabble,” All might exclaimed.

Izuku scrambles to stand up. “You’re All Might.” Smooth Izuku.

“Indeed I am. I must be off now.” All might holds up a soda bottle filled with what Izuku thinks it the slime villain. “I must bring this evil doer to the proper authorities!”

“Wait, um, an autograph!” Izuku grabs his notebook, but see that it’s already been signed. Izuku almost squeals in delight because oh my god he actually has All Might’s autograph. “Wow, thank you so much, I’ll treasure it.” Izuku looks up from his journal to see All Might’s retreating back. “Wait, is that it?”

“A pro hero battles not only villains, but also time.” All Might leaps into the air, and against Izuku’s better judgment, he grabs onto his leg and is pulled into the air alongside All Might. “Hey now! Release me! Such enthusiasm is a bit much.”

“If I let go now I’ll die,” Izuku calls over the wind, ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him he already did that.

“Good point,” All Might says, and is that blood coming from his mouth? All Might grabs onto Izuku and lands them both on a roof of a building. “Of all the… hopefully the people of the building will let us down. I have no time left…damn.”

“Wait! Um…” Izuku fumbles for words. “It’s just, well, I was going to ask you if… well, you see, I’ve always dreamed of being a great hero like you, but everybody told me I couldn’t because I was quirkless. Though, I think, well, I thought I was quirkless, but now I don’t know, I mean I well this is all happening so fast…” Izuku is really fumbling this. Though in his defense he just discovered his quirk like two minutes ago, or was it actually more? He really need to think about this more thoroughly. What even is his quirk? Some kind of rewind thing. “I’m really fumbling this. It’s just I want to be a hero like y—WHAT?” Izuku lets out a little shriek as he finally notices the smoke, and a tall skeleton like man standing where All Might was just a moment ago.

“What..where is…who are you? Where’s All Might?”

“I am All Mi—“ his words are cut off by a bloody cough.

“What? No you’re not, you can’t be you’re all shriveled up.” Izuku flails his arms and tries to come up with some other explanation.

“You know how people hold their gut in at the pool…it’s like that.” The man—All Might?—says.

“No way,” Izuku breathes in shock.

“You’ve seen the real me, kid. Just don’t go writing about it on the internet.” He pulls the side of his shirt up to show a gruesome scar twisting up his left side. “Five years ago a villain did this to me. My respiratory system was nearly destroyed and my stomach was removed. I’ve wasted away because of the after affects of those surgeries. I can only do my hero work for about three hours a day now.”

Izuku tries to process what he’s hearing. “Five years ago? Was it the fight with toxic chainsaw? It didn’t seem that bad.”

All might looks at him in surprise. “Wow, you really know your stuff. But, no, this fight was kept off the record, that is I asked that it was never made public. A symbol of peace who saves people with a smile must never be defeated.”

“The reason I smile is to stave off the overwhelming fear and pressure I feel. A pro should always be ready to risk their lives for others. I didn’t really get all of what you were asking, but if you want to be a hero, you have to be willing to give up your life to save others, and you have to have the power to back it. Look at me, I have a strong quirk and this still happened.”

“I see…” Izuku says, more to himself than anything.

“But, hey, if being a hero doesn’t work out you can always be a police officer. They’re often mocked, but their work really is admirable. They do a lot to help people.” All might heads to the door and opens it. “Good luck kid.” And then he’s gone.

Izuku heads home in a daze, his brain trying to process everything that just happened. He honestly doesn’t know what’s harder to believe, everything he just learned about All Might, or that fact that Izuku might have just discovered his quirk.

He’s broken out of these thoughts by the sounds of explosions coming from a couple streets away. A villain fight? Izuku finds himself correcting his path to head towards the chaos, mostly out of habit. His eyes go wide when he gets there only to find the sludge villain that had attacked him earlier rampaging in an ally. Loud explosions seem to be coming from inside him. He briefly hears people talking about a kid being trapped as he shoves his way to the front of the crowd. 

The sludge villain must’ve escaped when Izuku grabbed onto All Might. That means this is his fault. Izuku berates himself for being so stupid, and waits in vain for one of the heroes to save the kid. But they don’t. They just hang around the edges, putting out fires, and keeping the crowd away. Izuku thinks he hears one of them say something about their quirks not being suited for this.

Izuku panics, because he knows the kid doesn’t have much time. He knows what happening to them right now, it happened to him multiple times after all. Then he see’s the kids face briefly and all thought flies out of his mind, because oh god it’s Kacchan.

Izuku’s feet are moving before he even realizes it. He throws his backpack at the slime villain and in its moment of distraction, manages to shove Kacchan out of it’s grasp. The slime villain instead latches onto him. He’s vaguely aware of an uptake of panic in the crowd, and another explosion goes off right next to him. 

It happened a lot quicker this time. A lot more violent. The sludge villain, shoves itself down Izuku’s throat and into his lungs with much more force, and the pressure increases until Izuku can’t take it anymore, and instead of slowly fading to black, it’s more sudden. There’s a moment of pause, the moment where Izuku’s heart stops, and then everything rewinding. He lets it go easier this time. Playing past his talk with All Might, and he notes that he can see the moment the soda bottle fell from All Might’s pocket as they were flying through the air.

He stops it the moment before he grabbed a hold of All Mights leg, and when time moves forwards again he stays in his spot, and watches as All Might leaps away.

Izuku stops by an office supplies store on his way home to buy a new blank journal, this one green instead of his usual blue, and scribbles quirk analysis on the front.

Izuku stands in his bedroom, knife gripped in his his hand, knuckles white. This is so stupid. Izuku had filled his new notebook out with everything he knew thus far about his quirk. Which wasn’t much. All he knows is that when he died time rewound itself. From what he gathered nobody else was aware of the time manipulation. The slime villain didn’t seem like it noticed it was doing the same thing over again, and All Might didn’t notice anything amiss either. He also knew that he could alter events, obviously, because he wasn’t dead, and a quick skim through the news showed that the slime villain didn’t escape.

He tried with all his will to rewind it again, but it didn’t work. Nothing he tried did. And he was pretty sure he knew why. 

When he was five and his mother took him to a quirk specialist to see why his quirk hadn’t manifested he was informed he likely had a hidden quirk. A quirk that required a specific set of circumstances to be activated, and that it was likely he wouldn’t ever figure out what it was.

Well guess the doctor was right. But honestly, what the hell kind of quirk only activates upon death. How the hell was he supposed to discover this quirk anyways. By jumping off a roof and drowning via slime, apparently.

So Izuku had to die to use his quirk. It wasn’t that bad, right? It's not like he was going to stay dead. And if he really thought hard about it, he wasn’t even actually dying, because time would be rewound and technically speaking it wouldn’t even have actually happened. Right?

These thoughts didn’t make it any easier, though. Izuku brought the knife to his wrist, his breaths coming quicker and quicker with each second. He should just do it. The only way to learn more about his quirk is to test it. And the only way to test it is to activate it. He conjured the image of himself slitting his writs in his head but the knife didn’t move.

Why was this so hard? Izuku had already done this once today. He just has to do it. Like ripping off a bandaid. Izuku closes his eyes, and rips the blade through his skin. Oh shit oh shit oh shit, that hurts. That hurts a lot more than I thought it would and now blood is getting everywhere. Maybe I should have done this in the bathroom. Too late now.

Izuku’s hand shakes violently as he slowly slits his other wrist with much less grace than the first one which is saying something, and he swears it hurts even more. The knife drops to the floor, and Izuku is quick to follow it. He leans his back against his bed, his blood seeping into the carpet.

Izuku really should have done more research, because this isn’t working very well. It's been a few minutes, and he doesn’t feel to good, but shouldn’t he have blacked out by now? He’s pretty sure the bleeding is actually slowing down. Maybe he didn’t cut deep enough. What a mess. He can't even kill himself right. He should have just jumped off a roof again.

There’s an artery in your thigh right? Izuku reaches for the knife that he dropped, his arm screaming in protest. He’s already in to deep. He’s pretty sure he’s crying, and he’s having trouble breathing. You wanted a quirk, well you got one, deal with it. Izuku cuts into the inside of his thigh with as much pressure as he can manage, cutting through his pants and into flesh. He’s pretty sure he hit it, because blood starts spilling out faster than he thought possible, and his head lolls back, the world going dark. Izuku tries to rewind it to just before he slit his writs, but he doesn’t stop it fast enough and ends up running back to when he was writing in his journal, and sub-sequentially losses half of what he wrote. Wonderful.

Izuku notes with a hint of dread that he’ll have to practice stopping exactly when he wants to. He sits down to start filling in his journal again. He wonders how far back he can go. How often can he use it? What happens if he uses it to much? Would he just die? Izuku really hopes not.

He’ll have to find an efficient way of dying, because that mess he just went through was not happening again.

Izuku debates telling his mother about his newfound quirk. He’s not stupid. He knows how she’s going to react to the fact that her son has a quirk that requires him to die. Not to mention that he had already died quite a few times that day. So he stays quite at dinner, and doesn’t mention it. He also doesn’t mention All Might, because that’s just a whole other can of worms he doesn’t want to deal with. So he skates through dinner with small talk and asks her about her day at work all while pretending his whole world wasn’t just blown away today.

When dinner is done Izuku escapes to his room to start planning. He has ten months until the UA entrance exam. Ten months to master his quirk and learn all its limitations. He also notes that he should probably get himself into better shape, and learning how to fight probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. The run in with the slime villain only showed how useless he is at this point, even with his quirk. He still had to rely on someone to save him.

Theoretically speaking, he could do both of those things at the same time, while also learning how to use his quirk. Izuku figures any kind of physical effects training would have on his body would be reversed if he turned the clock back, but anything he learns, he should retain. At least that’s what Izuku thinks. So if he spent a day learning different fighting methods, and then turned back the clock and instead spent the day doing physical training, he would still have learned how to fight, and the physical training would also stick.

Izuku maps out a rough schedule for the next month, he figures he shouldn’t get to far ahead of himself, seeing as he still doesn’t know everything about this quirk yet, but he should at least try some sort of schedule keep track of everything, if he was going to be rewinding so much.

This was going to be a long ten months.

Chapter Text

Time quirks are confusing as hell, Izuku decided. A few months after discovering his quirk Izuku has a pretty good grasp of his abilities. He can stop the rewind when he wants to now. The first couple of weeks were problematic and he kept letting it go too far back, but he’s pretty much perfect with it now. He can speed up the rewind too, so it goes by faster, though he can’t slow it down any more than the normal pace of time.

The furthest Izuku can rewind is about two days, but that’s pushing it. When he rewound longer periods of time he found that it would make him more tired than normal. So if he went through a day, then rewound to the moment he woke up, he wouldn’t necessarily fell like he just slept. Izuku thinks this is because technically his brain had been awake the whole time, even if his body hadn’t.

It helps that Izuku never really slept much as it is, maybe five hours or so a night got him through the days fine. With a bit of foresight Izuku thinks that might be because of his quirk. He finds that if he gets about eight or nine hours of sleep he was well enough off to repeat the day.

With those limitations, he set himself on a schedule, that he was able to keep fairly easily. On the days he had school, he would wake up a few hours before school, to go on a long run and do some weight training at a local gym down the street. After school he went to one of the few dojo’s he was familiar with depending on what day of the week it was. This was the hardest part of his plan, finding someone to teach him to fight, who would subsequently forget that they were teaching him. His workaround was going to a few different beginner classes until he got the basics, then he found a few dojo’s that had open sparing sessions, where you pay a fee if you weren’t a member, and then you could spar with the people there while the teachers give you feedback. It wasn’t the best but it was what Izuku had. Whenever he was done with that he would rewind to right after school. At which point he would go to Dagobah beach, which he was currently working to clean up. He figured he was doing good and it helped with his overall strength and stamina. He would work until dinner time and after he would do his homework, then go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat.

On the weekends, Izuku would sleep for eight and a half hours, go through his day either studying for the written portion of the entrance exam, or practicing his fighting techniques. He was also trying to perfect his aim with throwing stars and knives, because he figured he needed something in the long range abilities since his quirk wasn’t technically combat oriented, and he couldn’t really get his hands on a gun. After the day was done he would rewind to the morning and do some form of physical conditioning, usually cleaning the beach.

All in all it was hell.

The beginning was the worse, because above all else, Izuku had to kill himself in order to rewind. He was literally killing himself every day, and that sticks with you. It was never as bad as that first botched attempt in his bedroom after the slime villain, but it still always sucked. The first few weeks were somewhat of a merry-go-round of Izuku figuring out the best ways to go about it. His favorite, or should he say the least miserable, way was jumping off a tall building. Unfortunately Izuku was aware that there wouldn’t always be a tall building around, and he needed something accessible for when he was doing hero work. That led him to slitting his throat. He had a butterfly knife that he got at a pawn shop that he kept sharp as possible. If he cuts deep enough it’s doesn’t really take all that long. He figures this is the best way, because it’s something he could do quickly during hero work. He’s done it enough times at this point that he always gets it right, hitting all the important things efficiently. He always has the knife on him, and honestly, after doing it so many times he’s gotten almost used to it. As much as one can get used to slitting their own throat that is. Izuku notes it’s probably not good for his mental health that he’s become accustomed to the action of killing himself.

There was also another problem that Izuku ran into, because having to die all the time wasn’t problem enough. But after a while he noticed he was confusing what he should and shouldn’t know. He would get confused on whether or not he met this person or was told about that thing on a day that actually happen. There were a few times when he accidentally brought up something he shouldn’t know about, or that one time he started talking to a person who he met, but the rewound through meeting him, so technically it never happened. After this happened a couple times Izuku found himself second guessing whether or not something happened during a rewind.

His solution to this was buying a new journal, this one much thicker and with thinner lines, so as to fit more information, and then writing everything that happened. After he rewound he would immediately write the days events that he had just erased in red, and anything he kept he wrote in black. It wasn’t foolproof, because sometimes he would have to rewind through something he wasn’t planning to and what he wrote would be gone, and then when he rewound multiple times things would sometimes get forgotten. Izuku really wished his journal wasn’t affected by his quirk, but he couldn’t figure out a way around it.

This led him to his journeys hacking the quirk registry. Izuku figured that of all the quirks out there, there had to be someone with some kind of anti-time travel quirk or something that could negate the effects of his quirk. It took Izuku about sixty combined hours to actually figure out how to hack into the registry. It helped that he was already pretty decent with computers and knew how to do it in theory, but he had never actually tried, because technically it was illegal. But, hey, Izuku could just rewind, and technically he never did it. It also helped that he could mess up as many times as possible, and not have to worry about getting caught.

Once in the quirk registry, Izuku had first checked to see if there was anyone with some kind of immortality quirk, like his. Immortality quirks were rare. He had only heard of one or two others, but they were always in passing. His search turned up nothing. He then searched time related quirks and those didn’t show much either. There was someone who had a quirk that could change the age they looked like, and someone that had a quirk called time stop, but apparently they only froze movement around them and they didn’t actually stop time. This was part of the reason Izuku was hesitant in updating his quirk registry. Immortality quirks were rare. Actual time manipulation quirks were even rarer. The fact that his quirk was essentially both? The chances were astronomical.

Izuku wasn’t sure how people would react if they found out what his quirk was. He also didn’t want to know how his mother would react to what his quirk was. She would freak. Probably beg him not to use it. And possibly not let him go to UA, so that he wouldn’t use it. And could he really blame her?

There was also the issue of proving his quirk. There was bound to be people who didn’t believe him. Izuku pondered just passing it off as a foresight type quirk. He would have to do some research, though. Foresight quirks, while still pretty uncommon, were not entirely unheard of.

Izuku spent a couple hours sifting through the registry, entering in possible keywords ‘till he found what he was looking for. There was a women, aged sixty-four, who had the ability to make objects immune to peoples quirks. It should work. Izuku wrote down her information in his quirk journal.

She lived five hours away from Izuku. Izuku tried to come up with a few ideas on how to convince her to actually help him, that was if she even could. The registry just gave a basic overview of peoples quirks, it didn’t go into details or limitations.

The weekend came around, and Izuku decided, that he would just knock on her door and ask her. If it didn’t work he could just try again. He wanted to be a hero after all, he wouldn’t really be okay with forcing someone to do something they didn’t want to do. Especially an innocent old lady.

He decided to stop by the store and get a few extras. He could go through them fast, and maybe he could get her to do a few of them. Who knows? It’s better safe than sorry.

The train ride was long, but he spent it studying. He found her apartment without too much trouble, though he couldn’t help but feel a bit stalkerish.

He knocked on her door hesitantly, and waited as he heard movement inside. A few moments later the door was opened to reveal an old lady with graying hair and glasses. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, h-hi. Are you Akatsuki Ito?” Izuku asks, ruffling a hand through his hair nervously.

“Well, last time I checked I was,” she chuckled at him. “And who might you be?”

“I-I’m Izuku Midoriya.” She seems nice. Thank god she seems nice. “I was wondering, you see I t-thought you might be able to help me with something. If you were willing that was.” Izuku really needs to work on his conversational skills.

“Is that so? Well I’m not sure how little old me could do anything to help you, but why don’t you come in and we can talk about it. I’m making tea.” She waved hime inside, and he took his shoes off and followed her into the kitchen. He sat down and awkwardly took in his surroundings as she set about making two cups of tea.

The kitchen was small, just big enough for a small, two person wooden table covered in white cloth. There was a little cat figurine in the middle of the table. In the corner there was a corner shelf holding a couple picture frames and some knick-knacks. It was kind of exactly what he would expect a sixty-four year old women’s kitchen to look.

Ito sat a cup of tea down in from of him and he thanked her. She sat down across from him with her own cup and gave him a pointed look. “Well, I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, right,” Izuku’s face went red.

“I’m teasing you. You youngsters are so wound up these days, worrying about every little thing.” She batted her hand at him. “But I am curious, so please do talk.”

“Well, you see, I was wondering, I um, heard that your quirk, well it could make objects immune, to other quirks that is.”

“Well, you heard right,” she said. “Let me guess, do you’re clothes come off when you use your quirk? Did Okada send you my way?”

“Um, no, I don’t know who that is, and um no my clothes stay on.”

“Oh, well, you’d be surprised how that could be a problem for some people. I met a young boy once who had that problem. It was quite troubling for him. He’d come see me every couple months to have some clothes fixed. Nice boy.”

“Oh, haha, I can see how that would be troublesome. I, um, actually was w-wondering if you could m-maybe, um, ‘fix’ some journals for me,” Izuku sputtered out.

“Some journals, eh. I must say I’ve never had anyone ask me for those,” she mused. “Did you bring these journals with you?”

“Um, y-yes, ma’am, I did.”

“Well, lets see them.”

“Right,” Izuku scrambles in his backpack for a moment and pulls out the three, thick, black journals.

“You going to be writing a lot of stuff?” Izuku nods. “What do you need them for?”

“Oh, um, my quirk, well,” Izuku pauses for a moment and debates weather to tell her. He decides half the truth will work. “I can rewind time a bit. I-It doesn’t really affect anyone besides me. But well, sometimes I confuse things, and I can’t always remember if stuff happened in something I rewound or if it actually really did happen, if that makes any sense. S-so, well I started keeping track of what happened when, b-but, well, it’s still pretty difficult, you see, because if I write something, but then rewind, I loose what I write…” 

“And I can make journals that aren’t affected.” Ito finished for him.

“O-only if you wanted to that is, I mean you don’t have to, of course.”

“Well, I know that,” she exclaims. “What are you doing with you’re life?”

“Um, excuse me?”

“You’re aspirations, you’re life plans. What are you going to do?”

“Oh, u-um, I want to be a h-hero.” Izuku admits.

“I see, well you have a powerful quirk, you should do fine, but you really should loosen up a bit.” Ito smiles at him. She takes the three notebooks that are sitting on the table, and places her hand flat one, then the next, then the next. “A time quirk must be tricky business. I don’t know how effective my quirk would be against it, but I would suggest not going back past this point, or it might be undone.”

“T-thank you, I really appreciate it,” Izuku stands and bows to her.

“Oh none of that. It’s nice for an old lady like me to be helpful every now and then.” She stands and he follows her lead, putting the notebooks back into his backpack. “It’s really not much trouble for me to use my quirk, I don’t do it very often. And besides this works out well for me, too. Now, how are you with computers?”

“Um, I, um, I’m pretty good with them,” Izuku looks at her confused.

“Wonderful, my grandson gave me this new computer a couple weeks ago, and I can’t get it to work.”

Izuku spends about two hours at Ito’s house, helping her with her computer, and showing her how to set up video calls. She asks him about his life, and he tell her about how he’s trying to get into UA. She tells him about her husband who died a few years ago, and about her grandson who’s always trying to get her to do this or that with some new device she doesn’t understand. She also tells him some stories about people she’s helped with her quirk. She sends Izuku off with her phone number (Izuku doesn’t mention that technically he already has it) and orders to call and say hi every now and then. 

He ducks into an ally on his way to the train station and pulls out one of the notebooks and a pen. He opens the first page up and writes test on the first line. He sits the book next to him and pulls out his knife. He doesn’t put much thought into it as he slits his throat. It’s best to just do and not think. He goes to just before he turned into the alley. Izuku stumbles mid step a bit, something he still needs to work on.

He pulls out the journal, which is in his backpack and not the alley, something he was worried might happen. He flips it open, and can’t help his grin at seeing the word test written on the first page.

Chapter Text

About a month before the entrance exam, Izuku finds himself standing in front of the quirk registry office, his body tense with nervous energy. He had finally decided what he was going to register his quirk as. Of course he had done this a few weeks ago, but kept it off for the last minute. It also doesn’t help his nerves that he still hasn’t told his mother yet. He feels bad lying to her, but he’s worried that when he does tell her she’ll see right through those lies and then he’ll break down and tell her, and he really, really doesn’t want to tell her.

Izuku steels his nerves and walks into the lobby and up to the front desk. He’s greeted by a middle aged man with light blue skin. “Hi, how may I help you?”

“I n-need to update my quirk registry,” Izuku tells him.

“Name?”

“Izuku Midoriya.”

The man types something, likely his name, into the computer. He blinks at it a moment and looks to Izuku, before typing something else in. “Bit of a late bloomer I see.” He types something else in, and then prints a small slip of paper, handing it to Izuku. It has a number and a barcode. “Right, take this. Waiting room 417 on the fourth floor.”

Izuku turn to the elevator, and searches for the room. The room has a few other people in it. Mostly younger kids with their parents. Izuku waits there for about twenty minutes. He spends the time scrolling through the news on his phone. His mom texts him and asks him to pick up eggs on his way home. He sends her a thumbs up, and before he can wimps out texts her that he needs to tell her something later.

He doesn’t see her response, because he’s called in then. A pretty women with black hair leads him back to a room that looks like a relatively normal office on the right, but is completely empty on the left.

She sits behind the desk, and gestures for him to take a seat. He hands her the slip of paper and she scans it. “Right, so I’m just going to ask you some questions, and then a small demonstration. What is your quirk called?”

“Um, I just named it myself, um, astral premonition.”

She types it into the computer. “Small explanation of what it does.”

“I can see what’s going to happen to me in the near future. Um if I activate my quirk that is.”

“You can see the future?” she looks a little taken aback.

“Um, a bit yes, if I um, if I look that is.”

“Can you see anything outside of yourself?”

“N-no, just me, it’s from my point of view.”

“Hm, I haven’t seen any foresight quirks in years.” She comments. “Right, I’m gonna need a demonstration.”

“Um, h-how would you like me to, um, demonstrate.” Was it hot in this room?

“Tell me something that’s going to happen,” she says expectantly.

“Right, um, well, nothing really is h-happening. We’re just sitting here.” Izuku points out. He figured he’d have to prove it, but there really wasn’t anything going on at this point. Izuku thought for a bit. “Actually I might have an idea, um, can I have a piece of paper, and a pen.”

She hands Izuku the requested materials, and he scribbles on it bit, not really writing anything. He’s not sure how much this would affect what’s going to happen but better safe than sorry, because he only wants to do this once.

“I’ll ask you some questions and then you can give me whatever weird answer you think of,” she nodded, and Izuku continued. “So um, what’s your favorite color?”

“January.”

Izuku blinked. “Um, ok, and what’s your favorite month?”

“Purple.”

“You’re not making this easy on me. What’s the date?”

“The day after yesterday.”

“Ok, um, that’s enough, right?” Izuku asks.

“One more,” She cocks an eyebrow at Izuku.

“Um, mothers maiden name?”

“Blueberries.”

“Right, now, I do apologize for this next bit, but you won’t remember it.”

“What?” 

Izuku pulls his butterfly knife out of his pocket and cuts his throat before she can react. Izuku really doesn’t like doing this in front of people. The first time he did it was awful, people all started crowding around him and panicking. The second time was just as bad.

This is no better. The lady lets out a startled gasp, before screaming, and pulling her phone out. Izuku thinks someone runs into the room, likely to see whats going on, but Izuku blacks out.

He rewinds to just after she gave him the paper, and this time instead of scribbling all over it he writes a quick transcript of their conversation up to ‘blueberries.’

Just after she speaks the last answer he slips the paper over to her for her to read. “Impressive,” she notes.

“T-thanks.”

She types on her computer for a bit longer before finally saying, “And we’re all set. I don’t need anything further from you.”

Izuku lets out a sigh of relief, and he can’t get out of that room fast enough.

He heads to the elevator, and checks his phone while he waits for it.

      Mom

      What is it?

      Is everything ok?

      Where are you?

      Izuku?

Izuku

Everything’s fine. I’ll tell u at dinner.

It’s good news :)

      Mom

      Ok sweetie! 

      I’m making katsudon

      Don’t forget the eggs!

Izuku really hopes this goes well. But hey, if it doesn’t he can always reset. And besides, it’ll be nice to not have this sitting on his shoulders anymore. This will be good. Right?

Chapter Text

“Out of my way, you damn nerd.” Katsuki knocked shoulders with Izuku, moving quicker to walk in front of him.

“M-morning, Kacchan, lets both do our best…” Izuku said to deaf ears.

Ever since Katsuki had told him to jump off that roof, he hasn’t been tormenting Izuku as much. Izuku wonders if maybe he feels a bit bad about it, though somehow he doubts it.

Izuku just needs to ignore Kacchan today. This is important. It’s what he’s been working towards all these months, the first step to becoming a hero. Izuku flies face first towards the ground.

Great he hasn’t even made it inside and already he’s gonna die.

He doesn’t hit the ground and instead starts floating. Because that’s how his life is.

“Are you ok?” a short, brown hair girl asks from next to him. She grabs his arm and pulls him upright. “Sorry for using my quirk on you, but it’s a bad omen to trip and fall. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Er, ah, y-yeah,” Izuku stutters, his feet now firmly on the ground.

“Anyways, good luck on the exam.” She runs off and Izuku stares at her back as she goes, before snapping himself out of his stupor, and making his way into the entrance.

The written exam goes well, Izuku knows almost everything, but there a few questions he blanks on. He doesn’t worry, though, because he’s planning on doing it again anyways, so he can look them up later, and yeah, that’s technically cheating, but it’s UA, they’re supposed to use their quirks.

After the written exam, they’re corralled into a large auditorium to go over the rules of the practical portion of the exam. Izuku immediately begins fanboying over Present Mic, because it’s Present Mic. It gets him a harsh glare from the purple hair boy next to him. Izuku’s enthusiasm dies quickly after that, because Present Mic announces that they’re going to be fighting robots. He details the different types and goes over the rules, and then sends them off for a twenty minute break before the exam.

How the hell is he supposed to fight robots?

“You’re telling me,” the purple haired boy who had been sitting next to him in the auditorium mutters. “Looks like it’s to the general department for me.”

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, it’s just, I actually have a good quirk for once, and the test is something that I can hardly use it for. This is so stupid. Just because I can’t make explosions in my hand I have no chance.” There goes all those months of hard work. It doesn’t make sense, though. There has to be something else.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Purple hair asked. “You said that out loud again.” He adds at Izuku’s questioning look.

“Oh it’s just, I feel like there has to be something else. There are tons of really good pro heroes that don’t have quirks suited to destroying robots so it doesn’t make sense for the exam to be just destroying robot. Maybe there is something I can do.” He’ll have to run through it a couple times. Maybe he can figure it out. Maybe if he can look at some of the robots that are already down, he can figure out an easy way to take them down.

“What’s your quirk anyway?”

“What? Oh, um, it’s, like, foresight. Um, I can, uh, see the future,” Izuku stutters out. “Why? Whats yours?”

“Just curious. I have a psychological quirk. So no destroying robots for me. Looks like I’ll just have to go the long way.” He says bitterly.

“Wow, those are usually pretty powerful, that’s so cool. What can it do?”

Purple hair gives him a cursory glance, before sighing. “I can brainwash people.”

Izuku’s eyes go big. “What? Really? Oh wow, that’s so cool. Thats a great quirk for a hero. You could totally solve hostage situations so easy, and you wouldn’t have to fight, and you could just tell villains to turn themselves in. And you could make them give you all their information. Wait, oh my god, can you do that. Can you make people tell you things?” Izuku grabs Shinsou’s shoulders in his excitement, because oh my god this is perfect.

Shinsou looks a bit taken aback, and leans away from Izuku. “Err, you think it’s good.”

“What? Yes, of course it is. But, can you? Make people tell you things?”

“Um, yes? If they know what I’m asking that is…why?”

“This is perfect. Oh my god. Ok, so we have a fifteen minutes left before we have to leave get on the buses to take us to the mock cities, that’s plenty of time.” Izuku grabs Shinsou’s hand and drags him into an empty bathroom, ignoring his protests. “Ok, so here’s the deal. I get you don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but we’re gonna have to trust each other.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have an idea, and maybe if works out well enough, both of us can pass the exam.”

“I can’t fight robots? How am I going to pass the exam? And why should I trust you, I don’t even know your name?” Purple hair questions.

“I’m Izuku Midoriya. And I’m going to help you pass the exam, and in return you can help me.”

“How am I going to help you pass? Like I said, I can’t fight robots, and we aren’t even in the same mock city.” Shinsou crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Izuku.

“I need you to brainwash one of the proctors so we can ask them questions about the exam. Like if there’s anything else they’re grading for and anything that might help us pass.”

“What?” Purple hair shouted. “I can’t just brainwash one of the pro-hero proctors. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

“It doesn’t matter. Shit, I might as well just tell you what my quirk is, since I’m gonna rewind this anyways,” Izuku mutters. “Ok, so I can rewind time. So basically, after you brainwash whoever we can find, I’ll either rewind that if we get caught, or if we don’t, we’ll both just go through the exam. I’m going to try to find one of each of the robots that someone already took down and check them out for weak spots. You can do the same, and try to think of anything that might help you. After the exam, we can meet back here and share information, then I’ll rewind through the whole exam, and do it again from start, but this time I’ll know. I’ll find you before it starts and let you know what you need to know, since you’re going to forget this.”

“You can rewind time?” Purple doesn’t look so convinced. “I thought you said you can see the future?”

“Yes I can rewind time, and I lied before, about seeing the future.” Izuku looks at his watch. They have five and half minutes.

“How do I know you’re not lying to me now? And even if you arn’t how do I know you’ll actually tell me the second time around? You could just not,” purple raises an eyebrow at Izuku.

“I promise I will. Look, you can brainwash me and ask if you want, but do it quick, cause we don’t have much time left.”

“You’d just let me brainwash you?” He looks incredulous. Izuku nods. “Fuck it. Lets just go do it. It’s not like I have any chance of passing as is.”

“Oh great! Also, what’s your name?” Izuku asks, simultaneously pulling the boy out of the bathroom and racing down the hall in search for one of the proctors.

“Shinsou. Hitoshi Shinsou.”

“There’s Snipe. Oh my god it’s snipe, don’t fanboy, there’s no time.” Izuku steels himself.

The two boys approach the pro hero, and Izuku pulls out his timeline and a red pen. Shinsou speaks, “Are you one of the exam proctors?”

“Yeah, is th—“ Snipes words fall off.

“Answer all our questions truthfully,” Shinsou commands, and then gestures for Izuku to continue.

“How is the practical test graded?” Izuku asks, writing his question in his timeline, leaving a blank space to outline everything he talked about with Shinsou.

“You get villain points for destroying the robots and rescue points for rescuing examiners from dangerous situations. Top combined scores get accepted.”

Shinsou and Izuku shared a look. Izuku knew there was something more. “How are rescue points awarded?”

“Typically it’s five points for every person you save, but a panel of judges may give less or more for certain acts, based on how heroic or selfless they deem them,” Snape’s monotone voice drones out.

“How many points does one typically need to expect acceptance into the hero course?” Izuku looks at his watch, they’re almost out of time.

“Minimum of forty points to be accepted, but usually the lowest score is more around fifty points.”

“All Examiners please make your way to the busses before we leave you,” Present Mic’s voice comes through the speakers.

“Can you make him forget about this?” Izuku asks Shinsou.

“Forget this conversation happened, when we get twenty feet away pinch yourself on the arm,” Shinsou commands him.

The two boys head back out to the busses, where most people are already on their respective bus. “Meet me at the front gate after the test,” Izuku tells Shinsou, who nods, before they both get on their respective busses.

“And begin.”

Everyone looks around in confusion.

“What’s wrong? The test has started, run, run!” Present mic’s voice radiated over them all. Chaos erupts around Izuku, and everyone shoves past him. Izuku lets them, and instead runs in slowly behind everyone.

It takes Izuku a minute and a half to find a robot that isn’t completely destroyed. It’s a three pointer. Izuku spends about five minutes going over it, trying to figure out its weak spots. Imagine Izuku’s surprise to find that it has an off switch. It was all he could do to keep from laughing. It’s a decently sized button that blends in pretty well with the rest of the robot. He imagines it might be a bit hard to get to, it’s on its side under it’s arm. Izuku searches out the other two types of robot and low and behold, they also have off switches. He also realizes that the one pointers are actually pretty fragile, he could probably break one with a few hits to the weak spots. 

Izuku’s begins to feel more and more optimistic the more he learns. He can do this. Between the off buttons and what he knows about the rescue points, he should be able to pass.

When there’s about three and half minutes left in the test Izuku finally sees the zero pointer. That’s probably where the rescue points come in. A plan is slowly making it’s way through his head.

When Present Mic announces the end of the exam, Izuku pulls his knife from his pocket and rewinds to just before he says begin. Izuku immediately begins racing to the front of the gate, and by the time everyone realizes what happening Izuku is already in front of them. He heads to the closest building that’s tall enough to give him a decent view of the city, and climbs to the roof as fast as he can. From there he begins mentally mapping out were the robots are coming from and his best route. He wants to come across as many robots as possible, and end up where the Zero pointer comes in. Izuku does this two more times, to make sure he knows where exactly he wants to go, even going so far as to draw a little map in his timeline.

When he’s satisfied he actually let’s it play through so he can meet with Shinsou out front. “That was horrible,” Shinsou says when Izuku approaches him. “I totally failed.”

“I technically haven’t actually tried yet, but I think I’m gonna make it. I’m not gonna explain it all now, though, because you’ll just forget. But basics, the robots have an off switch, and a few weak spots. What specifically do you want me to tell you, anything you thought that might’ve been useful had you known in advance.”

“The two pointers I’m pretty sure break if you hit them across the neck, not that I had anything to hit them with. A bat would’ve been nice.” Shinsou ponders. “Or maybe a crow bar?”

“Ok, so you need a bat,” Izuku confirms. “Anything else?”

“Wait seriously?” Shinsou gapes.

“I said I would help you and present mic said you can bring whatever into the exam with you. It’s only fair, I would have no idea about the rescue points if it wasn’t for you.”

“I feel like this is cheating.”

“It’s using every advantage you can get,” Izuku argues. “How else were we supposed to pass. They were asking for it, making the exam a bunch of robots. It’s not fair. So we’re just making it more fair.”

“Well in that case a bat would be much appreciated.”

“Anything else you want me to tell you? Where did the zero pointer appear in city?”

Shinsou thinks for a moment. “The zero pointer was by the tall building to the back right. And tell me to turn right in the beginning.”

“Ok,” Izuku pulls out his timeline and jots everything down quickly so he doesn’t forget anything. “I think we might even make it. Right, now, you might want to look away for this part.” Izuku slits his throat.

He rewinds back to just after breakfast.

Izuku runs to his room, much to the shock of him mom and dumps out the contents of his backpack. He starts filling it with all of his throwing knives and shuriken. If Izuku had known they were allowed to bring whatever they wanted into the exam he would have already done this. He wished he had spent more time with them. Oh well, he was decent enough, and he had quite a few retries.

“Izuku? What are you doing?” Inko asks from his doorway.

“No time to explain, mom.” Izuku adds his timeline, some pens and a black sharpie. He looks around frantically to see if he’s missing anything, but doesn’t see anything. He really doesn’t want to have to rewind back this far again.

“What’s the rush? The test doesn’t start until nine, sweetie,” Inko reminds him, following him out of his room.

“I know,” Izuku says, throwing his shoes on. “I have to stop somewhere first, though.”

“Oh. Well, good luck on your exam.”

“Thanks, mom. Bye,” Izuku runs out the door.

There’s a sporting goods store not far from the train station near UA. If Izuku hurries he should have just enough time. He spends the train ride looking up anything he wasn’t sure about on the written portion. When he gets to his stop he runs to the sporting goods store. He searches the aisles frantically, and lets out a curse when he sees that the all the metal baseball bats are out of stock. They have wooden ones, but he doubts those would hold up.

“Can I help you?” Izuku hears from behind him. He turns to find a store employee giving him a strange look.

“I need something I can use to destroy a bunch of robots. You’re baseball bats are out of stock.” Izuku grumbles.

“I see, perhaps a field hockey stick?” the man leads Izuku to another aisle displaying a variety of the sticks in question. The man picks one out and hands it to Izuku. “I would suggest this one. It quite durable, but still lightweight.”

Izuku stares at him a moment. Does this happen to him often? Who cares? Not Izuku. Izuku takes the stick and tests it in his hands. It should work. He grabs another one from the shelves and thanks the man, heading to the checkout. He pays for the sticks, and haphazardly shoves them in his backpack with the handle ends sticking out. He looks at his watch, and breathes a sigh of relief. That didn’t take as long as he thought it would.

Izuku finishes the written portion of the exam a lot faster this time around, and he uses the extra time to fill in his timeline with everything that’s happened thus far. He’s just about finished when everyone starts heading towards the auditorium. While Present Mic goes over the practical, Izuku opens his timeline to the map he drew and uses the sharpie he grabbed to replicate it onto the back of his hand, so he doesn’t have to be holding the journal while he’s running around.

When Present Mic finishes his explanation Izuku follows Shinsou as he leaves the auditorium, taking note of his sullen expression. When they’re in a less crowded area Izuku grabs Shinsou’s hand and pulls him further down the hallway and into an empty classroom, ignoring the boy’s protests.

“Right,” Izuku starts. “So I know you don’t know who I am, but you’re Hitoshi Shinsou. You can brainwash people, and I’m going to help you pass the exam.”

“What? How do you know who I am? Let go of me.” Shinsou pulls on his arm, which Izuku realizes he was still holding.

Izuku releases him. “It’s part of my quirk. We only have seventeen minutes so let me get through the important stuff. I can see the future. Sort of. It’s complicated. Anyways. You helped me do something so now I’m helping you. We made a deal, I guess, or whatever. Technically it didn’t happen but that doesn’t really matter. This is me holding my end of the deal up.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Shinsou stares at him.

“Uh, that part doesn’t really matter.” Izuku ruffles his hair. “Anyways, pay attention I’m going to do a bit of an information dump on you. So there’s actually two parts of the practical exam. One part is the robots; you get points for destroying or disabling them. Now, the one pointers aren’t very durable, a couple good hits and they should break. If you hit the two pointers at the neck where the wiring is that should knock those ones out. Three pointers are a bit harder, and you might not get those with just you’re strength alone. But all of them have off buttons they’re on the left side, and they blend in pretty well, but they’re there as long as you can get close enough. Now part two is the rescue points. You get points for saving people. Typically about five for every person, but that number isn’t set in stone. You should need about fifty points, but I would try for sixty to be safe. Are you getting all this?”

Shinsou stares at Izuku with a blank expression. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I told you, you helped me, I help you. Do you need me to repeat any of that?” Shinsou shakes his head. “Good. Now about six and a half minutes in they’re going to let loose the zero pointer. It’s huge, it’s gonna destroy a lot of shit. Don’t panic. This is when you should focus on saving people, that’s probably why it’s there in the first place. Its going to come from around the tall building in the back right of the city. Understand?”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” Shinsou questions.

“I would get absolutely nothing out of lying to you right now. You can brainwash me if you want to verify.” Izuku pulls out one of the hockey sticks from his backpack and hands it to Shinsou, who takes it hesitantly. “They didn’t have baseball bats, so I got the next best thing. Should work just as well.”

“Right, we should head to the busses.” Izuku leaves the classroom and Shinsou follows him, still reeling over all the information he just received.

“Oh,” Izuku adds. “Don’t wait for Present Mic to call start, he just kinda says begin offhandedly, so you should be able to get a head start. Also, go right.”

“Go right?” Shinsou raises an eyebrow.

“Um, yeah, you wanted me to tell you to go right. In the, um, t-the other timeline that isn’t going to happen. Because, I changed it. Yeah.”

“Okay, then.” Shinsou looks away. “What was your name?”

“Izuku Midoriya.” Izuku’s head goes fuzzy and he feels his mouth moving, but he’s not sure what he’s saying. Was that even him talking? It only lasts a few seconds, before the haze leaves and Izuku blinks his eyes slowly, trying to regain his surroundings. “What just happened?”

“I brainwashed you,” Shinsou looks away, almost like he feels guilty. “You’re telling the truth.”

“Oh, well, yeah. That’s so cool. How does it work anyways. It’s vocal right?” Izuku questions.

“Your’e not upset?”

“No, I said you could do it if you wanted to. And you’re obviously not going to do anything bad, I mean you’re at an entrance exam for a hero school. I doubt you’d just brainwash me for malicious intent.”

“You’re the weirdest kid I’ve ever met, Midoriya.”

“Understandable.”

Izuku didn’t hesitate when Mic announced begin. He ran ahead of the others and followed the directions on his arm. He came up behind a one pointer and swung the hockey stick at it, never halting in his run. He turned the corner to find the next two one pointers. He ducked under the firsts arm, pressing the off button, before it even realized he was there, and knocked the second one with the stick.

He turned the next corner and took out a two pointer, and another one pointer. He stopped before the next turn and pulled out three of his throwing knives, one for each three pointer he knew to be down the next street. 

This is where things started to get difficult.

The route Izuku mapped took him down short streets, where he would have to take out three or four robots in quick succession. He had an advantage because he knew where each robot would be and should be able to take them by surprise. However he had to do it quick enough that the robots didn’t notice him until he was already on him. He could take out the one pointers pretty easy, but the three pointers wouldn’t break with just a hockey stick and the two pointers only broke if you hit them exactly right. So he had to be fast enough and precise enough and he couldn’t hesitate. Fortunately, Izuku had as many tries as he needed. If he he didn’t get it the first try, he could rewind to just before he turned the corner and try it again.

He actually managed to do the first street on his first try much to his surprise, mostly because the three pointers were all together. The second street took him three tries, because he kept missing the furthest robot with his knife throw. Izuku found it worked best if he took out the furthest ones first with a knife to the off switch and then take out the ones that were closest to him. It usually took him a couple run throughs on each street to get it perfect.

Unfortunately, Izuku wasn’t where he wanted to be when the zero pointer came out, so he decided to rewind and ditch the last street, which only had four one pointers. He cut over to the main area where most of the other kids were. The path he took specifically avoided the other students with the most amount of robots, so as to lower the number of variables that could change what would happen. As it was, Izuku had forty-three points right now, but he was aiming for at least fifty-five. So theoretically he needed to save at least three people. The best time to do this was with the zero pointer.

Izuku ran out into the wider street, just as the zero pointer showed up, completely demolishing one of the taller buildings and doing quite a bit of damage to another. Everyone started to run away from it in an attempt to score some more points in the few remaining minutes they had.

Izuku ran towards it, looking around for anyone who had been trapped by the rubble. He sees one boy with a thin tail and monkey-like feet trapped behind some rubble and runs towards him. He silently helps him move some of the rubble away, and pulls him forward. The boys runs off, with a barely muttered thanks and a worried, “I need more points.”

He distantly hears a girl calling for help, and finds the girl who saved him from tripping his first go around. Her foot is stuck under a a block of fallen concrete.

“Hey, any chance you can make this ruble float?” he asks her.

“Yeah,” She places her palm on the rubble and when it stars to float, he pulls her out from under it  and practically carries her out of the way just as the zero pointers foot crashes into where she was just trapped. “Thank you, I thought I was a goner there for a second.” She tells him.

“Don’t worry about it. Can you walk?” She shakes her head. Izuku helps her sit down in a place that’s out of the way. “You should be safe here, I’m gonna go see if anyone else needs help.” He tells her and runs off in the direction of the zero pointer. He manages to save a couple more people and take out another two pointer before the end is called.

Izuku didn’t see Shinsou after the exam, but he hoped the other boy passed. They wouldn’t get their results for another two weeks, but Izuku thinks he should be safe. The two weeks went by faster than Izuku would have thought possible, probably due to Izuku having grown used to his days being twice as long. He decided to stop rewinding everyday now that the exam was behind him. Before the exam it was like Izuku was playing catch up to everyone who had spent their whole lives training with their quirks, but if Izuku wasn’t at the same level as them by now it wouldn’t matter anyways.

Chapter Text

Izuku steels himself as he stands in front of the giant door, is there anybody in class as big as the door? He knows Kacchan got into the hero course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he will be in Izuku’s class. He really hopes that’s the case. He throws the door open and and is immediately accosted by the sound of yelling.

“Remove your foot from that desk! Such an action is an insult to those who came before us as well as the craftsmen who made the desk!” Izuku spots the tall blue haired boy lecturing none other than Kacchan who has his feet splayed on his desk. Wonderful.

“Like I care. Get lost, you extra,” Kacchan laughs.

Izuku listens with one ear to their argument, highly familiar with Kacchan’s attitude. He scans the room trying his best to take stock of everyone, it seems most people are already here. He smiles a bit as he spots a familiar head of purple hair. “Shinsou,” Izuku calls as he approaches said boy. “I-I didn’t see you after the exam, I was worried you didn’t make it. Looks like there was nothing to worry about, heh.” Izuku smiles and nervously rubs the back of his neck.

“You’re the weird kid with all the answers.” Shinsou says. “Izuku Midoriya.”

“Uh, y-yeah, that’s me,” Izuku says sheepishly.

“I don’t know what’s up with you or what you were really going on about at the exam, but I wouldn’t have been able to pass without your help. So thanks.” 

“You’re welcome, but you helped me just as much as I helped you, even if you don’t really know you did, so really I should be thanking you,” Izuku said with a smile.

“Right, I helped you in the future that didn’t happen or something, you didn’t seem really sure about it, though, and you weren’t really making very much sense.” Shinsou smirked. “I have your hockey stick if you want it back. I can bring it tomorrow.”

“Oh, t-that’s ok, you can keep it,” Izuku stutters.

“The plain looking boy!” A voice shouts from behind him. He turns to find the girl who had saved him from tripping barreling towards him. “You got in! I’m so glad, I would have been done for if it wasn’t for you.”

Izuku sees Shinsou raise an eyebrow at him from the corner of his vision. “I-it was n-nothing, really,” Izuku flails his arms. “It’s w-what anyone would have done.”

“If you’re here to socialize, then get out,” A dead voice rings out, effectively cutting off what the girl was about to say. “This is the hero course.”

A haggard looking man stands in the doorway as he steps out of a bright yellow sleeping bag. “It took eight seconds for you to quiet down. Time is a precious resource. You lot aren’t very rational are you?”

Oh god that’s Eraserhead, he’s so cool, he can erase a person’s quirk just by looking at them. Not much is known about him, though, because he’s underground, even Izuku can hardly find any information on him but— an elbow to his ribs from Shinsou quiets Izuku’s mumbling.

“I’m your homeroom teacher, Shouta Aizawa. Pleased to meet you.” He rummages in the sleeping bag and pulls out a blue uniform. “Quickly now, go put this on and head out to the grounds.”

“So what’s gonna happen future boy?” Shinsou towers behind Izuku as they make their way outside after changing.

“W-what?” He stumbles a bit. 

“What are we doing? Do you know? You said you can see the future, right?”

“W-well, you see, t-that’s not really how it works?” It comes out more like a questions than a statement. Izuku is really needs to get better at lying.

“Are you asking or telling?” Shinsou tilts his head, smirking at Izuku. Izuku swears he’s laughing at him on the inside.

“Telling?”

Shinsou doesn’t press it and instead their attention is brought to Aizawa who announces that they’re doing a quirk apprehension test. More precisely a physically based quirk apprehension test. Izuku promptly starts to panic.

He knows he’s in good shape, but there’s no way he can use his quirk to help him with these tests. He’s going to fail. Miserably. And if that’s not bad enough, last place is getting expelled. 

All in all Izuku is screwed. He watches as everyone does exceptionally well in at least one of the tests. Even people who don’t outwardly look like they would. When the last test comes to an end Izuku feels like he’s on the verge of tears.

His heart drops from his chest when Aizawa posts the final results and there’s his name in last place. “Izuku Midoriya, you’re expelled.”

No, there has to be something, he made it so far, he can’t give up. There has to be a way to pass this test. It has to be like the entrance exam; Aizawa is just grading on something else, something they don’t know. He has to be. Izuku can’t go home on the first day, not when he’s worked so hard. He just needs information. Think Izuku, everyone is staring at him waiting for a response. Aizawa is looking at him like he’s waiting for…something. A response? Fuck it, what does he have to lose?

“You’re really going to expel me on the first day for a test that technically even you couldn’t pass,” shit that sounded ruder than Izuku was going for.

“Excuse me,” Aizawa’s hard glare drives into him.

“Er, w-well I just mean, this was a test of our quirks, a-and you don’t really have a quirk that would have helped you either. I mean, you could technically erase everyone elses quirks, or at least all but the heteromorphic ones, but err, technically that would be sabatoge…” Izuku rambles.

Aizawa looks at him for a moment with a blank face. “This was a quirk apprehension test meant to gauge your potential. I have seen nothing from you that would show me you have any potential.”

“But, I don’t have a physical quirk, how could I show you potential in a test that’s geared towards physical tests.” Izuku argues.

“I don’t know but if you couldn’t figure anything out than I don’t know why you even bothered coming to school today, surely you saw it ending like this,” Aizawa looks at him with tired eyes. “You could have just slept in.”

“Well I wasn’t expecting to get expelled on the first…” Izuku’s words die off as realization dawns on him. “Oh, right I see the future.”

“Apparently not very well,” Shinsou snickers next to him.

“R-right, I understand, in that case, uh for future reference what would you have expected me to do in this situation…” Izuku rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

Aizawa frowns and looks him up and down, then shrugs. “It was a quirk apprehension test, you should have used your quirk. Not that it matters anymore. You can go speak to Nedzu about possibly being placed in general education, but you’re out of the hero course, I don’t have room for anyone with zero potential.”

Izuku nods and and gives a long glance at the posted results of the test before taking off in a run towards the building, a plan formulating in his head. He runs up several flights of stairs and makes his way to the roof of the school. He’ll have to start carrying his knife on him from now on.

Izuku doesn’t hesitate once he’s on the roof of the school, but he’s distantly aware of shouts coming from where his class is making its way towards the locker room, and a black clad figure running towards him as he falls.

Shinsou starts, “So what’s gonna—”

Izuku cuts him off, “You’re just gonna have to wait and see.” He walks briskly over the girl with the creation power, Izuku thinks her name was Yaoyorozu, and taps her shoulder. “Weird question, but is there any chance you could make me a sheet of paper and a pen? I’d totally owe you.”

“Oh, sure,” she agrees. “Can I ask why you need them?”

“It’s so I don’t get expelled.” Izuku states, taking the requested items and thanking her before setting about writing whatever he can think of as fast as possible.

Last place gets expelled (I hope not)

Bakugo 705.2m

Iida 3.04 seconds

Bakugo 4.13 seconds

Six arms 540kg

Gravity girl gets infinity

Shinsou brainwashes gravity girl and six arms to do his tasks for him

Does this count as potential?

Izuku then lists the order in which everyone placed overall. He hopes that’s enough. He should have payed better attention the first go around. He’ll try to remember as many scores as he can this time in case what he wrote isn’t enough.

Just before Aizawa starts his speech Izuku runs up and hands him the folded piece of paper. “Don’t open it until the test is over.” Izuku tells him, in case the knowledge changes what happens for whatever reason.

Aizawa quirks an eyebrow at him, but otherwise doesn’t say anything, instead starting in on the same speech he had previously made. Izuku notes that he doesn’t seem very surprised by the interruption. He obviously knows that Izuku can ‘see the future,’ likely from his student file, so he supposes it’s safe to say he was expecting something. 

After a bit more thought, Izuku realizes that perhaps that was what the long pause after the announcement that he was expelled was for. Had he been expecting Izuku to do something to change the situation?

If he looks at it from his point of view it makes a lot more sense. If Izuku’s quirk actually was seeing the future then it would be safe to assume that he would look to see what would happen on his first day, therefore seeing the test, in which case it would be fair to say that he should have at the very least come up with something to aide him. Izuku will have to be careful in the future about how he defines his quirk to others or they might—

“You should really be more careful about you mumbling,” Shinsou says quietly, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“O-oh, sorry, I d-didn’t notice I was doing it.” Crap, what did he hear?

“Obviously.” Shinsou says before walking up to take his turn at the first task. Izuku forces himself to try and remember as many exact scores as possible, silently wishing he had his timeline so he could just write them down. Hopefully he won’t even have to go back again.

The test goes exactly the same as it did the first time, other than the brief talk with Shinsou that is. When everyone finishes Izuku waits impatiently for Aizawa to pull up the final scores. A few of them glance at him with looks of sympathy, and Kacchan gives him a smug look that he must have missed the first time around. 

He watches as Aizawa unfolds the paper and quickly looks it over before looking back up at Izuku. “Oh, and I was lying about expelling someone. That was a rational deception meant to bring out the best in all of you,” Aizawa announces with the creepiest smile Izuku has ever seen.

Almost everyone collectively looses their crap and Izuku breathes a sigh of relief. Yaoyorozu speaks up with, “Well of course it was a lie. It didn’t take much to figure that out.” Izuku almost corrects her.

“Anyway. We’re done here. Your documents on the curriculum and such are back in the classroom. Give them a look,” Aizawa says, blank face back in place as he starts walking away.

Everyone just sort of stands around for a moment before they start making their way back to the locker rooms, a few of them striking up conversation with one another. Yaoyorozu catches up to where Izuku is and asks, “So what was the paper for, I saw you gave it to Aizawa-sensei? What did it say?”

“Yeah what was that about? I thought for sure he was gonna expel you,” a kid with red hair and a hardening quirk speaks up.

“I-it was just the results of the test and some details about what happened,” Izuku explains.

“What? But you gave it to him before the test,” the kid with the electrical quirk, Kaminari Izuku recalls, states.

“Er, yeah, uh, well he would have expelled me if I didn’t show him some kind of potential. Honestly, I was worried it wouldn’t work and he would expel me anyways,” Izuku explains.

“But how did you know the results?” Yaoyorozu asks.

“My quirk.” 

“So is it like a knowledge based quirk, then? I was wondering, ‘cause you never showed one during the trials.” Kaminari asks.

“Yeah, something like that,” Izuku supplies.

“Oh, well I guess you worried for nothing since Aizawa-sensei wasn’t really going to expel someone.”

“Heh, yeah,” Izuku says nervously. “I guess.”

The conversation comes to an end as they make their way into the locker rooms, much to Izuku’s relief.

He hurries up to get dressed and rushes back to the classroom, hoping to avoid any more conversation about his quirk. Kacchan’s intense glare helps move him along a bit faster. He distinctly remembers when the two of them were called into their principals office and offered congratulations for their respective entrance into UA. Or, more specifically, he remembers their conversation after. To say Kacchan was unhappy about Izuku’s acceptance was an understatement.

And if his glare in the locker room is any indicator it seems he might a have a bit more to say. Maybe if Izuku’s lucky he can leave before Kacchan can catch up to him.

When Izuku reaches the classroom he finds a few of the girls already there congregating around one of the desks. He slips in to grab his bag and the course information packet and quickly leaves again before any of them pull him into their conversation.

He’s walking out of the building when he hears a feminine voice call out to him, “hey, wait!”

He turns to see infinity girl running towards him and halts his walk so she can catch up. “Hey, sorry, you were in an out of the classroom so fast, did you have somewhere to be? I don’t want to make you late.”

“N-no,” he stutters.

“Oh, well I never got to introduce myself. I’m Ochako Uraraka,” She sticks her hand out for him to take. “I just wanted  to thank you for saving me in the entrance exam. I thought I was a goner.”

“I-it was nothing, really,” Izuku assures her. “Anyone would have helped, I’m sure.”

“Well thanks anyways. I wanted to talk to you during the quirk test but you seemed to be really focusing on something. I was kinda stressing too, though. I really thought Aizawa-sensei was serious about the whole expulsion thing. He’s really kind of scary. I was so worried when you came in last, I thought you were a goner.”

“Y-yeah,” Izuku replies, ruffling a nervous hand through his hair.

“You two are talking about Aizawa-sensei’s deception,” Iida says from behind Izuku, who jumps at his sudden appearance. “Apologies for startling you, I am Tenya Iida from Somei Private Academy. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

“U-uh, it’s fine. I’m Izuku Midoriya.”

“I thought your name was Deku,” Uraraka exclaims.

“W-what?”

“That’s what that Bakugo guy kept calling you during the test,” She explains.

“Um, Deku is j-just what Kacchan call me to make fun of me,” Izuku nervously supplies.

Uraraka looks a bit sheepish at that. “Oh, Gotcha!! Sorry!!”

“A derogatory pet name then?” Iida questions sternly.

“I kinda like Deku, though. It just screams do your best!”

“Oh, I guess you can call me Deku then,” Izuku blushes.

“Midoriya, show some backbone!” Iida admonished.

“It’s fine really.”

“Right, well we should continue our conversation as we walk, lest we miss our train,” Iida says and they follow him towards the front gates of the school. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation before and I must say that Aizawa-sensei really fooled us. He made me think ‘this is how it is at the top,’ but to think our own instructor deceived us.”

“I-I mean, technically he wasn’t really,” Izuku said quietly.

“What do you mean,” Uraraka asks.

“W-well, he really was gonna expel one of us if he didn’t think we had any potential,” Izuku explains.

“How can you be sure.”

“Eer, my quirk,” Izuku offers.

“That’s right, I didn’t see you use your quirk at all, I was wondering what it was,” Uraraka exclaims. “Does it have anything to do with that paper you gave him.”

“Um, yeah,” Izuku pauses when he spots Shinsou’s familiar hair walking alone among the groups of students leaving campus. “Shinsou!” He calls out waving his arm to get the boys attention.

Shinsou looks back at Izuku for a moment, but then continues walking forwards. “Huh, I wonder if he has somewhere to be or something,” Izuku mumbles out loud.

“Do you know him?” Iida asks.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot you were talking to him before class today,” Uraraka recalls.

“Yeah, kinda. We met at the entrance exam and kind of helped each other out.”

“What? Midoriya, you should know better, assisting each other during the entrance exam is strictly against the rules, I’m very disappointed,” Iida lectures him.

“W-well, I mean, it w-wasn’t like that, really. We didn’t help d-during the actual test, we were in different cities,” Izuku waves his arms defensively. “We just shared strategies, before the test. I was panicking because my quirk wasn’t really suited for fighting robots, and he was sitting next to me during the explanation and heard my mumbling, and we got talking and then one thing led to another and really it wasn’t against the rules I swear. It’s just neither of us have physical quirks and we were at a disadvantage and—” Both of them were staring at him. “Err, right, I kind of went off there, sorry.”

“No worries. I apologize for jumping to conclusions,” Iida concedes. “Though I must say, you should really be careful around him.”

“What do you mean?” Izuku draws is eyebrows in confusion.

“Didn’t you see what he did to Uraraka during the apprehension test?”

“Oh yeah, that was really smart. I was wondering what he was going to do to pass.”

“Nonetheless, we should remain vigilant around him,” Iida says sternly.

“Why?” Izuku really doesn’t like where this conversation is going.

“His quirk is obviously very dangerous. We may not know the parameters, but it seems like he can force someone to do something against their will. A form of mind control. Were you not aware?”

“Well yeah, I already knew what his quirk was, but why would we have to remain vigilant around him?”

“Well he could use it on one of us,” Iida says like it was the obvious answer. “You understand where I’m coming from, Uraraka don’t you? He already used it on you.”

Uraraka looks torn when she says, “Yeah it was kinda weird cause my mind was all hazy and it was like I wasn’t in control of myself or really aware of what was going on. But I mean, all I did was throw a ball, I wasn’t really hurt or anything.”

“What else was he supposed to do to pass the test?” Izuku asks. “He’s in the hero course which means he wants to be a hero. I doubt he’s gonna go around brainwashing people left and right.”

Iida thinks about that. “I suppose, but it still wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. After all it’s a dangerous quirk no matter who has it.”

“Wouldn’t that be the same as me saying I should be cautious around Uraraka, because she could touch me and I would float off into the sky and die,” Izuku points out. “N-not that I think you would do that Uraraka, I mean I know you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, no I totally get what you’re saying, Deku,” She smiles at him.

“Anyways, you should be careful what you say, Iida. What kind of quirk you have doesn’t define who you are as a person. A lot of kids get treated badly because of their quirks. How would you like it if everyone avoided you because you might run them over or something.”

Iida looks culpable at that. “You’re absolutely right, Midoriya. I did not think how my actions would affect him, I hope you will not judge me harshly on my lack of insight on this topic, I am truly regretful.”

“It’s fine, just make sure you don’t judge him before you actually get to know him.” Izuku assures.

They conversation lulls as they wait for their respective trains. Uraraka perks up suddenly and asks, “So what is your quirk, Deku? You still never told me”

Izuku is thrown off guard at the sudden question, “Er, w-well you see, it’s complicated?” Stupid, why didn’t you just tell them you can see the future, it’s not like you’re trying to hide what it’s registered as. Izuku is so used to dodging the question that now that he actually has an answer other than quirkless, he still fumbles it. He opens his mouth to clarify, but sees his train pull up. “Er, I’ll explain tomorrow,” He says and rushes to get on.

Izuku is almost home when he hears the explosive voice of Kacchan from behind him. “Oi, Deku!”

Izuku turns to find Kacchan running up to him. He debates briefly running from the other boy. He’s almost home and could probably make it if Kacchan didn’t use his quirk. He decides against it, since they’re in the same class and he won’t be able to avoid him forever.

He knows it’s coming when Kacchan grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him up against the wall of the building they’re standing by, his face scrunched up in a glare. “What the hell do you think your playing at, you fucking Deku?”

“W-what do you mean, K-Kacchan?” Izuku asks with a shaky voice.

“What the hell do you think I mean, nerd?” Kacchan shoves Izuku harder into the wall. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? Do you honestly expect me to believe they’d just let a quirkless fuck like you go to UA?”

“W-what? O-of course I don’t think you’re stupid Kacchan, and I’m n—” 

“Oh don’t pull that shit with me,” Kacchan cuts him off. “You’ve been acting weird these past months, don’t think I didn’t fucking notice, you running off to god knows where. And your incessant muttering and obsessing over your fucking journal has been more obsessive than your normal nerdy shit. You know, at first when I found out you got in I thought you were just some pathetic fucking charity case. But then I met that fucking teacher and there’s no way he’d put up with that kind of bullshit.”

“I-I don’t know what—”

“Shut up, you worthless shit, I wasn’t done.” Kacchan sneers. “There’s some shady shit going on here, Deku. So what are you doing? Are you blackmailing them? I saw you give that fucking paper to Aizawa. What kind of fucking trick are you pulling here, huh?”

“T-that’s ridiculous, Kacchan. I’m not blackmailing them. You have it all wrong. I got in on my own. I passed the test just like you,” Izuku speaks quickly.

“You really fucking expect me to believe a quirkless little shit like you passed that test? As if you were on my level? I’m watching you Deku, and I’m gonna fucking figure out what the hell is going on.”

Kacchan shoves him off to the side and walks away. Izuku just sits on the ground where he fell and watches him go. He doesn’t get up until Kacchan is out of sight.

Chapter Text

Izuku doesn’t explain his quirk the next day like promised. Uraraka never brings it up. He wonders if she noticed the topic made him uncomfortable or if she just forgot. Either way Izuku’s relieved.

Instead they talk about Uraraka’s new apartment, and she explains how she’s living alone so that she can be closer to campus. Iida commends her dedication to her studies and how she was willing to move to attend this prestigious school.

Izuku tries to ignore Kacchan’s glare. It helps that he sits in front of Izuku, so he’s forced to face forward once class starts.

Izuku does his best to hold in his inner fanboy as much as possible during classes. He thought he was doing a good job but every now and then he feels a nudge at his back from Shinsou to alert him to his mumbling. Can you really blame him though? Their teachers are actual pro heroes. It’s all Izuku can do to keep from bombarding them with questions.

Speaking of Shinsou, Izuku is fairly certain the boy is mad at him for something. For what, Izuku has no idea, but when he tried to talk to him this morning he was blatantly ignored. At first he assumed it was just because the other boy was tired. He looked like he slept less than Izuku and that really says something, because he’s only sleeping three or four hours a night since he stopped using his quirk so much. Every time Izuku gets the chance to speak to him, he’s ignored. And then Izuku remembers how he was ignored the previous day while walking to the train station and wonders if perhaps he really did upset Shinsou.

When lunch rolls around Izuku tells Iida and Uraraka that he’ll meet them in the cafeteria in a little bit and runs after Shinsou, who was walking in the opposite direction away from the cafeteria.

Izuku calls out his name but is ignored. He runs up and grabs Shinsou’s hand and the other boy finally turns. “What do you want, Midoriya?”

“Are you—” Izuku’s voice fades away and his mind glazes over for a moment before the feeling fades. He blinks his eyes and looks up to Shinsou’s blank face.

“You’re so quick to respond,” he says.

“Are you mad at me?” He asks.

“No.” Shinsou’s voice is monotone.

“Oh, good,” Izuku relaxes a bit. “But, why were you ignoring me then?”

“Why did you help me during the exam?” He asks, and this time it seems like his voice shakes a little, but maybe Izuku just imagines it.

Izuku looks confused for a moment. “What do you mean? I already told you why I helped you.”

“Because I helped you, but I didn’t. You just grabbed me and told me how to beat the exam and gave me that stupid hockey stick and I didn’t do anything.”

“But you did. I only knew most of what I told you because you—”

“Because I used my quirk or something and helped you in ‘the other timeline,’ yeah, you said that already, but why?” Shinsou asks. “You didn’t have to help me, you could have just done nothing and I wouldn’t have known the difference.”

“I would have,” Izuku explains. “And I knew that it wouldn’t be fair, you deserve to be here just as much as anyone else. It’s not right that you should have to be hindered by an exam just because you don’t have a physical quirk.Your quirk is perfect for hero work, and it’d be wrong if the test were to tell you otherwise”

Shinsou looks at him with a strange expression. “You think my quirk is suited to be a hero?”

“Shinsou, with your quirk you could resolve fights without actually fighting anyone. No building would be destroyed and no innocent civilians hurt. You could talk to the villains and get them to give up and turn themselves in. You could solve hostage situations easier than pretty much any pro hero out there. Not to mention the interrogation possibilities. You could just tell the villains to give us all their information. You quirk is perfect for hero work. I thought I already said—oh wait that was erased. Yeah I kinda already said this, but then didn’t because… er, well my quirk.”

Shinsou looks at the floor, “Thanks.”

Izuku smiles at him, “Anyways, I told Uraraka and Iida I’d meet them in the cafeteria if you wanted to eat with us.”

“I’m gonna go take a nap,” he says, and Izuku might have questioned it if he didn’t look so sleep deprived.

“Ok, well, come find me if you change your mind.”

Izuku makes his way back to the lunchroom and joins Iida and Uraraka, where they talk about the upcoming combat training after lunch and discuss what they think they might be doing.

After lunch everyone is practically bouncing in their seats in anticipation for hero basic training. Even Shinsou seems a bit more awake than before.

“I am coming through the door, like a normal person!” All Might shouts with his blinding grin lighting up his face. He makes his way into the classroom, and this time Izuku has the classes excited whispers to cover up his own muttering. “Today we will be doing battle training! And for that, you need these!” All Might presses a button and shelves extend from the wall holding briefcases. Immediately, the students erupt from their seats and practically run to get their respective case holding their costume.

They rush to the locker rooms which quickly fills with animated conversation as people race to try on their new costumes. Izuku can’t help but self-consciously compare all the colorful and eye catching costumes to his, and wonders if perhaps he should have come up with something flashier. The only other person who didn’t have something eye catching was Shinsou, who’s dark purple jumpsuit was highly reminiscent of Aizawa, the only difference being the lack of scarf and goggles and the addition of a mouth guard, that Izuku assumes serves some other purpose due to its slight bulk.

When Izuku had been designing his costume he had focused more on practicality over style, to make up for the fact that his quirk wasn’t physical like most of the other students. Shinsou was probably thinking along the same line. Either that or he just really likes Eraserhead. 

Izuku’s costume is a black form fitting long sleeve shirt and black cargo pants with several pockets. He has a dark green utility belt holding various gadgets and weapons that he had requested. Across his chest was a dark green bandolier holding throwing stars and another dark green leather holster holding throwing knives. He also had reinforced fingerless gloves and steel toed boots. On his wrist was a control for the small drone he has in one of the compartments on his tool belt and a small digital watch that counts down to the millisecond. The only stylized piece of his costumed was the smooth white bunny mask that covered the top half of his face.

He was a bit unsure of whether or not to include the mask, but he wanted something that would be recognizable to him. The fact that the mask has infrared and night vision built in helps. And if the bunny ears are slightly reminiscent in an off handish way of a certain hero’s iconic hairstyle… well Izuku wouldn’t know what they were talking about.

Izuku dresses quickly, and scans the notes that came with his costume. Satisfied, he grabs his timeline and stores it in one of his pockets along with a pen before leaving. Everyone is brimming with energy when they make it to the mock city, gushing over each others costumes as they wait for the lesson to start. He walks over to where Iida and Uraraka were standing, complimenting them both on their costumes.

“Thanks,” Uraraka gushed. “I kinda wished I had been more specific, ‘cause it’s kind of tight, but oh well. You look pretty cool, too. Like a killer bunny.”

“I agree,” Iida adds, “Though I must say the mask is a bit off-putting when matched with the knives. It’s not very kid friendly.”

Izuku ruffles his hair, “You’re probably right, but it’s better I have something like this, that allows me movement, and the dark colors are good for stealth and I thought about maybe wearing a hoodie or something so the weapons are hidden, but that would just make it harder to get to them. I was kind of hoping the mask would make it a little less scary, but it would seem not.”

“I think the mask makes it more scary,” Uraraka says. “But in an intimidating way, like I definitely wouldn’t want to get caught in a room alone with this guy.”

“I’m pretty sure the various sharp objects do that on their own,” Shinsou says from behind him. “Do you know how to use those?”

Izuku turns to face him. “For the most part.” While he was definitely good with them he still wasn’t one hundred percent. Of course that doesn’t matter too much when paired with his quirk, but there’s always room for improvement.

“That’s reassuring,” Shinsou replies in a voice that leaves him thinking thinking it isn’t actually reassuring. “So what will we be doing today, oh wise one?”

“I can’t give you all the answers.”

All Might interrupts then, answering Shinsou’s question. They would be doing mock battles against each other. Izuku smiles to himself. Now this is something he can actually do. His excitement escalated when he was paired with Uraraka. And then plummeted when they were placed against Bakugo and Iida. Just his luck.

The two of them walked towards the building to plan while the villain team placed the bomb. His mind ran through different strategies as she explained her quirk to him, inwardly wishing he had his hero analysis to write it all down in. 

“Ok, so I kind of have a plan worked out in my head, but you’re gonna have to trust me.” Izuku explains. “I know Kacchan is going to try to come after me which will force Iida to stay and guard the bomb by himself. Kacchan’s quirk is explosion and I know he’s really good with it. From what I gather Iida has the engines in his leg, which enhance his speed, but only in his legs.”

“Bakugo is the one who bullied you right?” She asked.

“Er, yeah. He’s a jerk but don’t let that fool you. He’s amazing and really talented in combat.” Izuku recalls all the times he’s seen Kacchan in action. He really was the best at everything he did. “Anyways, when the match starts I want you to levitate us up to the third floor, it’d make more sense tactically for them to hide the bomb on the top floors.”

“Ok, so are we just going to search for it then?”

“Uh, sort of. This is where the true trust thing comes in, I’ll tell you the next step when we get up there. Sorry, it'll just make things easier that way,” Izuku says sheepishly.

“Um, ok,” Uraraka agrees despite her confusion. “Hey, you still haven’t told me what your quirk is yet.”

“Yeah sorry, it’s just—it’s complicated?” He offers. “It’s information based.”

Her smile faulted for a moment. “Oh, okay then.” She says despondently looking a little dejected.

“I’m sorry—” Izuku rushes. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything! It’s just…it really is complicated, and I kind of want it kept on the down low and it’s nothing personal, and I know you told me yours and I feel so bad, but I really don’t want people bothering me about it all the time and it kind of works best if more people don’t know the details, ‘cause it will just make things harder in the long run and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense anyway—”

“It’s okay, Deku,” Uraraka interrupts his rant. “I believe you, and you seem really nice so I’m sure you have good reasons.”

“Thanks.” He lets out a breath and relaxes a bit.

They don’t have any more time to talk however, because the match is called to start at that moment. Uraraka floats them both up to a window on the third floor that they proceed to crawl through. “Ok, so now we look for the bomb. It’ll probably go faster if we split up,” Izuku says. “If you find the bomb or run into Kacchan let me know over the comms.”

They both go their separate ways and Izuku wanders through the halls, checking all of the rooms for the bomb. After about seven minutes Izuku still hadn’t found the bomb, but he did find Kacchan. He briefly debates ducking into one of the rooms to hide, but figures it might be best to lead him away from Uraraka and let her search the upper floors. He lets her know quickly before engaging Kacchan.

“Hi, Kacchan,” Izuku shouts before bolting towards where he saw a stairwell earlier. He slams the door behind him muffling Kacchan’s curses momentarily. He makes it half a flight down before realizing this was a bad idea, because now Kacchan has the higher ground.

“You think you can run from me, shitty Deku!” Kacchan exclaims, letting off an explosion that threw him towards Izuku. Izuku ducks out of the way and jumps over the railing and landing on the next flight down. Kacchan follows and Izuku rolls away from him, tumbling down a couple steps, but managing to miss the explosion Kacchan had sent his way. 

Izuku pulls one of the knives out and throws it towards Kacchan, just grazing his cheek. It seems to startle the blond for a moment.

“What the fuck was that, you bastard?” He screams.

“It was a knife, Kacchan,” Izuku somehow manages to muster up an innocent voice. “I have more if you want to see them.”

Instead of pulling out a knife, Izuku fishes out a flash bomb and throws it at Kacchan’s feet. He doesn’t think it will do much against the explosive boy, but it does buy him just enough time to dart through the door to the second floor.

Kacchan charges in behind Izuku, just as Uraraka announces that she found the bomb. Izuku turns and grabs Kacchan’s right arm ducking under it and twisting it behind him. He shoves Kacchan away from him, but doesn’t manage to dodge the small explosion he let off and it catches him in the side. He doesn’t pay much mind to the injury, instead focusing more attention to Uraraka who’s describing the bombs location.

Kacchan turns back to face Izuku a few feet away seething. “I’m gonna kill you, shitty Deku!”

Izuku smiles and pulls out a knife. “That’s ok, Kacchan. I’ll do it for you.”

Kacchan barely gets a word out before Izuku slits his throat. Kacchan stares at him, his face twisting into a horrified expression as Izuku drops to the ground. He hears All Might shouting in his ear over the comms, but doesn’t make out his words. His eyes stay locked on Kacchan, who just stands there staring at Izuku as he chokes on his own blood.

Uraraka releases her quirk and Izuku wastes no time turning down one hall with Uraraka following close behind. “The bomb is on the fourth floor in an empty room, in the southeast corner,” Izuku whispers to her as they walk. “Iida’s the only one guarding it, but Kacchan is looking for us.”

“Oh, did your quirk tell you where it is? That’s so cool,” she whispers back.

Izuku doesn’t respond, instead he leads them down to the stairwell closest to the room with the bomb. This turns out to be a mistake, because they run into Kacchan on the way. Izuku glances at his watch briefly before once again slitting his throat. 

This time he keeps his eyes closed.

“Oh, did your quirk tell you where it is? That’s so cool.”

Izuku glances at his watch and picks up their pace. Just before they reach the hall where they ran into Kacchan, he pulls both of them into a closet. “What—” Uraraka starts, but Izuku shushes her. He stares at his watch and waits about twenty seconds past the point they ran into Kacchan before he leads them out of the closet and back down the hall. The two of them trek silently down the corridor and make it to the stairwell with no sign of Kacchan. Izuku leads them into the room next to where the bomb is being held.

Izuku turns to look at Uraraka who seems to be waiting for his next instructions. “The bomb is in the next room over,” He informs her.

“So what’s the plan?” She asks eagerly, her eyes sparkling with determination.

Izuku couldn’t help but feel immensely relieved that Uraraka was his partner and not one of their other classmates.

“I need you to wait here for just a second and I’m gonna see what the room looks like,” He could see on her face that Uraraka wanted to ask him more questions but he doesn’t give her the chance. “I promise I’ll be back in a second. Stay here,” He commands before exiting the.

Outside the room, Izuku can hear Iida talking to himself. He listens for a bit to see if perhaps he was talking to Bakugo on the comms, but it seems like he’s just monologuing to himself. Izuku walks into the room calmly, and Iida turns to face him, taking on a defensive stance.

“Ahh, so you’ve come alone, Midoriya,” Iida announces in an exaggerated tone. “I must say I’m surprised. I was expecting you to have run into Bakugo. Never mind that, you are a fool to think you will get past me, hero! I have cleared the room of all obstacles as you can see, and from what I know, I am faster than you. You will have to get past me if you wish to get to this bomb. Coming alone was a foolish mistake.” Iida falls into magical laughter. 

Izuku smirks to himself. Well two can play this game.

“Ah, but you are mistaken,” Izuku says in his best impression of All Might, it’s not like anyone will remember. “It is you, villain, who has made the mistake. While you stand there monologuing I have completed my mission of examining the room. It was foolish of you to choose a room with windows, they prove to be quite an easy access point.” Izuku takes note of Iida’s worried glance to the bomb. “You speak of me coming alone, but what about you? Where is your partner? You surely can’t defend the bomb against two heroes all by yourself.”

“Except I am not alone, or at least not for much longer. Bakugo is on his way back now that he knows you’re here. He turned around the second I said your name and I have been stalling ever since.” Iida continues his maniacal laughter.

“Really?” Izuku asks, his voice back to normal. “That’s good to know, thanks. Anyways, I just wanted to see what the room looked like so I’ll be going now.” It’s a good thing he no longer hesitates when killing himself, because Iida steps into action the second he pulled the knife out. Once he falls to the floor, however, Iida seems to think it’s some sort of trick made to distract him. Izuku almost finds it funny.

“What’s the plan?” Uraraka says, determination sparking in her eyes.

“Iida is guarding the bomb. There’s a big window in the back of the room and the bomb is in the middle. I was planning on distracting Iida while you went through the window to get to the bomb. We have to be fast about it though, because the second Iida tells Kacchan where I am he’s going to come running back.” Izuku explains.

“Ok, get to the bomb, be fast. How are you gonna distract Iida?” She asked.

“I’m gonna lure him out of the room if I can. I don’t think he’s realized that you can come in through the window. I was actually hoping you could use your quirk on me.”

Uraraka activates her quirk on Izuku before ducking out the window. Izuku pushes off the ceiling and through the doorway out into the hall. He maneuvers himself overtop the doorway to the bomb room and waits for Uraraka to let him know she’s ready.

“I’m in position. He’s pacing back and forth monologuing,” she announces over the comms.

“Copy that,” Izuku murmurs.

He pulls out the capture tape he was given and readies it before throwing one of his flash bombs to the ground. He waits a few seconds before the door flies open and Iida cautiously steps out, looking down the hall both ways. The second he steps under Izuku, the greennette spring-boards off the ceiling, his capture tape aimed for Iida. 

He manages to get a small amount stick to the larger boy before Iida moves to dodge. Izuku throws a smoke bomb between him and the door in an attempt to move him further down the hall. It works a bit, and he throws himself at Iida again. He manages to grasp one of Iida’s wrists and use it to twist himself behind him. Due to his current lack of gravity, Izuku was able to wrap one of his legs around Iida’s neck and the other around his shoulder, which helps in immobilizing his arm. What ensues is a frantic struggle as Iida tries to free himself while Izuku clings to the speedster in a desperate attempt to prevent his escape. Looking back, Izuku was incredibly grateful to all those months spent training his body.

Iida manages to slam Izuku into the wall, loosening his grip a bit when Uraraka reaches the bomb and the match is called.

Izuku disentangles himself from Iida and then promptly falls to the ground as Uraraka releases her quirk. “Oh, sorry, Deku,” She says from the doorway, and runs over to help him up. Once he’s standing she tackles him in a hug. “We won!” She exclaims before quickly releasing him, a slight blush on her face. “That was honestly way easier than I thought it was gonna be. I mean we didn’t even see Bakugo, guess you worried about him coming after you for nothing, huh, Deku?”

“Hah, y-yeah, I guess you’re right,” Izuku says sheepishly, looking away.

“As much as I dislike having lost I must commend the both of you on your success,” Iida says.

“O-oh, well you did really good, too, Iida,” Izuku reassures him. “If—”

“DEKU!” Kacchan yells from behind them. “What the hell was that you coward? Why were you running from me?” Kacchan shoves Izuku against the wall.

“Bakugou, the match is over,” Iida reprimands.

Kacchan glares at Izuku for a long moment before shoving away from him and stalking off ahead of them.

“Well done, students!” All Might announces in his jovial voice back at the monitor room. “Time for your grading. You must all remember whether you win or lose you can always come out ahead by learning from experience. Now, the V.I.P. of this battle was Midoriya! Can anyone tell me why?”

“I can, All Might-sensei,” Yaoyorozu says. “Midoriya was able to predict the movements of his opponents and act accordingly. He avoided running into Bakugo, thus preventing an unnecessary fight, and developed a clear plan that led to a swift a sure victory for the hero team.”

“Well said, Yaoyorozu,” All Might commended. 

“Uraraka also did quite well,” Yaoyorozu continued. “And was able to follow the plan Izuku set and their victory would not have been possible without her. Bakugo going off to search for the hero’s might have been a good plan had they not been able to so easily avoid him, but there was no back up plan in place, leaving Iida alone to defend the bomb when the hero slipped past. Iida was unable to defend against both of them, though his efforts were commendable. It was also unwise to place the bomb in a room with windows as opposed to a room with only one door.”

“Yes, yes, very well put.” All might sent her a thumbs up.

The next team is sent off to prepare and Izuku goes to sat down near Shinsou who for once didn’t look like he was going to fall asleep at any moment. Instead he was studying everyone in the room, likely trying to come up with strategies.

“You’ll do great,” Izuku says.

“I’m just glad I didn’t get paired up against the ice guy. He never talks.” Shinsou says. 

“Y-yeah that would have been pretty ironic. Plus that dude seems super powerful, I don’t think I would have won if I went up against him.”

“I’m sure you would have thought of something…eventually,” Shinsou smirks at Izuku.

“Hah, yeah, well…er who knows? Plus we only had thirty minutes,” Izuku ruffles his hair awkwardly and looks away.

“Yet you managed to win in what was it, six minutes, seven? Anyways, you wanna tell me who I’m actually up against?” Shinsou asked innocently.

“Er, I could, but that would spoil the surprise.”

“Right,” Shinsou draws out.

Izuku doesn’t have a response to that so he pulls out his timeline to write the battle down. Shinsou goes back to watching his classmates, though Izuku catches him glancing his way a few times. Izuku silently panics a bit, because Shinsou is acting weird and there’s no way he can know what Izuku’s quirk really is, but what if there was. Maybe he’s just being paranoid. It also doesn’t help that Kacchan is standing across the room glaring daggers at Izuku and practically seething. 

Fun times.

After the second battle Kacchan took turns glaring at Izuku and Todoroki, who had literally frozen the entire building. Shinsou was paired with Yaoyorozu as villains against Jirou and Kaminari. Suffice to say the villains won, and Shinsou didn’t even need to use his quirk. They just barricaded the room they were in and waited out the time limit. It was probably one of the more boring matches, though it was a bit funny watching the heroes try to break through. It looked like Shinsou even dozed off a bit at one point, but Izuku thinks he was just faking. At least he hoped so.

Shinsou came back and sat next to Izuku again when his match and subsequent grading was done. “And now I get to sleep.”

“Looked like you already did that,” Izuku jokes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shinsou says in mock innocence.

“Right…” Izuku says, mimicking Shinsou from earlier

“Besides, you said I’d do great, oh wise one.” Shinsou smirks at Izuku and closes his eyes.

“Well I wouldn’t say you did great. I’m more inclined to say you did nothing.” Izuku keeps his tone light so Shinsou knows he’s joking.

“I was the back up plan. Besides, I like it better this way. I thought I might take a page out of your book and shroud myself in mystery. Or at least as much as possible. They know I can control people, but they don’t know how  or to what extent. Except for you of course, but I’m sure you can keep a secret.”

“I am not shrouded in mystery,” Izuku defends.

“Everyone was debating on what they thought your quirk is during your trial.”

“They did not.” Izuku feels his face heating up.

 “They so did. It was pretty funny, actually. I told them you were all knowing.” Izuku stares at him trying to determine whether or not Shinsou’s messing with him. His smug expression leads Izuku to believe that he isn’t.

“Why would you tell them that?” Izuku asks in dim horror.

Shinsou shrugs, “Someone asked. The frog girl, she noticed us being friendly on the first day and asked me if I knew you before school. I said yes, so she asked me what your quirk was and I told her you were all knowing. If it makes you feel any better I think only about half the class bought it.”

“No, Shinsou, that does not make me feel better,” Izuku says in frustration. The lilac haired boy was obviously enjoying this.

“I honestly thought, they would bombard you when you got back. I was surprised they left you alone. Although they did go and question Uraraka about it.”

“You don’t know they were talking about me.”

“They looked over here a bit. You were just too busy fretting over your journal and Bakugo’s deadly glare to notice. Besides, would you have preferred I tell them the truth.” Shinsou raises an eyebrow.

“T-that I can see the future?”

“Sure.”

“Er, I don’t know. It’s not like it’s actually a s-secret.”

“Yet you didn’t tell Uraraka. Or anyone else for that matter.” He points out.

“I m-mean, I just, well, you know…what if they want to know what I see, or something or I don’t know. And I mean…” Izuku trails off.

“You could just tell them. The future that is.”

“Well, err, it doesn’t work like that. I don’t a-always know it.”

“Hey, you don’t have to justify yourself to me.” Shinsou raises his hand in mock surrender. “I’m all for operation all knowing man of mystery. It’s just that when you tell them you can see the future they’re gonna want to know what you see and then they’re gonna want to know why you can’t tell them. And it’s gonna be a whole slew of questions.”

“W-what makes you t-think I can’t answer them?” Izuku tried to school his face. He really hoped he was good enough at it.

Shinsou just smirks. “Did you know you stutter when you get nervous?”

Izuku wonders if his face is as pale as it feels. Not that Shinsou was looking at him. The lilac haired boy had gone back to closing his eyes.

Everyone gathers in the classroom after school talking excitedly about the hero class. Shinsou didn’t say anything more to Izuku, and Uraraka pulls him over to a small group who are discussing his short fight against Iida.

Izuku looses track of the conversation when he glances out the window and spots Kacchan on his way out of campus. Izuku quickly excuses himself out of the conversation just as someone asks him something. He grabs his bag and starts running to catch up with Kacchan.

Izuku catches him out in the courtyard. “Kacchan!”

Kacchan doesn’t pause. Instead he keeps forwards like he doesn’t even hear Izuku. Izuku runs up to his side to tap his shoulder. “Kacch—“

He grabs Izuku by the shoulders and shoves him against a nearby wall. “What the fuck do you want, Deku? Come to gloat about a quirkless fuck like you finally winning? Well, enjoy it, because it’s never going to happen again. You’re nothing, Deku.” Kacchan seethes.

“I’m n-not quirkless.” Izuku weakly defends.

“You may have the class fooled, but I’ve known you your whole life. I’m not buying into whatever tricks you’re pulling. You can’t lie to me, Deku.” Kacchan grips Izuku’s shoulders harder, letting off small sparks. “I may have lost to you today, but we both know you can’t beat me in an actual fight. But that icy bastard, I know I can’t measure up to him. But I’m done with it. From here on I’m gonna beat you all! Enjoy your win. It’ll never happen again.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Kacchan,” Izuku says in a meek voice. “W-what you told me, all those months ago. About h-how you t-thought I could, I could get a quirk. You were right, Kacchan.”

Kacchan glowers down at him. “The fuck are you talking about?”

Izuku doesn’t say anything further and Kacchan shoves away from him, storming off. Izuku just watches him go.

Chapter Text

Izuku got to school an hour early the next day, running on nothing but coffee. He spent the entire night fretting over what he said to Kacchan the previous day and debating whether he should change it or just let it be. He let it be. He doubted that Kacchan even remembered what he said to Izuku so many months ago. And even on the off chance that he did, Izuku doubted the explosive teen would be able to figure out exactly what his quirk was, no matter how smart he was.

Shinsou was also a pressing matter on Izuku’s mind. Izuku was sure he knew something, but what exactly, he wasn’t sure. He tried to think of anything he might have said to tip the lilac haired boy off, but came up blank. He wondered for a bit if maybe he had overheard Izuku muttering to himself about it, but figured it was unlikely. His mother always told him that his words were unintelligible when he muttered. In the end Izuku decided to just confront Shinsou. If anything went wrong he could just erase the conversation.

Lost in his thoughts, Izuku crashed into someone as he turned the corner. “Bet you didn’t see that coming.” Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Or think, in Izuku’s case.

“Shinsou!” Izuku exclaimed. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“I gathered as much.”

“I, er, I wanted to t-talk to you actually,” Izuku stuttered.

“Is it an I think you’re a pretty cool guy kind of talk or an I have a deep dark secret kind of talk ?”

“Uh, what?” Izuku ruffles his hair and stares at the other boy.

“You seem kind of nervous, well more nervous than usual, so I’m gonna take a wild guess and say it’s the second option.” Shinsou turns and starts walking away. “Follow me.”

Izuku follows Shinsou, who leads them down an unfamiliar hall. He opens a door and ushered Izuku in, before closing it behind himself. Izuku finds himself standing in a relatively empty supply closet. “Er, how did you know this was here?”

“I take naps here.”

“It’s only the third day.”

“Your point?” Shinsou crosses his arms and leans against the door

“N-never mind.” Izuku took a deep breath. “So you know my quirk’s not really seeing the future, right?”

“Yup.”

Izuku blinks. “Wait, really?”

Shinsou raises his eyebrow. “Yeah.”

“But, I mean, do you know what it, um actually...is?” 

“Yup.”

“But, how?” Izuku asks in exasperation. “Is it really that obvious?”

“On the contrary it’s not obvious at all. I’ve known since the entrance exam.”

Izuku’s eyes widen. “What? Wait, you don’t, like, remember do you?”

“Remember what?” Shinsou’s voice hints at curiosity.

“The, er well, when I talked to you.”

“In the classroom, yeah it’s kind of hard to forget. You made quite an impression.”

“No, in the bathroom, the first time?”

“Er, no, why what happened?”

Izuku breaths a sigh of relief. He’s not sure what he would do it people suddenly started remembering things he reversed. “But, then how did you know?”

Shinsou looks away from him. “Well, you kinda told me when I, er, when I brainwashed you.”

“Oh,” Izuku frowns.

“I’m sorry, it’s just I asked if you were lying and you said you were telling the truth about everything except your quirk, so then I asked what your quirk was, and well you told me.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me you knew?” Izuku asks.

“I thought you might go back and not help me, and I really needed to pass that exam. And then I met you and you were so nice to me and you didn’t treat me like a villain, and I really am sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Izuku treasures him.

“What?” Shinsou finally looks up at him, with guilty eyes.

“I mean, I did tell you you could brainwash me to make sure I wasn’t lying, so it’s technically my own fault for not thinking about it.” Izuku shrugs.

“I could have told you I knew.”

“You also could have lied when I asked you just now, but you didn’t,” Izuku argues. “Besides, you kind of made it obvious you knew something and what else were you gonna do? Walk up to me and be all ‘hey by the way I know you rewind time when you die.’ It’s not really the best conversation starter.”

Shinsou stares at him. “I’m sorry, come again?”

“Really it’s fine, I don’t blame you.” Izuku reasures him.

“No, um, I mean thanks, but what was that bit about dying?”

Izuku frowns. “I thought you said you knew.”

“Yeah, that you can rewind time,”  Shinsou clarifies. “There was no mention of you dying.”

Izuku awkwardly runs a hand through his hair. “Well, then, this is awkward.”

“I don’t know if awkward is the right word.” Shinsou pauses. “So, do you want to clarify that.”

“Er, there’s not really much to clarify. I die, time rewinds. That’s pretty much it.”

“Oh, right how silly of me.” Shinsou lets out a dry laugh. “Wait, are you gonna undo this conversation?”

“I don’t know. I was planning on it, if you didn’t already know. I hadn’t really thought that you might only know half. I could go back to right before I said that bit about dying.” Izuku offered.

“Or you could just not.” Shinsou responded quickly. “I mean, I already know the rewinding bit and have known for a while, is it really that much worse if I know the other part?”

Izuku thought it might be just a bit worse. But, there wasn’t really anything he could do about him knowing he could rewind time. Would it really be so bad if he knew exactly how Izuku did it. Plus, it might be sort of nice if there was someone who knew.

“I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

Izuku lets out a groan. “Fine, but if you tell anyone I’ll…well, I’ll do something.”

“Intimidating.”

“Hey, it’s still not too late for me to change my mind,” Izuku scolds.

“Right.”

The two fell into a stilted silence and Izuku tried to think of something more to say. He wasn’t really sure what to do in this situation.

“What were you planning on doing if I didn’t know?” Shinsou asked suddenly.

Izuku stared at him. “What do you think I was going to do?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to make conversation,” Shinsou defended. “But like, would you have thrown yourself off the roof or what?”

“I probably would have just slit my throat,” Izuku says as if he were simply talking about the weather.

Shinsou blinks. “What? Seriously? Do you just carry a knife around with you?”

“Yes.” Izuku pulls his butterfly knife out of his pocket and flips it open.

“You do realize that’s pretty fucked up, right?” Shinsou asks staring at the knife.

Izuku shrugs. “I’m used to it.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not so much anymore. Like I said, I’m used to it. Some ways are worse than others. Jumping off the roof, as you mentioned earlier, is one of the better ways. It’s fast. Slitting my throat also isn’t too bad. I used to hate it cause I wasn’t very good, but I’ve gotten much better, so I don’t really mind it anymore. It works pretty quickly.”

“You’ve gotten better at slitting your throat?” Shinsou asks slowly.

Izuku shrugs.

“This is one of the more disturbing conversations I’ve had,” Shinsou remarks.

“Understandable.”

“Arn’t you scared you won’t come back?”

“Do you ever worry your brainwashing won’t work?” Izuku quips.

“I feel like those are two entirely different situations.” Shinsou crosses his arms. “You’re kind of a messed up person, you know that?”

“Well you’re my friend so what does that say about you,” Izuku smirks before abruptly exiting the closet.

Shinsou follows, falling into to step next to Izuku. “Who said we were friends?”

Izuku skips forward and turns so he’s walking backwards in front of Shinsou. “I did. Just now. You know my deepest darkest secret, Shinsou. I think that makes us friends. In fact, I think that makes us best friends.”

Shinsou glares at Izuku. “Funny you mention that, I actually had a whole speech prepared on how I’m not here to make friends. I haven’t really found a good moment to make it, but I think now works.”

Izuku’s face breaks out into a grin. “But if we aren’t friends then how will I ever trust you to keep my secret.”

Shinsou’s eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms. Both boys stopped walking, and what ensued was an almost comical staring match. Izuku won.

“Tch, fine.” Shinsou huffed out, and starting walking towards their class, Izuku following next to him. “You’re a devious little thing, you know that?”

“I’m not little,” Izuku sputtered.

“You’re the perfect height for an arm rest.” Shinsou brought his arm up and rested it on Izuku’s shoulder. He smirked down to the grennete. “Benefits of friendship.”

“Wow, you know, since we’ve reach levels of acting as each others furniture, I think it’s only fair I get to call you by your first name. Don’t you think so, Hitoshi?”  Izuku smiles innocently up at Shinsou.

“How far back did you say you can rewind?” Hitoshi asks with a forced smile.

Izuku grips his chin and forces a look of contemplation on his face. “Hmm, I don’t think I mentioned it.”

The two boys make it to their class room, which was still empty. They both took their seats, and Izuku pulled out  his hero analysis to continue working on the pages for his classmates that he started the previous day. Shinsou drops his head on his desk to sleep.

Fifteen minutes before class starts Iida comes in, followed closely by Bakugo and Uraraka. Bakugo sends a glare to Izuku before taking his seat and otherwise ignoring him.

“Hi, Deku,” Uraraka greets him. “The press out there is crazy, right?”

“I didn’t see anyone out there,” Izuku admits. Other students start trickling into the class now.

“Really? They were kind hard to miss.”

“I mean, I’ve been here a while, so maybe they got here after me,” Izuku offers.

“Your commitment to punctuality is commendable, Midoriya,” Iida remarks. “It’s just the kind of quality I would expect in a fellow classmate.”

“Oh, thanks Iida,” Izuku blushes. “I didn’t have anything else to do, so I thought I’d just come early. I guess it worked out well, though, since I didn’t have to deal with the press.”

“How convenient,” Shinsou mutters, not bothering to pick up his head.

“Yeah, Midoriya,” Kaminari says, sliding into the seat adjacent to Izuku. “It’s almost like you knew they were going to be there.”

“Get out of my seat, you idiot,” Jirou says.

Kaminari moves to stand over Izuku’s desk. “So?” the blonde drags out.

Izuku stares at him. “So?”

“So did you know they were gonna be there?” He asks, with an expectant tone.

“Uh, n-no,” Izuku says, ruffling a hand through his hair.

Kaminari elbows him lightly and winks. “Right, right, I got you.” He walks back to his seat before Izuku can respond and winks at him again after sitting.

Izuku turns around to see to see Shinsou trying to smother a smirk. “What just happened?”

“He was one of the ones who believed me when I said you were all knowing,” Shinsou snickers.

Izuku frowns. “This is your fault.”

Aizawa walks in shortly after that, bright yellow sleeping bag in tow. “Good work with yesterday’s battle training. I’ve looked over your grades and evaluations. Now, for homeroom business. Sorry for the sudden announcement, but today…” Aizawa pauses, and everyones sits tensely. “You’ll pick a class president.”

Everyone jumps up, raising their hand, demanding to be picked. Aizawa sighs, “Come to a decision and let me know when you’re done.” Aizawa steps into his sleeping bag and curls up behind his desk, leaving the class in chaos as students try to talk over one another.

Iida manages to catch everyones attention and calls out, “This chaos is unbecoming of UA students such as ourselves. We should discuss this in a more organized manner.” His hand slices down through the air as he speaks. “I feel that since we cannot come to a decision the best route would be a vote.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t everyone just vote for themselves?” a red haired boy, Kirishima Izuku recalls, counters.

“Perhaps, but whoever gets more than one vote has obviously made an impact and would be better suited for the position.” 

“We’ve literally all just met, I don’t think we can accurately judge anyones character.” Shinsou doesn’t even bother picking his head up from his desk when he speaks.

“Why don’t we all just go around and introduce ourselves then,” Kaminari offers.

Everyone agrees and suddenly the desks are all being pushed into a circle. After the first few people go Izuku notices the pattern of everyone offering their name and quirk and then some other little fact about themselves. Izuku’s hands are just itching to analyze all their quirks. He saw most of them in the quirk assessment and battle trial already but there’s still a few that he wasn’t entirely sure on. Shinsou has to elbows him a few times to stop his mumbling.

After Bakugo finishes his introduction and subsequent declaration of “I’m gonna be the number one hero and none of you extras are going to get in my way,” all eyes fall to Izuku.

A blush creeps into his cheeks as everyone stares expectantly. “Um, I’m I-Izuku Midoriya.” He panics momentarily trying to come up with something to say and ultimately blurts out, “I want to be a hero,” his go to response to these kinds of situations slipping out without thought. 

His face grows redder as Shinsou speaks up. “We are literally in the hero course. Everyone in this class wants to be a hero, you idiot.”

“R-right, ha,” he laughs dryly as he ruffles his hair. “Um, I think quirks are interesting, and um, I, uh, like katsudon?” The statement comes out sounding like a question.

Shinsou decides to have mercy on him and quickly moves on to his own introduction before anyone can comment. “My name is Hitoshi Shinsou. I am in a one sided relationship with sleep and I’m not here to make friends.” 

“Except for me,” Izuku reminds him.

Shinsou sighs heavily before grumbling. “Except for him.”

After it becomes apparent that Shinsou isn’t going to say anything more, Iida begins passing around papers for people to put their votes on and asks if there are any questions.

“I have a question,” Sero says. “Midoriya, what’s your quirk?”

Izuku stares at him before he begins to stumble over his words. Before he can say anything intelligible Shinsou interrupts him with a smirk “He’s all knowing.”

“What?” Izuku’s voice cracks over the word. “N-no I’m n-not! don’t tell them that!”

Shinsou looks at him in confusion before his face morphs into one of over-exaggerated realization. “Oh! Right, yeah,” he says to Izuku before turning to the class. “He’s not all knowing.” He then winks at Izuku.

Izuku just covers his face with his hands partly in exasperation and partly so he doesn’t have to see the questioning glances of his classmates.  Izuku finds himself wishing he had Hagakure’s quirk. 

Iida hesitantly calls attention away from Izuku and the class continues with the voting process. A few minutes later Iida is announcing Izuku as the class rep despite his protests.

Izuku heads to lunch with Iida and Uraraka, but not before grabbing a complaining Shinsou to drag behind him. “Friends eat lunch with friends, Shinsou,” Izuku grins up at him innocently.

The lilac haired boy just grumbles. As he’s dragged by the wrist through the hallways.

Iida and Uraraka congratulate him on being the class rep, but Izuku just mutters, “Don’t remind me. Who would even vote for me. I’m awful for the job.”

“I did,” Uraraka smiles at him.

“I voted for you as well, midoriya. I think you will make a great representative.” Iida commends.

Izuku exclaims, “But, I thought you wanted to be the class rep, Iida. I voted for you.”

“I did, but I thought you would be the best choice.”

Izuku just wallows.

Shinsou grins at Izuku, and throws an arm over his shoulders. “I voted for you to, Izu-kun. After all, that’s what friends are for, right?”

“Hitoshi!,” Izuku groans.

“Plus, I knew you’d hate it.”

“I will kill you and then myself,” Izuku mutters under his breath.

“What was that, Deku?” Uraraka asks.

“Nothing.”

Hitoshi, teases Izuku throughout the duration of lunch and Izuku almost regrets befriending him. Almost. He is, however, two seconds away from jumping off the school roof and ensuring he does not become class rep, when suddenly the alarm goes off. The whole ordeal is the perfect excuse to hand the job over to Iida, who graciously accepts the responsibility.

Izuku decides to drag Shinsou home with him. Partly so they can talk without prying ears and partly because he’s never really had a friend he could bring home before since Kacchan. Shinsou doesn’t really seem to mind all that much, which eases Izuku’s conscious. Despite what he said earlier he doesn’t want the tired boy to be his friend just so he won’t erase the conversation they had earlier.

His mom is still at work when they arrive. Izuku makes a quick detour to the kitchen to grab snacks before heading to his room. Shinsou raises an eyebrow at him in question.

“What?” Izuku asks as he takes a seat at his desk.

Shinsou flops onto the bed and says, “Nothing,” in a tone that makes Izuku think there is definitely something. “I take it you like All Might.”

Izuku’s cheeks turn red as he looks around his room, “Er, a little bit…”

“I don’t think I have ever seen this much All Might merch in one place.” Shinsou gestures about the room. “I don’t know how you sleep in here.”

“You look like don’t know how anyone sleeps anywhere,” Izuku retorts.

“Low blow.” Shinsou throws an All Might themed pillow at him. “I’m disappointed. I would have thought you would have a more creative choice for favorite hero. I didn’t know you were a basic bitch.”

“He’s actually not my favorite,” Izuku admits after a moment. If he was being honest with himself, Izuku had stopped idolizing All Might so much ever since the incident with the slime villain. He understands why he told Izuku he shouldn’t be a hero, but it still hurt to have your idol tell you not to chase your dreams.

Shinsou shoots him a disbelieving look.

“I mean, he used to be my favorite, obviously, but not so much anymore. He sort of told me he didn’t think I could be a hero. It kinda killed some of the idolization.” Izuku fiddles with a rubix cube from his desk, not looking at shinsou. “I mean, technically I erased that time line so he doesn’t remember doing it, but I remember it, so…”

“That’s kind of fucked up.” 

Izuku just shrugs.

“How do you even keep track of everything you erase?” He questions. “I feel like I would just confuse everything if it were me.”

“Oh, I write everything down. Back when I first discovered my quirk I would always get confused, especially since I was using it pretty much every day. Writing it down helps me remember, though, and if I forget I can just check my journal.” Izuku pulls the worn journal from his bag to toss to Shinsou.

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous? What of someone finds it?” He asks, while flipping quickly through the journal, not really bothering to read the multicolored writing and scribbles.

“Er, I’m not that worried about it. I always keep it on me, and if someone does… well, its not like I can’t undo it.”

“Touche,” Shinsou chucks the book back to Izuku, who just barley catches it. “Wait, so if you rewind every day does that technically make you older?”

“I don’t think so?” Izuku had thought about this quite often in the beginning, and while technically his mind would be older, physically he isn’t so he doesn’t really know where that leaves him.

Shinsou hums in acknowledgement, but otherwise doesn’t say anything. Instead both boys pull out their homework to work on. They work together in silence for a bit before shinsou speaks up again. “Do you ever meet people that you already met but then erased meeting them?”

“All the time. Especially when I was training for the entrance exam. I would go to dojo’s a few days a week to take classes or just to spar, but I would always undo it, afterwards. I’ve actually met Ojiro quite a few times. I’ve even sparred with him a bit. He’s really good. I don’t know much about him, though, because every time I’ve met him has been the first, so…”

“That’s so weird.”

They work in silence a bit longer until Izuku’s mom gets home, calling out a welcome to Izuku. Izuku goes out to greet her, Shinsou trailing slowly behind. After introductions, Inko invites Shinsou to stay for dinner before sending the boys off wile she cooks.

“She’s nice,” Shinsou notes.

“Yeah, mom’s really great,” Izuku smiles.

“She must have freaked when you told her about your quirk.”

Izuku fidgets at the comment and looks away. “Well, er, she d-doesn’t really know.”

Shinsou stares at him for a long moment in disbelief. “She’s your mom,” he speaks slowly.

“I know,” Izuku’s voice is laced with guilt. “Which is exactly why I can’t tell her. She would—she would freak out. It’s better that she doesn’t know. She would just worry.”

“Does anyone know?”

“You know.”

“Besides me.”

Izuku shrugs, “Er, well, there’s this old lady I know, who knows I can rewind time, but she doesn’t know how.”

“What does your mom think your quirk is?”

“Astral premonition. That’s what it’s registered as. She just thinks I can see the future. ”

“Right,” shinsou draws out, before sighing. “You do see how messed up this is, right?”

“It’s not that bad,” Izuku’s argues.

“You kill yourself on the regular and nobody knows except for a kid you just met,” Shinsou deadpans.

“Well when you put it like that…” Izuku says. “But, it’s not like I actually die. I mean it really sucked in the beginning, especially when I first discovered it, but I’m used it. I just view it as a means to an end. Like, I’m not actually killing myself, I’m just activating my quirk.”

Shinsou looks entirely unconvinced.

“Really. It’s fine.”

“Sure.” They sit in silence for a bit, before Shinsou opens his mouth again. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but how does one even discover they can rewind time upon their death?”

“Errr, they die.” Izuku speaks slowly.

“No shit, Sherlock. So how did you die.”

Oh. “W-well, um. I actually didn’t really understand what happened the first time. I kinda just thought I was daydreaming o-or something. I kinda, well, I fell. Off a roof. Accidentally.” Izuku lies.

“You fell?” Shinsous says in disbelief.

“Y-yes.”

“On accident?”

“Um.”

“Right, we’ll come back to that at a later date.” Shinsou says. “So then what?”

“Well, I was walking home and got attacked by a villain made out of slime. He drowned me. Like a lot. I was very confused when it kept happening.”

“I can imagine.”

“Right, well, after it kept repeating so many times I figured out how to go back far enough where I could keep away from it long enough for All Might to get there,” He explained.

“As far as quirk discovery goes that’s pretty shitty.”

Izuku shrugs. “How’d you discover yours?”

Shinsou grins. “I got to eat Mcdonalds for a week. It was great.”