Chapter Text
“Toshinori, I swear on all that’s holy, if you’ve taken us to the wrong place, I will put my foot so far up your ass that you’ll be tasting my boot,” Gran growls.
The tall blond man swallows. His old teacher is and always has been prone to a lot of terrifying behaviors, but making threats of this sort is unusual for him, which of course only makes them scarier.
However, he remains sure of his earlier conclusion. “It has to be Dagobah Beach,” All Might says. “It’s the only beach that’s ever been significant enough to be ‘the beach’ to me.”
“Because you trained Midoriya here, not because of any moment you and Nana shared here,” Gran points out.
Again.
“Nana and I never came to a beach that I can recall,” All Might replies, holding back a sigh. It feels like they’ve already had this conversation a dozen times.
“So because you can’t remember if you and Nana ever did anything at a beach, you’re sticking to this crazy time travel idea of yours, and assuming your predecessor knows where you trained your successor,” Gran grumbles.
“Sir, you saw all the previous—and one future—holders of One for All assemble last night to take down All for One the same as I did. I don’t think it’s all that crazy of an idea, in light of that,” the taller man points out.
Gran opens his mouth to retort, but the words never make it out as he comes to a halt. All Might follows his gaze and immediately realizes why.
“Hey, boys!” Nana calls to them, waving. The mysterious future holder of One for All stands silently at her side, wearing the same clothes from the previous night. “What took you so long? I was starting to worry you went to the wrong place!”
All Might and Gran Torino just stand there for several seconds, frozen in shock despite knowing she is supposed to meet them there. Nana’s grin widens.
Then the two rush toward her, Gran Torino propelling himself forward with his Quirk, and practically tackle her in a hug. They would have doubtlessly knocked her to the sand if she wasn’t so sturdy.
“Master!” All Might sobs.
“Nana!”
The two men cry openly, what words they get out a mostly incomprehensible babble of apologies and questions and statements about how much they missed her all these years. All the while, the mysterious teen just watches, a watery smile on his face as he observes the reunion.
Finally, Nana gently extricates herself from the hug, her own eyes wet too. “I missed you two a ton as well,” she says. “And I’ll tell you the whole story about how last night happened and why I’m still here, but let me just lead off by promising I’m not about to die for real or anything on you. This guy here,” she hooks a thumb at the teen in the brown suit and red sneakers, “saved me just before All for One’s final attack could rip me to shreds.”
All Might and Gran share a brief look before bowing in unison to the young man. “Thank you,” the newly retired pro states, voice raspy after so much crying. “I don’t even truly know you, but you saved not only me, but the woman I came to view as a mother.”
“And my best friend,” Gran adds.
The response is not quite what either of them would’ve expected. Nana and the teen share a look of surprise and confusion, before the latter’s eyes widen in realization.
“I forgot to disable the perception filter!” he exclaims.
Before either of the two men present can question that statement, the teen reaches up and buries his fingers in his messy black hair, mussing it up further and finally moving that bang that was always covering one of his eyes.
It is like a switch is thrown. Suddenly the teen goes from being an enigma who All Might had only seen a handful of times in the past, and one who Gran had only encountered for the first time last night, into…
“Young Midoriya?!”
“Kid?!”
]“H-Hi, All Might. Gran Torino, sir,” Izuku says bashfully.
“You…what…how?!” All Might sputters.
Izuku chuckles nervously, while Nana lets out a belly laugh. “I think it’s probably the best if you heard the whole story,” she says. “And the green bean here’s the one to tell it, since he’s probably the only one who understands it!” she adds with another laugh, giving Izuku a boisterous smack on the back that probably would’ve had him eating sand, if he’d endured it prior to undergoing All Might’s American Dream training plan.
“Well, don’t keep us waiting then, brat,” Gran Torino demands.
“Time travel,” Izuku blurts out.
Despite everything, tiny pro hero is still startled by it. “You mean Toshinori was actually right?!”
“It’s not like I’m always wrong about everything,” All Might grumbles, miffed.
Izuku clears his throat, eager to move past the awkward moment. “About 400 years from now, a villain known as Quasar will be brought to justice by one of the future heirs of One for All,” he begins to properly explain. “His brother, another villain known as Backstab, will decide to alter history and prevent that from happening by killing past holders while they’re young and vulnerable, before they inherit the Quirk.”
“And you saved me from that villain multiple times when I was a child,” All Might says, shadowed eyes wide. “Who saved you? Your future successor?”
Izuku shakes his head. “No, though that would’ve been cool, having every holder save their predecessor,” he says with a smile. “I was saved by someone very special. One of the last surviving members of an ancient alien race known as the Time Lords. Calls herself the Doctor. She’d gotten wind of Backstab’s plan and was determined to stop it. And well…” he blushes. “When she saved me from him for the last time, she noticed I’d been beaten up recently, felt sorry for me, and invited me to come along with her on some adventures."
All Might winces slightly at the reminder of how miserable Izuku’s life had been prior to finishing middle school, something he’d largely failed to pick up on for much too long. “How is it I didn’t recognize you until just now?”
Young Midoriya had been present at some of the memorable moments of his youth, and yet in all the time since he’d “officially” met him, All Might had never even suspected his successor and his first hero might be the same person until now.
“Oh, just a bit of Time Lord tech called a perception filter,” Izuku explains. “It basically prevents your brain from making certain connections that would normally be obvious.”
“Never mind those parlor tricks!” Torino snaps. “You saved Nana that day?” he asks Izuku, voice softening.
The young man smiles and nods. “Yes. History says Nana Shimura died that day, but no one ever found the body,” he grins. “Time travelers love that kind of situation. It means we can save them.”
A thought suddenly strikes All Might. “Wait, Master, was All for One’s ambush just yesterday for you?”
He knows as soon as he asks the question that the answer is no. The murder of her husband at the hands of All for One’s forces had hit Nana hard, and he distinctly remembers how, in the days leading up to her own apparent death, Nana had lost a significant amount of weight, and her smile had stopped reaching her eyes.
Even in the weak light of the moon, he can see that her black hero costume is stretched taut over chiseled muscle, and he can tell her good cheer is genuine. She is more like the Nana he originally met than the one he’d believed he’d lost.
She laughs. “Nope, just as much time has passed for me as it has for you, give or take, but I suppose I can see why you might think that. The life- and youth-extension treatments available in the future are incredible!” she says before balling her hands into fists and flexing both arms, causing her solid biceps to bulge impressively. “Not bad for a woman in her eighties, huh?”
“Not fair,” Gran grumbles under his breath, getting another laugh out of Nana.
“So, you’ve been in the future this whole time?” All Might says softly, shadowed blue eyes wide.
Nana nods. “Smack dab in the middle of the heyday of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, from what the green bean tells me,” she says.
“Like I said, history states that Nana Shimura died in that battle against All for One. That meant I couldn’t bring her back to her present,” Izuku adds.
“And why didn’t you tell us she was alive, zygote?” Gran snaps, causing Izuku to recoil.
“Don’t you think I wanted to?” Izuku asks, even as he holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “Time travel can be super dangerous! I had to take a ton of precautions and do all sorts of prep for last night!”
“Don’t be rough on the sprout, old man,” Nana teases her old friend. “Like he says, the rules around time travel can be harsh. But he gave me an incredible gift, saving me from that bastard and then bringing me to a wonderful place to start again. Someday, you’ll have to meet my second husband and our children.” She adds in a quieter voice, smiling softly.
All Might and Gran both brighten momentarily at that, only to exchange a sickened look between them.
“Master, there’s something we should tell you…” All Might begins hesitantly.
“It’s okay, I already know who Shigaraki Tomura really is,” she says quietly, looking down. “And what happened to Kotaro. It still hurts, but I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Why should you have to?” Gran demands. “This zygote here has a time machine on his arm! Let’s go back and undo it!”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t,” Izuku says, downcast.
He flinches as Gran nearly kicks him, with Nana narrowly intercepting the blow. “Cool it, old man! He said can’t, not won’t!” she scolds him. “He explained it all to me a while back, and even though I’m not happy about it, I understand it.”
Izuku nods fervently. “If a time traveler crosses their own timeline—which includes acting on knowledge of things that occur in the future to change it—then it creates a paradox that can eventually destroy the whole universe!” he quickly explains. “I lost the ability to save Tenko Shimura from All for One as soon as I learned he needed saving.” He pauses. “That’s one of the worst things about time travel.” He adds, eyes glistening.
Pieces suddenly click together in All Might’s mind. “You…you already knew you were going to be my successor before you even met me, didn’t you?” he asks. “That’s why you were so surprised when I initially told you no on that rooftop.”
He still remembers how puzzling that had been to him. Young Midoriya had hid it well, but for a moment, he’d looked completely shocked at being given a no then. It hadn’t been the indignant surprise of a spoiled, entitled youth, either, but the genuine astonishment of someone who’d been thrown by something they truly hadn’t expected at all.
“Yes,” Izuku confesses. “I found out a little about my future while I was traveling with the Doctor. Not all of it, but enough.”
All Might nods before turning back to his old teacher and surrogate mother, still unable to believe she’s standing right before him, alive and well. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again, master,” he says. “I hope you’ve been enjoying your second life very much.”
“Thank you, Toshi,” Nana smiles. “It’s really amazing. The green bean found a great place for me to start again. It’s much more peaceful than my time was, but not so peaceful that there’s no need for an old pro hero like me.”
All Might frowns. “I’d ask if it’s difficult to do that without having One for All any longer, but if anything, you seemed more powerful than before you passed it to me last night.”
“Ah, well, the sprout should probably explain that one, too,” Nana grins.
Izuku merely shrugs. “There’s really not that much to tell. A few generations from now, One for All becomes so powerful that no one could actually handle the power if it was passed on again. So the then-holder, with the help of someone with a specialized Quirk, was able to break it into three separate Quirks: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Athos was the biggest piece and eventually needed to be split again, creating a fourth Quirk called d’Artagnan. But not long after it was created, d’Artagnan was lost under mysterious circumstances.” He adds with a sly smile.
“And you got it and gave it to Nana?” Gran demands, incredulous.
Izuku shrugs. “I pulled her out of her own time and told her she needed to make a life in the far future. I also delivered some pretty devastating news about her family. It seemed like the least I could do.”
All Might pulls both Izuku and Nana into a tight hug, then, his thin, gangly frame towering over both of them. “Thank you, my boy. Thank you.”
Hours pass by, with the three old friends simply standing around on the dark, quiet beach, talking and reminiscing about old times. Izuku, ever the hero nerd, is more than happy to hear these stories of All Might’s youth and the life of his predecessor.
Eventually, the sun begins to rise, the foursome shivering in the cold, early morning air.
“It’s been wonderful seeing you two again, but I should probably go,” Nana says reluctantly. “If someone spots All Might chatting with a hero known to be dead, it’ll get very messy.”
“Will we see you again?” All Might asks, and for a moment he sounds more like a little boy than an adult, retired hero.
Nana chuckles. “So long as you say on the green bean’s good side.”
Izuku clears his throat. “I usually leave the vortex manipulator disassembled, since it would be so dangerous if it got into the wrong hands, but I’d never refuse to let you visit her,” he reassures All Might and Gran.
“Thank you, zygote,” the tiny hero says softly. Then he chuckles. “Though perhaps you’re not as much of a zygote as I thought. Seems you got some experience under your belt before you ever met this lummox.” All Might scowls at this but doesn’t quite dare protest. “Maybe I’ll need to start calling you ‘fetus’ instead.”
Izuku makes a face. “Let’s…just stick with zygote.”
Nana chuckles and puts a hand on the hero student’s shoulder. “Let go, sprout.”
“Young Midoriya, do you want me to call your mother and tell her to call you out of school today?” All Might asks before Izuku can vanish. “You’ve been up all night with us, after all.”
The young man smiles. “No thanks. After I drop Shimura-san off, I’m going to go back to eight hours ago and get some sleep,” he pauses. “I think I’m probably in two or three places at once right now.” He adds, looking a little shellshocked at that before reaching for the controls on the vortex manipulator.
Nana laughs at that, the sound of it seeming to echo on the chilly beach for a moment after she and Izuku vanish.