Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warnings:
Categories:
Fandom:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of Sport of Nature - It Always Finds A Way
Collections:
What do you mean by Dad for One is not real? Just watch, Мои_любимые_работы😉, JNW1'S favourite MHA/BNHA fics, Our Hero Academia!, The best fics, Better than Canon BNHA, All kinds: BNHA's Fics version, Mine favoritter., Did canon better than canon, favs, BNHA Time Travel Fix-It Fics (Izuku-Centric)
Stats:
Published:
2022-04-30
Updated:
2024-03-02
Words:
141,524
Chapters:
14/?
Comments:
243
Kudos:
1,043
Bookmarks:
315
Hits:
29,902

Lusus Naturae

Summary:

Enter stage right: Midoriya Izuku and the tragic events that would lay close the last chapter of the War besieging his generation. Just as Deku landed the final blow on All for One—minds still melded, battling for control—their Quirks resonated, the backlash from the birth of the Quirk Singularity unfolding in a cataclysmic echo across Time and Space.

Thrown back into the past to the day of the U.A. Entrance Exam, Midoriya struggles with the knowledge and guilt of his nonexistent future as well as his self-imposed duty as a Hero. As strange, anomalous side effects begin to appear from One for All, Izuku and the motley crew of past Holders start looking for answers. Finding out Shigaraki was his older cousin was weird but ok; his, “absentee,” father in America being All for One with a severe case of amnesia was not.

Because if he was, who or what had been in Tartarus?

As they say, sometimes the little fish you ignore is the most poisonous. All for One, Garaki, HPSC, they were all pawns in someone else's game. Every coin has two sides and the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows. And so, they waited. They watched, hungry to assimilate, to devour. And the Singularity has always been the endgame.

Notes:

I.E. Izuku’s life goes from murder-theater material to a Helen-in-Troy scenario so quick he has to double-check if Blackwhip didn't accidently evolve into Whiplash. Yoichi is understandably horrified at the prospect of Vault Time 2: Electric Boogaloo for both of his nephews. To save their future, Deku is going to make them face their past—or get himself killed trying.

As stamped on the tin; though some clarification:

Future!Midoriya Izuku is 17 and a half and Future!Shigaraki Tomura is almost 22.

In the year 23XX the age of adulthood is 21 in Japan due to Quirks granting 120+ longevity to most humans. For those who don't read tags: Pre-USJ!Shigaraki is 19, a minor, Pre-Summercamp!Midoriya is 15 and a half, a minor. Age of legal consent is 16, underage tag for those in 18+ regions. If that still bothers you, turn around.

Anything less then five years in age gap within the 16-21 scale is considered a non-issue for most people in the current time period. The Time Travel makes it one for the older teen trapped in his younger body crushing hard on an older man and trying not to get him in trouble for the perceived illegality.

Shigaraki Tomura is problematic all on his own and the codependency will not be healthy from either of them. Nothing happened between them in the future however, and it will be some time before anything does. Tomura's a Villain not a monster and he has his own reservations about all of it. The alternative however, is All for One destroying Japan and the Singularity devouring Humanity sooooooo...

Why do I hurt the boys so?

(And if I haven't made it abundantly clear by now, Yes, that is the, "they are cousin's tag." It's for plot progression. And really, we have All for "Brocon" One over here locking his family in a vault. It doesn't get more deranged then that *and that's canon.* Does it matter if they never grew up together? It ain't like they are having a baby. Shigaraki at least doesn't give two shits about family *practically calling sweet Nana a hag without knowing anything about her, like bro holup* And it really only matters in the long run for him for the simple fact that makes Izuku *his* over everyone else.) Rant over but I'm totally going to make any commentary on it look silly in hindsight lol

This will at the very least be consensual, I can't promise safe or sane. After all, we have Disintegration Hands and Bone-Breaker over here trying to learn how to Tango, nothing is going to go as planned. Such is the curse of the Shigaraki family.

Chapter 1: These Lovely, Forgotten Heat-Haze Days

Chapter Text

The cold rain was suffocating, but the smoldering feeling in his chest would be the death of him, the verdant-haired teen knew without a doubt. He was going to die here. Maybe not physically. But in all the little ways living truly mattered. And he would deserve it, kneeling in the muck above the one who had forced him to this unforgivable conclusion.

Wet, white hair splattered with blood and mud lay tangled in his numb, blackened fingers. His other fist was raised high, sparks of white spiraling into the daunting sky that engulfed their entire existence in a vacuum of terrible, final silence. And the eyes between them—they were unspeakable, one like dull rust and the other crushed foliage knowing, acknowledging, understanding and forgiving. The ache tightened, ribs brittle and burning soul so close to spluttering out like a wavering candle. An equally gnarled hand rose to gently brush against a molten, blood-drenched cheek bearing a jagged scar.

“-----”

He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, so he did both as he steeled himself to rip his heart in two as surely as he was to crush the others skull into a fine mist. He didn’t want to kill them. He had never wanted to, no matter what they had done. But it was the only way to. Make. It. End. Not just for his own sake but theirs.

That damnable smile wobbly mirrored itself on cracked lips both ways. His warm tears welling up and falling down, bore the heavy weight of a world that would never be able to justify such unfairness onto the older duos resigned face as he struggled to keep his puppet master at bay for just one second more. It was the last feeling any of them perceived as the fist came crashing down and the world exploded into a kaleidoscope of light, pain nothing but a fleeting memory in the eyes of the endless, starless night.

 

~ Sayou Naraba... ~

 

A strangled gasp broke from his chest and the absence of oxygen in his deflated lungs sent the world spinning with black. Everything ached but this time it felt different, a good kind of ache that nestled around the bad, smothering it and curling snuggly to secure it from leaking out. His Quirk thrummed violently under his skin as if to shake him back into alertness, the voices of the other Holders skittering off his meta-senses but unable to fully reach him in his panic. The taste and smell of something sour, salty and acidic like lemon lingered nauseously on his tongue, the rough texture of sugar granules scrapping against the back of his throat causing the urge to throw up to rear its head.

He felt himself falling backwards wondering where the torrential rain had gone. The sudden pale-yellow light slanting like a passing lifetime of regrets brought a bittersweet melancholy to mind. And then in the brevity of reminiscence instead of the ground swallowing him, strong arms clutched him close; a warmth unmistakable of any others. He dared not hope, and quite frankly, dreaded meeting the gaze of the one person who always carried a sense of safety about his shoulders like a well-worn jacket. A wanting, hungry shame burned deep in the pit of the young teen’s stomach for simpler times, when pain was something he experienced because he wanted to, for himself, for pride, a sense of accomplishment and not for a soul shattering need to be the substitute to another's.

And then words like liquid joy bubbled up, popping boisterously as if completely oblivious to the horror of the scene before him.

"If I knew making you eat my hair would bother you that much, I would have just swigged some cola and had you drink the backwash!"

It dragged his flagging consciousness to the forefront with a thousand alarms, terror clawing its way forward from his hind-brain. The words- They made no sense. The taste of citrus bile courted his esophagus as he found himself unable to breathe.

Eyes glassy with a terrible, lethargic weight behind them, they met first the vast expanse of white sand soaked with the sea as far as the eye could envision and then the shining blue of All Might’s irises.

The vigor that was chiseled there in his face without a doubt to its authenticity began to waver before melting into genuine worry.

"Midoriya-shounen?"

And then he fainted for real, body giving out from the stress and lack of air. It was just too much. All of it. Every single thing.

~ One for All ~

The black yawned wide and fathomless and welcoming.

A ghastly smoke that ensnared the senses and entrapped the mind curled upwards on his skin, beckoning with a soft siren song that vibrated almost imperceptibly between one breath and the next. It quaked one's very bones with a covetous, chilling ache, warm to the skin.

Izuku knew this darkness intimately, for it was the inner void of the all-consuming Quirk: All for One and One for All. It mirrored its progenitor(s) well, which called into question the inner thoughts of how the brothers saw one another—and maybe himself in some capacity.

But something had changed; the dim, burned-out ruins and Vault room that had sat darkly crowded with antique thrones replacing the ephemeral plain from his earlier forays had fully crumbled and melted away. Only to be replaced by a forest of stifling shadows growing upon the broken stones the behemoths left behind. Dampened fog swirled about as if rain had just fallen on an ill-lit, wet-robed road. It was shadowed by overarching trees made of glistening, moss-black bark and ghost-like leaves rustling in a non-existent wind.

The carnivorous setting sent shivers down his spine, but it wasn’t nearly as unsettling as the past ruinous city of stark white built upon itself with others bones. In those forgotten streets, halls, and buildings, had lain memorabilia of lost lives and futures that would never be, slivers of Quirk shades taken from people that no longer breathed.

The void had changed again however and that signified that something had also altered in the way the Quirk communicated with him once more. There were many things that set this place apart from the outside world. The lack of smell had always been one of the more noticeable ones along with the way sound echoed, like a whisper behind his own ears, a soft press against his throat as if the words wished to use his own vocal cords for themselves.

Perhaps the real trepidation lay in the ever-present notion of the Quirk itself being sentient outside of the person who wielded it. A spine-chilling thought when one remembered just what kind of man All for One was and what webs his thoughts weaved. If perhaps, one gleaned in a heretical fever dream, that maybe a Quirk could make a man just the same.

Now though, something crept up in-between his lungs, like a thing with feathers, or fingers, tickling all the way to just past his nose. It nestled warm and just solid enough against his glabella to the point it brought tears to his eyes, saliva pooling in his mouth from the mind-numbing pressure. He hadn’t realized the insidious sensation right away, but the feeling hit him like a brick right in the meta-senses once the overwhelming smell registered in the back of his throat. It was thick, in a lavish kind of way, heavy enough to impose a velvety texture with the taste of its decadence so overwhelming it was the smell and vice versa.

He brought his hands up to press hard against his face, trying to protect himself against the cloying scent that seemed to want to crawl into him, slipping like a snake so intrusively around his very core that it brought him to his knees, tears dripping down his face twisted in terror. The floral note of sakura tinged with rot pinged against the searing green tea that smelled like liquor with how strong in intensity it was. The main ingredient however was an umami so powerful it felt physically there, in his teeth, on his tongue, down his throat choking him. A meaty, melty dark truffle that sloshed around, gumming up his insides.

Faltering steps echoed behind him, rebounding throughout the eternal night and right through the base of his skull forcing him to turn. His gaze met his mirror, soulful, luminescent green eyes with ghostly white pupils set into the face of the one who had propelled him on his current path when he had no other comrades to speak of. None, but dead men telling tragic tall tales of years and people who were naught but ash.

“Y-Yoichi-jii-san...”

The words wrenched themselves out of his chest, both from the sheer struggle to speak and the pain mirroring between them both. The elder’s wane and pinched face framed by straight white hair was stricken, the smoke throbbing hungrily at his hunched, trembling limbs with his eyes showcasing his fear as he bit his lip hard enough to bleed, as if he was actually alive in this sentient Limbo. Of what, Izuku didn’t get the chance to ask. Even if the answer was terrifyingly plain in the way the Quirk’s phantom hands still greedily clung to them both with glutinous affection that should have died not seconds ago.

A storm of terrible suspicion stirred deep in his gut. The similarities of the feelings evoked from the smell and those dark sanguine threads coiling from All for One’s hands seen only as he flitted on the edge of life and death were undeniable. It rang of the same scarring, horrific pleasure that he had felt once as they attempted to wrench One for All from his small body. The smell strengthened like a bludgeon, dizzying with the force it applied as if it knew what he was thinking and wanted to smother the thought ahead of his attempt to fight back. Before it could snare and snatch away his mind, something else managed the feat first.

Someone was forcing him awake.

~ … ~

A resounding slap to the face had Izuku quickly blinking back into reality with dizzying alarm at the sudden attack. Before he could discern the cause, his body was already moving out of pure instinct, hands slipping snow-angel down as he lifted his hips to juke the assailant off-balance. The rest was just a matter of core strength as he sunk into a deep hug to the chest above him before curling his left arm around the brawny one invading his personal space. His right hooked into the green fabric-covered shoulder, feeding into his twisting momentum with nothing but the others weight used to flip him.

The sudden forward, forced face-plant and then barrel-roll performed by the tiny teenager struck All Might speechless as his back collided with substantial force against the sand, knocking a small grunt—and a not so little bit of blood—from his lungs as he deflated from his muscle form. The panic-riddled and tear-stained face of his fifteen-year-old protégé through the smoke made the older man pause at the strange mood transition with a dumb look on his own features. “W-Well, I can say truthfully I’ve never been Big Brother-ed before! Haha, good show, my boy!”

The stumbled over words were filled with enthusiastic praise, but the concerned side note soured it. “B-But maybe you should take a deep breath right now. There, there. Sorry about the rude wake up!” Massive, if now slightly skeletal hands came to rest on the heaving shoulders of the younger male as his entire body quivered above him, the giant teeth-filled smile quirking to the side in question as he heaved himself to sit upwards. “Is everything alright Midoriya-shounen? You look like you are in shock! Maybe it was too soon to give you the hair...”

The words slurred in Izuku’s ears as his heart raced with adrenaline crashing throughout his body that felt too tight and too small to contain all the emotions he was experiencing at the moment. His lungs burned as he panted, greedily sucking up air that wasn’t tinged with that insane substance slithering into- Inside- Down to his- The dark-haired child shutdown those thoughts hastily, lest the cloying, creeping, phantom tendrils he could still feel wriggling in the back of his mind further gain a foothold.

His tongue may have felt like lead but somehow, he stuttered out numbly, “Y-You’re he-here?” Jittery eyes wandering left and right with a stone-cold vigilance, his mind couldn’t comprehend the duality of the environment he had switched in-between, the cold of the beach wind chilling him to the bone through his thin t-shirt—where did his Hero costume go?—as the barely risen sun’s glow struck deep, warming him to his core. The heated man’s body lying under his raged like a furnace, seeping in between all too worn muscle and tendons, signaling to his fried synapses that everything was fine now.

But it couldn’t be. This wasn’t real. He had just killed a man. Two men. H-Hadn’t he? He didn’t deserve that bright smile, didn’t want to see how much it reminded him of that white-haired fiend that inexplicably tore his heart in two with that vile deed. The decadent taste tried to flood his mouth again as if sensing weakness but Izuku bit down hard on his tongue out of sheer self-preservation, so that the pain would sharpen his muddled thoughts—the taste of blood only slightly more bearable then that other nauseating one.

The older man had other ideas, however, and spoke over the teen’s panic. “Here? Of course, I’m here! And if you don’t snap out of it, you’ll be late to the Entrance Exam!” Without further ado he jumped up, hands easily lifting the teenager off him as he set the shorter boys’ feet on the ground. He thoughtfully made sure he didn’t let go just in case the kids' knees failed him; he must have been exhausted to be so out of it! But- “Now that you have my Quirk it's time to show U.A. just how hard you’ve trained to become a Hero!”

The entire time the taller male was shaking him like a tree, Izuku’s mind was silently hurtling a thousand times faster than the outside world, thoughts outpacing his ability to articulate the tangled mess his current mental state of catatonia left him in. The foreboding that was once a whisper began to wail loudly as the facts presented themselves shamelessly. There was no energy to muster his stereotypical muttering fest as his facilities engaged fully in the whirlwind of analytics painting his internal dialog.

All Might – Muscle form? – Looks happy - Beach – Clean Beach – Dagobah? - Sun – Cold – No Sun, not there - Spring? - Feel weird, lighter? - Quirk strange – Humming - Hair? - Eat – That taste? - Quirk – DNA – But that’s - Seasons wrong – Not raining – No blood – First is – All for One is - Entrance Exam – U? – A? - Entrance Exam?!

The blank look on his face as he choked out, “Entrance...Exam?” Was not currently inspiring a brimming confidence in All Might, he could distantly tell.

“Yes, Midoriya-shounen! You know my Alma Mater? The one you begged me to train you for?” The smile on his face had completely flagged at this point as a bad feeling began to well up in what was left of his stomach, the grip on the other's shoulders softening. “Are you unwell? I knew you were pushing yourself too hard, ten months wasn’t nearly enough time!” His lament to the open air didn’t go unanswered. The sudden smack and smushing of the teen’s feverish cheeks was more so for Yagi’s reassurance but also served to spur the younger into action as his brain rattled into a somewhat sturdier formation.

Wide, dull jade prickling with the start of tears stared up at him in a detached manner between the two wide hands, showing only an inch of the turmoil melting his brain with high-speed neurons firing off into several different possibilities. All of which led to a simple, horrifying conclusion. “All Might... Is All for One dead?” It was said in a small voice, as if by uttering the name the presence would appear like a devil.

“W-what?!” A stream of blood spluttered out at the sudden scare of hearing that name cross his protégé's lips. The last traces of gusto sloughed from All Might’s frame as his face became as sharp as a pane of glass and just as eerie in its intensity; his darkened eyes burning a phosphorus blue. His fingers dug just a shade painfully into Izuku’s face, his slouched posture all but snapping to attention in shock at the boys’ words. And the air froze, a weight descending upon the empty surroundings like a storm cloud coalescing.

A single Yes or No would suffice, the elders’ reaction would speak for the rest Deku’s still semi-scrambled grey matter listlessly fed his senses. Yoichi-jii-san's nervous energy was also seeping in, hope and despair like fractals bouncing off his consciousness. Danger Sense was going haywire in the back of his head as the other Vestiges clustered close to the surface in agitation at the sudden turn of events, One for All coming distressingly close to buzzing out of his skin to combat the unseen threat. Would have been nice for it to have appeared earlier… Izuku thought with a surge of bitter annoyance. At who, he didn’t know. Probably himself.

Reiteration drove the nail home, this time with a doll-like questioning tilt thrown in. “All for One.... He’s dead... Right?” Waiting for the other shoe to drop, the breeze brushing sand along the now pristine beach was the only movement for a few strained seconds as All Might gawped down at him, electricity rising the hairs at the back of their napes in warning. The answer would change everything.

“How...do you know that name?” It hurt to hear the suspicion lacing his usually—used to be—affectionate voice, but Izuku was literally one step away from falling off the preverbal brink and coming apart like so much watered-down sand. He would never be able to salvage the pieces, not alone.

I need to know. We need to know.” If there was now a fevered, hard edge to his insistence and his gaze, then so be it. Sour bile rose with his nerves. White noise filling his ears as he felt the beginning of another panic attack roll over him.

Eyes furrowed in confusion. His voice rang stilted but lighter as if the taller man suddenly reminded himself that he was talking to a kid and needed to be gentle—if not outright fretful at the uncharacteristic behavior of his charge—and Yagi confessed, “Midoriya-shounen, what do you mean we? Who told you about him?” The urgency stole into his breath with a sudden overwhelming concern.

The curly, green-haired boy grasped onto this admittance like a fish to a particularly curious looking hook. Mirroring the confusion of the other while crushing the unholy, and absolutely out-of-line hopeful dread creeping up with steel fortitude, he earnestly fired back, eyes gaining a bit of their previous fire, voice raising in trepidation, “Yoichi-jii-san, you know, the First?!” The teenager was tempted to start tugging at his hair in exasperation, not completely out of a forced manner of acting—even if it was for his own sanity and potentially quantum correlation stability. He had forgotten how obtuse the other could be at times. His skin skittered with a frustrating itch in his distress, limbs feeling like wood and the urge to crawl out of his own foreign-feeling body was nearly unbearable. “He said- He said his brother’s still alive!”

And the First, broken from his earlier shock was indeed slowly beginning to freak out under Midoriya’s mental barrier at the sudden, all too recognizable reappearance of the yawning existence of that man’s bloody, black spark flaring brightly in the distance once more. It’s siren song wheedled in sinister harmony as it always had in their smoke-filled Limbo. Izuku didn’t have time to speak with him at that moment but the implication he skimmed from those few seconds of eye-contact in the void certainly was frightening.

All for One's picture probably permanently hung under the dictionary’s definitions of both awe and horror in the vast library of their memories.

That god awful stench that had appeared was also disconcerting with its newness and Izuku hoped the First wasn’t as affected as he had been. A disgusted, muffled whine of, “Wishful thinking,” had the youth frowning with worry. Nothing good would come of it, Danger Sense warned, the ache of its sting fading to a lingering throb that pulsed with his heart.

On the beach, the words the child had yelled as they echoed out along the stretch of empty sand and sea seemed to finally puncture the uncanny bubble they both found themselves wading in, diffusing the charged atmosphere between them despite them now both panicking.

The despair etching itself on All Might’s’ face and the far away stare there was a tale as old as time. His visage was terrifying to behold, eyes murderous in a way the general public would have been scared to witness on their so-called golden Hero. The next words whispered out between clenched teeth all but cemented Midoriya back into a far more stable, if lamentable orbit. “The First?! No- Wait, that’s not possible! I am sure of it, that day I ended him!”

He had ended him. Not Izuku. Never Izuku. Not yet. His tongue felt glued to the back of his throat as his mouth went dry.

The jury was out, and the evidence was damning.

They were on a beach early in the morning of a spring day, not in the carved-out ruins of a city that no longer had a name. The sand was wet with brine and heated by the sun, not by tempestuous rain, gurgling mud, spilt blood and long cold limbs, overshadowed by the darkest night of his life.

It was the day of the Entrance Exam that would make him a U.A. student, not the last night of a war that had stolen so many bright futures and slaughtered so many of both Heroes and Villains alike.

He was formally Quirkless Midoriya Izuku—U.A. student hopeful, not rogue Vigilante Deku—Killer of the Symbol of Evil and Fear.

The tears seethed up without warning from the vast well of his unending kindness, long since thought extinguished by war and loss, now rekindled by the sudden reappearance of the craving abyss sunk deep into the shape of his blood. Fearful joy and terrified amazement clashed. For who would praise him or his horrendous relief at the thought that the men who had almost single-handedly eradicated an entire society, nation from the face of the Earth—maybe, even eventually the entirety of Humanity—were still alive?

No one.

And it was this enduring cruelness foisted upon his shoulders that would follow Izuku to the grave. He simply loved too much, to rejoice over someone's death. Pain was a scarring but passing fancy, all too happy to fizz up to remind you of the past but malice writhed deep and settled in the marrow of your bones, tainting every waking breath.

In this, Deku was not one to shy away from violence, from rage, even embraced the exhilaration that sprouted from meeting an equal hand to hand but he always drew the line at intentional, sneering brutality at malice for malice’s sake. No matter the foe. Death would never know his favor or hold his faith all the same even after what he had done. He refused to go down that path. He’d rather die, then succumb to such insanity. As long as he had his humanity…he could still save others that needed saving.

“Midoriya-shounen…how can you possibly know this? I never said anything about the First...” The dread was palpable in the elder’s voice. As was the disbelief, but who could blame him? It was an all too normal reaction—unlike Izuku’s—to hearing a madman he thought he put in the ground was still up and running around.

Eyes leaking more stress-induced tears, the teen sniffed, nose beginning to swell from the irritation as he swiped at his face, head heavy with emotional exhaustion, “You didn’t have to, he told me himself,” It was quiet, like a whisper. The boy was so strung out and dazed by the apparent rending of the space-time continuum there was a chance he was two seconds from laughing manically or curling into a seaweed ball and drifting out to sea for some damn peace and quiet.

What even was his life now that he was apparently a time-traveler? Aizawa-sensei’s going to ground me until I’m thirty! No matter what, the cat-lover could not find out about this. His freedom depended on it!

The now fully-awake, if also shell-shocked Vestiges were practically holding a war council on a stone-chiseled half-moon shaped, park bench they had stumbled across. A group hug was practically forced around a hyperventilating First, who was curled up in the middle of the pile. Izuku wish he could join them and just pass out from the shock, but he soldiered through.

Stunned silence met the smaller male's proclamation. “H-He told you? But that’s-” The sentence petered out as the implications dawned on All Might. To be fair, Midoriya knew he sounded crazy, he just didn’t care.

Seeming to understand but in reality, already having been through this sort of discussion once before, the younger man volunteered, grateful to shoehorn his boiling brain cells into an easy line of focus as his voice steadied, “Y-Yeah, Yoichi-j-jii-san can hear everything we are saying. He’s been watching over all the previous Holders too. Um, he says... It’s really- Really nice. To see you're ok.” His blinding smile was sad even as he hesitantly gazed warmly at his mentor, words ringing with a double meaning and tears still sliding down his face, “Even if you never told him goodbye.”

All Might blinked dumbfounded. Before the crow lines around his eyes crinkled, switching over from his earlier intensity to mirror the warmth conveyed to him. “I see… You certainly are full of surprises dear boy! There’s no need to cry, I’m not angry, just shocked that you knew that name is all!” He laughed, even if it sounded a bit forced and ruffled the sea of verdant curls on his student's sweaty head—who leaned guiltily into the touch, heart clenching with joy.

From his stent as a, “Vigilante,” on the streets to hiding in the U.A. dorms from the public, any crumb of affection elicited the same feeling. Especially when his class did nothing but smother him for weeks after to assure him, he was wanted. That they needed him. He could have done without the skin-ship episode part of that ordeal however.

“Liar,” the Vestiges snickered, not above teasing their Ninth even during serious conversations.

“But the First told you? How is that even possible...?”

The curious cant to his shoulders prompted Midoriya to tack on while gazing up at his beloved mentor and ignoring the childish idiots in his head, “The First- Yoichi-jii-san says t-this Quirk is more than meets the eye.” Gaining his usual steam and confidence—as well as innocence when talking about Quirks with earnest—he began, expertly blocking the ghostly heckling from bothering him, “When it transfers from one person to the next, growing stronger, it does so by consuming the energy cultivated from the previous Holder’s life. Their Quirk fusing with the next to inherit it in an interconnected network as you know, is just one part of the Stockpile aspect. But in order to do both of those things it also has to absorb a part of your consciousness too.”

And by merit of his analyst-mad tendencies, the teenager launched into a full-blown lecture, intent on pounding the reality of One for All into his teacher's thick skull. “After all, what is a person but a mesh of synapses firing, trailing and etching itself into an organic tubule? For some reason, Yoichi-jii-san could never reach out, nor could any of the previous Holders manifest their Quirks through you. They do remember trying via dreams, but you never reacted to the Vestiges afterwards. Though Nana-baa-san says it's probably because you’re a meat head who thinks only of tackling issues head on with your fists and Daigorou-ossan agrees even if you had believed them, the rest of their Quirks would have been wasted on someone so ham-fisted-”

Midoriya proceeded to lambast his teacher, unaware of the arrows landing with piercing Super Effective Emotional Damage at each insinuation of his brawn before brains lifestyle.

“N-Now hold on a minute!”

Izuku rolled right over him, barreling on with chin in hand as his eyes glazed over, “And I would have to agree- The technical know-hows and intricacies behind using Blackwhip and Fa Jin don’t mesh well with your skill set, Smokescreen only popped up when you were transforming and the closest you came to actually using any of the Stockpiled Quirks consciously was Danger Sense—if you mind the pun—makes sense giving that it's probably the easiest of all of them to use, even subconsciously. Barring that, the Second pretty much gave up hope on his Quirk ever seeing the light of day, not that I blame him- It's a dead giveaway for All for One to find, so it never saw much use even with the other Users and Third was also adamant on limiting their Quirks usage due to the time period’s lingering reticence on those born with Quirk factors lending theirs a distinct impression, however brief, on the few still surviving history books not yet censored by the government-”

“-doriya-shounen!”

Yagi’s shout pumped the breaks on the centrifugal force that was Izuku’s bright mind at work. “That pretty much all went over my head, and it's great that you seem to have taken to the Quirk like a fish in the water but please breathe for a second!” The long, exasperated expression on the elder's face caused Deku’s cheeks to pinken with embarrassment as he ducked and rubbed the back of his head in contrition, a small smile creaking into being without his permission.

“O-Oh! S-Sorry Yagi-san! I guess I got carried away again... Hehehe!” The sudden laughter caught him off-guard. It had been months since he last heard the sound come from his own throat after he lost contact with his allies. After they went dark.

Shaking his head with a fond, “You Blind Fan-boy!” All Might turned serious. “I’m sure you have lots to tell me, and I want to hear it all-” Eyes narrowed thoughtfully, he emphasized sternly, “Especially the information about All for One a-and Shimura Nana BUT-” And then he buffed up, into Muscle Form with a small smoke cloud forming. “You have an Exam to get to! There are only 2 and half hours left and the transit via train from your house is at least 40 minutes by itself, so snap too young man!”

Feeling himself slip sideways suddenly as the impact of those words fully registered like a brick to the head, he popped up out of the sand with a squeak. “Ohmygod, you’re right! I have to- I have to go!”

The other Holders clamored in agreeance, intent on seeing out this new development and trying to distract the First from his spiraling doom party. Seriously, the way he was creepily muttering, “Nii-san,” under his breathe made them inch away as they side-eyed the manic. Never let it be said—or underestimated—Yoichi didn’t have brocon tendencies just as bad as the other half of their evil twin of a Quirk User; he was just more subtle about it.

Hands tugging his hair every which way, the teen nervously racked his brain to remember how the day had gone last time while teetering back and forth, trying to ignore the gloom blooming from Yoichi-jii-san across his mental awareness.

Considering a hundred and fifty plus years later they both were still fighting like a pair of back-alley cats, the whole thing was getting a little ridiculous—privately, on really hard days when the lack of sleep shaved his patience razor-thin, Midoriya was maybe a tiny bit fed up with adults deciding they knew best, Hero or Villain.

Now, however, the thought of accidentally missing the Entrance Exam after everything he had been put through and especially now that he had indeed discovered he was in the past sent an ice-cold sickness rocking through his stomach.

There was no time to hesitate though and tripping through the sand, flailing like a new-born deer, he made sure to wave back at his newfound—once lost—mentor. Izuku exclaimed happily as he finally found and picked up his yellow school bag in a dead sprint on shaking legs—both old and new—as he raced towards a brand-new future. “T-Thank you All Might! I-” Tears built back up, dripping down his old and all too squishy with-baby-fat-rounded face. “I won’t let you down!” Not when he had a chance to make it right, do it better! And save everyone!

“HAHAHA, I know you won’t! Break a leg kid!”

~ Back on the beach… ~

Watching the teenager flail about like a limp noodle, All Might sweat dropped wondering if this was really OK. He really had been hasty, hadn’t he? Shaking his head and trying to piece together what had just happened, he paled suddenly.

“I- Never told him how to activate it!”

But the teen was long gone, a dust trail lingering in the distance.

Sweating buckets Yagi cough up some blood as he deflated, head conking to the side as he groaned. Izuku was a smart cookie though, so it should end up fine. Yeah…

Right?

But maybe I should meet him at the gates just in case…

Spoiler: It wasn’t, for all the wrong reasons. And Yagi ended up getting dragged away by Hound Dog for creeping on the Examinees, crying and wringing a handkerchief the entire time until Nedzu vouched for him.

Who wanted to know why he hadn’t just used his cellphone to leave a message for his Successor.


Chibi Corner: Meet the One for All Users! Part 1!

Izuku: Nice to meet you! Today, I am introducing… *checks cue cards* The Seventh and Sixth!

Nana: It’s my pleasure!

En: I don’t have anything better to do.

Izuku: Ok! Nana-baa-chan you’re up! ~

Nana: *smiles radiantly* Hello~ My name is Shimura Nana and I’m the Seventh Holder, I passed it to Toshi, the Eighth! I can be a bit stern, but I love my family more than anything! My favorite food is Parfaits!

En: *deadpans* That’s a dessert.

Izuku: *Excited* Viewers want to know: What is your Quirk?

En: *deadpans* By Viewers, you mean yourself.

Nana: *Laughs boisterously* My Quirk is Float! It allows me to levitate myself by changing my inertia! When it passed to Izuku and was strengthened by One for All, it can now can suspend objects after he touches them!

En and Izuku: *slow claps*

Izuku: Next, En-san!

En: *bows politely* A pleasure, I’m sure. Just call me En.

Izuku: En-san?

Izuku: T-The rest?

En: OpSec, young Padawan.

Nana: *engages headlock* This is Sixth, who passed One for All to me since I found him in the rubble of a disaster zone, sans an arm!

En: *shudders* Don’t remind me…

Nana: His Quirk is Smokescreen and the phosphorous compound in his pores emits a white smoke! Passed on, it now reacts semi-sentiently to Izuku’s will. He acts aloof but is really a big goof-ball! *whispers* Hikage and Daigorou’s nickname for him is Kame-chan~

Izuku: And his favorite food?

En: *struggles* Don’t-!

Nana: *covers his mouth* Omurice with a ketchup heart! ~

En: *wilts with a blush* Traitor…

Izuku: *sweating* Ah, and that’s all we have for today!