Chapter 21: The truth about Wadokei Aojikan(part2)

Wadokei Aojikan woke up in what should have been a familiar hospital room. But it wasn't for him. The beach incident had taught Izuku and Ochaco that there were two people in this single body. And that for the longest time, the friend who they had known was not actually the original possessor of this body. To say they were surprised would be an understatement. It almost felt like their world was falling apart before their very eyes.

But let's switch perspective here. Aojikan was still not recovering from his sudden regain of control over his body. When he 'woke up', the first thing he had seen was a message on the phone that said that Paul was sorry for what he had done, and that he wanted to start their relationship again on better terms.

Now, before anything may be added on the subject, I believe that it's necessary to reveal who I am. The narrator to this story is in fact the very same Wadokei Aojikan who I have talked about a few lines earlier. Since it is not absolutely necessary for your understanding of the story, I will not explain why I am writing it, as it should become obvious when we get to the end.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was still in shock from my 'reawakening'. It had already been a few hours, but it was still as weird as it had been on the beach. For the moment, I decided to completely ignore Paul's message. I had felt betrayed by Paul when he had called upon his future self. So I was not about to engage the conversation again after finally being back in control of my body.

Of course, this fear might have been a bit irrational, but I thought that if I gave him some leeway, he would take back the control. In hindsight, I've realised that was stupid. The only thing that Paul wanted was to get back to his timeline, and as such he knew that he would have needed to give up control over my body eventually.

However, I didn't realise this. As such, I made absolutely sure that the rift between the two of us was absolute. I wanted him to feel the complete isolation that I had felt, not realising that this was the worst way to improve our relationship.

When I came back to school, Ibara – or Kate as Paul would call her – took me apart from the rest of the crowd.

"Hey, Aojikan." She greeted, smiling.

"Hello, Ibara." I said, pretty coldly. I really didn't want to talk to her, because I knew that Paul loved her. And since I was opposed to him, I just wanted to be absolutely indifferent to all of his friends.

"That's kind of cold, coming from you." She said, not looking as surprised as her sentence would have suggested. "I wasn't expecting it. Paul was… let's say, vague about what he was about to do with the time stone. So, you must imagine my surprise when Deku and Ochaco sent me a string of incoherent messages, talking about Aojikan being two persons in one. I just want you to answer one question: Are you the real Wadokei Aojikan?"

"Why would you even ask, when it seems like you already know?" I asked, kind of annoyed that she would still ask.

"Well, the last days were a bit difficult to bear through." As she said this, I could see that she was trying to hold back tears. "I'm sure Paul didn't want to, but it was painful to me that he didn't even warn me about what he was doing." She started laughing a bit. "I guess I'm still in denial, right? And I don't even have anyone else to explain this to than the people who are the most confused about it. This is horrible…"

She fell onto her knees as she said that, and I couldn't keep up the cold personality any longer. I went on my knees as well, and asked her if she was alright. When she started crying instead of answering me, I didn't know what to do anymore. I stared around, and tried to think of what I could say, but all of the things that I thought of would only make the situation worse.

So, I did the only thing that I knew would calm her down for sure: I hugged her. I don't know what part of my brain thought that was a good idea. In fact, I spent the next few minutes thinking about how stupid this was, and how wet my t-shirt was becoming because of it. Why didn't I just call an adult?

"Thank you, Aojikan." She said when she finally stopped crying. "This must absolutely stupid to you, and I'm sure that he must have done something about it, but it makes me feel better nonetheless."

"You're welcome, I guess." I said, scratching my head in embarrassment. I was starting to get conscious of the stares of the people around us, and I didn't really like it.

"Let's get to class before Aizawa kills us, OK?" She said as she stood up. She sent death glares to everyone around, to signify that this was private business and that they should stay out of it.

We quickly started going to the classroom. I took the lead as I was the class representative, so I needed to check that everyone was here. The first half of the day was particularly uninteresting, as it was mostly "normal" courses. I did have some difficulties in mathematics after not having thought for myself in so long, but apart from that everything was easy.

Lunch was still as good as I remembered it being, and afterwards came the afternoon with its practical lessons. This was the most exciting part of the day for me, as I wanted to test my abilities without Paul. The exercise was pretty simple: 2 teams of five people would compete against each other, heroes and villains. The villains were trying to do a surprise attack against the heroes, to steal an incredible weapon of some kind.

I was put in the hero team, with Ibara, Iida, Ochaco and Bakugou, of all people. The latter, obviously said he was going to do whatever he wanted, which left the rest of us to decide on a plan. Everyone was depending on me, so I devised a simple plan where Ibara would stay on the edges of the building, trying to detect the villains with her vines. Iida would transmit information if the villains were to come, and Ochaco and I were to stay close to the treasure, to protect it.

The exercise was on a limited time, so the idea was that if the villains could get through Ibara's vines and Iida, we would stall for time by moving the weapon around. After Iida ran around to see what shortcuts we could do during the plan, the exercise started and everyone went to their positions.

How long has it been? ...6. 7. 8. 9. It must be 129,600 seconds since I have been stuck here, I thought, stuck in the void.

I knew what was going to happen when I decided to use the time stone. In fact, the idea had been wandering in my head ever since I had seen it after Executive Smith had disappeared. But it turns out that I really wasn't ready for what I had done.

6. 7. 8. 9…

When I saw the void, I knew that there would be nothing else to do, but wait for Aojikan to answer to my message. So I decided to count. Count every second to know how long had passed in the outside world. Gaster had done a marvellous job at explaining that somehow, the way time flowed in the void would be the same way that time flowed the last time I was "in the world". Now, of course, that didn't mean that I could interact with the outside world. Instead, in a way, it meant that I was completely stuck, as if time had frozen, but it just kept going at the same rhythm.

6. 7. 8. 9. Almost a day and a half, huh? I wasn't expecting an answer from him any time soon, but I must admit that I had not mentally prepared myself for this place.

But, however excruciating this process of counting seconds might have been, I knew that I had to do it. I couldn't just abandon my hold on the outside world like that. It would be too hard. So I had to keep counting. Just to know how much time had gone by, without any possibility of action. How much time had gone by, without me being to change anything. How much time had gone by, without me being able to see Kate.

6. 7. 8. 9. Kate… if you knew what I was doing, I'm sure you would go mad, imagining how mad I'm becoming.

Even when everything was pitch black around me, my thoughts somehow came back to my girlfriend. But I quickly shook my head, and pondered about my situation. I had already made many calls to him, inside of this void, I had tried to reach his mind. But again and again, I was met with the same answer: No. I tried to pierce through Aojikan's mental barrier in any way, but nothing worked. He must have thought so much about his revenge on me, that it only took a miserable amount of focus to divert my demands.

6. 7. 8…

"Hey!" I heard, slowly realising who it was.

"Have my endless pleas finally gone through your barrier?" I said, unconvinced by what I was saying, but a part of me still held hope.

"No, I wouldn't say it like that." Bitterness fuelled his words, and I could feel he was not happy to talk to me. "I need your… intelligence to help me."

"If you are desperate enough to call upon me, than the situation must be really dire..." I said, trying to think about what could have happened: Order of Villains attacking, Legrand personally sending one of his men to kill Aojikan. But it turned out it wasn't as serious as I had thought.

"Um, not really… In fact, I guess you could say it's a bit disproportionate to call you out of your prison." I tried to ignore the word, but it really hurt me. "Whatever, not like you're going to complain. I'm in the middle of a practical exercise and the situation is a little bad for the hero side that I am on."

"Let me guess: this was a team exercise but you got Bakugou as one of your members?" I asked, knowing that this was the only way he would lose. Aojikan was by no means idiot, if a bit less 'smart' than me. However, while defeating a single individual was easy, winning a team exercise when one of the members of your team doesn't want to know about teamwork is quite difficult.

"Correct." He said, a bit surprised I guessed the problem. "We must protect an object that the villains shouldn't get their hands on. We thought that Bakugou would make them lose a pretty good amount of time, but we were wrong. Ibara, who we assigned to the exterior protection of the building, has been taken down by the villain team, though I'm suspecting that's all because of Todoroki."

"Todoroki is on the villain team, huh?" I thought aloud, realising how bad the situation was. "Well, that means you only have 3 teammates left, right?"

"Yes, we were planning to stall for time by moving the object around thanks to Iida's speed and Ochaco's quirk." He explained. "But with so much time left, I don't think that's a viable strategy anymore. Have you got any ideas of what we could do?"

"Ochaco should protect the object, like in the original plan." I said, after having thought for a while. "Iida and you should go meet the villain team head-on, and take advantage of your speed to rapidly take Iida out. I'll let you devise the rest of the plan on the go."

"That's reckless! We should be defending, not attacking!" He yelled at me.

"You did say there were too many villains to stall for time, right?" I asked, trying to convince him. "And Todoroki is too much of a problem to be ignored. So, in this context, 'offence is the best defence'."

"Fine, I'll go along with your plan." He said, annoyed.

"Just, one favour. Can you at least let me see for a bit?" I asked, desperate to watch something else than the everlasting darkness of the void. "I really want to see how the battle plays out."

"That's the last request coming from you that I'm accepting for a while. Be thankful or something." He said, turning away towards the place from which he had came from.

I blinked, and instantly, as before, I was able to see what was happening around me. As he started moving towards Iida, and explaining the plan, I was ecstatic to be able to see again, and especially as my plan was going to be executed before my eyes.

The plan was in motion. While Iida and Ochaco were a bit sceptic at first, they recognized that with Todoroki on the team, we weren't going to stall for long. Ibara hadn't been able to stop him.

Iida and I started heading towards the entrance to the building, all the while being careful not to take paths where there were windows. Apart from Todoroki, the villain team possessed two main threats: Kirishima and Sato. These two were famous for being the strongest physically, and they would be a severe threat.

I knew that our old plan might have been discovered, as Jiro was part of her team. Her quirk, Earphone Jack, allowed her to listen to what happened inside of a building by "plugging" herself in the wall of said building. This made it obvious to me that they had known about Ibara's strategic placement, and decided to take her down.

I had somehow forgotten the fifth member of the team. In hindsight, that was a very bad time to be forgetting things, but you shall see how that actually happened.

As we ran around and I sporadically used my quirk to accelerate us, I hoped that Paul's plan would work. Even if we took down Todoroki, could Kirishima and Sato be defeated? As I pondered the answer to this question, we suddenly got near the entrance, and Iida made a sign that meant: "Use your quirk now!"

I didn't need to be told twice. I activated my quirk, and decided to keep it up for as long as I could, despite the throbbing headache I would inevitably get. As we burst out of the entrance at record-breaking speed, the villains seemed to walk and talk in slow-motion.

Iida dashed straight into Todoroki, gave him a kick in the gut, and I barely had enough time to punch him in the face. I had to stop my quirk quickly afterwards, as it was getting hard to think properly. I dismounted Iida, and Kirishima and Sato faced us, blocking the entrance to the building. This was my first hint that something was off. After all, there was really no reason to block the entrance, if they wanted to get in.

However, I had no time to think about such things as Kirishima hardened his skin and Sato ate his daily dose of sugar to become Muscle man! I used my quirk to quickly get around them and take out Jiro. 2 down, two remaining, and a fifth member still missing.

'Did Kate actually manage to take the fifth member out? How come I don't remember who it is? And why is this fist coming so close to my face-'

I watched in horror as Aojikan lost consciousness after being punched in the face. Gaster had told me before that if there was one weakness to over-thinkers, it's that they could lose their spatial awareness from time to time. Unable to let him fall to the ground and actually hurt himself, I decided to take control over the body once more. I somehow managed to do this mere instants before the body hit the floor, and miraculously dodged a kick from Kirishima.

Now that I was in control, I understood that Sato had punched… Aojikan? Or should I say me? Or even us? Anyway, our face was not deformed nearly enough to be a punch from Kirishima.

And that made me realise that these two could cooperate together very well. I stopped time once more as Kirishima and Sato tried unleashing a combined attack on me. I moved towards Iida, shook him somewhat, and that brought him back to consciousness. I mounted on him, and told him it was time for a cavalry attack.

As time resumed, Kirishima and Sato got really confused when they saw that they were punching the air rather than me. Seeing the opportunity to attack them, I stopped time again, and told Iida to charge into Sato to separate him from his rocky partner. I briefly lost consciousness due to the headache I had from using my quirk twice in quick succession, but I was able to wake up when I heard Iida screaming "Recipro Burst!"

He gave a mighty kick to Sato's head, and I gave a mighty punch to Sato's gut.

'Three down, one standing, and still no sign of the fifth.' I thought. 'Wait a minute, no sign? That must mean…!'

"Iida, Ochaco, Tooru's the fifth member of their team! She's already entered the building!" I yelled as loudly as I could, hoping Ochaco would hear me.

"Darn it, you found us out, Aojikan." Kirishima said, still hardened.

"Even then, you still haven't won." Todoroki added, surprising everyone. He was still in the fight. "Thanks for waking me up, Aojikan. Though, next time, if you can, I would suggest that you use a quieter method."

"Ah shoot, here we go again." I parodied, though nobody got me as per usual. "Iida, now!" I carefully whispered as we made a U-turn and went straight in the building.

"I won't let you!" Todoroki said, trying to block our path with his ice. However, the combined speed from Iida and my quirk was enough to break through easily, and we started climbing the building once more.

Todoroki said some other things, and even fired flames to chase us, but we were going to quick to be reached. The flames quickly stopped coming, as Todoroki must have had realised that it might injure Tooru or even us indirectly. Now that we were inside the building and had more odds of being heard, I reiterated my warning to Ochaco about the invisible spy.

We took all the shortcuts that we could, and somehow, we just barely made in time to help Uravity in the struggle against Tooru. Thankfully, the object – that turned out to be a simple screwdriver – was in the air, making it hard for Tooru to catch it. Even then, fighting an invisible opponent is no easy task, and Ochaco was struggling quite a bit.

I slowed down time, dismounted Iida, and searched everywhere I could to find Tooru. I searched near the object, and bingo, she was there. I had forgotten that she was also nude to use her quirk, so I must admit that when I touched her breasts, I was incredibly flustered and deactivated my quirk.

"Ah! Pervert!" Tooru screamed piercingly as she felt my inappropriate touch.

Quickly remembering the situation, I took out a rope that we had to capture the villains, and was somehow able to restrict Tooru before she started moving.

"Ah, that is so embarrassing… Please forgive me, Tooru!" I asked, bowing my head.

"It's fine… Why is that the way I must get everyone's attention…" She lamented, as though she had forgotten the severity of what had just happened.

"Well, anyway, we need to go and deal with Todo-" As I started saying this, a loud ring informed us of the end of the exercise. Somehow the hero team had won, by sheer luck.

"We did it!" Ochaco said, breaking the confusion.

"We actually did it! Whoo boy that was stressful." I said as I started to laugh relieved from the pressure.

"It is significantly unexpected that we won." Iida conceded, breathing a sigh of relief. "However, can we keep the rejoicings for later? We need to go see how Ibara is doing, and we should probably let Tooru free."

"Yeah, I would appreciate if you did that for me." The girl in question said, and I knew that she was pouting.

However, I wasn't able to enjoy the victory for too long as Aojikan, who had regained consciousness, forcefully kicked me out of the 'control centre'.

"I've started to consider that you might not be as bad as I've thought, and you have shown yourself to be useful." He said. "I guess I'll allow you to watch from now on. Don't think I'm forgiving or anything, I've just realised I might have been a bit cruel."

I was happy to learn this, and didn't add anything to what he was saying. As everyone went back towards the main building, I wondered if I was going to obtain Aojikan's forgiveness in the near future. It looked like it was going to be a hard way, but I knew that I would be able to do it. If he was already giving some concessions, that was a good sign.

After the other groups finished, Aizawa told the class where they needed to improve, and where they were improving at a good rate. He praised our group for our counter-intuitive plan, and said that this was the type of boldness that the teachers were expecting.

He finally remembered everyone that they would be moving into dorms next week, because of the media's uproar about the students' security at UA. This would certainly prove to be interesting, and would probably bring our relationships even closer than they were. And perhaps, perhaps even Aojikan would be willing to forgive me with this change.

A.N.: Hey there guys! I'm really sorry for not having uploaded for such a long while. I've had a lot of work recently, and not a lot of time to write this. I also sort of lost inspiration. But now I'm back! (I think) Don't expect me to be regular though, that might be a bit more complicated. But I will try my best to write more often.

I'm currently watching the Rising of the Shield Hero, so there might be a fanfiction coming on that when I'm finished watching it. Because I want to write fluff between Naofumi and Raphtalia, darn it! Coming soon.

And with this, I wish you a fantastic evening, and see you next time on the next chapter of The quirky adventures!

"That punch is like a danger sandwich..."