The Reflection in the Viridescent Mirror

Chapter Eleven

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The Deal

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"' Mortal' body?" Ochako asked mid-stride. She and the other girls opted to walk quickly, a move everyone else would hopefully misinterpret as mere bathroom urgency.

"Yes," Kyoka confirmed. "He muttered that after arguing with Principal Nezu, wanting to 'power through' the next viewing section."

"He's not himself. This confirms it," Momo said, her long legs affording her a somewhat relaxed pace compared to the rest of their group.

The girls, consisting of Ochako, Kyoka, Momo, Mina, and Tsuyu, encountered a terrifying obstacle on their way to corner Midoriya. They had no plan for this, this implacable barrier.

The Men's Room. They knew he was in there. Still, they couldn't go in, could they?

They paused, staring at the door like it was a ward against all things feminine. Mina, however, chose to act. "Come on," she said, pushing to the front of the group. "We didn't come all this way to tap our feet and wait."

"Whoah," Kyoka said while holding her arms up, waving them from side to side, hoping to stop Mina from breaking school code and getting them all in trouble, but she was too late.

Before any of them could collect their thought, Mina barged into the restroom, swinging the door wide open in her wake. Ochako stormed in right behind her, unwilling to hesitate when another team member took the lead.

The others followed. The last two were Tsuyu and Momo in that order. Tsuyu held the door open while Momo hesitated, staring at the room-divide as if it were a significant threshold, one that divided decency from degeneracy. At last, she daintily stepped forward just before Tsuyu shut the door, hopefully preventing anyone else from seeing that they were trespassing in a male-only space.

"Oh, it smells," Kyoka uttered before pinching her nose.

There went our element of surprise, Ochako thought. From Mina bursting in, to Kyoka's choice words, Midoriya had plenty of warning. Still, she spotted his red shoes under a stall door.

"Can this wait?" he asked, sounding more like himself than she expected.

"This isn't good for you," Ochako said, stepping towards the door. "Watching these films, reliving these memories, it's wearing you down, and we know you aren't yourself anymore. We want to help you, Deku."

The only reply she received was a loud flush from his toilet. The girls looked at each other nervously. They were running out of time and had no plan. Other boys would get here soon, and they hadn't achieved anything.

After an agonizing minute ticked by, Izuku opened the door and stepped out to survey their faces. Ochako bit her lip. His demeanor was aloof, not quite cold, but not warm either. "We're worried about you," she says the obvious.

"I see," he replied while walking to the sink. Lathering his hands thoroughly, he continued. "I'm worried about all of you. I'm not worried, no, I'm afraid of what's coming our way, what we're up against. I'm racing against time to arm us, prepare us."

"You'll do anything to protect us, kero," Tsuyu interrupted.

"Yes," Izuku turned, hands wet while the sink wasted water in his absence. "I can't second guess myself and be cautious when the people I love," he paused, inhaling a shaky lungful of air.

Ochako froze as butterflied filled her stomach, caught unaware, flat-footed as Momo stepped forward, far past the shyness she showed at the door.

Momo placed her hand gently against Izuku's cheek. "Please," she asked. "Please, we know you want to protect us, but you have to let us have our Deku back, the one that belongs here. He's worth protecting, too."

"Damnit," Izuku breathed through bared grit teeth. "How do you always know the right things to say and do, Momo?"

Ochako held her breath. She was jealous, but this was working.

"Deku, you told me yesterday that we're a team. I felt the weight of everything hidden behind that word. You meant it, all of it. Marriage, heroics, saving the world, you even meant parenting, didn't you?" Momo closed some of the distance, her height over him acutely evident, yet somehow, he was the one that seemed larger than life.

Mina gasped at the word "parenting," covering her mouth as she let the implication sink in. Ochako wasn't entirely surprised, though she wondered how old the other versions of them were by the time they made these memory-recordings.

Izuku placed a hand on Momo's opposite cheek, each of them testing out this strange bond they felt. If she cared that his hand was cool or wet, she didn't show it. Droplets of water danced down his forearm and her cheek. He flinched, though. "I meant it all, Momo, but you're not her. You're not the woman I married."

Momo guided his face up to look into her eyes, holding him gently by his chin. "Izuku," she dared to breathe his name, discarding their strategy of using Deku to label him. "You're not him, either. You're not the man that married Momo, and Ochako, and Mina. You're a teen, just like me, just like all of us, and you're worth protecting just as much as we are. If you love us, if you love any part of us, even for just resembling the women in his heart, then please don't hurt us by taking the Izuku of our world away."

No one moved. No one made a sound. Ochako shivered with how intense this felt to her, caught on the razor's edge, desperation on one side of her, jealousy on the other.

Then Kyoka swallowed loudly.

"Momo," Izuku breathed as she pulled on his chin. He responded, drawing his fingers back to hold her, grazing the skin on the back of her neck. When their lips met, Ochako held her breath, staring as they softly melted into each other.

Ochako's lips trembled, remembering what it felt like when Deku kissed her yesterday. She felt caught in a spider's web as she watched, trapped between knowing what Momo felt and hating her for it, and encouraging her because it was working. Izuku was off-balance, precariously neither Deku nor the invading Izuku while Momo's lips knocked him off course.

"Man, I've got to take a big ol' shit!" Eijiro bellowed loudly before pushing the door open.

The spell cast by Momo and Izuku broke like a vase thrown against the floor. "Fuck," Denki whistled as the two parted their lips, a trail of moisture linking them before it, too, broke.

Momo hid her face, a storm of crimson hidden behind glacial fingers. The girls stared with crimson-heat rising from their necks to envelop their cheeks as the cluster of boys, Eijiro, Denki, Sero, and the last one in the group, Katsuki, entered the bathroom.

Izuku watched the boys enter with narrowed eyes as if daring them to say something to provoke him.

"Wrong room, this one's for people with dicks," was all Katsuki said as he edged past the girls and, uncaring about his audience, made use of a urinal against the wall.

Ochako turned around, making sure to avert her eyes as far from Bakugou and his nonchalant display as possible. The rest of them similarly looked away; all save one. Seeing that Mina hadn't turned, Ochako tapped her shoulder as if to remind her that examining boys' private parts wasn't why they came here.

Eijiro looked around, confused, pausing when he locked eyes with Mina, but he couldn't wait any longer. He charged into one of the stalls and wordlessly got to business. Denki and Sero, though, seemed more lost than anyone else, unwilling to give in to biological urges for relief when their audience included girls from their class.

Izuku stepped forward and held the door open. He coughed, indicating that the rest of their conversation should happen outside.

Sero and Denki stared as the ladies of their class filed past them, shame written on their faces as they refused to make eye contact with the boys.

Izuku leveled a deathly glare at the two young men before exiting after the girls.

"What do you think that was all about?" Denki asked before stepping up to a stall.

Katsuki thought about it while adjusting his aim. "They're gonna' fuck 'im," he said, barely believing the strange timeline they were all living in, with messages from other worlds messing with them and their heads. It was a statement he'd never make if you asked him a few days ago, yet here they were.

"What?" Eijiro asked from behind the walls that enclosed him. "How the hell do you figure that?"

Katsuki snorted with derision. "Are you kidding me? When was the last time you heard of a woman chasing a man into a bathroom, and they were just friends? If a girl goes into a men's room after you, she's probably pissed, might even hate you, but she either wants your dick, or she's already had it. Fuck, those girls weren't even angry. They were watching and salivating, waiting their turn."

Sero still hadn't approached a stall. "It was hot," he said to no one in particular.

"You're probably right about Yaoyorozu," Denki shrugged, shaking as he finished up. "Kissing in the men's bathroom reeks of thirst."

Katsuki's stream gushed forward with no sign of diminishment. "She'll probably take him on first, but the rest will follow."

"What? When do you think this will happen?" Eijiro asked, his question marked with a ka-thunk-splash that no one wanted to acknowledge.

Katsuki shrugged as if Eijiro could see him through the walls. "Probably not tonight, but pretty fuckin' soon," he remarked as he finished up. After he zipped, he continued. "They don't even know they want it, but they do."

"How do you know?" Denki asked while washing his hands. "Like, since when did you become an expert on female psychology?"

Katsuki grunted while dispensing soap onto his hands before turning the water as scaldingly hot as possible. "This isn't rocket science, Cattle Prod. You've not seen them hovering around him during lunch, watching him on the field during training, or hell, walking alongside him last night? Deku's suddenly got what they want. Mystery, confidence, sophistication, whatever it is, he's got it."

"Shit," Sero said. "He's right."

"Bullshit," Denki chuckled after drying his hands. "Things are weird, but seriously? Harems? Orgies? Girls lining up for their turn? That's not happening. Bakugou's just trying to say nice things about Midoriya to balance the scales. Now Yaoyorozu? She's guilty as charged, but once she sinks her claws in, the rest will back off."

Sero nervously chuckled while Katsuki shot Denki a mean look, but no one said anything about the "scales" remark. "Unless another one gets him first," was all Sero used to rebut Denki's theory.

Denki and Katsuki walked to the exit, effectively ending the conversation. Katsuki, though, turned his head at the last minute. "Yo, if you can't pee, just run your hands under some warm water."

Sero practically hiccupped. "Oh, yeah, thanks."

"No worries," Katsuki smirked. "It's difficult to pee when you're that hard." He laughed as he turned to exit, joining Denki as they walked back to the auditorium.

Despite his initial embarrassment, Sero took Katsuki's advice and ran his hands under warm water until the urge to pee returned. After turning the water off, though, he heard something curious, something that didn't belong.

It almost sounded like someone was crying, but there was a weird echo to it.

"Dude," Sero said. "Do you hear something?"

"Oh, uh," Eijiro wiped his eyes with some tissue, safely hidden behind the stall's enclosure. "No, uh, nothing, must be the pipes in here."

"Yeah, but still, man, that was hot earlier," Sero said. "No lie, I'm jealous as hell. Still, at least we got to see it happen. Mineta's gonna' hemorrhage when he learns he missed s front row seat to watching Yaoyorozu swap spit."

"Heh, yeah, he's not going to be happy," With that, the redhead flushed and stood up, bracing to face whatever came next. No matter what, though, he resolved to talk to Mina before it was too late. Too late for what? He wasn't sure he was ready to admit it to himself, but a festering pit of urgency lodged in his stomach, robbing him of the relief he'd just earned.

Just for safe measure, he washed his face at the sink before he and Sero could make eye contact. "Momo got you worked up, too?" he heard Sero ask while he splashed cold water on his face, uncaring if it dripped onto his shirt.

"Sure did," Eijiro said with a toothy grin, but he was thinking about the moment he locked eyes with Mina. She looked guilty, ashamed. "I hope things don't get weird after this."

"We're watching aliens invade another timeline," Sero shrugged. "Shit's weird no matter how you slice it."

"True," Eijiro said as the two exited the bathroom. "Too true."

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Looking around, Momo confirmed that luckily, no one else saw Izuku lead the girls out of the bathroom. Things were embarrassing enough as it was, what with the boys in their class catching her kissing him in the men's room.

"Yaoyorozu," Kyoka whispered, sticking perilously close to her like a shadow. "What was that back there? Some strategy?"

Was it a strategy? Momo wasn't sure anymore. She wouldn't say this was love, not on her part, but the way Izuku looked at her was enchanting.

Even now, Izuku gestured Momo and the other girls into another hallway so they could talk privately. Momo saw the concern in his eyes. He protected them like he was responsible for their lives.

Passing by him, she met his gaze, and her heart melted a little when the stern edge softened, momentarily, just for her. Yes, his eyes said, I love you. Your kiss meant something to me.

Kyoka must have seen it too. "Oh god, Momo, you're falling for him, aren't you?"

Ochako bit her lip, refusing to look in Momo's direction.

It felt like a cold blade of ice was pressed against Momo's heart, but she strode onward. "Depends, I guess. Which 'him' are you talking about?"

Kyoka stared at her with widening eyes. "Oh shit," she breathed, understanding the dilemma immediately.

Momo didn't bite her lip or allow anything roiling inside to the surface. She felt attracted to the new Izuku. She also knew that he was a mind-parasite, a foreign invader into Izuku's brain. If she successfully convinced him to let go, to surrender control back to the Deku they all knew, then the man she desired would be gone. It would also prove that he loved her, adding more pain to his departure.

Momo met Kyoka's worried gaze, silently confirming all this. Somehow, she knew Kyoka comprehended every facet of the problem.

Did Ochako, or for that matter, Mina and Tsuyu? Worse, did Izuku?

"Momo," Izuku finally said, getting her attention. He held open a door leading to one of the available lecture rooms. With everyone else staying close to the auditorium, no one would find them in there.

Heat rose to Momo's face. She was grateful that Kyoka and the other girls were there because otherwise, she wasn't sure if she should accept Izuku's invitation. If it were their Deku, the Midoriya from this world, the invitation wouldn't feel like this. It would just be a secret meeting between classmates, not a clandestine liaison.

Once ushered inside, darkness enveloped them. Although less perverse than meeting inside a restroom, this felt far more intimate. Momo inhaled sharply when Izuku's fingers brushed against her hip, guiding her as he drew her closer.

"Izuku," Momo panted when he kissed her neck from behind. She didn't stop him and struggled to remind herself that this was wrong.

"We didn't sneak around just to make out with you," Kyoka said icily, interrupting the two of them before they got carried away.

Momo bit her lip, feeling Izuku smile against her skin. "That doesn't mean we can't multitask, Kyoka," he said with more than a hint of mischief.

That was when Tsuyu turned on the light, revealing Kyoka's crimson face and twitching ear jacks. Ochako and Mina each blinked their way through the brightness.

"Sorry, kero," Tsuyu said, "Kyoka has a point, though. We're here for our Midoriya, not to help you feel good in his skin."

Momo felt repulsed by Tsuyu's words, disgusted with herself. She hadn't considered that letting this Izuku take liberties with her was somehow a violation of Deku, the body's owner. She immediately stepped forward, turning to dislodge herself from Izuku's hold on her, gentle and soothing as it was.

His smile was disarming, despite her warring emotions. His demeanor didn't feel like last night when he lost himself momentarily. This was wrong. This man was not someone that she knew, no matter how badly she wanted to know him.

"Yeah, stop, um," Mina paused, composing herself after stepping forward. "Stop acting hot."

Izuku's smile transitioned into a smirk. "Who's acting?"

"Give him back," Ochako whispered. "Give him back, please. Give us our Deku back!" The Gravity Girl spoke up, letting emotion, not volume, carry her message. She sounded broken inside. Momo wanted to reach for her, console her, but felt too guilty, too dirty to do anything so wholesome.

"Ochako," he turned his eyes to her, his tone pleading with her to understand. "He's still in here. I'm not some enemy possessing him against his will. All I want is to keep everyone safe."

"You keep saying that you want to keep us safe," Kyoka spoke up forcefully. "You act like we're helpless, like we're supposed to hide and weep like princesses in some storybook while you save the day like the big strong man you are."

No one commented on the fact that there was a double-edged insult-and-compliment in there. Despite that, Kyoka continued. "You're showing us a bunch of films to warn us, but how about telling us what we need to know to defend ourselves? We're trying to become heroes, after all. Try acknowledging us for that instead of patting us on the head, being all smooth to knock us off balance, or teasing us with snippets of what you know about our… other-selves… and their… intimate details. Stop doing that!" Color rose in her face as she tripped over her words, recalling all the ways Izuku changed in a matter of days. His growing smirk wasn't helping.

Mina crossed her arms beneath her breasts as she stepped up next to Momo. Why was she doing that, Momo wondered? "We get it," Mina said, marking her statement with a tap of her foot. "You know our bodies, our likes, and dislikes, inside and out."

Kyoka paused at that choice of words as the other girls turned their eyes to look at her questioningly, but Izuku didn't interrupt her. He waited for Mina and Kyoka to continue while the two girls met each other's gaze as if silently asking who should say what. No one rehearsed any of this. There was no choice but to act without a plan.

Momo silently prayed that her mistakes were reversible, hoping that Kyoka and Mina could somehow turn this situation around and use all their missteps for a victory on the fly.

Ochako, though, didn't wait for anyone else to formulate the right words. "Our Deku offered to help me make a plan of attack when I was up against Bakugou during the Sports Festival. All you've done is warn us that something scary is coming and promise to protect us, and while that's nice, it's not what we want. Trust us. Believe in us. Don't do everything for us. Help us defend ourselves."

Momo stared into his eyes as Izuku scanned the room, wandering from face to face. She watched his heart break inside. He's afraid, she realized. He's scared that we'll fight and lose.

"Izuku," Momo placed her palm against her chest, hoping that the feelings in her heart would transmit into his somehow. "We're a team, remember? Treat us like we're part of the team. Let us help you."

"I want to," he said, and the words echoed with pain welling up from inside him. "I do, just," he stumbled, looking uncertain.

Kyoka, though, was suddenly wide-eyed. There was a spark there, and Momo could sense it. "Train us," the tomboyish musician said. "You were using new fighting techniques earlier today, ones that you must have used against this new enemy. Teach us. Show all of us how to fight these things so that your training can protect us even when you can't."

Momo couldn't suppress a smile at this new angle, this new tactic to pursue. Mina smirked, admiring Kyoka's ingenuity. Tsuyu and Ochako, though, looked somewhat unconvinced. Momo saw why. Discussions about training didn't get them their Deku back. It just got the current Izuku to train them.

Perhaps there was a way to do both, Momo thought. Before Izuku could respond, Momo spoke up. "You're in control of his body because you don't trust him to protect us, right? Then teach him, too. Teach all of us, our Deku included."

Tsuyu pressed a finger against her chin. "That would be optimal, kero," she observed aloud. "It would also have the benefit of making us better heroes, wouldn't it?"

Ochako, though, was frantic, "But we also want Deku back, let's not forget that part!"

Izuku held up his hands placatingly to all of them. "Everyone," he started. "I'm already trying to train Deku," he met Ochako's gaze when he said the name. "His body isn't used to the kind of movements needed. I'm trying to kick-start him, waking up his essence in days where it would usually take years. Until then, I'm practicing martial arts forms as best as I can with nothing but his Quirk to work with."

"Essence?" Momo asked. "Martial Arts? Nothing but his Quirk? What are you saying?"

"Please don't be offended," Izuku said gently. "It's just, being in this body is a major step down for me. It feels like I'm learning to walk about coming out of a coma."

Ochako stormed forward, ready to make an angry remark, likely something along the lines of "If you don't like his body, get out of it!" She never said a word, though. Her angry broke into sorrow, and she sobbed, crying into her arm.

Izuku rushed to her, holding her. "Ochako," he whispered. "I'm trying to help. I don't want to take him from you. He and I are just working out how I can train him and, maybe, the rest of you."

Kyoka crossed her arms. "Oh, so that was your plan all along? It would've been nice to know."

Tsuyu chimed in her agreement with Kyoka. "So, how are you planning on training everyone and giving Midoriya back?"

He smiled sadly for Kyoka while ticking Ochako's head under his chin. "I'm still working that out. For now, I'm focusing on him, helping him wherever our minds touch. Ultimately," he paused. "When I've prepared him, and he's absorbed everything he needs from me, I won't fight him. It's his body, his life, and he should have it."

Momo felt a pit form in her gut. "Oh my god, you're a copy of the other Izuku, so by asking you to give up control, we're basically asking you to stop existing. To," she couldn't say it.

Die. No one wanted to say the word.

Izuku turned his eyes towards her, still carrying on his sad smile. "It's alright. I won't exist in any sense you're familiar with, but I'll live on as part of him. When it's over, when he's learned every skill I have available to teach him, Midoriya Izuku will absorb me."

Mina gasped while Ochako bawled louder than before, grabbing onto Izuku's shirt. Kyoka and Tsuyu were stunned into silence.

"No," Ochako spoke franticly as her face soaked Izuku's shirt. "No, we want Deku back. That doesn't mean anyone wants you to die!"

Mina's lip trembled as a few tears rolled out from her eyes. She sniffled, fighting a losing battle with her emotions. "Midori," she said her nickname for him sadly.

Izuku cupped Ochako's face between his hands and kissed her forehead. "I knew what I was getting into, despite being a copy. I'm fine with this," he smiled for her. "There's nothing to be sad about, alright?"

"No," Ochako groaned in protest. "No, there has to be a way to have Deku and to save you."

Momo gasped, the final piece clicking in place. "You're training him on a time limit, aren't you?"

Tsuyu made nervous croaking noises in her throat. "You're the one in control, kero. That must mean," she paused and swallowed hard. "You're absorbing Midoriya faster than he's absorbing you, aren't you?"

"Oh, shit," Mina breathed once she understood the implications.

"Oh, fuck, is more like it," Kyoka said.

"No, no, that can't be true! You wouldn't do that to us, to Deku," Ochako looked up into his face, her emotions spilling loose all over his chest.

"I don't want to," Izuku lamented. "Please, believe me, I don't want to be the one left, him a part of me instead of the other way around."

Kyoka narrowed her eyes. "It's hard to trust that, considering that living and breathing are pretty damn desirable."

Momo held her hand up, signaling everyone else to back off, to give him room and time to answer. He needed the opportunity to earn their trust, and Momo wanted to afford him that. "Go on, Izuku," she urged him to speak.

Ochako wiped her eyes and looked up at him, but still hung on him like a koala on her favorite tree. Izuku stroked her hair comfortingly but locked eyes with Momo. "I'm stuck here," he said, more to her than anyone else. "I'm a fragment of him, the man you'll see a lot more of in those films. I'll never be with the women I think of as my wives or hold my children again. I'll never see my friends again. Do any of them know to miss me? No, they don't. They have the original there with them. Instead, as nothing but a copy, I'll be haunted by people that look like them, surrounded on all sides. Even with all that familiarity, I won't recognize the face in the mirror, and I'll never measure up to the image of myself inside. I will always be a stranger in a world I don't belong in."

It was the loneliest thing Momo ever heard. Her heart tore itself open for him. A trickle, barely a few teardrops, ran from her eyes as if to feel his pain for him. More emotions welled up, hidden behind her eyes. Instinctively, she wanted to tell him how much life was worth living, but she knew that would betray the Izuku in their world. As attractive as this other Izuku was, as much as her heart bled for him, his existence was a threat to their Midoriya.

"If you get your way, you'll become a part of him, though, won't you?" Momo asked, caught between hope and desperately begging. "You won't just disappear, right? You'll live on, like," she licked her lips, struggling for the right words. "Like a candle in his heart?"

Izuku inhaled sharply at the analogy.

Ochako sobbed. "Please," she whispered. "Please tell us. You won't just fade to nothingness when we get Deku back, right?"

Izuku blinked several tears loose. Then he smiled for them. "You're right, Momo, and you too, Ochako. I'll still be part of him."

No one mentioned that if things didn't go well, Midoriya would become part of this other Izuku. It was on their minds, though.

"So, even after we get Midori back, with you lodged up in his head, he'll still change a lot, won't he?" Mina cut through to ask.

"Yeah," he smirked for her. "He will. He'll probably blush up a storm at all the perverted memories I'll remind him of every time he even looks at one of you, but he'll still be himself at the core."

Ochako melted into him, clinging onto him as tears of relief washed away tears of sorrow. He gently held her head, cradling her into his neck. "Deku," she choked out the words. "We can still get Deku back," she said. Was she saying it for her personal benefit or for the rest of them? Momo couldn't tell.

Momo balled up her fists. They were out of time. Everyone was probably wondering where they were already. Still, they needed an agreement, a pact to carry them forward. Letting this Izuku carry on and train his body on his own just wasn't cutting it. "To draw him back to the surface, he needs to have faith, to believe that he's the hero needed, not you. That's it, isn't it? He has more faith in your mind and abilities than in his."

Izuku met her gaze but said nothing. His hard stare confirmed her worst fears.

"How do we convince him?" Mina lamented. "How do we drag him up and talk to him?"

"Can he hear us?" Kyoka asked. "Does he hear and see everything you're doing?"

"Everything, yes," Izuku confirmed for her.

"So, when you say you're training him, kero," Tsuyu pondered. "That must mean he's experiencing you training yourself. How does that work, kero?"

Izuku turned his eyes to look over at Tsuyu. "I'm also talking to him inside, a dialogue in our head. I'm explaining everything to him, helping him sort and reference the memories and focus on what's useful. Think of it like a dojo of the mind. As he gets stronger, I'm sure he'll surface more and more."

Mina leaned forward, practically forcing him to refocus on her. "That's not enough, though, is it? He needs to believe we can help, that we can face what's coming, doesn't he?"

Ochako pulled her face from his neck to look at him. Momo flinched, wondering how he could handle every eye in the room on him, boring into him like this.

"Yes," he finally said, a hard edge creeping into his voice. "I was hoping to train him from within while he was in control and work with him to help the rest of you, but his mind collapsing under all the memory-weight wasn't something I anticipated, certainly not to this degree. It's complicated things."

Momo stepped firmly into his personal space before resting a hand onto Ochako's back. She could do this, she told herself. She could help them all pull this through. "Train us. If you must start with just one of us, then start with me."

Izuku's smile made her knees weak. "There's the Momo I know, the one that never quits and always looks for a way forward," he said.

He sees me for who I am, Momo whispered to her heart. He doesn't see me for what I look like, but who I want to be inside. "We're a team," she reminded him with a smile.

"With the way things are going, I'll have to be extra hard on you," Izuku smirked.

Momo almost asked if that was a promise. The thought of saying something so bold brought unwanted heat to her cheeks.

"Hold on," Kyoka butted in, stepping in to insert herself between Momo and Izuku. "There's no way you're training her one-on-one. Knowing the new you, you'll just seduce her or something."

"Jiro has a point," Mina agreed. "The new you is definitely a charmer, not that I'm complaining. If we're not careful, more of us will end up clinging onto you like Uraraka is, just with less in the way."

"I'm just worried about Deku," Ochako said while pushing away to stand on her own. She turned her face away from the others, but Tsuyu placed a hand on her shoulder before Ochako rested a hand on Tsuyu's, thanking her for the support.

"We all are, kero," Tsuyu said, squeezing Ochako's shoulder. "That's why we're going to learn as much as we can and encourage him to do the same."

"What about saying and doing things to differentiate the two of you?" Mina asked Izuku. "We're still doing that, right?"

Izuku shrugged. "It stirs his attention, reminds him to look up and see what's going on here at the surface. If you think it bothers me when you do it, don't worry, I don't mind. Now," he turned towards Momo and held his hand out to her just like he did last night. "Are you ready to work hard? Are you serious about training under me?"

Momo stared at his hand. She felt hot, thinking about other meanings for what he'd just said. She didn't want to admit it, but she wanted this, wanted to know this man before he disappeared, absorbed into the boy they knew.

Momo swallowed hard. She wanted him. Uncertain about how to sort out these feelings, she tentatively reached forward.

"I'm ready," Kyoka interrupted, grabbing Izuku's hand. "There's no way in hell, though, that you're doing anything to or with Momo without me going first."

Izuku's smirk was almost feral as his fingers closed around Kyoka's. "Challenge accepted," he growled the words out.

Momo watched wide-eyed as Izuku pulled Kyoka closer to him. Kyoka swallowed hard enough that Momo could see her throat move, then placed her other hand against his chest on the wet spot where Ochako's tears soaked into his shirt.

Kyoka's ear jacks dangled behind her back, visible to Momo but hiding from Izuku as they fidgeted nervously against each other.

"Bring it," the rebellious musician said with a blush.

Just then, there was a knock on the classroom door. Izuku and the girls turned to see who it was, but there wasn't anyone visible through the door's window. Mina opened it, showing a floating school uniform above a pair of socks and shoes in the hallway.

"Um, everyone's wondering where you all went," Toru said shyly. "What's going on? Why are you all here? Is there a reason I'm the only girl in class that was left out?"

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A Note from the Author

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It feels good to return to this story. Unfortunately, I couldn't fit everything in this chapter that I wanted to. I decided to break the chapter into two. I'm diving straight into the next chapter, so it will go up before I continue on my rotation!

Minor announcement: I'm giving in to temptation and starting a new fic. I'll add it to the rotation after the next chapter of "The Reflection in the Viridescent Mirror" is up! I won't be using a "catch up" schedule this time when introducing the new fic, so don't expect a big time-interruption from it for my fic rotation. However, I'm upgrading "Izuku's Time Traveling Babysitting Service" to update in-between other fics in the fic-cycle. I'll clarify all of this with a new rotation schedule at the end of the next chapter!

I finally activated Twitter. Feel free to follow me there for updates about fics and my upcoming manuscript, "The Shrouded Princess," which I hope will someday become my first novel! You can find my Twitter at darklogic2

I'm also, of course, on Discord, at discord . gg /25BTet3 (remove spaces), so please feel free to join me there too!

As usual, I reply to all comments, either directly on AO3 or in batch on FF. If you're reviewing on FF please wait patiently for a reply since I can only post one review per chapter and I want to give as many people as possible a chance to comment before I reply to them.

Thank you, and see you when I release the next chapter!