Beta-read by Greed720 and HardwinPotter

Izuku had hoped that, as the summer retreat grew closer, the hazy veil obscuring his sight of the future would part enough for him to figure out what to do. To an extent, it did. Before, the sheer number of overlapping possibilities had blurred the entire event into an incomprehensible smear. As the day the class was set to leave arrived, some events in the future resolved themselves into visible events.

With a few months to study the phenomenon, Izuku consulted every resource his Quirk would allow him to access on theories behind precognitive Quirks. As best he could tell, the reason for his Quirk's fuzziness was that it was giving him the option to make choices. What he saw was the result of all the overlapping decisions he might make. The fact his impending death at Stain's blade during his probation exam was a choice he could have made was one he chose not to dwell upon.

Despite the guidance of his Quirk leading him to the best sources of information, Izuku felt as though he was trying to solve a puzzle box from within. He lacked perspective. He couldn't see how everything fit together from the inside. Why it suddenly was giving him a blinding number of choices, and only during the summer retreat, had no answer. Izuku knew he needed someone to talk to, but his Quirk would never let him.

So, instead, Izuku watched and waited, searching for any clues as the number of possible futures thinned themselves out.

The class was bubbling with excitement around him as they boarded the bus. Izuku flowed in with them and took a seat next to Koda. The aging bus groaned and hissed as it lumbered out of the parking lot. As they left the school grounds, Izuku felt a whole swath of possibilities fade away. Where the bus ride had once been a hazy blur, the entire trip, up until an unexpected stop in the mountains, stood out crystal clear to him. Izuku almost smiled.

Izuku followed the rest of the class out when they stopped. There, the Wild Wild Pussycats greeted them all. When Izuku went up to greet the little kid accompanying them, he sidestepped the punch aimed at his groin and caught the kid by his shirt before he could stumble forward.

When the rest of the class made a desperate dash for the bus, in hopes of avoiding a six-hour trek through the woods, Izuku leapt over the side of the cliff. He glided down with outstretched arms, the fabric between his limbs billowing in the air, and landed on a tree branch. Everyone else tumbled down the cliff in a heap of softened dirt.

As his classmates struggled to their feet, Izuku intercepted the first of the earthen golems, in the shape of a villain, hunting them. One kick with the hardened soles on his feet smashed its chest into powder.

"Mock villains inbound!" he shouted to the others. "Assemble in pattern three and advance."

Pushed into action by Izuku's words, his classmates grouped up in one of the formations they had made for class. Kirishima took point, drawing fire from stone-hurling golems, Tokoyami and Todoroki each covered a side, shielding the center with swathes of darkness and ice, while Yaoyorozu took the rear, laying traps as they ran to snare any pursuers. Their heavy hitters, Sato and Shoji, plowed through the golems trying to swarm Kirishima, while the rest acted as a reserve, saving their strength to take over when the others got tired.

Izuku stayed on the tree branches, calling out the positions of villains and coordinating their movement. With his air canisters and grapples restricted, Izuku had to physically fling his wires each time he swung from tree to tree. After a few hours, spindly sculptures darted after him on the tree branches, but they crumbled easily under his punches and kicks.

Near the end of the exercise, the earth trembled, and in front of them rose a thirty-foot titan. As it rose to his feet, Izuku had the class deter the titan any way they could, from Sero flinging tape between trees, to Koda sending birds to pluck at its face. While they worked, Tokoyami built a cannon of ice, and Kirishima climbed inside of it. Once they were ready, Aoyama knocked the golem back with his navel laser, Mineta littered the ground behind it with the last of his sticky spheres, and Mina slathered acid under its feet.

"Fire!"

Bakugo slammed both gauntlets inside the icy cannon and fired. The ice cracked and buckled, but it held just long enough for Kirishima to fly out at blinding speeds. With a thunderous crack, the red blur embedded himself face-first into the stone behemoth's chest. A grating rumble groaned from the construct as it fell over backwards and onto the spheres littered about. As it struggled to rise, its efforts expanded the cracks in its chest until it fell apart.

Kirishima, dizzy and disoriented from the blast, yet otherwise none the worse for wear, spiky hairstyle included, gave a grinning thumbs-up as he staggered out of the wreckage.

"We're definitely doing that one again, Katsuki-kun."

Katsuki snorted and said, "Only if we're using something tougher than ice." The whole front of him was coated in tiny ice crystals. "Stupid cannon couldn't take the heat."

"If I tried to make it hold together, it would have blown apart in bigger chunks," Todoroki replied.

"Oh my god, who cares," Sero complained, "Just let this end already! I can feel my arms peeling!"

After cresting one last hill, 1-A saw the summer retreat laid out before them. Exhausted and relieved groans sounded from almost everyone as they sprinted over to the waiting cups and plates.

"Well done, kiddos!" Ragdoll said as they came up. "You got here a lot faster than we thought you would!"

Yaoyorozu made and checked a watch. "It's been four hours."

"Three's what we can do on a typical day. We thought you wouldn't make it before sundown. I even threw in an extra big one at the end, since you were doing so well."

It was another two hours before 1-B staggered into the clearing. Monoma was not pleased.

As the night progressed, Izuku felt as though he were walking through a fog. Each passing second thinned out the haze of possibilities, clearing his sight directly in front of him, but leaving the distant future clouded. He spent much the night peering into the possibilities, trying to find a pattern to his Quirk's irregularity, before his Quirk's common sense compelled him to sleep.

Being without a Quirk, as far as anyone else knew, put Izuku in an awkward position when the rest of the class began their Quirk training. Instead, he was tasked to focus on fighting and moving around without battery power or air canisters. Alongside Ojiro, Kirishima, and other close-range fighters, Izuku sparred against Tiger. The moment he stepped into the ring, the entire fifteen-minute fight resolved itself into a crystal-clear image. Despite that, Izuku couldn't outpace Tiger's pliability and got himself flung into a tree.

Tiger nodded approvingly as he helped Izuku up. "Very good, you're best off working on your physical conditioning. Not much I can show you that would be of any help."

The rest of his training session was spent swinging and gliding across the trees, familiarizing himself with his costume's new features. Without the sheer power of his motors to propel him along, Izuku could barely glide far enough to get to the next tree, but over the course of a couple days, Izuku found his muscles adjusting to the unfamiliar strain.

Their first night after training, tired and sore from a full day of pushing their Quirks to their limits, 1-A and 1-B alike despaired at the prospect of making food. 1-A looked to Sato for salvation, who had a reputation for his baked goods, but he could only scratch his head at the wood-burning stoves, oversized cooking pot, and crates of vegetables.

"What do you want me to do, Katsuki?" Izuku asked.

The rest of the class looked at Izuku as though he had grown a second head. Katsuki snorted and said, "Dice the onions, then toss them in that giant pot with a couple packs of butter."

Stopping only to sharpen the knife left for them, Izuku sliced straight into an onion. Guided by his Quirk and years of helping his mother with katsudon, Izuku made quick, clean cuts up to the root of the onion, then turned it sideways and chopped fast enough for the thunk of blade on cutting board to rattle across the clearing.

While everyone else was gawking at Izuku's knife skills, Katsuki sauntered over to Kirishima and said, "Crush the tomatoes. Make sure they aren't too chunky."

Kirishima grinned and saluted. "You got it bro." With hardened skin, he loaded tomatoes into a bowl and punched them into submission. Before Katsuki could yell at Kirishima for leaving the stems in, Ojiro ran up and prepped the tomatoes for him.

Once the rest of the class was divvied up to different culinary tasks, Katsuki hurled a bag of rice at Kaminari and said, "You better not mess this up."

"Dude, it's just rice, how hard can it be?"

Bakugo glared at him. "Mineta, go with him and make sure he doesn't mess it up."

Within minutes, all of 1-A scrambled at Katsuki's orders. While everyone else was clumsily preparing the ingredients Katsuki threw at them, the impromptu head chef rifled through the spices left for them. As the onions and garlic simmered, Katsuki poured in entire containers of paprika, chili powder, and garam masala. A spicy aroma wafted from the pot as the spices roasted in the buttery onions.

"Tomatoes, now," Katsuki barked.

"Here!" Kirishima, covered in tomato guts, dumped a huge bowl into the spices. The tomatoes were stained brown as the spices dissolved into them.

"Todoroki, that chicken better be ready when I call for it."

"This is harder than it looks," Todoroki replied as he funneled fire around a skewer of marinated chicken chunks.

"Well, deal with it. There's no way we're getting these done right in a wood-fire stove." Katsuki craned his neck over towards the sink, where Tsuyu and Mina were cleaning and drying all the dishes. "Set the table once you're done. This won't take much longer."

"Why are we doing dishes now?" Mina asked. "Aren't we going to have to do them after we eat anyways?"

Tsuyu passed a suds-covered plate and said, "Do you really want to eat your curry on a plate covered in dirt?"

Mina grimaced at the dirty plates that had been left out for them. "Fine, you have a point."

As the curry neared completion, Kaminari walked over to Katsuki with a big pot of rice. "All done!"

"Let me see that." Katsuki dug a wooden spoon deep into the rice and scooped up a goopy mess. He glared at Mineta and said, "I told you to make sure he didn't screw it up."

"We didn't! We followed the instructions on the packages!"

"It's going to take longer to cook more rice, you moron!"

Kaminari shrugged. "Well, we'll just put it back on the stove, no big deal."

Katsuki up-ended the steaming pot of runny rice over a garbage can. "Don't bother. It'd turn out soggy if you did."

"Hey!" Mineta tried to scoop the rice out, only to be held back by Katsuki's hand on his forehead. "That was all the rice we had!"

"Too bad. Guess we're eating our curry straight-up."

"But it's curry! Who in their right mind would eat it without rice?"

"Rice is done," Izuku called from a different stove.

Katsuki went over to check on it, leaving a relieved Mineta and Kaminari in his wake. Katsuki lifted the lid and looked disdainfully at the fluffy, aromatic rice inside.

"Cinnamon, cloves, and bay leaves? What kind of wimpy rice is this?"

"Your curry's always too spicy. The rice will help with that."

"Sure it will. Who makes rice with cinnamon? The Chinese?"

"India, actually."

Katsuki glowered at the immaculate rice. "Fine, but don't expect me to have any. Curry's meant to burn."

True to word, once the whole meal was assembled, Katsuki took his plate of curry without a bed of rice. Everyone else, famished by the day's arduous activities, piled their plates high and tucked in without hesitation. Quite a few of them found themselves regretting that decision.

"Mon ami, this twinkling sensation I feel on my tongue is quite unpleasant."

"Water! I need water!"

"This is going to suck in the morning."

"Dude, seriously, did you pour all the spice bottles into this thing?"

"Well yeah," Katsuki answered. "They barely had enough for the whole pot."

Tokoyami took large mouthfuls of curry, completely unbothered by the spice. He turned to Tsuyu and asked, "I don't taste anything different, do you?"

Tsuyu licked her spoon. "A bit tingly. I like it."

Sero groaned and said, "Wish I had a Quirk that kept me from tasting this heat."

Goaded on by their hunger, 1-A forced down the spicy curry. As they ate, they found their tongues adjusting to the insane heat. By the end of the meal, many of them grudgingly agreed that Katsuki would continue to manage the kitchen, so long as someone else handled the spices.

After dinner, Mandalay led them all to the hot springs. With 1-B still busy preparing dinner, they had the springs all to themselves. Everyone practically flew out of their clothes in their eager rush to dive into the relaxing waters.

Had his foresight given Izuku more time, he mgiht have found a way to avoid showing off his scars to the whole class. Thankfully, he had a ready-made excuse on hand.

"Whoa," Kirishima said when Izuku walked out of the changing room. "Are those from Hosu?"

"Most of them," Izuku replied. "Some are from the Sports Festival, some from the USJ."

Bakugo clenched his hands, but otherwise made no comment. Todoroki gave him a raised eyebrow, a clear indication that he knew better, but he remained silent as well.

"I can't believe I never noticed," Iida said as he examined the scars. "I feel remiss as your class president to be ignorant of the extent you had been injured thus far."

Izuku shrugged and went into the water. The rest of the class took that as a cue to stop talking. They all had scars of their own, after all.

As the guys all soaked together, Mineta eyed the thick stone wall separating the two sides of the springs. "Beyond that wall lies the promised land. Luscious hills, deep valleys, and crystal clear waters. As men, it is our solemn duty to carry on the time-honored tradition of braving whatever hazards await us to get a view we will cherish for the rest of our lives."

"Absolutely not!" Iida stood, splashing his neighbors with water. "That is not only against the rules, but also highly disrespectful of our classmates!"

"Rules were made to be broken!" Mineta strode towards the edge of the spring. "There might never be another chance like this in our lives! We have to take it!"

Katsuki glowered at him and raised his mouth above the water level. "Do you really want you-know-who finding out about this?"

Mineta flinched, but a grin spread across his face. "Joke's on you. I'm finally free of her!"

"Really? And who do you think is going to sponsor your trip to the Sports Festival this year?"

Mineta deflated where he sat. "You'd really tell her? That's cruel."

Katsuki snorted. "I wouldn't have to. The girls would go straight to her, and I'm sure they'd have ideas on how else they can make your life miserable."

Visibly sweating at the thought of what else could be done to him, Mineta scooted away from the wall and grumbled to himself about hot spring stereotypes.

From atop the wall, a kid's voice said, "You really were going to climb, weren't you? And you call yourselves heroes? Pathetic."

"You're one to talk!" Mineta screeched up at him. "You're already up there! No fair! You get to see their boobies, why can't I?"

Koda blushed and pointedly looked away from the other side. "Auntie asked me to keep an eye on you, so you won't do anything stupid."

"Hey, thanks Koda-chan!" Hagakure called out. "You're a real gentleman!"

Koda made the mistake of looking towards the source of the voice. Startled back by what he saw, his foot slipped off the edge of the wall.

"Shoji, grab him!" Izuku called out.

Shoji, who Izuku had invited to sit next to him beneath the wall, stretched out his six arms and caught Koda in the webbing between them. Though he had passed out during the fall, Koda was otherwise unharmed.

Throughout the summer retreat, not once did Izuku's vision clear completely. If they were busy with training exercises, he could see a few hours ahead. When he stared up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come, the time frame shortened to a few seconds, with the distracting sensation of hundreds of possible futures drifting out of reach.

On the fourth day, the haziness had thinned enough for him to visualize a color. Blue, incandescent against the inky backdrop of a starless sky, shone in his murky visions as he wolfed down breakfast. The smell of burning wood tickled his nose. He closed his eyes and sat, hoping to make more sense of what was coming, but possible futures drifted in twos and threes, instead of the hundreds that had plagued him before.

Whatever was clouding his vision, it was going to happen soon.

The precognitive trance was the only thing keeping Izuku from trembling like a leaf as he sparred with Ojiro and Kendo. He eluded them at first, but Kendo used her oversized hands to hem him in while Ojiro used his greater height and strength to overpower him in the closed quarters.

"Even with help, I can barely measure up against you," Ojiro said as he helped Izuku back on his feet. "And you don't even get to use your gear."

"I have to be ready for when I run out of air, or have my equipment damaged."

"Still, considering how you started, it's amazing how far you've come. I wish I knew how you did it."

Izuku was saved from further inquiry when Aizawa rounded up both sets of students to explain the night's activity. Disdain practically dripped from Aizawa's tongue as he described the test of courage they'd put on for each other. As the Pussycats added their own eager input, it became clear whose idea it had been. Monoma, hearing that his class would have first bat at scaring 1-A, eagerly announced his class' impending triumph before Kendo cuffed him in the back of the head.

With the sun descending below the trees, the 1-B students set out to prepare their jump-scares. As they left, Izuku felt hundreds of futures vanish in an abrupt cascade. The visions themselves were still murky, but the challenge was a clear focal point for whatever had been disrupting his precognition.

As the sky darkened, Mandalay sent out the first pair of students. More futures thinned out. Izuku glanced around the clearing, desperate for any clue of what might be coming, and his eyes fell on Mina.

Revelation hit him like a mallet. His feelings for her had screwed with his Quirk before, and even after the past couple months, there was no denying that painful sensation in his chest. There had been futures flitting by since his Quirk shattered, had he somehow missed that many chances to make up with her? If so, did that mean this challenge would be his last chance to mend things between them? Did he even want to try?

It had been painful enough, the first time she had spurned him. Izuku didn't know if he could stand it again. As badly as having ten years of harassment and physical abuse front-loaded onto him as a five-year old was, at least that came with the certainty that everything would work out. Those few sad words, and the way they swept the world out from under his feet like a rug, cut far deeper.

"Ashido, and Jirou, you're up!"

Izuku glanced up in shock. So absorbed he was in his thoughts, he didn't even notice this outcome sneaking up on him. More futures vanished, but not enough for clarity. All he could make out was a brilliant blue inferno, rising over the tree-tops, with ashen stumps in its wake.

Something was very, very wrong.

The sky was a rich, dark purple, deepening to black on the eastern horizon. The first pinpoints of light sparkled in the growing darkness. Whatever was about to happen, it was happening soon, and Izuku still didn't know what to do.

Izuku concentrated, grasped for any of the jumbled futures, tried to catch one like a fish in a stream. His Quirk fought him, until a thread snapped in place. He saw Sato, his chest caved in, weakly reaching towards him and pleading with blood-stained lips, "Help me, Midoriya. It hurts."

Despair swept over Izuku, breaking his concentration. The vision vanished back into the mental gloom. Panicking, Izuku reached for another. Ochako was slumped against a tree, skin deathly pale, as a girl with messy hair and crazed yellow eyes drained her dry with a syringe. She glanced back at him and said, "You look cute! Mind if I have a taste?"

"Izuku, are you alright?" Iida asked.

"I - I'm fine," Izuku gasped. "Don't worry about me."

"You look very pale, perhaps you should talk to Aizawa-sensei. I'll walk you over to him."

"I'll be fine, I don't want you to miss out on the challenge. I can find him myself."

Before Iida or anyone else can protest, Izuku strode out of the clearing. Another future, this one unbidden, raced to the front of his mind. Todoroki clashed against a man riddled with burn scars, blue flames devouring ice and fire alike.

"Well, shit," the burned man said, with something that sounded like sadness in his voice as the fire swallowed Todoroki's hands. "Looks like he got through to you after all."

He ran faster, though he had no idea where he was running to. Branches lashed at his face, and tree roots tripped him. Hands dirty and face bleeding, sight blurry with tears, Izuku ran. More visions flitted across him, even as Izuku tried to push them away. Kota smashed on rocks, Tokoyami impaled by a dozen blades, Sero and Ojiro choking on gas. His own possible deaths surfaced. A bullet to the chest, lungs consumed by fire, a seeping, stinging cold as syringes sucked every drop of blood out of him, blades and knives and a chainsaw stabbing slashing hacking him to pieces. The deaths came slowly at first, but as Izuku ran, they appeared faster and faster, sometimes overlapping so he'd experience two or three at a time.

In every future he saw, his classmates were dying, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Izuku closed his eyes and prayed to whatever would hear him to make the visions stop. Then, silence. Izuku turned his back to the future flames and walked through the trees. Ahead of him, a new future unfurled, month by month, his escape to Hokkaido, changing his name and face, keeping his head down and never looking at the news.

He never learned if any of his classmates made it out alive.

Caught in the prison of this new future, Izuku struggled against it. The familiar pain started as Izuku faltered in his tracks, slowly at first, growing into a headache so intense it rivaled the possible deaths he had just endured.

So accustomed to being unable to fight that pain, Izuku almost gave up right there, but a single thought gave him strength. Aizawa-sensei. All he had to do was find his teacher, and his Quirk would stop. He could still do something.

As if sensing his intention, his Quirk redoubled its efforts to stop him. Nearly blind from the pain, Izuku stumbled onward, groping his way towards the shelter. The migraine grew to head-splitting intensity, and vertigo spun the world like an office chair. Vomit shot out of his mouth, making Izuku choke and sputter on the sour bile. His throat tightened, and his lungs burned from lack of air.

Out of the blurry veil of tears, Izuku saw the shelter. Gritting his teeth, Izuku staggered the final steps to the door and flung it open. Finally overcome by the pain, Izuku grasped his temples and sank to his knees.

Having heard the door slam open, Aizawa and Sekijiro ran up to him. Aizawa knelt and pushed back Izuku's shoulders until he could see his face. "Midoriya, what's wrong?"

"Please," Izuku whispered as the pain nearly made him black out, "Make it stop."

Aizawa's hair rose, and his eyes flashed red. Izuku sagged back, the agony and the visions swallowed up by the void. Unable to help himself, Izuku latched onto Aizawa and sobbed into his scarf.

"I need you to tell me what's happening, Midoriya," Aizawa said. "I can't keep this up forever."

Prompted by his teacher's words, Izuku untangled himself from Aizawa's scarf and wiped away his tears. Now that he was here, he had no idea what to do. He couldn't just tell his teacher what he had seen… could he?

Izuku knew something unthinkable would happen if people learned about his Quirk. A bone-deep chill, the stuff of nightmares made flesh, haunted any thought of revealing what he could do. As much as that scared him, however, the thought of seeing his classmates die before his eyes was worse. But still… he couldn't tell anyone… right?"

"My… my Quirk," Izuku began. Aizawa showed no reaction, but Vlad King's eyebrows vanished into his hairline.

"Go on," Aizawa said, his voice a comforting tone, and his hands firm on his shoulders. "I'm listening."

Already, he had said too much, but his Quirk wasn't there to stop him. After a deep, shuddering breath, Izuku said, "I can see the future."

A/N: I have been waiting months for this moment. I had this planned out since nearly the beginning of the story, and it feels so good to finally have it posted.

Made cajun catfish yesterday, was super tasty. Made coleslaw and potato salad to go with it. Also learned that there's probably going to be a new-hire for my team within the next week. With an onboarding process of two months, however, it'll be a while before I get my weekends back. Oh well.

To Queenie241, I revel in moral ambiguity. Hearing exactly what you said was exactly what I was going for.

To ReaperOfOaths, Not really sure why I made that reference, just felt like it. Cool to see someone spotted it.

To ChromeCheetah, I don't have a , and I lack the patience to cross-post. Thanks for the high praise!

To SpectacularSpidey, emitter vs mutation is a bit of a blurry line for some Quirks. I view it as a Quirk being something vs a Quirk doing something. For Hawks' Quirk, his wings are something, but the movement of feathers is his Quirk doing something. So, in other words, pretty much what you hypothesized. Aizawa, in my eyes, can't stop a Quirk from being something but can stop it from doing something. Also, your wish is my command.

That's it for this time. Sorry about the cliffhanger, I definitely promise that I won't be cruel enough to put a cliffhanger in the next chapter. I would never do that. Nope. Definitely don't have one planned already.

Changelog (3/18/21): Fixed the scene where, for some random reason, a chunk of the final golem fight got cut out - how embarrassing! Also added a tidbit about Izuku's scars for the hot springs.