Beta'd by Greed720 and HardwinPotter
Aizawa and Izuku stood across from each other in one of the smaller gyms, which sported little more than padded floors and punching bags. Izuku ran a nervous hand over the hilts of the new hookblades Hatsume had made. These were more like batons than blades, blunted on both sides, but when he held down a button on the grip, sharp edges popped up on the side the hooks curled away from.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Aizawa asked. "I agree it's rational to learn how to fight without your Quirk, but you're still adjusting."
"I'm feeling better," Izuku said. "I want to try it."
"We'll start slow. No grapples, no swords, just hand to hand. Would you like to run through some drills first?"
Izuku threw a few punches and blocks at the air. "I still remember them all. Since I physically went through all the training, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to fight. My Quirk shows me what to do, but I have to be physically capable of doing it, which is why it had me go through all that training in the first year."
"Midoriya, you're rambling," Aizawa cut in.
"Oh. S-sorry."
Aizawa gave him a measured look and asked, "Are you sure that the Sports Festival will take place this year?"
"I don't know why not. If they wouldn't happen, then I could send a memory back to myself explaining why it didn't happen."
"And you fully intend to come in first place in the festival to keep up pretenses and justify an internship under All Might, correct?"
"I don't know, actually." Aizawa shot him a glare, and Izuku quailed under his anger. "I-if it was really important, then I would remember it, so I think it means it doesn't matter. If I do poorly, then I could just work under Nighteye's agency, right? I don't actually know which internship I'm going to take, and there might be a reason I'm not supposed to know. Maybe me not doing well makes it less likely for people to figure out I have a Quirk in the long run?"
As Izuku dove further into his explanation, Aizawa whipped out his scarf. Izuku saw the scarf flying at him and leapt into the air with a yelp.
Izuku stumbled as he landed on his feet. "W-what was that for, Aizawa-sensei?"
"You were rambling, and I wanted to see how you would react. You were a little slow, but you still dodged it. Promising." Aizawa raised his hands into a fighting stance and said, "Let's see how you do on the attack. Try to land a hit."
Izuku advanced cautiously. For all that the teacher seemed to be waiting for him, there was always a chance that the teacher's lack of aggression was another logical ruse. Once he was in range, Izuku threw a punch. Aizawa easily deflected it and snapped his elbow towards Izuku's face. Izuku froze as the point of Aizawa's elbow stopped an inch from his nose.
"Still with me, Midoriya?"
Izuku shook himself and stepped back. "I'm fine. Just need to get used to this."
When Izuku threw his next punch, he twisted away from where the elbow would come, only to find Aizawa's fist pressed against his stomach.
"I'm not going to use the same counter every time. Predict my movements if you can, and if you cannot, react to them. Your reflexes are sharp enough if you can find a way to use them."
Izuku advanced again, this time watching Aizawa for any hint of his next move. When Izuku threw a punch, Aizawa surged forward around his arm, hooked his foot behind Izuku's ankle, and pressed his palm on Izuku's collarbone. Izuku teetered precariously on his heels, a gentle push away from falling to the ground.
Aizawa backed away and said, "Again."
Punch after punch, Izuku found himself unable to anticipate Aizawa's next attack. Over the course of a half-hour, however, Izuku noticed that Aizawa was slowing down his punches, making his counters more deliberate. On one punch, he blocked Aizawa's counterattack. With Aizawa off-balance, yet watching him for his next move, Izuku debated what he could do next. He could throw his knee up, but that might make him off balance. An uppercut would leave him open from the side. He could try pushing him down and pinning him, but if Aizawa slipped from his grab, it could just as easily be Izuku pinned on the ground. Or maybe-
"You're rambling again."
Izuku blinked. Aizawa had a fist hovering by Izuku's temple.
"Sorry, Aizawa-sensei. I got distracted."
Aizawa gestured towards a bench off to the side. Suddenly aware of the sweat pooling on his forehead, Izuku felt grateful for the chance to sit and towel off.
With the tap of a button, a vending machine spat two ice-cold juice pouches into Aizawa's hands. He passed one to Izuku and asked, "How does your thought process differ when your Quirk is active? Do you still think about what you're doing at that moment, or do your thoughts wander?"
Izuku snapped the pouch open. The tart, fruity flavor of pineapple and the viscous slurry of pulp felt strange to Izuku's tongue. It felt invigorating, somehow, to have an entirely new experience that he could have never expected.
"I don't know how to describe it. I'm still thinking, but it's all the thoughts I'm supposed to think in that moment. Then, behind those thoughts, I'm thinking about other things, like what art I'm going to draw that night, or which heroes have talk shows that night, that sort of thing."
"How do your thoughts feel now?"
"Scattered." Izuku squeezed out the last of the juice and tossed the empty carton in the trash. "It feels like the moment I get distracted, my thoughts wander off. I know I'm supposed to think about the fight, but I started thinking about all the different ways I could follow up on that block, and before I knew it, you were back up on your feet. I suppose that would be a side-effect of my Quirk passing back my mental state, without my Quirk to guide my thoughts they wander off. Guess that would explain all the mumbling I've been doing lately. I should find a way to fix that."
"You're rambling again, by the way," Aizawa said with a hint of dry amusement.
Izuku groaned and leapt to his feet. "Can we try again? I think I have an idea."
It took Izuku another two tries to successfully dodge Aizawa's counter. While Aizawa was unbalanced, arm outstretched past Izuku's head after a right cross, Izuku tried the first attack he could think of, an uppercut to Aizawa's stomach. Aizawa twirled out of the way and tapped his elbow against Izuku's head.
"Better," Aizawa said. "Again."
Izuku's attempts at spontaneity had mixed results. Some attempts let him follow up on his attacks, while other times, his thoughts tripped over themselves. Towards the end, he had formed a habit of backing off when his thoughts got muddled up, which led to him backpedaling in a panic before a barrage of punches. When Izuku tripped on a bench, Aizawa grabbed Izuku's collar and held him up.
"You can't afford to give ground in a fight like that," Aizawa said. "Especially when you aren't paying attention to your surroundings."
"Sorry, Aizawa-sensei." Izuku pushed himself back onto his feet and straightened his collar. "It's hard, trying to think on the fly like that."
"You're doing better than I expected."
Izuku skulked. "You weren't expecting me to do much, were you?"
"You spent ten years with that Quirk handling everything for you. Your body still knows what to do, but your mind isn't used to making snap decisions."
"So, I should try turning my mind off and let my body do all the work?"
"Reflexes will only get you so far. In a real crisis, you'll need to be aware of your surroundings and make conscious decisions based on what's happening around you."
"How will I be able to do all that?"
"I'll leave a note for Hound Dog. There should be exercises you can do to improve your concentration." Aizawa took out his phone and tapped a few changes into U.A.'s administrative app. "Also, I won't be able to personally coach you this year since I have to take over for Nezu's work. I had a program added to the training bots for you to practice on. Your ID card is set up so the program automatically loads when you access a gym after hours."
"Oh. Um, thanks Aizawa-sensei."
As Izuku walked out of the gym, he stretched his muscles, wincing each time he felt a tender spot. Aizawa eyed him over and asked, "Do you need to see Recovery Girl?"
"No, I don't think so. Just feels stiff. I'm not really used to feeling stuff like this. I mean, my Quirk had me feel it up front, but it didn't really feel like much compared to the rest of the stuff going on, and now that I'm experiencing this kind of soreness by itself, it feels more intense than normal."
"Rambling."
Izuku stopped mid-stride and bit back a curse. "I really need to stop that."
"I'll tell Hound Dog about that as well, though I have a feeling he already knows."
Physically and mentally exhausted, Izuku locked the door behind him and collapsed onto his bed. His dorm room was devoid of All Might decorations, since he hadn't seen the sense in risking posters and figurines worth over a million yen, but many of his less valuable merchandise adorned the walls and shelves.
His desk was broad and largely bare, though in its drawers, he had a variety of pencils, paints, and paper. His old hero journals were locked in the bottom left drawer, while the new one was tucked next to his bed, along with a journal titled 'Self Analysis'.
Izuku opened Self Analysis. Blank pages, still carrying the scent of new paper, unfurled before him. Putting pen to paper, Izuku thought through everything he could think of that made him happy. After a few lines, he got stuck thinking of the more conflicted forms of happiness. He didn't know if it counted as being happy if he also felt guilty or embarrassed at the same time. After some thought, he added more points and added the extra emotions that came with those events.
Done with writing things down, Izuku laid back and stared up at the ceiling. He didn't feel tired, but his homework was already done, and he had nothing else to do. For once in his life, Izuku Midoriya had free time and no Quirk to tell him how to spend it.
Confronted with the novel experience, Izuku rambled to himself about all the possible things he could do. He knew he should call his mom, but he still didn't feel ready to talk to her, not when he was still hiding his Quirk from her. The temptation to tell her everything rose, but just as quickly, it vanished underneath the anxiety that rose anytime he thought about telling anyone about his Quirk. He could also check out the hero forums and catch up on the latest gossip, but considering one of their hero studies assignments had him trawling the forums for opinions on Best Jeanist, Izuku felt no temptation to jump back in.
When his eyes found his desk, Izuku knew what he wanted to try. He hadn't drawn in months, not with the spring internship taking so much of his time and anxiety over the summer retreat eating away at him. He propped up his tablet on his desk and held a stylus in his hand.
He had a few lines drawn before he knew exactly what scene he had in mind. Yaoyorozu, gaunt, exhausted, leaning on a hero intern. He paused, taking in the rough beginnings of transcribing his vision of the future onto the screen. His stomach churned at the sight of what Yaoyorozu would endure. With a shudder, Izuku deleted the image and started over.
Minutes passed by. Izuku stared at the blank screen, mulling over everything he could draw. When half an hour went by without a single pixel being colored in, Izuku scowled at his tablet's clock and picked a hero at random from his assorted merchandise. His finger pointed at the Present Mic radio schedule hanging by his bed.
He had his hero. Now he needed to figure out what he was going to draw. Full hero outfit, or plain clothes civilian, quiet and contemplative or loud and outgoing, choices tumbled over one another. Discouraged by the overwhelming number of options, Izuku checked his commissions, hoping to find an idea, only to realize that he had closed his commissions months ago. Messages had flooded his inbox, including quite a few requests, but most of them were requests for lewds that he didn't want to touch.
One asked for Midnight in a maid costume. Present Mic in a maid costume seemed like a funny enough idea to run with. At that thought, the image of a maid cafe unfurled before him. He went straight to work on the background. Even without his Quirk active, his hands moved with a will of their own, forming walls and floors with straight lines and curving for circular tables. Once the line art was done, he filled in the background colors with a few taps, settling on bright pastel colors for the walls and furniture, and a light-brown wooden floor. With a few strokes of dark browns and rigid black lines to separate the panels, the floor looked as though it had been carved from actual wood.
At the table dominating the frame, he blurred out the background, saving it so it could be backfilled later, and drew the line-art for Hizashi. The wild, spiky hair came first, followed by his long and angular face, then the lanky chest and arms, and lastly his legs. Hizashi leaned over the table, setting down a cup of coffee with a huge grin on his face, as though he were trying to keep from laughing. With the lines filled in, Izuku added splashes of yellow for the hair, pale cream for skin, and black and white for the frilly maid costume. With a tap, the background filled itself back in behind Hizashi.
At the other end of the table, he decided to have Aizawa sitting down. His unamused frown came first, regarding Hizashi with an exasperated look. His hair spilled around him, partly obscuring his face, and his scarf hid more of his features while leaving just enough room to take a sip. One hand was tucked at his side, while the other reached towards the offered cup. Black and silver filled in most of his lines, with a dash of red for his eyes.
The space between the two of them felt a bit empty, and that one request had put Midnight in his head. After whiting out the dead space, he stenciled in Midnight's smug features. Her pose flouted the outfit, though Izuku left it far less revealing than his patrons may have wished. She held a cake on a plate with one hand, and the other brought a fork up to her mouth, the tines just touching her lips, and a bit of chocolate smudging her chin.
Through the work, Izuku fell into a zen-like state, floating along in a state of happiness as he saw the image in his head unfold itself underneath his hand. Each stroke of the pen, each splash of color that came with a tap, seemed proof that he was worth something without his Quirk. Maybe he couldn't fight well, or handle talking to people, but at least he had one thing he could do right.
With the line art done and the colors added in, Izuku went to work on the shading. The software had an auto-shading function that worked fairly well on human complexion and simple objects, but Izuku gave everything a once-over, smoothing out the rougher edges and tweaking the colors until they fit his mental image.
Izuku let the stylus slip from his hand as he leaned back and examined his work. He felt exhilarated, reveling in the fact that he had done something right without his Quirk. As he looked closer, however, he noticed a few lines out of place. Some of the floorboards were crooked, the chair Aizawa sat in leaned at a subtle angle, and the frills on Nemuri's dress seemed too stiff for fabric. Frustration bubbled up until tears threatened to spill out of him. It had to be fixed. He couldn't let himself fail now, not when he had come so far.
Izuku stared at the software's UI, completely at a loss for how to edit his mistakes. He tried the eraser first and cringed as an entire swath of Midnight's face disappeared at a single touch. He redrew it after he adjusted the frills, but the fork was crooked, and the smear of cake wasn't quite the right chocolate color. A second tap of the eraser left Nemuri with a crooked nose and a lumpy chin.
Giving up on Midnight for the moment, Izuku tried fixing the floor. Hizashi's leg got caught in the crossfire, looking a bit too bulky once Izuku had redrawn it. A second crack at that made the hem of Hizashi's skirt too flat. Correction after correction crept up Hizashi's chest until his grin was crooked and his sunglasses were round instead of pointed.
After hours of painstaking attempts to correct his mistakes, Izuku had wound up with an image worse in nearly every regard than he had started. He dropped the pen and ran his hands through his hair, frustrated by his sudden inability to draw a straight line. He pulled on his hair until twinges of pain stung his scalp, and he ground his teeth until he could hear his dentist weep.
It was about then that he noticed the undo button, a feature he hadn't used since his Quirk came in. Tap after tap, Izuku wiped away his botched corrections, until the flawed original remained. His body practically melted in his chair as the tension flowed out of him.
Emboldened by the safety net, Izuku tried to correct the floorboards again. After some tweaking, he figured out how to make the eraser smaller. More fiddling led him to the mind-blowing discovery that the tablet could draw perfectly straight lines for him with a tap and some wiggling. It still took a few attempts, but once he added the colors back in, the floorboards finally looked straight. The chair and the frills took a bit more work, but after some trial and error, Izuku finally had a result he could be happy with.
As Izuku reveled in his accomplishment, he failed to notice that his screen had dimmed, nor did he remember the battery warning message he had absently clicked on while he was straightening Nemuri's outfit. Just as Izuku was about to save his work, the screen went black.
Startled, Izuku tried to turn his tablet back on. Nothing. He looked at its side and found that the charger had slipped out while he was working. Dread weighed him down like concrete shoes as Izuku realized he had never saved his work. Fingers shaking, he fumbled back in the charger and pressed the power button until his tablet sparked to life. Izuku held his breath. His chest felt tight, and his eyes burned with tears just barely being held back by the slim hope that his art was, against all odds, still there.
The tablet booted up. Izuku's fingers slipped twice before he hit the right app. It opened, and Izuku was greeted with an empty page.
Izuku's head hit the table. Tears flowed freely as his chest shook from his sobs. He had finally done something right, all on his own, almost as well as he could do it with his Quirk, and it was gone. The thought of starting over crossed his mind, but the idea of doing the artwork all over again was just as soul-crushing as leaving it lost forever. Even if he did try it again, it would never be the same.
Once the tears had stopped, Izuku wearily raised his head and reached out to close the app. Just before his finger hit the little x, he noticed a prompt on the left side of the screen. A temporary image file hovered above a block of text asking him if he would like to recover the file he had just been working on. Izuku's heart leapt into his throat as he opened the file.
The maid cafe returned, fully colored and shaded. Izuku's eyes roamed over the piece, making sure that not a single pixel was out of place. It was just as he had left it.
Izuku had thought himself out of tears, yet more came. He hugged the tablet to his chest, reveling in the gentle warmth of the overworked machine against his shirt, as a wave of unimaginable bliss trilled through him. Heart pounding, chest aching, Izuku felt more alive in that moment than he could ever remember.
Sudden fear of losing his artwork again made Izuku scramble and nearly drop his tablet. Once he had the file saved, both on the tablet and the cloud, Izuku sighed in relief and held the picture in front of him. He thought about posting it. It had been months since his last post, and a few die-hard fans were begging him to make something new. However, this piece was the first that he had made, not his Quirk. It felt too precious to him to throw to the social media wolves.
When Izuku turned off the tablet again, he squinted in the near darkness of his room. He went to the blinds and peered outside. Just a hint of light broke the nighttime darkness, cresting over the eastern horizon. Izuku shook his head, scolding himself for losing track of time and working until sunset.
A jolt of unease shot through Izuku. He looked again. The light was coming from the wrong direction, and it looked a bit too yellow for a sunset. With his stomach sinking like a submarine, Izuku fumbled around for his phone. He had to squint at first, when the light nearly blinded him, but eventually, he was able to read the time, 5:56 AM.
Izuku stared in disbelief at the time. Sure, he had spent a lot of time on that artwork, but it only felt like a few hours. That was how long it normally took. Thoughts on how his Quirk expedited things and managed his time drifted through his head like oversized blimps playing bumper cars, careening into each other, and generally going nowhere. He was snapped out of his reverie when the phone in his hand vibrated violently and loudly played All Might's theme. The time, 6:00 AM, flashed brightly at Izuku as he shielded his eyes.
Izuku stared at his phone as it went off. He tried to piece together what the ringing meant. Then it hit him. It was his alarm to get up for school. With a groan loud enough to wake the rest of the dorm building, Izuku turned off the alarm and trudged for the showers.
Izuku didn't need his Quirk to know that he was going to have a very long day.
A/N: another week, another chapter. I made chocolate chip cookies with walnuts today, tried out a new recipe, and it turned out pretty well. The real test will be to see how they are once they cool off.
Just finished Katana Zero a bit ago, and boy howdy, did that give me IDEAS. I'm talking a katana-wielding, time-hopping Izuku finding himself in situations with zero idea of what's going on. Considering I'm already doing one time-travel MHA fic and have my next one planned, I don't expect to be acting on those ideas soon. Ah well, into the idea pile it goes.
Not much else to say, so I'll dive right into the reviews.
Terracotta Tortilla: "I really like how you're not just breezing past Izuku's issues and are actually allowing him time to grow."
Bardothren: This character development was half of what I had in mind when I first started writing it. It's almost regressive in a way, going from a different Izuku back into something more resembling his canonical self. Of course, there's still more to come along the way.
ShadowPillow: "Hound Dog is also so freaking good. Actually a competent counseler."
Bardothren: I'm really glad I got to do Hound Dog justice. I can't recall a single fic I've read where Hound Dog was actually portrayed as a competent counselor – doesn't mean they don't exist, just that I haven't seen them. I find it rather unusual that canonically all the characters get over their traumas in canon by A: getting into fistfights or B: talking to Izuku, who himself needs ALL the counseling.
StillHere: "I'm assigning a slim but existent chance that next chapter is going to be Izuku waking up tomorrow to a world where he opened up about his Quirk a year ago."
Bardothren: A fun idea, but I think it's too much of a twist. Definitely on the table if I did my Katana Zero fic though.
SomeGuy: "Wow, the story after people actually find out about his quirk is surprisingly uninteresting...It feels really all over the place trying to cover a lot of ground in a very short time."
Bardothren: Very fair critique. Looking back, I feel the story would have been stronger had narrowed my focus to a smaller selection of the cast instead of going for the broader canonical approach. That said, juggling as many characters as I am is great practice for making characters and it gives me a veritable swiss army knife of options for interactions and character moments. Because of it, I have a lot of freedom to pick and choose what I tackle next. So, yeah, the story's going to slow down a lot while Izuku figures out what he's going to do next. I'll continue to do my best to keep it lively and interesting. The Hawks tangent was an attempt at exactly that, which might have been too random, but eh, I enjoyed it.
Thanks again for giving your thoughts, despite your lack of enthusiasm for the story's direction. Praise and critique alike are very important in feeling out how I can improve as an author.
Blackhearth75: The excuse that he doesn't know how to deal with his emotions just feels like Bullshit too. He does get to experience all what he's gonna live, after all, in advance."
Bardothren: If I might make a correction, he USED to know everything that would happen in advance. He hadn't lived life twice so much as followed the script his Quirk handed him. He never had to make decisions for himself, never had to worry about any danger or surprises. In neither of those 'experiences' you speak of was Izuku ever dealing with anything he didn't have planned to death. His mental breakdown and anxiety are due to his inability to cope without his Quirk showing him everything in advance. Not saying that to nay-say your distaste for Izuku's character development in the story. Nervous Izuku is a staple of the canon, and it's only natural it's everywhere in the fanfics. I find myself put-off from stories where they go overboard on it as well. I apologize that this development isn't exactly your cup of tea, but that's how it is. Izuku could hardly go up from being the cold, confident precognitive badass he used to be. I've had an equal number of detractors for bad-ass Izuku and zero-confidence Izuku, so I'll take that as meaning I've hit a decent balance.
Wildarms13: "Really unique power to have, was it inspired by another series?"
Bardothren: I honestly haven't the slightest clue where this idea came form. Probably a mish-mash of all the time-travel stuff I've seen before.
And to all the comments about Eri's Quirk immunity, thanks for the notes.