Two things: reviews give me motivation and I also regret everything and nothing at the same time.

Having said that, I hope you enjoy as we reach the beginning of the end. :P

Aizawa honestly had no idea what the hell was going on anymore. He had only noticed Bakugou wandering off because Midoriya had apparently been fined tuned to it and tipped him off. Then, he had a hard time keeping focus as he trailed after the kid. The thought of what Bakugou might be about to do was a heavy weight in his mind as he continued to follow him, hoping that he wouldn't have to repeat the previous loop.

Of course, the kid was headed in an entirely different direction from last time, but somehow that didn't make the pro hero feel better. There was always more than one way to die, after all. Minutes passed of just wandering, the ambiance of the city more of a soothing sound than an annoyance like it usually was.

The sense of normalcy was surprisingly comforting when everything else seemed to be going to shit.

Aizawa wasn't exactly sure how, but at some point, he lost sight of Bakugou around a corner and then he seemingly disappeared. Maybe he was just too tired to think properly, but there was nowhere that the pro hero could see that a teenager could easily escape out of his line of sight so quickly.

His only thought was that the kid was on the roof, but then he would have probably heard an explosion or something that would have indicated that he propelled himself up there… right? Or was he seriously that out of it?

All the horrible emotions suddenly came back, hitting him like a tidal wave and swimming in his gut uncomfortably. How could he have lost this one kid? The pitiful kid he swore to help but then only served to make things worse for?

Something had snapped him out of his thoughts, a door hinge or something similar. Though Aizawa couldn't help but wonder if he had imagined it, with how quiet it was and how convenient it was in dragging him out of his negative spiral. Of course, that kind of coincidence always itched at him, and he let himself look up, only to be met with a familiar figure staring off into the distance.

The hero's heart froze in his chest, his body doing the same, as he stared up at Bakugou's shoes, trying and failing to move or say something. Do anything.

Yet he was unsuccessful, too busy drowning in the crushing feelings and anxiety that weighed him down. A small scuffle came from behind him, so quiet that it was like deja vu with the experience he had just had. The anticipation of another disaster almost made him not want to turn around, but another louder sound was made and that was that. He couldn't just ignore his problems… right?

Aizawa turned to look at the sudden noise, realizing that there was a familiar mop of green hair sprinting towards him.

Had Midoriya followed him the entire time without him realizing? How had he not noticed? He was a pro hero for fuck's sake and this was a fucking child.

But looking away from the blonde that was in the most precarious situation was a far greater mistake than not noticing someone following him. Midoriya screamed out Bakugou's cutesy nickname with the most heart-wrenching tone, and then there was a scream. Aizawa tried to whip around to identify the problem and hopefully fix it, but he really should have known that there was nothing he could fix here.

The words 'you're a failure' looped in his head as he turned to stare at the dead—empty, broken, pitiful—body in a pool of deep red. He just stood there, watching as Midoriya screamed and cried and wrenched tears from his forever dry eyes.

Surely at some point a bystander heard the desperate cries and came by to see the situation and likely scream in horror at the scene in front of them, frantically calling the emergency services in hopes that they could save the life of this stranger, this child.

But whether that happened or not, Aizawa didn't exactly know. His mind was no longer there, already too busy thinking about how he was going to fix this in the next loop, going over all the mistakes of this one and trying to figure out what could have possibly gone wrong. Their plan hadn't been perfect, but this wasn't… this wasn't anything like what he had expected. There wasn't… this shouldn't have been…

And then it was blank.

He woke up, eerily calm and unable to remember anything beyond red green blonde red green red red red.

Eraserhead pulled himself out of bed and quickly changed into his hero costume, let his cats out of the cabinet, put fresh food and water down for them, and speed walked to Bakugou's house.

He wasn't sure how much more he or Bakugou would be able to handle, this was it.

It was now or never, and the juxtaposition between pressure to get it right and his complete inability to do so had never been more unbearable.

Bakugou woke up suddenly, startling awake without sitting up like he normally would. In seconds, his breath caught in his through and the tears began leaking through his eyelids despite them squeezed shut. Ghost-aches from what had happened plagued him, and just let himself cry.

Gasping and wheezing, he distantly remembered that his mother was home, and that he really didn't want her to see him like this as she had in the prior loop. It had felt so horrible when he had said something so stupid, so unfair, when he saw the way her face wrenched and her normal temperament was replaced with something foreign and caring.

He couldn't do that again… He couldn't do any of it again.

No more. He was done. He was never getting out of this loop, because whenever he tried, everything always went wrong. Bakugou made everything go wrong. So he just… wouldn't. He would sit in bed and let the pro hero handle it, because clearly he would be able to if his stupid ass hadn't gone and ruined it.

As true as it was, that realization only made him cry harder. So he slowly rolled over and pushed himself onto his elbows in order to bury his head into his pillow to muffle the sobs.

He hadn't meant to… to… to die. He couldn't even muster a vindictive pleasure from forcing Deku… Midoriya, to watch him die. But he didn't… He really didn't mean to. He didn't. He hadn't even wanted to die.

He just needed a break and let himself blindly follow his subconscious to wherever it led him. It just so happened that the place it went to was a roof.

How was he meant to react to Midoriya's outburst, his declaration of all the things that Bakugou had been telling him for years: all the things that he now knew were nothing but manifestations of his own insecurities. It was shocking, it was horrifying, and it left him reeling as though he were struck.

Bakugou may have been more than prepared to take a beating, but he was woefully unprepared for this emotional battery. He wasn't sure how it would have gone, how he would have reacted if Midoriya had simply stopped there, refusing to elaborate on the rest of the thoughts going on in his head. But instead, Midoriya let it all go just had let go of life so many times.

To learn that Bakugou had been Midoriya's lifeline, his personal center, his core for all this time was simply too much. The only thing that made the pitiful, quirkless teenager that Bakugou couldn't help but want to become amiable with once more whole was the very person who abused him and ripped him to shreds.

It was as if this was inevitable. The people who built him up were destined to tear him down, and it was a product of Bakugou's own hand. A project of over a decade that culminated in this disaster of a human being, fostered by another disaster.

And what had Midoriya done to deserve this? Absolutely nothing.

So what would Bakugou do to fix this?

Well…

Despite knowing that he had a responsibility to make this right…

He would do absolutely nothing.

Because there was absolutely nothing that he could do. It was much too late for his pitiful attempts at becoming a hero, much less a decent fucking human being.

And he had no one to blame but himself.

...Right?

"Katsuki!" his mother screamed up at him again.

For a moment, he had thought that maybe he could muster the courage to get up and fix things, maybe, possibly… But with his mom yelling at him, his will crumbled to pieces and tears pricked at his eyes. Fucking hell, it was all his fault anyway, he didn't have a right to feel this way. And yet here he was, an ungrateful bastard making everything about himself like he always had and always will.

Bakugou knew that he should reply to his mother, make sure she didn't worry like she had in the previous loop (he couldn't see her like that again), but he just… couldn't seem to get his jaw open or his tongue to move.

Even breathing felt like a chore, or even something he wasn't worthy of doing.

Despite his lack of reply, his mother continued on without screaming at him for being rude, "There's someone here to see you? He says it's important…"

Someone here? Was it Aizawa? Or did… or did Deku… Izuku remember? Fuck, he hoped not.

"I'm-" he smacked his lips, trying to get the dreadful taste and thick feeling out of his mouth, "I'm getting ready for school, can you send him up?" he yelled.

You know, like a liar. As if he wasn't just lying in bed, dreading everything and wishing for nonexistence. Was this what Deku felt like?

...What Izuku felt like? Or were his emotions more painful and hot and angry?

For Bakugou, this was a calm sort of pain, the kind that was analogous to a cold flame that contrasted with his usual hot bursting anger. Was D-Izuku's experience the numbness that slowly creeped up on him, or was it blinding and sudden, the kind that made him act right then in the moment, without thought and with much regret?

Bakugou wasn't sure which one was worse, they were both horrible from what he had felt in the past few loops.

On the off chance that this wasn't being caused by the loops, how long had Izuku been dealing like this? Was this what depression was like? Or was this just Bakugou?

He had so many questions and no answers, yet he wasn't sure he would be able to handle the answers, even if he wanted them.

But a hero would handle them, like Aizawa has been? Yet hadn't Aizawa abandoned Bakugou with Izuku just yesterday? ...Last loop…? No, he must have thought that Bakugou could handle it on his own, which meant that he had clearly failed.

And hadn't he decided all the way back in that loop that he couldn't be a hero? That he wasn't cut out to be one, with everything he'd done? He fucking killed Deku!

Fuck...Izuku...

Shit! Did he even have the right to call him that?

...Midoriya...

"Bakugou…?"

His head snapped up, "A-Aizawa?"

"...Kid, are you okay?" it was impossible to miss the way the hero's voice trembled at the end.

It seemed that Bakugou wasn't the only one struggling to keep himself together at this very moment. But Aizawa had an excuse at least, Bakugou had made him see… that.

Again… and again… and again.

A heavy sigh, "But you did too, with Midoriya. You can't only blame yourself, or you won't get anywhere outside of this bed."

"But I-"

"Kid, that's not-"

But whatever Aizawa had been about to say, Bakugou would never know as the door to his room slammed open and the tears that he had tried so desperately to stop returned with full force.

Midoriya last remembered kneeling in a puddle of Kacchan's blood, dozens of thoughts and emotions racing through his mind. Everything from vindication to anger to exhaustion to frustration and more overwhelmed him. He almost wished that he could take solace in the calmness of feeling numb, but then a sharp spike of guilt stabbed through his heart and he felt horrible all over again.

Someone screamed, but he was too horrified by the way that Kacchan's blood flowed and flowed and didn't stop. There were sirens in the background, but his hearing had long since been fading in and out despite his vision remaining sharp and fixated on the red red red.

He felt someone tugging on his arms, trying to pull him to his feet, and a fuzzy sort of darkness began to creep in. And he just… he just… let go and the comforting darkness welcomed him.

...

When he woke up, he was back in his bed staring up at his ceiling and wondering if what had just happened was real or a dream.

He slowly tilted his head to stare at the rest of the room. Given by the fact that his mother was nowhere to be seen, it must have been a dream. Otherwise, Midoriya doubted that his mother would have left him alone for even a second.

Plus, he thought as he reluctantly got up to check his phone, he would probably have dozens of mocking texts from his classmates, asking him if he had finally snapped and pushed Kacchan off a roof.

But instead of the relief that he expected to come at the lack of cruel notifications, he was frozen in shock and horror as he stared down at the date and the date stared back up at him.

Kacchan… Kacchan hadn't been lying.

It wasn't as if he had thought that Kacchan would lie to him, exactly. It was too much of a hassle for the blonde and that wasn't his style. He was too straight forward for that type of thing, and while he liked a challenge, there were certain "challenges" that he refused to waste his time on. Dodging cops and heroes for illegal behavior was already well beyond the imaginary line, so clearly he wouldn't bother with something so convoluted. But it was still… it was still too much to handle. Especially the part where Kacchan would have needed his help…

But after yesterday…?

...no.

After the last loop? Yeah, there was no doubt about it anymore. Any lingering suspicion was swept awya and replaced with guilt for even disrespecting Kacchan with a notion like that.

Kacchan really had been pushed to his wits end, with nowhere else to turn. Eraserhead was somehow just as lost despite being a pro hero, and Midoriya was apparently the only person they could think of that overthought quirks to the point that even an absurd quirk like a time-loop one was plausible and dissectable.

Truthfully, he couldn't exactly deny how much he loved quirks, and the idea of a time loop quirk…

Well, he'd just say that if it wasn't in this context, he would probably have been more excited than getting to meet All Might.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but that wasn't the point.

His enthusiasm about a new, fascinating quirk overshadowed the strange, heavy feeling that had been weighing him down all of the previous loop. He couldn't exactly forget the horrible image from the previous day… loop… but well…

Kacchan needed him, so he set his resolve and frantically got dressed. Halfway through putting on casual clothes, he realized that he should probably have worn his uniform because he wasn't planning on telling his mom what was actually going on. So he had to scramble back out of his shirt and fumble with the buttons on his gakuran and slip on his trousers before tossing miscellaneous school supplies into his backpack and practically tripping over his own feet on his way out the door.

He didn't even wait to see his mom before he called back carelessly, "Bye mom!" and left their apartment in a hurry.

Midoriya was growing increasingly anxious as he made his way to Kacchan's house, wondering what he would even say to his mother if she was the one that answered the door. That was, of course, assuming that he would even have the courage to make it that far after he had startled Kacchan into… into falling off that building.

And with that thought—just as he always did—he fell into his own head, thinking and spiralling to a point that he practically lost track of everything except the concepts rushing through his brain. At some point, he couldn't even grasp the point of words and their meanings. Only ideas and abstract concepts graced his thought process.

It was a good thing that he was so used to auto-pilot, and that he had been to Kacchan's house dozens of times long before they no longer became friends, because he most certainly had no conscious idea of where he was or where he was headed. Just one foot in front of the other, one idea after the next.

Of course, the issue with that was that he found himself in front of Kacchan's house without fully coming up with a plan of action for what was almost one-hundred percent certainly going to be a disaster.

Well, there was nothing to do but knock. If this really was a time loop like he had just established, and like Kacchan had claimed (no, had told him), then he would have the chance to try again.

But when Kacchan's mom opened the door, she didn't ask any questions. Unfortunately, that left him without any footing on how to deal with the situation, not that he had very much to begin with. She offered him a soft smile while he readily returned.

"You're here for Katsuki too?" she tilted her head a bit, and it made Izuku wonder who the hell else was here for him.

Ah, nevermind.

He was more than stupid. It was probably Eraserhead.

There was no way the pro hero wouldn't immediately rush to Kacchan's side after… after what happened in the last loop. After what Midoriya caused in the last loop. It was all his fault. Did he even have a right to call Kacchan, Kacchan? B-Bakugou… Yeah, Midoriya should only be allowed to call him Bakugou now after what he did. He had only been kidding himself for this long that knowing B-Bakugou for all this time was enough to keep the name, and it wasn't as if Ka-Bakugou had ever bothered to correct him. But it was clear that regardless of his stupid childlish self, he had no right to allow himself such a luxury.

But instead of voicing his rapid mental spiral, he stuttered out a yes and pushed past the older Bakugou and quickly escaped up the stairs, skipping around the squeaky parts like it was second nature. It was amazing how muscle memory seemed to stick with him, despite the fact that it had been almost a decade since he had last been welcomed into this house. Maybe it had just been his hopeful nature that kept these stupid details fresh in his mind.

Well, it wasn't like it mattered anymore, since after they found a way to end these loops (since Midoriya was supposed to be able to fix this… right? That's what K-Ka-Bakugou said… right?) he would probably go back to being nobody. Not to mention that he probably wouldn't be able to face K-Bakugou every day with what he had done.

They still had almost two years of middle school left before B-Bakugou went on to UA without him, after all...

Right. He could do this. Mostly because he had to, but he still would. Whatever happened after, however, wouldn't matter.

And with a deep breath and a faux confidence, he pushed the door open.

Aizawa stared in surprise as Midoriya slammed the door open before quickly scrambling to grab it. Clearly the kid hadn't planned to use that much force, which made for a particularly amusing scene at the most inopportune time. Apparently this kid now also remembered the loops, which had all sorts of implications and problems that he didn't even want to think about at the moment.

So he didn't think about them. Instead, he focus his attention on the two kids in front of him that probably just needed a hug or something. Fuck, he wasn't made for emotional support. He couldn't even handle himself properly when it came to emotions.

"S-s-s-sorry!" he squeaked.

And when Aizawa said squeaked, he meant really squeaked.

It would have been mostly fine if that was all that happened, but then Bakugou began to cry. Nothing against the kid for crying—especially after everything that had happened—but they -

finally had the chance to fix their mistakes from the last loop.

A hug it was, then.

He shuffled over to the distressed kid, carefully sitting next to him on the bed and wrapping one arm around his shoulders awkwardly. That was enough for Bakugou to completely bury his head into Aizawa's shoulder, gripping at his shirt awkwardly in hopes of finding comfort.

Without thinking, the hero found himself humming and slightly rocking back and forth, resting his chin on Bakugou's fluffy hair. He slid his eyes over to glance at Midoriya, who was standing there awkwardly, clearly trying to close the door quietly so as not to disturb them.

What was a bit worrying was the expression on his face.

He was so clearly nervous, anxiety written all over his features and his body language, but there was a certain air of softness to it. Like he was glad and relieved. Was Midoriya relieved about Bakugou crying? Why would that be a good thing? Or was it some sort of vindictive pleasure?

It didn't seem malicious, but then again, Eraserhead was probably the last person to judge emotions reliably.

So Aizawa just mouthed, "Give us a few minutes," and went right back to comforting Bakugou after the kid nodded.

And so they just sat there, the hero alternating between whispering words of encouragement and humming softly to cover the small sobs and hiccups. Midoriya had decided to sit on the floor after successfully closing the door, staring intensely at the pair of them on the bed. It was both unsettling and calming, but Aizawa really couldn't explain why that was.

"I'm… I'm good now," Bakugou whispered, still clutching onto his shirt like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He slowly pulled himself upright, regretfully detaching himself from the pro hero, "You… you remember now, don't you D-Deku?"

"K-Kacchan…" Midoriya grimaced.

Aizawa decided that it was a good time to step in and lead this conversation down toward a more productive direction instead of wherever this was currently going, "Do you feel any different from yesterday… er the last loop that you do now?"

"Hm? Oh y-yeah, I def-definitely feel about twen-twenty times w-worse than yesterday err… the last loop? Is that what you've been referring to it as?" Midoriya all but chirped happily.

Aizawa sighed, "Essentially. We still aren't exactly sure how it works, though we might have a few leads."

It was a bit disconcerting that the kid could appear so… happy after everything. But at the same time, it was an interesting insight that Aizawa hadn't even considered when he had first been caught up in the loops. So if the emotions were getting worse, then that begged the question…

Of course, it turned out that Midoriya was about twenty steps ahead of him. The kid was brilliant—he had known that ever since he had gotten a decent look at his analysis notebook and was able to ask him questions about his thoughts all the way back in an early loop. But time quirks weren't even supposed to exist, much less be easily analyzed by someone who had literally never even seen it in action. And this kid muttered so rapidly that he could barely understand what he was saying, yet when he really tried to focus on the words, he found himself simply listening in awe.

"Did this sort of mental overlap affect others as well? If not in memory, then in emotion or feeling. So theoretically if a strong emotion repeated over and over and over again it would compound in much the same way as the mental fatigue can dull your senses and drag on even after a little rest. Now, is that a side-effect of the quirk, or is it part of its driving mechanism? Is there a way to measure that? No, no. Measuring that isn't important, Whether it's a mechanism or an effect, it's still the same obstacle…" he trailed off, his words finally dying down despite his thoughts clearly continuing.

He slammed his hands onto his mouth and stuttered out another apology, and, frankly, that was getting old.

"Kid, it's fine. We asked for your help, and if this is how you're going to do it, then by all means. Do it."

He nodded but still looked hesitant, stealing quick glances at Bakugou, who seemed to notice and looked at his hands miserably. Aizawa allowed himself another sigh and tried to push forward through the tension between the two.

"Whatever happened between you two, leave it at the door. We're stuck in this looping mess together and we will probably only get out of it together as well. "

Why had he decided in that split second that it was a good idea to pretend he didn't know anything about their relationship again? Bakugou clearly knew that he was lying and Midoriya was taking cues from Bakugou.

"R-right," Midoriya muttered, clearly downtrodden at being chastised, despite it mostly being Bakugou's fault in this case, "I really need more information to be able to do anything. I have no idea how I managed to insert myself into this loop with you both, theoretically we should all be in our own separate loops, or the timeline would get so tangled that it would implode on itself… unless of course the proximity assumption of multiverse theory is technically wrong and each event that happens, even with messing with time, was predetermined and destined to happen so there is only one string of timeline and then it would make sense that we're in the same loop, but that's a huge leap in logic… RIGHT! Sorry, I'm focusing, I'm focusing!"

Bakugou flinched slightly at Midoriya's quick shift in tone followed by a few minutes of silence. There were so many things about this interaction that worried Aizawa, but there was no damn time to worry about them if the emotional compounding that Midoriya had described was an actual issue.

The room was growing even more uncomfortable to be in as the silence dragged on, but Midoriya was clearly thinking about something, so Aizawa let it go.

"D-do you have any idea whose quirk this is?" Midoriya randomly blurted out, making the other two blink in surprise.

"Y-yeah," Bakugou breathed, "It's Takaki's dad."

Midoriya's eyes widened, "T-Takaki-san's dad? B-but I thought he was…"

"Quirkless?" Aizawa interjected, "Yeah, he's still registered as quirkless. But apparently he's not. Then again, with a time quirk, can you blame him?"

Midoriya averted his eyes in favor of staring at the wall, his expression blanking out.

"Erm, do you have any ideas as to what we could do to figure out-"

"Yes!" Midoriya squeaked, suddenly animated as he interrupted the question, "W-we should probably retrace your steps to figure out how we got stuck in the loops, because it didn't start with all of us at the same time, s-so th-there might be… something there? Th-that might be important, unless you don't think-"

"Good point," Aizawa glanced at Bakugou, wondering how much they should tell Midoriya.

The pro hero had the feeling that telling the kid that he had been killing himself over and over again in these loops wouldn't end in anything except disaster. Yet on the other hand, there was a good chance that Midoriya might need that vital piece of information to figure this out.

When Bakugou spoke up before Aizawa could make a decision, he felt guilty that he had just made such a vulnerable teenager make such an important, crushing decision, "Yeah… I'll… just start from the beginning."

And so he talked in such a downtrodden voice, laying out everything that had happened—excluding the obvious. He explained it in such a way that didn't make it obvious that there were holes in the story and gaps in the logic, but it still made Aizawa beyond anxious and dreading what was to come.

Or that could be a residual effect from the loops.

He supposed that they would find out later, as he cut in to add his two cents into the overall narrative. The details, accurate though they were, were far from precise and left much to be clarified. Despite the overall lack of information, Midoriya began listing suggestions as to where they could go to figure out commonalities between their joining the loops and plausible ideas for the trigger—some of which made Aizawa very uneasy.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure how we would find the key words that you said Takaki-san had mentioned, but if that's a way to cancel the effects of the quirk, there might be key words to bring people into the loops in the first place. If you could remember what was said around the time we entered, maybe we could figure it out? And maybe the key words to stopping the loops are a variation of the initial words? It could be a stretch, but it's worth trying… ah, uh I mean, i-if you th-think it's a good ide-idea…?" Midoriya quickly broke out of his confidence into uncertainty as soon as he realized that he had been so bold.

It was disheartening to watch it happen again and again, but the kid was right. That was a good start.

"Sure, but I don't have the best memory for words, so I'm not sure how helpful I can be with this. Plus, it's been a while since I entered the loops and well, a lot has happened since then."

"G-good point! But, um, maybe if we retraced your steps and tried almost reenacting what happened, maybe you'd have a better chance at remembering…? I-if you d-don't mind…"

"Huh, you're right. That could very well work," Aizawa turned that idea over in his mind, wondering how accurately they could replicate the scene without letting Midoriya realize what had actually happened that night.

Well, there was only one way to find out.