Twisted Nightmares

Chapter 22

Table Talk

Mineta asks Midoriya about his knowledge on a specific type of quirk.

"Eh?" Midoriya said, mouth full of white rice. He quickly chewed it and swallowed before continuing, "Uh, what about time travel?" He almost stopped eating when Mineta asked that question. Out of all the things that could come out of Mineta's mouth, time travel was not a very likely candidate.

Uraraka and Iida seemed a bit surprised at his words as well. "Fime frafel?" Urarka said, still not having swallowed her rice. Iida gave Mineta a confused look. "That is a rather...odd topic to bring up Mineta." Iida frowned as he looked down at his food, now deep in thought.

Mineta, now noticing that he had seemingly turned the originally cheerful mood into pure utter confusion, rubbed the back of his head bashfully. "Eh, sorry for the sudden question, nevermind. I didn't mean to change the topic so quickly."

The green haired boy waved his hands quickly before Mineta could end the conversation. "No, no. It's just, that was completely out of left field. I just wasn't expecting...well, that." He scratched his head. "Uh, may I ask why we're talking about time travel?"

"Well..." Mineta rubbed his wrists absentmindedly. "Do you think time travel could be a quirk?" If anyone knows about quirks, it's Midoriya.

Midoriya's eyes widened at the question. "A quirk?" Midoriya's voice had a hint of surprise, and a touch of disbelief.

"Yeah. A quirk. Do you think time travel could be a quirk?" Mineta quickly said.

Surprisingly, Mineta's voice had no tone of sarcasm, which Midoriya wasn't expecting. "Uh, I don't know. I don't think there's ever been a quirk that can controls time."

Iida looked over to Mineta with a slight frown. "Mineta, may I ask why you're suddenly interested in this topic? I've never heard you mention it before."

Mineta's expression could be compared to a kid when he gets caught with his hand in a cookie jar when Iida spoke. "Well, I uh..." The grape boy seemed to have a nervous grin. "Alright, well you got me. Recently I've been getting into quirk study, I think quirks are something I should probably study more, as long as I'm in UA."

As he quickly fibbed, Mineta felt guilt resonate in his chest. Lying was becoming even easier the more he did it. When he stopped to think about, it disturbed him how natural it felt now. A few seconds ago he was a tad bit nervous since they were being suspicious of him, but then he just came up with an excuse to cover up his anxious behavior. It felt wrong how smoothly he was able to conjure that lie up. But either way, lying worked in his favor. But hopefully he wouldn't have to do it for much longer.

Midoriya tilted his head. "Are you saying you're interested more in studying quirks outside of school?" To Mineta's surprise, Midoriya's voice had a tinge of what seemed to be excitement? He nodded in response. "Y-yeah. Do you know anything much about quirks?"

Midoriya's face seemed to light up. "Of course I do! I love studying and analyzing quirks." He paused, rubbing the back of his head. "Before my quirk developed, I loved the study of quirks, I wrote a lot about it in my journal!"

Mineta raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Journal?" Like a diary?

Nodding excitedly, Midoriya continued. "Yeah! I have a notebook full of heroes and their quirks! It's my hero analysis for the future! Want to see it?"

Mineta looked a bit bewildered. He didn't expect Midoriya to excitedly go off like that. "Uhh, sure?"

And just when he thought Midoriya couldn't surprise him anymore, the green haired boy shot up from his seat and bolted away. "U-uh, Midoriya?" Mineta asked, caught completely off guard at the green haired boy's sudden departure. He turned to the other two students for guidance, but they had befuddled expressions on their faces as well. "Well," Mineta began, "That uh, happened."

Uraraka scratched her head. "Yeah..." She wasn't expecting for Midoriya to suddenly bolt off.

If one sudden disappearing Midoriya wasn't random enough, Inko seemed to almost materialize in the dining room, a worried expression on her face. "Why did Izuku run off, did something happen?"

Mineta just shrugged. "He said something about a hero journal, then took off."

After looking towards the direction Midoriya went, Inko's mouth curved upwards. Amusement twinkled in her green eyes. "Oh, that old thing. Before his quirk developed, Izuku loved to write and analyze quirks. He's showed me multiple times, he's rather proud of it." Inko laughed softly. "It's his pride and joy."

Inko hummed, remembering when her Izuku was just a little boy, how he'd scribble on pieces of paper and have little drawings of what his hero costume would be. He'd run up to her, jumping and squeaking about his "Hero Costume". Crude drawings of course, given his age, but that didn't stop him. She'd knew from the start Izuku would always chase his dreams, no matter what.

And her day got better when she saw that her little Izuku had made so many friends. Her heart had swelled with pride earlier today.

Uraraka honestly thought Deku having a little hero journal was just adorable. Deku would always get excited when you asked him about quirks or Pro Heroes. It reminded her of the little kids she would always see, just so excited about heroes and watching them kick the villains butts, and save the day. Deku was probably one of those kids when he was younger. Well, technically he still was, and Uraraka was perfectly fine with that. Other than Deku acting like... well, Deku, she was not expecting her week of school to go in this direction. Mineta suddenly completely changing on a flip of a dime, being in Deku's house for a study session, and to be served amazing home cooked meals, better than her own cooking, that was for sure. But still, it was a bit strange. For Mineta to go from a perverted cocky brat, to a rather polite and encouraging student. She definitely preferred this new Mineta. Though, it was still strange. She'd ask about it later though, since they were apparently about to see Deku's hero journal, which in all honesty sounded pretty cool!

As Inko walked off to sit in the living room, Uraraka heard pattering footsteps quickly headed in their direction. She turned to see Deku jogging up with what looked like a burnt journal. That looks oddly familiar...

"Th-This is my hero journal!" Deku said proudly as he held the beat up book to Uraraka first. "R-Remember it?" He smiled and showed the cover and a few pages, awaiting her response.

Uraraka widened her eyes. "Oh right! I remember this! Didn't you show me this at the Sports Festival?" She briefly recalled sitting with him in the stands, and how he proudly showed it to her. The boy nodded, ecstatic that she'd remembered from all those weeks back.

Mineta however seemed confused, as if he'd never seen it before. "What's that thing?"

Shooting him a confused look, Uraraka pointed a thumb at the book. "Weren't you there when he showed me that? I'm pretty sure you and Tsuyu were sitting behind us in the stands..."

Mineta titled his head. "I was?"

His hesitant answer caused her to frown. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you were there, you sat right behind us with Tsuyu. We talked sometimes while the fights happened." She looked over to Deku. "Weren't they with us?"

Midoriya nodded. "Yeah, Uraraka is right! Me and her sat in front of you."

Satisfied with his answer, she turned back to Mineta. "You do remember the Sports Festival, right?"

Mineta looked at her with what was probably the blankest face Uraraka had ever seen. "Uh, sure?"

It felt like so long ago. The sports festival felt like it happened a year ago, at least for Mineta. With him trying to pull through this new timeline, days begun to feel like weeks. Only now when Uraraka had inquired about the Sports Festival did he remember just how damn long ago it felt. In their eyes the festival was a month or two ago. It was all just a blur to him now. Whenever he attempted to think about it, it felt like he was trying to remember a faint dream. He only remembered one second of the dream, and the rest was lost to oblivion. He squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit! Why is it so hard to remember? He clenched his fists in silent fury, completely oblivious to his friends sitting by him.

"Mineta? Are you alright?"

Opening his eyes, Mineta saw Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida looking at him with slightly concerned expressions. He stumbled over his words, "Wh-what?" How much did they see? Was I spacing out again? "I-I'm fine. Sorry, was deep in thought again."

His friends however did not look too convinced. Midoriya was looking at him with concerned eyes, Uraraka had a worried frown, and Iida had an indifferent expression. "Mineta," Iida started, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Y-Yeah." Mineta managed to say, subtly putting his hands under the table before they started to shake.

"How's about that book though? What's in it?"

Looking at the book, Midoriya seemed to quickly forget about previous events that happened a few seconds ago, as he started to smile. "It's got everything I learned about Heroes and their quirks!" He opened to a random page as he held the book out to Mineta. "Like this one!"

Mineta leaned to take a look at the inside of the book, and had to hold in a chuckle as he saw a hasty scribble of Mt. Lady. What are the odds? "Can I read it?"

"Sure!" Midoriya said as he handed the book to Mineta.

As his little hands held the journal, Mineta scanned over the drawing to see that Midoriya had writings about Mt Lady's quirk, including strengths and weaknesses. "Wow," Mineta managed to blurt out, "This is very... educational?"

"Educational?" Uraraka said with a raised eyebrow, confused at Mineta's odd choice of wording. She had thought it was pretty cool, but educational? She never thought of it that way.

"Sorry, odd wording," Mineta said quickly. He turned back to Midoriya. "But it's really neat you put time and effort into this!"

Midoriya smiled happily, his smiling getting a bit blinding once more. "Thanks! I'm very proud of it!" He glanced at an empty page, then to Mineta and Iida. "Do you guys want a analysis?" He took the book back from Mineta. "I already made one for Uraraka!" Midoriya said as he pointed to the empty page, not noticing Uraraka blushing slightly at the mention of her page.

"Uh," Mineta started. He shook his head, remembering what he had asked earlier. "Yeah, later though. I was wondering if we could get back to the original topic?"

Midoriya had a blank expression, indicating that he had obviously forgotten what they were talking about earlier. "What were we talking about?"

Restraining his urge to make some sort of sassy one liner, Mineta simply smiled. "I was asking you about time travel." Finally getting back on track. I forgot how easy for it is to get distracted with a slight change to the original topic.

"Oh right," Midoriya chuckled bashfully. "You wanted to know if it was a quirk?"

"Right on," Mineta chirped. "You know any quirks with time travel?" Mineta had crossed his fingers, Midoriya was probably the smartest person he knew when it came to knowledge to quirks, and the journal he saw just a few minutes earlier just boosted his theory. Hopefully he'd get some answers now.

Midoriya held a pencil that Mineta hadn't noticed earlier. "Well, I don't think there had been any time quirks in existence. Not ones with time travel, maybe ones that slow down time for one, but never time travel."

"Well, what kind are you thinking about?" Uraraka said as she began to chow down on her food, as it had gotten a little too cool for her liking while they talked. "There's different types of time travel, right?" She used her tongue to get a bit of rice that had stuck to her cheek. "At least, there are different types in fiction."

Iida nodded as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "That is a good point, but with quirks, anything is possible. For a simple concept as time travel, it has a surprising amount of variety. Although I have never seen or heard of a time travel quirk in real life, there's always different types that could theoretically exist." He glanced towards Uraraka. "Which types of time control did you have in mind?"

Uraraka twirled her hair with her finger. "Well, there's a lot." She looked over to Midoriya. "Deku, do you think you could write this down? I don't think I'll be able to remember all of this later." Once the boy nodded, she turned back to Iida and Mineta. "Well, the ones I've seen in fiction n' stuff, there's a lot. There's the classic type of time travel where the person or machine stands completely still and disappears to the future or the past, but in the same position."

"Like The Time Machine?" Iida inquired in surprise, "That's an ancient book, I'm surprised you read older literature like that Uraraka."

Uraraka shrugged innocently with a small smile. "Hey, just because I'm younger doesn't mean I can appreciate the older stuff. It's better than half of what's on television nowadays." She shuddered. "Especially the reality shows."

Mineta put a hand to his mouth as if he was trying not to throw up. "Oh no, please don't remind me." He had to suppress a shudder of his own. "Especially The Quirk Leeches."

Confused, Midoriya tilted his head curiously. "Leeches? Quirk? What are you guys talking about?" Midoriya was completely lost when he had heard "drama tv show". He had ignored drama television since he was a kid. The topic of drama and scripted drama bored him, and he was content to watch All Might punch villains. Even when he did give it a try, his mother had made sure that he wouldn't watch it, informing him that it was "poisonous to his young mind". He really couldn't complain either, since he trusted his mother's judgment. Although he was slightly concerned that the mention of it seemed to sicken his friends. "Is it bad? What's it about?"

Urarka scoffed in disgust. "Ugh. It's a stupid show about how the children of popular Pro Heroes are apparently 'hand fed' an easy life and they're 'leeches to society'. It's dumb." Her apt description made Midoriya frown, obviously not liking what he was hearing.

"I can relate with your disgust for that show," Iida said as he played with his food. "Fans of that show like to target people such as me." He clenched his fist, remembering his encounter with more rude citizens. "Even if I'm doing my best to become a good hero, it doesn't seem to please the followers of that show. I've been harassed more than once in public, even during broad daylight."

His words caused Mineta to blow a raspberry, disgusted at the idea of people harassing Iida just because of his bloodline. Ugh, those people sound like total tools. "Huh. I bet people like Stain would get a kick out of that show." He blurted out bluntly.

Upon the mention of the blood villain, Iida and Midoriya glanced at the floor, their expressions falling immediately. Mineta eyes widened as he remembered what happened during the Nomu attack. Both Midoriya and Iida almost got killed by Stain. It was thanks to Endeavor stopping the blood villain that the UA students survived the encounter. Mineta was hit with a massive wave of guilt. Shit! Forgot that they met Stain up close and personal. Please tell me I didn't trigger some PTSD or something. Mineta desperately waved his hands when he noticed their discomfort. "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to bring up any bad memories." He mentally slapped himself. Didn't I say something about thinking before thinking?

Thankfully, Midoriya caught on to Mineta's guilty expression. He put a hand up. "No, don't worry about it." Midoriya quickly said before the grape haired boy could scold himself any further, "Just, it makes me uncomfortable. I'm not a big fan of the name."

"Agreed," Iida chimed in as he picked at his food. "Unpleasant memories."

Now the air had gotten awkwardly quiet, now with the mood seemingly completely killed thanks to Mineta's snarky commentary. Midoriya's cheerful expression was gone, and Iida had a slight frown. Mineta felt like slamming his head against the table. Good job Mineta. Someone end my misery please.

However, Uraraka came to save the day. "Mineta, uh, weren't we talking about time travel? I had a few other ideas."

Her intrusion made Mineta want to cry with joy. Thank you Uraraka! "Yeah, we were talking about time travel." Well, we WERE, because we get so easily distracted. It's like we all have the attention span of a goldfish. He glanced at the journal Midoriya still held in his hands. "Well, what other types of time travels are you thinking of?"

Uraraka smiled, also glad that they were back to the original topic. She turned to Midoriya. "Well, we already discussed the 'Time Machine' type of time travel, there's also the type where the machine stands still, but teleports to a new location."

"Yeah," Mineta began. "I remember an old tv show where I think it was a phone booth was a time machine? And the guy who piloted it was some sort of immortal?" He scratched his chin absentmindedly. "No! Wait. I think he glowed and changed faces whenever he died?"

Uraraka nodded quickly. "Bingo! And he could travel anywhere, but it could also just teleport without traveling in time too." She looked over to Midoriya with a soft smile. "Deku, do you have any theories?" The green haired boy however was deep in thought, journal in hand. He was tapping his chin with the pencil he had in his hand, completely oblivious to Uraraka. He had started to ramble again. She tapped his shoulder in an attempt to snap him out of it. "Deku?"

"Eh?" Midoriya quickly said, now realizing that Uraraka was tapping him. "O-Oh, s-sorry! It's just..." He used his pencil to point at his journal. "I'm thinking about possible quirks with time travel. But since it's never been recorded in history, it's all up to speculation." He turned to a blank page in his book. "But there's a difference to what you guys had been saying."

"May I ask what it is Midoriya?" Iida inquired.

In response, Midoriya held up a finger as if to make a point. "You guys are talking about devices or technology that can travel in time. What's got me thinking is quirks that have time travel, not machines."

That had piqued Mineta's interest. He had wanted to know from the start what Midoriya's theory was on time travel quirks, and it seemed his patience was going to pay off. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well," Midoriya started. "There's a lot of possibilities, all things considered. Perhaps there is the teleporting ability also with time travel. And also the ability to manipulate time too." As he scribbled down on his paper, he seemed to light up. "But, there could be more realistic quirks that have to do with time." He turned to look at Iida. "You have a speed quirk, but it only makes you faster because of your engines. Someone could have a quirk that also makes them faster, but it could be a quirk that slows time for them. There could also be a quirk that slows someones perception of time. It's not time traveling from a technical standpoint, but it's more probable then time travel."

Iida hummed as he stroked his chin. "Very true with that statement. A quirk slowing someone's perception of time sounds more realistic." To Mineta's surprise, Iida turned to him instead of Midoriya. "Did you have an idea? You originally brought up the topic of time travel, do you have any theories or ideas?"

Oh. Looks like I'm on the spotlight then. Putting on a quick smile on his face, Mineta shuffled in his seat. He licked his lips nervously. "Well, I did have an idea. It's kinda dark though..." He gestured towards his three friends. "Compared to your ideas, at least." Considering the fact that dark idea is reality.

Uraraka, Midoriya, and Iida shared a rather unsure look. "Uh," Midoriya started. "What do you mean by dark?" He stopped writing in his journal and looked at Mineta inquisitively. "You don't mean like, something bad, right?"

Mineta chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. "Uh, maybe?" Oh boy, am I going to kill the mood again? Maybe I have a third quirk where I can kill the mood in any room I walk into. "I won't say it, if you guys don't want to hear it."

"Well," Uraraka said. "I think it'll be okay, as long as it's not too bad." She turned her head to Midoriya, "Right Deku?"

Her words feel on deaf ears, as Midoriya seemed to be troubled upon hearing Mineta's words. He fiddled with the pencil in his fingers as he considered his answer. "Right." He glanced at Mineta. "It's just...what about a time travel quirk that could be dark?" He began to mutter once more. "well, there is the possibility of having negative effects if you risked interacting with your past family members, and the theory that even slightly changing past events could completely alter the persons timeline..." Midoriya scratched his cheek with his pencil. "And the theory where even changing something very minuscule, such as someones order for food, could change the events of the timeline."

Whatever Mineta was going to say, he completely forgot once Midoriya started thinking out loud. He tried to intervene. "Uh..."

"But there's also the possibility where the traveler intervenes again to fix his mistake, thus saving him from disappearing from existence, like in Back to The Future."

"Back to The Future!" Mineta suddenly exclaimed loudly, startling everyone at the table. "I was thinking about that movie for so long, but I could never actually remember the name! Thanks Midoriya!" Only when Mineta stopped did he notice the odd looks from his friends. He rubbed the back of his head bashfully, realizing he just interrupted Midoriya. "Oh, sorry, heh heh. Just had to get that out." If there's any crickets, now would be the time to start chirping.

Waving Mineta's apologies off, Midoriya smiled. "Oh, that's ok!" He stopped smiling and his lips pressed into a thin line. "Besides, I was kind of rambling, I think. What was your idea for time travel?"

Well... Mineta thought. Here goes nothing...

He took a deep breath in, and looked at Midoriya. "Well, my idea is a time travel quirk, but it's activated by the person dying."

Iida stopped eating his rice.

Uraraka raised both her eyebrows in surprise.

Midoriya gawked in shock at Mineta's words. After a few solid seconds of him just staring in surprise at Mineta, the boy shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Um," he started calmly. "Do you think you could elaborate?"

Well, the reaction, could have been worse. Mineta thought to himself as he stared back at the confused boy sitting by him. He had expected a more of a negative reaction, so he settled for accepting what he got. "I shouldn't of worded it so bluntly," Mineta said as he laughed awkwardly. "I mean like, say what if someone died, but wakes up a few weeks in the past instead of dying? For every time they die actually, they go a few weeks back?"

Midoriya turned to the next page as he nodded thoughtfully. "If they die? And that's the only way that person could use their quirk? No other means, is that right?"

"Yeah," Mineta said calmly, stretching his arms and legs. "Basically that. The person would have to die in order for their quirk to come into effect."

His explanation caused Uraraka to widen her eyes. "That's kinda morbid Mineta, no offense." She shot a glance at Midoriya's journal, and her eyebrows scrunched up. "Why do you think the person dying would be required for them to use their quirk?"

Mineta began to sweat a little. "Well..." He averted his gaze and stared at the floor. "Just, a theory."

The other three Class A students looked at Mineta, making the boy even more nervous. Okay, I don't have an excuse for this. C'mon brain, you can't just go blank on me now!

He was now aware of Iida, who was looking at him with a rather indifferent expression on his face. "Mineta," Iida began, "have you been getting into fiction that has this sort of thing?"

Mineta stared at him with a very blank expression, too shocked to even express his surprise. Holy shit, I think you just gave me my cover up! Thanks Iida! He immediately recovered his smile and nodded affirmatively at Iida. "Actually, I have! How did you know?"

Iida adjusted his glasses. "I've read some manga with something similar to that, not much mind you, but it's an enjoyable read. I prefer to use my freetime for studying though."

Mineta resisted the urge snicker in amusement. Not surprising when it comes to you Iida. "I read a book with it, but I forgot the name and author." He pointed at Midoriya's hero journal. "It's just when I started getting into studying that the idea popped up in my head."

Iida slowly nodded. "Mmm. That makes sense I suppose." Iida looked at Midoriya, who was scribbling down in his notes again. "Midoriya, do you have any ideas how a quirk like that could work? Well, hypothetically, of course."

Midoriya hummed as he fiddled with the pencil in his hand. "Well, we already know that a quirk like that has never existed, and the possibility of a time travel quirk being similar to that of a power from older fiction is very low."

"So you're saying it's impossible?" Uraraka piped, tilting her head as her chocolate eyes were glued to Midoriya's face.

"It's highly unlikely," Midoriya corrected her softly as he tapped the eraser on the paper. "Although, many years ago something as simple as a glowing baby was seen as completely impossible, but look where we are now. So many different quirks exist now. I can't say it's impossible, but I can say that a quirk that manipulates time is one of the few quirks that likely will never exist."

Mineta cursed under his breath. "So, are you saying that you really have no idea how it would work?"

The green haired boy nodded as he stared at the scribbling in his journal. "Yeah. It's a quirk that hasn't and probably won't exist. There's so many possibilities and theoretical types of quirks with time travel." He had a rather dopey grin as he looked at Mineta. "Oh, I-I'm sorry if you're disappointed. It's just I really don't specialize in non existent quirks."

Mineta simply waved off the apology. "No, it's alright." He rubbed his left shoulder. "I'm glad I know now, it's just been bothering me for awhile."

After they finished their meal, they cleaned up and began to study, with Mineta having a bit of trouble with English. He personally hated how some words were different, but actually were spelled exactly the same and just pronounced different. Iida seemed to be pretty all right in the topic, and helped Mineta with some more difficult words. It was a nice time overall, and after they finished and exchanged some parting words with Inko, the students left the Midoriya household.

But another important thing Mineta learned was that Midoriya unfortunately wasn't much help with analyzing "non existent" quirks. Mineta realized that he hadn't thought ahead once more, causing him to facepalm. Well, now he had to take the last option.

Tell Midoriya the truth.

Hey guys, I'm back once more. I'm going to get the chapter stuff out of the way, if any of you are interested in how I am doing, it's at the very bottom so the people who aren't interested don't have to read. Now time to talk about the chapter.

Wowsers! A very dialogue heavy chapter! Although reading the ending, you probably realize that this chapter ain't filler! :P Something's gonna happen during the exams, and maybe you guys have a good idea. And there is another concern with the rewrites.

Let me explain, when I first wrote this story, I half assed a rewrite for the first 4 chapters I believe, and they aren't really good. But since I've taken so long with rewriting the other chapters, I don't know what to do. What I want to know is, are you guys ok with the chapters as they are? I finished the other rewrites, with some more obviously edited then the others, and some I barely could change because I just stared at it not coming up with anything to add/edit. It's just when I look at this story, I see more things I did wrong instead of stuff I did right. I feel like my writing is garbage sometimes, and it sucks. Would you guys want me to edit them, although I might not be able to write the other chapter faster. Do you guys want more chapters instead of fixed earlier chapters? Please let me know! (With reviewing this chapter so I know what you guys think)! Cya next time!

Well, now that's out of the way, this is where I talk about how I'm doing. If this personal stuff bores you, this is the end of the chapter, so I suggest stop reading. Okay, for any of you interested. I really, really, REALLY appreciate all the support from you guys, it helps a ton. For my depression, it's gotten a bit worse, and I've had some pretty low moments. I usually play video games like Alien Isolation to help me relax if I'm feeling particularly down, but that's it. On the bright side though, I get to go to a convention that I really been wanting to go to tomorrow, so I'm actually really excited for that. Thanks for reading you guys, I'll see you next time. Well, as always, if you enjoy my work please Review/Follow/Fav! Ciao.