Izuku's first week at UA comes and goes quickly, he doesn't restart that often so days seem much faster than they usually are- no repeating the train ride or repeating conversations that were boring to begin with.
As had become annoyingly the usual he had made no progress on understanding any aspect of his quirk, though it hit a little less than it had the first couple weeks after his initial death it still stung a little when his notebook contained nothing new for weeks and the black X on his calendar only rubbed salt into the wound.
UA had been a change but that too was quickly becoming another routine he had to trudge through- take the train, arrive fifteen minutes early, get through the first half of his classes before being dragged by Katsuki to lunch, finish the other half of his classes and go home, always looking at his calendar and occasionally picking up a book on quirk science if he felt like being disappointed.
It's a Wednesday and again Izuku is being pulled by Katsuki to the lunch hall, he gets a lunch he barely touches and, as per usual, Katsuki grumbles about it and Izuku half heartedly picks up a forkful and leaves it at that
Wednesdays are the one day that hold something that is a little intresting- Wednesdays are the days he meets with Nezu who changes slightly ever reset he's done around him. He'll add bits to his speech and seems to see through even Izuku's strongest fakes, his beady eyes glimmer whenever he's at all surprised by what he has to say.
Talking to the principle can be tiring, he has to pin his best fakes up for the whole time and has to pick through everything he says in case one word slips and everything falls through- sometimes he wonders if this is how Katsuki feels, knowing that the other knows more than they let on but not knowing exactly what.
Their conversations are fairly short, so around the ten minute mark Izuku expects to be dismissed soon
"All Might seems to be considering asking you to become his successor" Nezu says as he stirs a cup of tea
"Why?", it almost catches him completely off guard- he'd reset that time with the sludge villain and it had been so long ago, he'd almost forgotten about it himself but it seemed that All Might had remembered something, in the time he'd kept he'd never even met the hero
"He seems to see great hero potential in you"
"He shouldn't"
A brief second of genuine thought and spite slips past before he can go over his words
"- I wouldn't like to be a hero, it's why I applied to general studies not the heroics course" he tacks on quickly though has the dreaded feeling that the damage is already done with the way the principles eyes light up just a little at his slip up.
"You don't want to be a hero?" he sounds intrested
"No"
"Alright, I suggest you tell that to him if he approaches you- have a good day Midoriya"
Izuku exchanges the necessary pleasant goodbyes and heads for the nearest bathroom.
Nezu smiles a little into his cup of tea, the All Might story had been mostly fabricated to see if it would elicit a reaction- and much to his pleasure it did, a moment of resent that shined in contrast to the rest of his words all flat with the emotion showing through a little shallow and sometimes feeling forced.
It peaked his interest the distain he seemed to have for All Might unlike most people his age or even most people in general-
-and then it hits him again, the strongest feeling of de ja vu he's had since a week and a half ago when he first met Midoriya. Again he feels as though he's missing something, it is earlier than it feels and he expects his student to walk through his door despite his meeting being scheduled for two hours later.
The same feeling around the same student seemed more than a coincidence, but how could a medically quirkless student have any handle on memory?
He smiled a little to himself and again thought of how intriguing a student Midoriya Izuku was and just how intresting his choice was turning out to be this year.
Izuku makes it through the meeting without letting his words slip and screw him over and like when he reset before Nezu seems like he knows something, he makes a mental note to absolutely minimise the number of resets he does around Nezu as much as he can- considering the principles quirk he should have seen it coming that he'd be far more aware than anyone else.
The rest of the day is as uneventful as ever, as always Katsuki insists on walking him home and always manages to find him after school lets out. The train ride is tedious, Katsuki talks about the hero course he got into on the way back everyday, and it's met with the silent intake of things that seem important and a timed nod to make it seem as though he is paying attention for situations that he almost completely drowns out.
He departs the train exactly eight minutes after it left along with the hundreds of other people going about their personally replicated daily routines, bustling across the street in their own mind like any other.
Another routine he knew well was villain attacks, the villain would show and do something illegal then the hero would show and some short fight would ensue- the hero wins, the villain gets locked up. Same old good wins over evil.
Same thing Izuku ignores every other day and heads the long route home to avoid, there's no point watching a fight when he knows who is going to win no matter what-
-But this time is different, this time the villain that's just about to loose to the heroes just as always see's Izuku in his uniform fresh from UA just a couple metres away and makes a dash for him- he grabs him at his collar and drags him towards himself, pointing the end of something sharp that Izuku knows the feel of too well to not realise what it was.
"You're going to let me go or the UA kid gets it"
Brilliant, now he'd have to reset and take the train again.
The villain backs off into an alley way still clutching Izuku by his collar and pointing a knife at his neck a little too hard for it to not break his skin. He drags him out of sight of the heroes and then a little further, Izuku can feel his captors heavy breathing on his neck as the pressure on the knife lessens and the villain pushes him away to run.
Izuku grabs his arm before he can-
"Who do you work for"
"What the hell?!"
Izuku surprises himself a little with how quick he is to act on an impulse curiosity
Maybe it's because he doesn't like being dragged away from heroes at knifepoint and it reminds him of those years in middle school, maybe he's just curious and can ask anything he wants before he resets.
Izuku reaches into his uniform pocket and brings out the blade that fit's so familiarly in his hand, he pulls the villain down as hard as he can and presses it at his jugular
"Who do you work for" he presses a little harder, almost feeling something whole for the first time- this was nothing like that time with Katsuki, that time he'd felt his lungs squeeze him in guilt and this- this was completely different
"Jesus!- The- the league of villains ok! I work for the league of villains!"
"What is that"
"I- I don't know! I was hired to work for them I don't know much ok! Kid just drop the knife you don't know what you're doing!"
He only presses a little harder and his heart pounds a little, the adrenaline is almost making him feel more alive than he has in years. Of course he knows what he's doing he's been killing himself for a year- he knows exactly where to cut and how much pressure to apply, he knows exactly how deep his blade is and how sharp it is
"What do you know"
He's killed for much less information than this could give him, the thought of a solution being just at his fingertips seems far too good to be true but still makes his heart pump a little faster.
"It's run by some guy- All for him? All for one maybe? I-I don't know him I've never even met him- I've just heard his name thrown around by higher members- and-and that's all I know, I swear!"
Didn't All Might say something about 'One For All' the reset where he accidentally saved Katsuki? If his quirk was passing things on to 'all' maybe...
"Do you have a number"
Katsuki made the mistake of being stubborn, he just hopes this villain is smart enough to give him what he wants so he doesn't have to go further- a tiny part of him lathers in the thrill of power
"What?- For the league- I-I can tell you, you'll let me go after right?"
"Yes"
The villain lists a string of numbers that Izuku burns into his brain, he lets go of the hard grip on his wrist and drops the hand at his neck- the villain runs away immediately, feet slamming so hard against the pavement he can hear it for a couple seconds.
Izuku grabs a pen from his pocket and writes that string of numbers down on his palm, it was a stretch at best but if there was any semblance of a chance that he could do something.
What was he going to do now? He had to reset but how would he make sure he knew the numbers were in the right order? He didn't have much time to figure it out since Katsuki would no doubt come looking for him or worse the heroes at the scene. He carried on checking the alley as he racked his brain for any kind of solution, nothing he tried came over resets all there was was the scars covering a lot of his body-
The scars, of course how had he not thought of that before? The one item he did carry across was his own body and the damage he'd done to it
Izuku clutched his trusted weapon in one hand and carved each individual number fast and what he knew was deep enough into his other arm- blood poured from his fresh wounds but he finished the string right as the darkness consumed his vision and he succumbed to the void of in-between he'd grown so used to over the last year.
He came to on the train, arm still stinging and Katsuki still filling the silence with null conversation devoid of purpose. Izuku almost smiled at this eventual success, however minor there had to be a villain who could do something- he'd considered it before but now he had a method to make it happen and that black X on his year old calendar seemed more like a lure to his happy fate than a cruel reminder of what could never be.
Izuku carefully dialled the number carved into his arm into his phone, it rang a couple times and he expected it to go to voicemail and for this to be another mark on the long list of failures his past year had held- it rang four times before the line came to life. His chest tightens a little and for once he feels like he's done something.
Izuku swallows the slight ball of nerves in his throat before he speaks to the stranger on the other end of the line
"How did you get this number?"
"I need to speak to All For One, I have a problem I think they can solve"
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