Beta-read by mirxae
"Come on, come on, come on!" Hatsume shouted as she dragged Izuku by his wrist.
"Mei, can't this wait until after class?"
Hatsume kicked down the doors of Aldera Prep and kept running. "Nope! It was supposed to be for your birthday, but I can't wait that long! Baby, now!"
As the school disappeared behind them, Izuku huffed and wheezed for breath. When he stumbled, Hatsume yanked him forward. "Ow, Mei, slow down!"
"Nope, no time!" Hatsume came to a dead stop, with a sudden contemplative expression on her face. Izuku's momentum carried him forward until he fell onto his hands and knees.
"Actually," Hatsume said, "Come to think of it, we've got all the time in the world!"
As Hatsume cackled maniacally, Izuku took in her sweat and grease-stained shirt, her grimy hair, and the dark bags under her eyes. "Mei," Izuku asked nervously, "When was the last time you slept?"
"Hmm… I think it was a Tuesday?"
"Mei, it's Monday!"
"It won't be for long," she said in a singsong voice.
Izuku facepalmed. "Mei, please take a shower and get some sleep. We can do… whatever it is, tomorrow."
"Nope! Time waits for no man!"
Hatsume latched onto his wrist before Izuku could react. She led him through a dilapidated stretch of the city until they came upon an old parking lot. Weeds sprouted in the cracks in the asphalt, and a pair of frogs lounged in a murky puddle. Nestled between an empty, rusted dumpster and a car on cinder blocks, its tires taken long ago, sat a boxy shape obscured by a white tablecloth.
As Izuku hesitantly walked up to the obscured invention, Hatsume bounced on her toes. "Come on, hurry up, I want to see this baby in action!"
Izuku gave it a hesitant poke. "It's not going to explode, is it?"
"It'll be fine! I rode that baby all day and night and not once did it explode on me!"
"I'd trust you more if you let me wear a blast suit first."
"But babymaking with protection is so boring!"
Izuku sighed. "Well, here goes." He slowly, carefully inched the tablecloth up, all the while leaning away.
Hatsume huffed and said, "Quit being a tease and strip already!"
"You know, there's something weird about what you just said, but I can't put my finger on it."
"Nope! Done waiting."
Hatsume yanked the cloth, unfurling a polished, gleaming DeLorean. Every inch of it, from the bundles of wires running along the outside of the vehicle to the wheels and hubcaps, paid homage to a certain movie they had shared.
Grinning despite the sudden bout of existential dread curdling the contents of Izuku's stomach, Izuku asked, "It's a time machine?"
"It's a DeLorean!" Hatsume slapped the top of the time-traveling car. "This bad boy does some serious shit when it hits eighty-eight miles an hour."
Rolling his eyes, Izuku said, "You built a DeLorean out of a time machine?"
Hatsume glared at him. "You said that backwards and you know it!"
Chuckling to himself, Izuku gingerly opened a door and peeked inside. "Oh wow, it's got the display panel and everything."
"Yep!" Hatsume pointed at the glowing box perched between the front seats. "And there's the flux capacitor!"
"Wow." Izuku stroked the flux capacitor, three strings of lights covered by a glass panel, with awe and wonder in his eyes, before remembering that he had half his body inside something Hatsume had made. He flinched back as if bitten. "Mei. This is too dangerous."
"It'll be fine!" Hatsume scoffed. "If traveling back in time would break anything, we would have already done it and already broken the thing. Since nothing is broken, everything is fine!"
"That," Izuku said, slamming the door shut, "Or nothing broke because we did the sensible thing and didn't mess around with a time machine that could break the universe."
As Izuku walked away, Hatsume asked, "Do you really not want to meet All Might when he went to U.A.?"
Izuku threw open the passenger door and buckled himself in. "Come on, we're wasting time! I think? Huh, we really do have all the time in the world!"
"I know, right? Let's go!"
As Hatsume revved up the DeLorean without buckling in, Izuku glanced between her haggard appearance and the open road before them. "Uh, Mei, do we actually need to drive this thing?"
"Of course! How else are we supposed to get up to eighty-eight miles an hour?"
Izuku went white as a sheet. "Mei, no."
Mei floored the accelerator. "Mei yes!"
Tires squealed as Hatsume wrenched the DeLorean out of the parking lot. The streets were mercifully empty, but the way the DeLorean fishtailed while Hatsume wrangled it under control made Izuku's stomach do cartwheels and backflips.
"Mei, this is too dangerous! You're going to run off the road!"
"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!"
"Can this thing fly?"
"Nope! Tried, got too bored."
"Then we need roads!"
A car wildly honked at them as Mei swerved into oncoming traffic. "Whoops!" Hatsume said. "We're clocking seventy now, we're almost there!"
"We almost crashed, Mei! Stop before we get killed, or worse, arrested!"
"Isn't that backwards?"
"What would All Might think?" Izuku started hyperventilating. The DeLorean rammed into a garbage can on the side of the road, scattering garbage bags and rotten food everywhere. "I couldn't live with myself if he turned me in! Would he even give me his autograph?"
"Izuku, concentrate! We're making history here!"
"Concentrate? You're the one that needs to - Mei, look out!"
A truck turned onto the road, too far out to pull back. Hatsume looked down at the speedometer and grinned. "I think we can make it!"
"No, Mei, we'll hit that truck!"
"Time to see some serious shit!"
"Mei, please, I don't want to die like this!"
"To boldly go where no man has gone before!"
Izuku covered his eyes. "I didn't even get to shake All Might's hand!"
"To infinity and-"
A blinding corona of fire and electricity engulfed the DeLorean. As it tore at the boundaries of space and time, it slammed into the semi-truck. Space pinched itself around the point of contact between the two vehicles. Izuku felt as though his body was being stretched like putty, sucked into a straw, and kneaded by flaming, icy, thorny, merciless hands.
Izuku blinked and shook his head as the world slowly came back into focus. When his brain finally started working, an endless landscape of rolling gray clouds stretched before him. The occasional flash of lightning lit the clouds from within, casting eerie shadows.
Between the shrill whistling noise that came through the window and the stomach-lurching sensation of vertigo, Izuku quickly realized that they were falling.
In the driver's seat, Hatsume slumped forward, her eyes shut and body limp. Blood trickled from a jagged gash on her forehead. Forcibly holding back his urge to pass out from fear, Izuku cautiously shook Hatsume's shoulder. "Mei, are you okay? Please say something?"
Hatsume groaned and turned her head. "Mmrph… can't sleep… gotta finish baby for Izuku… he'll love it so much."
Izuku's rapidly climbing anxiety regarding the rate at which the DeLorean plummeted towards the storming clouds warred with the ingrained habit to tuck a blanket over Hatsume and remove anything that might wake her up. Another crack of lightning, close enough to rattle the windows, made Izuku snap back into panic mode.
"Mei, we're falling! Wake up!"
"Falling?" Hatsume's eyes opened, but her eyes were glazed and unfocused. "Is the flight module acting up again? Give it a kick and it'll be fine."
Darkness shrouded the vehicle. The hairs rose on Izuku's arms as the air took on a static charge. Izuku prayed they wouldn't get fried.
"Mei, the car doesn't fly, you said so! We traveled back in time, but we're super high up in the air and I don't know what to do. Please tell me you have an idea."
"Travel… back… that's right, we're going back in time. Are we at eighty-eight yet? Serious shit…"
As quickly as they entered the clouds, they broke through. Darkness shrouded the world, but a single flash of lightning illuminated the landscape below, burning the image into Izuku's mind like a photograph. Roiling seas surrounded an island. The buildings all blurred together in an amorphous blob, but at the island's heart, a wooden gallows stood out in sharp relief, cast in sharp, shadowed lines by the lightning's glare.
Though he could no longer see it, Izuku could feel the island steadily drawing closer. It felt only fitting to Izuku that they somehow managed to appear over a tiny island and completely miss an entire ocean of hypothetically survivable landings.
"Mei, please, do something! Anything!"
"Mmm… too tired… need to keep working…"
Mei's eyes closed. Izuku unbuckled his seatbelt and scrambled over her, desperate for any source of salvation. Buttons changed the time on the front, but there wasn't a switch he could see that started the time travel. He tried to remember what Hatsume had done, only to realize he had his eyes closed at the time. He checked the speedometer. The needle stuck all the way at the end past 140.
Another flash lit up this island. This time, it dwarfed the surrounding ocean, close enough to pick out individual buildings in the ring around the platform.
Izuku leaned back, defeated, watching the storm-lit island rush towards the windshield. They were going to die because of him. He encouraged her to try it, he didn't stop her when she got too reckless, and now, when she needed him to save them both, he was powerless. Just a Quirkless, useless Deku, like everyone said he was.
Something snapped within Izuku. He shouted into the storm, "Please! Please let me save her! I'll give anything!"
The platform lit up below him. As close to the ground as he was, Izuku could make out two people on the platform. First, the unholy amalgamation of a clown and a pirate, sword raised high over his head, staring in raw disbelief at the vehicle plummeting towards him. Second, a boy stuck in a stockade, no older than Izuku, in a red vest and a straw hat, grinning like a loon as the sword hung over his neck.
Izuku flung himself over Hatsume, in a desperate attempt to shield her from the impact. Lightning engulfed the vehicle. The windshield shattered, and a body went flying head-first into the flux capacitor between the seats. Izuku flinched at the sight of the limp, silent body draped over him.
Then, with a shudder and a sudden static rush, the world shifted.
Wind howled through the broken windshield. Izuku cautiously opened his eyes and gently shifted the body off of him. Daylight and clear skies greeted him. Without any clouds to obscure the landscape, Izuku got a clear view of the ocean below them. A mountain, with a river running down its side, loomed over the horizon, nearly reaching them and swiftly gaining height. Off to another side, Izuku could barely make out an island.
Izuku's survey of the surroundings came to a screeching halt when
he brushed against a pair of legs. Without the stormy sky casting its shadow over everything, the sight of the body, with blood gently trickling down where glass had cut it, stood out in sharp clarity to Izuku's eyes. Izuku felt bile rise in the back of his throat and almost bent towards the window to throw up until he saw how high up they were.
Izuku's mind raced. They clearly went back in time again, but now that the flux capacitor was broken, they lost their only way to cheat death. This time, they were right above the ocean. If they could survive the impact, Izuku could get Hatsume out and drag her to the island. Even as the rational part of Izuku's brain calculated the miles he'd have to carry an unconscious body and hypothetical ocean currents and marine life that would try to drag him under, Izuku felt his resolve harden. He begged for a chance, and he got one. He wouldn't let it go to waste.
As he looked down, Izuku saw a brown speck, rapidly gaining size beneath him. Izuku grimaced, and a sense of macabre humor overtook them. It only figured that they had somehow gone from falling towards an island to falling towards a ship.
Still, Izuku realized it might be a stroke of luck. At worst, there would be wood to cling onto, and if he was really lucky, enough of the ship might survive for a makeshift raft. Half-baked plans of collecting rainwater and catching fish whirled in Izuku's mind as his thoughts drifted days ahead of the more immediate collision with the ship below.
A tap on the window interrupted Izuku's thoughts. A man floated outside his window, his facial features blurred as though the wind tried to carry them away. His lips moved, but Izuku couldn't hear a word he said. Izuku rolled down the window and shouted back, "What did you say?"
The man spoke again, and again, the wind carried away his words. Izuku leaned closer, hand cupped to an ear, but the man rolled his eyes and vanished. Izuku looked down, trying to find the man, and instead saw a hand gripping the underside of the vehicle. As the fingers strained with effort, the car lurched to a stop, then slowly descended towards the ship.
The moment the wheels hit the deck, Izuku tumbled out of the vehicle and marveled at the wooden planks beneath his fingers.
"We're alive," Izuku said in a shaky voice. "We're alive!"
"You sure are!"
Izuku's head snapped up. His eyes were drawn to the magnetic presence of the stocky man grinning down at him. Shirtless, red coat fluttering in the breeze, the man's smile and radiant aura reminded Izuku of All Might.
"The name's Gold Roger." He held out his hand, and Izuku hesitantly took it. His grip nearly turned Izuku's bones into powder, yet Gold Roger seemed gentle in treating him.
"I-I'm Izuku Midoriya. Are you a hero?"
Sniggers came from the men around them, but Gold Roger stroked his mustache and took the question seriously. "Depends on your definition of hero, kid."
A vigilante, then. Izuku felt himself tense up, but the man before him turned his attention towards the vehicle. "So, Izuku, what's your story?" he asked. "Looks like something straight out of Vegapunk's laboratory, but something tells me it's not his."
"Mei made it." Upon mentioning her name, Izuku remembered. He scrambled over to the driver's side and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Mei, wake up! Come on, please answer me!"
"That's a nasty bump on the head she's got," Gold Roger said, "But something tells me she'll be okay."
"We need a doctor! Is there one on board?"
"Our carpenter can sew stitches, but she needs a real doctor. Lucky for you, we were on our way to get one." Gold Roger looked inside and pointed at the other body. "What about this one?"
"I don't know," Izuku admitted. "I think we crashed into him while we were falling. I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kill him!"
"Kill him?" Gold Roger gave the torso a poke, and the legs twitched. Izuku nearly leapt out of his skin at the sight. "Doesn't look dead to me!"
As the rest of the crew snorted and guffawed, Gold Roger grabbed the kid by his shirt and pulled. His head stayed stuck in the broken flux capacitor, but his neck stretched, longer and longer, until it was nearly half the length of the ship. Then, with a crack of broken glass and metal, the head flew free and snapped into place over the kid's shoulders.
The kid blinked and looked around. "Huh. I thought there would be fire. Dadan said there was lots of fire in hell." His eyes locked on Gold Roger, and he asked, "Who are you?"
"Gold Roger," the man said with an amused grin. "And you are?"
"I'm Luffy, and I'm going to be king of the pirates! Well, I was, but I'm dead now. What did the end of the world look like? I wanted to see it for myself, but I died! Shishishi!"
"I haven't been there myself, but I'll let you know when I get there."
"What? But you said you went there when they cut your head off! Didn't you keep the One Piece there?"
The pirate captain's eyes narrowed as he examined Luffy. "Now that's interesting. Your voice isn't supposed to be here yet." Gold Roger's eyes fastened on Izuku. All mirth vanished from his face. "And your story doesn't make sense," he said. "You speak of gleaming towers, roaring machines, and tablets of infinite knowledge, but the world tells me that none of those things exist, nor will they ever. You and her both. Where did you come from?"
Hesitantly, Izuku answered, "The future."
While Gold Roger's gaze bored holes through Izuku's skull, Luffy's attention wandered over to the rest of the crew. Seeing a familiar big red nose, Luffy shouted, "Hey, you're that clown guy! Did you die too? Shishishi, how did you do that? Did you trip off the platform after killing me, or did the Marines get you?"
The crowd parted, leaving Buggy out in the open. "What? Me? What the hell are you talking about?"
Luffy looked closer by stretching out his neck. Buggy backed away until he hit the railing. Scratching his head, Luffy said, "You look different. Did you get a haircut?"
"Don't be ridiculous! I've never seen you before in my life!"
The red-haired kid standing next to Buggy elbowed him in the ribs. "Hard to mistake you for anybody else, what with that giant nose of yours."
Buggy's face turned as crimson as his nose. "Did you just make fun of my nose? I'll gut you for that!"
As the young man laughed off Buggy's half-hearted attempts to pummel him to death, Luffy peered closer at him. A huge smile split his face, and the rest of his body rocketed forward, meeting up with his head and nearly knocking them both into the sea.
"Shanks!" Luffy shouted. "You said I wouldn't see you again until I got strong enough to fight you! Does that mean I'm strong enough? I beat up a lot of people, like that one shark guy who was really mean, and - hey Shanks, your arm's back!"
Shanks blinked in confusion at him. "My arm? I've always had it."
"Really? And here I thought that Sea King ate it." Luffy squinted at him. "That other scar's gone too, the one over your eye. Come to think of it, you look different. Did you get a haircut too?"
Laughing awkwardly, Shanks said, "I don't think a haircut gets rid of scars."
"Huh." Luffy's brow scrunched up, and he growled in pain and frustration as he pondered the situation. With a sudden burst of inspiration, Luffy declared, "It's a mystery scar."
"Uh, sure."
"Yeah, too bad I'm dead now, it would've been fun fighting you for real."
"You're dead?"
"Yep! Clown guy got me."
Buggy shouted an offended "Hey!" at him.
Luffy ignored the fist banging the back of his head. "Gold Roger's here, clown guy's here, you're here, so we must all be…"
Luffy glanced between Gold Roger and Shanks. He looked hopelessly lost. "You're not dead," he told Shanks. "How did you get here?"
Shanks, equally confused, asked, "On this ship?"
"Is this ship Hell? I thought there would be more people here." Luffy turned back to Gold Roger. "Everyone says you're the devil. Does that mean you run this place?"
"I am captain of this ship," Gold Roger said, "But this ain't Hell. We're coming up on Paradise, and Hell's on the other side."
"Paradise? You mean like Heaven? Dadan says that pirates don't go to Heaven." Distraught, Luffy asked, "Does that mean I wasn't a real pirate?"
"Did you fly a Jolly Roger?"
"Yep!"
"Then you were a real pirate, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Gold Roger leaned forward and stared at Luffy's straw hat. "Interesting. Where did you get that?"
"Shanks gave it to me!"
"I did?" Shanks asked, perplexed. He glanced between the two captains and asked, "Is that… the same hat?"
Gold Roger took Luffy's hat and held it up next to his own. They looked perfectly identical, down to the individual strands of straw and the red band holding it together.
"Hey, give that back!" Luffy snatched them both out of Roger's hands and tried to fit them both onto his head, but the precarious stack of hats refused to stay in place.
Gold Roger guffawed and took one back. "Shanks gave it to you, you say? You must be something special if he gave it to you."
For once, Luffy turned somber and held the hat in his hands. "I was supposed to give it back to him, once I got stronger. I guess I never will."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Gold Roger had a mirthful gleam in his eyes. "You're not dead, Luffy. You're in the past."
Luffy tilted his head to one side. "The past? Of course I'm in there, I did a bunch of stuff, and that's the past."
"And you're doing all that past stuff now."
"No I'm not. All that past stuff already happened."
"And it's happening again, with you in it." Gold Roger grunted in irritation. "Jeez, how do I explain this?"
Silvers Rayleigh, a gruff man with salt and pepper hair patted Gold Roger's shoulder. "I got this, captain." He cleared his throat and pointed at the DeLorean. "Mystery box."
"Ooh." Luffy nodded and said, with an air of absolute certainty, "It's a mystery box."
Gold Roger gave his first mate an irritated scowl. "Really Rayleigh?"
Rayleigh smirked back. "I dealt with you long enough to understand how idiots work."
Izuku, having clumsily bandaged Mei's head during this exchange, finally found the courage to speak again. "So, um, about that doctor? How soon can we get there?"
"In just a bit," Roger answered. "Of course, you'd be stuck with us for a while. If you'd like, we could take you to Loguetown, though we wouldn't be able to help you with the doctor."
Izuku looked down at Mei. On one hand, the thought of spending another moment in the dubious company aboard the ship made his skin crawl. However, a lack of funds and Mei's pale, bloodstained visage made up his mind.
"I'll stay."
"Good! It's a bit too late to turn around anyways, we're already caught in the current."
"The current?" Izuku peered over the railing and noticed the water lapping at the hull. Looking further forward, the water churned in white frothy waves, and beyond that, the water went up. And up. And up."
"What… is that?" Izuku asked, breathless at the sight of water running straight up the mountainside.
"Reverse Mountain," Gold Roger declared. "First time?"
Izuku stared numbly at the geological impossibility before him. Had a Quirk made it? Why? And why were they sailing up a mountain? Did the doctor live up there? So many questions raced in Izuku's mind that he didn't even notice the crew hustling around him. One gave him a hearty slap on the back and said, "Don't just sit there, bean-pole! Hold tight to something!"
Izuku frantically searched for something to cling to. As he made a mad dash for the mast, the ship hit the ascending rush of water and tilted. Izuku went sprawling onto the deck and smashed his nose.
Hissing in pain, Izuku rolled and searched for Hatsume. She had slid towards the side of the ship, and the sudden jolt startled her awake. Drowsily, Hatsume pulled herself up the railing and leaned over it. Eyes widening in horror, Izuku scrambled towards her.
He was too late.
The ship hit a boulder and lurched. Hatsume flipped over the railing and tumbled into the water below. Izuku screamed and dove in after her.
Water slammed into him from all sides as it hoisted him after the ship. Salty brine flooded his nostrils and stung the back of Izuku's throat. A stray fish caught in the violent waters slapped Izuku across the cheek, and a submerged wooden beam, splintered and wedged between two rocks, scraped Izuku's leg as he drifted past.
Gasping for air and flailing wildly, Izuku hunted for Hatsume. He saw pink locks of hair floating and swam for it. The current whipped them both around like ragdolls, but just as Izuku felt the strength leaving his arms, the waters shoved them both together. Izuku clamped on and pulled her onto his chest, keeping her head above water even as his eyes sunk below the surface.
"Just hang on Mei!" he shouted with his last breath. "I'll protect you! I promise!"
Izuku searched for the ship, but with all the salty spray in his eyes, he could barely make out the dull gray shapes whipping past him at alarming speeds. With his free hand, Izuku rubbed as much water out of his eyes as he could. He opened them in time to see a stretch of sharp, jagged rocks with white froths of water dancing over them. A skeleton, ribcage shattered against the rocks, clung to the nearest rock ahead of them.
Izuku grimaced and turned his back to the rocks. As he braced for impact, he felt a hand grab him by the collar. Izuku grabbed onto Mei for dear life as the hand pulled him out of the water. Izuku wheezed and rasped for breath with the shirt's collar tightening like a noose around his throat. Spots flashed in his vision and his fingers stung painfully. Just as he felt Mei slipping from his fingers, he flopped against a wooden deck. Izuku coughed up seawater and shakily sat up.
Luffy peered down at him. "Shishishi, what did you go swimming for? The current's way too strong for that!"
Izuku, mind hazy, simply pointed at Mei and said, "She fell in."
From behind him, Gold Roger said, "And you jumped in without a second thought. You got guts, kid."
Other members of the pirate crew grinned, slapped him on the back, and told him he was a real pirate. Someone shoved a wooden flagon into his hands, and Izuku drank it on impulse. He coughed as the taste of strong, malty beer flooded his mouth, and the crew howled with laughter.
"Got your legs back under you yet?" Gold Roger asked from the prow of the ship. "Come on up and see this."
Izuku stood up and saw a vast stretch of ocean, lit up by brilliant rays of sunshine, and for a moment, he felt wonder and awe tugging at his heart.
"Where are we?" Izuku asked.
Gold Roger grinned. "Welcome to Paradise, kid. Beautiful, ain't it?" He raised a flagon of his own to a toast and said, "Here's to hoping you can handle it."
A/N: Hello everyone! This is a brand new, completely rewritten first chapter. I'm told it's superior to the original, and I believe it. Anyways, welcome to the story, we've got time travel, isekai, and beer! What could possibly go wrong with that combination?
