The situation had gone from bad to worse.
The PLF forces had converged on Jaku City, and Ochako Uraraka was fighting a desperate battle alongside her mentor, Ryukyu. After learning that so many members of the PLF were concentrated in the city, the heroes planned a massive coordinated attack, hoping to defang the organization in one swift battle. At first, their plan was working. The villains were putting up fierce resistance, but minute by minute the heroes were turning the tide of battle in their favor.
Until Gigantomachia arrived, carrying reinforcements on his back in the form of PLF high command.
The colossal villain tore through heroes and buildings alike, and even bolstered by One For All, Ochako's quirk wasn't enough to negate his gravity and neutralize him as a threat. Instead, she was forced to fight a delaying battle while her classmates and the remaining heroes were evacuating everyone they could.
"Graviton, can you hear me?"
Ochako smiled as Izuku's voice came through her radio. "Yes Analyst, I can hear you."
"We've cleared out this area and are moving onto-"
Ochako's blood turned to ice when she heard his radio cut out. Taking to the skies, she used her helmet to zoom in and pinpoint his position. She spotted some of her classmates along with several heroes desperately fighting against a group of villains that had slipped past the front lines, but Izuku was nowhere to be seen.
Using bursts of air pressure, Ochako shot herself towards the battle, landing amidst the villains, causing them to scatter. With her arrival, the remaining heroes rallied and their combined efforts quickly took down the group of villains. Still, Izuku was not anywhere to be seen. She frantically looked around for him.
"Where's Analyst?"
"Last I saw him, he was in that building." Bubble Girl pointed towards an apartment complex across the street. "We were getting ready to move when those villains attacked us."
"You keep going, I'll check on him."
Ochako knew she had more important places to be right now, but she was worried about Izuku. The quirkless boy was not to be underestimated on the field. With his quick thinking and custom support devices, he was the downfall of many foes who failed to take him seriously. But the PLF was filled with known quirk supremacists. If they caught wind of him being here...
Cautiously entering the building, Ochako looked around the lobby. She heard a sudden crash and jumped into action, sliding into a combat stance and preparing for the precipitous threat.
She warily moved towards the noise, only to hear another crash. A moment later one of the stairwell doors slammed open, as a very injured Izuku limped out.
"Analyst!" Ochako called, rushing towards him.
"H-hey, Ochako-chan." He gave her a weak smile as she rushed up to him, ready to help.
"Ochako-chan?" Ochako's brain was too slow in recognizing the mistake, before she felt a stabbing pain pierce her chest.
Looking down, she saw a knife embedded into her heart, a crimson flower spreading across her hero costume. She tried to grab the knife, only to feel another knife thrust into her back.
She heard a familiar giggle as Izuku's face melted away to reveal Himiko Toga with a manic grin across her face. "I'm glad you came, Ochako-chan! Now I can love you as much as I loved Izuku-kun!"
"W-what did you do?" Ochako asked weakly, feeling her strength fading with every breath she took.
Stepping aside, Himiko revealed the source of the crashing Ochako heard, as she saw Izuku's unmoving body lying on the stairs, his neck and limbs twisted at sickening angles.
"I found Izuku and stabbed him! Now I can have all of his blood and become him." Himiko's face contorted into a grin, inches away from Ochako's now. "And now I can have all of your blood too! This is the best day ever!"
Ochako's knees buckled underneath as she fell to the ground, hand reaching out towards Izuku. Darkness tinged the edges of her vision.
This is it.
"No, it isn't."
The second holder of One For All appeared in front of her and kneeled down. He took her outstretched hand. Reality shifted through her as she fell through itself, until she found herself floating in a sea of stars - the visage realm. As she began to regain focus, the second holder materialized in front of her with a familiar figure taking shape beside Ochako.
Things were catastrophic.
Izuku was helping with the evacuation of Jaku City, while a team of pro heroes went to the heart of the PLF operations at Jaku General Hospital. The team, led by Endeavor, assaulted the hospital's underground compound. There, Endeavor found Shigaraki and incinerated the chamber that held him.
It wasn't enough.
Too late, the heroes realized. Shigaraki had been successfully enhanced, having practically been turned into a Nomu himself. Among the enhancements was a powerful regeneration quirk that greatly surpassed the previous one. With his hyper-regeneration as his shield and toughness quirks as his armor, he survived Endeavor's inferno. And with Shigaraki's weapon, his hands, he unleashed a massive wave of decay, disintegrating everything in its path.
Izuku knew something was wrong when the vestiges within One For All grew agitated. Looking towards the hospital, he saw a building disintegrate before his very eyes. Taking a risk, he activated his mid-gauntlets and unleashed a massive smash attack, hoping the air pressure could at least slow down the wave, if not stop it completely.
It failed.
The surviving heroes called for a general retreat, and everyone, students and heroes alike, began to flee from the wave of destruction, trying to rescue as many civilians as they could along the way.
As Izuku fled, he saw Ochako fall out of the sky and hit the ground, exhausted from floating so many vehicles to save the people in them. He tried to stop and help her, wracking his brain for a way that blackwhip could help relieve her of the cumbersome weight. But it was too late. He helplessly watched her get caught by the wave, crumbling to dust before his very eyes.
Izuku screamed.
He hovered there, trying to come to terms with what happened as he watched as a once thriving city turned into little more than a crater with no survivors. All of those people are dead, and for what? Because someone wanted to destroy society for his own selfish ends.
Izuku put the bus down and let his anger overtake him. Turning around, he flew towards the epicenter.
Shigaraki would pay for what he had done. Izuku would stop him and prevent any more senseless destruction.
Izuku was so caught up in his emotions that couldn't tell how long the fight dragged on. His moves grew sloppy. His limbs grew fatigued. His eyelids grew heavy. Everything seemed to grow and weigh him down; it only worsened as the fight continued with his mind going hazy. Shigaraki, paired with his hyper-regeneration and a shock absorption quirk, shrugged off most of Izuku's attacks as if he was an annoying fly to swat away.
Finally, with a feral grin, Shigaraki managed to grab Izuku's arm.
"Game over. Heroes lose," Shigaraki proudly proclaimed.
Izuku watched in horror as his arm crumbled to dust, and felt the decay starting to travel across his torso.
I screwed up, it's over.
"No, it's not."
The second holder of One For All appeared in front of Izuku, taking his intact hand. Reality dissolved around him as the world fell away. He sailed through the starscape of the visage realm, his eyes refocusing on his surroundings. Second appeared in front of him with a recognizable person forming beside Izuku.
Vision fully adjusted, Izuku and Ochako were both surprised to see the other floating in the vestige realm. They couldn't help but stare at their companion in the sea of stars, their appearance both familiar and surreal at the same time.
A moment later, they heard a pair of coughs. Both turned towards the sources of the sound. Floating in front of them was the second holder. Or, more accurately, two identical copies of the second holder.
As they watched, the two Seconds looked at each other, having a silent conversation between them before they both nodded in agreement. Izuku and Ochako covered their eyes as the two copies of Second converged in a flash of light, leaving a single Second floating in front of them.
"Well, this is unexpected, but I can't exactly argue with myself."
"What is going on?" Izuku recovered first, the gears in his brain already turning as he tried to come up with an answer to what was happening.
"You - both of you, were on the verge of death, and so from within One For All, I forced the activation of my quirk."
"Wait, he has One For All?" Ochako asked in surprise. As she looked at Izuku, it seemed like he wanted to ask the same question.
Second laughed. "Yes. As far as I can tell, both of you are from different timelines. And here is where things get interesting. Both of you would have died at the same time."
"What?" Both students gasped in horror.
"I don't know how, or why, but due to some whim of fate, but you see - both versions of myself, we activated our quirk at the same time. When that happened, it caused both of your vestige realms to merge together, and here we are."
"What is your quirk?" Izuku asked the obvious question.
"Lucky 13. When I was alive, people thought I was incredibly lucky. But the reality was I could use my quirk to send my consciousness back in time thirteen seconds."
"That's not a lot of time," Ochako remarked.
"It's enough to fix a single mistake," Izuku replied, turning back to Second. "But what about now?"
Second smiled. "You're a smart one, all right. My quirk has been building in strength ever since it merged with One For All. I thought I had enough oomph to send you back a year, giving you another shot."
"You thought?" Ochako asked.
"You see, something interesting happened just now when both versions of myself merged together. Now, not only can I keep the two of you together when I send you back, but I can propel you back further, giving you more time to prepare."
"How much further?"
"Two and a half years."
"We'll still be in middle school." Izuku immediately looked down. "I'll be quirkless again."
Ochako felt a string tug in her heart. Apparently this version of Izuku never accepted his quirklessness. She reached out and gently touched his shoulder. "It's ok Izuku. Even if Katsuki is a jerk, I'll be there for you."
Izuku raised his eyes to look into Ochako's, and a smile formed on his lips. "So, we're going to do this?"
Ochako smiled back. "Was there ever any doubt?"
The two turned back to a laughing Second. "Fitting responses. It's clear why you were both chosen to be holders of One For All. I don't know what will happen this time, but I am trusting you - both of you - to find a better future."
Second reached out and placed a hand on the two students' foreheads, and pushed. Both Izuku and Ochako felt like they were disconnecting from their body, while some invisible force pulled them backward.
The two kept their eyes locked on each other for as long as they could til the darkness enveloped them.
Izuku bolted upright, sweat running down his face from the intensity of the dream he just had. Mouth dry, he reached for the water bottle on his nightstand, only to find it missing. Looking over, he froze. His nightstand wasn't there. Slowly turning his head, he saw his nightstand on the other side of his bed. The arrangement he had when he still lived with his mom in their apartment.
Looking around, he realized that it wasn't just the nightstand. He was in his old room at the apartment, and not in the UA dorms. Scrambling out of bed, he booted up his computer, staring at the date on the screen.
It actually was thirty months in the past.
Still not believing it, Izuku began checking news articles, the events he saw scrolling across the page tugging at memories from his time in middle school.
Looking down at his hand, Izuku tried to summon One For All, to wrap his arm in the tendrils of strength from the ancient quirk. But nothing happened. Just as he predicted, he was quirkless again.
Wondering if he was crazy, or if everything in his head was real, he desperately grabbed his phone, pulling it from its charger and unlocking it. Opening up the contacts, he saw the mocking glare of only three numbers in the list.
There's only one way to find out if this is real or the lingering effects of a dream.
His hands shaking, Izuku took a deep breath and punched in a number he knew by heart.
Ochako felt miserable after the dream she had. With a groan, she wrapped herself tighter in her blankets hoping to sleep off the bad dream when her phone suddenly went off.
It took her a moment for her to even register it was her phone. She was confused at first, because she hadn't used that specific ringtone since middle school. Grumbling about having to fix her ringtone, she looked at the number of who was calling and froze.
It was a number that she was intimately familiar with. But her contacts didn't identify it as Izuku.
Ochako picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Ochako? Do you - do you remember me?"
Ochako threw off her covers and bolted upright. Quickly surveying her room, she realized where she was for the first time. She wasn't in the dorms. In fact, she wasn't even in Mustafu.
She was back in her old room at her parent's house.
"Of course Izuku, how could I ever forget you?"
She heard him sigh in relief over the phone. "So it wasn't a dream."
Ochako froze, the memories of the previous night flooding back to her. "You remember everything, don't you?"
"Yeah. It felt too real. Good thing I remembered your number?"
Ochako felt herself smile at that. Pulling her phone away from her ear, she finally saw the date on the screen, gasping when she saw the date. She returned the phone to her ear.
"I think we need to meet in person."
The two discovered that it was a Friday morning, so they arranged to meet up on Sunday. Knowing his mom, and remembering Ochako's financial situation, Izuku insisted that he be the one to travel. He could easily slip out for the day and take a train out to the Mie prefecture to meet Ochako there. At first she stubbornly refused, insisting she is the one to travel, until Izuku successfully argued that she would not be able to make the trip without her parents. She was forced to concede that point and agreed that for their first meeting, they needed privacy.
After they hung up, Izuku looked at the bag on his desk and began his once-familiar routine to prepare for middle school. When he sat down for breakfast, his mom asked what was wrong, but he was able to easily deflect her suspicion. He was loath to admit it, but between hiding the effects of Katsuki's bullying and his ten months of training with All Might, it had become very easy to lie to his mom. He resolved to do better this time.
As he walked to school, Izuku found old memories bubbling to the surface of his mind. Remembering the hell Katsuki had put him through, a pit began to form in his stomach as he walked to Aldera. He still had the mental scars - even after almost two years, he still carried that burden. He mentally added it to the growing list of things to do. So much to do, even thirty months didn't feel like enough time.
But before he could do anything else, he needed to talk to Ochako in person. He just hoped that he could make it through the next two days.
Making it through the day at school was odd, to say the least. Izuku wasn't sure what happened, but Katsuki was tamer than he imagined. He was still rude and impertinent, but other than telling Izuku that he didn't have what it takes to be a hero, he generally left him alone. Despite that, he still felt down by the time he walked into the door of the apartment after school. Even his homework didn't provide a good distraction, feeling rather simplistic compared to his school work at UA.
After dinner, he decided he couldn't take it any longer and grabbed his phone before heading to his bedroom. It seemed like Ochako had the same idea. His phone rang before he even reached his room. He quickly rushed in, closed the door, and picked up. It turned out that she was feeling down too. Not because she had to suffer any abuse of her own, but simply having survived what she did, only to be thrown into a life of normalcy again.
Hearing her talk made Izuku feel relieved. By vocalizing her thoughts she made him realize what he was truly feeling. They both had just suffered through a massive amount of trauma, and the only people that they could even begin to talk to about it with was each other.
After they acknowledged that fact, they shifted to idle chatter about their day and the news, both of them welcoming the distraction, and sticking to the unspoken agreement to not talk about the elephant in the room. No, that conversation had to wait until they met in person.
Saturday passed in much the same way, and after what seemed to be an eternity, Sunday arrived. Izuku told his mom that he was going to be out of the house all day. After promising that he would stay out of trouble and not get too close to any villain attacks, Izuku left for the train station. He hated being evasive with his mom, but he already had an idea on how he could visit Ochako in the future.
He was a bundle of nerves for the entire trip, the shifting scenery outside the window unable to distract him as he traveled to the countryside. After what felt like forever, the train reached its destination, and Izuku fumbled as he stood up, his nervous energy reaching its peak as he walked to the door.
The moment he stepped off the train, he spotted her. Like him, she was younger, looking much softer than the girl he saw in the visage realm, dressed in a pink sundress. It only took a second before she spotted him, her face lighting up in recognition.
The two slowly walked toward each other, both filled with caution and uncertainty. Neither of them were sure that this was even real, the only proof they had was the person in front of them. Both stopped, barely a foot apart, silently asking if this was ok before they both broke and wrapped each other in a desperate hug.
No words were spoken, because none were necessary. Memories that had been hazy suddenly snapped into place, and they knew that everything that had happened was true. They were two travelers from two different futures, and by some miracle One For All had brought them together. It had given them a second chance, an opportunity to change things for the better.
They finally broke apart and looked at each other, truly seeing each other for the first time. The eyes that stared back both told the same story. Someone who had the weight of the world thrust upon them, before they were ready. Even then, they also found a comforting familiarity there. They trusted the person in front of them completely, and knew that they were trusted in return.
Without saying a word, Ochako took Izuku's hand and began walking, guiding him to a cafe that was a personal favorite of hers.
"We can talk here."
Izuku tiredly smiled at Ochako. "We have a lot to talk about don't we?"
Ochako returned the smile. "Yeah, we do."
AN: Lack of sleep led to bad decisions, and writing a time travel story. The one shot grew on me though, so I turned it into a multi-chapter story.
