At this point, Izuku Midoriya, class president of 1-A, heir to One for All, host to a dead Italian don and son of Inko Midoriya truly believed that the world was out to make his life miserable by showing him glimpses of a peaceful life only to yank it away like a cruel animal trainer towards a starving circus lion.

He, along with his classmates, were amazed by the facility that was the USJ or the Unforeseen Simulation Joint (though most would like to believe it was Universal Studios Japan). It was a large dome-shaped disaster-simulation facility divided into eight sections with six representing a type of disaster: earthquakes, landslides, floods, mountain emergencies, typhoons and fires. The central plaza in the middle of the facility acted as a focal point for anyone wanting to access any of the disaster zones while the entrance was stationed on the northern side atop a flight of stairs and a blue gate.

Sure, everyone was all "Amazing!" and the teacher aiding Aizawa in their rescue trial endeavour, the Space Hero: Thirteen, lived up to his title by stating, word-for-word, that this was the 'ultimate space for jams', Izuku had a nagging feeling that something was going to come up but brushed it off as nerves while the astronaut gave a lecture on using quirks responsibly.

It was a nice lecture too; something he could relate to in light of the overwhelming power contained in One for All. However, it also got him thinking of his other Quirk: his Stand. As far as he was concerned, there was no negative repercussion towards civilians in using King Crimson as the only variables manipulated were time and, after much deliberation, the concept of a cause.

While he could not directly interfere with anything in the skipped time, he could avoid an undesirable outcome by removing its [cause]. This was something that kept him awake at night as it was rather difficult to comprehend to more he thought about it. If a gun was fired at a person, and he erases the moment of bullet penetration as it is the cause of death, the effect will be that the bullet would appear goes through and the person lives. But what if it was a slab of rock about to fall on a person? If he removed the cause of death, the person lives. However, since he could not interfere directly, that also meant that he could not move the person either.

Would the person be alive but trapped underneath the rock or would some unseen force fill in the gaps and make it so that the rock falls and the person get away scot-free? Better yet, how does skipping time work? Does it affect the whole universe or doesn't? If yes, why has no one noticed it whenever he uses it and if no, how far is its effective range? These are confusing.

Asking Diavolo proved fruitless as even he did not fully understand how his own Stand functioned in detail. Heck, he went as far as to claim that it was beginning to behave a bit differently in the teen's hands though he could not pinpoint what. In any case, he needed to start thinking on how he could use King Crimson to not only save lives but also compliment One for All if he were to take Thirteen's advice to heart.

And that time to save lives began now.

"Huddle together and don't move!"

Heads were turned towards the class 1-A homeroom teacher in confusion. Their usually stoic teacher was now having wide eyes and his mouth open to yell another order.

"No.13! Protect the students!", ordered Aizawa as he donned his segmented goggles.

Izuku was brought out of his internal mumbling and looked towards where Aizawa was looking at. His blood ran cold and his nerves were shivering.

'N-no… No way…!'

"What is that?!", shouted Kirishima, trying to get a better view. "Is this like the training pattern in the entrance exam?"

'T-t-this c-can't be happening!'

"Don't move!", yelled Aizawa. "Those are villains!"

The green-haired teen's fears were confirmed: the large group of intimidating, weird-looking and maniacal people in the middle of the plaza by the fountain were actual villains. The ones that stood the most to him, however, were the swirling cloud behind down that was materialising into a humanoid shape, the towering dark mass of humanoid muscle with an exposed brain and the menacing scrawny person covered in hands next to it.

A cold lump passed down his throat.

'How are we going to deal with this?', he thought. 'These are real villains! These are those whom the heroes battle with! Why are they here?'

He did not need to wait long for an answer as the ominous cloud being spoke soon after.

"…Eraserhead and No.13…", he uttered. "According to the teachers' curriculum we procured yesterday, Mr. All Might was supposed to be here and yet…"

"I knew it…," Aizawa growled. "So yesterday was the doing of you louts…"

'What?! So, the ruckus yesterday was a legit infiltration?!', Izuku seemed to scream in silence with his eyes wide. 'That meant that the media was a convenient distraction!'

"Where is he… we went through all this trouble and rustled up so many to bring along…", rasped that hand-covered person, sending chills down Izuku's spine. "You can't tell me All Might, the Symbol of Peace isn't here!"

"I wonder if he'll show up if we kill the kids?", declared the hand-covered ring-leader of the group, portraits of terror etched onto the expressions of the students present. It was made clear to Izuku, and everyone involved, that they were about to face was a malice of outrageous proportions!

The situation was dire. Izuku knew he needed to act quick but he also knew that it would be reckless to jump straight in with minimal information. The villains were not going to keep talking forever but waiting for them to finish would give them the advantage of the first move.

He knew what must be done.

While Kirishima was in the middle of berating them for their supposed idiocy, Izuku already had his bangs over his eyes after ruffling them for a bit. Tsuyu, who happened to be monitoring the immediate area for any disturbances, saw Izuku's act, intriguing her.

Then, she turned to Yaoyorozu after hearing her chime up immediately after Kirishima's rant ended.

"Sensei, what about the intruder detection sensors?", asked the class VP to the Space Hero.

"Well… we have some set up but—"

"Kaminari! Try using your Quirk to contact anyone outside of the USJ!"

The blonde, confused, hastily fiddled with his headset to attempt contacting emergency services. To his dismay, all he got was static.

"I can't!", he cried out. "They must be using a jammer to cut off any electronic signals!"

"There's a chance it might be someone using an electrowave-type Quirk in here!", shouted Aizawa, who was amazed yet intrigued by Izuku's fast thinking. He would prefer to press him more on how he knew what he was about to say but now was not the time.

"No.13! Do the evacuation procedure!", barked Aizawa.

"Sensei! Are you going to fight them alone?!", asked Izuku, drops of sweat rolling down his face in worry. "Even if you suppress their Quirks, there's too many of them! The "Eraserhead" battle style is to capture villains after erasing their Quirks meaning that the main battle starts now…"

The Quirk-erasing Hero gave him a confident glance and replied, "A hero always has a trick up their sleeves!"

He then turned towards No.13 and told him that he was counting on him and jumped into the fray.

Izuku, while having faith in his teacher's abilities, felt uneasy about it. He ruffled his hair once more and tried to summon Epitaph. However, to his surprise, it did not work. He ruffled it again and thought harder. Nothing.

'Huh?! Come on! Why isn't it working?!', he mentally panicked. 'Diavolo! What is the meaning of this?!'

What is?

'THIS!'

Oh, that? You can use it in a few more seconds.

'Why?!'

Tch. Ah, well… I guess it is my fault for not telling you sooner, but your Stand has a cooldown period.

Izuku was dumbfounded. He fixed his hair and clenched his head while watching his homeroom teacher fighting the villains down below.

'Argh! Why didn't you tell me sooner?!'

Because neither you nor I could predict this happening! Besides, my Stand is best utilised for instant takedowns, not full-frontal assault so I assume therefore it has this cooldown!

Izuku put some thought into Diavolo's words and realised they made sense. It occurred to him that Stands, like Quirks, form to best fit the user's style and King Crimson was not technically his. However, he remembered that Diavolo also said that it might be adapting in his hands.

'Diavolo! How long is the cooldown?'

Since Epitaph is a part of King Crimson, ten seconds. Why? Oh, you can use it now, by the way.

'Would it be possible for it to be shortened? If it is now a part of me, then I should be able to change it one way or another!'

Without waiting for the don's reply, he immediately summoned Epitaph.

The first thing he saw in his vision was the cloud man appearing behind them to block the entrance after Iida's suggestion to escape. Then, he saw the cloud grow and expand, eventually encapsulating all of them before the vision ended.

Fixing his hair, his eyes darted towards the plaza. The cloud man was still there, the villains around Aizawa were in the middle of being wary of the hero's prowess in close-quarters combat and the ringleader was complaining.

Good. That meant he still had time before the prediction played out. He then snapped around back just in time to catch Iida about to call out to him. He quickly gestured him to keep quiet and ran to him, confusing the bespectacled teen.

"Midoriya, what's wrong?", whispered Iida when the green-haired teen reached him.

"I need you to go full-speed towards the exit now!", replied Izuku urgently.

"Why?"

"Just do it now!", Izuku growled, not realising his voice sounding a lot lower than usual.

"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that," said a voice in front of them, causing Izuku to look up and freeze.

He was too late.

The cloud man was already here and standing in their way.

"Greetings, we are the Villain Alliance—"

ZOOM!

A cloud of dust was kicked up amidst the crowd the villain was talking to, trailing towards the exit.

'IIDA!', Izuku cheered in his head, hopeful to see a glimmer that his plan might just work.

However, the cloud was already beginning to expand and catch up to Iida, who was getting closer towards the exit. Suddenly, it's advance halted; a pained grunt came from the man as he felt two sharp blows to his physical body.

"Bet you didn't think we'd be able to do you in before you got the chance!", sneered Kirishima, who had his arm hardened into a shard along with Bakugou whose hands were smoking.

"Why you-!"

"Get the fuck outta here, four-eyes!", shouted Bakugou. "Don't make me waste my energy on you!"

"But—", stammered Iida.

"GO!"

With tears in his eyes, he revved up his legs and sped out of the USJ, his hands shaking the whole way.

"Damn!", the cloud cursed. "This is not what I had anticipated!"

'Yes! It worked!', Izuku cheered.

But are you sure he knows who to meet and what to say?

Izuku hesitated for a moment, realising the significance of his error, but confidently replied, 'I have trust in his ability to do the right thing. It wouldn't be fair for me to doubt someone who has done the same for me.'

Fair enough.

"Everyone, look out!", cried Uraraka.

Izuku turned to look but it was far too late by then.

The cloud was engulfing them.

"You will be scattered and tortured…", uttered the cloud as Izuku watched the classmates around him disappear. "And slain."

He closed his eyes and brought his arms up to cover himself. He was quaking in his shoes, bracing himself for whatever pain the villain would dish out. However, it never came.

"Eh?", Izuku squeaked, peering through the gaps between his fingers. "Where am I—oh my god?!"

His heart was pumping at such intensity, he could feel its thumping beats all over. His eyes bulged wide and his blood ran cold.

Surrounded by dozens of bodies of knocked out villains, Izuku suddenly found himself in the central plaza. However, this was not the cause of his fear. Instead, what caused it was the sight of his homeroom teacher, bloody and battered, underneath the feet of the massive humanoid squatting over him, leering at him with dead eyes and a long slender tongue slithering through its snout-like like mouth.

"Kurogiri, what's the meaning of you bringing this brat here?", he heard a raspy voice berate someone. He turned to the side to see the hand-covered ringleader staring down the cloud man, who had taken on a more human-like shape.

"My apologies, Shigaraki Tomura,", the cloud called Kurogiri replied. "I'm afraid it's game over now."

"What?! Why?!", shouted Shigaraki.

"I have not only failed to incapacitate No.13 but also I had been impeded by the students whom I could not scatter, thus resulting in one of them escaping with his life," informed Kurogiri.

The ringleader, Shigaraki, said nothing. Then, he began to moan and shake uncontrollably, hunching over.

"Black Mist, you…", he growled, glaring at Kurogiri. "If you can't be a proper warp gate, then our plans have crumbled…"

"There's no doubt that if they throw a dozen pros at us, we'd lose…", he added after a brief pause. "Ahh… it's game over now…. It's game over."

Then, he stopped and abruptly turned towards Izuku, who looked terrified of him.

"Although, even I would know the joy of breaking the spirit of the Symbol of Peace if I killed one of his precious students in this prestigious academy! Oh, imagine the shame and humiliation both would feel!"

'Oh crap! What do I do now?!', Izuku screamed in his head. 'Think, Izuku, think! You can use a Smash here, but you'd be in danger if it somehow flunks up and leaves you with a broken arm. King Crimson, on the other hand, is powerful and maybe broken but it has a cooldown of ten seconds, which means I have to plan carefully what my next move will be!'

A loud crack caused him to snap towards his side but then freeze in terror when he turned back to the front.

The monster was now in front of him next to a cackling Shigaraki.

"Meet Noumu, the artificial human!", he announced with open arms. "Originally, I planned to pit him against the final boss of this dungeon but, much like exploring the game world in a New Game +, it'll be fun to demolish some low-level fodder with a legendary weapon!"

Izuku braced for impact when he saw the Noumu raise his fist but then panicked when he saw the Noumu dash instantaneously towards the Flood Zone. There, by the edge of the water, were his classmates, Tsuyu and Mineta, hiding behind the cover of the nearby foliage.

"NO!", came a shriek from his throat.

"Don't you think you should be focusing on something else, brat?"

He turned around. Shigaraki's hand was inches away from his head, about to collide in a matter of milliseconds. He wanted to hit him with a Smash, but could he really move that fast? There was only one other option.

He did not even bother calling it out, he screamed its name in the deep crevices of his psyche and the world appeared to come to a halt. To his surprise, instead of it appearing like time has stopped, everyone and everything around him seemed to have multiple afterimages of themselves in various actions and movements as though they were pieces of a film arranged frame-by-frame to the next scene.

"W-what is this?", Izuku blurted.

This, my boy, is how the realm of skipped time should look like. This is how using King Crimson looks like in the hands of I, Diavolo.

The teen Stand user, now no longer needing to fear being seen as crazy, replied to the don aloud, "So, if this is what it looks like through your eyes and its ability is to erase time, does that mean that—"

Yes, the afterimages you see are the courses taken by those who share not the powers of you and I. These are the paths pre-determined by Fate. Only I, and recently you, are the ones who can manipulate the outcome of Fate!

"And, if my assumption is correct, these are the actions these people will take up until ten seconds?"

Precisely. However, time works differently here. While Epitaph predicts the foreseeable future, anything in between the time of activation and the time of it ending is essentially the realm of King Crimson's domain! This means that you can essentially spend as much time as you want to plan your course of action without worry.

Izuku rubbed his shoulder and gulped. "Isn't that a bit broken for an ability?"

Fool! When you can manipulate Fate itself, you have long crossed into that territory!

The teen could only stare at the ground, feeling a bit ashamed of himself yet also rather proud. Sure, this would serve to further solidify his assumption that using his Stand is a bit like cheating, but it also allows him to do so much more than he ever could with his juvenile attempts at mastering One for All.

Remembering Diavolo's revelation of King Crimson's ability, he scanned the area around him to see which segment of time would be best erasing. He winced when he saw his own dead body, face crumbled into dust by Shigaraki's hand.

At least he now knew what his Quirk was…

Then, walking towards the Flood Zone, tears began flowing down his cheeks as he saw the mangled corpses of Tsuyu and Mineta floating lifelessly in the water while Noumu simply stood there with bloodied hands.

In a fit of fury, he lunged at the Noumu with red-hot tears but alas, he could not interact with anything in the erased time. His furious rage was quelled unceremoniously with a dull thud with solid ground.

He took deep breaths, trying to calm down while avoiding looking at the scene again. Once he had regained composure, he began to closely inspect every 'frame' to determine to point in time in which the Noumu made contact with his friends.

Then, he found it. A 'frame', a moment in time depicting the instance of the monster's fists clutching both his friends' heads. He then called forth King Crimson, appearing in its glorious rage. Without a word uttered, it dealt a swift blow to the 'frame', erasing it from existence. Then, he noticed that every other 'frame' prior to the one he erased, disappeared at once.

"Diavolo, does this mean that 'erasing time' doesn't mean erasing a specific moment, per se, but rather, a chunk of it beginning from the moment of activation.

That is indeed accurate. I think. It means that you have effectively removed the [cause], leaving only the [results]. Take a look at your friends now: instead of being a couple of corpses, they are now remaining in place for the remainder few seconds of action while the Noumu is still going through the phases as though he had gotten hold of them. The [results] of his movements remain but the [cause] of death had vanished.

Izuku said nothing. He was still in awe at the sight of his friends being alive. Then, he moved towards the 'frame' of Shigaraki heading towards the Noumu, presumably to check up on him. He instinctively positioned himself behind the 'frame', somewhat understanding a gist of what Diavolo was telling him earlier.

Taking a deep, long breath, he recalled King Crimson, allowing time to continue once more.


"Don't you think you should be focusing on something else, brat?"

Shigaraki, for lack of a better word, was having fun. His plan to kill All Might may have been thwarted but who's to say that he could not complete some secondary quests on the side, right?

He lunged with vigour towards the helpless green-haired teen, his hand pushing forward to make the brat feel the pain of his own face crumbling.

Suddenly, he found himself walking towards Noumu, who was also looking as confused as he was as he appeared to be looking at his hands in befuddlement.

'What the—it happened again! The glitch!', he internally yelled, while staring at his hands in disbelief. 'Is he here?! The student with the Quirk?! Oh man, I need to think fast or else I'd be—"

POW!

He snapped around after hearing a loud sound followed by a sickening squelch. His eyes then bulged when he saw that Noumu, apparently sensing his distress, standing in front of him. However, he could not care less for the actions of mindless puppet. What he was stunned at was seeing an entire muscular arm protruding from the monster's back through its chest before disappearing to leave a sick joke of a donut behind.

'W-what?!', his mind blurted. 'This can't be! The only person who could do such a thing is All Might but he's not here!'

Peering through the hole in the Noumu, which was beginning to close thanks to its regeneration ability, he saw the brat, looking mortified as though he had done it. But, it could not be…right? He killed him! He was sure of it! He remembered every detail of the brat's shrieks of anguish and the sight of his disintegrating head as clear as day! How could this be?!

BOOM!

A deafening crash came from the facility entrance followed a door flying by. There, by the entrance, in his office clothes and awe-inspiring figure was none other than the Symbol of Peace himself. And he was not smiling.

"Have no fear," he growled, "For I am here!"

"All Might!", cried Izuku, relieved.

Shigaraki, having completely forgotten about the brat, turned towards the hero with glee.

"It seems we have a continue on our hands!"


A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the late update. University work just kept coming so I'm sorry for not being able to publish at a consistent rate. In any case, time to respond to some questions!

[antenesis]: Please elaborate.

[Lawless]: I like that idea and it makes a lot of sense. :p

[shadowprove97]: I've mentioned this already in my author's notes for the first chapter but the main reason I chose King Crimson specifically was because I noticed that Diavolo and KC weren't getting a lot of TLC in the JJBA side of . So, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't be silly to give it to Deku?" And thus this story was born. Of course, as I kept writing it, I realised how much potential lies in this concept as it can provide a new set of challenges to Izuku to deal with.

Besides, Star Platinum is bit overused in my opinion.

[Anc1ent]: I'm not too sure to be quite honest. I never had a pairing in mind when I wrote this but we'll see how it goes. I like to think of it as a journey of discovering the paths to whichever route the plot guides him to so who knows? Maybe we'll have one!