"What are you thinking, Kouda?" Izuku asked. They stood in a room with a large papier-mache bomb in the center and two doors leading to adjacent rooms. Every room in the building had at least two doors, probably so that they couldn't just barricade a single entranceway.
Izuku had realized a problem, and he felt really dumb for not thinking of it earlier. He was wearing his brand-new costume, so he couldn't summon anything he'd prepared in advance because it was all anchored to his normal clothes. He had a long list of things that he wanted to talk to the Support Department about, but that wouldn't help him here. The Battle Trial would have to be a test of how well he could utilize his quirk in its raw state with no preparation.
Kouda was silent for a long time, then he whispered, "I don't think I can help."
It was kind of hard for Izuku to hear him. Kouda's voice was very soft. "Don't say that. What's your quirk?"
"I can talk to animals and ask them to do things for me." Kouda looked down at the ground. "But there aren't any animals here. There should be mice or other critters around, but the building isn't real. I think the walls are just solid blocks. And there's no food here."
Izuku nodded. "All right. Do you happen to know how to fight? Have you taken self-defense lessons or anything?"
"No." Kouda curled in on himself further. "My dream is to be a rescue hero in forests and mountains. I don't like fighting."
Oh no, Kouda was losing heart already. Maybe he could cheer him up? "That's an amazing dream!" Izuku insisted. "You're going to be incredible! If all the animals in a forest can help you, you can do so much. Like, hikers won't go missing ever again. You're going to save a lot of people."
"Yeah. That doesn't help me now though." Kouda squirmed again. He was really uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I should be here. I barely passed the exam. I wouldn't have without my bird friends. They told me where the robots were and where people needed help."
It was weird. Everyone Izuku talked to in his class so far believed they barely passed the exam and only got in by luck. Granted, he only had a sample size of two, but it was kind of telling. UA put so much pressure on you that no matter how good you did, it still didn't feel like you were good enough. The written exam was like that too. It was designed so that you'd start to fail as you got further and further along into it.
During the physical exam, Izuku knew at the time that he'd done excellently at it. However, on the very first day of school, Aizawa went out of his way to put Izuku down and make him feel like he wasn't good enough.
Man, UA was harsh.
"It's fine if you don't want to be a fighter," Izuku said. "You're going to be an awesome hero no matter what. And it's the first day of class. At our skill level, size and weight are way more important. You could probably capture Uraraka or Hagakure by just falling on one of them."
Kouda let out a little laugh. Nice job, Izuku!
Izuku was proud of himself for handling this as well as he had, but internally he still felt very awkward. It was such a weird role reversal for him.
Kouda was a gentle, peaceful person by nature. Looking at it from Kouda's perspective, he was partnered with the top scorer on the entrance exam, the exam that glorified destruction and violence. Their first hero exercise involved fighting their classmates over a bomb. Kouda wasn't going to take charge here. It was all Izuku's responsibility.
At Aldera, he was at the bottom of the totem pole, the delusional Deku. The other kids considered him to be fair game to make fun of. Now he was at UA, among the best hero hopefuls in the country, and it was taken for granted that he was the leader.
"Oh, um," Kouda hesitated. "I don't remember what your quirk is. Did you say?"
"I can create alternate timelines," Izuku's mouth responded by habit, like a dumbass. Stupid, stupid. He shook his head. "Sorry, it's more like I can create save points. It's hard to explain, and I don't think we have time right now."
"Will it help us against Uraraka and Hagakure? I don't know how we can defend against someone invisible."
"No worries there. git grep hagakure-toru." Izuku grinned with self-satisfaction. "I have a few ideas…"
—
Izuku patrolled the hallway near the bomb room, trying his best to look alert and paranoid. He frequently whipped his head back and forth toward any little sound or creak the building made. Occasionally he spoke terse updates to Kouda over the headset, stuff like "No sign of them yet."
It was all an act. He knew exactly where Hagakure was, and it was a struggle to keep himself from smiling. The magic of grep (what a dumb name) meant that he was aware of the invisible girl's precise location at all times. Grep didn't at all feel like sight, the sense was more similar to proprioception. He knew where Hagakure was, where each of her limbs were, where she was looking, everything.
At the moment, Hagakure was softly and carefully walking up to him, invisible capture tape in hand. Izuku had to admit, she was good. Really good. He'd figured that since he knew exactly where she was, he ought to be able to spot her with his normal senses somehow. Maybe hearing very quiet footsteps, or maybe seeing dust in the air slightly out of place. Something. But no, she was giving out no signals at all. Izuku was extremely impressed.
Hagakure snuck her way closer and closer until she was right behind him. She readied her capture tape. This was it.
Right when Hagakure leaned forward to wrap the capture tape around her seemingly oblivious opponent, Izuku ducked out of nowhere and swept his leg backward. Hagakure was already unbalanced from leaning forward, so she tripped on Izuku's leg and fell toward him. Izuku flipped around and caught her in a bear hug. "Ah!" she yelped in shock at the sudden reversal.
Izuku had already ripped the capture tape from Hagakure's hands and started wrapping it around her, taking advantage of her shock and his larger size to keep her held in place. He'd nearly knotted the tape when all of a sudden Hagakure slithered out of his grip.
Izuku gasped in bewilderment as Hagakure contorted her body to slide right out from the tape wrapped around her. He tried to grab hold of her, but it was like trying to grip water. Somehow she kept on angling herself just right that his fingers slid right off any part of her body he tried to grab.
One final dip freed Hagakure from the tape completely, and she frantically jumped away from him. She seemed shaken. "Jesus fuck that was close!" she exclaimed, breathing heavily.
Izuku dumbly looked down at the (now visible) tangled capture tape in his arms, and then back up to Hagakure. "How did you do that?"
"How did you know I was there?!" she blurted in response.
Fair enough. They both had talents they'd rather not reveal to the enemy.
The two of them looked at each other. Hagakure seemed to startle again when he looked directly into her eyes. Oops, he had given away that he could "see" her. Not that it wasn't obvious already, but he might have been able to play it off as instinct or something, even if it wasn't a believable excuse.
Nothing to it then. This was just going to be a straight-up duel. They both got into fighting stances and then launched themselves at each other.
Izuku had a number of inherent advantages in this fight. For one thing, he was just bigger and heavier. That couldn't be taken lightly—there was a reason that all combat sports were separated into weight classes. Having a longer reach meant that you could strike your opponent without getting close enough that they could strike you in return.
Additionally, Izuku's grep-fueled proprioception meant that he knew exactly where Hagakure was planning to strike him. Hagakure actually had two disadvantages here. In Izuku's martial arts classes, they were taught how not to be predictable in fights. Stuff like quick hits, feints, and sudden changes in direction and speed to keep your opponent guessing and unable to anticipate your next move. Since Hagakure was invisible, she had learned none of that. Even without grep's precise motion detection, all of her movements were blatantly obvious and predictable well in advance.
…All of this meant jack shit as Izuku immediately found himself on the defensive, quickly being driven back by Hagakure's flurry of attacks. What the hell?!
It didn't matter that Izuku knew what Hagakure was going to do next when he wasn't fast enough to do anything about it. She was ridiculously flexible too; she kept on sending powerful kicks straight toward his head that he was barely able to back away from in time. Izuku certainly couldn't lift his leg up that high, and even if he could he'd be left wide open. But Hagakure was so quick and efficient that she left no openings for him to counterattack.
They were getting closer and closer to the bomb room because Izuku had to keep on retreating. Even when Izuku tried to strike Hagakure in return, she just slid away from his punches like it was nothing.
He somehow managed to get a couple of decent hits in that Hagakure had to actually block rather than effortlessly weave around, but it was incomparable to the number of hits she was getting on him. He was going to be so bruised after this, even with his new costume that was blunting the blows.
He thought he was a pretty decent fighter. He thought he had an advantage (multiple advantages!), but he was squandering it because Hagakure was just so much better than him. It sucked. Good for her, though.
Izuku winced in pain as he barely blocked another kick that was headed straight toward his face. It would have knocked him out cold if it connected. Hagakure huffed in frustration. "Fuck, you're good," she grumbled. Oh, he was? Really? That made him feel a bit better. It sure didn't feel like it from his perspective.
Izuku backed into the bomb room wondering if there was any way he could hold Hagakure at the door. She had less freedom of movement there. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Uraraka racing toward the other entranceway from the hall outside. Kouda was desperately running after her, but he wasn't going to catch up. Dammit, he named their traps "trap-left" and "trap-right", but with Hagakure barreling down on him, he couldn't remember if that was from the perspective of inside or outside the room. Whatever, this was what wildcards were for. "git restore trap-*."
Rolls of capture tape appeared stretched across both doorways like spider webs. Uraraka couldn't slow down and crashed right into the trap, tripping on the tape and rolling into the room, capture tape wrapping all along her. Kouda caught up, out of breath, and saw Uraraka lying dazed on the floor. With a graceless thump, he fell right on top of her. Haha! Go Kouda!
Kouda searched for the end of the capture tape so that he could tie a knot and officially capture Uraraka. She squirmed under him, but with his size and weight Kouda wasn't going anywhere. Uraraka was trapped, and there was nothing she could do about it!
At least that was what Izuku thought, but then Kouda started floating. He panicked and lost his grip, resulting in him awkwardly floating in the middle of the room, flailing his arms about, swimming to nowhere. Right, a weight advantage doesn't help against someone who can make things weightless, Izuku thought, mentally kicking himself. Then he had to block another literal kick from Hagakure.
"Get it, girl!" Hagakure cheered.
Uraraka untangled herself from the tape and launched herself at the fake bomb.
"No!" Izuku shouted.
"Yes!" Uraraka responded with glee.
Well, guess he had to pull out his last trick. "git switch other-room."
The bomb vanished. Uraraka sailed straight through the spot the bomb used to be and nearly crashed into the opposing wall. "What the heck?!" Uraraka yelled, spinning around to stare directly at Izuku. Hagakure too had stopped fighting to stare at him. Her gaze was intense.
Izuku whistled innocently.
Uraraka looked at him suspiciously. "Hold on, is this allowed? The villain team can't just make their bomb disappear, right?"
"Nope, that's not what I did." Izuku went over to Kouda and pulled him down so that he was standing upright again. Uraraka graciously canceled her quirk. "The bomb's still in the building, just somewhere else now." He gave a cheeky grin. "Better go find it!"
Hagakure threw her hands in the air and groaned. Man, she sounded angry. Regardless, the girls pulled themselves together and sprinted out of the room. They knew that, if they were lucky, they might be able to find the bomb before the boys reached it, which would grant them an automatic victory.
"C'mon, let's go!" Izuku said to Kouda, and then both of them ran downstairs to the room directly beneath the previous bomb room. The fake bomb sat there untouched. The two split up to guard each entranceway.
"I wasn't able to get Uraraka," Kouda whispered miserably as they waited for the hero team to find them. "I screwed up. I'm sorry."
"It's totally fine. Hagakure beat me black and blue too. Neither of us screwed up—the girls are just awesome. And we definitely haven't lost yet."
They waited another minute, and then Izuku sensed Hagakure coming their way. "Heads up, they've almost found us… Oh, they have found us. Hagakure sees you. But now she's backing away."
"Are they planning something?"
"Must be. They can't win by charging us directly because I can just move the bomb back upstairs. And if they split up then we can just gang up on them one at a time."
Kouda thought about that for a moment. "If they can't get at the bomb, then they have to try to capture us instead."
Izuku nodded. "That's what I'm thinking. If I were them, I'd focus on taking me down. Once I'm out of the match, I'm not allowed to move the bomb around anymore."
"How much time is left?"
"I'm not sure. Not long. They're going to have to make their move soon—oh, here they come! Hagakure is on your side!"
Izuku turned to look for Uraraka, only to suddenly see a filing cabinet flying through the air straight for his face!
"Release!" Izuku scrambled out of the way as the filing cabinet tumbled into the room and slammed onto the floor with a loud clang. Uraraka entered the room, and to his right Izuku saw that Hagakure had entered the room as well. He and Kouda both had totally failed at guarding the entranceways.
Oh well. "git switch first-room." The bomb vanished again.
From the sudden smug look on Uraraka's face, he knew he'd made a mistake.
"Do it!" she shouted at Hagakure. Huh? What could Hagakure do? Izuku turned to look and saw power radiating from across the room. His jaw fell open in shock. Was that really Hagakure? Light itself seemed to distort around the invisible girl, gathering together in a ray of shining brilliance.
Hagakure leaped and performed a grand uppercut. "SUNRISE… SMASH!"
The explosion was deafening! The great display of power had blown the ceiling wide open! Not wasting a second, Uraraka made herself weightless, jumped through the hole in the ceiling, and landed in the room above. She placed a hand on the fake bomb in triumph.
"Hero Team wins!" All Might announced over the intercom.
But Izuku wasn't paying attention to any of that.
He didn't see Uraraka's feat.
He didn't notice All Might's announcement.
He was solely focused on the mutilated form of Hagakure collapsed on the ground.
Hagakure's arm was completely shattered. Izuku suddenly regretted how detailed his grep-sense was. He could feel her bones pointing in the wrong directions and gruesomely piercing her skin. He could feel the way her arm was only barely still connected to her shoulder. His own right arm seized up in sympathetic pain.
Izuku was breathing hard, his heart pounding frantically. What did she do? What the hell happened?!
She was lying prone on the floor, delirious and whimpering. It felt like she wanted to scream in agony, but she didn't have the focus or energy to do so. Blood was everywhere. Shit, was she bleeding out?!
All Might was still chattering over the comms congratulating them on a job well done. Kouda was helping Uraraka jump back down to the lower room. What was everyone doing? Why were they acting like everything was fine?
No one else could see her, he realized. Only him.
"HELP!" Izuku screamed into the comms. "ALL MIGHT, HELP!"
Uraraka and Kouda startled and turned to face him. A blink later and All Might was already in the room. Izuku didn't even see where he came from. In all the videos he'd watched, he'd never seen All Might move that fast. "Young man, what—"
Izuku's arm trembled as he pointed at Hagakure's prone body. He expected to have to explain the situation, but All Might was already on it. With anguish on his face, All Might rushed to Hagakure's side and very gently lifted her so that her crippled arm was supported and no additional harm would be done. Izuku had no idea how All Might knew what happened without being able to see Hagakure, but it was clear he knew how to take care of someone grievously injured.
"I am sorry, please inform your classmates that today's exercise is canceled," All Might said, then he soared out the window with Hagakure carefully tucked in his arms.
"Huh? What's going on? What happened to Hagakure?" asked Uraraka nervously, running up to him. "Why are you staring at the wall?"
Izuku wasn't staring at the wall—he was staring in the direction of Hagakure. He could still sense her thanks to grep.
"Midoriya! What happened? Please tell me!" Uraraka pleaded.
Frankly, Izuku had no idea what happened. Hagakure's quirk was invisibility, so what was that punch? And why did it destroy her arm? Could an injury like that even be healed?
He swallowed and turned to face Uraraka and Kouda. "Right, sorry, I'll tell you what I saw…"
—
Izuku didn't return to his classmates. Uraraka and Kouda would have to explain to them what happened. Rather, Izuku followed the light in his head that pointed him to Hagakure. He could feel that she was lying down now, so she was probably in a medical bed.
Finding Hagakure took more time than he wanted. He knew where she was relative to him, but he still had to navigate UA's confusing corridors to reach her. Eventually, he found and entered the infirmary. He heard faint voices coming from one of the rooms.
"Did you seriously teach her nothing, you baffoon?!"
"I swear, I didn't know this would happen, I would never have—"
"Now now, let us focus on our immediate concerns. Finger-pointing can come later. Please inform of us your diagnosis, Chiyo."
"Hmph. I've stopped the bleeding, but I cannot use my quirk on Ms. Hagakure in her current state. She requires fairly extensive surgery to arrange her bones in the proper positions before using any sort of accelerated healing quirk. Unfortunately, her invisibility prevents me from performing that surgery myself."
"Young Tooru is—"
"Be quiet, Toshinori. I know of an overseas specialist with an echolocation quirk, Dr. Maharaj, who often performs difficult surgeries such as this. He is often booked solid, but hopefully we can fly him in to Japan within a reasonable time frame. There will be permanent damage to her arm regardless, but the longer we wait, the worse it will be."
"Consider it done. How long do we have, and what are our next options if the doctor is unavailable?"
"I'll have to do more tests to be sure, and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
Izuku knocked softly and entered the room. Hagakure was lying on a cot near the back. The other three occupants of the room reacted in different ways to his presence. All Might was sitting in a chair far too small for him, head held in his hands. He didn't look up or even seem to notice Izuku's entry. Conversely, Recovery Girl very much noticed Izuku. She turned and glared daggers at him—it looked like she was a moment away from screaming at him to get out, held back only by professionalism.
Principal Nedzu, however, visibly perked up when he saw Izuku. The small creature waddled over to him. "Good afternoon, Mr. Midoriya. How may we help you?"
Izuku cleared his throat nervously. "Um, I can heal Hagakure, sort of."
All Might looked up, suddenly paying attention. Recovery Girl stared at him sternly. "Elaborate."
"It's not healing, exactly. My quirk lets me make save points. I can revert Hagakure back to right before we started the Battle Trial, but, um, it affects everything. Her memories. She wouldn't remember any of this. For her, it'll be like nothing ever happened."
"YES! YES! DO IT! PLEASE DO IT! PLEASE!" Hagakure abruptly shrieked from the bed, startling them all. Woah! Izuku didn't know she was conscious. Wouldn't they have pumped her full of painkillers? How badly must she be hurting?
Nedzu clapped his little paws together. "That covers the issue of consent. Very well, I will use the class recordings and UA security footage to create a video covering the pertinent period of time. Toshinori, please show it to Ms. Hagakure when she returns." He walked over to the door. "I shall go do that now, so please carry on without me."
The principal left. Izuku turned back to the others. "Um, All Might?"
"Yes, my boy?" All Might looked horrible. Deep guilt was etched onto the lines of his face. It looked so strange to see the Symbol of Peace like this. And his voice was softer than Izuku had ever heard it.
"When I restore Hagakure, she's not going to be here. She's going to be where I saved her, which is back on the training field. From her perspective, she's just about to start the Battle Trial, but then everyone around her will vanish. Maybe you should be there so that she's not alone and so that you can explain everything to her?"
All Might patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, yes. That is an excellent idea, my boy. I will go." He paused. "Thank you." He then left the room as well.
One last thing to do. Izuku walked over and sat down on the chair next to Hagakure's bed. "Um, Hagakure, you're listening, right?"
He received a pained grunt in reply.
"I just want to be really, really clear about what my quirk actually does." His mouth felt like sandpaper. He swallowed and forged ahead. "I'm not healing you, I'm not rewinding you, I'm not changing you back. I'm undoing you. I'm replacing you with a previous version of you. I don't know exactly how it works, but it's possible that this process kills you, and then a different Hagakure Tooru takes your place." Recovery Girl looked deeply unhappy with every word that came out of his mouth, but she didn't say anything. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?"
Hagakure turned to look at him, wincing in pain as she did so. She looked miserable and in utter agony. It was obvious she'd been crying. "I want this," she rasped. "Please just kill me already."
Well… fair enough, he supposed. He grabbed hold of her uninjured hand with his own and squeezed. He didn't need to touch her to do this, but some part of him didn't want the girl to be alone when she ceased to exist. "git restore hagakure-toru."
The words left his lips, and then the bed was empty.
Izuku wiped his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
What a day.
Addendum:
git under her skin
Hagakure Tooru felt horrible.
Not just physically, although that was a massive part of it. The pain she felt was unbearable. She couldn't even look at her arm without feeling like she needed to throw up. She took one look at her bloody fractured bones piercing her skin and had to look away. It was repulsive.
More importantly, however, Tooru felt like a fraud. She didn't deserve One For All.
Tooru had always wanted to be a hero. As much as she wanted to be a frontline hero and show herself to the world, she knew that wouldn't happen with a quirk like hers. So she devoted herself to becoming the best at what she was best at.
Uraraka had been worried about going up against Midoriya. He was the top scorer on the entrance exam, after all. Tooru had responded by pooh-poohing Uraraka's concerns entirely. He's not so scary, she said. We both beat his ass on the assessment test yesterday. Don't be intimidated.
Tooru bragged with complete confidence that she would take Midoriya down before he even knew what hit him. This type of exercise was made for her. Stealth takedowns were her bread and butter. She'd humbled so many overconfident hero-wannabes before. It would be a piece of cake.
And so, it was a real kick in the gut when Midoriya beat her at her own game. She'd almost been taken out of the match instantly and only managed to escape at the last moment by nearly dislocating her shoulders. That would have been mortifying if she lost like that after all her bragging.
It stung, but not all was lost. She knew she was an excellent fighter, even without her invisibility. With her invisibility, she was unmatched. Her martial arts classes had long since given up on pairing her up against just a single other person. No one could protect themselves from a punch to the face that they couldn't see, so one-on-one spars were too easy for her. Instead, Tooru tended to fight against whole groups of other students all at once. They'd try to protect each other, limit her movement, and hopefully get in some lucky strikes. And even still she often won those fights. She was such a great fighter that she could take on her entire martial arts class at once and come out on top. A one-on-one fight like this one, even if Midoriya could somehow see her, was her chance to shine!
Which made it all the more distressing when she threw everything she had at Midoriya and the fucker just wouldn't go down.
She didn't understand. She was a lot faster and more skilled than him, but it didn't matter. It was like he knew what she was going to do before she did it. It was infuriating. Nothing she did was working. This should have been easy, but she just couldn't do it!
Midoriya had even gotten a couple of hits on her, and they hurt. He was strong. If she was injured, she wouldn't be able to keep this up. The only thing she could do was keep him busy enough that he couldn't counterattack. If she let up for even a second, she wasn't sure what would happen.
What was even worse was the painful realization that he was holding back. This was the guy who got second place in Villain Points on the exam (losing only to the guy whose quirk was literally explosions). He was perfectly capable of putting in enough force to destroy robots, and she'd heard he somehow even defeated the zero-pointer. The zero-pointer! Fucking how? He obviously could use his quirk offensively and highly destructively, but he wasn't doing it because they weren't supposed to hurt their classmates.
This exercise was what she was best at. This was her chance to prove herself. She was putting everything she had into this, and she still couldn't win against someone who was holding back because he didn't want to hurt her. It was humiliating.
For nearly all her life, all she had was her invisibility. She never had anything else to help her. She'd trained for so many years for this exact situation. If she couldn't win here, then what was even the point of her being a hero?
Tooru was relieved when she finally managed to get to the bomb room. It was a slimmer victory than she hoped for, but they'd done it. Uraraka was going to win for them right now! But the fire in her chest was abruptly doused with cold water when the bomb disappeared.
The whole fight didn't matter. Midoriya never even needed to fight her—he did it for fun. To stall her a bit. He could just teleport the bomb around and there was nothing Tooru could do about it. The whole time he was just playing with her. She and Uraraka were doomed from the start; Midoriya outclassed them both.
As for Kouda… it wasn't nice to say, but Kouda didn't do much. The match was really more of a 2v1, or a 2v1.5 at best. And they were still losing.
But Tooru couldn't lose. She just couldn't. All Might was watching, and she needed to prove she was worthy of the trust he placed in her. It was obvious that All Might had chosen this to be the class's first lesson for her sake. He prepared that whole speech about "an invisible helping hand" and everything. They wouldn't have done this exercise if it weren't for her. Tooru was sure of it. This lesson was built around her exact skillset precisely so that she could show off.
She couldn't live with herself if she lost.
That's why Tooru did what she did. She didn't know how to use One For All, and she hadn't bulked up as much as All Might recommended because she wanted to remain nimble and flexible, but she was desperate. She needed this. Tooru would prove that it wasn't a mistake to entrust her with this power. So she went for it. Her moment of triumph!
What a joke. What a fucking joke.
From what Recovery Girl was saying, she'd fucked up her arm permanently. And for what? To barely eke out a victory in a 2v1 against an opponent who wasn't trying all that hard?
She wasn't worthy. She was a complete failure. She should give One For All back so that All Might could find someone who actually deserved it.
On cue, the door to her room in the infirmary opened, and in came Midoriya. For fuck's sake, why was he here?
…She hated him. She hated him so much. Just looking at him made her angry. And she knew it wasn't his fault. They barely knew each other, but he seemed sweet and friendly enough. Strong, talented, and humble. He was everything a good hero should be.
She hated him for it.
"Um, I can heal Hagakure, sort of."
Of course he could heal people too. Here he was, the perfect little hero, coming to save her. She couldn't beat him when she was in her element, but for him, it was just one of his many talents. God, she was such a horrible person. Midoriya was just trying to help, and all she felt was resentment. Her gut churned with self-loathing. She was scum.
She wasn't normally like this. She thought she was a good person. A kind person. All Might himself seemed to think that she was worthy of being his successor. She hated that she felt like this. She hated that her pointless jealousy had led her to make such an idiotic decision. Now she would have to live with the consequences of her fuckup for the rest of her life.
Everything was wrong. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be like this. She wished today had never happened. She'd give anything if she could take it all back.
"It's not healing, exactly. My quirk lets me make save points. I can revert Hagakure back to right before we started the Battle Trial, but, um, it affects everything. Her memories. She wouldn't remember any of this. For her, it'll be like nothing ever happened."
Holy fuck, you're shitting me. "YES! YES! DO IT! PLEASE DO IT! PLEASE!"
—
In a few moments, Hagakure Tooru would cease to be, and she couldn't be more thrilled about it. This had all been a big mistake, but she was getting a second chance. She wasn't going to waste it.
The new her wouldn't truly know what happened. The new her wouldn't have experienced any of the feelings she felt right now. The new her would learn how to use One For All properly, and so this would never happen again. Midoriya Izuku would just be a cool classmate of hers who helped her out. Their relationship would be a clean slate.
She didn't want to hate him. She didn't want to be the type of person who would hate him. She'd do better next time.
Who knows, maybe they could even be friends.