Izuku swept his gaze across his audience, eager eyes awaiting his performance. Okay, his audience was just his mom, but still. "git restore teacup," Izuku proclaimed with great theatricality, waving his arms around pointlessly. Mom gasped when the teacup teleported from one end of the kitchen table to the other.
Also of note was that the tea within the teacup remained perfectly still and untouched, with no indication that it had been moved. Teleportation and other rapid movement quirks were notoriously… turbulent. You'd usually never want to use a teleportation quirk on a teacup like that unless you were fine with the tea spilling everywhere. The fact that Izuku could move it while keeping the tea completely undisturbed was an impressive showcase.
(Fine, Izuku knew that he promised himself that his experiment with branches would be the last thing he tested before telling his mom everything, but he lied. Sue him. He first tested this with his water bottle in his room. Was it so wrong to want to show off?)
"So, what do you think?" Izuku grinned.
His mom responded by scooping him up in a big hug. "Your quirk is wonderful, sweetie. I'm so happy for you!"
"It can do a lot more than that, too," Izuku said into his mom's shoulder.
"I can't wait to see it." Mom started rubbing his back. "Is it everything you hoped for?"
Izuku smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."
Mom returned the smile. "I'm glad. I'm so glad."
He and his mom stayed embraced for a little bit, appreciating the moment together.
"I think we need to celebrate," his mom said, pulling herself from the hug. "It's getting late, but the supermarket should still be open. Let's go buy a cake."
That was a fantastic idea. "Yeah!"
—
The late evening walk was nice. The sun had set a while ago, but it wasn't fully dark out yet. Izuku spent most of the time rambling to his mom about everything he had figured out so far and all the ideas he had in mind. His mom made sure to respond with the appropriate earnest and inquisitive noises.
They spent very little time at the store, picking out a soufflé-style cheesecake before heading home. It was getting late after all. Izuku continued right where he left off during the walk home. He knew that his mom wasn't perfectly following the intricacies of how each Git command affected staged objects in different contexts, but he appreciated the effort all the same.
Arriving back home, Izuku washed his hands while his mom pulled out some plates and set the cake on the kitchen table.
"Hm, it's getting pretty late," Mom said when Izuku returned to the kitchen. "I think you should only have a very small slice. It's not good to eat sugar at this time of night. But this is your big day, so you can take whatever you feel like having."
"Aren't you having any, Mom?"
"Oh no no, this is all for you! I've been thinking of going on a diet, so I won't be having sweets like this for a while."
"I have an idea about that." Good thing he had just washed his hands. He leaned forward and touched the side of the cake with the tip of his finger. "Git add… cake?" Okay, that didn't work. "git status."
» On branch normal-pencil
» Untracked files:
» ––(use "git add file..." to include in what will be committed)
» ––––––––all-might-undergarments [eb367ef]
» ––––––––cotton-cheesecake [ad89d3b]
» ––––––––fork [434af0b]
» ––––––––jeans-(blue) [4f1dfcd]
» ––––––––kitchen-table [5d62f1f]
» ––––––––midoriya-inko [027b7bf]
» ––––––––phone [ff6ce7b]
» ––––––––placemat [ca69f34]
» ––––––––plate [3e65429]
» ––––––––plate [6698bd0]
» ––––––––sock-(white) [4d4f3f6]
» ––––––––sock-(white) [877c765]
» ––––––––sweatshirt-(black) [c1fc637]
» ––––––––vase [8e7d39c]
» ––––––––wooden-chair [1de02e9]
» ––––––––wooden-chair [ca783ea]
» Message truncated. Only local files listed
» 50,812,699,499,854,712,584,083,048,723,657,999,791,559,909,332,711,068,077,101,971,990,446,842 files remaining
Izuku paused and stared at the list in his mind. One conspicuous item on the list, to be specific. Well, he had wondered about it—in fact, many of his ideas about how he would use his power for heroics had assumed that he was capable of it—but it seemed so much more disconcerting now that it was in front of his face.
The text "midoriya-inko", sitting so innocently amongst the other items in his immediate surroundings… well, that was quite the rabbit hole.
Just, the implications of such a power…
…
…Could he bring back the dead?
How would you test something like that?
No, no, he wouldn't want to test that. He hoped it was something he would never have to test.
"Are you okay, sweetie?" Mom asked with a tone of worry.
"Huh?" Existential thoughts for later, Izuku! "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. git add cotton-cheesecake."
With that, Izuku picked up his fork and proudly stuck it directly into the full cheesecake, not bothering to cut himself a slice first. With a mighty heave, he scooped up a giant heap of cheesecake and shoveled it directly into his face. He was chewing and grinning at the same time. It was delicious! He picked the right dessert.
And there was more where that came from! Swallowing his first big bite, Izuku took his fork and attacked the cheesecake again. This was fun!
As Izuku continued to shovel heap after heap of cheesecake into his mouth, his mom was looking more and more concerned. "Izuku, sweetie, I know I said I wouldn't stop you from celebrating however you wanted, but don't you think this is a bit much?"
Izuku held up a finger to wait for a moment—his mouth was too stuffed with cake to talk. After swallowing, he grinned cheekily. "No, Mom. Think about it. Watch this: git restore cotton-cheesecake."
The half-eaten cake on the table reverted back to its pristine state. At the same time, Izuku let out a loud and awkwardly long belch that echoed around the kitchen. He held up a hand to cover his mouth, face heating up. Oh man, he was glad it was just his mom here because that was pretty embarrassing.
Thankfully, his mom was more focused on the cake that had reappeared. A light had seemed to go off in her head. "Izuku, are you saying…?"
"The burping was probably because the cake in my stomach suddenly got replaced with air. I didn't really think it through totally. But yeah, you got it. No need to worry about calories anymore." Izuku grabbed another fork and offered it to his mom. "Your turn!"
His mom gingerly took the fork, looking back and forth between it and the cheesecake. But whatever internal debate she was having came to an abrupt conclusion because she too stabbed her fork into the cake and took a big bite.
Izuku watched his mom tackle the dessert. She certainly wasn't as violent about it as Izuku was when he devoured half the cake in less than a minute, but she was smiling, and he was glad to see Mom enjoying herself.
After a few minutes, his mom placed her fork down and wiped her mouth. It looked like she was done for now. "git restore cotton-cheesecake."
The cake reappeared, and on cue, his mom also let out a big, long burp. "Oh! Oh dear." Mom's face turned faintly red. Good, now both of them could be embarrassed.
"Pretty great, right?" Izuku looked proud.
His mom laughed. "Your quirk is the best, Izuku."
Yep, it sure was!
—
Today was a great day, the best day, but all days had to end eventually. Izuku was back in his bedroom after brushing his teeth and changing into his pajamas. He stared at his bed with wariness. Getting to sleep tonight was going to be a complete nightmare, he knew it.
How could he possibly get to sleep when there was so much stuff he still wanted to do? He hadn't even scratched the surface of his quirk's capabilities. He was probably going to lie there all night, mind whirring, coming up with all sorts of ideas and wanting to try them out, or at least write them down.
The only silver lining was he had the whole weekend ahead of him. Thank god tomorrow wasn't a school day. If he had to go to school tomorrow morning and sit there quietly all day, he would just die.
As much as he wanted to stay up all night and play with his quirk, he knew he had to try to get to sleep. Izuku was never very good at all-nighters; he always felt like crap the next day. He had a full free day to experiment as much as he wanted tomorrow, and he knew he'd regret it if he wasted that time by feeling sluggish and terrible.
There was one thing though. Just one, he promised himself. One thing he absolutely, positively had to check before going to bed. He'd never fall asleep otherwise. There was no way.
That line from before, "midoriya-inko"…
It had made him think of something. He wasn't sure if it would work or not—he wasn't sure if he wanted it to work or not—but he had to know. Right now.
"Git add Midoriya Izuku."
And… that was a no-go. Izuku's shoulders slumped in… disappointment? Relief? He wasn't sure. If he were able to use his quirk on himself, that opened up so many possibilities. He could heal his own injuries, or teleport around the place, or maybe even send himself back in time…?
But, in a way, it was reassuring as well that he'd never have to concern himself with that. His quirk was complicated enough as it was. And, well… it was awkward enough seeing his mom casually listed among the objects that he could control. He wasn't sure how he would feel if his quirk also listed himself as one of the objects that it could manipulate as it saw fit.
That was enough existentialism for one day. It was time for bed.
—
Izuku woke up groggily. Well, he slept at least, although it was hardly a good sleep. He was thinking about his quirk all night, and then he was dreaming about his quirk all night. He woke up so many times it was hard to tell the difference between his thoughts and his dreams.
There was so much he needed to try! Not just the dozens of other commands listed in the manual, but a whole lot of totally obvious things that he was shocked he didn't think of last night. Why did he never think of placing something in that same spot as a virtual object before restoring it? What would happen when two items tried to exist in the same spot at the same time? So many questions! So much to do!
Izuku rose out of bed, rubbing his tired eyes. 'Course, he had to wake up first. And there was a lot more to do in the morning. Brush his teeth, have a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast… oh no, he had to do his morning workout too!
He glared at the weight set propped up against his bedroom wall. Ugh, maybe he'd skip it today. Exercise sucked at the best of times, let alone when he'd be rushing to get it over with.
…No, no, he shouldn't think like that. He had a quirk now. He was going to be a hero, for real. Not just hoping, not just dreaming. UA's entrance exams were less than a year away. If anything, he needed to put his workout routine on overdrive, not start skipping days like a lazy butt.
He'd learned last night that he couldn't add himself to his quirk. That meant that he had no physical advantages, and he couldn't restore any injuries he sustained. As incredible as his quirk was, his body was a big weak point—one solid punch to the face from a villain would incapacitate him. There was a reason many of the top heroes had body-enhancing quirks of some kind. He'd been taking self-defense classes for a while, but that wasn't enough. He needed to be in tip-top physical condition if he wanted to keep up with all of his future classmates.
Izuku slapped his cheeks. All right. Workout first. Don't skimp, do it properly. Then shower and breakfast, and then I've got the rest of the day to myself.
He was going to be a hero!
—
Izuku sat at the kitchen table, twirling his All Might pencil in his hand. He'd decided to relocate to the living room for the day's experiments. He was alone in the apartment since his mom was out running errands, and his room was kind of dark in the morning because his window faced away from the sun. It was nicer out here. His quirk analysis notebook and the Git reference manual lay open in front of him along with an assortment of other household items he'd haphazardly grabbed.
His eyes were drawn to his quirk analysis notebook. The completely blank quirk analysis notebook. The one he'd specifically gotten to record everything he learned about his quirk.
First things first. Time to start writing stuff down. I have time, so I can do this more systematically today.
With the reference open in front of him like a study guide, Izuku spent the next 40 minutes or so dutifully writing down everything he had learned so far in his notebook. He split his notes into three main sections.
First, a record of the experiments he had performed last night, including the commands he used and the text responses his quirk gave him for each command. He followed this with a list of new experiments that he wanted to perform.
Second, notes on each command he knew about. This was by far the largest section because this was where he listed all his ideas so far for how he'd use his quirk as a Pro Hero. He cross-referenced the Git manual a lot here, noting down the many commands he still needed to try. His entry for "git init" was mostly an angry rant about how unfair it was that his reference manual just so happened to be missing the most important command of all. The rant continued into a despairful realization that if a command that important was missing, then how many other essential aspects of his quirk were missing that he'd never know about…?
…Anyway, the last section was a simple checklist of his plans for today, and probably for the following days too depending on how long the list got. Yesterday night he had thought many times "I'll figure that out later." This time, he'd add a new item to his checklist each time he thought that.
Izuku put his pencil down. Wow, that had taken him longer than he thought. He flipped through his notebook and saw just how many pages he'd already written. Damn. If this was what he had so far, he'd need multiple notebooks for just his quirk alone. Considering how thick the incomplete reference manual was, that made sense.
Izuku cracked his knuckles. It was time for the fun part! He looked at the first item on his checklist.
▢ Objects with the same name?
This was a basic aspect of his quirk that he needed to have clarified. When I first add an object to my quirk, I have to both touch it and say its name. But after adding an item once, I can use my quirk on it without touching it, like when I say "git restore whatever". But what happens if I add two objects with the same name and then try using commands without touching either of them? He had two identical unused chopsticks on the table in front of him to test this with.
He touched the first chopstick. "git add chopstick."
» new file: chopstick [f3ca01b]
And the other one. "git add chopstick."
» new file: chopstick [841874a]
The codes after the names distinguished objects that had the same name. He knew that already.
He shifted the first chopstick a bit so that the transparent ("staged") chopstick was visible. As he learned yesterday, adding the chopstick again would update the position of the virtual chopstick. He lifted his hands so that he was touching neither chopstick and said, "Git add chopstick." Oh. Huh. He was kind of hoping for an error message that would tell him what to do next.
Maybe it was a mental thing? He focused really hard on thinking about just the chopstick on the left, trying his best to pretend that the chopstick on the right didn't exist. "Git add chopstick." Still nope.
Hm. He touched the chopstick that he'd moved. "git add chopstick." This worked; the virtual chopstick's position updated to the location of the real chopstick.
Touching the chopstick made it unambiguous which chopstick he was referring to. The problem was he didn't want to have to touch it every time. He wanted to be able to use commands on the chopstick remotely, just like how it worked when there weren't multiple objects with the same name.
Wait. He was being dumb. His quirk literally gave him the answer.
He shifted the chopstick again. "git add chopstick [f3—ack! Ah, ack!" His tongue twisted when he pronounced the square bracket. Oh wow, that was weird. He thought he'd gotten used to the weird way he spoke when issuing commands, but that was something else. There was no such thing as pronouncing a square bracket, yet his tongue moved through some eldritch plane so that it could do it anyway.
Putting that aside, it looked like the command had worked, which was interesting considering that he didn't get the chance to speak the full code.
The code for the first chopstick started with an "f", while the code for the second started with an "8". He tried again. "git add chopstick [f]."
And that worked. Apparently, he only needed to speak the minimum amount in order to distinguish the objects. If he un-added one of them, presumably he wouldn't need to use the codes. "git restore ––staged chopstick [8]." That should remove the second chopstick from his quirk. "git add chopstick." It was back to normal.
Well, it was good that it worked, but it was kind of annoying that he'd have to memorize random codes whenever he added multiples of the same item to his quirk.
Maybe there was a way for him to rename objects? The names that his quirk came up with seemed pretty arbitrary, after all. He should figure out how to do that at some point.
Another thing to look into later, Izuku thought as he dutifully added a new item to the bottom of his checklist. He then wrote down the results of his test and checked off the first item on his to-do list. One down!
Izuku chuckled when he realized that he'd checked off one item and also added one item. Numerically, he'd made no progress. This was going to take a while. Which was fine by him!
Next up:
▢ Two objects existing in the same spot?
He moved the chopstick off to the side, leaving behind a virtual chopstick. Waving a hand through it, he confirmed once again that the transparent objects were completely intangible. So what would happen if he restored the original object while his hand was still inside the virtual chopstick?
Well, he wouldn't actually test this with his hands, obviously. He needed to use something he didn't care about. Thus, he placed his math textbook on top of the virtual chopstick so that the chopstick was completely contained within the book. "git restore chopstick."
» Failed to automatically restore from index. A merge is required. Please commit your changes or stash them.
Interesting error message. Something to look into, for sure. Izuku's eyes were drawn toward the instruction manual. Should he do it now?
…No, he shouldn't get distracted. He was trying to be more methodical today after all. Technically, he got an answer to his question: It didn't work. The error message suggested that there was a way to make it work, but that counted as a new investigation.
Satisfied with that logic, Izuku checked it off the list and added his new question as an item to the bottom of the list. Next!
▢ Multiple commands at once?
"git add chopstick; git add all-might-pencil; git add salt-shaker."
That worked. With a pleased hum, he checked another item off his list. Some of them were simple, at least.
▢ What are saved locations relative to?
This was one of those questions he thought of in the middle of the night while he trying to sleep. The intangibility of the virtual objects at first implied that no forces could affect them—they were static, fixed points in space. But that was obviously wrong because the Earth spins at some crazy speed, and then it also orbits the Sun, and then the Sun orbits something else, yadda yadda. Furthermore, the theory of relativity stated that there was no such thing as objective motion in the first place, only relative motion. It was in the name—"relativity".
So what were the virtual objects relative to? It could be the Earth, but it didn't sound right to him based on how the reference manual described Git. The technical details went way over his head, but it seemed like file "hunks" were located based on their relative position to nearby "hunks", not based on any sort of objective global positioning system or whatever.
If that were the case, shouldn't his quirk work similarly?
He placed the chopstick on top of his math textbook. "git add chopstick." Then he moved both the book and the chopstick off to the side.
Left behind was a virtual chopstick floating in midair, resting on top of a book that didn't exist. Izuku waved his hand through it. Yep, static and intangible. "git restore chopstick." The chopstick teleported back into position and clinked down onto the table, affected by gravity once again.
Izuku moved the textbook and chopstick back into position, the latter atop the former. "git add math-textbook; git add chopstick."
Once again, he moved the book and the chopstick off to the side. Oh! He picked up the book. There was a virtual book on the table, as expected, but no virtual chopstick on top of it. Rather, the virtual chopstick seemed to be attached to the physical book. As he moved his textbook around, the virtual chopstick attached to the cover moved around with it.
Now that was interesting. And surprising—he honestly didn't expect that to work.
Okay, what was happening here, exactly? If he added an object normally, then the staged object would be locked in place relative to, well, the Earth's position, presumably. That's why the chopstick hovered in midair at first. But if he added an object that was touching another object that his quirk was also tracking, then the position of the virtual object was determined relative to that object.
Hold on, this still didn't quite make sense. Izuku picked up the physical chopstick. The physical book was attached to the virtual chopstick, but not the other way around. There was nothing special about the physical chopstick, and the virtual book was still statically locked in place on the table.
Was it based on the order in which he added the items? Once again, he placed the chopstick on top of the book. "git add chopstick; git add math-textbook."
He picked up the chopstick, and this time the virtual book came along with it. Neat. Moving the physical book aside, he could see the virtual chopstick was hovering in midair, like before.
So it worked like a chain, or a layered cake, or something. He wasn't good with metaphors. The first item would always be relative to the Earth, the second item would be relative to the first item, and so on and so forth.
Izuku waved the chopstick around in the air, watching the textbook move along with it. It was like they were glued together, except that of course the textbook weighed nothing. It was just the holographic image of a textbook after all. What would happen if he restored the textbook while it was moving? Flicking the chopstick side to side, Izuku said, "git restore math-textbook."
The textbook flew off to the side at a surprisingly fast speed and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor.
…Oh.
Oh oh oh oh!
The restored physical object kept the momentum of the virtual object, even though the virtual object was weightless and intangible and so could effortlessly be moved at any speed at all.
Holy shit!
Izuku jumped up and down in excitement. He had to try this! He had to try this now!
…Maybe not with his math textbook though. Izuku scrambled to his bedroom and dug through his closet, soon enough finding a baseball. He came back out to the living room and picked up a chopstick, holding it vertically while his other hand positioned the baseball so that it rested on the top tip of the chopstick. "git add chopstick; git add baseball." With that done, he placed the baseball on the table.
The physical chopstick in his hand now had a virtual baseball attached to its tip. All right, so he had to swing the chopstick and restore the baseball with precisely the right timing—like he was flicking a wand and casting a spell in those wizard movies.
Izuku faced toward the couch. Focus, aim… He swung his arm—"git restore baseball!"—forward.
The baseball bounced off the floor and crashed into the lamp next to the couch, knocking it onto the floor. Oh, whoops. Izuku rushed to inspect the lamp. Thankfully, the bulb wasn't broken. Izuku put the lamp back in its proper position, adjusted the lampshade so that it was resting properly, and flicked the light on and off a couple of times to make sure it was fine. Yeah, good as new! Mom would never have to know.
Okay, so maybe he shouldn't be testing this indoors.
It was as good of an excuse as any to get back to his notebook. He could easily get caught up in practicing the timing for the rest of the day otherwise. He'd discovered yet another aspect of his quirk that was a rabbit hole unto itself. His quirk had so many rabbit holes that it was becoming a rabbit warren. But he had to be disciplined!
Izuku sat back down at the table, spent the next ten minutes or so writing down what he'd learned and a bunch of ideas to try, added a half-dozen new entries to the bottom of his checklist, then finally checked off the original task. After a moment's thought, he added a big smiley face next to the checked-off task. This one had been way more rewarding than he expected it to be. Anyway, next!
▢ Include commit description in the same command?
Right, this. The "blank whiteness" thing when he made commits was a bit annoying. He pulled over the reference manual and flipped to the page on "git-commit". After reading through the available options, he decided to try out the "–m" flag, since it was short for "message".
"git commit -m "Testing to see if I can include the message within the commit command itself"."
» [normal-pencil a56ac54] Testing to see if I can include the message within the commit command itself
» –8 files changed
» –create mode 100644 baseball [664f0ed]
» –create mode 100644 chopstick [f3ca01b]
» –create mode 100644 cotton-cheesecake [ad89d3b]
» –create mode 100644 math-textbook [c3774a0]
» –create mode 100644 salt-shaker [67fb3d8]
» –create mode 100644 teacup [9adaa97]
» –create mode 100644 water-bottle [4b77919]
Huh, it was that easy? He should have done this yesterday. Oh well. Check!
▢ Git log?
Now he was getting into the commands that he knew about due to the manual but hadn't tried yet. "git log."
» a56ac54 (HEAD » normal-pencil) Testing to see if I can include the message within the commit command itself
» 7b32e17 A normal, unbroken pencil.
» 82493c9 (main) Th-this is my first commit. No, don't record my stuttering! Ugh, how do I make this stop?
Izuku felt unreasonably relieved that the log was in reverse chronological order—most recent commit first. That meant that once he made enough commits, his original commit would eventually be pushed off the first page and he would never have to see it again.
However, what was important to note here was the branches. He was still on the "normal-pencil" branch from yesterday, which yeah, it made sense since he had never switched back to the main branch. He didn't want to be stuck on "normal-pencil" forever, though, so he needed to update the main branch. Also, the most recent commit on the main branch was his first commit, and that needed to be fixed. Desperately.
"git switch main."
He was now on the main branch… and nothing seemed to be any different? All the stuff on the table in front of him sat there untouched. Izuku hadn't been exactly sure what would happen when he switched branches, but he expected something to change.
What would happen if he tried adding stuff or making commits in this branch? "Git add baseball," he said.
…Oh! Huh.
All right, he thought, let's think about this. Why isn't it working now?
He touched the baseball and tried again. "git add baseball." And it was back to normal.
The baseball is acting as if I haven't added it to my quirk before, so I had to touch it first for commands to work. I'm on the main branch now, but all day I've been on the normal-pencil branch. So now that I've gone "back in time" to the main branch, my quirk is no longer tracking the baseball because it wasn't tracking at this point in the commit history.
Izuku nodded to himself. Yep, that seemed like a reasonable explanation. He went to record his new observation in his notebook. Now, where had his pencil disappeared to…?
Oh, duh, of course! Izuku facepalmed and laughed to himself. That's what changed when he switched to the main branch. Obviously.
Izuku went to his room and picked up the All Might pencil that was resting on his desk in exactly the same spot that it had been committed yesterday.
He was starting to realize just how much of a logistical nightmare it was going to be to keep track of all of this stuff. He had made a few commits and added a handful of household items to his quirk, and he was already losing track of things. He'd wanted a powerful quirk, and he certainly had one, but hoo boy!
That was a problem for future-Izuku to solve, though.
Present-Izuku flipped through the reference manual again. If he wanted to update the main branch so that it included the object-tracking and commits from the normal-pencil branch, then he was pretty sure the correct command was "git merge". As the name implied, this merged the history of the two branches. The part that made Izuku wary was the references to "merge conflicts". This was when two file histories contradicted each other, so it ended up as a garbled-up mishmash of text that you had to sort out manually.
Izuku didn't know how "merge conflicts" would manifest when applied to the real world. Frankly, he didn't think that he was ready for it yet. Izuku felt like he barely understood how his quirk functioned; he'd had his quirk for less than a day, after all. He ought to get more experience with it before he accidentally fused two objects together or something and couldn't fix it.
All that being said… was it even relevant? Would any conflicts occur in the first place? Izuku pondered this.
Think of it like a time travel movie. A merge conflict is like a time paradox. Something in the past has to be contradictory with something in the future in a way that can't be reconciled, like if I broke a pencil in the past, but it was still intact in the future. Izuku fiddled with the pencil in his hands. But that can't be the case right now. The only thing I changed on the main branch—in the "past"—was the location of this pencil. Everything else has been done in the "future". I'm on the main branch right now, and I still haven't touched anything other than this pencil, so there are no contradictions here. It's a fully linear timeline. It doesn't make sense otherwise. There's no reason that the merge should fail.
Izuku went over the logic a few more times in his head and eventually nodded in satisfaction. He was confident about this. It would definitely work.
"git merge normal-pencil."
» error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
» ––––––––baseball
» Please commit your changes or stash them before you merge.
» Aborting
…Ugh. Izuku bonked his head against the table. Right, he forgot he added the baseball.
"git restore -staged baseball," Izuku said. "git merge normal-pencil."
» Updating 82493c9..a56ac54
» Fast-forward
» –8 files changed
» –create mode 100644 baseball [664f0ed]
» –create mode 100644 chopstick [f3ca01b]
» –create mode 100644 cotton-cheesecake [ad89d3b]
» –create mode 100644 math-textbook [c3774a0]
» –create mode 100644 salt-shaker [67fb3d8]
» –create mode 100644 teacup [9adaa97]
» –create mode 100644 water-bottle [4b77919]
He felt relief when he saw the text "Fast-forward". He actually understood his quirk enough to predict what it was going to do in advance! It was just as he said—the relationship between the two branches was a linear timeline from past to future, so merging the branches just meant that the past branch was "fast-forwarded" to be in sync with the future branch. He felt giddy. He was getting the hang of this!
Check! Next!
Izuku's stomach rumbled.
Fine, lunchtime first.
—
Izuku continued in this vein for many hours. Every new test came with it dozens of new questions, all dutifully recorded in his notebook.
Wow, this is getting to be almost full, Izuku marveled, flipping through his notebook. I can't believe I've written this much just today. All right, what's next on the list?
He tapped his pencil against the next item.
▢ Wildcard characters?
This was another thing that he'd read about in the manual. An example of a "wildcard character" was an asterisk/star (*). Within Git, a star represented any letter and also any number of any letter.
For example, the word "fruit" was just that. But "*fruit" was different—the star represented a missing prefix. So "*fruit" might mean "grapefruit" or "kiwifruit", but it would not mean "fruitcake" because the star was on the wrong side.
Both Izuku's math and science textbooks lay on the table in front of him, conveniently both names that ended with "textbook". "git add math-textbook; git add science-textbook."
The two were added to his quirk, as usual. That was the slow way. Now for the wild way. "git add *textbook."
The command worked. Next, Izuku shoved both textbooks off the table. The science textbook opened up midfall and squashed its pages under its own weight upon landing. But that didn't matter because: "git restore *textbook."
Both textbooks teleported back on top of the table, undisturbed. Nice.
This technique wasn't particularly useful at the moment, but it opened up a world of possibilities when he figured out how to rename objects. That would allow him to create collections of objects that he could manipulate as a group. Say that he set up a bunch of traps in a hideout and renamed all of them to have the prefix "trap". Then later he could say "git restore trap*" and let all of them loose on every villain in the hideout at once. He added the idea to his notebook.
Hm, if a star represented any number of any character, then what would happen if he just used it by itself? "git restore *."
Minor mayhem occurred around Izuku as everything he'd added today returned to its last-staged location. His pencil vanished from his hand. Everything on the table in front of him rearranged itself, and the cheesecake from the previous evening reappeared in the center of it all. A chopstick and baseball appeared together in the middle of the living room, hovering in the air for an instant before tumbling to the carpet below.
Izuku giggled. This was fun. Anyway, on to the next item. Now where was his notebook?
…
Where was his notebook?
Izuku's heart plummeted into his stomach.
Where was his notebook?!
Where was it?!
It couldn't be.
No.
Feeling like a zombie, Izuku got up from his seat.
No no no no.
He walked slowly toward his bedroom.
No no no no no no no.
He opened the door, and the notebook was there, resting on his desk.
No no no no no no no no no no no.
He picked it up and flipped through it. The pages were blank. The notebook was pristine, brand new.
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
How? How did this happen?! It makes no sense! I haven't used my quirk on my notebook at all! This is bullshit!
He thought back as hard as he could about everything that had happened so far.
…Wait.
Yesterday, when he first tested branches.
» [normal-pencil 7b32e17] A normal, unbroken pencil.
» –2 files changed
» –create mode 100644 analysis-notebook [84e96b7]
That was it, wasn't it? He committed it right then, while it was blank. He committed it, not just added it, which meant that there was no "virtual notebook" visible that would indicate to him that his notebook was in a temporary state.
But… but… when he switched to the main branch earlier, his pencil teleported back to his room because that's when it was committed on that branch. Shouldn't the notebook have done the same? Or shouldn't there have been a "Your local changes will be overwritten" warning when he merged? Because there sure as hell were a lot of changes made to that notebook!
Izuku pinched his brow. No… he had it wrong. The notebook was only added to the normal-pencil branch. When he switched branches, the notebook became untracked because the main branch took place in the past compared to the normal-pencil branch. It wouldn't have been affected by anything. He merged the branches, so the notebook was fast-forwarded through being tracked, then committed as an empty notebook, and then everything since then had been unstaged changes.
…It made sense. He hated to admit it, but it made sense.
Izuku slumped onto the floor and held his head in his hands.
It was all gone. It was really all gone.
And it was his fault.
You moron! You stupid Deku!
He'd spent all day on it. He'd tried so hard. It was almost entirely full! He'd drawn diagrams and everything! So many pages, so many notes, so many ideas, so much work, all wasted.
…
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
Izuku felt tears coming to his eyes.
He was too dumb for this quirk.