Only fifteen push-ups left! C'mon, you can do this! Izuku thought, trying to act as his own personal cheer squad. His arms were shaking from exertion.
You're almost there! 4… 3… 2… 1…!
Done! Izuku groaned and sat back, rubbing his pained arms. Push-ups were saved for last, so he was done now. Izuku hated getting up early to do these workouts before school, but the alternative was worse. He didn't have the time to both do a workout and go for a run back-to-back, so one of them had to happen before school and the other after. He originally had it the other way around—going for a morning run before school—but having a full day at school, then working out, then homework was just too miserable. He liked running, so that helped to break it up.
Man, it was already a school day. The weekend flew by way too fast for Izuku's taste. If only he had just a little bit more time…
Like, a month, at least. A month-long weekend would be nice.
Izuku started his cooldown stretches. On the bright side, I can show my quirk to everyone at school! They'll see that all along I was telling the truth!
Admittedly, he'd stopped caring about what his classmates thought a long time ago. Being able to prove them all wrong was nice, but it wasn't as cathartic as he once thought it would be. Now that he had an awesome quirk and knew for sure that he would go to a hero school (hopefully UA) and become a hero, the approval of his classmates seemed so much more… inconsequential.
Izuku was going to get into a hero school, he had no doubts about that. Getting into UA specifically would be harder. They wanted the best of the best after all, and they only accepted around thirty-five new hero students per year. Was Izuku among the top thirty-five best kids his age in the whole country? The odds weren't in his favor.
But getting into a hero school? One of the lesser ones? He could be a fat slob when he showed up to the entrance exam and he'd still probably get in once he showed the examiners his quirk. It was just too bonkers and versatile and dangerous to ignore. Just one touch and anything and anyone was permanently at the mercy of his crazy reality-warping quirk.
Is this privilege? Is this what Kacchan feels like all the time?
Izuku finished his stretches. Walking over to his desk, he picked up his half-full analysis notebook. He'd intended to rewrite it yesterday, and he'd started to, but then he got distracted by wanting to try out new things, so it was instead a mishmash of some stuff he remembered from two days ago and a whole bunch of new things he'd thought of.
My backpack is tracked by my quirk, and I've previously staged it, so it should act as the anchor point for any objects that I stage while they're touching the backpack, Izuku thought. He considered his logic a second time, nodded to himself, and placed his notebook inside his backpack. "git add analysis-notebook; git commit -m "Monday morning backup"."
Satisfied, Izuku exited his room. He was gross and sweaty and it was time for a shower.
—
The classroom bustled with adolescence and chatter. Class hadn't started yet, so friends bunched up into groups, hanging over each other's desks as they talked about their weekend, joked around, and other aimless gossip.
Izuku sat at his desk alone because he didn't have any friends.
For once, he didn't mind. Smiling brightly, Izuku hummed to himself with a pen in his hand and his analysis notebook wide open and vulnerable in front of him. He was rapidly doodling and jotting down notes inside, ones he wouldn't care about losing, looking for all the world like what he was writing was the most exciting and important thing ever.
"Oi, Deku!" Katsuki stomped over to his desk. "What the fuck are you smiling about, huh?"
It was amazing how predictable Kacchan was. He legitimately took it as a personal insult that Izuku was smiling. Maybe it was a blow to his pride, like "How dare you be happy after all the years of effort I've spent making sure you're not"?
Izuku turned to face his former friend. "Kacchan, I figured out my quirk!" he exclaimed brightly and loudly.
The din of the classroom noticeably became quieter after that proclamation. Several students started listening in. Izuku could imagine their thoughts: Wait, he's serious? The quirkless liar actually has a quirk?
Katsuki's face bunched up in disbelief and anger. "The fuck? You don't have a quirk. You've never had a quirk. Show me."
Izuku sighed theatrically. "Oh, no, I couldn't do that. Quirk use is prohibited in the classroom, after all. I would never break such a sacred rule."
"Bullshit. You are a fucking liar! God, it never ends with you."
"So instead," Izuku continued as if Katsuki hadn't spoken, "I'm writing down all the ways I'll use my quirk when I become a Pro Hero. Look at how much I've written so far." He flipped through the notebook to show off the pages and pages of densely written notes.
"Fuck off! You'll never be a hero, Deku! You're never going to be anything but scum that I scrape off my feet!" Katsuki was yelling loud enough that everyone in class was watching now.
"Agree to disagree." Izuku turned away and started writing stuff in his notebook again, seeming to ignore the loud blond beside him.
Thrusting his hand forward, Katsuki tore the notebook right from Izuku's grip. "Quirks aren't allowed in class, yeah?" he snarled menacingly, holding Izuku's notebook up for all to see. "Bullshit."
With that, a firecracker went off in Katsuki's hands. Everyone watched as Izuku's notebook went up in flames, Katsuki grinning all the while. After a few moments, the notebook was black, charred, and unusable.
"git restore analysis-notebook."
The destroyed notebook abruptly vanished from Katsuki's hands and reappeared on Izuku's desk, fully mended. Quiet gasps could be heard in the room. With a happy hum, Izuku got back to writing in the notebook as if the whole confrontation hadn't happened.
Katsuki stared gobsmacked.
"All right, kids, settle down," the teacher said, strolling into the room. "Class is starting now. Please return to your seats."
It took a few moments, but Katsuki eventually shuffled back to his desk.
Izuku leaned back in his chair and smiled. That was totally worth it.
—
The lunchroom bustled with adolescence and chatter. They were free from classes at the moment, so friends formed groups together around the lunch tables, stuffing their faces with food as they made plans for after school, goofed off, and other aimless leisure.
Izuku sat at a table alone because he didn't have any friends.
He didn't mind though. Well, he did a little, but Izuku definitely told himself that he didn't mind. Just because he had a quirk now didn't mean he was suddenly going to be popular. His classmates had had years to settle into friend groups, and it was far too late for Izuku's social status and reputation to suddenly flip.
Really, it was a good thing. Truthfully, all he wanted to do right now was keep making quirk notes in his notebook. The morning classes were the longest continuous period of not using his quirk since he had gotten it, not counting sleep. He was itching to get back to work. So it was good he had this time to himself. Definitely. Small talk with classmates he barely knew would just be awkward. No thanks.
Wait, someone's coming to my table! he thought eagerly.
"Hey, you're Deku, right?" A boy he vaguely recognized as one of his underclassmen sat down in front of him. A part of Izuku was really tempted to reply "No"—his name certainly was not "Deku"—but he didn't know this boy's name either, so it was likely that this was a genuine misunderstanding.
"Uh, I guess. My name's Midoriya Izuku."
"Yeah, cool cool." The boy didn't introduce himself in return. "Hey, so, you just got a quirk that repairs things, right?"
The news had spread that quickly? Izuku didn't even know who this guy was. I guess that someone getting a quirk at our age is a hot topic for gossip. "My quirk is a bit complicated, but yeah, that's one thing it can do."
"That's aces, yeah? So, it's not my fault, but this happened earlier." The boy pulled a phone with a smashed-up screen out of his pocket and placed it on the table in front of Izuku. "My mom's going to be real pissed if she sees this, so, like, fix it?"
Ah, it was easy to see how people had misunderstood his stunt earlier. "Sorry, my quirk doesn't work that way. It's more like I can create save points. I've never seen your phone when it was intact, so I can't do anything here." Izuku picked up the phone and handed it back to the boy. "Again, sorry."
"Oh." The boy scowled, then walked away without saying another word.
Wow, rude.
Izuku sat there and took a few bites of his lunch.
When he got into UA, he'd change it. He'd change everything. No one at UA would've heard of the lying, quirkless Deku. No preconceptions, so he could be whoever he wanted. He'd put himself out there. He'd be the confident hero student Midoriya Izuku who was friendly, athletic, charming, and who could control time and space. He promised. He swore to himself. It would all change. It had to. He'd make it so.
In the corner of his vision, he saw Katsuki enter the lunchroom. Dammit. Izuku quickly shoveled the rest of his lunch into his mouth, awkwardly chewing and swallowing slightly too large bites. Katsuki's gaze was scanning left and right across the room. Izuku tried to turn away, but he couldn't help but meet Katsuki's eyes. All right, we're doing this then.
Izuku sighed as Katsuki stomped over to his table, grabbed him by the arm, and started dragging him out of the lunchroom. A couple of Katsuki's goons were with him as well, hanging back. It wasn't worth making a scene, so Izuku allowed it to happen. Actually being dragged would be humiliating though—it was better to pretend that they were equals and this was all mutually agreed-upon. So Izuku made sure to keep pace with Katsuki as he was led out of the lunchroom.
Katsuki continued to drag him into the hall, heading toward an exit door that led to a secluded spot behind the school. "git add bakugo-katsuki," Izuku whispered, letting the loud bang of Katsuki slamming open the door muffle his words.
Once outside, Izuku tore his arm out of Katsuki's grip and turned to face him directly. Two of Katsuki's minions loomed behind him, trying to look tough like they were in a gangster movie.
They stared at each other for a moment, but Katsuki was never one for silence. "Was it fun," he growled, "making a fool out of me?"
Kinda, yeah. "Is destroying other people's property fun for you?" he retorted.
"Hiding your quirk all this time!" Katsuki shouted as if Izuku hadn't said anything. "Were you looking down on me?! You bastard, have you been laughing at me all these years? Going around all high and mighty, pretending you didn't have a quirk?"
"Wh—what? Kacchan, are you insane?" Izuku yelled back, flabbergasted. "What are you talking about? I never hid anything! You think I wanted to be known as a delusional quirkless kid? You think I wanted to have no friends since I was five?"
"No one gets a quirk this late. Even late bloomers only get their quirks a few years late. You had a quirk this whole time!" Katsuki proclaimed this as if it were some grand revelation.
"Yes! Yes, I have! I'm not a late bloomer! I've always had a quirk! You know, like I've been saying for my entire life!" Why did Izuku even need to defend this? Wasn't it all blatantly obvious?
"So, what, you've always had a quirk, but you were just too stupid and incompetent to use it till now?" Katsuki said it mockingly as if the very concept was ridiculous.
Izuku threw his hands up in the air. "Yes, fine! I was too stupid to know how to use it until now. That's exactly what happened. If that'll get you off my back, I'm happy to admit it!"
Katsuki spat at the ground by Izuku's feet. "Bullshit. You're a bastard, but you're not stupid. Once a liar, always a liar. But it doesn't matter because no matter what quirk you have, you'll never beat me. You're a pebble on the side of the damn road, and you need to learn to stay in your fucking lane."
Yeah yeah yeah, he'd heard all this before, thanks. He definitely needed to be reminded for the ten millionth time about how much he sucks and how he'll never amount to anything.
"Don't look at me like that!" Katsuki suddenly erupted. "I'm better than you!" Huh? Was Izuku making a face? He honestly couldn't tell. "You think whatever lame quirk you've been hiding all this time can stack up against me?" Katsuki let loose an explosion in his hands for emphasis.
"git add bakugo-katuski," Izuku responded simply, updating Katsuki's staged location.
"You wanna fight? I'll kill you!" he roared.
"git commit -m "Kacchan is an asshole!"." Izuku was about to tell him about how "Kacchan is an asshole!" was now engraved into history for the rest of time, but then he realized just how much context he'd have to go into to explain why this was funny, and so the joke died on his tongue.
"Fucking die!" Katsuki launched forward, readying a right hook.
"git restore bakugo-katuski."
Katsuki vanished mid-lunge and reappeared in his original position. "—You wanna fight? I'll kill you!" he roared.
The two minions jolted backward in surprise, alarm on their faces. Oh, shoot, Izuku had completely forgotten they were even there. He was pretty sure Katsuki had, too. They had faded entirely into the background.
"Fucking die!" Katsuki launched forward again with another right hook.
"git restore bakugo-katuski."
Katsuki vanished and reappeared. "—You wanna fight? I'll kill you!"
Huh, this was the first time Izuku had used his quirk on a person. He didn't know that their memories were reset as well. It was obvious in retrospect, but in Izuku's head, he imagined Katsuki getting increasingly frustrated each time one of his attacks failed to connect. This wasn't as fun when Katsuki didn't know what was happening.
"Fucking die!"
"git restore bakugo-katuski."
"—You wanna fight? I'll kill you!"
This was getting nowhere. The goons were visibly starting to freak out too, seeing their leader seemingly stuck in a time loop. Izuku decided it was time to walk away.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Katsuki shouted, launching forward to grab Izuku by the shoulder.
"git restore bakugo-katuski."
"—You wanna fight? I'll kill—huh?" Katsuki stumbled. Izuku was walking away, no longer facing him. "Fuck, you can teleport? Bastard. You think that's gonna help you escape me? Fucking die!"
"git restore bakugo-katuski." He opened the door that would lead him back inside the school.
"—You wanna fight? I'll kill—huh?" Katsuki stumbled. This time, however, one of the goons grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him from launching himself at Izuku again.
"Hey, uh, Bakugou, maybe we shouldn't mess with him." The goon was sweating a bit, barely hiding his panic.
"What the fuck? Are you scared of Deku? That little shit couldn't—"
The door slammed shut, cutting Izuku off from hearing the rest of Katsuki's rant.
He sighed. Can lunchtime please be over already?
—
The rest of the school day was tedious as always. In Social Studies, Izuku filled out a math worksheet assigned to them in the previous class, barely paying attention to Mr. Nakamura as he blandly regurgitated stuff Izuku already knew.
UA only accepted the best of the best, and that applied to academics just as much as heroic potential. Other hero schools were fine with dumb brutes, but UA prided itself on nurturing intelligent, tactical leaders of the field. If Izuku was going to get into UA, he needed to prove that he was capable. So, was Aldera Junior High giving him a best-of-the-best education that would help him out-compete the smartest, most driven students in the country?
Hahaha.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
Students with wealthy families could hire private tutors to help them get an advantage, but Izuku couldn't afford that, obviously. Thankfully, if you were determined to learn, there were a lot of fantastic free resources out there that could do the job. There were many lectures online that went over the same content that school was teaching him, except shorter and explained far better.
Thus, school nowadays was just a review of stuff Izuku had studied a long time ago. It was nice to double-check that he hadn't somehow missed any topics, and exams were a good way to confirm that he had successfully retained all the information he'd learned, but otherwise, he tried to use lecture time to finish as much homework as he could get away with so that he wouldn't have to do it later.
The school day was almost over. Izuku started surreptitiously packing his books away. He'd have to escape quickly if he didn't want to be caught by Katsuki again.
"Midoriya. Bakugou. Please see me after class," Mr. Nakamura declared.
Oh, you've got to be kidding me.
The bell rang, and the rest of the students happily ambled out of the classroom, split between heading to after-school clubs and heading home for the day. Before long, only the three of them remained—Izuku, their teacher, and Katsuki, who was looking just as annoyed as Izuku.
"Now boys, I heard you two had a disagreement earlier today at lunch," Mr. Nakamura said. "Specifically, Midoriya, I hear you used your quirk offensively to hurt Bakugou, one of your fellow classmates. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Deku didn't do jack shit! Do I look hurt?" Katsuki exclaimed. "How did you even hear—ugh, it was those two idiots, wasn't it? They snitched."
"It doesn't matter if neither of you are hurt, the intent is what matters," their teacher replied. "Furthermore, I hear Midoriya only attacked you with his quirk due to your own aggressive behavior. As you know, at Aldera we have a zero-tolerance policy against both quirk usage and bullying."
Izuku and Katsuki looked at each other in shared bafflement. Katsuki scrunched his face up as if to say, "Can you believe the shit that's coming out of this guy's mouth?"
"Now, I've been an educator for many years. I know that emotions can run high among boys your age. However, I must make it clear that this behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated moving forward."
"You never—" Katsuki began, but he cut himself off. It was obvious to Izuku what Katsuki was going to say: "You never cared before." However, by saying it, he would implicitly be admitting that he was guilty of bullying and quirk usage and all of it. For whatever reason, the school cared about this now. It'd be dumb for Katsuki to call attention to it, and for all of his faults, he wasn't dumb.
Katsuki was clearly confused as to what was going on, but the pieces were falling into place for Izuku. There was a Freudian slip in what his teacher had said: "…will not be tolerated moving forward." Implying that it had been tolerated up until now. Which, yeah, obviously that was the case. But the key insight here was that the teacher was aware of it too. Therefore, something had changed.
What had changed was that some bullies had snitched to the teachers about Izuku's reality-warping quirk. Probably acting all freaked out by it, worried that Izuku would use it on them too. The school administrators now knew that Izuku had a quirk powerful enough to scare a group of bullies. And Izuku had made no secret of his plans to get into UA and become a hero.
The school didn't just have one golden child anymore. It now had two UA hopefuls with powerful quirks under its roof, and it was suddenly vitally important to prevent the two of them from killing each other before graduation.
"The two of you will be coming with me to the office for your detention," Mr. Nakamura continued. "I hope that both of you take this time to reflect on your actions."
The teacher led Izuku and Katsuki to the school office, where they were shown several boxes full of paperwork. They were instructed to file the paperwork in the filing cabinets, ordered by date, and that their detention would not end until the task was complete.
Izuku took a look at the first page in his stack. It was some report from the Ministry of Education regarding budgets for various programs. The next page was a printout of an email correspondence between some people on the school board. Wait, hold on, wasn't this all confidential information? Were students even allowed to see this, or was the teacher just pawning his own work on the two of them and pretending that it was for detention?
Who was he kidding, he knew the answer to that question already.
I hate this school.
—
He and Katsuki worked quietly and efficiently, silently agreeing to shut up and try to get this over with as quickly as possible. There was a lot of work to do though, and the tedium of it all unfortunately gave Izuku a chance to think.
Earlier today had been the first time he'd used his quirk on a human being, and the fact that his quirk reset the person's memories raised some very uncomfortable questions.
It seemed fine at the time because Katsuki had only lost a few seconds of memories, but it wasn't limited to just that. After all, Izuku could say "git restore Bakugou Katsuki" right now, and Katsuki would immediately vanish and be replaced by a version of him who had never experienced the last several hours.
So what happened to the Katsuki who vanished? Did that version of him just… die?
This all came back to the question of "What truly is a person?" and all of the age-old philosophical quandaries that arose from thinking too deeply about it. The classic Ship of Theseus thought experiment asked whether a ship was still the same ship even after all of its components had been replaced. You could apply the same concept to a human being: after some amount of time, every cell that made up a person would eventually be replaced, so was that person still the same person?
To Izuku, the answer was obvious: "Yeah. Of course. Duh." And thus, the dilemma of the Ship of Theseus was solved: it was still the same ship. Duh.
If a person wasn't their body, then what was a person? An easy answer was "their mind", but that answer had its own drawbacks. If you killed a person, and then you grew a clone of them in a vat with exactly the same thoughts, feelings, and memories, was that the same person? Clearly it wasn't, but why? You could try adding qualifiers like "it has to be one continuous uninterrupted consciousness", but that definition had its own hazy edge cases. When a doctor resuscitates a medically deceased patient, is the person who wakes up still the same person? Metaphysically speaking, was there any actual difference between that scenario and the scenario where the person was replaced by a clone? If you presuppose that there was a difference, did that establish that souls must exist?
Throughout time, philosophers have pondered these questions—and many others like them—because they were interesting brain teasers that sparked lively debate and allowed everyone involved to feel smart. Unfortunately, Izuku was pondering them because he had no idea how his quirk worked and he was freaking out!
Is that what Izuku had been doing to Katsuki? Killing him, then replacing him with a clone?
And it wasn't like it was just limited to this one day, either. Years from now, when they were both Pro Heroes (and had repaired their relationship maybe?), Izuku could one day say "git restore Bakugou Katsuki" and Katsuki would be killed and replaced with an angry fourteen-year-old version of himself.
Sure, he could continuously commit Katsuki. Every day, perhaps, so that he would never lose more than a day's worth of memories. Perhaps that would be something he did as a hero in the future: commit his teammates every day so that he could bring them back to full health if something ever went terribly wrong.
But that wasn't what Izuku wanted to do now. He didn't want that responsibility, especially considering that he had accidentally deleted his notebook only two days ago. He wasn't ready for this.
There was another solution though. His commands didn't work on objects before he added them for the first time—he needed his quirk to go back to treating Katsuki like that. The command to stop tracking an object was "git rm", where "rm" was short for "remove". It was the opposite of "git add". He hadn't had a reason to use the command yet, but he remembered it clearly from the reference manual, and it was detailed in his notes.
"Mr. Nakamura, sir, uh, my quirk can actually continuously affect other people until I specifically remove it. Do I have permission to undo the hold my quirk has on Kacchan?"
Katsuki bristled. "The fuck do you mean you're still using your quirk on me?"
The teacher was lounging on a chair, busy texting someone. "Yes, of course. You should have done that a long time ago."
"Right, yeah. git rm bakugo-katsuki."
Katsuki abruptly stopped existing.
The papers he was holding fell and scattered all over the floor.
The office room was eerily still and silent.
"…What?" Izuku whispered.
What?
Mr. Nakamura rushed behind him and started shaking his shoulder. "What happened? What did you do?"
"I-I don't know!" That wasn't supposed to happen.
That wasn't supposed to happen!
Both of them stared at the empty spot where Katsuki used to be.
His quirk could delete things? Just gone, poof? His quirk could delete people?
Oh god, he killed Kacchan.
Izuku's heart was racing, and he could feel himself start to hyperventilate.
Oh god.
Wait, no. He needed to calm down.
Breathe, Izuku.
He could fix this. Sort of.
He'd made a commit of Kacchan.
Izuku's mouth was dry as he muttered, "I-I know where Kacchan is." Was. Will be. "Um, this way."
He didn't wait to see if his teacher would follow him. He raced downstairs, retreading the same path Katsuki had dragged him earlier, down the hall, through the exit door, out to the secluded spot behind the school.
Mr. Nakamura had followed him. He wasn't far behind, just exiting the door.
Izuku stared at the empty patch of ground in front of him. "G-git, ahem, git restore bakugo-katsuki."
Katsuki appeared out of thin air. "—You wanna fight? I'll kill—huh?" He stumbled to a stop.
Izuku watched as Katsuki darted his eyes around this way and that, looking increasingly distraught. What must this look like from Kacchan's point of view? A moment ago he was confronting Izuku at lunch, but now the sun was low in the sky, and Izuku… well, he didn't know what expression he was wearing right now, but he felt like a total wreck. The two goons had vanished, and their teacher was there instead, a look of grave concern on his face.
Izuku stepped forward. Katsuki tensed up as if he were expecting an attack, but something about the situation must have changed his mind since he didn't immediately start swearing or back away.
Izuku threw his arms around Kacchan and cried.
—
The sun was already setting by the time Izuku got home. He certainly wasn't going for a run today. It was too bad; he could've used the chance to clear his mind.
His mom was already there when Izuku entered the apartment. She'd been waiting for him. "Izuku, I got a call from your school today," Mom said, hands on her hips. "Care to tell me why—sweetie, oh sweetie. What happened, my baby? What's wrong?"
Did he look that bad? Maybe the tear marks were still visible on his cheeks.
"Hi, Mom. Um, I'll tell you, I promise I'll tell you soon. But I really, really need to do something first. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll come out soon, just… hold on." Without waiting for his mom to agree, Izuku rushed to his room and slammed the door.
The Git reference manual sat innocently on Izuku's desk. He glared at it with betrayal in his eyes. The entire way home, only one thought had been in his mind, circling endlessly, digging into his skull: Why didn't it work?!
Why the hell did "git rm" erase Katsuki? It was supposed to just untrack him. He wasn't crazy. The manual had a section where it listed example commands to accomplish various tasks, and that was one of them! Izuku sat down at his desk and flipped through the pages in fury. He knew what he read. He wasn't making this up! Did the manual just lie? What had gone wrong?
He found the page he was looking for and read through it carefully.
…
Squeezing his eyes shut, he slumped forward, his forehead hitting his desk with a thud.
The correct command wasn't "git rm some-object".
It was "git rm some-object ––cached".
Why?! Why "cached"? Who in their right mind would ever make "stop tracking this object" and "delete this object from existence" the same command?
And really, why "cached"?! Even if you were crazy enough to make these two wildly different things the same command, why not give it a name that made sense, like "untrack"? What did "cached" even mean?!
Oh, and don't forget! There was a step two to this process. Because of course there was. Of course you couldn't just untrack the object and be done with it. No-no-no, next you had to commit the fact that you had untracked it. Otherwise, the untracking could be undone like anything else. Not the other way around, oh no! When he added something, it was tracked immediately. But untracking had to be committed; only then would his quirk be happy.
Happiness is fleeting. Only commits are forever.
Izuku squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. It was time for quirk testing. He really wasn't in the mood, but it had to happen.
He looked around his desk for something he wouldn't mind losing. "Git rm ballpoint pen." That didn't work, which wasn't a surprise. His quirk couldn't seem to affect anything unless he added it first. He picked up the pen. "git add ballpoint-pen."
Now for the real test. "git rm ballpoint-pen."
» error: the following file has changes staged in the index:
» ––––ballpoint-pen [3d672a3]
That was… mildly reassuring. Sort of. His insane, dangerous quirk that could instantly delete things from existence had a safety feature: he couldn't delete things without committing them first. And, inherently, once something was committed, he could always return it to that state. There were still countless ways that Izuku could screw up and ruin everything, but he'd take what he could get.
Next, Izuku grabbed his pencil and placed it in the center of his desk. "git rm all-might-pencil ––cached."
» rm 'all-might-pencil [c90addd]'
The pencil was still there. So far, so good. "git commit -m "Untracked All Might pencil"."
» [main 1bfc8e5] Untracked All Might pencil
» –2 files changed
» –delete mode 100644 all-might-pencil [c90addd]
» –create mode 100644 ballpoint-pen [3d672a3]
Izuku wasn't a fan of the wording his quirk used. Apparently, his quirk figured that if he wasn't tracking something, then it might as well not exist. It didn't matter. His quirk claimed that it had deleted the pencil, but it was still there on the desk in front of him, so whatever.
Now for the moment of truth. "Git add All Might pencil. Git restore All Might pencil."
Izuku let out a sigh of relief. It worked. Commands no longer worked on the pencil. It didn't undo anything that he'd previously done, of course. The commits he had already made of the pencil were still there, and they would always be there. He could recover those commits if he needed to, but he'd have to go out of his way to do so. Until he added the pencil again, it would no longer be affected by any normal commands Izuku casually spoke aloud, which was the important part.
There was one last thing to do. He couldn't delay. It would just get harder and harder the more he overthought it, and his mom wasn't going to wait for him forever.
Izuku pulled out his phone, scrolled through his tiny number of contacts, and called Katsuki.
"What the hell do you want, shitty nerd?!" Katsuki answered instantly. He must have already been using his phone.
"Um, I'm sorry, Kacchan. I'm so, so sorry about earlier, you have no idea. You don't have to forgive me, I don't know how to make it up to you, I'm just sorry. But, uh… I still need to remove you from my quirk, and I'm scared after last time, so just keep talking while I do this so that I know you're okay."
"What the fuck? You're experimenting with your quirk on me over the phone?"
"Yes, just like that, keep talking. git rm bakugo-katsuki ––cached."
"What the hell are you doing? Don't ignore me, you bastard!"
"Good, that's good. git commit -m "Untracked Kacchan"."
"Answer the fucking question, Deku!"
"Git add Bakugou Katsuki. Okay, thanks, bye."
"DON'T YOU DARE HANG UP ON ME YOU FUCK—" Izuku hung up on him.
Izuku leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling for a few minutes.
Today sucked.