Each group ended up having time to run through two more courses. Izuku was paired with Kirishima and Aoyama to brave the forest fire dome, and lastly he tackled the factory dome with Jirou and Ashido.
Izuku was so relieved when Loud Cloud announced that they were finished. He was exhausted and sweltering, and he still felt dehydrated despite guzzling multiple bottles of water. He was so ready to be done with this. Yaoyorozu probably had it the worst, though. She looked noticeably thinner than she did at the start of the day. She was probably regretting using her quirk so liberally.
They weren't heading back to UA just yet, though; they still had to take part in the final activity of the day. Thankfully, Loud Cloud told them that it just involved talking. They could rest now, it was fine.
They met with the rest of their classmates at the Flood Zone where the exercise was set to take place. They were on a platform that overlooked the artificial lake. Izuku gravitated over to Denki and looked over his friend. Denki's clothes were utterly drenched, his hair was frazzled and sticking up all over the place, and his eyes kept fluttering shut as if he were ready to collapse and fall asleep at any moment.
Denki's gaze swept over Izuku as well. "Heh, glad I'm not the only one who looks like a wreck," he laughed. "You were in the fire area, right?"
"Funny, I was going to say the same to you. I guess I don't win any prizes for guessing you were here in the Flood Zone?"
"Ha, nope." Denki grinned and shook his head like a dog, spraying water droplets everywhere. "But man, it was all worth it. Y'know why?" He leaned in like he was telling a secret. "I just got to spend a bunch of time ordering Bakugou around, and he wasn't allowed to complain!"
Izuku's eyes widened. "I'm listening!"
"We were here saving ships and stuff. Bakugou was useless because his quirk doesn't work in the water, and it was too dangerous for him to use inside a sinking ship. I was on the bridge powering emergency generators and handling the ship controls, and Bakugou got assigned as my assistant to do whatever I needed, which was mostly to haul shit around for me."
Incredible. "I need to hear the full story later!" Thirteen did tell them to talk to their classmates about their experiences, after all. Izuku was just doing his due diligence as a good student.
While they were talking, Tooru wandered over to the two of them. She kind of ignored Denki and spent a moment taking in Izuku's appearance. "Wow, Izuku, you look like total shit. What, did you get lost inside a tanning machine?"
Did the fire zone leave him looking that red? "Oh yeah? Well, you look like…" Izuku began to retort, and then he trailed off as he took in the appearance of… the completely invisible girl in front of him… dammit.
Tooru leaned forward right in his face. "What was that, Izuku? I look perfect and immaculate as always? Is that what you meant to say? Why, yes, I am pretty and perfect! I'm glad you noticed!"
Izuku groaned while Tooru laughed at him.
Thankfully, he was spared from any further embarrassment. "Welcome back, everyone!" Loud Cloud announced. The students all turned to face him. "I think we can all agree that today's been a fun and productive day! Before I turn it over to Thirteen, I hope you all will indulge me for a few more minutes."
He zipped on his cloud to hover above Aizawa. "Believe it or not, I wanted to be a frontline hero when I was your age. I was in the same class as Shouta here. While my pal planned to go underground and stick to the shadows, my goal was to go out there and kick butt and catch villains and get merch deals and all the rest of it. I'd be the coolest hero ever! Villains wouldn't know what hit 'em when I was around!"
His cheery tone stopped. "And then I died."
The tonal whiplash was immediate and effective.
"A building fell on me during a battle with a villain. And I died. I'm still here, so I didn't stay dead, obviously, but it was a close call. I needed to be resuscitated. I don't remember much from that day, but there's one memory I can never forget.
"For what felt like hours, I was buried beneath the rubble of the building. It felt like my entire world had ended. I was in the pitch-black, a piece of rebar puncturing my gut, broken, bleeding, crying, dying, and alone." He paused. "And then there was light. A rescue hero found me, she soothed me, she told me that everything would be okay. I was saved. I finally passed out, and then I woke up in the hospital a week later.
"Everything changed for me that day. When I returned to UA after a long recovery, I knew that I couldn't do the same thing as I did before. I didn't want to battle baddies; I wanted to be someone's hero.
"For all you students, it's easy to get caught up in the moment. The USJ is exciting at first, and then you run through some rescue courses, you get tired and frustrated, you worry about your grades, all of that. I get it. But it's worth it to take a step back and really think about what you've accomplished. Every successful rescue you've made today represents a person whose life you saved. It'll be a defining moment in that person's life that they'll remember forever—the day a hero saved them. Internalize it, feel it, because it's important."
Loud Cloud let out an exaggerated laugh into the solemn air. "I hope I didn't bring down the mood too much! But this last exercise from Thirteen today is a bit of a downer as well, so I want you guys to understand what all of this really represents. Anyway, I'll shut up now. Thirteen, over to you!"
"Thank you for your impassioned speech, Loud Cloud," Thirteen said. "The weight of responsibility that we bear as heroes is both rewarding and, at times, overwhelming. Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, no matter how powerful you are, you can't always save everyone. That is what this last exercise will be about."
Apparently, this test also involved being split into groups. Thirteen quickly split them into five groups of four. It wasn't based on anything in particular, just on who they happened to be standing next to. Izuku ended up in a group with Tooru, Jirou, and Tokoyami.
Thirteen pressed a button on the control panel next to her, and a low, mechanical rumble began to vibrate through the floor. Izuku peered over the edge of the railing as the artificial lake below started to churn. Slowly, a replica island began to rise from the depths. The model was about ten meters in diameter, intricately detailed with scaled-down skyscrapers, winding roads, little trees in little parks, and… Oh! Izuku recognized it now! That was I-Island!
Confirming his thoughts, the screen next to Thirteen lit up to show an overhead diagram of I-Island. The diagram labeled various facilities, showed a population density map, marked key infrastructure locations like power generators and the electrical grid, provided information on shelters and emergency routes, and many other details. Uh oh, whatever this exercise was, they'd have to use all this information, wouldn't they?
"Below us is a scale model of I-Island," Thirteen said. "Despite its name, I-Island is an enormous ship that travels the ocean, not an island. It really should have been called 'B-Boat'."
No one laughed.
Thirteen continued without skipping a beat. "While I-Island is a marvel of engineering, it suffers from a known design flaw: vulnerability to tsunamis and flooding, much like a real island. Unlike a real island, a devasting tsunami could potentially sink it. Conventional ships can navigate rough seas by steering into waves with their hydrodynamic designs, but I-Island's circular shape and lack of mobility make this impossible. Thus, the designers of I-Island had to devise their own solution."
Down below, a dozen large steel pillars rose from the water on one side of the model I-Island, each with a curved flat shield on one side that interlocked with the other pillars to create a solid, impenetrable wall. The pillars were pretty large even at this scale—Izuku couldn't imagine how large they would be in the real world, assuming the model was accurate. They would tower over the skyline.
A large wave simulating a tsunami crossed the lake at speed, heading toward I-Island. It struck the shield instead; the wave was easily dispersed outward and I-Island remained untouched.
"As you can see, the designers of I-Island went Plus Ultra and constructed enormous shields around the exterior that can be raised in times of emergency," Thirteen said. "However, the massive power requirements for these shields limit how quickly they can be raised, which brings us to our exercise.
"Here's our scenario. An impossibly unlikely and unlucky event has occurred: Two different tsunamis are headed for I-Island at once from opposite directions, and they will both strike the island in ninety seconds. Each group will take turns controlling the flow of power to the shields from this control panel. The less power a shield receives, the slower it will rise.
"I'll spoil it now: You don't have time to raise all the shields. Specifically, you only have enough time to raise about half of them. Your group needs to decide what to prioritize, and you need to decide quickly."
Ah. He understood now. Some people had to die, and they got to decide who. Joy.
Ojiro spoke up, "So, this is like the trolley problem?"
"Partially," Thirteen replied. "The trolley problem is about action vs. inaction, which is not the case here. You are heroes, so you always need to take action. However, it's similar in that you can't save everyone, and there are no right answers. We simply want you to make a decision and then be able to justify your decision to your peers." She gestured to the monitor on her left that showed the diagram of I-Island. "You'll use the information displayed here to help guide your decision-making."
Rin raised his hand. "Don't the groups that go later have an advantage? Like, they can study the map for longer and stuff."
"Don't worry, this won't be graded. It's a gentle introduction to high-pressure scenarios. In the future, don't be surprised if we suddenly surprise you with an impossible choice in the middle of a seemingly unrelated activity, but for today, we want this to be a roundtable discussion."
Denki rolled his eyes. "Since when does UA do gentle introductions? Sensei practically threatened to expel us all on the first day for no reason."
Thirteen turned to stare at Aizawa. Aizawa stared back, unashamed. After a few moments, Thirteen apparently decided it wasn't worth it and turned back to the class. "Every teacher has their own teaching style," she said diplomatically. "Now, does everyone understand what to do?"
Izuku nodded, as did the others.
"All right. You're up, Group 1! I'm activating the simulator now. The two tsunamis will hit the east and west sides of I-Island in ninety seconds. Go!"
Tsu, Yaoyorozu, Rin, and Kodai quickly approached the control panel. Immediately, Yaoyorozu flicked the switches to start raising several shields on the west side. Then, the four of them began to quietly argue with each other, pointing at different things on the map and making small adjustments to their strategy as they came to an agreement on what was most important to protect.
Down below, the west side of the model island had its shields raised while the east side was unprotected. The ninety seconds were over quickly, and the two miniature tsunamis crashed over the island. The west side was mostly intact, while most of the model buildings on the east side retracted into the island to symbolize their destruction.
That was that. Thirteen waved the group back from the control panel to rejoin their classmates.
"First of all, excellent job, Yaoyorozu," Thirteen praised. "You immediately jumped to action, which was the correct call. Every second counts, so it's important to get something started even if you change your mind later. Students in previous years usually don't clue in on that until a few groups have already gone."
Yaoyorozu blushed. "Thank you."
"Now, please explain your group's decisions."
With a nod, Yaoyorozu gestured to the display. "We chose to prioritize protecting the regions that would allow I-Island to support its population while they await external help. As you can see on the map here, the shielded sectors contain the hospitals, emergency equipment, food storage, water treatment, and other vital infrastructure."
"That is a very sensible strategy," Thirteen said. "However, I'll point out that the regions you allowed to be destroyed have a far greater number of residential and commercial buildings. You can see by the population density map that a much larger proportion of the island's population will be on the side that you left unprotected."
Yaoyorozu faltered a little bit, but Tsu was ready for that response. "I'm planning to be an aquatic rescue hero. I've looked into things like this, ribbit," she said. "I-Island has a population comparable to a medium-sized city, and it's in the middle of the ocean. It's not enough to send a plane there to pick up the survivors and fly off; there are too many people for that." Her voice was serious. "If the infrastructure is destroyed, then we're just dooming the surviving population to a slow death of thirst and hunger and succumbing to their injuries."
Yaoyorozu spoke again. "Yes, it's unfortunate, but it's unavoidable that in such an isolated location, the residents of I-Island will need to survive on their own for a while."
"Very practically minded of you. Would you really be able to do that, though?" Thirteen asked solemnly. "Would you truly choose to see whole neighborhoods be washed away? Is it heroic to stare a family in the eyes and decide that their lives are not worth that of a wastewater treatment facility?"
No one in the group seemed to know how they should respond to that.
"Remember, there are no right answers here. I just want you all to think about it. You've given a good explanation for your decisions, so I'll let you go," Thirteen said. "All right. Group 2, you're up!"
Aoyama, Honenuki, Kouda, and Kirishima stepped up. Immediately, Honenuki took over the control panel. "Here, let me do it. I have an idea. Look, we need to space out the shields…"
Izuku peered over the railing to see what the group was doing. It looked like instead of only raising the shields on one side, they were raising every other shield so that the entire perimeter was partially protected. Honenuki flipped another set of switches. Down below, the shields were halted before they were fully raised, and the other half started to rise instead. Clever! There wasn't enough time to raise all the pillars, but you did have enough time to partially raise most of them.
Well, Izuku thought it was clever. He was disabused of that notion when the two tsunamis hit. Rather than protecting the island, the partially raised pillars acted like a funnel to direct the water up and over the weakest link in the chain of shields. Even worse, all the energy being directed into a smaller area just made the result even more devastating. Jet streams of water surged into the model on both sides, flooding the entire island.
Honenuki's face crumpled, and the other group members awkwardly looked away.
Speaking delicately to soften the blow, Thirteen said, "That was a good try, and it's very noble that your group attempted to save everyone. However, you underestimated how much force a tsunami carries. All that energy has to go somewhere, and the shields don't properly redirect it unless fully deployed. It was an understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Unfortunately, this round resulted in everyone's deaths."
The group shuffled off to rejoin the class. "Sorry, guys," Honenuki mumbled.
"It's cool. Wanting to save everyone is super manly!" Kirishima tried his best.
Thirteen got everyone's attention again. "Group 3, you're up!" This group consisted of Denki, Ochako, Katsuki, and Kamakiri.
"Um, Thirteen?" Denki said. "I can power machinery directly with my quirk. I did it earlier in the shipwreck area." He raised his hand and showed off some electric sparks for emphasis. "Can I use my power to help speed up the shields?"
Thirteen was pleased by the question. "I like that you're thinking outside the box! Your idea would be effective for this miniature model, but remember that it's meant to represent the full-sized I-Island." She chuckled. "We've had some sneaky students in the past who have tried things like hacking the control panel to supply extra power to the shields, so now there's a circuit breaker installed that will trip if more electricity is supplied than expected."
Denki shrugged. "Yeah, figured."
Thirteen continued, "With that said, you're allowed to use your quirks here if it genuinely would help, but you need to justify to me that your idea would work in a real-world scenario."
They could use their quirks? Huh. Well, Izuku knew what he'd be doing then.
The next round began, and the group quickly got to work. Katsuki and Kamakiri were arguing and shoving each other away from the control panel, which was funny because, as far as Izuku could tell, they were on the same page. They both apparently just didn't trust anyone else to do the job right but them.
It looked like they were going for a simple strategy, the opposite of the first one. The island's east side was protected while the west side was wide open. They'd chosen to prioritize the most populated areas and not worry about medical facilities and infrastructure. When the mini-tsunamis hit, many parts of the island were flooded, but the residential sectors were the least affected.
They rejoined the class, and Thirteen began the discussion once more. "From what I can see, you based your shield placement solely on the population density map and ignored all other data. You chose to protect the most populated areas while allowing most of the infrastructure to be destroyed. Please explain."
Katsuki scoffed. "Only a loser decides to give up before trying. Yeah, sure, keeping everyone alive long enough to be rescued is a big, complicated problem. Frogger and friends couldn't think of a solution after thinking about it for less than a minute, so they decided to let everyone die instead."
Ochako squirmed as she listened to Katsuki pointlessly picking fights with their classmates. "What he means is that we need to give ourselves as much time as we can. We need to keep people alive in the moment so that we have more opportunities in the future."
Thirteen hummed. "Your answer is quite vague. What specifically do you have in mind?"
"Just like… who knows what's possible?" Denki said. "There are a lot of crazy quirks in the world. We need to save everyone first so that the people who might be able to help have a chance to do so. Anything else isn't very Plus Ultra, it's more like Minus… uh, I didn't think this through. What's the opposite of 'Ultra'? Doesn't matter, you get what I mean."
Aizawa surprisingly spoke up next. "So, you do not accept responsibility? You're leaving the survivors in a terrible position, wiping your hands of it, and saying that it's someone else's problem to fix now?"
"No!" Denki exclaimed. "That's not what I mean. I'm saying that I don't know everything. I don't know most things, and that's okay. We don't know enough, and we don't have enough time to make that judgment call. All we really know is that a bunch of people are going to die if we don't do anything, and we need to save them. Everything else can come later."
"You can fix a lot, but you can't fix death," Kamakiri said.
Apparently that was good enough for Aizawa as he nodded and slunk back into his sleeping bag.
"I'm very happy to hear these different perspectives! It's what this exercise is all about." Thirteen beamed. "You're up, Group 4!"
This group was Tooru, Jirou, Tokoyami, and Izuku himself. They all stepped forward.
To be honest, Izuku didn't like this test. It seemed like the antithesis of Loud Cloud's speech earlier. Loud Cloud emphasized the importance of each individual life, but the scale model of the island didn't just represent one life—it represented an entire population. And yet, those lives had been miniaturized to the point that they didn't even exist. The island had model buildings, but not model people. The class was making these decisions over who lived and who died while standing on a raised platform, far away, physically above it all. Why? Why was it all abstracted away?
If he looked at it from the school's point of view, he supposed it made sense. They were only a few weeks into the school year. The test was about forcing the students to choose who they would save and who they would let die to prepare them for similar choices they would face in the future. Maybe later in the year they'd have to make choices like that while staring at lifelike human models, but there was no point in forcing that trauma on a bunch of teenagers this early.
Still, he didn't like it. Every single one of those lives was a Loud Cloud pleading to be saved, and Izuku was determined to save them all.
Izuku straightened up and looked each of his teammates in the eyes. "I want to try something," he said. "You can all throw me under the bus if it doesn't work. I don't mind. Just please let me do this by myself."
"Huh, you're not usually so forward." Tooru smirked. "I like it. Do it, dude."
Jirou shrugged. She didn't care.
"The fervor I see in your enigmatic orbs moves me to accept your judgment on this affair," Tokoyami intoned.
Dark Shadow hopped on Tokoyami's head. "He means we wanna see what crazy shit you're gonna do this time!"
"I'm activating the simulator now," Thirteen said. "Go!"
Izuku approached the control panel and placed a hand on it. "git switch -c i-island-test; git add control-panel; git commit -m "Default control panel position"." These commands created a new timeline for the test and saved the control panel in the neutral position.
"git branch island-east; git branch island-west." This created two more timelines that each branched off from the neutral position.
"git switch island-east." Izuku switched to the "east" timeline. He quickly flipped the switches on the control panel so that all electrical power was routed to the east side of I-Island, causing the shields to begin rising on that side of the island. "git add control-panel; git commit -m "I-Island east shields"." This state was saved.
"git switch island-west." This switched him to the "west" timeline. The control panel returned to its default position, and the shields on the model below stopped their ascent. Izuku then flipped the switches on the panel in the opposite direction so that all power was routed toward the west side of I-Island instead. The shields on that side of the island started to rise. "git add control-panel; git commit -m "I-Island west shields"."
Now for the moment of truth. It was time to merge the timelines. Izuku stepped back from the control panel and commanded, "git merge island-east island-west."
There was a crack.
In an instant, every eye snapped toward the area right above the control panel. Suspended in midair was a jagged fracture, shimmering and refracting light like a crack in an invisible pane of glass… yet the glass was reality itself. It was as if the world was made of glass—had always been made of glass, even if they were never aware of it before—and the fracture made it visible to them all. It was both mesmerizing and terrifying. The crack snaked outward with alarming speed, a spiderweb of splinters racing through the air. The fissure snapped and cracked and kept spreading until—
—Reality shattered.
» Auto-merging control-panel
» CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in control-panel
» Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
A spike of pain drilled into Izuku's head. He expected it, but he still winced at the sudden headache.
The glass had shattered. The constitutional firmament—the barrier that separated mundane reality from the endless beyond—had broken. Large, translucent crystals of firmament collided and interlocked at impossible angles, jutting out from the singularity at the center of the fracture. Trying to look through the broken glass revealed a kaleidoscope of possibilities through each plane. From one viewpoint, the switches on the control panel were flipped in one configuration; from another viewpoint, they were flipped in an opposite, contradictory configuration. Various viewpoints revealed every possible permutation of ways to merge the timelines.
If you looked through the cracks in reality just right… if you peered between the possibilities… right on the edges between boundaries… there was endless black. It was a breathtaking black, the black one would see looking up into the infinite expanse of the night sky. Little stars floated in the black, shining brightly and flowing down cosmic currents that spiraled in fluid patterns.
Alien starlight shone through the cracks in the firmament.
…But Izuku wasn't paying attention to any of that. He was used to it. He'd seen it all before. Totally old hat by now. No, his gaze was focused entirely on the model I-Island below.
All shields on the model below were rising simultaneously. That was the good news. The bad news was that Izuku could see little reflected shimmers of strained glass in various spots in the model below, especially where the shields' east and west edges met. Uh oh. Izuku watched nervously. He would definitely fail if a merge conflict occurred on the island itself. It shouldn't, though. There was nothing inherently paradoxical about all the shields rising at once. Izuku crossed his fingers.
The shields slid into place, and the shimmering glass below settled down. With a triumphant grin, Izuku watched the two tsunamis harmlessly strike the shields. He pumped his fist and let out a quiet whoop. I-Island was perfectly protected. Everyone was safe.
Izuku turned back to the class. Absolutely no one had paid any attention to his success. They were all still gaping open-mouthed at the sphere of broken reality around the control panel. Welp, he supposed he had some explaining to do.
"Midoriya." Aizawa broke his gaze and turned to look Izuku in the eyes. "What did you do?"
It was always nerve-wracking to be the target of Aizawa's attention. Izuku tried to project as much confidence as he could. "Right. So, basically, I created one timeline where I directed power to half of the shields and then another timeline where I directed power to the other half. Then, I merged them so that the model received power from both timelines simultaneously. The circuit breaker didn't trip because, in each timeline, it received the correct amount of power. That's my quirk, by the way. I can create alternate timelines."
"YOU WERE FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THAT?" Katsuki screeched.
"So, this here," Izuku continued, gesturing to the merge conflict beside him. "This happens when there's a contradiction between the timelines. Basically, this is what a time paradox looks like. When I resolve the conflict, only one possibility will become the 'true' one. But until I do that, it acts as if all possibilities are happening at once. Like, in terms of how it affects the outside world." Izuku trailed off after this. Was that a good enough explanation?
There was a strained silence. And then: "Oh, come on!" Sero threw up his hands in exasperation. "Midoriya pulled another crazy power out of his ass? How are we supposed to compete with that?" There were some strangled laughs.
Denki walked up to the merge conflict to look at it more closely. He gingerly touched one of the jagged pieces of glass. When nothing strange happened, he slid his finger down the edge of the firmament. "Ow!" Denki suddenly yelped and pulled back his hand. There was a small slice in his finger that started to bleed. He laughed and held up his hand for everyone to see. "Look! Look, guys! I'm so bleeding edge I cut myself on a time paradox!"
Thirteen tried to bring things back on track. "Very, um, impressively done there, Midoriya. However, I did mention before that you could only use your quirk if it would work in a real-world scenario. This was effective for the model, but I don't believe you could do this for the real I-Island."
"No, I could," Izuku said. "Probably not exactly like this, but the general idea should work. My quirk doesn't really care about scale. Using my quirk on a pebble feels exactly like using it on a boulder." He paused. "Or a mountain," he muttered.
Thirteen was silent for a while. "…I see," she said eventually.
Aizawa was up by the control panel, examining the merge conflict from all angles. Suddenly, he winced and had to avert his gaze. Huh? Hold on, what did he see in there? "This was meant to be a thought exercise, problem child," he barked. "We wanted to see how you would handle a stressful situation. Your reaction to being put under pressure is to do this?"
"Of course!" Izuku said proudly. "Always. If it means saving people, I'm willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how far I need to go. That's what it means to be a hero."
Aizawa looked thoroughly disturbed by his answer. What, why? That was a totally heroic response! What was Aizawa's problem?
Thirteen stood by Aizawa to also examine the sphere of broken reality where the control panel used to be. "Um… we still do need to move along. This can be… fixed, right?"
"Yeah, of course. I have to fix it, actually. Doing this gives me a really bad headache. I can bear it for now, but it'll get worse and worse until I resolve the merge conflict." Izuku walked up to the control panel and stuck his hand through the different planes of possibilities. Unlike with Denki earlier, the shards of firmament didn't hurt Izuku. He touched each paradoxical switch in the correct timeline to indicate which position it was supposed to be in, and each time he did so, the shattered glass in that spot mended itself.
"git add control-panel; git commit," Izuku said once he was finished.
» [island-west 47d2f9f] Merge branch 'island-east' into island-west
"All done," Izuku said. Everything was back to normal.
There was a beat of awed silence.
"Ribbit. I told you, Midoriya's quirk makes no sense."
Addendum:
git to the heart of it
Leaning back in his seat on the bus, Denki finally had a chance to examine the cut on his finger more closely. He hadn't had a good look at it earlier, but now that they were all headed back to UA, he had some time to himself to properly inspect what he had only glimpsed before.
He tilted his finger side to side, trying to get a good angle to squint directly into the cut. The bus ride admittedly wasn't helping. It was challenging to keep his hand steady with all the bumps and jitters inherent to driving.
There! A grin leaped onto Denki's face when he spotted what he was looking for. When he tilted his finger at just the right angle, he could peer through the thin vertical slit into the boundless cosmos beyond. Starlight shone through the fractured reality contained within the cut on his finger.
Man, it was so freaking awesome!
Unfortunately, it was probably going to heal soon. The rift was a lot easier to see earlier when he first cut his finger, but now it was so thin it was barely visible. What a bummer.
It made sense. Izuku's time paradox had caused a crack in reality. The world needed a little bit of time to heal, just like every other living thing. It seemed perfectly reasonable to Denki.
Even though it was probably dumb, part of Denki wished the cut wouldn't fully go away. All the coolest heroes had cool scars, and he would have the coolest of them all, a star-scar! Although, scars on the tips of your fingers weren't all that cool, so maybe it was for the best.
As much as Denki really wanted to show this off to his classmates before it disappeared, he held off. He knew they'd get the wrong idea about it. He would've shown it to Izuku, but he wouldn't be able to show him without grabbing the attention of his classmates nearby. They'd get all worried and freaked out, and then Izuku would get even more scrutiny from everyone, which was so dumb. Izuku's quirk only ever saved people; it never hurt them. No different than Izuku himself, really.
It was crazy that no one else thought that Izuku was the coolest guy ever.
When they first met, Izuku said he'd been bullied before UA. Denki found it hard to believe then, but now? Yeah… yeah, he could see it. Denki didn't think that Izuku noticed that most people in class didn't talk to him much. Maybe the little interaction he did have with them was already more than he was used to?
It wasn't like his classmates were mean or anything. Not at all. But there was definitely some degree of… distance. Izuku was lost in his own head half the time, saying weird things in an unpronounceable language that sounded like something between English and eldritch. The way he used his quirk (quirks?) made it seem like he was commanding the world itself to follow his orders. He was brimming with talent and confidence one moment, only to shy away whenever anyone commented on it.
He was the class enigma. No one knew what to make of him. All the teachers seemed a little scared of him too, adding to the whole mess. Denki had heard the phrase "The Mystery of Midoriya" thrown around. Whispers like "What's hiding behind that smile?" lingered in the air, everyone searching for the real Midoriya Izuku behind the facade he showed the world.
Which was so stupid! Denki wanted to tear his hair out whenever he heard his classmates talk like that. There was no mystery! Midoriya Izuku was the least mysterious person ever! He wore his heart on his sleeve. Denki felt so lucky to have a friend like Izuku because he didn't have to worry about hidden agendas or feel like he had to decipher unspoken implications with him. Izuku was straightforwardly honest and genuine about everything.
Denki was a simple dude. For once, he was happy about that. He often missed the subtext in conversations and ended up saying something stupid because of it. Someone would have to spell things out for him, and then everyone would laugh at him for being a dumbass. Denki would laugh along to seem like he was in on the joke, even when he felt awful inside.
But there was something to be said for seeing things as they really were. Denki knew he was right. He wasn't missing anything this time. Everyone else was trying to overthink the blatantly obvious, and it was maddening!
Denki was glad he wasn't alone, at least. Ochako and Hagakure understood too. Bakugou got it as well, although he didn't really count. He just called the whole class a bunch of cowards and spent the rest of his time pissed off. Denki was a little annoyed that he agreed with Bakugou on something.
Denki stopped gazing into the ripped veil between worlds on his finger and turned to look at Izuku. Hagakure was sitting next to him and teasing him about something. Izuku was blushing and trying his best to keep up with her jabs, but he looked happy. Ochako sat across from them and stared at the two with the predatory eyes of a matchmaker.
To be honest, Denki didn't know exactly what Hagakure's deal was. She acted a little differently when Izuku was around, not that Izuku himself had any way of knowing that. She became even more teasing and competitive, always wanting to brag and show off. Ochako was totally convinced that Hagakure had a crush on Izuku and acted that way because she was trying to impress him.
And, like… maybe? It wasn't like Denki understood girls. Ochako was a girl, so she obviously understood girls better than he did. But it just didn't quite ring true to him. Maybe he was projecting, but Denki knew what it felt like when people made fun of him, and that was kind of the vibe he got from Hagakure. Her teasing didn't seem like flirting… there was a bit too much of an edge to it. It was more like she wanted to one-up Izuku, be the one in control of the conversation.
Denki felt shitty for comparing her to his bullies. He knew Hagakure liked Izuku and didn't mean anything bad by it, but he couldn't lie and say that the parallels weren't not not there. (Wait, was that the right number of "not"s?)
Anyway, if he had to describe their dynamic, it was like she was trying to provoke Izuku into being her… rival, or something, except that Izuku was a bottomless well of praise and encouragement who never said a bad word about anybody. She poked him, and he took it, so she poked him harder, and he kept on taking it. It was all more one-sided than it should've been.
But Denki knew he was a little biased, maybe a little too defensive. Izuku didn't need defending. Maybe Ochako was right. Hagakure wanted to impress him, and he wanted to be impressed. Izuku was receptive to all of it because he thought everyone was amazing. Nothing about that was one-sided. It was just the way it was.
Denki took another look at the big smile on Izuku's face as the two chatted. Meh. Izuku was happy with whatever was going on there, so it wasn't any of his business.
He turned back to look at his finger so he could gaze at the stars again. Disappointingly, no matter how he twisted his hands or what angle he looked in, he couldn't get a view of it anymore. The cut on his finger was still there, but the rift had healed.
Aw.
Denki leaned over and punched Izuku in the shoulder. "Hey, man, you're really cool."
Izuku turned to him in surprise, a big flush erupting on his face. "W-why'd you say that?"
"No reason. 'Cause it's true."
Izuku didn't seem to know how to react at first, but he beamed brightly after a few moments. "You're really cool, too!"
"Thanks, man." Denki gave him a thumbs up, and then he relaxed for the rest of the ride back to UA.
