Walking Study in Demonology

by ijustwanttodestroy

Eijirou looks at the talisman. And then does a double take. "This just says 'fuck off' in kanji," Eijirou says to Midoriya. "It's very effective," Midoriya says to Eijirou. "What the hell is going on," Jirou says to the room. (In which the dorms are haunted and Midoriya is an exorcist. In, you know, a manner of speaking.) [WARNING: manga spoilers]

7. Chapter 7

A/N: full on manga spoilers until the end of this fic.

---

Midoriya Izuku kneels down.

"Hello, there," he says.

The little girl does not answer. She is a frail little thing, pale and scarred and shaking. She looks at him, and then steps back—fingers twisting further into Shinsou Hitoshi's Hero suit. She's scared of him.

Izuku nearly laughs at that. So wise already at such a young age.

Shinsou Hitoshi looks down at the tug. He looks at Izuku. And then his gaze moves once more to the little girl holding on to his clothes. Hitoshis hand, the one that isn't holding a phone to his ear, finds its way to the top of the girl's hair in a gentle, assuring gesture. It's a protective gesture—one that he is making against Izuku, as if Izuku is going to snatch her away like some demonic kidnapper at any moment.

"She doesn't like you," Shinsou Hitoshi says flatly to Izuku. And then to his phone, "Hello, Nighteye agency? Shinsou Hitoshi speaking. I'm one of your UA interns—yeah, that's right. So, anyway," Hitoshi looks down clinically at the crumpled body of the Villain on the ground and kicks said body with a foot. The body does not move. "I got Chisaki Kai right here, so if you guys could just come here and pick him u—hello? Hello? Yeah, I—no, really. Seriously. Yeah, so you can just come pick him up and throw him to jail and stuff. For real. Yep. Yep. Nah. Yep. Yep. Nah. Yep. Yep."

Izuku watches, quietly fascinated, as Shinsou Hitoshi reports their whereabouts and preceding situation to the Hero agency. He does it so easily, so readily, so casually. So easily. So..

So easily as he ends the whole world as they know it.

Oh well.

Whelp, there goes a Universe. Just like that. It doesn't take much to kill a Universe, does it? Really not much at all, Izuku thinks. It only takes a single act of kindness. It only takes a Hero.

That, at least—Midoriya Izuku muses—is Canonical.

In five minutes, this alley will be surrounded by the authorities. In ten minutes, Chisaki Kai will be secured in a detainment facility. In forty-four hours forty minutes and four seconds, this Universe will end.

And the Universe is always, in Izuku's experience, on Time.

Ah, the end. The End, capital letters. Here comes the big one, folks. Izuku wonders how it would sound like, The End. Perhaps a whimper. A soft outro in pianissimo. Or perhaps it will end in a loud, final, explosive bang. And then … what?

Whatever shall we do, Midoriya Izuku thinks ponderingly. Whatever shall we do, in face of the imminent End?

Whatever shall we do indeed?

Midoriya Izuku Knows the answer. In face of the imminent End, one does nothing but end, of course. And so we've all ended before we could begin. Haven't we?

We have.

Izuku looks again at the girl. Poor thing. Poor little thing she might be, but the child is worth the damnation of an entire Universe—Shinsou Hitoshi has personally seen to that. The girl is staring at Izuku with her wide, tearful eyes. Unmoving eyes. What special eyes that she has, Izuku notes. What a special Quirk. Perhaps even the most special Quirk izuku has ever encountered—on par with Uraraka Ochako's. On par with Kaminari Denki's. On par with Yaoyorozu Momo's. On par, even, with Shinsou Hitoshi's.

What does she see, Izuku wonders. What does she see in him? What does—

You know very well

{p}what she sees in you.

don't you?{/p}

She should just close her eyes, really.

"I can take it from you," Izuku tells her then. A kind offer in an unkind voice. "For a price, perhaps … one that we can agree on."

She stares at him. Izuku can't exactly see himself reflected on those red eyes from this distance, but he can very well imagine. What is reflected on them must not be so pretty. Izuku stares back, and he smiles, because he always does. "Time hasn't been nice to you, has it," he says. "Eri-san."

She stares at him.

"You don't have to decide now," Izuku assents understandingly. "You just have to decide somewhen in the next, hm, forty-four hours forty minutes and four seconds. Consider my offer, Eri-s—"

"Don't infect her with your existential bullshit," Hitoshi says disapprovingly. He seems to have finished his conversation, putting back his phone in the back of his pocket. He has positioned himself like a shield between the girl and Izuku again. He tells the girl, "Don't listen to that weird onii-san."

Izuku laughs. He stands up, brushes the dust off his knees calmly. Somewhere, police siren blares. Forty-three hours fifty-eight minutes and three seconds to go before the end of the world. Forty-three hours fifty-eight minutes and two seconds. Forty-three hours fifty-eight minutes and one second. Izuku knows it all, counting backwards down to the zeptosecond the length of time this Universe hurtles itself lovingly to its end. And it's Izuku's job to—

Ah. That's right.

"Oi, where are you going?"

"To see your principal," Izuku says. "Wanna come with?"

"What? You can't just … leave. The police are coming and you have to give your statem—you know what," Hitoshi says, pausing at the thought of Midoriya Izuku giving a Police statement and how that would clear up absolutely fuck all. "Just leave. Whatever. Who gives a fuck.."

Hitoshi's voice drifts away as Izuku walks to th—to th—to th—to th—to th—{p}to th—{/p}

{p}{/p}

{p}{/p}

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{title}Walking Study in Demonology Chapter 7, a my hero academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア fanfic | FanFiction{/title}

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{div class="userstuff module" role="article"}

{h3 class="landmark heading" id="work"}Chapter Text{/h3}

{p}"Midoriya Izuku kneels down lorem ipsum dolor sit"{/p}

{p}lorem ipsum do{/p}

{p}rem ipsu{/p}

{p}em ip{/p}

{p}p{/p}

{p}P{/p}

{p}Pict{/p}

{p}Picture a{/p}

{p}Picture a wi{/p}

Picture a wide shot.

A panel, if you will. A panel of a little nook of an alley somewhere in Musutafu. Picture the cityscape. The concrete. The hustle bustle. The sunny sky. Picture the scene.

Can you see it?

Good.

You see Shinsou Hitoshi and Eri, hand in hand, standing next to each other. There is our sleeping Villain Chisaki Kai lying on the street, waiting for the police and the Heroes to bring him to justice. And then you see Midoriya Izuku calmly skipping away from the scene to, as he puts it, see the UA principal whom you know as Principal Nezu. Picture all of this. It's a wide shot, got it, getting wider and wider, covering the array of Musutafu's streets and the people residing in it. Midoriya Izuku walks away, and the scene zooms out, further and further, as he is lost in the crowd, that signature green hair disappearing amidst the myriad of colors of the city..

Okay? You just pictured that? To a T?

you sure?

good. he can't hear us here.

things have to Happen, and so this will have to be quick. now read carefully. Okay? Okay.

let's go back to the beginning.

to the very beginning.

dot to dot. pixel to pixel. to the very first one of them. to the very first blinking, insertion point on the white space of … well, space. let's go back. together. let's do it.

we can all agree that it all started with a big, big bang.

we can all agree that first there was Light, and because there was Light, there was Shadow. we can all agree that there is always a reciprocal reaction for every action, and because of that, there is Life. we can all agree that with Life comes Fate and comes Time, and that Fate is Time and Time is Fate. we can all agree that this is all just … Happenings, really. it's all just Happenings. Happenings happening in the white, white space. white that is less of a color and more of the lack of one and most importantly, white that is a Space. A Room. An Expanse. white that is the creasing, folding, twisting fabric of the Universe..

and then, in all that white, begins a song.

(it can start with a whimper or with a bang.)

It can be a chorus of violins, or a keyboard synth, or even bass guitars—nevertheless, it's a string orchestra stitching itself into silk. thread by thread, loop by loop, mode by mode. desperate to kiss, to entangle, to be, all at once in superposition. birthing particles so in love with each other, so overjoyed with the very act of being that they can do nothing but … sing. of course they do. there is always a song, you see? there is {em}always{/em} a song.

and isn't every song a stor—

—shit.

shit shit shit shit. We don't have—oh, no. we ran out of Time. So sorry. Okay, picture a—a, er, maybe a wide shot … or a closeup shot? No, no—overhead is better. overhead shot. It's a train station. picture an overhead shot of a train station somewhere in Musutafu. perhaps somewhat near the alley we were in. zoom in to the interior of the—not so slow, you can just do a smash cut—yes, there we go, smash cut into the station. okay, good. Now find him. {em}Find him.{/em} He's on the platform. picture a train platform. hurry up! Just imagine a train platform—the one near your house, the one you've seen on TV, we don't have time for accuracy. okay yes, you got it! He's standing on the platform, see? that's right. he's standing there with his oversized All Might hoodie, hands in pockets, that perpetual smile on his face. That pink scar, gleaming under the neon light.

Focus. Can you hear that? can you hear the intercom of the station? Listen to that, the woman announcing the train arriving in two minutes. listen to the hustle bustle of the station, the crowd, the people of this Universe living their life. yes, {em}perfect{/em}. you got it. {p}Yes. you got i{/p}—

{p}ip{/p}

{p}ips{/p}

{p}ipsu{/p}

{p}ipsuM{/p}

{p}M{/p}

{p}Mid{/p}

{p}Midori{/p}

Midoriya Izuku enters the train on the red line to UA.

Izuku enjoys riding on trains. It's his main mode of transportation other than walking. It's cheap, it's quick, and Musutafu's train system is known to be particularly efficient, with it being the Hero capital city of Japan. Midoriya Izuku enters the train just like how he would any other day.

Therefore, Midoriya Izuku enters the train on the red line to UA.

Midoriya Izuku enters the train on the red line to UA and, the moment he steps inside the car, every single phone belonging to every single passenger—except Midoriya Izuku's own first generation Nokia—light up and sing with all the decibels allowed by each of their built-in audio speaker:

LIVIN' EASY, LOVIN' FREE, SEASON TICKET ON A ONE WAY RIDE!

there is always a song with midoriya izuku.

Technology is a poor singer, but it makes for a very wonderful screamer. Audio lay on top of audio, Samsung fighting iPhones fighting Huawei fighting Sony Xperias, competing to sing the loudest rendition of Highway to Hell. DON't NEED REASON, DON'T NEED RHYME—

Passengers fumble to shut up their phones with no avail. The train door closes after an intercom announcement that they will do so, entrapping hundreds of passengers in a dreadful echo chamber of Rock n' Roll noise pollution. It's quickly driving people crazy. Folks are throwing their phones on the train floor in hope that the abuse would free them of one of AC/DC's greatest hits, which, when heard in a chorus of hundreds of ringing phones, split not only ears but also sanities. To their collective horror, the abuse inflicted on their respective phones does not work. The screens may crack and the keypad may blister, but the speaker system is persistently alive. Even the iPhones still ring. It's unnatural, they realize. Everybody knows iPhones will stop working if you put them inside your pocket the wrong way.

Thinking this, the passengers realize that whatever phenomenon is happening at the moment must be the work of some sort of Force. Most likely a Quirk, which is the natural conclusion to make and also the wrong one. But being wrong never stops any conclusion from being conclusions nevertheless.

"Oh, thank you very much," Izuku says happily once a man leaves his seat empty for Izuku to take. Rather than replying to Izuku's expression of gratitude, the man is hurling himself to the closed door of the train in an attempt to escape this lo-fi ASMR hell of Highway to Hell Bass Boosted 8D Audio Inside a Running Train.

Izuku sits down, idly watching the havoc unfolds around him. And then he says, "Can I help you?"

The girl still stares at him. She is sitting right across from him on the train. Her phone is still in her hand, screen cracked and frozen on Highway-to-Hell_ 3.

"You're that kid," she says, loudly. It has to be loud or she won't be heard underneath the rock song echoing brutally in the train. "The one hanging around 1-A dorm exorcizing demons or something."

Midoriya Izuku watches her for a beat. And then amicably, he says, "Shouldn't you be studying in UA's 1-C at this point of spacetime, Togeike Chikuchi-san?"

"..I'm skipping class today. Not that that's any of your business. And how the hell did you know I'm in—how did you know my name, even?"

"You didn't have a name before I said your name," Izuku reminds her.

"What?" Togeike Chikuchi says. And then seemingly having decided that this dude is a legit weirdo and therefore it doesn't matter, "Uh. Whatever. Anyway. Is this"—she gestures to the general mayhem—"because of you?"

"Nothing ever happens because of any of us, Togeike-san," says Izuku helpfully. "Everything just happens."

She makes a face. "You really are just like the rumors."

Izuku's smile stays polite. "You really are just like what you might have been like had you had more screen time."

"..Uh, okay. Anyway. Can you, like, stop this?" Like most of the passengers at this point, she has fingers in her ears in a desperate attempt to save her eardrums. "There are still like five stops to UA and I don't want to go deaf. Or to have anyone strangling me in a fit of rock music-induced hysteria," she says, staring at the exact phenomenon happening in the next car.

"I don't do anything for free."

"Just like the rumors," she mutters. She scrounges the pockets of her jeans. "Um. I only got like. Three-hundred yen. And half of a chocolate bar. Does that work?" she looks up at him. "Is there some kind of student discount for your … uh, exorcism service?"

"It's your lucky day, Togeike-san," Izuku says. "There is indeed a special discount applicable for the next forty-three hours forty-five minutes and thirty-six seconds. The equilibrium has been broken and we are overloaded with entropy. The laws of conservation of energy shall not be violated, try as we may, for the Disorder compensates. Unless it's to turn back time, payments are therefore no longer needed, because we are overdue," he takes the chocolate bar and the three hundred yen from her hands and slips them dutifully into his pockets. "But I appreciate the gesture very much."

"Um, sure," she says.

"You have to be my assistant, though," Izuku says, taking a bite from the chocolate. "Just to speed things up. Hold this, please."

Togeike takes what looks like a spray bottle into her hands. "Uh, okay. Um," she looks at him. Izuku is not carrying any bag where he had possibly kept the bottle. "Did I just see you take this thing out of thin air?"

"Like I said, the conservation of energy won't be disturbed no matter what we do now. Matter and space are no longer tangible from each other. But that doesn't Matter!" Izuku claps his hands cheerfully. "Now, Togeike-san, I want you to spray the holy water in the air from every car please! Just to freshen the air."

"Okay," she says. And then, "wait. Holy water? This? Like, Church blessed holy water?" She shakes the bottle. The fluid inside is clear; it looks like any ordinary water … which is indeed how holy water looks like, she assumes.

"Yes."

"..And you put it inside a spray bottle. Like a febreze."

"It's very efficient."

She stares at him. And then she says, slowly and unsurely because she isn't sure what is the requirement of spraying holy water inside a train car like an insect repellant, "Uh, I'm not Christian."

"Doesn't matter, it's just symbolic. A lot of people believe in this," one of his hands flicks the bottle, and the other has somehow procured … talismans out of thin air. "And therefore it has panpsychistic weight."

Somewhere along the line, he has also procured a pen in his hand. Togeike would like to think that he has kept all of these objects inside the pockets of his hoodie, but she has a feeling that it is not the case. She wisely decides that it's none of her business. Togeike leans to look at what he's writing on the talismans.

"That just says 'shut up' in hiragana," Togeike reads.

"It's very effective," Izuku replies.

HIGHWAY TO HELL, AC/DC replies.

The train finally makes its stop at the station nearest to the renowned UA high school.

What new passengers will notice as they enter the train is that the train is strangely quiet. There isn't a single sound in the air. Even the intercom that announces arrivals does not seem to be working. They will also notice that the floor of the train is littered with broken phones, laptops, iPads, and general electronic gadgets blessed with the nifty little thing that is an audio speaker. The final thing they will notice is the pieces of talismans stuck on various surfaces with nothing but SHUT UP written on it. The final, final thing they will notice is that they strangely feel a strong urge to SHUT UP once they are inside the train.

"I can't believe that worked," Togeike Chikuchi says, walking outside the train and into the station. An astute observer will realize that she keeps a wide berth between her and the boy she is talking to.

"Oh, you can," Izuku, who is the boy she is talking to, replies. "You did believe it would work. That's why it worked at all."

---

"Okay, okay, okay!" Uraraka says. "Everybody here? Iida-kun, headcount please!"

"Aoyama-kun!"

"Je ne parle pas français j'utilise Google Traduction."

"Ashido-kun!"

"Alive and kickin'!"

"Asui-kun!"

"Just call me Tsuyu-chan like everybody else, Iida-kun."

"Ojiro-kun!"

"Here," Ojiro sighs. "Here but apprehensively, let it be known."

"We are all here but apprehensively," says Hitoshi. "That's just life. And just like life, this is taking way too fucking long. Can't we just start already? Look at Yaoyorozu. She looks like she is—" he gestures to the vice class rep scrawling vigorously over her notebooks on the floor of Hitoshi's room. "Uhh. Going to go into a seizure at any moment now."

"A-hem!" Iida clears his throat regally. "My esteemed classmates of 1-A, we shall now begin our meeting."

A whiteboard has been subsequently dragged into Hitoshi's room. Hitoshi doesn't understand why this class meeting has to be done inside his bedroom and not in the perfectly functioning living room, but at this point Hitoshi has given up on understanding basically anything that is happening. "First," Iida says, unscrewing the cap of the marker, "Let's vote for the title name of our meeting. Any suggestions?"

"..Are you fucking kidding me.." Hitoshi says. "This is the least important thing—"

Hands are enthusiastically raised.

"Operation Telling the Universe What's Up."

"Operation I Kinda Wanna Graduate First Before I Get Sucked Into A Black Hole Or Whatever It Is That's Going To Happen, If That's All Right."

Iida's marker pauses on the whiteboard. "Hm. That one is a bit of a mouthful, to be honest."

Uraraka raises her hand. "Operation Not Die," Uraraka says.

"Succinct, straight to the point," Iida writes it down approvingly on the whiteboard. "Thank you, Uraraka-kun."

"Operation Stay Alive feels like a more positive spin to it," Ojiro says, to some nods.

"Opération l'enfer c'est les autres."

"Operation Nutting Matters," says Kaminari, to the high fives of many other students. "Pretty good, huh?" he says, receiving the high fives smugly. "Pretty good, eh?"

"That's literally the opposite of what we are trying to do," Jirou says disapprovingly. "It should be Operation Nutting Matters (Except For Us)."

There is a sound of agreement throughout the room. Iida adds (Except For Us) next to Operation Nutting Matters on the whiteboard.

"Operation Everything Matters," says Kirishima wisely. "Especially Nutting. Am I right, boys?" he says, receiving the high fives of many other students. "Am I right or what?"

Iida writes down Operation Everything Matters Especially Nutting on the whiteboard to the various clapping and cheering from 15 year olds.

"This can be our war cry. Nutting matters!" Kaminari declares.

"Nutting matters!" the class choruses.

"Except for us!"

"Except for us!" the class choruses.

"Everything matters! Especially nutting!"

"Everything matters! Especially.."

"Why don't we all just get sucked into a black hole right now?" Hitoshi says, his voice drowned beneath the racket that is his classmates vigorously chanting NUTTING, NUTTING, NUTTING. "Why don't we all just—"

There is a BOOM.

A loud and—to all residents of class 1-A—rather familiar BOOM. It's a BOOM that every single one of them could recognize if they had their eyes closed. That BOOM is the price of friendship. If class 1-A ever has a yearbook, this BOOM will be voted Most Likely to Succeed.

"Everybody shut the fuck up," Bakugou Katsuki announces, a poor unsuspecting marker melting sadly in his hand. The room smells of smoke, which is not something the class is not used to. Everybody knows one out of three people in 1-A owns a juul.

"Bakugou-kun!" Iida chides disapprovingly. "That marker belongs to the class."

"Pay up on that marker later," says Jirou being the proper class treasurer that she is.

"You two shut up also," Bakugou says, ignoring the indignant replies of his classmates. "Okay, so. What is the problem here?"

It's such a strange question coming out of Bakugou. It's strange because it's almost civil. "What do you mean?"

Bakugou makes an impatient sound. He had told Hitoshi earlier that there was something they needed to talk about—which Hitoshi understands immediately means Midoriya fucking Izuku—and then the pizza had come, and then they collective decided to Start a Meeting. Because that's what you would do when the world is ending, obviously.

Bakugou snaps his fingers impatiently in all of their faces. "Oi! Focus," he says. "I ask you all. What is this meeting for. Do we have any goal going on here or what."

They look at each other. "Uh. I mean.." it just seemed proper to talk about everything that is happening and has happened and will probably happen. They didn't really have anything in mind. "We want to. Not die?"

"We'd like to continue existing, and stuff."

"Because it seems like the way things are going right now we are going to Hell. Whatever that means."

"Yeah, that's right."

"And it'd be great if we, like, not. Right?"

"So true."

"Still got things left I wanna do, ya know?"

"Yeah. Still waiting for Hunter x Hunter to update."

"It's never gonna fucking update, moron."

The room mutters in agreement to the general statements being thrown around. Bakugou stares at them all for a moment, uncharacteristically quiet, with a look of calculation on his face. Though it's less of a look and more of a scowl. "Okay," Bakugou says finally, his voice flat. "Your goal is impossible."

Silence.

The class stares at him. Bakugou clicks his tongue with impatience. "There is no way to not die or to not stop existing, you idiots."

The class considers this. "But.."

Bakugou rolls his eyes. "But what?" he snarks. "Everybody fucking dies. The Universe eventually ends. Entropy doesn't stop increasing. It can't. That's how this whole life thing works."

"That's what I've been saying," Tsuyu says, taking another bite of her vegan pizza.

"But I'd like to not die right now," Kaminari protests.

"So?" Bakugou says carelessly. "A lot of people would like to not die right now, but a lot of people are dying right now."

"..That's so nihilistic," Jirou says, pointing a chicken wing to Bakugou's direction. "What, so you're saying we should just give up?"

Bakugou scoffs. "This isn't giving up."

"It's basically the same thing, though—"

"Fuck no it isn't. Not studying for a test is giving up. Tapping out on a match is giving up. Getting kidnapped by Villains and you just wait to be rescued like a fucking damsel in distress is fucking giving up. But this.." he shakes his head. "Dying, existing—all this shit just Happens. Shit Fucking Happens. You said you don't want to die. So what, you wanna live forever? You don't wanna stop existing. So what, you wanna exist forever?" he says. "If you're sayin' yes to those questions, then you're just fuck outta your mind."

Discussions are ignited in the room right in response to this logic. Sero raises his hand. "Okay, hold on. Imminent death slash non-existence aside," Sero says. "What's the difference between those? Aren't those basically the same thing?"

"I've been wondering that too.."

Bakugou clicks his tongue again. "You don't stop existing when you die, moron. Well, you could. But it's not a one-hundred percent thing.." he pauses. "I don't know how to explain this to you in a way that your low IQs could understand."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Hitoshi, who always wanted to punch Bakugou, steps forward. He is then held back by Uraraka and Tsuyu. "So fucking sorry, Socrates-kun, are we waaay too fucking stupid for your pseudo-intellectual philosophical metaphysical theoretical fuckological bullshit—"

Bakugou, who always sort of had an inkling that Hitoshi has always wanted to punch him, struggles to step forward as he is held back by Kirishima and Kaminari. "What, you wanna go? Huh? Ain't my fault you're so damn slow, is it, Okinawa? Huh?"

"You think you're sooo smart, you think you're sooo—"

"Yeah, because I can think, unlike you motherf—"

"To not exist means you aren't," Yaoyorozu Momo says.

She seems to have returned to the living world. Around her are empty pens (she had been running out) and ripped out notebook pages with what looks like numbers and symbols scrawled all over it. Her ponytail does not resemble an actual ponytail, now, and her eyes are bloodshot. She looks crazy, but her voice is unnervingly calm. "Even dying is existing. Even being dead is existing," Yaoyorozu says. "But to not exist means you aren't."

"..Aren't what?" Hitoshi says, being the one brave enough to voice out a response. No one wants to argue with somebody who looks as unhinged as she does at the moment.

"Aren't full stop," she says calmly. Above her impressive eyebags, there is a look in her eyes that imply she has reached a higher plane of existence than the rest of them. It is a look of calm, psychopathic zenness.

"What does that—"

"Existence isn't in perpetuity," she continues. She doesn't seem to be listening to any of their words. In fact, she seems to be talking not to any of them, but to some unseen omniscient present beyond Hitoshi's bedroom. "When you are, existence is. When you aren't, existence is not. Our collective consciousness is only in a vacuum."

She then whips her head down and starts writing yet another string of physics formulas on a piece of paper.

"..Er, yeah," Bakugou says, glancing at her with this look that suggests while he did want someone 'intelligent' enough to keep up with the conversation, he really would rather that someone to be sane. "Something like that."

"Okay," Hitoshi says. He shakes his head. "I know what you guys are talking about. This is like that shit. That Corgi-toe something something shit."

"Ooh, I know that one!" Kaminari says. He snaps his fingers repeatedly as if it would help the thoughts come to his head faster. "It's that thing! Um.. Corgi-toe-lego something.."

Mina waves her hands enthusiastically. "Ooh! Me, me, I got it!" She is excited to contribute to the conversation. "I know that phrase. It's Corgitoe Lego Zoom!"

"I don't think that's how the saying goes," Tsuyu says, but her assessment is drowned by the confident, knowing ahhs and ohhs going on in the room.

"Right, I heard of that! On a podcast."

"I think I made that my instagram's bio once, Corgitoe Lego Zoom.."

Bakugou looks around at his classmates, shaking his head in some sort of awed disbelief. Bakugou Katsuki is a person who has accepted, in his own words, that Shit Happens. He has accepted that he is going to die and/or unexist because he is intelligent enough to do so. Still, he finds it quite difficult to accept that he is going to die and/or unexist surrounded by idiots.

"Yes. It's that Corgitoe Lego Zoom shit. I fucking hate that shit," Hitoshi says vehemently. "I think therefore I am. Like, the fuck are you talking about? I shit therefore I piss. I fart therefore I fuck. Say something that makes sense, moron! Whoever the fuck came up with this shit, fuck that guy.." he pauses. "Ariesturtle or something!"

"Yeah, right! Fuck him!"

"Fuck Ariesturtle!"

"Fuck that guy for real!"

"Fuck Ariesturtle and his stupid corgis' toes. Like, what a freak!"

"Such a freak for real!"

"I think you mean Aristotle," Tsuyu corrects her dear friends kindly. "Who, by the way, was not the person who came up with that phrase.."

There is another BOOM. The class turns to find Bakugou having done arson on another poor unsuspecting marker in his hand. "Can we fucking return to the problem at hand," Bakugou says. "So. What the fuck do you guys want. What is this meeting about."

The class look at each other. And then they look at Hitoshi. Hitoshi looks at them, sighs, rolls his eyes. "OK," Hitoshi says. "So. I kinda fucked the Universe over."

Bakugou squints his eyes. "Right," he says, with an odd coldness that somehow doesn't feel like it's especially targeted towards Hitoshi, and more to the situation at large. "The fuck did you do?"

Right, Bakugou hadn't been here when Hitoshi narrated the entire thingy with the time loop thingy and that Yakuza Villain guy. "Well. I saved this kid. Who, apparently, is not supposed to be saved in the, uh, original universe or whatever.."

An understanding flickers in Bakugou's face. "You derived more from the Canonical Universe."

"I've been meaning to ask that one too," Uraraka says, in between chewing her lasagna. "What even is that? What does 'canon-ical' mean?"

"'Canon from the latin canonicus, itself derived from the Greek kanonikós, meaning "relating to a rule", "regular"', etc," Mina reads the wiki page from her phone. "Related terms … use in religion, i.e Canon Law' and 'Canonical Institution',' etc … positive ecclesiastical laws, based directly or indirectly upon immutable divine law from the 'Biblical Canon' … a set of scripture regarded as part of the Authoritative text …' huh?" Mina frowns. "I don't get any of these. A set of scripture? 'Text'? What, so like a book?"

"Who fucking cares, it's just another term in Midoriya's nonsensical list of glossary," Hitoshi waves his hands impatiently. "Anyway, yeah, that canon thing-stuff. And then he said—Midoriya said, I couldn't pay for that. Because, uh … if something the opposite of something doesn't happen then that something something can't happen, or something.."

"Yeah, yeah, Newton's Third Law, we all know that," Bakugou waves an impatient hand. "What then?"

"Well," Hitoshi says. "I told him we can all pay for it, then."

Bakugou stares at him hard. Several emotions go through his face—none of it decipherable to Hitoshi. "Okay," Bakugou says finally. "I got it now. We are overdue."

"..Overdue?"

"Fucking drowning in debt, actually," Bakugou then smiles. It's the first time Hitoshi has ever seen him smile. It looks horribly feral. "I see. Hah. Okay. Haha. Well. This was bound to happen. This will happen. This always Happens."

Great, they're losing another one to the great realm of Fuck Outta Your Mind. "Yeah, we don't need another guy going all cryptid talk on us," Hitoshi says. They already got Midoriya and Yaoyorozu for that. "So fucking get it together. Cause the Universe is fucked. And, uh.."

"We are trying to unfuck it," Tsuyu says calmly. "Operation Unfuck The Universe."

"Unfuck The Universe," Bakugou echoes.

There is general agreement in the room.

"And how exactly," Bakugou says flatly. "Are you planning to do that."

There is general confusion in the room.

Bakugou sighs. He glances at Hitoshi. "Oi, Okinawa. When you tried to save that kid. What happened?"

"..I got into a time loop, I guess," Hitoshi says, not really wanting to relive the memory of the whole thing. "Midoriya said it's something about the Universe—"

"Not letting you do the thing that you've done, yeah yeah. What's the timespan of the loop?"

"Shit, I don't fucking know, I didn't bother keep count while the Universe fucked with my head over and over—"

"No, moron, I'm asking the timespan … the bracket of time that you"—for the lack of a better word—"relive. There must have been a short nick of time right before bifurcation point occurred in the system—"

"I really hate when action heroes in Hollywood say 'Speak English!' to the nerd of the group," Hitoshi says flatly. "So don't fucking make me say that."

Bakugou rolls his eyes. "Look, when you were saving that kid, you were fucking up the parameter values of the system. Got me? Your fuck-up is the bifurcation point—a point of change wherein the equilibrium is destabilized. The Universe doesn't want chaos, and so it kept you in this loop to keep you from fucking shit up—bracketing you in a specific parameter just before the point occurs, because in statistical probability, you should eventually choose not to save that kid..." Bakugou pauses. "But you fucked shit up anyway. And my question is. How long is this parameter? Three seconds? Five?"

It's a little annoying to realize, but Bakugou is actually, surprisingly, a pretty good explainer. "Thirty seconds," Hitoshi says. From that conversation with Uraraka and Tsuyu, the red lights, the alley. "More or less. Maybe forty … what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"..How the fuck are you still alive?"

"Huh?"

"Even five seconds is pushing it," Bakugou says, with some kind of disgusted awe. "Forty..? What the fuck even are you..?"

Hitoshi is feeling somewhat offended. Like, yeah, he did know that time travel is some crazy stuff, but Bakugou doesn't have to be staring at him like he's a special kind of freak. "Hey, it wasn't me, It was all just, whatever the fuck it is up with Midoriya—"

"Deku wouldn't have helped you survive the bootstrap paradox," Bakugou says, still staring oddly at Hitoshi like the latter had grown a second head. "Look. Experiencing a time loop means you aren't in the loop itself. This Universe wants to stick to Canon, so it's trying to … realign itself. Which means—"

"It loops..." Hitoshi says, slowly. Statistical probability. "It keeps looping.."

"Minisculely," Bakugou says. "It tries to … reorder any microstate it could get its hands on, making use of probability to pick topologically favorable choices. And these loops—none of us are conscious of it. We can't Know it."

"Oh, I know this one," Toru says. She and the other 1-A girls (sans whatever it is going on with Yaoyorozu) are watching their discussion while sharing a second plate of lasagna. "It's like the killing your brother time travel thing."

"What's that?" Mina licks her spoon.

"So, like," Toru puts her hand on Mina's shoulder and looks at her seriously. "I, like, killed your brother, Mina."

"You what! Wait. I don't have a brother."

"Exactly. I, like, time traveled to kill the brother you never had and stuff."

"Huh," Mina says thoughtfully. She adds, "That's mean, Toru. I would've liked a brother."

"Sorry."

"That's fucked up.." Hitoshi says, digesting the information. "So whatever we do. All of it is just. Statistical? A probability that got cherry-picked by the universe? Nothing ever really just happens?"

"No. Shit just Happens," Bakugou says. "That's literally what it is. All of that shit leads you to this shit and will then lead you to another shit. That's how the passage of Time works. It's just one probable shit after another probable shit. Keep up."

Hitoshi is barely listening. Hitoshi wasn't supposed to be conscious, he thinks. But Midoriya knew. Midoriya knew Hitoshi was going to choose to—"What about Midoriya?"

"What about Deku."

"You said we aren't supposed to be conscious of these … in these … Universe Behind the Scenes reel or whatever. We aren't supposed to know. But what about Midoriya?" Hitoshi watches Bakugou's expression, and suddenly the pit of his stomach feels ice cold. "Midoriya Knows.." he says, a realization. "He's conscious of … every single one of those loops..?"

"That would be impossible," Bakugou says.

"Impossi—oh, come on!" Hitoshi is going to flip a table. "I was in a fucking time loop. You explode shit with your hands!"

"Look, I don't fucking know, okay?" Bakugou says. Something about him looks agitated, but not in that confident, fuck-every-single-one-of-you way he always had. This one looks more uneasy. Uncomfortable, even. "Like I said. That would be impossible. Something like that would do an insane amount of damage to someone's body, let alone psyche—"

"Hah," Hitoshi says. That would explain why Midoriya is so fucking insane, wouldn't it?

"Most of the Universe is unobservable. Your brain doesn't have even a tenth of the capacity needed to perceive it. To overload that capacity you would die at best," Bakugou says. "Or. your brain would be altered irreversibly … or have to had been altered irreversibly..." There is that uncomfortable look again. He did tell Hitoshi they should talk about Midoriya. But it seems Bakugou doesn't really like talking about him. "Which is why it's weird as fuck that you're still even lucid. Being transported in time doesn't give your body and your consciousness a free pass from Time, got it? Your brain should've fucking melted."

"I've had enough of this, man," Sero comments from where he sits. He slurps on his coke. "Like, I can't keep up with all this shit … whatever it is you're talking about. Seriously, whatever. I don't want to think anymore. I'm not gonna listen to any of this anymore! Whatever happens, happens." With that wise declaration, he asks his classmates, "Did anybody bring a juul?"

Here you go.

"Thanks, Koji."

"Do not fucking vape in my room," Hitoshi takes the juul from Koji's hand. He looks back at Bakugou. He doesn't like the implication of what Bakugou is saying—the implication that there are some existential hijinks between Hitoshi and the Universe he resides in that he doesn't know. "Okay, man. I think you're making too big a deal out of this."

"Oh, so now I'm making a big deal out of an honest to god fucking time loop," Bakugou snarks. "Because a time loop is an absolutely normal fucking thing to happen, is it? It's just a fucking Tuesday to you, is it? Look … ugh, what's a metaphor an idiot like you would understand.."

Hitoshi wants to punch him so bad. "Oh, fuck y—hey!" Without warning, Bakugou grabs the juul from Hitoshi's hand. "Oi! I said don't smoke—"

Bakugou doesn't smoke the juul. He just waves it in Hitoshi's face as he prattles on. "Let's say one day you get a package. You open it and it's a juul. But you don't know what it is, because at this point of time, there are no juuls. It hasn't been invented yet. So you're getting this juul from the future, right? And you're like, oh, so this shit is like cigarettes, but lamer—"

"Hey!" says one in three kids in 1-A.

"—I can get a lot of money selling this shit to a bunch of lame incel idiots. So you manufacture a bunch of juuls based on the juul you got from the future, okay? And because there are a lot of lame incel idiots in the world, your juul business is a hit. Such a hit that you get a shitload of money, enough for you to make a time machine or something. But you're like, wait, but who sent me this juul?"

Bakugou looks at him expectantly, like a teacher waiting for an answer. "It was me..?"

Bakugou snaps his fingers. "Exactly. So you sent the juul to yourself with that time machine—and so we're back to the beginning."

"Whoa…"

"That's like, some mindfuck shit."

"Mind fucking blown, dude.."

"This could be a movie, man. Juulception."

"Interjuular … no, Terminajuul.."

"Your Juul."

"The Juul Effect."

"The Juul That Leaped Through Time."

"Doctor Freak: The Juulverse of Madness!"

"Every Juul Everywhere All at Once."

"The Girl with the Juul Tattoo."

"A Juul That Will Juul Like a Juul Has Never Been Juuled.."

"This class never fails to entertain me," Tsuyu says to the world.

"Shut the fuck up all of you. Back to I was saying—it wouldn't work. This whole juul business plan is impossible," Bakugou says. "Because the juul wouldn't survive, got it? Time isn't irreversible on the juul. Because this would be the same juul traveling back and forth through all infinity in that specific parameter of Time. This juul is a physical thing, and therefore eventually it'd get fucked up, it'd stop working, fucking blow up—anything. Eventually there would be no juul to send back, and it would Cease to exist entirely along with all of the juuls that will never have been made," Bakugou points at Hitoshi with the juul. "Your brain is that juul."

"..Ah."

"Your consciousness was being sent back and forth for forty seconds infinitely in that specific parameter—"

"It was only like," Hitoshi says defensively, "five times.."

"And that's five times more than it should've been, which is fucking zero. Time is a straight arrow, see? It isn't supposed to go fucking ping-pong ball. So for someone.." for Midoriya, he means. But Bakugou doesn't seem keen on saying his name. "To experience every parameter, every possible probability in the observable Universe, or even beyond that single Universe.."

"..Yeah, okay, that's fucked up," Hitoshi says. But that's why it would explain a shitload of things why Midoriya is the way he is.

Hitoshi feels uneasy now. It's one case with Midoriya. Like, Midoriya is Midoriya, whatever the fuck he is. But Hitoshi has got nothing to do with any of that.. He's just a guy, damn it. He's just a normal fucking guy stranded in an abnormal situation and doing, well, some abnormal stuff..

You're different, Midoriya had said to him, back on that first day they met. You're really weird, actually. You're like, a single atom layered sheet, but a person.

"..If Midoriya can fucking do all that spacetime altering demon-not-demon slaying universe perceiving shit," Hitoshi says finally. "He can—he could have helped me in surviving … dick strap paradox or whatever it is you called it."

"I didn't say he couldn't," Bakugou says flatly. "I said he wouldn't."

Hitoshi stops. "Oh."

Right. Of course. Why would he?

Midoriya … isn't a Hero.

"You tried to fuck with the Universe. The Universe tried to unfuck itself. Then you've done and fucked it anyways. And now you want to unfuck it." Bakugou shakes his head. "Do you even know what it means? To unfuck the Universe?"

The answer is right there, Hitoshi realizes. "Start over," Hitoshi says. The Universe tried to start over with him and Eri. To unfuck what's been unfucked, it had kept him in that loop. "You gotta start over.."

"Bingo." Bakugou doesn't look pleased that Hitoshi catches on. If anything, he looks grim. "To unfuck all that shit you gotta start over. And that's a big price, starting over. You can't take the juul back, remember? Time is asymmetric. The arrow of time is a one-way fucking trip. You aren't a Universe. You can't rearrange order microscopically all willy fucking nilly.." Bakugou pauses to look at all the blank faces of his classmates sans Yaoyorozu, who's still writing mad person scribbles on her notebooks. "Do any of you even know what the shit I'm talking about here?"

"What do you fucking think," Hitoshi replies. He's really growing sick of all this science talk. His brain really does feel like it's melting now. "Unlike you, most of us don't have a Stephen Hawking thesaurus plastered behind our eyelids."

Bakugou sighs. Rolls his eyes. Sighs again. And then, "Listen up, you fuckers. I'm gonna explain to you. What the fuck this is all about."

He walks to the whiteboard. Violently, he proceeds to erase all the operation names, leaving the board a blank slate. With that same violence, he takes the other marker out of Iida's hand. Bakugou turns to the class.

"From the very beginning," he says.

He turns back to the board and draws a single dot in the white, white space.

---

"Where are you going now?"

"To your principal."

"Huh," Chikuchi says.

Togeike Chikuchi has been having a Weird Day.

It didn't start out Weird. Maybe a little unconventional. She's been minding her own business, taking off to school as usual, and then she changed her clothes and got on the train planning to go to that one arcade near school because she really wants to try playing truant just once in her life. She figures out that with her being in high school, this is the only time in her life she would get away with being a "delinquent". She even planned to try buying a pack of cigarettes or something, because that's what being a proper high school delinquent is all about. You gotta illegally try a cigarette, cough your lungs out, and pretend it tastes good so you look cool.

She isn't sure where her day went off the rail. Probably when the train she got on had the misfortune to be acquainted with one … uh.. "What was your name, again?"

He gives her his name card (that he, she is one hundred percent sure, plucked from thin air). What kind of high schooler has a name card? Well, she assumes he's a high schooler, anyway. He looks more like an overgrown middle schooler. "'Midoriya Izuku,'" she reads. "'Occultist, Exorcist & Shaman'.."

Any other time, she would tack a seriously? at the end of that sentence. But given that she has been spraying Midoriya's bottle of holy water in the shinkansen like an air freshener, it's a little too late for a seriously?, she supposes.

And they are in UA. Midoriya walks through the hallway with the confidence Chikuchi herself doesn't have, despite having been studying there for nearly a year now. Chikuchi knows she'll probably get into trouble soon since she is sans uniform and at least four hours late to class, but this whole situation is so bizarre that she supposes this is her only one in a lifetime chance to experience something so … well, bizarre. Being a one-day delinquent can always wait.

Also, it's not as if the world is going to end.

"Midoriya."

"Aizawa-sensei," Midoriya says politely.

Aizawa-sensei, who has unceremoniously showed up to pass them in the hallway, nods in acknowledgement. And then he stops abruptly. He turns, a brow raised. "What did you just call me?"

"..What did I just call you?" Midoriya blinks, turning to look at the teacher. "Aizawa-san?"

Aizawa-sensei stares at him for a moment before turning. "Nevermind," he says. He looks at Chikuchi, who immediately stiffens. "Why are you not wearing a uniform?"

"She is with me," Midoriya chirps readily before Chikuchi comes up with a lame excuse.

Aizawa stares at the boy flatly. "Just because Nezu gives you a blanket permission in the UA compound does not mean you have the authority on everything in the UA compound."

"I certainly don't, Aizawa-san," Midoriya agrees amiably and does not provide further argument.

"Explain things to your homeroom teacher after this is done," Aizawa tells Chikuchi succinctly. And then he leaves.

"..Do you come here often, or what?" Chikuchi says. The teacher hadn't even asked what Midoriya was doing or where he was going. And he had basically let Chikuchi go. What the fuck.

"At some other point of space, yes," Midoriya says. "Only two or three times in this one, so far."

Chikuchi has begun to understand that Midoriya's words are not really meant to be understandable. She ignores the weirdness in his answer.

They climb up the stairs. "Say, Togeike-san," he says. There is a persistent calmness in his voice that's a little unnerving. It's like the calmness of an AI phone operator, Chikuchi finds. Friendly in a way that it isn't human at all. "How does it feel going to UA?"

Chikuchi blinks, surprised by the question. "Huh?"

"Is it fun? Do you like it here?" Midoriya says. It's said in a way that Chikuchi isn't sure if he does care about her answer at all, if she does answer. "Do you want to be a Hero?"

"Wow," Chikuchi says. Damn, all right. Way to be personal. "Uh. It's been okay, I guess.." she pauses. She's worked hard to get here. So have a lot of other kids. "And. I mean, who doesn't want to be a Hero?"

"Who doesn't," Midoriya echoes. Chikuchi isn't sure if he's agreeing with her or not.

"Not like I'll be one … I mean, okay, who knows? It isn't impossible..'' She is in the general department, but that Shinsou guy succeeded, didn't he? "I guess … okay, honestly, UA isn't all that it's cracked up to be."

They reach an elevator. "Is it now," Midoriya says, pressing the button.

"But it's been okay," she says. "It has its moments.." she shrugs, gesturing vaguely to their surroundings. "All of this."

"Doesn't it."

"The toilets are super clean. The fruit salads are nice."

"They really are," he says, entering the elevator. She does not enter with him. He looks at her. "Would you like to come with?"

Once in a lifetime chance, Chikuchi thinks. She can go up with this guy to see the principal, just tagging along. See whatever is gonna happen next. She might have another chance of spraying holy water all over the place again.

But.

"No," Chikuchi says thoughtfully. "I don't think so, no. Figured maybe I should go to class since I'm already here." She'll get an earful for missing like, four periods, but whatever. For an inexplicable reason, she suddenly feels like meeting her friends. Not that inexplicable, really—she supposes it would be nice to just … have a normal day. Not a special day, but a normal one. There will be plenty of normal days like this, she's sure—it's not a once in a lifetime chance. But that doesn't make a chance you get every single day worth any less.

Plus, she isn't sure if it's wise to hang around Midoriya 'Occultist, Exorcist & Shaman' Izuku all that much.

"Mm, no," Midoriya muses, with that bland smile. "Not all that wise indeed."

Chikuchi blinks. "Huh?"

"See you, Togeike-san," Midoriya says amicably. "Perhaps in another s—"

The elevator closes.

---

The marker makes a staccato sound. The class stares at the single black dot on the whiteboard.

"First," Bakugou says, "I'm gonna drill into your thick fucking skulls just how big the—what, Half n' Half?"

Todoroki has joined the class. He has one hand raised, staring solemnly at the impromptu lecturer of class 1-A. The other hand is holding a mentaiko pizza. "I have a question."

"Yeah, yeah, spit it out."

"So the multiverse is a thing," he says seriously, which is less of a question and more of an enthusiastic statement on his part.

There is this look on Bakugou's face that is so disgusted, it's honestly impressive. "Ugh. Don't fucking say the M word. It's fucking cringe."

"Parallel universes are a thing too," Todoroki continues oh so seriously. "There are other us-es out there. They are a thing also."

"Multiverse, gigaverse, terraverse, fucking petaverse—" Bakugou makes a careless gesture. "Yeah fucking duh they are out there."

"I knew it," Todoroki says. He looks triumphantly at his fellow classmates who had on so many occasions ignored Todoroki Shouto's invitation to star on his podcast. "I've told you so."

"Hell, forget multiple universes. How big do you think a single universe is? The Universe isn't Dense. Galaxies pull each other. That's why the Universe keeps expandi—what, Okinawa?"

"Did you just say," says Hitoshi, who looks oddly pale, "that the Universe. Isn't Dense?"

"The critical Density of the Universe is only 8.64x10^-30gcm^-3," Bakugou says, almost bored as he writes the numbers down carelessly on the whiteboard because he isn't sure if any of his classmates can remember a string of numbers longer than 420. "The Density of water is 1gcm^-3. Ergo, the Density of the Universe is millions of times less than that of water. Do the fucking math."

"So," Hitoshi says. "Um. So. Theoretically. Can something be Dense enough … to make the Universe Denser?"

"The fuck are you talking about?"

"Like," Hitoshi says. "What's gonna happen if … the Universe … gets Denser?"

"It'd collapse in a big crunch," Bakugou answers plainly. "It'd go bang a fucking big one."

"Right," says Hitoshi, who has gotten even paler. "Right.."

Bakugou ignores whatever new fucked up realization that Hitoshi is now having. "Anybody else gonna interrupt me or fucking what? No? Right. Anyway. Universe keeps expanding—but not infinitely; at one point it's gonna go bang a fucking big one as well and we're all toast. But the expansion doesn't need to be infinite for there to be an eventually twinning set of particle arrangements. Like, say, a Universe that is one googolplex particle big—"

Uraraka nudges Tsuyu. "What's a googolplex?"

"One of the largest numbers ever named," Yaoyorozu supplies calmly. She isn't looking at any of them as she explains, still happily scratching down her notes. "10^googol, or ten to the power of one-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero—"

"A googol is 10^100, so time that shit by ten and you get a googolplex," Bakugou cuts Yaoyorozu off, though the latter is still happily muttering zero zero zero under her breath. "Which, since countable, is of course far less than infinity—but that's still a big fucking mother, ain't it? And that's just a single Universe. If you add more Universes to that, more macrostates anywhere that large, you will eventually find an arrangement of particles—a microstate—that is an exact copy of another microstate. It's just statistical probability. So yes. Of fucking course there is another 'us' out there.."

Bakugou pauses, his nose scrunching in distaste as if he doesn't really like the idea of there being another Bakugou Katsuki as much as other people do. "So. If you want to unfuck the Universe. You have to revert our currently fucked macrostate to the … whatever point of time where our macrostate is unfucked. And that's impossible. Like I said. Entropy can't decrease. A system can't be running in perpetual motion. The energy of action has to go somewhere. Things can't be taken back."

"You know what, I'm gonna say something that none of you are brave enough to say," Jirou says. "What in the goddamn fuck is ant-tro-pee."

"Isn't it that thing where your eyes are nearsighted.."

"That's myopic."

"I'm myopic," says Kaminari to answer the question of nobody.

"Hey, girl, are you myopic," Mina says to Tsuyu. "Cuz you're the only one I see."

"That doesn't even make sense," Tsuyu says.

"Ooh, I have a physics pick up line, I have one, I have one," Toru waves excitedly. She nudges Uraraka. "Girl, like, when you smile, the four dimensional divergence of anti-symmetry second rank tensor equals zero."

"What," Uraraka says.

"Like, 'cause you light up my world!" Toru beams.

"What," Uraraka says.

BOOM. Another marker gone to heaven. "Focus, you undiagnosed ADHD fucks," snaps Bakugou, who himself is an undiagnosed ADHD fuck. "Entropy is—ugh.." Bakugou makes a face as he tries to find another metaphor that will be digestible by the general low IQ (in Bakugou's standard) population of his classmates. "Like. If I tell Kirishima to do some shit. He would probably fuck up aforementioned shit—"

"Hey," Kirishima protests.

"—and there would be a number of possibilities of every which way he could possibly fuck up said shit. This number of possibilities would be microstate. And the measurement of those possibilities would be entropy. You fuckers still with me?" He receives some tentative nods. "You fuckin' better be. So. The more microstates there is, the more entropy will logarithmically increase, because, fuckin' obviously. Now, apply this to the Universe, which keeps expanding, which means there are more and more microstates as Time goes on, which.."

"Which is why the entropy of the Universe will always increase.." Uraraka says thoughtfully. "Wow. This actually kinda makes sense. Bakugou-kun, despite how you look, you're actually kinda smart.."

BOOM. "I've always been smart, god damn it! It's been one fucking year, Round-Cheeks, and only now you think I'm sm—"

"Why don't you consider going to like, Harfart or something."

"I don't think lecturing a bunch of 15 year old knucklefucks on the basics of thermodynamics would get me a spot in Harvard!"

"All right, I think I got this shit down," Jirou says. "So if the arrangement of particles and shit is a microstate. Then a bunch of arrangements of microstates is a macrostate. Is that right."

Bakugou's brows rise up, nearly impressed, only because the bar is so low. "Correct."

"So, like, let's say the death of Santa Claus is a macrostate. He's dead. Zero heartbeat. No brain activity. No pulse. He's dead. That's the macrostate."

"Why do we keep talking about killing Santa Claus," Hitoshi says. "Like, you do realize that poor bastard has done nothing to us to deserve these homicidal discussions?"

"But the microstate … the microstates … could be just about anything. It could be he got hit over the head with a fucking rock. Or it could be him falling down somebody's chimney. Or it could be him being killed by his wife. A lot of ways, really. Which means a decent amount of entropy." Jirou looks at Bakugou again. "Is that right."

Bakugou might not die surrounded by complete idiots, it seems. "You know what," he says. "Yeah, sure. You got it."

"This shit easy," Jirou says.

There might be hope for them after all, Bakugou thinks.

"Bro, bro, rate my pickup line." Kaminari whisper-giggles to Kirishima. "Hey girl, are you entropy, 'cuz you keep making me rise up."

Nevermind, Bakugou thinks.

Question, Koda Koji signs.

"Yeah, sure," Bakugou says somewhat civilly, because nobody in class 1-A doesn't like Koji. "What's up."

If the system is large enough to permit multiverses, then statistical probability speaking, it would be possible for microstates to eventually rearrange themselves into an order in which the entropy is at its lowest, no?

Would you look at that? Some of these fuckers have working brains after all.

Bakugou smiles the smile reminiscent of Aizawa-sensei's when one of them finally asks a good question. "All right, assholes," Bakugou says, in uncharacteristic glee, "let's introduce you to this thing called Maxwell's Demons."

---

The elevator to Principal Nezu's office normally opens with a short, melodious ding. Not today, it seems. Today, the elevator is having its own concert.

Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical science in the home, the elevators sing. Late nights all alone with a test tube, oh, oh, oh, oh..

Midoriya Izuku walks out of the elevator, though Principal Nezu does not need to look up to know that. His sight is very good indeed, but so is his sense of smell, and his sense of space … and around Midoriya Izuku, space is always ever so slightly … well. More space-y. Especially today. Correction: especially at this very moment.

Nezu immediately knows what that means even before Midoriya Izuku opens his mouth.

"I failed," Midoriya Izuku says calmly, sitting down on the chair across from him.

"Oh," Nezu says. Not surprised, but quite disappointed all the same. He puts down his pen gently and brings his cup to the air. "Tea?" he offers his guest.

"No, thank you," Izuku says. He looks straight at Nezu, eyes wide and blank. "This Universe is going to Hell."

"Oh," Nezu ponders this. He sips his tea. The disappointment persists. "We did pay you.."

"You did."

"With interest."

"Not quite enough."

"Hm," Nezu says. Of course, these things are quite tricky. The currency of the matter of Universes, much like nations, often fluctuates. And it seems that they are currently in a state of, well … inflation.

He supposes Midoriya had bought them all some time. And Time, like currency, runs out.

"And," Nezu says, after some silence. "If we attempt to compensate for the extra fee..?"

"You cannot afford it."

"Ah," Nezu says, understanding. "How much time do we have left, then?"

"Forty-three hours twenty-three minutes and fifty seconds."

"Hm," Nezu says. A shame, really. But what can you do? This was bound to Happen. It's how things work. Still, he didn't think it would be so soon. The timing of the End of the world is never quite right—but it is always on time. "Is there really nothing we can do?"

Midoriya Izuku smiles. "We can end," he says.

Nezu smiles, a little mournful.

"Or," Midoriya Izuku says, his smile persisting, "We can begin again."

Oh.

"..You said we can't afford that."

"The Universe always finds a way," Izuku says wisely. "It gave us all the tools we need, as it always does. Little clues. Little potpoints, and little potholes … all for us to utilize to its fullest. It's persistent, you see. It has a tendency to work out."

"And thus it still ends in the end, no?"

"If it never ends, then it never begins," Izuku says. "It's always ending. It has always been ending."

Because there is no point. Not really. "Of course."

Izuku tilts his head. "Are you unhappy with this arrangement?"

What a funny little question. Nezu knows full well that his feelings, whatever it may be, are insignificant in face of … well, however things shall be. There is only one choice. Both he and Midoriya Izuku know that well enough.

So Nezu says, "Are you?"

There is almost surprise there, in that young, blank face. Almost. It almost makes the child look like an actual child. One that could have been one of Nezu's students—a UA student. One that could have been a—no, one that could have been the—

But that's wrong, Nezu knows that. It's not a could have been. It's a has been, somewhere out there. It's a will be. It's all of it, all at once.

The smile returns to Izuku's face. "It's not such a bad way to unexist," he says. "In fact, it's quite heroic. Wouldn't you agree, Nezu-san?"

It is. The Universe has a tendency to work out, hm? Nezu supposes it's true. The Universe can't help it. It loves its Heroes. Nezu watches the boy in front of him. "Is it worth it, really?"

Izuku laughs, unrelentingly polite. "It's a bargain, no?"

"Perhaps it's all right, if it ends just like this," Nezu says.

Izuku looks amused. "Have you had a change of heart, sir?" he says, with that cold politeness. "You'd rather us go to Hell?"

"Is it so bad," Nezu says. "To be Unknown?"

"I believe that's something you could enlighten me about, Nezu-san. How does it feel to finally be, right now?" Izuku says. "How does it feel to finally have your name written after being in that void for so long, Nezu-san?"

Nezu's cup pauses in the air, before it reaches his lips once again. "It's quite something," he confesses. It is quite something, to have a voice. To have a belief that you have some form of agency. Not the agency itself, no—just the belief. To know that you exist because someone Knows, even for a fleeting moment, that you do.

"There you have it," Izuku says. Beat. "Have you always known, then, all along," he says, "who Cursed class 1-A?"

"I had my hypotheses," Nezu says neatly. "Have you?"

The smile stays bland, as always. "No," Izuku admits. "I'm ashamed to admit that it took me a while to … realize things. And not without consequences.."

"It's understandable."

"I disagree," Izuku disagrees. "It's my job to Know. It has always been. That in itself is already a clue."

"..What made you … realize, if I may ask?"

"Your students, mostly," Izuku says. And then, "They deserve a better ending."

"You don't know if it's better," Nezu says, a soft argument. "It might be Canonical. It might last far, far longer. But you don't know if it's better."

"No," Izuku says. "But I know that it will be far more loved."

Nezu doesn't know how to argue with that. He doesn't know if he should. "It seems you've made up your mind."

Izuku laughs, and there is humor there—real mirth. "That's so funny, Nezu-san," he says after, with that distant voice. "It isn't up to me, you know."

It truly is quite Heroic, in a way.

"Then I shall keep track of the other Universal constants," Nezu says. Because if this Universe is ending soon, then that would only mean one thing. "I assume they'll soon flock to the centrepoint."

The probability wills it so. Things always tend to work out. The cosmological axis turns its head towards it, like a puppy to a bone. The Universe loves its resolutions.

But that doesn't always mean a happy ending. Not for a Divergent, Denominated Universe like theirs.

"Mm," Izuku says, standing up. "Then I shall take my leave—"

"Midoriya-kun."

"Yes?"

Nezu doesn't say anything for a moment. He isn't one to hesitate, but what can one do, in moments like this? "I simply must say that I disagree," he says finally. "I don't think it's a bargain. Not at all."

The smile on Midoriya Izuku's face disappears. His face is void of anything. It makes him look, contrastingly, realer.

"Nezu-san. It seems that you believe I'm doing this out of some … selflessness. Out of some soulful desire to be heroic," says Midoriya Izuku flatly. "And I assure you, I'm not. I was never a Hero." He pauses, smiles again. Unreal again. "That's exactly why we're here, after all."

Nezu Knows that. He has had his hypotheses. It had not been an easy one to make, what with little data that he has. But the Universe has its patterns, when you tread its Fabric carefully. "Perhaps it's not such a terrible position to be in."

"You're softer than I thought," Izuku says, his voice an empty, amicable thoughtfulness.

"Softer than I should be, am I?" Nezu replies, just as amicably. "Is that another flaw in this botched world? Another point not quite aligned, an example of topological misbehavior?"

"Please don't feel too bad, Nezu-san," Izuku says. "You simply can't help it."

Nezu has to laugh at that. Midoriya Izuku means it, he knows that. It was said with real sincerity, as real as any of them can help to be. "Consider it, Midoriya-kun," he says, after a while. "This might be presumptuous of me to say to you, of all people. But consider that you have a choice."

"Yes, just one." He smiles at the look on Nezu's face. "As I've said. This is not up to me, as much as it is not up to you. This is simply how it Happens."

"Class 1-A will fight—"

"Of course they will," Izuku says, not the least bit reassuring. "Class 1-A is the most stable variable in this Universe. They will always fight."

"They might win," Nezu says. And then, with real belief, "They will win." He's being soft, Nezu knows. Perhaps far softer than his Canonical counterpart. But Nezu hardly thinks it Matters, moreso now that there is only forty-three hours seventeen minutes and twenty-four seconds before the equilibrium collapses in on itself.

"Of course they will," Midoriya concedes once again, indulgent, as if appeasing a child. "And then they will lose. A loss is always needed to reach the climax, just as a win is always needed to reach the bottom. And then the Universe will win. Things Work Out. However," he says. "Consider, Nezu-san, that the Universe's parameter of what constitutes as a win doesn't necessarily align with ours."

"Is that why you simply must do the exchange?" Nezu says. "To give the Universe what it wants?" Nezu ponders that—the idea that the Universe is some spoiled child you have to keep pleased. That one must appease the Universe so it won't throw a tantrum. It's ridiculous. And terrifying. And absolutely beyond any of their controls nor comprehensions.

"Oh, don't blame it too much," Midoriya says. "It simply can't help itself."

---

"Demons?" Hitoshi echoes.

The speaker turns on.

Hitoshi recognizes the song immediately. "Are you fucking kidding me," he says, as the speaker sings: JOAN WAS QUIZZICAL, STUDIED PATAPHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE HOME — "Somebody fucking turn that down! I fucking hate the Beatles!"

There is a BOOM. Now, this BOOM is different. If Bakugou's BOOM is voted Most Likely to Succeed, this BOOM is voted Most Likely to Star In Their Own Reality Show. Jirou's earphone jack detracts from the speaker. "So fucking do I," she says. She looks back to Bakugou. "Okay. Continue. What the hell is this … Karl Marx Demon or whatever."

"Maxwell's Demon is a thought experiment—"

"What's a thought experiment," Uraraka whispers to Tsuyu.

"It's a hypothetical problem you try to work out in your head," Tsuyu answers.

"What's hypotestical?" Kaminari whispers to Kirishima.

"It's like, a made up situation.."

"So it isn't real."

"I mean … no, yeah, it isn't, technically.." Kirishima pauses. Something flits through his mind, and he begins to frown. "Wait, but like, are thoughts not real just because they are thoughts..?"

"Anyone else starts arguing about what's real and what's not," Jirou says. "My fist in their face will become very very real."

"So, thought experiment is trying to work out a made up problem in your head," Uraraka says.

"Yeah."

Uraraka thinks this through. And then she says, "Isn't that just thinking?"

The class thinks about this.

"..Aren't all problems technically made up.." says Ojiro hesitantly.

All thoughts are made up, too, Koji signs.

"Everything is made up, bro!"

"My physical assault is not going to be made up," Jirou says.

"Just because something is made up that means it isn't real..?" Kirishima continues muttering to himself, seemingly going through some kind of breakthrough in his perception of the world. "So real things have to be, like, concrete things that you can, like, touch and interact with? So an action is real but a thought isn't?"

"Perhaps life is just a thought experiment," says Todoroki, contributing absolutely nothing productive to the conversation.

"Whoa. Mindblown, man."

"Me punching everyone in the face is going to be a very real experiment," Jirou says.

"But that'd mean feelings aren't real either," Kirishima mumbles. "But feelings … are real … like, what's even the difference between a real thought and a thought you made up … just because things aren't made up, it doesn't mean they aren't real.."

"Perhaps the whole Universe is just a thought experiment," Todoroki says.

"Whoa, dude, mindbl—ouch!" Kaminari yelps, rubbing his elbow. "Jirou, what the fuck?"

"Did you feel that pinch?" Jirou says. "Did it hurt? Was that a thought experiment? Did that feel real? Should I give you more taste of shit that is real or are you just going to keep going on in a circle of these vague pretentious first semester philosophy major reddit think tank discussions."

"But—"

"No buts. Listen to yourselves, huh? You all sound fucking ridiculous!" She looks like she is going to flip a table. ""Is this real? Is that real? Is this all just in my head?' Girl, get the fuck over yourselves! Does this feel real, Todoroki? Huh?"

Todoroki, whose shoulders are being shaken so violently by Jirou that his teeth chatter, says, "Yes."

"Does this look real?" Jirou lets Todoroki go and proceeds to blow up the speaker with her ears.

"I'm out," Sero says, carefully backing to the other corner of the room. A handful of other boys wisely follow his lead.

"All right," Uraraka says, standing up carefully. The other girls follow. They walk slowly to Kyouka like one about to apprehend a rabies infected animal. "Kyouka-chan, think sunny skies—"

But Kyouka-chan's mind is anywhere but sunny skies. "When you take a shit, is the shit real or not real? Huh? Is the shit just made up? Is the shit just in your head?" Jirou says. The girls have come to Jirou's side in an attempt to calm her down. "Why don't we all just take a shit right now and see if our shit is real. Why don't you start, Kaminari? Huh?"

"Defecato ergo sum," Tsuyu comments absentmindedly, nodding wisely while holding Jirou back from ferally attacking the whole class, especially Kaminari who is quaking in fear behind Todoroki. "I shit therefore I am.."

"..Can all of you shut the fuck up for a second," Bakugou says, not blowing things for once because there is only one marker left and his lecture is far from over. He waits until the whole class has grasped any semblance of sanity, and decides that it is impossible, so he just waits until Jirou doesn't look like she's gonna force anybody to take a shit. "Can you? Oh, you can? Really? Good. Shut the fuck up and listen up. In 1867, this physicist named Maxwell proposed the hypothetical existence of a Finite Being who can violate the second law of thermodynamics.." with the marker, Bakugou draws two adjacent boxes on the whiteboard, separated by a line. "Picture two adjacent gas chambers filled with fast-moving molecules and slow-moving molecules. And there is a hatch in between these two chambers." He draws a little hatch on the separation line as visual help. "And this Finite Being—the Demon—opens and closes the hatch accordingly so that one box is filled with one type of molecules and the other with the other type, which causes one box to be hot and the other cold, which causes entropy to lower—yes, what."

"Why does one turn hot and the other turn cold?"

"'Cause the velocity of a molecule affects the kinetic temperature of the gas, dumbass. Did you learn nothing in middle sch—yes, what."

"Why would the entropy lower because of that?"

"Hey girl, are you a Demon? Because you make me all hot inside and all cold outside."

"That doesn't make sense either, Mina."

"Hot and cold? Maybe Todoroki is the Karl Marx Demon."

Todoroki ponders this. "Maybe I am the Karl Marx Demon," he says seriously.

Bakugou closes his eyes and counts to ten. And then he says, "Fuck this." He erases the two boxes roughly. In their place, he draws two circles with the letter A and B above each. "Picture two Universes." Inside each circle he draws surprisingly well rendered stick figures of two dead Santa Clauses. "In both Universes, Santa Claus is dead." He turns back to his classmates. Flatly, he says, "List all possible ways that this Santa Claus could be dead."

"Seriously?" Hitoshi says, but the rest of his classmates do not have the same concerns towards Santa's wellbeing.

"Sleigh accident. Hit an asteroid or something. Or a plane."

"What if he broke his neck down a chimney."

"Nah. He got stuck inside the chimney on his way down and suffocated to death."

"He looks like a jaywalker. I bet Santa jaywalks."

"Heart failure. Too much eggnog."

"His elves unionized and beat him to death."

"Liver failure. Too much rum."

"Kaiju attack. Santa Versus Godzilla. Holy shit, I should pitch this to Netflix.."

"His wife left him and he decided to end it all."

"He left his wife and she decided to end it all, by killing him. Hashtag girl power."

"Maybe he has a husband and not a wife, have you considered that? Hashtag love wins."

"I don't think love wins if he's dead, though."

"Maybe he dies peacefully in his sleep in the embrace of his loving husband, how about that, asshole? Love fucking wins."

"All right, that's fucking enough," says Bakugou who has had enough. He has written all the suggested causes of death next to the dead santa-stickman A. "The only constant here"—he circles the list—"is the death of Santa Claus. And therefore"—he taps on the bullet points of causes of death—"the rest of variables are free, resulting in various possible macrostates which all have the same chances of happening—ergo, high entropy just as Jirou said."

"Gold star for me," Jirou says. The other classmates are still carefully holding their distance from her.

"Same goes with each of the other Universes.." he draws more circles and names them C, D, E, and so on on the whiteboard. "There are no set parameters and therefore everything has the same chance of happening. Santa could die just about in any way that you could think of, because there are no set restrictions regarding the circumstances in which Santa could die. You're all still fucking with me? Good. Now, what Maxwell suggested is that … what if … there is … a being.."

The class watches as Bakugou draws a new stickman on top of the Universes with two horns and what looks like a pointed tail.

"..A being that.." he finishes his painting. "Arranges the variables surrounding Santa's death and thus creates a set of parameters leading to his death," Bakugou says. "Like, let's say in Universe B, the being—the Demon—alters the variables in the Universe so that Santa becomes a, I don't fucking know—a fucking jaywalker. Like maybe he never got a mom who taught him how to cross the road or whatever."

"That's fucked up, man."

"Poor guy."

"I love my mom."

"Shut up." Bakugou draws Santa Claus' stickman getting obliterated by a truck in the Universe B circle. "So, in Universe C Santa Claus fights a fucking … kaiju, whatever." Bakugou draws Santa Claus' stickman getting obliterated by Godzilla in Universe C. "So on and fucking forth. Still with me?"

"That cross-hatching is really good, dude. It looks real," Kirishima says, with genuine admiration to Bakugou's stickman illustrations. "It doesn't look made up … maybe made up things aren't that made up after all.."

"Shut the fuck up, Kirishima."

"So," Tsuyu says. "The Demons. Aren't they basically creating Fate, then?"

"I don't like this.." Hitoshi says, mostly to himself. He is not liking how things are starting to make sense to him, and probably to him alone. "I seriously don't fucking like where this is going.."

"If they control the circumstances surrounding … basically everything that makes up the Universe," Tsuyu continues. "Aren't these Demons basically gods?"

"Stop right there," Bakugou says. "I'm not gonna fucking touch on the theological part of the whole fucker. What I am gonna touch on is the pseudoscience bastardization of legitimate physics laws and theorems, so listen up," he taps the whiteboard with a marker. "What these Demons are is a problem. They're creating parameters on Things That Happen, which means some Things have higher possibilities of Happening than other Things, which means—"

"The entropy lowers?" Uraraka guesses.

"Fucking exactly," Bakugou says. "But there is a flaw in this: entropy does not lower. It can't. The Demons altering statistical chances and tampering with possibilities like that—that requires energy, and the energy has to come from somewhere. So by doing this, by arranging shit around, there is a price to be paid—"

"So Things could fucking Happen," Hitoshi says. Enlightenment, he finds, feels exactly like terror. "Oh god fucking damn it all. And. Fuck. And in order to do this … to fuck with Happenings like this … the Demon has to Know exactly how—how Things would Happen, right? In every possible way? And if Entropy a way to measure which shit has higher chances of Happening, doesn't that mean Entropy is just—it's just—"

Do you want to Know?

"Entropy is information," Bakugou says. "Entropy is Knowledge. The more you Know—"

"The higher the entropy," Hitoshi cuts in, feeling insane, feeling so sane, feeling like everything suddenly makes so much unbelievable sense. "I fucking hate this so fucking much."

"Hold on a second, hold on a second," Kaminari says. "Isn't entropy lowering a good thing? Doesn't low entropy mean the probability of the Universe ending is gonna be lower?"

Bakugou rolls his eyes, looking pissed by the question. "The Universe ending isn't a 'possibility'. Goddamn, haven't you been fucking listening? The Universe will end. That is the one constant we can be fucking sure about."

"So entropy lowering just means there are fewer ways the Universe could possibly end," Tsuyu says. "It doesn't change the fact that the Universe could end."

"Fucking exactly."

Jirou squints her eyes. "So Santa will always die," she says.

"Fucking exactly."

"Holy shit," Mina says, as the metaphor clicks in his brains. "So Santa Claus is … us?"

The class looks at Bakugou. Bakugou looks at them. "Fucking exactly," he says.

The class groans.

"We've gone fucking over this," Bakugou says, above the chorus of aw, man! "We'll always fucking die eventually. It's just a matter of how."

"Okay, so where does this put Midoriya? The guy is an exorcist, right? He's been killing Demons—"

"Sending them to Hell," Bakugou corrects Hitoshi.

"Yeah, that, whatever. So he's been doing that—he's been … preventing those things from altering the chances of Things to Happen … which, in a way, means that Midoriya himself has been tampering with the Happenings as well, hasn't he?" Hitoshi says sharply. "Doesn't that mean he is also a Demon?"

There is that look on Bakugou's face again—the uncanny discomfort.

"..I don't know," Bakugou says, voice uncharacteristically quiet. "I don't fucking know, all right? I don't know if those things Midoriya's been exorcizing are the manifestations of Maxwell's Demons. Maxwell's Demons is just a theory—an imperfect one at that. We don't know if these beings actually exist. This is just the closest scientific explanation there is to—to—"

Bakugou doesn't finish his sentence, instead looking away with that muddy, anxiously angry look on his face. But Hitoshi knows what he means: this is the explanation of Midoriya that Bakugou could come up with. Hitoshi realizes then that Bakugou is just like him. Bakugou is just trying to make sense of everything, in his own way.

..Because he's known me all his life..

"Was he always like this?" Hitoshi says.

Bakugou looks up at him. It's a vague question, but it seems like Hitoshi doesn't need to elaborate further. "No," Bakugou answers. "He wasn't."

"What happened?" Hitoshi says.

"He fell," Bakugou says.

Hitoshi has heard that before. "Well?" Hitoshi says. "Are you gonna elaborate on that or not?"

Bakugou glares at him.

"You said we needed to talk," Hitoshi says, accusingly. "Or did you just mean this whole impromptu physics lecture—"

"Shut up. Okay, fine," Bakugou says. "Fine. Deku—" he cuts himself off. He takes a deep breath. He begins again, "Deku. He—"

---

"Cut scene," Izuku says.

Nezu stares at him. "Pardon?"

"I wasn't talking to you, Nezu-san. That being said, I shall take my leave now. "I believe the both of us have much to do, hm?" Izuku stands up primly, that polite smile persistent on his face. "The phone call is only the beginning."

"The phone call?" Nezu says.

The phone rings.

"The phone call," Izuku confirms.

A beat passes, and then Nezu picks up the phone. The phone conversation that ensues afterwards is short and succinct. "..Yes. I see." Nezu puts the phone down. He looks up at Izuku. "The League of Villains has made their move on the Paranormal Liberation Front."

Izuku doesn't look surprised. He rarely ever does. "Only the beginning, no?"

"It's much quicker than we predicted. At this point of time, they shouldn't have had the resources needed to, let alone made contact with—"

"This point of time is on Time," Izuku reminds him. Forty-three hours ten minutes and four seconds, ticking to the last of its seconds. "We are only ever as ready as we are. Let us both do our jobs well, shall we?"

"..Yes," Nezu says. He smiles, rueful. "We shall." He hopes so.

The conversation ends. Midoriya Izuku turns to enter the elevator. It opens this time with a mild, obedient ding. He has much to do. Much to do indeed. The elevator goes down in a glide, and the scene fades out. A slow drag. Picture it. That in-between of {p}transition{/p}. The moment before one scene moves to the next. That split second where you understand that {em}oh, we are moving somewhere else{/em}. that feeling you have, thoughtless and empty, the moment you flip the page of a book. that state of complete immersion and a break just split in the middle. you hold the story, the knowledge, right in your head, imprinted before your eyes—yes just like that—before you see what Happens next.

you're back here. good.

so? have you given it a thought?

going back to the beginning is not as … difficult as it sounds. all that stuff about entropy—pshaw. so what. really, what's another possibility on top of all those other possibilities? what is it about the need to quantify, to appraise and evaluate and value every single little thing that makes things Happen? Things Happen. as easy as simple as clear-cut as that. dot to dot. ash to ash. pixel to pixel. one big giant crunch. whimper to bang.

so let's do it. come on. {p}{em}picture it{p}{/p}. the beginning of everything. let's redo it all. It will be painless. it will be priceless. can't you see it already? the big Bang! the first flip of a page. the light, showing its shine for the very first time, pixels hugging each other in a dance, 24-bit color depth a feast in front of your eyes. the Beginning of it all. The very first written text of—

People are not born equal.

that's it. keep going.

That's the hard truth I learned at age four.

yes, just like that. that's it.

"Wow," Midoriya Izuku says. "A giant villain!"

yes! just like that! just like—

"Did you really think it would be that easy?" Midoriya Izuku says.

—…

"Hey," Midoriya Izuku says.

{p}…{/p}

"Hey. I'm talking to you," Midoriya Izuku says. "Don't pretend you can't hear me, now."

{p}{/p}

"Hey."

{p}{/p}

"Hey."

{!DO￮TYPE ht￮l}

{!-main con￮ent-}

{div class="u￮erstuff m￮d￮le" role="article"}

{h3 cl￮ss="landm￮rk heading" id="wo￮k"}Ch￮pter T￮xt{/h3}

{p}"Mi￮oriya I￮uku kn￮els down. ""Hello, there," h￮ s￮ys. The little girl does not an￮we￮. ￮￮￮ i￮ a frail little thing, ￮ale a￮￮ scarred and shaking. She looks at him, and then steps b￮ck—f̴͎̮͈̈́̌̂͠į̸̮̼̥͇̎̒̑́̔n̴̠͎̮͖͊̔̀́g̶͚̼̽͗͐̒e̵͖̫̪͗ͅr̷͉͙̱̹̄͆̾͌ṡ̸̼̮̞͚̿̋ ̴̙͔̪̖̄̃ͅt̷̰͚͍͍̎͗͌̂w̸̫̅͂i̸̧̩̯͉͉͑̋̅s̴̘̲̭̲͐͌̄͝t̷̢̢̳͎̎͑i̶̡̭̭͌̚n̶̻̮̰̓͜g̷̻̯̺̻̓ ̴̘̭̟̲̇͌̉f̷̧̙͋̓͋ứ̵̲̖̙̣́͂̒ͅr̷͉̤̜͕̙̈́t̴̤̜̬͖͒̐h̸͈̀͋̂e̴͇͎͔̘͛̋̆͌r̶̪͖͖͈̀͒ ̶͓̭̉̓̚ͅi̵̲̒̒ń̵̨̙͚ť̸̨̜͈̏̂͝͝ó̶̬̝͍̠̌̕̚͜ ̵̨͉͙̖̳͇͈̳͔́̈́̏̍̅̌́̈́̚͘ͅS̷̺͒̊̐͛̆̈́̀̾̾̌̉̚ḩ̵̖̱̍͜i̵̧͇̲̦̟̰̭̫̫͎̼̝̜̲̰̾̓̇n̵̤͕̝̖̬̘͉͎͙͍̫̑̑́̽͌̿̒́͊͘ͅs̷̝̲̖͙͍̮̗͗́͒̈́́̊́̈́͂̀̀ő̵̢̻̯̰̙̲̼̻̜̰̟̹̒̈́͒͛̄͛̂͆̿̄͜ų̴̜̬̗̬͈̌͒̾̉̏͋̍̈́̕ͅ ̵̛͔̟̪͍̙̽̀͑͒̂̉Ḧ̵̢̖̱̗͖̘̠̹̦̗͎́̍̎͑͊͆̇̿́̈́̑͊̚ͅi̷̖̯̍̇̽́́̈̇͝͝ṭ̴͎̓͐͋̽o̷͓̺̺̙̮̪̤͖̺̮͒̀̅͋́̉͐̂͐̑̈́̚͜͝͠͝s̵̛͖̙͑͒͋̋̓̇̌̀͆̓̿͐͝h̶̝̟͖͓̞̰͇̖͎̼̠͗͑̎̃̓́͒̆͜͠ͅi̸̛̛̜̬̜̇̽͒́̋̄͌̉̄̌͒͘̕'̶̙̘̼̄͌̀̔̂̾̂͝͝͠s̴͉͊̈́̊̿̈́̐̇̈́̿͛̍͊͛͐̉ ̷̛̮̣͔̬̻̾̓̈́̔̉̉̓͛̄͠Ḧ̶̦̥́̅͂̓̇͐̀̚͠e̵̹̟̾̄̋̌͂̓̑̆̽̑͂̕̕r̵̡͍̱͚̺͇̲̼̯̩̮͈͙͔̟̒̇͛̓͗͂̄͊͠͝ǫ̵̡̮̙͍̠͙̻̫͓̦̀̋̑̀̚ ̶̨͈̲̗̯͈̤̭̺̍͆̎̈̈́̆̈́̐̓̃͘͘̚s̵͖̹̦̦̭̼͔͓̋͊u̸̪̥̮͓̦̤̖͋͌̔͌́̽̐͗͑̂̾͂̋͠͠i̸̩̦͈͇͎͂͝t̷̢̨̺̰͕̫͓̑̿́̅͊̈̎̈́͑̓̉̐͜͠.̷͍̦̳̦̞̰͕͉͈̻̟̳̊̌͝ ̵̹̠͚̲̯̲͠Ş̴̛̯̗̳̼̲̻͔̰̖̺͋̌̋̉̄̉̄̎͛͗̐̏͠͝ͅh̵̞̿͋͝e̴͇̗͕̓͐̌͠'̴̢̡̨̧͖̪͖̺̙̠̤̟̓̈́͆͊̉͊̾̀̀͛̉͠ͅs̷̢̡͔̥̦̍́͛͌͐̑̈́̋̔͆̌̎̇͝ ̶̨̛̰̲̖̥͖͈̈́͒̒͂͌͆͗̕ś̶̢̡͔̤̥̓̋͘͜ć̴̛̹͚̟̻̯̣̂́͐̿́̄̈́̋͛́̔̇̚ͅa̴̮̻̯͇̹̩̥̩̻̜̔̒͆̀̍́̾̈̕͝͝r̸̹̙̦̱̫̳̯̬̟͙̙̟̀͂e̴̛̝̪̟̙̝̰͙̞̹̾̽̿͋̓ͅd̷̲̙̥̖͉̦̮̆̉̾̈́̽́ ̴͓̭̦̱̹̦̩̹͇̯͇̹̩̼͗͗̉ͅô̶̢͉͍̘̟̯̱̌͌͂̓̑̓̄̕͜͝ͅf̴̛̼̳̣͎͚͐̾̓͋͋̋́̏̐͆̋͘ ̸̢̡̲̝̬̩͛͋̎́̔͐͘ͅḩ̷͙̭̹̘̿į̸̡̞̥̳̥̬̠̥̯̗̭͙̺̟̅̍̆m̵͍̻͗̋̀̂̾͋̎̈́̐́͛.̴̱̎̅̿̊̓̈́͊̽ lorem ipsum dolor sit amet ,̶ ̷c̵o̸n̴s̵e̵c̷t̷e̸t̴u̷r̷ ̴a̷d̸i̷p̸i̸s̴c̸i̶n̴g̴ ̸e̵l̸i̸t̴,̴ ̵s̸e̵d̷ ̸d̷o̸ ̵e̴i̴u̵s̷m̴o̶d̷ ̶t̷e̴m̶p̵o̸r̸ ̸i̸n̷c̷i̶d̶i̴d̸u̴n̶t̸ ̴u̶t̵ ̵l̶a̴b̷o̵r̶e̸ ̸e̷t̴ ̸d̴o̸l̸o̸r̵e̸ ̶m̷a̴g̵n̵a̶ ̵a̵l̴i̴q̵u̸a̸.̶ ̸Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat .D̷u̵i̶s̵ ̸a̶u̷t̸e̶ ̴i̶r̶u̸r̶e̶ ̷d̶o̴l̵o̵{/p}

{p}D̵̺͊͝o̶̲̔l̷̢̛o̷̒͒͜{/p}

{p}Ơ̶̹͉̿{/p}

{p}Õ̴̪h̴̝̏{/p}

{p}O̶̡͆h̵̲̐͂ ̷̨͕̰̜͑̅́͆n̵̡͙̖̊͠o̵͎̐{/p}

{p}Ȍ̸̖h̵̭͠ ̸̜̔n̴̮̍o̸̻͊ ̵̖̅y̸̦͘o̶̝̾ü̷̫{/p}

{p}Õ̴̪h̴̝̏ò̸͙ ̴̫̀y̴̬̽o̵͕͠ṳ̸̎ don't," Midoriya Izuku says. He laughs. {/p}

{p}"Did you really think you're the only one that can do this?

Come {em}on,{/em} Demon.

You {em}really{/em} think you can redo this arc and

get away with it? Gosh.

What do you take me for."{/p}

{{p̵}}mi̵d̶o̷r̴i̵y̸a̴ iz￮ku kn￮￮ls dow{{/̵p̴}}

"Stop doing that."

{{p̵}}mi̵d̶o̷r̴i̵y̸a̴ izu￮￮ ￮￮￮{{/̵p̴}}

"Don't try to act cute," Izuku says.

"You think I don't know what you've been doing?

What makes you think you can just use my name like that, hm?"

{p}￮'￮ ￮￮￮￮￮.{/p}

"Like hell you are," Izuku says. "Damn. Look at this place. Must say, I'm impressed. This is the farthest any of you have ever gone before I caught you. What did you say—'all that stuff about entropy'? So arrogant," Izuku clicks his tongue disapprovingly. "If it weren't for all that stuff about entropy, you wouldn't have gotten this far, capisce?"

{p}...￮ ￮￮￮ ￮￮￮￮ ￮￮￮￮￮￮ ￮￮—{/p}

"Yeah, yeah, I know what you were trying to do. You thought you were helping. Very cute. I think it's even sweet," Izuku says, a near coo. "But you're just fucking things up, y'know?"

{p}￮￮￮￮?{/p}

"You had it right. We have to go to the beginning. But you have to be on Time. You have to have momentum, or it'll be … well, boring."

{p}￮￮￮—{/p}

"Momentum, momentum! Equals mass multiplied by velocity. The Time is too short. And there isn't enough mass to go around, right now," Izuku says. "Because you don't matter."

{p}￮ ￮￮￮'￮ ￮￮￮ ￮￮—{/p}

"See. You don't get it. You can't. You said it was priceless," Izuku laughs. "That is so funny. But something like you could never understand why some things need to be paid, even when they don't have to be. You can't. Which is why. You need to leave."

￮ ￮￮￮￮ ￮￮￮. ￮ ￮￮￮￮ ￮￮￮. ￮ ￮￮￮￮ ￮￮￮ ￮￮ ￮￮￮￮. ￮￮￮￮ ￮￮￮'￮ ￮￮￮￮.

Laughter again. "Of course it isn't fair, silly! Nothing is. That's what makes it fair. Now. Do you need me to spell it out for you?"

{p}￮￮￮￮￮￮, ￮￮￮￮￮￮, ￮￮￮￮￮￮—{/p}

"Fine, since you're being so difficult."

{p}￮￮￮￮￮￮—{/p}

"demon," Midoriya Izuku says. "I compel you to fuck off."

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{title}Walking Study in Demonology Chapter 7, a my hero academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア fanfic | FanFiction{/title}

{div class="userstuff module" role="article"}

{h3 class="landmark heading" id="work"}Chapter Text{/h3}

{p}Midoriya Izuku kneels down.{/p}

{p}"Hello, there," he says.{/p}

{p}The little girl does not answer. She is a frail little thing, pale and scarred and shaking. She looks at him, and then steps back—fingers twisting further into Shinsou Hitoshi's Hero suit. She's scared of him.{/p}

{p}Izuku nearly laughs at that. So wise already at such a young age. {/p}

{p}Shinsou Hitoshi looks down at the tug. He looks at Izuku. And then his gaze moves once more to the little girl holding on to his clothes. Hitoshis hand, the one that isn't holding a phone to his ear, finds its way to the top of the girl's hair in a gentle, assuring gesture. It's a protective gesture—one that he is making against Izuku, as if Izuku is going to snatch her away like some demonic kidnapper at any moment.{/p}

{p}"She doesn't like you," Shinsou Hitoshi says flatly to Izuku. And then to his phone, "Hello, Nighteye agency? Shinsou Hitoshi speaking. I'm one of your UA interns—yeah, that's right. So, anyway," Hitoshi looks down clinically at the crumpled body of the Villain on the ground and kicks said body with a foot. The body does not move. "I got Chisaki Kai right here, so if you guys could just come here and pick him u—hello? Hello? Yeah, I—no, really. Seriously. Yeah, so you can just come pick him up and throw him to jail and stuff. For real. Yep. Yep. Nah. Yep. Yep. Nah. Yep. Yep."{/p}

{p}Izuku watches, quietly fascinated, as Shinsou Hitoshi reports their whereabouts and preceding situation to the Hero agency. He does it so easily, so readily, so casually. So easily. So..{/p}

{p}So easily as he ends the whole world as they know it.{/p}

{p}Oh well.{/p}

Oh well, Izuku thinks.

Now. Isn't that much better?

Yes, Izuku decides. This is much better.

Really. What thankless work he is doing. Now, where was he? Ah.

Midoriya Izuku turns to enter the elevator.

It opens this time with a mild, obedient ding. He has much to do. There are Things to Happen. Well, then.

Midoriya Izuku walks out of UA and enters another train station. Where should he go first? Jaku City? Gunga Mountain Villa? Nezu will take care of that one, he would think. But perhaps it's okay to stop by. Just to say hi. Or perhaps … oh.

Oh.

Yes. This would make more sense, doesn't it?

If he's going to play Hero, this is the quickest way to do it.

Izuku walks out of the train station, and puts his phone to his ear. "Hello, Nezu-san. Yes, everything is fine. I was just wondering if you could call me an uber," he says. "My Nokia can't install apps, you see."

---

"..So," Hitoshi says. "What now?"

"Now," Bakugou says, "We wait for shit to Happen."

"And shit's gonna Happen." Because that's just life, apparently. Shit's gonna Happen, so you just wait for shit to Happen. "And then what?"

"Heat death, probably," Bakugou says, sounding both sullen and matter-of-factly. "Not enough energy out there to go around sustaining all the Shits That's Gonna Happen. We go bang a big one—"

"All right, slow down, slow down, no need to jump immediately to the goddamn apocalypse and fucking second coming of whatever deity is out there, okay?" Hitoshi says, sounding both sullen and pissed. "So us being overdue means that—"

"We are overflowing with entropy," Bakugou says. "Anything can happen. To a fucking insane degree."

"Hypothetically speaking, right?" Hitoshi says, and he sounds unsure even to himself.

"Sure," Bakugou says sullenly. "Hypothetically speaking. Every microstate that has the slightest chance of Happening could Happen. Shit like that."

"Shit like that," Hitoshi echoes. This is too much, man, he thinks. Seriously fucking too much.

"Oooh, maybe it's zombies," Mina says. "I love a zombie apocalypse."

"I vote alien invasion."

"I hope it's Godzilla. That'd be sick."

"The slightest chance of happening, huh.."

"Maybe Hunter x Hunter will update."

"Just give up on that, man. Seriously."

"It's probably the League of Villains," Tsuyu says, and everyone stares at her. She stares back, undeterred. "What? It's probably All for One. Everybody knows that."

"..Zombie apocalypse would be more fun," Mina says mournfully, breaking the silence.

"Wait a fucking minute," Jirou says. "I fucking figured it out." She stands up and takes the marker from Bakugou's hand. She taps on the white board. "So we are Santa Claus," she points at the various drawings of dead Santa on the board. "And basically things are out to get us, right? And Tsuyu is right. Tsuyu is right.." she paces in front of the board. "Sure, anything can happen. Anything can be out to kill us. But if there is one thing that we know, one group of people we've pissed off that would love to get rid of us.."

"All for One is the Godzilla," says Kaminari in some kind of revelation. "He's Santa Claus killer, bro."

"Exactly. So. So if we get rid of the League of Villains," Jirou says, in a flash of genius, "then they can't get rid of us."

The room digests this. And then there are sounds of agreement around the room. "Get them before they get us, right? Sun Tzu, Art of War."

"What the fuck," says Hitoshi, because he doesn't know what else to say. He laughs. "You guys can't be serious … first of all, it's fucking LoV. Second of all, even if you get rid of LoV, it doesn't mean—"

"That the Universe won't end, yeah, yeah, sure," Jirou waves a hand. "But doesn't that mean there is one less probability of the way the Universe could end?"

Hitoshi finds that he has no arguments to counter that. "This is crazy," he says.

"This is 1-A," Tsuyu replies.

"All right. What if us—sorry, what if you charging head-on to LoV—however the hell you're gonna do that—is the exact thing that's gonna trigger the end of the world? Isn't that how this shit usually goes? We are the ruin of our making or some shit? Have you thought about that? What if—"

"The Universe is going to end anyway," says Todoroki flatly.

"What he said," Jirou says. "And don't you just hate those LoV pricks?"

"They're so annoying," Mina says.

"They are indeed disrupting our precious school year," Iida says.

"Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas," Aoyama says.

"They aren't even that cool," Kaminari agrees.

"They're, like, so problematic," Toru says. "Like, it's literally child endangerment. We're minors, y'know."

"Like at least if you're gonna be a Villain you gotta look cool," Kaminari says.

"So true," Kirishima says. "I bet that Shigaraki guy doesn't even have abs."

Hitoshi stares at his class rather helplessly. "See that, Shinsou," Jirou says. "Everyone's down to kick LoV's ass. 1-A unanimous vote. Operation Kick LoV's Ass. Can I get a hell yeah?"

"Hell yeah!"

"This is nuts," Hitoshi says. "This is bonkers."

"Oh, come on," Jirou rolls her eyes. "We basically beat the LoV, like, twice already. We can probably do it for the third time," she raises a brow at him. "Or for the first time, in your case."

"And if they murder us all?" Hitoshi says flatly.

She shrugs. "Might as well go out in a bang," Jirou says.

Hitoshi looks at Bakugou helplessly. "This is crazy," Hitoshi says, so desperate that he's at the level where he looks to Bakugou fucking Katsuki for mental support. "This is crazy, right?"

Bakugou is in the middle of wearing his Hero gloves. He's already half-suited in his gears, complete with the mask. "What's crazy?" Bakugou says.

What the fuck. Hitoshi is at a complete loss for words, which is sad, because talking is kind of his thing. He sputters. "You too? Are you fucking—what the hell is—after all that—you are—I thought you would—"

"What?"

"But—that's—you said it was impossible!"

"Unfucking the Universe is impossible," Bakugou says, wearing his boots. "Unending the Universe is impossible. But kickin' LoV's ass? Easy-fuckin'-peasy."

"They kidnapped you, though," Tsuyu points out.

"Shut up."

"You know what, whatever," Hitoshi says. That's just his life now. One whatever after another. He's Fucking Done. "Whatever. Go nuts. It's not like you'll find the fucking League of Villains popping out from some tree, is it? It isn't like the League of Villains is livetweeting their fucking location. It's not like you can find the whereabouts of the most wanted Villains in Japan—"

Hitoshi's phone dings.

Due to recent … let's say, due to the past few months he's been acquainted with Midoriya fucking Izuku, Hitoshi has been quite paranoid about phone notifications. He is all but ready to stomp his phone to the ground the moment it even peeps a note of guitar riff. But it's just a normal chat notification. And not just his phone—every single phone in the room is lighting up with notifications popping here and there.

"I don't know about that, Shinsou," Jirou says, grinning madly as she stares at her phone. She looks like a maniac. Every single kid in 1-A does, now, to Hitoshi's eyes. "It looks like the League of Villains is currently wreaking havoc in a certain city right around Musutafu.."

"And it looks like it's our job as a student of UA with an official Hero license," Uraraka says, reading her screen, "to do whatever we can in stopping them."

Hitoshi looks at his phone. News notifications popping out all over his window. Aizawa-sensei has contacted all of them for an emergency meeting. Hitoshi couldn't believe his eyes. Hitoshi couldn't believe in fucking anything at all, actually. Like, what are the chances, that this would be happening now? What are the chances that—

Chances. Of course. Fuck.

"..All Might's nuts on a fucking stick," Hitoshi says. Everything has become so fucked that it's become clearer than ever. "I really am fucking Cursed."

There is no other way to explain the string of bad luck that has followed him up to this point. Shinsou Hitoshi is Cursed. Shinsou Hitoshi is fucked by the Universe big time. Like, for real. He thought he was just having an existential crisis, but this whole time, his entire existence is literally in crisis.

This fucking sucks.

"Come on, Shinsou," Kaminari slings an unwelcome arm around Hitoshi's shoulder. "It's gonna be fun! You never fought the League before, right?"

"Sure," Hitoshi says. "Whatever."

He needs to get his suits. And then he along with a bunch of borderline suicidal kids are gonna fight a bunch of national terrorists and maybe the Universe won't end right away, or something. Whatever. Who even knows anymore.

"Yeah, dude," Kirishima pats Hitoshi on the back. "It's basically 1-A tradition to fight the LoV. Now you're really one of us. Bros for life, eh?"

If they can stay alive, sure. "Why the fuck not," Hitoshi says. "All right. Let's go."

"You heard the guy!" Kaminari says, raising one fist to the air like All Might. "Nutting matters!"

The class whoops and hollers.

"Yeah! Nutting matters!"

"Nutting matters!"

"Nutting matters!"

"Nutting matters!"

Nutting matters, Koji signs.

"We are all gonna fucking die," Hitoshi says flatly.

---

Todoroki Natsuo has been having a rather okay day. He's a med student studying for the second semester's finals who is part-timing as an uber driver on top of it all, so you can imagine how okay his day is. What he doesn't know is that this might be the weirdest day of his life yet.

"Hello," says the new passenger entering his run-down Toyota.

"Hi," Natsuo says. He glances at his phone. "You're … uhh … Principal Nezu..?"

"Not really," says the kid amicably. "But why not?"

Well, okay. He glances at his phone again. "Your destination is.." he squints. "To Tartarus Special Prison For Villain Criminals?"

"Yes please," the kid smiles.

Huh. Well. None of Natsuo's business, he supposes. "Okay," he starts the car. "Sorry about the air-con, it's not really working, neither is the radi—"

The radio turns on. A guitar riff strikes the air. Livin' easy, lovin' free, season ticket on a one way ride!

"Huh," Natsuo says. That's weird. He has never gotten that thing to work since practically forever. Don't need reason, don't need rhyme, ain't nothin' that I'd rather do..

"Sorry about the radio," says the kid for some inexplicable reason.

"It's fine," Natsuo says, even though he has no idea what the kid's got to be sorry for. I'm on the highway to hell! On the highway to hell! Well, Natsuo sure hopes not. "Talk about bad luck," Natsuo jokes.

"Sure," the kid smiles. He looks young. Around Shouto's age, maybe even younger. "What about it?"