Watching through all of Plastic Memories got all me all kinds of fucked up. I went in there fully expecting how the show would end, but shit, I didn't think it'd be that depressing. Lowkey makes me wanna get started on another fic that's been in my mental backlog.

Anyway, here's a timeskip.


V. My Revelation, Part I

Two Months Later...

Uraraka Ochako was weirdly ignoring him.

Which was something Subaru wouldn't have bat an eye at, considering that the two of them didn't really talk to each other, outside of helping each other with small things in class or being assigned together for cleanup. Everyone simply had their own social circles at school, and Subaru had bigger and better things to worry about —if they just didn't get along, then it was perfectly fine by him.

Except it was entirely out-of-character with what Subaru had seen of her so far. From what he knew about her personality, she was friendly with everyone she talked to, and never once badmouthed them, even sometimes going so far as to inconvenience herself if classmates needed help.

For almost all of today, it looked like she was doing absolutely everything possible not to be in the same space as him, and when he asked if she could help the class president for a second while he took care of something, she was almost suspiciously shy with her answer.

And then there was also the fact that he found a pink envelope in his locker this morning, with an unsigned message asking to meet with him after school because the sender wanted to ask him something.

Yeah. It didn't exactly take a lot to figure out what was going on.

So now here he was once again after school, on his way to break yet another girl's heart after yet another love confession.

"Here we go again," Subaru murmured to himself, walking around the corner of the school building to see the Uraraka's familiar brown bob of hair, with her back faced to him.

"Uraraka-san," he called out, making his way over to her.

He watched as she visibly jolted, before she immediately turned around. "Oh, s-sorry...you kinda scared me, Midoriya-kun."

"Ah. Sorry about that."

A silence passed between them after that. Subaru honestly wanted to get this over with, but it would've been extremely rude to Uraraka, when she went out of her way to ask him to meet with her, so the least he could do was hear out her confession and then let her down gently.

"Um...I..." she began, and he noticed how her grip on her bookbag seemed to tighten. "I was...wondering if..."

Subaru nodded slowly to prompt her to continue, and when she didn't, he realized that the silence was quickly becoming a bit too awkward. If Uraraka wasn't able to get her words out, then she'd either clam up and probably run away, or they'd end up standing here for a while.

At least it wasn't too late for him to take the lead, then. Better to just do that instead of letting her embarrass herself.

Subaru cleared his throat to get her attention. "Look, I'm flattered and all, but—"

"A-are you going to be taking the U.A. entrance exam?"

He blinked. "Uh...yes. Yes I am. Why?"

"Then—" Uraraka took a deep breath. "—could you please help me study for it?!"

Subaru blinked. Those weren't the words he was expecting. "Wait, so you left a letter in my locker and asked me to meet you here after school," he said slowly. "All just so you could ask me to help you study?"

Uraraka nodded. "I was—I was thinking, since you're the top student, and all," she continued. "You're probably already studying for it, and that it maybe wouldn't be hard for you if you could help me." Then, she started waving her hands in front of herself. "But it's fine if you're too busy! I'd be imposing on you, so I understand if you can't."

...Well, then.

Subaru felt the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, and before he knew it, he burst into laughter at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

"Um...did I say something funny...?"

It took another ten seconds before he regained his composure. "No, no, sorry," he said, straightening himself before he cleared his throat again. "It's just—I seriously thought this was gonna be a confession."

"E-Eh?" Uraraka took a step back, her cheeks reddening. "Did it really look like that...?"

"Kinda...?" Subaru awkwardly chuckled. "I was getting ready to turn you down and everything."

"Oh..."

"Yeah..."

"Well...if it helps...?" Uraraka asked tentatively, after more silence had passed. "I don't think of you like that."

"It does, yeah," Subaru replied, giving her a slight smile. "So—you wanna study at your place or mine?"

"Um, yours, if it's okay with you...?"

Subaru nodded. "Sure, that's fine," he replied, pulling out his phone. "Why don't I add you on LINE, and then I'll get back to you on a day that works for both of us?"

"That works for me."

With that, the two of them added each other on the messaging app, and before long, Uraraka told him she had to leave. "Thank you so much! I'll see you tomorrow, Midoriya-kun!"

Subaru gave her retreating form a slow wave as he thought what just happened. He could just text her later, but he forgot to ask which U.A. course she was aiming for. He remembered reading on some forum a year ago about a good chunk of the General Studies course being made up of students who ended up failing the hero course exam, so if she really was aiming for the hero course like most people, he'd have to see if he could help with improving her Quirk.

So would All Might be okay with helping him with helping Uraraka and Katsuki with their Quirks for the three months they had left until February, as long as One for All wasn't talked about?

"I didn't think you had it in you, 'Zuku!"

"Huh?" Suddenly brought out of his thoughts, Subaru turned around to see who the new voice belonged to, before he was swept up in a choke-hold by Katsuki, who was now grinding his knuckles on Subaru's scalp.

"Oi, put me down, Katsuki!"

"After all this time, you finally became a man!"

"It's not what you think!" Subaru yelled, trying in vain to break free of the other boy's grip. "Let me go!"


"If you don't mind me asking, Midoriya-kun—why don't you have a girlfriend?"

Ah.

After introducing Uraraka to Inko and having to deal with the expected reaction of 'did my baby Izu finally get a girlfriend?!', Subaru and Uraraka were currently in his room trying to get their homework done as soon as possible (with Inko periodically checking to see if that's all they were doing) before he could actually tutor her on what to study on, where she ended up blurting out her question during the silence.

He had half a mind to just deflect it, but to be honest?, It was about time someone asked. You'd think that this was the kind of thing a classmate would've brought up to him a while a go, but it turned out no one else outside of Katsuki and Inko ever thought of actually going up to him about and ask what was up with all the rejections, so it never went beyond coming up with all kinds of rumors his back almost the entire time he was at the school.

(And what exactly did everyone see in him that Katsuki didn't have? The guy was way more attractive than he was, but he barely ever got any of the kokuhaku. It just wasn't fair.)

But still—what exactly could he tell Uraraka? Would she really believe that the number one and two spots in his heart were and still taken? That he couldn't find it in him to love another girl outside of the ones he still did?

(That the pain of being ripped away from them before anything truly special could happen still echoed within his very soul?)

"That's just because dating's something I'm not sure I want right now," Subaru said instead, scratching the back of his head. That was the truth, at least. That usually made people think he was either too busy

Obviously, he entertained the thought after the third rejection, but he just couldn't romantically view anyone like a 'normal' teenager could beyond a base level of sexual attraction.

He was still only in middle school. Even if he basically grew up all over again and couldn't think of himself as an old man among children anymore, he was still put-off by the difference in emotional maturity modern teenagers still in the middle of puberty had compared to the young adult he had been.

(He was not about to pull a Rudeus Greyrat, thank you very much. He never threw away his morals and start taking advantage of them, and he wasn't about to start now, lack of social consequences be damned.)

"...thanks for telling me," Uraraka replied.

"No problem," Subaru replied. "But we really should be trying to finish this as early as we can."

"Oh! Right..."


Five Months Later...

"Eat this!"

Is...is he serious...?

True to All Might's word, Subaru had managed to clean the beach with a whole lot of time left to spare, but right now they were about to add whether or not he also managed to build up his body. While the man gave the okay to invite Katsuki and Uraraka to his training (the former didn't really need it, but Subaru didn't want his friend to be left out), they were only allowed to help with carrying any of the garbage in exchange for Subaru doing a more intense workout that day.

"Well?" buff All Might prompted. "Don't be shy, now. You worked hard for this, my boy."

Subaru blinked.

...oh, wow, he really is.

"Wait, so all I have to do is eat that—" Subaru pointed to the strand of hair All Might was holding. "—and I get One for All? That's it?"

All Might never-ending grin somehow grew from that. "Well, I could just give you some spit or blood, maybe a nail or two..."

"Okay, okay, I get it." Gingerly taking the hair, Subaru tried not to wrinkle his nose as he stared at it for several moments.

So the Quirk really was passed on through DNA like the man told him, huh? But wouldn't that mean the owner could pass it on any way they wanted as long as the recipient got their DNA? That would mean it could also be passed on by...

Subaru grimaced as the obligatory intrusive thought came to him.

Good job, hormonal teenage brain. You never fail to disappoint.

He shook his head to force that thought down. Like he was gonna something like that ruin his day. He was literally about to get what, probably the most OP Quirk to ever exist? Like, come on.

"Quick question—how long does it take until I can actually use the Quirk?"

"It should be no more than a few hours, give or take," All Might replied. "But since our bodies can't digest hair, you'll actually just digest the other stuff with it, like the oils and such."

"...right..." Subaru said, looking back at the hair in his hands dubiously.

He couldn't have just given him something with his spit and just not tell him?

...Actually, you know what?

Subaru handed back the hair with a deep bow. "I'd rather just drink something with with your spit, if you don't mind."

All Might boomed out a laugh. "I had a feeling you'd actually go for that. All right, then—" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a half-drunken bottle of water and handed it over to Subaru. "—it should take only a few minutes if you want to do it this way."

Subaru took the bottle with a muted 'thank you' and twisted open the cap, taking a moment to take a look at the clear liquid, absentmindedly swirling it. After a brief second of mentally preparing himself and a bottoms up, I guess, he downed what was left of the bottle and handed it to All Might.

Now, he just needed to wait until something happened.

With nothing to do for the next few minutes, Subaru sat down and pulled out his phone to pass the time, and briefly wondered what Uraraka was up to. They were actually due for another study session tonight since it was Sunday, but he might have to cancel and let her know if everything went well today. She was actually progressing along really well in their tutoring (according to the leaked exam questions he found a while back), so they could probably afford a break today.

Hopefully, she'd be able to get into the hero course with him and Katsuki. He found himself growing closer with her the past few months since All Might started helping her out, and he'd be lying if he didn't at least consider her a friend, by this point. It would really suck if she didn't get in.

Several more minutes passed in silence, with Subaru just idly browsing the internet, looking for any news that caught his eye.

(It turned out that the light novel series he was currently reading was getting an anime adaptation. Well, it's about damn time, he snorted. It had been what, fifteen years since it first came out, and it was getting an anime only now? That was a bit weird, but unfortunately, it wasn't a completely uncommon thing. Subaru remembered way more than few manga and light novels that never once got a good anime, even when the source material were highly—)

Wait.

Subaru checked the time on his phone. Was it supposed to take this long when it came to digesting liquids? A quick Google search showed that no, it didn't—in fact, it took as little as five minutes. So did he need to eat the hair, after all?

"All Might," he said, moving to stand up. But at the very moment he moved, however, he was overcome with a sense of a strange something filling his entire being, from his stomach, to the very tips of his hands and feet.

Oh. There it was.

Almost immediately, Subaru's felt a growing dizziness in his head, and before he knew it, his awareness finally left him, as he collapsed on the stone pavement in front of Takoba Beach.

"Midoriya-shōnen? Midoriya-shōnen!"


It was quiet. Almost eerily so.

A moment of shifting around led to the realization that the bed he was lying in felt different—rougher—than the ones he had grown used to. And the faint sound of chirping coming from outside only served to add to his growing wariness. Soon, he was made aware of the unmistakable sensation of light being blocked by his eyelids, meaning that his eyes were still closed.

Why were his eyes still closed?

If he didn't want to keep his eyes closed, then the logical solution was to open them, so open them he did. He mildly regretted this decision, however, because it was actually a bit too bright in the room, so he had to close them and wait several more moments, before opening them again.

What followed was a combination of shock, fear, and surprise.

What...where...?

He looked around.

This bed he was in. These covers.

He looked to his left.

That desk. Those mismatched sheets of paper scattered on top of it. Those characters...

This was his room from when he used to be a butler in Roswaal's manor. There was just no other explanation.

He threw open the blanket covering him, and did a double take when he saw what he was wearing. The clothes he was wearing before he woke up in this place were a red shirt and a green tracksuit, but the what he was wearing right now with now weren't said colors, but black, white, and orange—the tracksuit he was wearing when he was first summoned and what he had several copies made of.

So if he was wearing these clothes, then that meant...

He rushed to the vacant window to his left. The moment he reached it, he pressed his face against it, met with the sight of neatly-trimmed shrubbery, and just beyond it, a stone pavement that (if memory served correctly) wrapped around the whole building. But if he ignored that and focused, he was able to see his reflection.

A reflection that displayed jet-black hair and eyes that were once notorious for making him seem intimidating to strangers.

"I'm back..." Subaru whispered.

He was back. Back in the body of Natsuki Subaru. Back in the world that the kingdom of Lugunica was part of. Back with everyone he thought was lost to him forever. He wanted—no, needed to see them. See everyone. Right now.

So Subaru ran.

He ran out of the room and ran towards the dining room with as much stamina as his legs could carry him with. Once upon a time, he would have stopped and taken a moment to search for and open the door to a certain library and a greet a certain someone good morning, but that could wait, couldn't it? Surely he'd be forgiven.

So he kept running, until he finally arrived to where he wanted to go: a large room with a familiarly long dining table covered in a white table cover. And seated at said table, was a figure nonchalantly sipping something from a teacup. A figure who was dressed in all too familiar black-and-white clothing. A figure whose all too familar blue hair covered much of her upper face to the point where only her left eye was visible.

One of the two people his heart ached and ached to be able to see again. The one whose feelings he almost rejected all those years ago before conceding to make her his second wife. The one whose name was forgotten by the whole world and left to suffer in a never-ending slumber.

"Rem..." Subaru murmured, taking a single step forward, before he broke into a sprint.

"REM!"

Rem looked up from where she was sipping her drink, and looked over at him with a surprised look on her face. When he finally closed the distance, he heard her let out a squeak of surprise as he swept her up in a hug.

"Rem..." Subaru said. "I missed you. I missed you so much. I thought I was in hell, but it was just a dream, and you're here."

Oh, how he missed this feeling! The light delicateness of her body against his, the warmth of her skin as he buried his face in her neck, the smell of a woman he loved who had just taken a bath...

"I love you, Rem. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before. I want to be with you and Emilia. What do you say we get married, all three of us at the same time? I don't wanna leave either of you ever again."

"Um..."

Ah, but he couldn't let himself get carried away, now, could he? He still had to look for Emilia-tan and see what she thought, after all. Say, where was she, by the way? Going by the sunlight and the birds chirping away, then it was obviously around the morning time, so she'd most likely be in the garden out back going the calisthenics routine he taught her—hell, Garfiel was probably doing it with her.

Come to think of it, he'd need to find Ram and Beako, as well. Those two were dear to him, after all, but Beako was more of a little sister or even a daughter, than anything. Even Roswaal, old bastard he was, was someone whose antics and mannerisms were something he often found himself sorely reminiscing about.

"I'm...I'm not who you think I am."

"Hm?" Subaru pulled back at her words, and once his mind fully processed the statement, he was overcome with confusion. "What do you mean, Rem?"

"I'm sorry," Rem said, before she forcefully broke out of Subaru's hold. Not long after, her entire form shifted and flickered (since when did she learn that kind of magic?), before changing to the body of a taller, athletic woman with black hair, and who was now wearing a black leotard, red-and-gold belt, yellow gloves, and a white cape.

"My name is Shimura Nana. I'm the seventh user of One for All."


Trying to plan out a naturally-developing romance is hard asf, let me tell you.

.

Entrance exam soon? Probably. At least I hope so.

By the way, I'm looking for someone who can beta read future chapters for me and who I can also bounce ideas and story spoilers to, if anyone's interested.