Chapter Text
Eri was clutching Izuku’s leg when the knock came. It resounded through the pseudo-apartment, and Aizawa frowned from where he was sitting on the couch. “I’ve got it,” he mumbled, standing up and setting Eri in his arms.
He sidled up to the door, trying to balance a six-year-old as he pulled it open.
“Hey, Todoroki--”
Eri screamed .
Aizawa was up and over in the blink of an eye, his own eyes wide with surprise. “Izuku, what’s wrong? What happened?”
Todoroki was staring at Izuku, and he took a few steps back, holding Eri close to his chest. The teen held a spike of ice in his hand, and his eyes were empty. He sneered.
“Hand over the brat and nobody has to die.”
What ?! Shock set every nerve on fire. Mind control? Todoroki never acted like this-- he was cold and distant, but he was Izuku’s classmate ! “What are you--”
Izuku grunted in pain as the ice spike stabbed into his side, pulled away just as quickly. “Shut up and give her to me.”
“Izuku, get out of here!” Aizawa shoved him harshly aside, kicking Todoroki solidly in the chest and slamming the door, locking it as quickly as possible. “Get Eri out!”
“I--”
Ice, cold and sparkling, splintered the door apart.
As Izuku broke the window, he saw far below a dark portal swirling open, people filing out of it one by one.
On the fire escape, he ran , Aizawa right behind him and swearing to the high heavens. Neither of them knew where Yamada was, the class was beginning to trickle out and panic, the teachers were in disarray.
A man with golden eyes and a plague mask stood before it all as Aizawa Izuku set Eri down behind him.
His wound bled steadily, but he shifted, reaching for weapons that were not there. Distantly, he heard screaming as students clashed with villains and Noumu flew from the portal to battle heroes.
Chisaki Kai stared at Izuku with a murderous glee in his eyes. “You are powerful… you have so much potential.”
“Yeah?” He wheezed, trying to hide Eri behind his legs.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Come with me, little Deku. We can save the world together.” With a flick of his hand, a villain beside him nodded, and a pillar of earth slammed into Izuku’s side, sending him reeling.
His lungs burned with the strain of holding himself up, but again, Izuku placed himself between Chisaki and Eri.
“Don’t you understand ?” The yakuza cried. “You are the cure! The hope for humanity!”
The world swam in and out of focus as the yakuza walked closer and closer, his gloves nowhere to be seen. Izuku staggered, dizzy, but held his ground. “Go fucking fuck yourself, you crazy bird bitch.”
His world went white, and he couldn’t even scream as his body was ripped apart, limbs separated and stitched together over and over again.
“You could save the world, Deku!”
Izuku curled his lip in return. Iron was the biting flavor on his tongue, the suffocating scent in his nose. It dripped red and deadly from his razed skin. But with every drop he lost, his head cleared a bit more. His eyes focused. The world became that much more firmly in his grasp.
Crimson is such a beautiful, terrifying, familiar color. It decorated Izuku’s body more often than he cared to admit.
The schoolground was a war zone. Students and teachers alike fought both villains and Noumu. The villains raged against the attacks thrown at them, fighting tooth and nail.
General Education and Management students had barricaded the buildings, using their quirks and improvised weapons to stave off the encroaching villains. Support students darted in and out of the fray, explosions following closely behind as they took out dozens of the attackers. Heroics students and teachers fought on the front lines, trying to turn the tides of an uphill battle.
Izuku had one duty in this war.
Protect Eri .
The standoff was widely avoided by all others: the Yuuei staff and students kept them back to prevent Eri from being snatched, but it left Izuku wide open.
Metal brushed his leg, and he reached down, stroking the robotic cat as her form twisted and shifted into a crossbow.
With shaking hands, Izuku raised Siri to eye level.
“What are you going to do?” Chisaki’s golden eyes danced with a terrible glee. “ Kill me? Like Shigaraki? Like Muscular?”
“No.”
He pulled the trigger, and a blur of yellow rocketed from the crossbow, burying deep into Chisaki’s sternum.
Chisaki blinked. Then, he laughed. “You think that will stop me?!”
Chisaki began to lumber forward, his eyes bright with madness—
— before he seized.
His entire body locked up, spasming and twitching, and he cried out in agony.
Around him, spires of earth shot from the ground, and Izuku barely dodged one that cut deep below his right eye and almost took it out.
“Nyx! Nyx!”
Eri was stumbling towards him, her silver-white hair drenched in blood.
Izuku’s eyes widened as he saw the dirt explode next to her. The world almost seemed to slow, the spike of rock and soil shooting towards the girl.
His body moved before his mind did, and he blinked.
Eri was shoved ungracefully to the ground, and Izuku found himself in her place. Fresh blood was sprayed across Eri’s face and clothes, her ruby-red eyes wide with horror.
From his chest sprouted stone painted red. It was a beautifully twisted sight, really— it lifted him in the air in a crude imitation of floating, dark red boots hovering inches above the grass. His emerald eyes wide and glassy, his mouth open midway through a scream and expression warped in desperation.
His arms, which had shoved Eri out of harm’s way, fell to his sides limply.
A single tear traced its way down his face.
The battlefield had gone silent, shock registering among all. Noumu stopped in their tracks as they were called off. Students stared in abject terror. Yakuza crowded around their seizing leader, disappearing through a warp gate.
And as the battlefield cleared, only a few people stood at the center of it all.
One girl with bubblegum-pink hair, her face devoid of any emotion but shock. Her arm was extended, as if to touch the arm of her friend, but another girl with black-and-yellow eyes held her back, tears streaking her face.
Two men, both realizing the mistakes they've made in reference to the boy.
One boy with wild hair, fighting and clawing at the arms of a girl with a spiky ponytail, screams and pleas falling from his lips as he thrashed. A second boy, with a bird’s head, hiding the face of the bloodstained child in his shirt, sobs shaking his body.
The final figure reached up, and with the care of a parent, lifted the boy from the spire. Silent tears streaked down his face, shadowed by long hair as he cradled his son to his chest.
Aizawa Izuku was dead.
And the girl, dyed with the lifeblood of her brother, began to glow, her eyes burning brilliantly and horn extending, glowing a pure white as she screamed in grief, shoving away from the bird-headed boy and running to her brother, grabbing his hand desperately.
The dark-haired man reached out, panic flitting across his features—
— a brilliant flash of light enveloped his vision, and he sat bolt upright in his bed as an alarm went off, and dazedly, he slapped it, forcing the wail to be cut off abruptly.
This isn’t my room .
With dread pooling in his gut, he stood and looked around until he caught a glimpse of the cracked glass of the window, the dark before dawn allowing him to see his reflection.
Aizawa Shouta, fourteen years old, stared back at him.
She rewound time.
I can… I can save him. I can do it right this time.