A/N: I was actually working on another fic when I thought of this a few days ago. This is part of my long-term plan of getting more people interested in bokura no kiseki, probably. (my other unpublished wips that are /years/ older are sitting off to the side. there's something wrong with this picture.)

Some specific things to note:

1) The planning for this isn't complete. I have a beginning, some middle, a climax, and an ending.

2) As the tag specifies, there are no planned pairings. You can interpret interactions as you like.

3) Chapters after this will be more grounded in the "present." Because this one takes place over the course of a handful of years leading up to the present, it's not as immersed. Continuing from here it will be. (More dialogue, obvious interactions, etc.)

4) I recommend reading this on ao3, because I included art. ^^

Anyway I hope you enjoy! Please read bokura no kiseki.

Midoriya Izuku remembers a life that is not his own.

He has always been a bright child. Learning came easily to him, and he relished the proud smiles and praise he would receive from the teachers and his mother. A curious mind, one filled with a grand interest and creative wonder, seeking out answers to the world.

He starts to realize differences, though, in that he knows things he should not. He's always been good at math, but knowing historical dates far before they're discussed in class, understanding formulas he's never learned, words he's never heard—

—Seven years old he recalls another life and thinks, Ah.

(The memories he has recalls a study of the philosophies in his earlier years. Not the greatest familiarity of the religions, and they are but a distant memory, but reincarnation isn't a foreign concept, though the retention of memories is.

(But that isn't what matters, he doesn't think of gods or souls or karma. Rather, he decides to focus on the present. The current, the tangible.)

He makes comparisons. He entertains that he may be in a different world altogether, or far, far off into the future—he has no recollection of the name of his memories or anything related, but he remembers a surge of people with powers, like here, too. Only more discontent.

Powerless were the majority, and the mutants, those who surfaced with powers of impossible proportion, were feared. Marginalized. They weren't called "quirks" but mutations, superpowers, curses. He doesn't remember much, but he was of the majority then.

Quirkless then and now. Phantom feelings more potent than the memories echo distantly, of sadness, betrayal, others that he can't put words to. He can't remember details or names, and doesn't remember whatever life it was that he led before.

(Bitterness, a resolute ideal but one tinged with a sense of having lost something vital, important, made callous with the sting of betrayal.)

Whoever he was doesn't want to remember, and Izuku wholeheartedly agrees.

"Quirkless Deku!"

The other children jeer and shout, pointed fingers and mocking laughs directed at him. Izuku sniffles and grips the hem of his shirt, willing the warm tears to go away.

A part of him remembers being quirkless before, of being met with a similar scorn, but for reasons of an entirely different nature. He remembers a time, a place, where the standard was reversed, when the world was full of fear and change.

"People are people." The statement echoes in his head, like the steady chime of a bell.

Izuku's tears dry in the complicated mass of what he feels, in the confusion running circles in his head. He walks away, something different unfurling in his mind.

"People are people," he says the next time they corner him. "We're no different."

His words do nothing for them, only grant the bewilderment owed to the obtuse statement, but they echo something resolute for him. Give him something to hold fast to. To steady.

They don't tease him again.

He had a brother, Izuku thinks. The person of his memories that he cannot recall had a brother.

Faces and names remain a blank void where a connection once existed, but the idea of that family leaves a lonely impression. An impression of distance from estranged parents. An impression of impossible to discern, overwhelming sensation from a loved but enigmatic brother.

Strong in resolution and physique, with an impossible intellect, he had a charisma that gathered the masses.

Izuku sits in class one day and wonders, briefly, at the similarities between the brother and Kacchan. Kacchan is strong. Kacchan is liked by everyone in his class. He's smart, he's cool, he's determined and has a neat quirk. Kacchan can also be scary, and sometimes his actions baffle Izuku.

But no, he thinks, that still isn't quite right. Kacchan is like dynamite, in quirk and temperament—explosive, living in short, quick bursts of emotion and power, not quite in control yet. Strong like a natural and wild flame, but with noticeable weakness. Unmistakably human. Young. Replenishable, but something… somehow more benign.

The brother of his memories is something different. Something represented with an underlying fear, with respect. Quiet and unyielding, a slow, methodical simmering of something volatile. Dangerous. Corrosive, like acid.

Izuku wonders about the relationship between his past memories and the brother, for the strongest impression to be something so scary. Complicated, laced with sadness, guilt, fear, anger—and that sense of betrayal.

His memories don't fear the brother despite this, they fear for him. But Izuku is Izuku, and the brother of his memories gives a chilling unease that a past familial bond cannot erase.

Izuku loves his mother.

Kind, genuine, attentive. She fusses over any injury to his person, asks him about his day when she picks him up from school. She maintains a positive air, and when she can't, she tells him simply, "I'm just not feeling quite right today, no need for you to worry." They don't have the most money, but she always makes a point of getting him something for his birthday, for Christmas, often something All Might related. She questions him about friends, about his studies, and gets after him when he forgets.

"Don't forget to put your jacket away."

"Make sure you turn off the TV when you're done, all right?"

"Thirty minutes. If you're still in the bathroom after that, I'm going to come in to check on you."

Sometimes it almost feels stifling. But she's also one of the only influences that keep him grounded in the now, the current, of this world.

It's not too difficult, as he doesn't remember a name or face and the few details he does know are obscure, but sometimes he needs to be pulled away. The natural curiosity that comes from the blanks calls to him, and it's his mother, his admiration for All Might, his dream, that keep him grounded in the present. Physical reminders like a pat on the head, a brush on his arm, and strong feeling that separates him as distinctly Midoriya Izuku.

(That day she found him dreaming in the bathtub, she had gone into a frenzy of worry and fussing. Questions, whether he was okay, what happened, did she need to call a doctor—Izuku, in a quiet daze, grabbed her hand and said, "Stay." She accepted him for it.)

There's a part of him that will never forget her apology, a part too old, too sad, too bitter. But it also remembers the past. Remembers passive stares and unmet expectations, bitter comparisons and letdowns. Remembers coldness where there is now warmth, criticism where there is affection. He remembers being older, years older than herself, and the part of him that is too old, too sad, too bitter, thinks that she is all too young, too.

But Midoriya Izuku is Midoriya Izuku, not yet ten years old, and he takes this all in stride.

He loves his mother, and couldn't ask for anything more.

Izuku doesn't know how to handle the situation with Kacchan.

Izuku thinks he's avoiding him, but it's also not obvious enough for that to be the case. Kacchan doesn't really do surreptitious, he's always in the spotlight. The center of attention.

His memories sway him otherwise. They give him an idea and a small nudge.

(A feeling of indulgence, expectation, confidence; unfamiliar echoes resounding through him as forgotten sensation.)

"Kacchan, can I eat lunch with you?"

The other boy narrows his eyes at him from where he sits, in irritation or anger or wariness Izuku isn't sure. He swallows down the nervousness he feels. "I'm, trying to learn how to cook, to help my mom," he says, sitting down in the seat next to his friend with a calm that is somewhat real. Nervous, but determined. "I thought you could maybe, give me an outside opinion before I cook anything for her…?"

Kacchan isn't an enemy. He isn't evil. He wants to become a hero, just like Izuku. But Izuku has always been warily respectful of him, and somehow, he knows the quiet distance he usually adheres to would not be appreciated.

Kacchan opens up his own lunch box and jabs at the rice in an aggressive stab. "I don't want your food."

But he doesn't tell him to go away. Izuku considers it a small success.

Izuku reaffirms his dream the day he wakes up with the feeling of liquid too warm, too wet, too thick on his hands. He throws up in the bathroom, tries to scrub away the phantom sensation and the smell of bile.

"It never happened," he says to himself in a warbled whisper, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. It never happened. Guilty conscience, his memories tell him, fear and helplessness and perceived inevitability—

—figurative and symbolic, guilt from relation of circumstance. It never happened.

His mother pulls his red red red hands from the cold water, tugs him away from the sink into the living room. She presses a warm mug into his hands and hugs him tightly. He leans into her embrace, letting the soft warmth of his drink seep into his hands, his body.

I won't let it happen, he tells himself. There is no inevitability, he is Midoriya Izuku, not his memories. A different life, a different family, circumstance, body, society—he is Midoriya Izuku, and he decides:

"I'm going to become a hero, mom."

Midoriya Izuku isn't strong.

He's quirkless, with thin arms and legs, an untrained body that struggles to breathe after slowly running a short distance. He tires after a few exercises that his year-mates can do with minimal effort. He trips when his feet begin to drag in exhaustion, barely catches himself before his face meets the concrete.

He isn't sick. He's quirkless, but he isn't sick. Just untrained.

Izuku grits his teeth and picks himself up. He continues running.

A cold breeze tickles at Izuku's neck, and he shrugs the collar of his jacket a little higher for protection from the chill. It's spring, but winter still lingers in the air, the ice just barely thawing.

"Are you sure you don't want me to carry that?"

His mother beams at him, shaking her head. "No, but thank you. You just carry your schoolbooks."

Izuku bobs his head in lieu of answering. His bag isn't that heavy, especially not with how he's gotten stronger as of late. The groceries are heavier in his opinion, with milk and eggs and water and all sorts of other things carefully sorted into four different bags.

His mom is stronger than she looks. It gives him an odd sense of pride and comfort.

"... Oh," his mother murmurs, frowning. "That doesn't look good."

Izuku follows her line of sight, spotting the large crowd blocking their path home and spilling out into the road. A car accident, maybe? But no, it's off of the road, down the sidewalk into the local park.

Izuku jogs ahead. He hears what sounds like an impact on metal as he approaches, but isn't sure. He asks a bystander at the edge of the crowd when he reaches the site.

"Hostage situation," the man says. Izuku peers over the sea of heads and shoulders his way through the congested crowd.

Hostage situation, Izuku confirms quietly, watching a broad-shouldered man wrestle a teen to the ground. The shorter one shouts, telling the crowd to stay back, the boy to stay still. The light posts are warped in odd shapes, the glass windows of nearby shops blasted through. Murmurs spread throughout the crowd.

(Something quiet and unsettled bubbles beneath the surface.)

Izuku watches along with the other onlookers as the teen struggles against the two villains holding him in place. Suddenly the larger one yelps, pulling his hand away from where he kept the teen silenced. The boy lurches forward in a frantic movement with his arms pinwheeling, shouts:

"H-HELP ME!"

A hand grasps his collar after the second step.

Izuku watches as the two villains curse and pull and shove, and the man with the grey mask slams the teen's head into the concrete.

His mother's hand is a warm, steadying weight on his shoulder.

"I hope he'll be okay…"

"Where are the heroes? That poor kid…"

"How could they do that? What monsters…"

Izuku watches the continuing struggle. The shorter of the two villains holds his hand out, and something small, metal, whizzes through the air into his hand.

("I can't do anything." Palms upturned, eyes to the heavens. "What do you want from me? I can't do anything.")

Izuku watches.

A trail of red streams down from the teen's hairline, seen even from this careful distance. His eyes are wide, frantic, as he stares into the crowd. Izuku thinks the boy is staring at him.

Tears edge the corners of eyes full of fear and pain. He blinks, dazed, but his eyes remain fixed to the crowd with a heavy weight—a single message—

Help me.

Izuku moves.

Warped metal, control. Telekinesis? Electromagnetism. His hands pull at the straps of his bag as his feet carry him forward leap by leap. No, the glass, maybe one of them but that kind of widespread damage is something else. Some kind of pulse, a wave of expelled energy—

He ducks and rolls under what looks like a metal beam as it travels towards him. He spares a glance back with wide eyes—it doesn't continue its path, halts and swerves around.

That answers that question.

He pushes his legs to carry him faster, further, hurry; the distance closes quickly. He leaps to the side just as the beam flies past him, the sharp air current whistling by his ear. The villains duck away in surprise.

His heart beats rapidly in his throat.

A lunge, a wind-up, heaviest textbook in hand—the villain holding the boy crumples into a heap, knocked out cold. Izuku tries to push the majority of his weight off of the injured teen. He's deathly pale, sweat beading on his forehead and neck.

Panic wells up, no longer suppressed—He's not breathing.

"Hey!" Izuku slaps his cheek with an unsteady hand, shakes his shoulders. "H-Hey, stay with me, you need to stay aw—"

Something blasts into him. Air, sound, not physical but painful. His ears ring, the world tilts on its axis as stars dance before his eyes. A numbing pain crawls through him.

Black overtakes his vision.

Something cold rests on his forehead.

Izuku tries to open his eyes, but the lethargy he feels in every cell of his body deems this a difficult task. He briefly sees a thin silhouette, he thinks, of wild hair and thin arms. The murmur of unintelligible voices bounce within the walls of his head. One voice stands out in sudden, stark contrast.

"Why did you do that?"

… Do what? Izuku thinks of helplessness, of fear, of cowardice. Of excuses and quiet justifications to alleviate the guilt. Of inaction.

He thinks of eyes wide with fear, a quiet plea given tangible weight.

"... Couldn't just stand there," he manages.

No more excuses. When someone needs help, I can't just stand there doing nothing.

No excuse.

Izuku feels dull throbbings of pain from his core to the tips of his fingers. He slowly comes to, eyes peeling open and wincing at the light. Blue meets green as he tries to discern what he's looking at.

"Good morning!"

Thought stalls, stutters to a stop. His ears ring through the cotton and he's suddenly very, very awake.

That's All Might.

"AAAAAAAAAA—!?" Izuku scrambles to his feet but his legs fail him, instead propelling him backwards in a frantic tumble. Excitement and disbelief and shock flood him as he comes to the full realization. "A-A-All—y-you're-! You're—!"

All Might strikes a pose. "You are correct! I am All Might!"

Izuku reels backwards. It's All Might. It's All Might. Why? What is All Might doing here? What happened? What was I doing, what—

Memories slot into place like a puzzle. The boy.

"Is he okay?" Izuku backtracks, letting the edge in his voice smooth to a more reasonable tone. His thoughts race at impossible speeds. "I-I mean, the boy from before. The hostage, he—is he okay? And um, my mom, she was here, is she—I left her, is she okay? What happened? Did—"

"Calm down!" All Might claps a large hand on his shoulder. Firm, grounding. "They're both all right. Other than you and the other young one, no one was injured. Your mother has been waiting for you to regain consciousness."

Izuku finally notices the boundaries, the caution tape, keeping the area cordoned off. The paramedics hover, the police stand watch while taking note of the damage. The crowd is significantly thinner than before, and there's no more visible damage than there was when he first arrived.

Everything's fine.

Izuku breathes a sigh of relief, his heart slowing from its rapid beats. "Then… Then, were you the one that saved us?"

All Might gives him a thumbs up. "I was!"

Izuku stops the apologies and thank yous and who knows what other things before they spill from his mouth unchecked. An odd mix of guilt and worry grips him. He twists the fabric of his pants. His idol remains thankfully silent, apparently sensing his thoughtful mood. Or believing him traumatized.

Izuku swallows. "... I'm surprised that you aren't telling me that what I did was… stupid. Or reckless." A nervous laugh, "I mean, I didn't… I don't… Never mind, I'm just."

Just what? He thinks. Izuku finds that he doesn't know himself. He withholds the urge to bite his lip, instead twiddling his thumbs in his lap.

"... Well, that would be unfair for me to say." Izuku looks up, hesitant. All Might gives him his patented smile. "He was already carried away to the hospital to be looked after, but while he was still conscious, that boy asked me to thank you! He wanted you to know that he was grateful. That you did what you did."

Relief. Determination, something warm, slotting into place as though it always belonged—an impossible emotion.

Izuku stares down into his upturned palms. His thoughts swirl restlessly in his head, conflicting, brushing with the memories that are not his, not of this time.

(Cold helplessness, a fear of the unknown. A dreaded feeling of inevitability, impossibility as he stares up at what he may never reach.)

He clenches his hands into fists, a promise. Resolve.

Izuku looks up, meeting the eyes of the strongest person in the world.

"I'm going to be a hero."

The encounter sticks with him in the passing weeks, the signature in his notebook a physical reminder.

He meets a man with sallow cheeks and a gaunt form on his way home from school.

(Familiar. Very familiar.)

The man calls himself Yagi, and asks to speak with Izuku. He tells him that he was there those weeks ago, during the incident, and Izuku is instantly reassured.

(Familiar, beyond having simply known the man in passing from then. Why?)

Yagi doesn't speak much. He asks after Izuku's health, whether or not he and his mother have been faring well. He'd spoken to her that day, you know, trying to assure her that her son would be all right. His mother loves him very much.

Izuku flushes, awkward, bobbing his head in agreement.

The man asks why Izuku did something so dangerous.

… Oh, Izuku thinks. Yagi doesn't watch him with scorn, no matter how severe his features look. Curiosity, genuine interest.

"Do you ever," Izuku begins, then his voice fails him at the dryness of his throat. He swallows and tries again. "... Do you ever look back on something you did, or something you didn't, and feel regret?"

Yagi doesn't reply.

"... Because I do. Nothing too big, of course, I'm young—I mean, I haven't lived that long so I haven't experienced as much as… Other people, that are older. Of course. But I think about it. Grow stronger from mistakes, all that. But learning from doing something wrong is different from… Not doing anything."

Inaction, excuses, compartmentalization. Repeat. The man he was in a previous life lived a miserable life full of regrets, of wishing he could do more. Caught between feeling like he wasn't enough and what he was doing wasn't enough. Tired.

Midoriya Izuku doesn't want that.

Yagi takes his words in stride. It's quiet for unending seconds after Izuku finishes speaking, tense, as Izuku doesn't know what he's thinking—

—which turns into him really not knowing what he's thinking because his brain stalls again that's All Might.

All Might waits out his miniature heart attack with surprising patience, trying to calm him down with the familiar demeanor of Yagi but the unmistakable appearance of the number one hero, All Might. He tells him that he has something to say. Something he's decided, something important, that he wants to tell Izuku.

All Might sits him down, and tells him the story of One for All.

(Familiarity. "One for All." A name created in defiance. Justice, power, hope, in the hands of many—one for all.)

"Well?" All Might asks, following his explanation.

He's already considered it all. He knows his dream, his goal, has already come to terms with it all. Knows the opportunity laid out before him. But:

"Do you think someone quirkless can become a hero?"

Wide eyes, followed by a simple a shrug. "I already suspected as much when you took down that villain without the use of one. Once I might've thought otherwise, that it was too dangerous. Too impossible. But I've since realized that it isn't the quirk that makes the hero, in the truest sense."

"I've thought this over countless times myself, and I have my answer." Blue eyes glint with orange in the fading light. "And you?"

Izuku nods. Resolute. "I have my answer, too."

It sticks with him like a stubborn burr. He trips, distracted, and gets a mouthful of dirt.

A recently surfaced memory plagues him, though it's more the sensation than the memory. It remains a hazy image of indistinguishable images, as though viewing a quiet movie through a thick fog. But the echoes.

Someone forced something, a quirk, he thinks, into him. Pain splitting his skull, his mind, the feeling sending shocks throughout his entire body. True fear, the first experience, the first time. The stirrings of betrayal. Sadness.

"... All Might? Can I ask you about One for All?"

All Might pauses from where he's brushing off dirt and deriding him for getting distracted. His demeanor immediately switches from harsh-instructor to his new usual, more subdued. "You're distracted by whatever it is. We can continue training tomorrow." He nods to himself. "What's wrong?"

"You mentioned, before, that One for All could be… forced. When passing it on, I mean. Isn't that bad?" Izuku speaks slowly, careful in his phrasing. "And how did you know it can be forced onto others?"

"... Good question. I don't know personally, but it's knowledge that was passed down through the generations of inheritors." A pause. All Might rubs his chin, eyes directed to the sky. "Of course it does seem rather inhumane, doesn't it? We can only hope that it may have been necessity, rather than cruel intention, that revealed this quality."

Izuku's fists tighten, his fingernails biting into the flesh of his palm. The fear and sympathy he feels are his. But this anger, this urge to yell and kick and, and… Why? He wonders quietly, biting his lip. What happened?

"Midoriya." Izuku looks up. All Might holds his gaze firmly. "The past is the past, and we do not know what we do not know. Whatever happened, we will do what we can—make sure that that ability of One for All is never made necessary."

Izuku nods.

"Besides!" Here, All Might's tone grows more jovial and he smiles. "Our ancestors, the previous wielders of this quirk… They were good people. Trust me, I can feel it in my soul!"

A startled laugh escapes, sounding like a snort, and Izuku claps his hands over his mouth. All Might just grins brighter at him.

It's impossible to know, Izuku thinks quietly to himself. He's right that the past is the past. It's impossible to know for certain. But he feels better anyway.

The anger dissipates into nothingness.

He remembers.

Izuku yelps at the stinging pain in his hand. He'd cut just a little too close in his wandering thoughts, memories, and sliced the side of his finger.

His… The brother of his memories had forced a quirk onto him, presumably to "fix" the fact that he had been quirkless. But then he, the man in the memories, realized he had a quirk all along. The two morphed, turned into something with capability, something that could save the world, could end the conflict, that…

… did nothing. Endless possibility, a brighter future. But not for him. It was a new quirk with great potential, but it had still left him unable to do anything in the past.

He couldn't go up against his brother. He could only pass on the weak torch to someone he deemed strong of values and capability. Place his hopes, his responsibility, on someone else. That was his contribution.

It was all he could do.

Izuku shakes his head, grimacing.

I will become a hero. It's not the same. We're not the same. He rubs the bandage on his hand.

Midoriya Izuku is not the same person. A different life, a different family, circumstance, body, society.

It's all different. He isn't these memories, he isn't the person he remembers. He is no one but himself.

A different society. Dream.

A different life.

I am Midoriya Izuku.

(A chant, a prayer.)

The day of the entrance exam is a day of jittery, nauseating nerves that Izuku hasn't felt in a long while.

He greets Kacchan through chattering teeth. Kacchan gives him a glance that could be concern before telling him "Fuck off Deku."

They're real friends now, but he's still aggressively weird.

Izuku watches as the streams of hopefuls make their way into the building and admires the entrance. It's fancy. Big. Very U.A., in his opinion.

I'm going to be a hero, he thinks to himself, and it's entirely Midoriya Izuku when he takes his first step and trips.

He's saved by a girl with an anti-gravity quirk, and equally anti-gravity hair. She's bright, cheerful, and her demeanor soothes the nerves making him antsy. They chat on the way in, her name is Uraraka Ochako, and she loves mochi. He's Midoriya Izuku and he dreams a lot.

The written tests are easy enough. There are a few problems he isn't certain of, but he's solidly in the 90th percentile, a comfortable placement.

The practical exam is something else entirely.

Kacchan is calm throughout the explanation. A rigid teen asks a lot of questions. Izuku has only had a few chances to try using One for All, and all incidents had him waking up in the care of Recovery Girl.

(Meeting her had been really cool. He wonders if he'll get to talk to her more, if he's accepted to U.A.)

He stands in front of the overwhelming gates with his clammy hands pressed to his forehead. The chill stabilizes him, grounds him, settles his nervous jitters.

His chest feels warm and he wonders briefly if it's more nausea, or if he's getting sick, but it's comfortable. Like the soft glow of a match's ember.

The alarm sounds, and the practical begins.

Izuku is behind.

Sounds of battle, explosions, impacts surround him—one and two pointers are defeated before he can even start making his way towards them, can even think of viable strategy to bring them down.

"TEN MINUTES!" Present Mic's voice reverberates throughout the simulated city.

Ten minutes.

Zero points.

Izuku chooses a direction and runs. He's at the heart of the chaos, which makes it more of a challenge to get to the points before the others do. If he can find a few stragglers, some late-released bots, then he will have a chance.

Someone shoots past him, faster, quicker. He's racing against the clock, and the competitors.

The ground shakes ominously.

He needs to get a point. At least one point, he has to do something, so all of his efforts don't go to waste, so he doesn't disappoint anyone anymore—

("What can I do? What can I do? There's nothing.")

Izuku stumbles at a wave of vertigo. His heart beats rapidly, blood pulsing loudly in his ears. Something's wrong. Images blur in and out of focus, he's at the test, but no, he's somewhere else, where's U.A., where am I—

(Impossibility. Weakness. Insufficiency.)

It's a sensation comparable to something spilling forth, like the breaking of a dam, a feeling like standing on the edge, looking over into the unknown—

No! He doesn't want to remember. He clutches his head and squints his eyes shut. He doesn't need to, he died long ago, he can't remember. He's Midoriya Izuku. In the present, not the past. He shouldn't be here. He doesn't want to impose these memories in this world, in his life, he—just—

A shout.

The desperate cry breaks through the flurry of motion and sound, pulling him out of his thoughts. The girl from earlier lies in the rubble a ways away, face pinched in pain. A monstrous robot looms over her in the background, a dangerous approach.

Izuku is moving before he consciously makes a decision. His mind whirs quickly, calculating distance, time, speed, mouth souring when he comes up short but I have to try, I have to—

The machine continues its disastrous path. The girl notices its approach, her movements more frantic from its diminishing distance.

Damn it! Izuku runs forward, pushing everything he has into each step. It's not enough. The machine proceeds in its path forward. The girl is still stuck, she's struggling but it's not enough, the machine will make it to her before Izuku can, he's putting all of his effort but it's not enough it's never—

—He feels a push.

An echo.

Izuku flies forward with energy he didn't have, propelled forward by an impossible force. Warmth blazes into an inferno, fogged memories superimpose the landscape with each leap, each second that passes. Quicker than the buildings and falling rubble blurring at the edges of his vision—

(Determination and an inherited dream, an impossible destiny handed down generation to generation. Pain and damnation and struggling he never would have wished upon anyone but not without happiness, victories, through the changing times.)

—He clenches his fist, grits his teeth, his arm is burning burning burning—

(None gone to waste. Life, lives lived to the fullest, determination burning as the strongest of flames. From one to nine, the first and last, returning like a cycle.)

(One for All.)

—Izuku notes the sound of an impact.

The mechanical monstrosity takes the full brunt, the force of his uppercut folding the metal with ease. Shrapnel explodes outwards from the release of the vacuum, the machine splintering from a litany of internal explosions.

The rawness of Izuku's throat and the pangs of pain in his arm are muffled. A quiet buzzing punctuates the still silence.

He's immediately set by a powerful exhaustion replacing the previous adrenaline that had pumped through his veins. Breathing alone is a task. He collapses to his knees and falls forward face-first into the concrete, pulled down by his own weight.

Something powerful unfurls in his chest, near-painful in enormity and force. Impossibly warm but not like the warmth of before, the rush, the energy, but something else. Something from his memories. Echoing through him.

Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. White noise buzzes louder around him. He curls into himself and pinches his eyes shut, about to burst as he quietly chants the words.

Memories not his own or of the previous, reflections in the steady burning of an inherited flame. One to nine, first to last.

You did well. All of you.

Thank you.