Chapter Text
The first time it happens, he’s three.
Midoriya Izuku is standing under a porch when a flowerpot falls from the third floor of the apartment they’re standing by, shattering on his head.
When he opens his eyes, the world is red, from the sky without a cloud to the sand under his bare feet. He’s still wearing the same clothes, but there’s dust and broken clay around his shoulders, aftermath of the broken pot.
Before him is a person in a black cloak. Their skin is pitch black-- and when Izuku’s green eyes fearfully meet molten gold, their lips curve upward in a wicked smile. They had wings that split into four parts, and horns that winded the sides of their head like a ram’s.
“You are too clumsy,” the devil simply says.
Midoriya Izuku is back in the world and under that very same porch, where nothing is wrong. No blood, no broken pieces, and his shoes are still on his feet.
He looks up, and the same flower pot meets him halfway.
He screams when he gets to the Red City this time, reaching up to his head-- no, it doesn’t hurt. The broken pieces on his shoulders-- they’re still there. His shoes are gone again, but when he brings his hands up, he finds that the sand isn’t red-- it’s blood, soaked in and stained and dried.
The devil gently floats down from their tall perch, considering the boy with gentle eyes.
“You’re not very quick on the uptake, are you?”
Midoriya Izuku returns to the world with a loud, panicked scream, shoving his friend aside just in time to avoid the flowerpot.
In seconds, Katsuki explodes in fear, their mothers arrive, and the clumsy college student from the upstairs apartment apologizes profusely for letting it happen. She promises never to do it again.
When Izuku and Katsuki are consoled by their parents that night about the possible trauma, Izuku doesn’t know how to explain anything that happened.
-
-
They find a little scar at his temple, barely visible as it goes under his hair. He doesn’t know when he’s gotten it, neither does his mother or his friends-- but according to the doctors that look at it, it seems like an old scar.
It should fade soon, they assure.
(It never does.)
-
-
A couple months later, the same thing happens.
This time, it’s a car, and Izuku willingly jumps out in front of a puppy that didn’t get out of the way in time. He remembers being struck. He remembers the way the metal collided and made everything in his chest cave in, the way he sobbed, the way he fell onto the asphalt and it hurt, hurt, hurt.
He remembered, very clearly, how it felt to slowly bleed out and grow colder.
But once he made it to the Red City, the pain was gone, and there the devil was, smiling down at him.
“There you are again,” they almost seem amused. “You’re a very dear child, aren’t you? There’s no need to be afraid.”
Izuku sits on the sand, and he approaches the devil.
He was scared-- will always be, despite everything. But there’s not much to be scared of. Strange colours and fearsome fangs-- he’s seen them before.
He was scared simply because that is how the world worked. You must fear the devil-- that was a rule, written by something, someone, somehow-- and Izuku obeyed the scripture of the world, always meeting the devil with fear.
He didn’t understand why he was seeing the devil, or why he kept finding himself here. It hurt a lot to be hit by a car, after all, so wherever this was, at least it’s not back there, and the pain has stopped.
“Who are you?” he instead asks.
The devil chuckles and delivers a very cryptid response. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” they say, and will continue to say each time Izuku asks.
This time, Izuku pulls the puppy into his arm and narrowly avoids the collision, but in a freak turn of events, the car crashes into a telephone pole, and the wires snapped.
The last thing he remembers is seeing tall, dark wires drop in his direction.
He doesn’t really get what happened, but when he gets to Red City, his clothes are torn in a monk’s robe cut even though his body is unharmed. This is also the first time he’s noticed the blood stains, and he begins to wail.
“Mom’s gonna be mad at me!” he whines instead, near tears. “She’s not gonna buy me that All Might hoodie anymore!”
And he cries, and he cries.
Even the devil had to suspend their disbelief when the voice echoes loud over the red sky, and the tears made a river that bled into the sand.
Whether it was the culminated fear, the pain that the kid still remembers, or from something stupid that children always cry about-- well, the devil didn’t know.
But it sure left the devil flustered.
“Oh, no please, none of that,” the devil soothes him, producing a baby rattle from nowhere and shaking it in the boy’s direction. When it doesn’t work, they produce flowers and toys, but the child only cries louder. “Enlighten me, I implore you-- what will make you stop crying?”
They sounded like they wanted to raise a white flag on the situation. They even made ear plugs and an umbrella.
Then, “I don’t know what an All Might looks like, so show me next time?” he bargains. “I’ll make you one, okay? No?”
What devil loses to a child’s tears? There’s literally a proverb for this.
“Look, c’mon, minikin,” they sigh. “Don’t worry about your clothes. You’ll be fine when you get back. I’m here to put you back together, after all.”
There’s a long silence before Izuku finally lifts his head, sniffling miserably. “Promise?”
The devil seems surprised by that question.
Then they chuckle.
“Stop crying. Now, don’t tell anyone about me and sure, it’s a promise.”
This time, Izuku takes the puppy and keeps running until he hits the knee of a passing man, who yelps in alarm and quickly grabs him by the scruff, never stopping until they’re safely under the hood of an ice cream truck and out of harm’s way.
-
-
There are no tears and no blood on his clothes.
But there’s a large scar around his chest, shaped disturbingly as if they were tracing images of his ribs, including the fractures he didn’t get.
They looked like old wounds left to heal, so when the kindergarten teacher noticed them, she grew horrified. And with a palpable heart and only the kindest intentions-- she dialed child protection services.
It was an awkward time to be Midoriya Inko, a single mother with a tight-lipped child that obviously had something to hide.
(Izuku never learns why he had to stay with the Bakugou house for a few weeks after that, while his mother talked, over and over, with investigators and people in suits.)
(“You don’t have to lie,” they would say. “Does your mother treat you right, Izuku-kun? It’s okay. You can tell me.”)
He didn’t understand anything. Because of course his mother was the best mom in the world. Why did they look sadder each time he insisted how amazing his mommy was?
Then who gave you those scars?
Oh. That he can’t say, because he promised. It’s a secret.
So when Inko lost her job and she stopped leaving the house for a while, Izuku didn’t know why, either.
It’s been two years of the same thing every few months, and though Izuku is nowhere near understanding it, he begins to smile at the sight of Red City.
“What’s your name?” he asks this time.
He doesn’t approach the devil, still too afraid to step forward. But he can smile now, speaking to the figure of authority with a nervous little smile.
There’s nothing much that can scare you when you’re dead, after all.
(Except, perhaps, death himself?)
Plus, Izuku only gets very little time in Red City, and he knows the first step to good friendship is the cheerful introduction.
“I don’t have a name I can give you,” the devil has also begun to not entertain him as often. “There are, however, lots of names humans you know will refer to me. None of them do I personally identify with.”
There are loose pieces of mostly-decent furniture in the area, despite Red City being a horizon of endless sand, broken road signs, ruined architecture and crows in the sky. The devil’s interacting with a shelf, rearranging the worn books in some order Izuku can’t quite decipher the chronology of.
“Okay then,” he says. “Well, my name is-- ack!”
A book is knocked onto his head, interrupting his sentence with a yelp.
“What was that for?”
“I do not desire your name,” the devil warns him. “Watch what you say to the denizens of the far town, little minikin.”
Izuku pouts. “I don’t really understand you when you talk like that.” It’s not like Izuku ever meets anyone other than the devil here, anyways.
The smile on their face is gentle.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
Out in the real world, a psychiatrist with a mind-wandering quirk realizes that his memories are true, and his experiences are abnormal.
(Though they’ve seen the deaths, they don’t see Red City. It doesn’t seem like they know about the devil. Izuku also doesn’t mention it. He promised, after all.)
“It’s some sort of time travel by death quirk,” that’s the diagnosis.
An aberration, a unique quirk that isn’t a heirloom from either family, or even some fusion of both-- it’s entirely different. It’s rare, once in every century or something.
Some say that these quirks are bestowed upon humanity every few years, simply to introduce new powers to the system. Others say this is a new stage of quirk evolution, and it’s the awakening to a new era.
Hard to say without really testing to see.
“So it’s an awesome quirk?” Izuku is completely excited by it. He’d been looking forward to a quirk all his life, after all. Hearing that it’s special will, of course, make him ecstatic.
But Inko was horrified by it. So were most of the adults involved.
A time-controlling quirk was dangerous-- much less one activated by-- by death , of all things. Just the descriptions from the therapist made Inko throw up and lose sleep, and poor little Izuku was there, still smiling through the psychological disaster left behind.
No, perhaps… perhaps he’s already too far gone.
What happens when a boy is raised to not fear death? What happens when a boy like that grows up, with such a terrifying quirk?
What will society think?
(After that, Inko was always hesitant and disapproving of Izuku’s hero career. “Please don’t do this to me,” she begs. “Just stay home and never use that quirk again, please.”)
(“But mom, I want to be a hero. It’s the only thing I want.”)
(“Izuku, please understand. If people find out about your quirk-- they’re not going to let you be a hero or even go anywhere. Your quirk is dangerous, for both of us. I’m trying, Izuku. Please, just… I don’t want all the drama again.”)
(It’s a quirk that pulls Izuku on the road to insanity, and with all the signs that already show, Izuku is going to end up like so many other quirk-related child crimes around, incriminated and missing and dead.)
(Inko is scared of that.)
(That, and the various child abuse allegations she has to deal with. They’ve been disproven in court, but when has the truth ever quelled the rumours and the gossip?)
(“So promise me, Izuku? Please?”)
(Izuku nods out a sincere “okay, mom,” but he doesn’t say he promises . Because promises are more important and more binding than that, and he knows better than to make a promise he knows he will break.)
To begin with, there was no way Izuku could have kept that promise.
He didn’t seek death-- death came for him, persistently. In freak incidents, in chance burglaries, in horrying villain attacks, Izuku always seemed to be caught up somehow.
And if he wasn’t he would pull through and get himself involved anyway.
There are lives that can be saved with his time-travelling quirk, even if he has to die and suffer to make it happen. Selfless heroes are cool-- that’s what he should do, and that’s what kept him going.
If he thought about it that way, maybe he can make a positive emotion out of this shitty situation.
(Even if it hurt and he cried into the nights and he had to keep all this a secret from everyone, especially his mom, so she wouldn’t be mad that he used it.)
“You’ve got a martyr complex,” the devil sighs.
“Is that a bad thing?” Izuku asks, innocent.
The devil rolls their eyes. “I could care less about human actions on a human morality scale. Do as you wish.”
Izuku is glad that at least one person will be by his side, no matter what he does.
Is it illegal to lie in your quirk papers? Yes, but there are also cases where quirks are mistakenly recorded due to lack of knowledge.
It’s like changing your name-- it’s definitely possible to alter the records over time, and you can use a different one in casual situations-- but in formal paperwork and events, you must follow the present registration to every letter.
So Izuku’s quirk, Bad Ending , is vague to most.
Some say it’s a danger-sensing quirk, and that’s how he knows exactly where, when, and how to save people. Others theorize it to be a quirk that draws horrible incidents toward him, like a game where his Luck stat is dragged to the negatives.
Needless to say, there were people who thought the quirk was the coolest thing in the world. For instance, Katsuki definitely did, the moment Izuku told him the truth.
“So you’re like a zombie?”
There are lots of half-sures as they grow up, but the first time they actually talk about the truth, they’re in grade school, beginning to get accustomed to quirks in general.
But Izuku never intended on keeping all of it from Katsuki. How could he?
Izuku nods. “Mom said to keep that part a secret,” he says. “But not really. If something really bad happens and I die, I can just loop right back and save you, but I don’t exactly… well, die. Not permanently, at least.”
Katsuki frowns at that. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
Another excited nod. “It’s okay, because Mister will fix me right up no matter what.”
“Mister?” Katsuki questions, but Izuku slaps his hands over his mouth.
“Oh, I can’t tell you that!” he says. Then he grins, “it was a promise, so I’m sorry, Kacchan,” an indication to not ask further.
(The secret of Red City, he keeps. But he tells Kacchan about everything else.)
And Katsuki scowls at them.
Izuku showed off his chest scars very often when they were children, thinking they were just incredibly cool. After a scolding from his mother, he stopped, but he still allows his friends a little gander if he’s asked.
Lacerations. Lictenbergs. Claws-- there’s everything, covering most of the surface.
“There’s a lot,” Katsuki points out. “How often does it happen?”
Izuku chuckles at that, “well uh, it’s mostly because I’m clumsy, really,” he admits. “I’d have a lot less if I reacted faster or if I was stronger.”
“Well then, Deku,” he says, leaning against the wall with a roll of his eyes, “since you’re so useless you keep dying all the time like a total idiot, you’re gonna be my sidekick when we go pro so I can watch over your dumb ass.”
And Izuku pouts, “I can take care of myself.”
“Bullshit,” Katsuki yells, to which someone in the distance calls out ‘language!’. “You’re useless, Deku. So you’re sticking with me.”
Izuku huffs, though there’s no real anger to his attitude, “what am I gonna do with you? You’re such a jackass I’m worried you’ll never make any friends aside from me, Kacchan.”
There’s the rolling of eyes again.
“Maybe if you prove to me you can live responsibly, I’ll let you go solo,” Katsuki tells him.
Izuku raises a brow. “You swear by that?”
Katsuki scoffs, “yeah, I’ll swear. Whatever you want to call it,” he holds up a hand. “Until then, you’re stuck with me, though. No complaints.”
Izuku groans as he takes the hand. “I’ll be the best fucking sidekick in the world,” he mutters. “So good you’ll be the useless one when you have to let me go.”
Katsuki laughs. “Hah! As if.”
Izuku doesn’t tell anyone except Katsuki about the dying parts of his quirk.
His mother is very strict about that, after all. And it’s always more fun when it’s a secret with each other.
Izuku writes down in his notebook, his special notebook that was completely black save for the blood red spiral binding.
When he whined for a notebook that could be brought in and out of Red City, so he could write all about his many loops without rewinding back to the start all the time, the devil made one for him. Just to shut him up.
Needless to say, Izuku adored it.
It came with a catch, though. The specifics of Red City itself were forbidden, even to Katsuki.
(Last time Katsuki took a peek and saw a sketch of Mister, Deku’s neck turned rapidly in the wrong direction. He didn’t even stop at Red City-- he was just abruptly healed, and he was puking blood. Neither of them are trying that again.)
Speaking of everything else is no problem, though.
“So the official definition will be ‘allows the users to see the worst case scenario of a certain situation’,” Izuku decides.
“That’s it?” Katsuki asks.
“That’s it,” Izuku says. “The more vague it is, the less people will suspect, right? I’m like Doctor Strange now!”
“No you aren’t.”
“Yes I am .”
-
-
The explosion is large and loud and sends debris flying in every direction.
One swings right by a group of students and takes out an eye, the projectile swinging right through the skull and toward the person right behind him.
Midoriya Izuku barely notices before his head is taken right off by the sheet of metal..
He gasps right awake, the familiar sand under his hands and his head-- his head is in his lap. He screams, chucking it in some random direction as if it was some huge bug on an unsolicited ride.
The devil catches it in a woven basket, holding it out right back toward the boy like one would some freshly baked bread.
“It’s just a decapitation, don’t freak out.”
“It’s JUST a decapitation?” Izuku yelps, horrified, “Mister, my head isn’t on my neck! That kinda isn’t normal!”
The devil stares at him incredulously.
“Okay, nothing about me is supposed to be normal. STILL.”
A teenager now, Izuku has grown past the point of cowering from the devil. He does jump when the devil glares or expresses annoyance when he goes too far with his frustrations-- but they’re mostly in a bicker-filled fun relationship.
Kinda like with Kacchan, honestly.
“Don’t overreact,” they chide him once more, as if Izuku was whining about some scrape rather than a whole-- yeah, “c’mon, I still need to stitch it back.”
Still brooding, Izuku holds his head up, trying to get the angle as right as he could.
The invisible threads he can’t see begin to stitch around the severed region, joining into coherent webs of skin. The devil doesn’t touch him-- almost telekinetically, the strings spun, weaved, and tightened.
“There you go.”
The explosion is large and loud and sends debris flying in every direction.
Midoriya leaps forward, barely saving the boy-- who he now recognizes as a boy from the class next door-- well, whatever. Izuku just happened to be walking behind them today, so it doesn’t matter.
The debris shatters the brick wall beside them, and the other students around them scream, scrambling for safety.
The boy manages to pick himself and Izuku up so they can both make a getaway.
Feet entangled, Izuku trips.
Leaked gasoline erupts beside them, and the tremor sends him flying into the wall, right before a loose car door slams angled into him, bisecting him at the waist.
He barely has a moment to choke on his own blood before it’s all over his lap, and his arms are moving again in a vain attempt to catch his vomit.
He groans, but not any louder than the devil does too.
He’s clean again in a second, of course, but Izuku buries his hands in his face, almost embarrassed at himself. His two-parted body continues to droop toward the side, until finally toppling over like a fallen jenga tower.
“Now I know how it feels to be three children in a long coat,” he mutters.
“You’re not making sense, minikin,” the devil is there, trying to shove his loose organs back into the right place with a huge stick. “Did you lose your mind as well? White Town deals with emotions, so I do not know how to fix those.”
They lift their other hand, translucent threads sprouting like wisps of healing light. They begin mending the bisected portions together like a puppeteer would a doll.
“I’m fine,” Izuku grumbles. “If the world could stop trying to kill me for one second .”
The devil flicks his forehead. “How about you try being more careful?”
That was the first time the devil had ever touched him directly. Izuku is left flabbergasted by this sudden realization-- so flabbergasted, he was gleaming , filled so abundantly with pure, innocent joy.
He didn't even notice himself coming back to the real world until he was back in Red City, decapitated once again.
Needless to say, the devil was annoyed.
The explosion is large and loud and sends debris flying in every direction.
Izuku takes their hands and runs off. They’re confused at first, but soon, the explosion makes them drop their things and run with him. One of them has a mobility quirk, Izuku realizes, when they grab him and they narrowly avoid a head-on smash into a car.
They leap over it, quirk laws be damned, one by one. No one to chew them out while they’re panicking, after all. Self-defense and emergency and all that.
The explosion goes incredibly near their ears, but Izuku drops his bag and uses it as a shield. An airborne car door jabs it right into the wall, but that was better than a torso.
They run, and they keep running.
By the time they get out of there, covered in soot and sweat and dust-- they’re so shaken, they decide against going to school.
They bring Izuku with them to a family restaurant instead because fuck school, these kids are going to raid a dessert bar right now and if anyone wants to stop them they can go survive a massive gas explosion themselves and try again.
(Izuku is still friends with them to this day. They went to different high schools, but they have each other added on Herosgram and everything.)
-
-
Katsuki stares at the huge scar on Izuku’s stomach and he decides, “do you think if you have some decent abs that wouldn’t happen?”
They’re watching a movie, legs tangled together and different editions of Izuku’s special All Might sweaters between them. Katsuki was staying over, because Izuku skipped school and Katsuki definitely knows what this means.
“You’re expecting a huge flying projectile to just deflect off me or something?” Izuku asks, incredulous. “Is that even physically possible?”
Katsuki shrugs, “that’s how it is to All Might, right?”
There’s a moment where they just stare at the TV, in silence.
“Gonna go to the gym?” the question comes, and for some reason, it actually seems like something that would be feasible. “You can ask dad to get you a membership.”
“Yeah, sure,” Izuku nods, but, “make sure I don’t die like that guy, though.”
Right on cue, the guy on screen gets his face clamped and smashed clean between two falling weights.
Katsuki winces, immediately reaching for the remote. “That’s it. We are NOT watching Final Destination ever again.”
Izuku laughs, and Katsuki throws a pillow at his face.