Reset and Rewind

Chapter 23 - One vs Twenty

Izuku knocked on the door to the principal's office. It was big and black and intimidating, even some teachers were afraid to come in here and that said something. The fact he knew why he was called in here didn't do anything to calm down his nerves, certainly not when he saw the entire faculty present inside. They were seated in a semicircle, the tables reoriented to fit the new formation. Aizawa sensei was standing more closely towards the door, silently welcoming his student.

"Thank you for coming, Mr Midoriya," Nezu started, making Izuku flinch a little. Mr Midoriya sounded so formal, so old. It reminded him of his father in the worst possible way. "Eraserhead has told us a great many things about you. You're here to confirm some of those things."

"O-okay," Izuku stammered, his eyes darting around the room, accidentally making eye contact with All Might. Oh, not good. Izuku couldn't get a reading on his emotions at all. Was he mad? Frustrated? Disappointed? Izuku couldn't tell and he was too scared to look at him again. Ochako would laugh and call him a coward, but she wasn't here right now.

"Calm down, Midoriya," Aizawa sighed, walking over to his seat next to Present Mic. "This isn't an interrogation and you're not in any trouble for lying to the school about your true identity."

"Right! Of course," Izuku nodded, forcing a smile as he looked at the principal. "I'll try my best to answer all of your questions."

"Very good," the rat-bear smiled, looking down at some papers. "Now, would you please state your age?"

"Uhm, that's a bit of an ambiguous question, sir," Izuku answered, scratching the back of his neck. "I mean, I was 26 during the Jikan raid, but this body is 15, and my past memories have been restored for-"

He trailed off, glancing aside at Aizawa sensei as if to ask whether he told them the truth about how long he'd been able to remember their past timeline, how long his future self had been stuck in the past. But he couldn't get anything from his bored gaze.

"-years," he settled on. "So I'm not entirely sure how old I should consider myself to be."

"I see," Nezu smiled. "Eraserhead mentioned you have a theory regarding this...situation. I'm very interested in hearing about it."

"Oh, uhm, well, I don't have-" Izuku started, reaching for his bag and fishing out one of his more recently acquired notebooks. "I don't have all my notes with me right now, uhm, I'm not sure I can explain clearly without the proper visual representation, but I'll try! Just, uh, try to keep up? And don't hesitate to ask questions!"

And so Izuku rambled on about how the possibility of time travel could be excluded and how their timeline was actually reset and rewinded completely. Or at least up until a certain point, a point zero which they hadn't identified yet, and how core memories, things that drastically affected people and their future, triggered memories from the old timeline to resurface. But only in those who were affected by the blast during the Jikan raid, which was supposedly the activation of the quirk-powered machine that caused this mess to begin with.

He also explained Kacchan's chance theory. Everything that's up to chance is vulnerable to change. Other events were pretty much set in stone as long as there were no outside influences. Those influences were dangerous though, because changing things came with a certain risk. A consequence of trying to mess with the way things were supposed to play out. Defying destiny, to call it that. Izuku explained what changes they already made and what the direct and indirect consequences were, as well as how everyone else regained their memories.

He purposely stayed vague about his own experiences, not knowing whether Aizawa had already told all of them about One For All or whether they should discuss that with All Might first. That and he could see he had pretty much lost his audience as he flipped through his notebook and pointed at scribbles and drawings that none of them could really decipher. Nezu, on the other hand, seemed to be invested. He was keeping track of Izuku's mumbling and could understand the logic and theory behind it all.