Death Paradox 💥BAKUDEKU💥

Chapter 2

Strength

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Chapter 2

They'd made it through the weekend with minimal interactions with the others, though Izuku still couldn't decide whether that was a relief or just plain strange. The dorms had hummed with the usual energy—laughter from the common room, the clinking of dishes from the kitchen—but he and Katsuki had stayed largely out of sight. It wasn't just about avoiding the others; it was about figuring out this new, strange version of their world without tripping over their own tangled memories.

And in the quiet moments, Izuku had learned a few things.

First, they did retain memories from not just the previous parallel but from the one before that. That fact had solidified when he and Katsuki accidentally slipped into using the ancient language from their last reality, talking about how the Fool had been hiding in plain sight. It had been so natural—words shaped by necessity, survival, and weeks of shared experience—that they hadn't even realized they were doing it until Sero blinked at them over breakfast and asked, "Uh, what language is that?" The question had frozen both of them, Katsuki's fork halting midair, and Izuku had scrambled to mumble something about "private strategy talk." It wasn't a great lie, but it worked well enough to end the conversation.

Second, this parallel was ahead. He hadn't noticed it at first, too disoriented by the change and preoccupied with figuring out why they were different from everyone else. It was almost a month beyond where he'd been in his original timeline. Conversations about the current state of hero society, the missions, the headlines—it all pointed to one thing. They were only a week, maybe two, away from some kind of large-scale operation the heroes were preparing for just before his fight with Humarise... though he wasn't too keen on the details, or at least this other self hadn't been. Still, Izuku couldn't ignore the way his stomach twisted every time someone mentioned it, he had a really bad feeling.

They needed more intel.

Izuku kept coming back to that, even when he didn't want to. Even when he tried to focus on mundane things—basic needs, researching the anomalies to their parallel, the faint scuffing sound Katsuki made when he was practicing with Black Whip. It always circled back around to the same conclusion, looping through his thoughts like a half-glitched alarm: you don't know what's coming, and you don't have the luxury of guessing.

The operation—whatever it was—loomed closer every day, and even though they weren't at the center of it yet, he could feel the pressure building. The way Aizawa had been lingering in briefings a little longer. The restless tension in teacher's voice. The way even the more carefree senior students had started checking their phones mid-conversation, eyes tightening as they scrolled through news updates. No one had outright said anything—but they didn't have to. Izuku had lived through enough parallels to recognize a calm-before-the-storm when he saw one.

He and Katsuki needed to figure out what the hell was going on. Not just in passing conversations or over eavesdropped chatter in the common room. They needed details. Files. Briefing notes. Anything. Because this wasn't just about understanding this parallel—it was about understanding what this version of them was being nudged toward. What this world expected from them... what it might demand.

This wasn't a stretch of time he could navigate blindly, not like before. The dangers here felt sharper somehow—less like stumbling through a dark room and more like walking a tightrope across a minefield. One misstep, one poorly timed reaction, and everything could detonate before they had a chance to understand what the stakes to collect the Arcana even were. And worst of all, he had no way to predict what had already changed—or what would.