Izuku Midoriya stared into the darkness ahead. He could just make out the faint outline of the staircase descending and the soft green glow of the emergency exit sign below. His fingers moved instinctively toward the light switch panel on the wall-one he knew like the back of his hand after two weeks of hero work studies at Sir Nighteye’s agency.
With a quiet click, the overhead lights flickered on, flooding the industrial staircase in stark white light.
Izuku blinked as his retinas adjusted to the sudden brightness. His quirk, One For All, didn’t activate.
His eyes moved with quiet alertness, scanning the space like a predator sniffing out danger. But everything felt normal-still, silent, and undisturbed.
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and turned to head back to the second floor-to Kaminari Denki, his nervous friend who was convinced someone was hiding nearby.
But just as Izuku turned halfway, his viridian eyes met Kaminari’s honey-golden ones.
Izuku froze, startled. He hadn’t noticed Kaminari standing right behind him on the steps.
After a beat, Izuku said quietly, “Kaminari-kun.”
“How long have you been standing there?”.
Kaminari Denki did not answer. He stood still, gaze fixed past Izuku, staring down the staircase at something unseen.
His silence wasn’t evasive-it was heavy, as if he were lost in a memory too vast to name.
Izuku held his gaze, and something in his chest twisted. A quiet ache bloomed-one he hadn’t named yet, but it was there, pulsing beneath his ribs.
Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, Kaminari looked pale. Too pale. His skin had the washed-out hue of someone who hadn’t slept properly in days and his shoulders sagged with a weight Izuku couldn’t yet understand.
Because Izuku didn’t know-not yet-that Kaminari Denki had time-traveled back during the war between Shigaraki Tomura and Izuku himself.
A quirk malfunction, triggered when Denki shielded a business course girl from falling debris, had sent him spiraling through time. (Author’s note: see Chapter 2 for details)
Now, Kaminari stood in silence, shoulders tense, lips parting as if to speak-
But before he could, One For All pulsed inside Izuku. Not with pain, but with something stranger. A kind of ache. As if the quirk recognized Kaminari as an old friend.
That wasn’t normal.
Izuku’s body moved on impulse.
The world around him blurred-the staircase steps, the sterile lighting, the white walls-all faded into the background.
His focus narrowed to Kaminari’s honey-golden eyes.
Izuku’s viridian gaze darkened.
He reached out and gently lifted Kaminari’s chin with two scarred fingers-the same fingers that bore the memory of his battle with Todoroki. He didn’t regret those scars. Not even a little.
Their eyes met, level and unflinching.
Inside Izuku, One For All, misfired wildly, sparking in directions it shouldn’t.
He needed answers.
He couldn’t afford instability-not with the power he carried. Not as All Might’s successor.
And yet, there was a pattern. Every time Kaminari was near, One For All became Alert. Protective. Possessive. Territorial.
Izuku held Kaminari’s gaze and asked, voice careful but firm, “Just what are you hiding, Kaminari-kun?”
Denki’s breath hitched.
The question caught him off guard.
His eyes widened, flickering with something defensive-something afraid.
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This time I will protect them I won't be a coward
FanfictionDuring the final war arc Kaminari Denki gets hit in the head and wakes up in his 14 year old body two months before his UA entrance exam and vows to protect his friends by supporting them as a side character from the side lines but he does not real...
