Time Taken, Time Given

Arrival Point: Midoriya Izuku

Izuku hastily swiped open his bedroom door, not attempting to prevent any damage this action may have caused. It wouldn't matter, either way, if he was dreaming, or in some sort of limbo, as he hoped predicted.

Storming through the hallway, Izuku found that it eerily echoed the same scratches, paint marks, and height lines that permeated its walls during his childhood. This only roused further unease within him, but he cleared his mind of such worries and carried onward.

Entering the main room of the apartment, Izuku spotted the small form of his mother. When was the last time he had visited her? He could only recall when he and Shouto had gone out to lunch with her in the city a few weeks past.

Before everything went wrong.

He shook his head and approached his now younger mother - one who hadn't faced the incredible hardships of the past five years; the worry lines usually present on her face were quite noticeable in their disappearance.

"Oh, Izuku, you woke up late! I made breakfast, but there's barely any time for you to eat-"

"Mom?" At this, Inko met her son's haunted gaze and paused. She approached him and placed his undamaged hands ( but all he could see was the blood, the blood still lingered, the blood he had made Shouto- ) into her palms, clasping them tightly together. He so deeply wished to accept her comfort, but the slowly growing pit in his stomach made him unable to do so.

"Is everything alright? Did you have a bad dream?" You wouldn't even know the half of it. The last thing he wanted to do was worry his mother; Izuku had seen what it would do to her, and wanted to spare her as much pain as possible, even if only for a short time in this dream. He ducked his head and sent a placating nod towards her. "Oh Izuku, I'm sorry. If you want to talk about it, you know I'm always here for you, yes?"

"Of course."

---

He quickly shoveled the lovingly prepared food down at his mother's request, doing his best to not allow any of the many conflicting emotions and thoughts he was experiencing to show in his features.

As Izuku's mother hurried him out the door, the green haired boy entered a dazed state, seemingly unaware of what was around him - and before he even realized it, Izuku passed through the school gate of Aldera Junior High. However, he realized that he no longer remembered his classroom location. It took him a minute, but he spotted one of his former third-year classmates and trailed behind them.

The day passed as normal; people stared and indiscreetly snickered at him. He was eventually taken out of his dissociative state while fondly brushing through his old hero notebooks at the brash statements of a middle school age Bakugou Katsuki.

"You really think you can get into U.A. when they could have someone like me, Deku?" A younger and more timid Izuku would have cowered and said he wasn't trying to get in Katsuki's way - but that Izuku wasn't here. His reaction was instinctual.

"If you're so clearly intimidated by little, quirkless me, Kacchan, then you may want to rethink your goals." The class went silent for a moment, eyes darting back and forth between them, and then broke into chaos.

"What did you just say, loser?" The bell rang. Many of the students seemed to want to stay in the classroom and watch the drama unfold, but after school activities beckoned them. Soon, only Izuku, Katsuki, and two of his lackeys were left.

It disheartened Izuku to once again see his best friend like this. Their bond had greatly improved over the course of high school, and Izuku had felt as though Katsuki was one of his most trusted allies. The remorse Katsuki eventually showed due to his actions in their youth smoothed things over and made it easier to move on from the pain shared between them - though it was never forgotten.