Change It

Fandom: MHA

Summary: The future is dark. Incredibly so. They won the war, but the cost... the cost was great. Too great. A man and a girl wish to change things, with the hope that it can be better. It needs to be better. But the only ones that can change it are in the past, so it is the past that will see the price they paid, and the journey leading up to it.

A reaction fic, yes. Canon up to season seven, and then things go dark. Very, very dark.

Pre-canon characters.

It was a normal day for the residents of Japan- no, for the entire world. A day where some people were experiencing things they would any other day, and some experiencing things they never would again.

It was just a day, like any other.

Until it wasn’t.

Without warning, without anything to explain the why or the how, screens suddenly appeared in front of every individual. From the heart of Japan to the shores of America, to the London Bridge and the Great Wall of China, the screens appeared. Some panicked, thinking they were about to be subjected to a villain attack. Others simply stared, bemused at the sudden appearance of such a thing. A few immediately started examining them, trying to discover any secrets they might hold. Regardless of the actions taken, what remains unchanged is the fact that they appeared…

…and after precisely five minutes, they turned on.

“We don’t have long,” Those are the first words people hear as the screens go from blank, to black. But it is not just a color, no, it is a room, nearly encompassed in darkness. Lit only by a flickering candlelight while a storm rages outside the sole window, illuminating a tall figure wearing what can be recognized as a hero costume, though the details can’t be made out well enough to identify. As well as a child with long white hair and an exceedingly long horn on one side of her head.

In Japan, a wife and husband flinched back from the screen and exchanged startled looks before their eyes returned to the screen, and then switched to their daughter. Eri stared at the screen herself with wide eyes, not yet old enough to understand many of the things around her, but old enough that she understands some. “Looks like me!” She said, happily clapping her hands.

Her father smiled, hiding his unease behind easy agreement. “Y-yes, she does,” he said with only the slightest hesitation. Her mother, meanwhile, continued to look between the screen and her daughter, and could only fidget nervously with her hands.

“The heroes will be here soon, to try and stop us,” the man continues, casting a wary glance in the direction of the door.”

Heroes across the world paused and narrowed their eyes at the screen, wondering what, exactly, the man was planning to do with the unknown child in such a suspicious location.

The girl nods, not lifting her head to look at the man. She speaks, and the uncertainty is thick in her voice. “Will…” She trails off, clearly struggling to get the words out. She visibly swallows. “Will he… will he save me again?”

Pain flickers across the man’s face before he gets down on one knee and puts a hand on her shoulder while the other gently lifts her chin so he can look her in the eyes. “If there’s one thing I know, Eri,”

People watched, tense, while the screen faded while the man spoke, coming through loud and clear while the parents of the girl paled and grabbed their daughter to bring her close, doing their best to quell their panic about what the hell they’re watching that the girl shares her name. And why she needed to be saved.

The screen changes to show a scene high above a neighborhood, houses stretching out below the view. But they aren’t the focus. That privilege belongs to what can only be described as a monstrous flesh giant, twelve arms of different lengths and thickness across its sides and back, ribcage exposed, only something resembling the end of a spine in place of anything that could be called a waist. Some sort of mask on the top part of what looks like some kind of beak, and within the opened mouth, a brown haired man wearing a dark green jacket accented with purple fur and a red plague doctor mask.

People screamed at the sudden sight, unprepared for the sudden horrific sight. Some narrowed their eyes at what they immediately assumed was a villain, and Kai Chisaki, along with the rest of the Shie Hassaikai, stared at who many thought of as the boss’ troublemaking son, with clear confusion.

“Kai,” the boss asked with narrowed eyes still on the screen, “do you know anything about what this might be about?”

The young man shakes his head, brows furrowed and lower face hidden behind his medical mask. “I couldn’t say, Boss. Though that certainly looks like me…” He trailed off and leaned forward to try and get a closer look at himself, idly thinking that the new mask looked much more intimidating than what he used now. Maybe he should switch…

The man screams, the words almost lost in the madness of it, “WHY WON’T ANYONE LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE!?” He crosses his arms and the monster follows his actions like some sort of disgusting puppet, touching his shoulders and causing it to burst into a mass of swirling flesh and blood, the man’s arms and legs vanishing somewhere in the mess.

Kai flinched back as hives broke out across his skin just seeing the action. “What the hell?” He asked with wide eyes, not getting an answer.

The screen goes silent, but the image continues to play. The mess converges on the man, reforming into grotesquely large arms and legs. He pulls his arm back and swings it forward in what could only be a devastating hit, but whoever his target is, they rush past him in an attack so fast that people can only see the shock waves from his passing before the screen pans out, revealing a figure in a green jumpsuit and dark hair behind the villain, with something small on his back, the only color able to be made out with any reliability a sort of greyish blur.

Izuku Midoriya, only one month into being a second year student of Aldera Middle School, perked up next to his mother as his hands instinctively grabbed one of his hero analysis notebooks. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t recognize that hero! Are they new? Is this a recording? But then why would someone use their quirk to play it like this? And why the ominous start? What if…”

The boy trailed off into yet another of his famous mutter storms while his mother smiled gently at him before turning back to look at the single large screen that came when they sat next to each other, and they merged. Looking at the horrifying villain, she couldn’t help but be relieved that her son will never have to face someone like that, then immediately felt guilty for the thought, as she always did whenever she thought badly of her son’s desire to become a hero despite his lack of a quirk.

The screen zooms in on the hero, and what’s revealed to be a young girl with white hair on his back, wrapped up in some sort of red fabric.

Mirio Togota, a first year student in the hero course of UA, blinked and looked down at the paper he was working on for additions to his hero costume. He stared at the red cape he’d just drawn, then at the red wrapped around the girl on the screen. He blinked again. “Huh.”

His two best friends, Tamaki Amajiki and Nejire Hado, look at him with questioning looks that he waves off with a smile. “Don’t worry about it! Just a funny coincidence!”

The hero slowly turns, letting his face be shown. A plain, freckled face, yes, but with messy green hair and green eyes that are glowing with the power that is literally leaking out of him while green lightning sparks around his body.

Midoriya’s notebook slipped from numb fingers while he stared, mouth agape, unable to believe what he’s seeing. “That’s… me?” He asked, confused. Because that can’t be… right? He doesn’t have a quirk, he couldn’t move like that. He couldn’t… do that. Any of it. And he looks older. How can he look older? What is this?

Next to the boy, his mother is just as stunned, staring at the screen with an expression that mirrored her son.

In the Bakugou household, Katsuki stared at the screen with his signature scowl in place, scoffing at the display. There’s no way that’s actually the shitty nerd. He doesn’t have a quirk! His immediate thought was to dismiss the screen and the video it played as some sort of joke or prank, probably due to somebody the nerd creeped out enough that they were willing to help just so he would leave them alone. Still, he didn’t have anything better to do, so he just got more comfortable and decided to keep watching.

The hero spins in the air to face the villain, who reforms his destroyed arm with his quirk. The hero kicks the air and somehow launches himself at the villain. “If I can’t save Eri,” the boy says-

The parents held their daughter tighter at the confirmation that it is Eri while the girl herself just tilted her head, confused at how the girl on the screen looked like her and shared her name.

“-one small child who’s relying on me to help her,” the man’s limbs reform and he pulls his arm back, fist curled, but the hero is in front of him, teeth bared in what might be a snarl of rage, a grimace… or a smile. “Then how can I call myself a hero who saves everybody!”

All Might landed on a rooftop and looked at the screen thoughtfully for a moment before he shook his head and continued his journey to UA in order to speak with the hero Mr Principal, also known as Principal Nezu of UA. But he made a mental note to try and get the mammal of indeterminate species to look into the boy on the screen. It’s safe to say that his interest has been piqued.

The boy throws a single punch, and the screen zooms out to show the villain’s back and the blue sky above him. A sky that is abruptly hidden behind a multitude of fists all bearing down on him.

All Might somehow managed to trip in the air and nearly careened into a highrise building. He only just managed to correct his course to avoid any damage, but he thought that he could be excused from the stumble because, quite frankly, what the SMASH!? Those punches could rival his own!

Across Japan, people felt the same, and wondered why they’d never heard of a hero like the one on the screen before. Surely he would have been in the top ten if he was that strong!

Each punch tears pieces off of the villain until there’s only a thin membrane of the flesh covering the man’s torso. He looks up and finds his gaze filled by the hero bearing down on him, rage practically radiating off of who can be clearly seen, for the first time, is a teenager. The boy throws his punch, and the air shatters.

Across Japan, across the world, people are shocked at the sight. Yes, they saw that the hero was strong. Yes, they knew he obviously wasn’t a hero in their country or they would have already known of him. Yes, the governments across the world were already making plans to figure out which country he was from so they could try and figure out a way to convince him to come to their own. But to see that it’s a teenager who possesses that strength?

Well, their minds grind to a halt, wondering just how strong the boy can be if he’s already so strong before he’s even become an adult.

The scene shifts and shows two people on the ground next to a crater, one of them clearly a hero judging by pink clothes and the astronaut-like helmet over her brown hair.

Ochako Uraraka’s mouth hung open while half-eaten mochi fell from her fingers and onto the table of the cafe she was sitting at with some of her friends, her eyes fixed on the image of herself as… as a hero. But then her eyes fully processed everything on the screen and she covered her mouth with her hands to try to avoid throwing up from the gruesome sight.

The second person is a man with dark green hair containing three yellow streaks, glasses with a yellow rim covering his eyes. But that’s not what stands out about the man, no. He’s wearing a grey suit covered in blood, a torn sleeve the only thing remaining of his left arm and a large stone spike embedded in his gut.

Those who recognize the hero gasp, and many who haven’t been exposed to such gore before turn green or pale at the sight before rushing to find the nearest place they can throw up.

For the second time in as many minutes, All Might stumbled in the air, but this time he couldn't catch himself, falling to the street below in a cloud of dust. But he barely noticed, too focused on the sight of his former friend and sidekick with such wounds. Wounds that he had no doubt were lethal. His phone rang with a distinctive ringtone, and he answered it immediately without even looking, eyes riveted. It’s only when he heard the sound of the man’s voice that he was able to look away.

“That hasn’t happened, All Might.” The man’s voice reassured the hero, though he noted that it was shaky. “It… hasn’t happened.” Across the city, Mirai Sasaki, the pro hero Nighteye, gulped. “But… but it might.” Because he didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, hell, he didn’t even know what, but he can feel the screen resonating with his quirk somehow. His quirk, Foresight… that allows him to see into the future.

The man shifts, drawing the girl’s attention. “Nighteye?” She questions only to be ignored.

“But I saw it,” the man says with disbelief, his voice raspy. “Chisaki succeeded and escaped, while Midoriya lost his life.”

Inko Midoriya paled and reached out to drag her son into a bone crushing hug, one that he didn’t even seem to notice, his fastest mumble storm yet running so fast it caused her hair to wave in the breeze it generated.

Meanwhile, everyone took note of the name. Midoriya. A hero with so much power he could be compared to All Might.

That is, the immutable future. I saw it so clearly.” The camera shifts from the two and focuses on the hero, on Midoriya, standing in the dust cloud, glowing with power and lightning branching off of him. “But this, is new! A different set of events!”

Nighteye drew in a sharp breath, already having hung up the phone with All Might after assuring him that he’d make his own way to UA to try and help with figuring this out. Because he knows his visions are absolute, they always have been. But if the version of him on screen was saying that his vision had been changed…

He shook his head as he strode out the door, determined to figure out what this is. He ignored the spark of hope that ignited in his chest, because if they could be changed-

He doesn’t dare to voice it.

The screen stays on the hero as the man’s voice from the start speaks. “Deku, will save everyone he can.” The screen shifts again, showing what might be the boy from before, if you go by the similar costume, standing on a pile of rubble. But he’s different, very, horrifyingly different.

The original green of the costume is darker, dirtier. Torn and fraying, patches of it missing, even on the hood/mask that covers his head, ragged extensions extending behind his head and a metal mask over his mouth. Around his neck is a yellow scarf dotted with random splatters of red. But what most noticeable is his missing right arm, the sleeve tied shut over the stump.

Inko screamed and nearly fainted, the only reason she didn’t is because she had her son in her arms, safe and sound. The boy, like everyone else watching, has whiplash from the sudden shift in appearance, and wondered how things ended up like that.

Across from the boy, stands a tall man with snow-white hair and wearing an impeccably tailored business suit, holding a struggling blonde girl in a school uniform by the throat. She kicks him ineffectively, stabs at his arm with the knife in her hand, she struggles so hard that the messy buns her hair is styled into come loose.

All Might decided that he should stop moving, because at this rate he’s liable to bring down a building from how shocked he keeps ending up from what the screen is showing. Because that is All For One. Except he’s supposed to be dead! He killed him!

Himiko Toga didn’t know how to react to being on the weird screen that showed up, either as herself or as her mask. Judging by the expressions of the people she hangs out with to be ‘normal’, they don’t know either.

“You could have lived, girl,” the man says almost conversationally, and she snarls, sharp teeth bared and a primal rage in her eyes.

“Eat shit and die, bastard.” She swings the knife at his face and manages to cause a small cut on his cheek, but it heals immediately, no sign of the injury remaining even a second after the fact.

The man lets out an exaggerated sigh. “So ill-mannered.” He snaps her neck without a moment’s hesitation and lets her body drop to the floor without even a glance. No, his eyes are focused solely upon the boy across from him, a mocking grin on his face.

Toga’s breath catches in her throat and her heart beats like it was trying to force its way out of her chest. “Did I just… die?” She asks, and she doesn’t know if it’s her who asks or her mask. For a moment, she even questioned if she should throw the mask away entirely. Because if she dies, and she didn’t look that much older than she does now, then wouldn’t it be better to die as herself than as a mask?

“Another of your friends, dead,” the man mocks. “How many do you have left now, Izuku Midoriya?” He gestures to the side and the screen extends to show a blonde boy wearing a suit similar to the man’s, but more in line with a ball than a meeting, tailcoat spread on either side of him. He’s sitting against a wall, head lowered and blood splattered around him from his injury, a metal disk nearly bisecting him from shoulder to halfway to his hip on the opposite side, pinning him to his position.

Neito Monoma rapidly paled, stumbled back, and bent over to throw up at the sight of his own dead body. The people around him on the street back away even as they stare at him in horror.

“How many more shall I kill in front of you?” The man’s head tilts as his eyes narrow, anger seeping into his expression. “Or perhaps I shall end your futile resistance here and now. I believe I have tolerated your disruptions for long enough.” He stretches his arms out to the side, leaving himself open to attack as if he isn’t worried a single bit about what the boy could do.

“After all, what can you truly accomplish, when faced with a god?”

Silence reigned across the world at the man’s declaration, nobody sure of how to react to the claim.

The boy, who has remained impassive in the face of everything, bends his knees, arm hanging loose near the ground. “A god?” He asks in a voice that sends shivers up the spines of those that hear it. “What can I do, when faced with a god?” A mass of dark tentacles erupts from the tied off sleeve of his missing arm, whipping dangerously at his surroundings, smashing large chunks of rubble to pieces. He looks at the man, bloodlust surging off of him in a visible wave as his legs tense.

“I can go down in history as the man who killed God.”

The screen goes black before returning to the initial scene, the man and the girl, Eri, in front of each other. “He will save you,” the man says gently, “because that’s who Deku was. The hero who saved everyone he could.”

The scene changes again, now looking out over the distance, with some sort of dome-like object half tilted in the water being visible among what appears to be stone out-croppings. But they seem too… uniform, for that.

“Even at the cost of Japan.”

The screen faded completely to black, leaving the world staring in shock. A few in Japan looked up, trying to get rid of the terrifying thought the man on the screen put in their heads, only for them to catch sight of a certain building.

A building known as the Tokyo Sky Egg, and they couldn’t help the absolutely horrifying realization that entered their heads from emerging.

Because the dome from the screen, which only had bits of stone poking out of the sea?

It looked an awful lot like the top of that building.