Age: 15
The smell of Dagobah Municipal Beach was an offensive mix of saltpeter, burning plastic, and decay. To most, it was a landfill. To me, it was a shooting range.
"Izuku! Sector three!" I shouted, aiming my right hand at a pile of rusted appliances.
"Clear!" Izuku's voice responded from behind a dune of scrap metal.
"Fire in the hole!"
I released a concentrated explosion. It wasn't a messy blast. It was a surgical strike intended to destabilize the base of the pile. The tower of washing machines and microwaves collapsed with a metallic crash, falling exactly where I had calculated.
"Toga!" I ordered.
"Coming, coming!" A blur crossed my field of vision.
Himiko Toga leaped over the still-hot debris. Her movements were fluid, almost liquid. With two combat knives (dull, for training), she cut the ropes and fishing nets that held the trash together in unmanageable blocks.
"Ready, leader!" she shouted, landing in a perfect pose atop a tire.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand and exhaled.
We had been coming here for three months. Officially, it was "voluntary community service" to improve our U.A. application resumes. Unofficially, it was our private gym.
I sat on the hood of a crushed van and took a swig from my water bottle. As Izuku and Toga began sorting the metals for recycling, my mind, always hyperactive, traveled back.
Fifteen years.
Sometimes, the memory of my previous life feels like a distant dream. I remember being a tired university student, with no family, working double shifts to pay for a degree that might not even get me a job. I remember the loneliness. I remember dying (or sleeping and not waking up, the details are blurry).
And then, the awakening.
Opening my eyes in the body of a four-year-old boy who screamed and blew things up. The initial terror. The deafening noise of this house. Mitsuki screaming, me screaming, explosions coming out of my hands uncontrollably.
At first, I thought it was a nightmare. Then, I thought it was an opportunity to have fun. But when I saw Izuku... little, fragile Izuku crying because the doctor told him he had no worth... something changed.
I realized I wasn't here to be a tourist. I was here to be an architect.
I looked around.
To my left, Izuku Midoriya was carrying a steel beam on his shoulder. He had no Quirk, but his back was broad and his arms were defined by years of lifting weights under my supervision. He was no longer the kid who mumbled apologies. He was a strategist who calculated levers and fulcrums to move mountains.
To my right, Himiko Toga hummed while stacking tires. Two years ago, she was on the brink of madness, repressed by parents who hated her. Now, dressed in black sportswear and wearing a genuine smile, she was lethal and stable. She was part of a family.
I did this.
Not fate. Not All Might. Me.
I took the original script of this story—the one where Izuku was bullied, where Bakugou was an insecure idiot, and where Toga became a killer—and I burned it.
"Kacchan, you're making that face again," Izuku said, snapping me out of my thoughts. He dropped the beam on the ground with a thud.
"What face?" I growled.
"The 'I am a benevolent god contemplating my creation' face," Toga teased, appearing at my side and stealing my water bottle. "It's a bit arrogant, even for you."
I snorted, but I couldn't help a half-smile.
"Show some respect to your commander, you pair of extras. Without me, you'd be lost."
"True," Izuku admitted, sitting on the sand next to me. "But without us, you'd be bored."
"And lonely," Toga added, resting her head on my knee.
We sat in silence for a moment, watching the sun begin to set over the ocean, dyeing the water orange and violet. The sea breeze smelled a little better now that we had cleaned 20% of the beach.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time.
The screen lit up.
Date: April 14th.
My heart skipped a beat. A cold jolt of adrenaline ran down my spine, tensing my muscles instantly.
Tomorrow.
According to the original timeline etched into my memory, tomorrow was the day. The start of canon.
Tomorrow, the Sludge Villain would escape a robbery. Tomorrow, All Might would be in town, losing his time limit. Tomorrow, that villain would try to take a body in the tunnel under the bridge.
In the original story, that event was the catalyst for everything. Bakugou was captured, Izuku ran to save him without power, and All Might saw heroism in the Quirkless boy.
But the variables had changed.
My Izuku wasn't an impulsive suicidal kid; he was a trained combatant. My Bakugou wouldn't be caught off guard by a low-class villain. And we had Toga, an unpredictable element.
I squeezed the phone until my knuckles cracked.
"Katsuki-kun?" Toga lifted her head, sensing the shift in my scent, the spike of nitroglycerin in my sweat. "Is something wrong? You smell like... burnt gunpowder."
I looked at the horizon, where the city was starting to turn on its lights.
"No," I said, putting the phone away. "I was just thinking that tomorrow... tomorrow will be an interesting day."
I stood up, shaking off the sand.
"Let's go. Tomorrow I want both of you on alert. Don't take shortcuts when leaving school. We go to the bridge tunnel together."
"The tunnel?" Izuku asked, confused. "But the path through the park is faster."
"Trust me, Deku." I turned to them, with a seriousness that wiped the smiles from their faces. "I have a hunch. Training is over for today. Tomorrow... the real exam begins."
They nodded, blindly trusting my judgment, as they always had.
But as we walked back to the city, I couldn't shake the feeling of unease. I had spent eleven years building this moment. I had sharpened Izuku and Toga into perfect weapons.
I was ready to rewrite the first chapter of the story. I just hoped the universe didn't have an eraser ready for me.