He glanced once—Shoto braced behind his ice, Izuku already moving forward.
Haru hurled the marbles toward Todoroki.
"Catch!"
The Nomu lunged.
Haru moved, feet barely touching the ground as shockwaves ripped through the space he'd just occupied. He darted in, hand snapping out, fingers grazing nothing but air as the pressure blasted him back again.
Every time he got close, the force shoved him away. The pattern was too clean.
'This one seems to be created to oppose me. Should I feel honoured?'
The Nomu barreled forward, fists crashing down, earth rupturing beneath the impact.
Just then, something brushed his ankle.
For half a second, Haru thought it was debris.
He looked down.
A tongue was out.
Mr Compress's mask lay cracked at his side. His mouth was open impossibly wide, tongue stretched as far as a human tongue could.
Haru twisted—
The world snapped shut.
Darkness folded in as pressure crushed him from all sides. His breath slammed out of him, body compressed into a hard, smooth shell.
A crystal marble clicked shut.
Dabi caught it midair.
He didn't look back as he grabbed Compress by the collar and hurled him toward the swirling black portal that had opened behind them.
"Nice timing," Dabi muttered.
Toga lunged at Midoriya, blade flashing. Izuku twisted away, arm coming up just in time. The knife scraped skin but drew nothing.
"It's a shame that I can't play with you, Izuku-kun. I hope we meet next time."
Villains began pulling back.
Dabi turned fully toward Shoto, flames roaring higher, heat crashing forward in a final push.
'The main target was Bakugo. There's no guarantee that the other marble I got was him, as it's one in three chance.'
He surged in, hand reaching—
A beam of light tore across the battlefield.
It passed through the air between them, almost hitting Dabi. Dabi skidded back, boots scraping, teeth clicking together in irritation.
"Tch."
He clicked his tongue and stepped backwards into the portal.
"Next time. Release the marbles for everyone other than the last one," he called to Compress to other side.
Three marbles split open.
Figures split out onto the ground.
Tokoyami hit first, rolling once before coming up on one knee.
Bakugo landed a heartbeat later.
His eyes flicked across the scene once.
Then he moved.
BOOOM
Explosion rushed outward as Bakugo shot forward toward Dabi.
Something invisible slammed into Dabi's arm, fingers locking tight.
Dabi froze.
"Huh?"
The outline of a girl shimmered into view as Dabi held her neck.
"What bad luck." He dragged her into the portal.
"FUCKING STOP!" Bakugo tried to reach them, but the portal disappeared just as he appeared at the spot.
Izuku dropped to the ground as he looked at where the portal had been.
"No..."
He had been successful in saving Bakugo, but it came at a cost. Two of his classmates were now gone.
Izuku's body started shutting down as he felt his vision go dark.
"No. Not like this." He fought against it, but it was futile.
With that, Izuku got knocked out.
***
For the next two days, the world was blurry for Izuku. His consciousness was drifting in and out, as he didn't remember a single thing.
He finally had a semblance of clarity, as he recognised that he was in a hospital room.
He glanced to his right and found a note.
'It's Mom handwriting.'
Izuku then glanced at his bundled-up arms. "I wonder if Kouta's alright."
"Oh, Midoriya. You are awake."
Somebody said from outside, and one by one, his classmates tickled in, overloading him with information.
"We've caused you trouble. The darkness was too strong for us to resist." Tokoyami looked down.
"No, that's my line. I was mostly useless, yet I tagged along..." A depreciating smile appeared on Midoriya's face. "How are others?"
"Jirou hasn't regained her consciousness, and Yaoyorozu suffered a serious head injury. From what I heard, she woke up yesterday. They were moved to a different location." Ida answered him.
"That makes us 15 of us..."
"Well, Haru and Hagakure are gone." Todoroki blunted said.
"Hey..."
Izuku's face fell. "All Might was saying... You can't save people where hands can't reach. That's why you have to save anyone within your reach.
But...I was in reach at that time. I had to save them. My quirk... The whole purpose of quirk... It turned out exactly like Aizawa-sensei said it would." Izuku gritted his teeth.
"My body couldn't move..."
'Haru...'
The memory of their first meeting surfaced in his mind.
***
Time: Some time later, after the Quirk Assessment Test on the First day of U.A
"Hey!" Izuku looked back. There was a periwinkle boy with blue-eyes running toward him.
"Midoriya, right?"
"Yes. You were—"
"Haru."
Midoriya blinked.
"You can call me Haru."
"Oh, then you can also call me Izuku."
"That's awesome. So, how's your finger? I didn't expect anybody to get hurt on the first day."
Midoriya rubbed the back of his head. "Well, it's alright now. Recovery Girl healed me."
"You were pretty cool when saying 'Sensei, I could still move.'" Haru tried mimicking him.
Izuku instantly blushed. "That...You were cool too. I actually didn't expect that Aizawa-sensei would allow you to hack the system to change your scores in front of him."
"Right? I half-expected him to ask me to redo it." Haru nodded.
"What's exactly your quirk?" Midoriya involuntarily brought out his notebook.
"Basically, I could see anything I am touching in data and manipulate it to do my bidding. That data could be anything tech-related, or human bodies or even the fabric of reality."
Scribble Scribble Scribble
"So, a touch-based quirk? Do you need to touch them with a specific part of your body, like your hands, or could it be anything you are touching? You were able to hack a network, and you said you could hack reality, so what's stopping you from touching anybody who is in contact with air by touching the air?
You said, body? So, can you hack people's quirk, too? If you can manipulate the genetic data of a person, then can't you theoretically modify their quirks, and if not, rewrite them entirely? From what I know, such a type of quirk requires intense concentration while using their quirk, yet you were able to do that while doing other activities? How do you do that? Is it a function of your quirk? Or are there some requirements to do that? Maybe some kind of hacking could not get much attention or could be done in the background? There's another possibility of you being able to somehow do multi-tasking, but..." Izuku mid-way realised that he was mumbling and stopped in embarrassment.
"Sorry about that. I just—"
"Yeah, my quirk is touch-based. I can activate it on anything that my body's in contact with. The thing is, there's a limit. In networks and all that, it's easy for me to affect other things, because the connection is strong. But, for things like air, they are not good 'conductors' for my quirk, so I need to touch others instead. I think maybe this is one of the limitations of my quirk, which was supposed to be tech-related.
Yes, I could hack quirks, but rewriting them is a pretty different thing. Though rewriting virtual things is somewhat possible, it takes too much concentration. Rewriting stuff like quirk or reality is almost impossible for me due to the complexity involved, which is continuously changing. Yes, my quirk requires intense concentration, and I kind of have trained myself to sub-consciously use it while focusing outwardly. It's kind of like split-attention/ multi-tasking, but trained to the extreme."
Izuku looked at him with his mouth open.
"You understood whatever I said?" Nobody could keep track of what Izuku says when he mummbles.
At least until now.
"Hehe. I know a person who is even worse than you." Haru giggled. He then pointed his finger at the notebook Izuku was holding.
"Can I see this? If you don't mind."
"Sure." Izuku handed him the notebook.
Haru flipped through it, seeing an analysis of various heroes.
He stopped at one entry, reading it.
"Wow, these are so detailed. Did you do all of them by yourself?"
"Yes..." Izuku blushed again.
"There are so many heroes I haven't even heard of. You must be doing it for a long time."
"I started when I was 4." 'Around the time, when I was labelled quirkless...' Izuku's expression complicated. Back then, if somebody had told him that he would get a quirk later on, and All Might's quirk of all people, he would have looked at the other person as if they were insane.
Yet, here he was.
"Have you analysed heroes who retired before then?" Haru asked with unusual excitement.
Izuku nodded. "Not all, but several. Do you want to see a specific hero?"