WarThe air was still.
Too still.
A broken city stretched before him, lights flickering weakly in the distance. The night sky burned orange with smoke and ash, and beneath it stood a man whose name had once made the world tremble.
Izuku Midoriya — the Symbol of Peace, the last hero of a dying era.
His body was failing. Every movement drew a tremor of pain. Every breath rattled against his ribs like loose glass. But his eyes — those tired, steady eyes — still held that same quiet resolve.
So this… is how it ends, he thought, watching the broken skyline fade into the mist.
There was no panic in him anymore. Only clarity — the kind that comes to those who have lived long enough to see the full circle of life.
---
He remembered the beginning. A trembling boy staring at All Might's smile, heart burning with impossible dreams. Then the middle — fire, blood, and screams. Then the decades that followed: reforming a society that had built itself on false ideals. He had dragged the Hero Commission into the light, torn away their corruption piece by piece.
He remembered rebuilding the schools — not just U.A., but hundreds more — places that taught morality before power. He remembered dismantling the old hero rankings, breaking down the walls between quirkless and gifted.
A lifetime of war, and yet… a lifetime of change.
They'll never know how much blood it cost, he thought, closing his eyes briefly. But maybe they'll remember the lesson.
---
The wind whispered through the ruins. Somewhere, a building crumbled in the distance, the last echo of a world that was finally learning to breathe again.
He could still see her face — his mother — smiling softly even through pain. The way she used to hold him when nightmares tore his sleep apart. Then the screams… the blood… the silence that followed.
He exhaled shakily, the memory sharp but no longer unbearable. He had made peace with it long ago.
He remembered his friends, too — faces of fire and light, laughter and loss. He had buried them all. One by one. Heroes, villains, innocents, monsters — everyone gone, until he stood alone atop the ashes of the world he had saved.
It wasn't for nothing, he reminded himself gently.
---
The wind changed. Cold now. Heavy.
A small smile touched his lips. His hand — wrinkled, scarred, trembling — rose slowly, reaching toward the sky that he could no longer see clearly. His vision blurred, stars melting into the haze.
He thought of the children born into this new age — unafraid, unashamed, laughing under a world that didn't look down on them.
If there's a heaven, he thought, I hope they're watching this world grow.
A dull ache in his chest tightened. The heart that had endured more battles than history itself finally began to still.
He didn't resist.
This… is fine.
His mind slowed. Every second stretched longer than time itself. He felt the rhythm of his heartbeat falter — once… twice…
And then… silence.
But the silence wasn't empty.
---
It was soft.
Warm.
Weightless.
He floated — not falling, not rising — just existing in a sea of light. There was no pain here. No fear. Only… awareness.
Am I… dreaming?
No heartbeat. No sound. Just a quiet pulse that wasn't his own. A rhythm distant yet familiar, echoing through this infinite void.
He tried to move — no response. He tried to open his eyes — nothing.
Where… am I?
There was no answer. Only warmth wrapping around him like water. It wasn't unpleasant. It was comforting, almost like being held.
His thoughts drifted, slow and logical even now. I should be dead. I felt my heart stop. So how… am I… still thinking?
He listened. There it was again — that heartbeat. Slow, steady, rhythmic. Not his own.
Confusion tugged at the edge of his calm. He reached out with his consciousness, trying to grasp something, anything — and felt motion.
A dull echo of movement, a distant vibration through flesh and fluid. Something pressed against him from all sides.
This isn't… death.
The thought pulsed sharper now, bringing a ripple of focus to the quiet void. He felt the world shift. A faint sound — muffled voices. Then light, blinding and cold, cutting through the warmth.
He gasped — or tried to — lungs filling for the first time in what felt like eternity.
---
The cry that escaped his lips wasn't his.
It was small. Weak. Trembling.
Hands lifted him — careful, warm, trembling with joy and exhaustion. A voice — soft, feminine — murmured something he couldn't yet understand.
He blinked, vision swimming with colors and shapes that meant nothing. The air felt heavy, unfamiliar. Every sound too loud, every breath too shallow.
This… body… His thoughts were sluggish, confused, trapped between two worlds. No. This can't be right.
He tried to move, but the limbs didn't respond the way they should. Tiny. Fragile. Powerless.
Panic surged for a moment — brief, alien — before discipline smothered it. Years of experience kicked in like instinct.
Observation first. Panic later.
The woman's voice — soft again — reached him. A man answered, his tone deeper, measured. And a smaller, quieter voice lingered somewhere nearby, watching.
Three heartbeats. One small, one strong, one steady. Family…?
He focused, forcing his hazy mind to analyze through the fog of infancy. Every sound, every breath, every shift of air.
Then, realization crept in, slow and impossible.
This isn't… the afterlife.
A breath. A pause. A thought so sharp it cut through the haze:
I'm alive.
The room blurred again, shapes fading into the soft warmth of sleep.
And as darkness took him once more, one final thought echoed through the fog of his newborn mind — steady, quiet, uncomprehending:
Why?
...
Warmth.
Softness.
It was the first thing he noticed when consciousness returned. Not the ache of injury, not the ringing aftermath of battle — just warmth. A soft rhythm of breathing near him, the faint rustle of cloth, the scent of something clean and faintly sweet.
His eyelids were heavy. He didn't open them immediately. Instead, he listened.
A man and a woman. Two distinct voices. Close.
Their tones were calm — practiced calm, the kind that comes with discipline. The man's voice was deep, measured, a quiet command in every syllable. The woman's tone was gentler, threaded with a warmth that tugged faintly at something long buried.
The faintest movement stirred beside him — another presence. Young. Still. Watching.
Three again. Same as before. So, I wasn't hallucinating.
He took a slow breath, feeling the air fill tiny lungs — strange, small, shallow. His chest rose and fell too quickly for comfort. Every muscle felt untrained. Weak.
My motor control is… limited. No, more than that. Underdeveloped.
He tried to move his fingers. They twitched. Clumsy, barely responding. He focused on that sensation — the way tendons and nerves reacted. Everything was new, but the mind analyzing them was not.
It was like waking up in someone else's body — but worse. This body wasn't just different. It was infantile.
A faint sigh escaped him. It came out as a soft coo, earning a chuckle from the woman nearby.
"He's calm today," she whispered.
Calm? He would've laughed if he could. There was nothing calm about realizing you were trapped inside a newborn. But the voice — her voice — had a softness that… disarmed him.
Mother, he thought, not with attachment, but observation. Her breathing quickens when she looks at me. Relief. Happiness. She cares deeply.
He heard footsteps — the man moving closer. The air shifted. A faint pressure touched his forehead, followed by the scent of smoke and steel.
"Fugaku," the woman murmured.
A hum of acknowledgement. "He's healthy. Strong lungs."
Fugaku… Mikoto.
The names clicked into place slowly, fragments of memory he shouldn't have had — echoes of a story he'd once read, long ago in another world.
No… that's impossible.
He forced his eyes open. The world exploded into color. Too bright, too vivid. Every light fractured into pieces until his vision adjusted.
Two faces hovered above him. A woman with dark hair and gentle eyes. A man with sharp features and quiet authority.
And beyond them, a boy — maybe five or six — watching silently from the corner, eyes too old for his age.
That look… disciplined, aware. Like he's already been trained to read a battlefield.
The realization came slow, crawling through disbelief and analysis alike. The Uchiha crest hung behind them — the fan emblem, red and white, catching light from the window.
So. That's where I am.
He blinked, once. Twice. The world remained unchanged.
His heartbeat — small, fragile — quickened. Not with fear, but comprehension.
He had heard of them. Watched their story unfold in fiction, in another lifetime. A clan of fire and pride. A tragedy written before it began.
No. Calm. Don't jump to conclusions.
He exhaled softly — another coo. The woman smiled.
"He's so quiet," she said fondly. "Itachi was louder."
The boy tilted his head slightly. "He's… watching us."
Fugaku's brow rose, faintly curious. "Newborns don't 'watch,' Itachi."
But Itachi didn't answer. His gaze stayed locked on the infant, as if trying to solve a puzzle.
Izuku — no, whatever he was now — met that gaze. For a second, everything else faded. The child's eyes were calm, sharp, unnaturally perceptive. There was recognition in them. Understanding.
And for the first time, Izuku realized he wasn't the only one who saw.
He's… sharp. Too sharp.
---
The day passed in fragments — warmth, sleep, muffled voices, and fading light.
Each time he woke, he learned something new: the layout of the room, the intervals of feeding, the habits of those around him. His mind recorded everything.
Patterns formed. Fugaku's visits were short, methodical. Mikoto's were constant, soft. Itachi's — brief, but observant.
He learned the rhythm of their home before he even learned his new body.
And yet, as the nights deepened, so did the questions.
Why here? Why me?
He had died with purpose. He had accepted death. He wasn't supposed to come back. And yet… here he was.
In a world of chakra and bloodlines, in a body that would one day bear a destiny not his own.
He closed his eyes.
Observation first. Adaptation next.
That had been his creed once — the lesson learned from a lifetime of impossible odds.
So he lay quietly, surrounded by warmth and distant voices, mind clear and patient as ever.
He would wait. Watch. Learn.
And when the time came — when this fragile body was ready — then, and only then, would he decide what to do with this second life.
He might not remember a single thing about the fiction he had watched all those years ago, back when he was still quirkless. But none of that matters—he is, and always will be, Izuku Midoriya. No matter how overwhelming this situation may seem, he will find a way through it.
...