Minoru Mineta woke, tried to roll over, and involuntarily sobbed as he flopped prone once more. He felt like he'd been squeezed into a body three times too small then run over by a steam roller. Hell, he hadn't felt this awful since before…but his mind shied away from the thought, the anguish of such a memory worse even than the physical pain he was currently suffering. What on earth did he do last night? He vaguely remembered Scummer coming over for drinks, the two of them talking, crying, just a pretty standard pity party taken to the max by the shared trauma of the prior weeks. Then Scummer had made that crazy claim about being a time traveler or whatever, but after that…nothing. He thought he might have challenged Scummer to prove his Quirk somehow, but there was too much alcohol, too many past pointless discussions with Scummer bleeding together in his mind.

  It was no use. His brain was utterly rung-out, and nothing was going to make it better except maybe more alcohol, if their bender last night had left any untouched. If not that, he'd settle for eggs. He wasn't sure why, but he was really craving eggs.

  Breathing deep, Minoru forced himself onto his side, eventually levering himself upright. He immediately froze, shock ruthlessly cutting through the nausea and pain.

  This wasn't his apartment. It wasn't an apartment at all. He was in the bedroom of his childhood home. Here, his twin bed. There, an old hero poster that he'd put up in elementary school and then never gotten around to changing. His desk, dresser, shelves, everything just as he remembered.

  Except his parents had sold this home years ago. Trembling, he went to stand up and almost fell over, his body not reacting the way he expected. He was shorter than he should have been. Less heavy. Looking down at himself in shock, he realized it wasn't just his height or weight: he looked younger.

  Holy shit, was Scummer telling the truth? Minoru stumbled to the mirror on his dresser, mouth hanging open and eyes bugging out at what he was witnessing.

  It was him. Same grape-like hair, wide eyes, somewhat big head, and poor choice in pajamas. But it was him from what, almost two decades back? Him when he was eagerly looking forward to his career as a popular hero, not realizing what actually lay in wait. Before the world went to shit and took him with it, before he bottomed out, before Aoi-chan…but no, he's already determined he wasn't up for thinking about Aoi-chan.

  "This isn't real," he said, reaching up to touch his own face, and jumping at the sound of his voice. No scratch. Hopeful. Youthful. Just straight young. His chin was smooth under his hand. Right, he hadn't ever needed to shave until he stopped using Pop Off with regularity.

  Shit, this might be real.

  His door opened, revealing his mother. Still a few wrinkles, but nothing like what he remembered. Hair not gone to gray, eyes without the bitter tinge of disappointment that he'd grown so inured to. Though he couldn't say whether he preferred that the current barely-interested look she cast at him. "Minoru? Well, at least you're awake. Get moving, at this rate you're going to be late for your first day."

  Through the door wafted the smell of fresh-cooked eggs. Oh. No wonder he'd been craving those. He hoped there were some for him.

  In a daze, filled now with equal parts pain and wonder, Minoru stumbled through the door after the retreating back of his mother.

  The daze persisted as Minoru walked through the oversized doors leading to Class 1-A. By long habit he headed straight to his desk, arranged his things, and sat down, before looking up and around the classroom.

  The room was as plain as usual; a large open space dominated by rows of desk with one wall featuring lined indentations that he knew outlined the automated shelves that contained their hero costumes.

  The familiar room, however, only held his attention for a moment. What captured his interest more were the people. There was Denki Kaminari, the black lightning-bolt in his hair barely visible as he sat facing forward with unusual reticence. Mashirao Ojiro was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, his average-looking face showing mild discomfort as he tried to find space for his decidedly-unaverage tail. Fumikage Tokoyami was lurking in the back of the class, staring past his beak at the rest like a bird of prey crouched in a dark forest. In contrast, Yuga Aoyama was ramrod straight at his desk, and Minoru could practically see the twinkle marks around his blonde locks. Behind Aoyama, Tsuyu Asui crouched over her desk, her intent interest in the people around her at odds with her hunched posture. Eijiro Kirishima's spiky red hair practically obscured the people behind him, but like Kaminari he was unusually reserved today. Koji Koda's rocky-appearing head lurked in the background, Rikido Sato near him also fading into the background despite his bulky figure. Kyoka Jiro sat with unusually good posture, her earphone jacks barely visible under her hair. Hanta Sero looked eager from his seat in the front row. Shoto Todoroki's dual-tone hair shone from the back of the room, Mezo Shoji glowered out from under his own long bangs, and Toru Hagakure's seemingly empty uniform lounged in her seat. As his gaze crossed the black-pupilled eyes of Mina Ashido, the pink girl smiled at him…he couldn't remember the last time she'd looked so unabashedly friendly towards him, and he looked awkwardly away. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that Momo Yaoyorozu was sitting primly in her seat, hair gathered up and behind her head in a hairdo he hadn't thought of in years. He looked away from her even faster than with Ashido.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Then there were the few students who evidently were immune to first-day jitters. Two seats ahead of Minoru, Katsuki Bakugo slouched with his legs up on the desk while Tenya Ida loudly berated him, arms swinging in arcane, unknowable fashion. As their conflict reached a climax, they were interrupted by the door sliding open once more to admit Izuku Midoriya in all his green-haired, na?ve-looking glory. Ida immediately broke off from Bakugo and strode over to introduce himself to Midoriya, though the two were interrupted in turn by the arrival of Ochaco Uraraka who greeted them both with her signature bubbly style. Their reunion didn't last long, however, as Shota Aizawa, their homeroom teacher, made his idiosyncratic entrance from within his yellow mummy-style sleeping bag.

  Aizawa wasted no time on useless niceties and all too quickly Minoru found himself swept up with the other students into changing into his gym clothes, though he remained reticent and didn't participate in any of the nervous banter, introductions, and speculation about their first lesson that the others engaged in.

  He really had gone back in time somehow. Although his memory on the details were a little fuzzy, everything so far today had proceeded exactly as he recalled, but although he was still struggling to come to terms with everything that implied, he was constantly finding himself distracted by his classmates. They were so intimately familiar to him, these people who he'd lived with and fought alongside. Yet at the same time they treated him as a complete stranger, and they were so young. None of the girls avoided him—they barely paid him any attention at all—and although a few of the boys made tentative friendly overtures while they were changing, he just couldn't get over their fresh-faced innocence. They looked just how he remembered them, but the history, the shared camaraderie…all of it was gone, washed away with the last two decades that now lived on only in his own imperfect memory...

  "Are you alright?" A voice intruded into Minoru's swirling thoughts, and he found himself standing near Asui, her large eyes staring unblinkingly into his own.

  Before Minoru could corral his thoughts into anything resembling coherence, the sound of an explosion and a billowing cloud of dust pulled both their attention back to the front of the class where Bakugo had just launched a ball some 700 meters to the obvious surprise of everyone present and Aizawa was lying about expelling whoever scored worst. Minoru turned away; he'd been plenty invested the first time around, but having suffered through numerous of Aizawa's "rational deceptions" over his school years he wasn't going to break down into hysterics like Midoriya was currently doing over such an obvious ploy.

  Minoru turned back to Asui, who was now also staring at Aizawa with a distinctly worried look on her face. "I'll be…fine. Just nervous about my first day at U.A., I guess." He gave a nervous chuckle, and cut it off when he realized how hysterical it sounded. Asui turned what he suspected his classmates as they currently were would find to be a disturbingly blank stare, but to him looked like deep concern. Damn it, she wasn't buying it. Not that he could blame her; he really wasn't okay by any means. Time to redirect things. "I don't think you need to worry about the tests. You're going to do great." He shot her a thumbs up and his best attempt at a smile.

  Asui didn't let up her attention, but just as she was opening her mouth to say something more, Aizawa called her name for the 50-meter dash, and she hurried away without further comment.

  Minoru let out a huff of breath in relief. He wasn't going to figure anything out just now; best he could do was re-acquaint himself with his younger body.

  By the end of the day, Minoru was exhausted, and all he had to show for it was his position of second-from-the-bottom. He hadn't ended up deviating from his original approach to the fitness tests and only used his Pop Off quirk to vastly speed up his side-stepping, which in turn did him no favors as his incredibly small size disadvantaged him for most of the other events. As soon as class ended, he made a bee-line for the door and escaped successfully into the city only to find himself at a loss. What he most wanted at the moment was to find the grungiest bar he could and lose himself in alcohol…but he was now a minor, and one who looked like an elementary school kid at that, at least size-wise.

  With no better options coming to mind, Minoru trudged home and shut himself into his room with a notebook and pen. Everything today had proceeded exactly as he remembered, which presumably meant that unless he took some sort of action, the future that he was so unhappy to have lived to reach would likely just repeat. Granted, he didn't think he was capable of exactly recreating his past actions—and didn't want to, regardless. He'd never particularly liked himself, but after meeting Aoi-chan he'd come to loathe some aspects of his past self in ways he never would have predicted as a high-schooler. If he was going to be worthy of her in the future…

  Minoru froze in place, a realization shooting through him. He'd gone back to the past. All his successes and failures rendered moot, some of his worst experiences left to come, yes, but also…Aoi-chan wasn't dead. If he played his cards right, Aoi-chan wouldn't die.

  Even as hope kindled, though, it guttered. After all, he hadn't caused Aoi-chan's death, nor did he know exactly who was responsible; it was the mess that had become of Japan's society in the aftermath of All For One's assault that was ultimately to blame. But he was uniquely well-situated to influence that particular conflict; after all, several of his classmates were on a trajectory that would see them intimately involved with the whole sordid affair.

  Yet on the flip side of that particular coin, Aoi-chan only ended up a hostess because Japan was so screwed and she lacked any good alternatives, so if he successfully achieved the good ending, he wouldn't even know where to meet her.

  After all, she died the very day she was going to tell him her real name; Aoi-chan was just her stage name.

  Minoru slammed his head onto his desk with a groan. Why couldn't things go right for him for once in his life?!

  He lifted his head and discovered he'd left something behind: his notebook was now permanently attached to one of the grape-like balls that made up his hair.

  Great, now he needed a new notebook. This day was just getting better and better.

  Minoru threw the notebook and ball combo in the trash, and collapsed on his bed. Maybe if he just gave up and went to sleep this nightmare would end and he'd wake up in the nightmare that was his normal life.

  It was worth a shot, at least.