Chapter Text
This story is posted as a thank you to all my readers. Finally reached 1k followers on Wattpad, so WHOOHOOO!
This chapter was edited and reposted on Sunday, July 12, 2020.
“You have to go!” The older man shouted urgently, shooting a fierce glare towards his companion.
“If I leave you, you’ll die!” The younger argued, green eyes brimming with tears.
“You know as well as I do, that we don’t have a choice, here. We always knew one of us would have to stay behind to destroy the portal.”
“So why should I be the one to go?! You’re the teacher! The Hero!! What good could someone like me do?!”
“Izuku.” The man’s voice was harsh, and his sharp tone made the younger man’s eyes focus on his friend. The elder’s eyes softened. “It must be you. You’re not who you were back then. You aren’t useless. Remember this: You are a Hero. And the world is counting on you—even if nobody realizes it.”
“But…” Izuku sniffled. “What about you? I swore… I promised I’d look after you!”
“Here. When the time comes… give this to him. You’ll know he trusts you when he calls you ‘Problem Child’.” He smiled fondly, handing Izuku a pair of rings on a chain.
Deranged laughter filtered down the corridor, making the two stiffen. They hadn’t expected him to show up. With that man in the building, they knew their defenses wouldn’t hold for much longer.
“You need to go, now.” He pulled Izuku into a hug, as the smaller man clung to him for all he was worth, tears streaming down his face. “This isn’t goodbye.”
“Yes it is.” Izuku’s fingers dug into the man’s shoulder. “You won’t be… you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ll always be me. And you’ll always be my Problem Child.” The man then violently shoved Izuku backwards, making him stumble into the swirling vortex. “Save the world, Midoriya Izuku.” He smiled, a bright hopeful grin that looked so out of place on the man’s exhausted face.
The door behind him disintegrated into dust as a blue-haired man covered in severed hands grinned in glee, only to screech in rage upon seeing Izuku in the portal. With an indomitable fury, his hand latched onto the older man’s face, covering his eyes so he couldn’t escape his fate.
“SHOUTA!”
With a smirk, Shouta clicked the big red button. The last thing Izuku heard, before being entirely consumed by the portal, was the Gateway exploding.
Pain. Pain was all that Izuku knew. It felt like his atoms were being torn apart and thrust back together. The first thing he was aware of, as the pain started to fade, was that it was unusually bright outside. And someone was there. He tried to fall into a defensive crouch, but his body wouldn’t obey. Instead he found himself on his butt as he blinked up at… All Might?!
“I cannot simply say you can become a hero even without power.”
Oh. Oh. This was that day on the rooftop. Of course I had to go back to one of the worst moments of my life. OF FUCKING COURSE! He only looked back up when the iron door closed behind the blond figure.
Izuku winced as he staggered to his feet. He looked down at his hands—younger hands. They were smaller than he was used to, but there was still that scar he’d gotten when he was 23 after he stupidly participated in a drunken round of the Knife Game.
“Wait a minute…” He winced when his voice came out several octaves higher than he was used to, but ignored that for the moment. He instead looked himself over. Carefully peeling off his shirt, he looked down to find a familiar, yet vastly different body. His muscle was still there, as were all his scars. He could count his ribs, and his skin was shockingly pale. That slash he’d gotten from a Nomu two weeks ago was still there and healing, but his body was also so much smaller.
“I… I’m 14 again.” They had had no idea how things would pan out. For all their calculations and carefully run scenarios, Izuku and Shouta had no real way of knowing if this would even work. For all they knew, he’d be tossed back a few months or even to the womb. Or just killed.
“Shouta…” Izuku breathed as the gravity of what had just happened hit him hard. He fell back against the wall behind him and brought his face to his knees. With no one there to witness anything, he freely cried for the first time since Zashi’s death. He was truly alone for the first time in years, and it wasn’t a good feeling. He felt isolated and lost and he needed Shouta’s strong reassuring arms around him. He needed his best friend… his brother. And the realization that Shouta and Hizashi were still alive now didn’t help any because they wouldn’t remember him. He would be a stranger to them, and that just hurt him all the more.
“Damnit Shou…” He sniffled, voice cracking. “I swear to God I’m going to make your life a living hell for pulling that kind of stunt.” He aggressively swiped away his tears. “We were supposed to do this together, you asshole.” He looked down at the necklace clenched in his fist. Hizashi and Shouta’s wedding bands sat innocently in his palm. With a shaky sigh, he put the necklace around his own neck and tucked it into his shirt—which he put back on.
Wait… He looked down at his clothing. It was exactly what he’d been wearing in the lab that he and Shouta had occupied. How had All Might not…? “Time travel is so goddamned confusing.” He shook his head. He patted himself down, smirking lightly as he realized he had all his weapons on his person.
“Cool. So I’ve got ten months until the Entrance Exams.” He nodded to himself. He looked over the railing to the bustling city below him. He felt like his senses were on overdrive. He’d survived about 8-10 years in the deathly silence of a post-apocalyptic world where the slightest sound could very well get you killed. So a lively town filled with colorful noise and movement made him twitchy as hell, and set all his senses to high alert as he awaited the arrival of an enemy that he knew wasn’t going to come.
“As if I wasn’t socially awkward enough before.” He shook his head.
Izuku had no intentions of going back ‘home’. His dear mother had never taken kindly to his Quirklessness. She had been a kind and loving woman once, but his father had come home when he was about five and slowly poisoned her mind. So even though his father was off on long business trips and never home, his mother had dished out plenty of neglect more often than not. She wasn’t outright abusive, but she could care less if he was even there or not.
With that thought in mind, he carefully leapt from one rooftop to another, avoiding the more populated areas as he made his way back to his mother’s apartment. He was honestly surprised he remembered where it was, let alone which window was his. It’d been long enough that he’d hardly remembered the apartment number. The only way he recognized the room was because of that crack on the window from when he’d gotten mad at age 7 and threw something at it.
Izuku stole into his old bedroom, taking a moment to reminisce about his old childish room. The walls were covered in drawings of hero posters that he’d never been allowed to buy (he’d gotten much better at drawing them over the years) and the shelves were covered in replicas of hero merch that he’d eyed in the stores. The older ones he’d made from stolen play-doh at school, while the newer ones were made of actual clay he’d snitched from some pottery places around town (the scraps, that is).
He smiled softly before grabbing a backpack and stuffing it with clothes, provisions, and blankets. He carefully took the three Eraserhead figurines, five Present Mic figurines, and one Midnight figurine.
He grabbed his analysis notebooks and a fair supply of pencils, clay, and paints before sneaking into his mother’s room and snagging some money. With that done, he grabbed one picture (taken on his third birthday, before everything went to shit), and fled out the window.
There was only one place he could think of that he could stay without having to answer any unnecessary questions or interact with people—Dagoba Beach. He couldn’t help but grin as he came upon the heaping mountains of trash. Nobody would bother him, here. That’s for sure.
He dug his way through the trash before finding an old abandoned camper. He’d need to clean it out, but it’d be perfect. He grinned as he went inside. It smelled terrible, but he’d lived in worse. At least he’d be warm.
Being a kid again, Izuku decided, was weird. Gone was his stubble and deep voice, and back was that awkward higher-pitched squeaky voice he’d been stuck with until he’d hit 16 or so.
It’d been about two weeks since his return, and Izuku was finally settled. He’d cleaned out the camper and scrubbed every inch of it with bleach he’d bought from the local dollar store. Beggars can’t be choosers, but he was going to minimize as many health risks as he could. By the time he was done, the place was practically sparkling. He’d fixed the moldy leaky roof, too. The engine was shot to hell, but that was fine by him. He wasn’t planning on going anywhere, anyways.
But he was also getting restless. He’d had a backpack that had come back with him from the future that had plenty of supplies and plans that he and Shouta had worked on together (and sometimes just seeing Shouta’s handwriting made him tear up). But his old Vigilante outfit was in there, too. And it got him thinking.
In the years before Shigaraki destroyed the world, Midoriya Izuku had been a vigilante known as Viridian. He’d tried to find a solid career as a Quirkless nobody. He’d ended up eventually trying his hand at support items, but even helping heroes didn’t satisfy his deep seeded need to help people.
And back then, there’d been a lot more people that needed help than the heroes could reach, so Izuku had taken it upon himself to answer those quiet cries for help.
He smiled softly as he held the dark green jumpsuit. The ‘mask’ looked more like an old-school ninja’s, leaving his green eyes open for the world to see. He held it up in front of him and frowned.
Of course, the outfit was made with his adult self in mind. So his tiny prepubescent self was not going to fit into that outfit. “Ooookay. Time for Plan B.”
Plan B was to go by the local discount store and buy a Halloween costume and then modify it to look as close to his vigilante outfit as possible.
The end result was a black jumpsuit with multiple hidden pouches (as well as a bunch of pouches that resembled a utility belt) that looked reminiscent of a ninja. It wasn’t as durable as he would’ve liked, and it wasn’t anything resistant, but it’d have to do.
He pulled up the head mask, which left only the slit for his eyes, and attached his weapons to his person. He looked in the cracked mirror he’d salvaged from the dump. He looked like a good ol’ fashioned ninja—like an actual shadow-person. He was kind of cool, if he did say so himself.
He tightened his bootlaces (five-finger discounted from the mall) and triple checked his mask. He was finally ready to go.
Izuku sighed as he readied himself to go out on his patrol. It’d been about two months since he started doing these again, and it was dreadfully easy.
He’d had no idea how uncommon vigilantes were before the League of Villains’ attack on USJ. In fact there were only a handful in Japan (who lasted more than a week).
Even though he was still dreadfully malnourished from his time in the future, he rarely had any trouble bringing down criminals. They just weren’t anywhere near the same caliber as the Nomu he was used to facing.
Because of this, he was starting to make a name for himself. The Internet, in particular, was starting to whisper about a new vigilante who was protecting civilians in the harsher, less patrolled areas that heroes seemed to forget. Places like South Musutafu, where the unwanted of society seemed to end up.
He’d learned from the misfortune of others that if he didn’t come up with a name for himself, that the police and Internet would come up with one for him. And they didn’t always come up with the best of names. So Izuku decided, since he was also kind of shit at names, to stick with the one he’d had in his previous timeline—Viridian.
He smirked as he tied up a group of drug traders, who were glaring at him. He chuckled, the new voice modifier made his voice sound deeper and older. It sounded like his future self, which honestly put Izuku more at ease.
“Do me a favor, would’ya?” He grinned beneath his mask as he looked at the three men. “Let the cops know that Viridian says hi.” With that, he nimbly scaled the side of the building, finding handholds and footholds where most people would find none.
Within minutes, the police were on the scene, responding to the phone call of the frightened civilian he’d saved. A man with a familiar tan trench coat stepped out of one of the vehicles. Viridian grinned.
So they’ve finally brought Tsukauchi on? This’ll be interesting. He knew of the detective from his original vigilante career. He was a good man and a fantastic detective. Viridian was going to have fun with him.
“All right, Detective.” Viridian muttered to himself. “Let the games begin.”
Ihavenoname: Dude, have you heard of that new vigilante in Musutafu?
TheCakeisaLie: Viridian, right? He’s all over the chatrooms! Nobody can stop talking about the guy.
DragoninaDress: I think he’s just a rumor. Nobody’s seen him but the people he’s supposedly caught, after all.
MoldiBroccli: I saw him! I swear! He totally saved me the other night. These guys were about to attack me, and he just hops down from the rooftop like a badass and saves me! He looks like a ninja but has green eyes.
Noiscardily: You serious?
TheCakeisaLie: I’m glad you’re okay! Did you get a picture?
DragoninaDress: I still don’t think he’s real.
MoldiBroccli: I got a grainy shot. It was dark. Gimme a sec, I’m new to this site…
Noiscardily: Upper left of your chat box, click the dots. Should have an option for an attachment.
MoldiBroccli: thnx
MoldiBroccli: saviour.jpg
Demonic-gay-microwave: holy shit hes real.
DragoninaDress: mm… could b photoshopped.
Barbieisawhore: just admit ur wrong, smh.
MoldiBroccli: at any rate, I owe Viridian my life. He’s got a new fan in me, for sure. #Viridian #heroes #vigilante #ViridiantheHero