"Haru?" Her usual lazy voice came from the other side. "It's not even been a day. Already missing home?"
"I am," he said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt. "I just… wanted to hear you."
A pause came from the other side. Her voice became serious. "Are you hurt?"
"No." The answer came quickly. Too quickly.
Another pause.
"I love you," Haru said.
Haru could already imagine the expression on his mom's face even without seeing her.
"Did you hit your head? What possessed you to say that? Has my boy finally graduated from his edgy-phase?"
Haru's expression twisted subconsciously. "I just wanted to say that, old hag!"
He hung up before she could ask anything else.
He swiped his screen and looked at another contact.
Dad.
Haru thought for a moment before shaking his head. 'Dad is too smart. Paired with his quirk, he might easily see through me.'
His musings were cut short by a loud sound.
GROWL
He looked at his stomach. "Right, I missed lunch."
It took 1-A nearly 7 hours to reach the camp, opposed to the expected 3 hours.
He went back to camp for dinner.
Plates were filled, passed around, and clinked together. The normalcy felt almost aggressive.
Conversation drifted to the final exams soon enough.
"These final tests were brutal," Denki said around a mouthful of food. "Who would have thought that principal was so..."
Haru suggested, "Dangerous?"
"Scary?" Mina suggested.
"Cute?" Tsuyu said.
"All of the above." Denki sighed.
Then the conversation soon tilted to the mud monsters they fought throughout the day.
"They weren't any human like. Just a mud puppet." Haru whined.
Mineta leaned forward, elbows on the table. "So they're harder for you?"
Haru nodded. "Well, a bit. I am more used to hacking humans. So, it took me a few more seconds for each."
Later, when the plates were cleared and the camp lights dimmed, the conversation slid into less academic territory.
"So," Mineta said, grinning in a way that promised nonsense, "the Pussycats."
Kaminari laughed. "You're gonna get us killed." He looked around to make sure that they weren't being heard by them.
"Both of them were girls," Mineta said. "That doesn't make them immune to observation."
Sero said, looking at others. "Pixie-Bob's looking for a partner."
An unintentional grin rose on Haru's face. "She's cute."
"Didn't she call dibs on you or something?" Denki remembered her words after they reached the camp.
"I wasn't the only one! Izuku, Tenya, Shoto and Katsuki were the same." Haru shook his hands quickly.
"Oh? Then why are you blushing like an idiot?" Mineru retorted.
"I am not blushing!"
Soon, the conversation between the 4 got back to the usual banter.
Haru didn't know when, but he felt lighter after talking to them.
Mineta's grin suddenly widened. "Haru! Doesn't your quirk mess with other people's bodies?"
Haru nodded. "If I am touching them, then yes."
"You once said that you could also control your pain receptors."
"Yup. I can."
"Then, can you also control the pleasure like pain?"
Haru didn't say anything. He just met his eyes and slyly smiled.
***
Later at night, Haru lay down on the futon. To his left, some distance away, there was another futon.
'Katsuki is already asleep.' People were alloted room in pairs, and Haru got Katsuki as a roommate.
'I won't let him be kidnapped this time.' He took a deep breath before taking out a notebook from his bag.
His hands paused as he opened it. 'With my quirk, my phone's local storage is safer than writing something in a notebook.' He put the notebook back and opened the notes app on his phone.
He wasn't going to do something stupid like write all his meta-knowledge in a notebook or phone. That was too risky. Moreover, with the help of his quirk, Haru had near perfect memory.
He just needed something to offload the numerous thoughts that were racing through his mind.
He started typing, writing a keyword or two for each thought, such that it won't make sense to anybody, but the current him. Not even his future version.
'Alright, first of all, the seal on my memories was supposed to open one year ago, not now. What went wrong?' Haru quickly went through some reasons while inspecting the previous lock.
'It seems my quirk growth caused unexpected complications. Well, this was within my expectations, but still...' He frowned before mentally taking note of that. He would inspect it later.
'Secondly, the canon had changed a lot due to my presence. First of all, Sato isn't here. Next, in the U.S.J., the situation was resolved before All Might came. The Hosu incident remained the same. Though I had interned under Endeavour alongside Shoto, the latter had ditched us without telling me. So, I arrived at the scene with Endeavour.
Final exams...they remain almost the same? I don't remember detailed stuff there, but Izuku doesn't seem much different?'
He slowly went through all the events that had occurred since he had joined U.A.
The entrance exams. The Quirk Assessment Test, he cheated. First combat battle against Todoroki. U.S.J arc. The sports festival he didn't win. His productive internship with the number 2 hero. The Final exams against Snipe.
With the help of his perfect memory in this life, he could even recall what he ate on each of those days or how he took a dump that day.
'Fuck, there are too many changes. I can't track the butterfly effect.' He deleted the notes file.
Then, he activated his quirk.
His vision got replaced by multiple strings of 0 and 1. He looked around in the virtual world representing his phone.
He willed himself and disappeared in a streak of light. Soon, he appeared in the place where the storage of his notes app was connected. He quickly cleared the cached stuff and removed any footprints the most recent note had left on his device.
Haru then left the virtual world. The ceiling greeted him.
'I am mentally tired. From what I remember, the villains would attack either tomorrow night or the night after tomorrow. I should sleep first. Need to wake up at 5 for the training.'
Haru absentmindedly glanced to his left. He flinched when he looked at red eyes.
"What'cha looking at, shithead!?"
"Uhh... your ugly mug?"
"Look in the mirror before saying that." Katsuki got up from the futon.
Haru thought he woke up to go to the washroom, but his next actions confused him.
"Why are you rolling your futon? Don't you want to sleep?"
Katsuki looked back over his shoulder with an expression as if he were looking at an idiot. Then Katsuki pointed at the clock.
"It's already time for morning training."
Haru glanced at the clock.
4:58 am
"Huh?"
***
"You look like you have gone through a war. Does Bakugo snores loudly or something?" Toru said while making sure that Bomb-Head wasn't hearing her.
"No."
"Then, why do you look sleep-deprived?"
"Coz, I am," Haru said without looking at her.
He glanced at the time.
5:29 am
He had gone to sleep at 10 am. He had thought that his thoughts would only take him at most an hour or two, not the entire night.
"Then, why like this?"
"It's probably because of sleeping at a different place." Haru lied.
Toru looked at him for a few seconds. "Liar. You didn't seem like this when we hada sleepover at my place."
Haru didn't even flinch. "Coz, I was with you. Duh."
"..."
One good thing about invisibility was that nobody could see what expression you're making at any moment.
Before she could say anything, Aizawa came.
"Alright. Bakugo, come here." He asked the blond boy to throw a ball.
Contrary to everyone's expectations, Bakugo only saw a rise of 5 meters.
"You guys have grown mostly emotionally and mentally in the past few months. Your quirks are still more or less the same. So, it's time to push them past their limits. Don't hit the bucket on me."
Aizawa's grin caused a collective shiver to crawl up the backs of the entire class 1-A.
With that, everyone started going through extreme training.
"Sensei, what do you want me to do?" Haru looked at Aizawa, who was looking at him with a similar sleep-deprived gaze.
'I feel like I am starting to understand sensei more.'
"Do you have your phone now?"
"Yes." Haru brought out his phone.
"Open it. You should have gotten an email from the principal."
Haru promptly does that and finds the email. It had no subject and no description other than a suspicious link.
"Your goal is to quickly hack the website, alongside the things connected to it."
"Things connected to it?" Haru tilted his head.
"This website is linked with the control of U.S.J and all the facilities and machines in it. Your goal is to gain control over everything."
Haru blinked. U.S.J was pretty big, and they had a lot of tech-related stuff. 'Guess, they are indirectly using me to strengthen their defences, while I get training benefits. Two stones with one bird.... wait, that's wrong.'
"Just that?" Though Haru's quirk would develop when he is forced to infiltrate complex structures, he felt that it was a bit too easy.
"Of course not. You need to do that before night falls. Also, these things would be chasing you. You aren't allowed to disable your pain receptors." Aizawa pointed behind him.
Multiple creatures made of mud were staring at him, similar to yesterday. However, there was one difference.
All of them were covered in spikes.
"Fuck."
***
Technically, this was 1.5 chapters(this + previous half), but I will count it as 1.
Chapter: 2/3 (Weekly)
Powerstones goal: 47/100 (For Bonus)