I had to delete the last chapter because the translator I used changed several things, and in the process, I fixed my amateur narration.
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In the orphanage yard, the joyful shouts of children echoed as they ran and played without a care in the world. Yet, in a secluded corner, Yuto stayed on the sidelines, completely detached from the commotion. With his gaze fixed on the ground, his arms moved up and down in a steady rhythm as he did push-ups. It had been three days since he returned to the past, time he had spent adapting to his new reality.
Though he hadn't yet mastered time travel, Yuto had learned one critical thing: how to prevent it from activating unintentionally. Even so, he hadn't experienced another jump since his arrival—not because he didn't want to, but out of caution. The fear of appearing in a place he couldn't escape from, or worse, somewhere where he wouldn't even have time to react, kept him on edge. He knew time travel wasn't a game. He had seen enough movies to understand how dangerous it could be.
Instead of fixating on something he couldn't control, he chose to focus on the one thing he could: his body. While he didn't have any extraordinary abilities, he was born with an unusually strong physique for his age. At eight years old, he had the strength of a teenager. In his previous loop, he had ignored this gift. After all, what good was being strong if someone could defeat him with a single touch or some ridiculous power, like sticky hair? He hadn't felt the need to get involved in the story back then.
But this time was different. Yuto could no longer afford to stay on the sidelines. He had a goal—to fix the future, to change what was coming, and to create a world without fear. To achieve that, he couldn't remain the same weak, inexperienced kid.
He finished his push-ups and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand as he stood up. His eyes drifted to his backpack, filled with rocks he had gathered to add weight to his training. Without hesitation, he slung it over his shoulders and started running around the yard.
This routine was new to him. In his past life, and even in the previous loop, he had never bothered to train. He had no idea if what he was doing was effective, but in the orphanage, with no access to the internet, his only inspiration came from what he had seen in anime.
As Yuto ran, he could feel the children's eyes on him. Some were mocking, others were simply curious. But he was already used to it. In the first timeline, the situation hadn't been very different. Since he hadn't been diagnosed with any special abilities, the other kids lost interest in him. Most of them preferred to keep their distance, and he didn't make any effort to get closer.
He continued with his routine: running, jumping, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretching. The afternoon passed, but he didn't stop. He only did when the sun began to set, painting the sky a soft orange. The orphanage caretakers called the children to come inside, and Yuto, exhausted but satisfied with his effort, finally finished his training and headed indoors.
Inside, he took a quick shower before joining the others at the dining table. The food, as always, was bland. The rice lacked flavor, the vegetables were too tough, and the meat... if it could even be called meat, barely had any taste. Despite his hunger and fatigue, he grimaced when he took the first bite.
He finished his meal in silence and went to the room he shared with four other kids. Despite the discomfort of sharing the space, he was used to it. The beds were narrow, with thin mattresses that barely offered any comfort, and each child had a small trunk at the foot of the bed to store their few belongings.
When he entered, he noticed the other kids were already there. Some were talking to each other; others were sorting through their things. One of them, Akira, a boy with fox ears and orange hair, watched him with a mocking smile.
"So, is it true what they're saying?" he asked, leaning over from his bed with a sarcastic grin. "Were you actually training?"
Yuto ignored him and sat on his bed. Calmly, he took out his backpack and began checking it, even though he had already removed the stones before coming into the orphanage. It was more of a reflex to avoid giving Akira attention.
But Akira didn't give up.
"Training to become a hero?" he continued mockingly. "You know you don't have a special ability, right? Why even try?"
Yuto kept his gaze fixed on the backpack, not bothering to respond. But Akira got off his bed and approached him, his smile turning even more malicious.
"You're so useless," he said with a venomous tone. "No family is going to come for you. Everyone knows you have no special ability."
Yuto kept checking his backpack, clenching his fists slightly, but said nothing.
"You know," Akira went on with a triumphant tone, "I'm lucky. In a week, my adoptive family is coming for me. They'll love me because I have an amazing ability. While you... well, you'll always just be a burden here."
Yuto raised an eyebrow mentally. He never understood why Akira picked on him. Even in the previous loop, the boy used to say similar things. If he had been a normal kid, his words might have hurt. But he wasn't.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yuto noticed the other three kids had stopped what they were doing to watch. Their gazes shifted between Akira and him, clearly entertained by the scene. One of them even let out a mocking snort in his direction.
Akira stared at him, waiting for a reaction. When he saw that Yuto didn't seem interested in responding, his smile faded. He grunted and rolled his eyes.
"Ugh, you just make me waste my time," Akira muttered as he rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out before turning back to his bed.
Yuto glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and thought, "Sometimes I just want to punch him in the face." He didn't do it, but not for lack of desire. He had done it in the previous loop, and the experience had not been pleasant.
After hitting Akira that time, things only got worse for him. The caretakers punished him severely, as none of the other kids spoke up in his defense. To everyone, Yuto was just a bully. Akira, for his part, didn't sit idly by. He organized a group of kids to attack him during recess. Since then, Yuto preferred to stay silent.
A few minutes later, the caretakers passed through the room to make sure everyone was in bed. They turned off the main lights, leaving only the soft light of the moon to illuminate the room through the window. Yuto lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
His thoughts, as always, drifted to the future he was trying to avoid. He clenched his fists tightly, feeling the tension in his body, still exhausted from his training. Changing the future sounded easier said than done. Without even knowing why everything had changed, he didn't have much room to maneuver.
The memory of Iida's body, with his chest caved in, shook him again. Could that be the origin of everything? In the previous loop, Yuto had already moved out of Japan before the main events started, so he wasn't aware of many news stories. With the little money he had, he couldn't afford a TV, and the only news he couldn't avoid hearing were related to the battle between All Might and All For One. Everything happened just as it did in the anime. He also heard about several Japanese heroes dying, although he couldn't remember if those deaths matched what was supposed to happen. Then there was Shigaraki, turning Japan into his playground, and finally, the last battle between Shigaraki and Midoriya, which ended with the latter's death.
If he hadn't seen Iida's body, he would have thought things only changed when Midoriya lost. But it seemed everything had gone wrong much earlier. Yuto turned over in his bed, letting sleep slowly take over.
"I guess I'll have to enroll in UA," he murmured to himself.
If he wanted to change the future, he had to understand how the events that shaped it had begun. And UA was the epicenter of it all.
"Well, just until I stop the apocalypse," he told himself, trying to convince himself that once he fulfilled his purpose, he could walk away from that life.
With that thought circling in his mind, he closed his eyes and let sleep take him.
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The next day, Yuto followed the same training routine, but this time he finished earlier. The reason? He had something on his mind.
He watched the children playing in the yard. They were completely distracted, which meant he wouldn't draw attention if he decided to leave. He walked slowly toward the edge of the yard and fixed his gaze on the wall surrounding the orphanage. It was a simple structure, with flimsy metal bars rising between the trees.
Without thinking further, he slipped through the bars with agility and entered the forest that stretched beyond the orphanage. Once he felt he was far enough, he stopped and placed a hand on his chin, reflecting on what he was about to do.
Yuto had decided to practice his time jumps. Sure, he didn't plan to make big jumps just yet. As he had mentioned before, he didn't want to risk doing something out of his control. His plan was to make small jumps, no more than a few minutes. Something he could handle, but that would let him test if he really had control over that ability.
The only problem was he didn't know how the jumps worked. He had traveled in time before, but none of those jumps were intentional. He didn't want to end up in the Cretaceous period or a thousand years into the future. He needed to figure out how to move just a few minutes forward, or at least, that's where he thought he should start.
Yuto sat in a lotus position, trying to meditate, or at least that's what he thought he was doing. He closed his eyes and looked inward, hoping to find ki, chakra, a core, or anything that would indicate how to control his jumps. He stayed like that for ten minutes, ignoring everything around him. But all he felt was that he was just making a fool of himself. Frustrated, he crossed his arms.
"Maybe it doesn't work that way," he thought. After all, he had triggered the jumps unconsciously, without needing to concentrate. But the problem was, if he kept going down that path, he wouldn't know where he'd end up.
Yuto sighed, opening his eyes and looking down at the ground. He had been overthinking it, but maybe the key was simpler than he thought. He didn't need to force himself to concentrate.
He remembered the first time he activated the jump: the stress, the fear, the desperation... and above all, the deep desire to change everything. It was in that moment, without intending to, when his power had awakened. It wasn't through concentration, but because of the urgent need to escape.
Yuto stood up from the ground and walked a few steps, breathing deeply. He closed his eyes and clenched his fist tightly, focusing on that feeling he remembered from his previous jumps. Then he felt it: a pull that ran through his entire body, as if something were tugging him from within.
"It's working," he thought, holding back his excitement. He just hoped he wouldn't end up too far away.
His body distorted for a moment, as if fading into the air. And in the blink of an eye, Yuto vanished from the spot.
When the pull faded, he slowly opened his eyes. He looked around, somewhat confused. He was in the same place. He gazed at the sky, which still showed signs of the sunset.
"Maybe I jumped a second into the future?" he murmured, though he couldn't be sure.
He sighed. "I better head back to the orphanage before the caretakers suspect I'm outside," he thought as he turned to return. However, just before taking the first step, something stopped him. There, on the ground, right where he had been sitting, was someone sitting in a lotus position with their eyes closed.
The shock froze him because the person sitting there was none other than himself.
Yuto's eyes widened as he tried to process what he was seeing. But his instincts acted first. Without thinking, he crouched down and hid behind some nearby bushes, trying to make as little noise as possible. Luckily, the rustling of the leaves stirred by the wind and the sounds of the forest seemed to cover any movement that could give him away.
From his hiding spot, Yuto observed his double.
"What the hell is going on?" he thought, feeling a mix of fascination and fear.
It didn't take him long to figure out the situation. Having watched so many time-travel movies gave him a clear idea of what was happening.
"Dammit, I didn't want to travel through time like this," he thought, gritting his teeth while staying hidden behind the bush.
When he activated his time jumps for the first time, he had assumed that his consciousness would simply transfer to his "past self's" body, like shifting his mind. But now that he thought about it more clearly, his earlier jumps had taken him to moments and places he'd never been. That could only mean one thing: his version of this moment still existed.
"Ugh, this is so confusing," he muttered to himself, rubbing his forehead as he tried to calm the whirlwind of thoughts.
He looked again at his double, still sitting motionless in lotus position. Yuto knew getting closer would be a disaster. If movies were to be believed, interacting with your past self could create paradoxes or even... the destruction of the universe?
"That sounds way too dramatic, but better not risk it," he thought.
However, he couldn't stay there forever. His "other self" would eventually open his eyes, and that would be trouble.
"I need to get out of here before he sees me. But how?" he wondered, placing a hand on his chest, trying to feel the same pull that had brought him here.
He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and tried to concentrate, but this time, nothing happened. The pull didn't respond to his will.
"Great," he muttered sarcastically.
From his hiding place, Yuto watched his double stand up, cross his arms, and sigh deeply, a clear expression of frustration on his face. He saw him walk a few steps, stopping halfway along the path, as if he were reflecting on something. Then, suddenly, his body distorted and disappeared into the air, just like it had happened to Yuto minutes earlier.
Yuto slowly emerged from behind the bush, still processing what he had just witnessed. He looked at the empty spot where his double had been moments before.
"Wait... does this mean that before I left, there was already a version of me a few minutes into the future?" he murmured to himself as he tried to piece things together. "This is some messed-up stuff..."
He scratched his head, feeling how his brain was struggling to keep up with all the temporal paradoxes. But in the end, he decided not to dwell on it any longer for now.
"If I keep thinking about this, I'm going to lose my mind," he told himself with a deep sigh.
He shrugged and started walking back to the orphanage. He'd had enough time-traveling for one day.