I had to delete the last chapter because the translator I used changed several things, and in the process, I fixed my amateur narration.
...
...
In the orphanage yard, the laughter of children echoed as they ran and played with carefree joy. However, 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 had returned to the past.
Although he still hadn't mastered time travel, Yuto had learned one important thing: how to avoid triggering it unintentionally. Even so, he hadn't experienced another time jump. Not because he didn't want to, but out of caution. The fear of appearing somewhere he couldn't return from—or worse, a place where he wouldn't even have time to react—kept him vigilant. He knew time travel wasn't a game. He'd seen enough movies to understand how risky it could be.
Instead of obsessing over something he couldn't control, he decided to focus on the one thing he could: his body. While he didn't have any particular 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 never paid attention to this ability. What good was strength if someone could defeat you with a single touch or an absurd power like sticky hair? Besides, he hadn't wanted to get involved in the plot back then, so training seemed pointless.
But this time was different. Yuto couldn't afford to fall behind anymore. He had a goal: to fix the future, change what was coming, and create a world without worries. To achieve that, he couldn't remain the same weak, inexperienced child.
He finished his push-ups and, as he stood up, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His gaze drifted to his backpack, loaded with rocks he'd collected to add weight to his workouts. Without hesitation, he slung it over his shoulders and began running around the yard.
The routine was new to him. In his previous life, and even in the last loop, he'd never cared about exercise. He had no idea if what he was doing was effective, but in the orphanage, without internet access, he could only draw inspiration from what he'd seen in anime.
As he ran, Yuto could feel the stares of the other children. Some were mocking; others were simply curious. But he was used to it by now. In his last loop, it hadn't been much different. Ever since he was labeled as someone without a gift, the other kids had lost interest in him. Most kept their distance, and he didn't make an effort to get close to them either.
He continued his routine: running, jumping, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretches. The afternoon wore on, but he didn't stop. He only halted when the sun began to set, painting the sky a soft orange. The orphanage staff called the children inside, and Yuto, exhausted but satisfied with his effort, finally ended 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—was barely palatable. Despite his hunger and exhaustion, he wrinkled his nose at the first bite.
He finished his meal in silence and headed to the room he shared with four other boys. Despite the discomfort of sharing the space, he was used to it. The beds were narrow, with thin mattresses that offered little comfort, and each child had a small trunk at the foot of their bed to store their meager belongings.
When he entered, he saw the other boys were already there. Some were talking amongst themselves; others were rummaging through their things. One of them, Akira, a boy with fox-like ears and orange hair, eyed him with a mocking grin.
"So, it's true, huh?" Akira said, leaning over from his bed with a sarcastic smile. "You were out there training?"
Yuto ignored him and sat on his bed. Calmly, he pulled out his backpack and began checking it, even though he had already removed the rocks before coming inside. It was more of a reflex to avoid giving Akira attention.
But Akira wasn't giving up.
"Training to become a hero, are you?" he continued, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "You know you don't have a gift, right? Why even bother?"
Yuto kept his eyes fixed on the backpack, his hands mechanically going through the motions. He didn't bother to answer. But Akira climbed down from his bed and approached him, his grin turning even more malicious.
"You're so useless," Akira said venomously. "No family's ever going to adopt you. Everyone knows you don't have a gift."
Yuto continued rummaging through his backpack, his fists clenching slightly, but he remained silent.
"Guess what?" Akira went on, his tone triumphant. "I'm lucky. My adoptive family is coming next week. They're going to love me because I've got an amazing gift. But you? You'll always be a burden here."
Yuto raised an eyebrow internally. He never understood why Akira bothered to pick on him. Even in the last loop, the boy had made similar comments. If Yuto had been a regular kid, maybe the words would've hurt. But he wasn't.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yuto noticed the other three boys had stopped what they were doing to watch. Their eyes flicked between Akira and him, clearly entertained by the scene. One of them even let out a derisive snort in Yuto's direction.
Akira stared at him, waiting for a reaction. When he saw that Yuto wasn't interested in responding, his grin faltered. He scowled and rolled his eyes.
"Ugh, you're such a waste of my time," Akira muttered, sticking out his tongue 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, though—not because he didn't want to, but because he knew better. He'd done it in the previous loop, and it hadn't turned out well.
After punching Akira that time, everything got worse. The caretakers punished him harshly since none of the other kids stood up for him. To everyone, Yuto was just a bully. Akira, of course, didn't let it slide. He rallied a group of kids to jump him during recess. Since then, Yuto had learned to keep quiet.
A few minutes later, the caretakers came by the room to make sure everyone was in bed. They turned off the main lights, leaving only the faint glow of the moon filtering through the window. Yuto lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
As always, his thoughts drifted to the future he was trying to prevent. His fists clenched tightly, tension radiating through his body, still sore from his training. Changing the future sounded easier said than done. Without even knowing what caused everything to go wrong, his options were limited.
The memory of Iida's body, chest caved in, resurfaced in his mind, shaking him again. Could that be where it all started? In the previous loop, Yuto had already moved away from Japan before the main events began, so he hadn't been up-to-date on much news. With what little money he had, he couldn't afford a TV, and the only news he couldn't avoid hearing was about the battle between All Might and All For One. That had happened just like in the anime. He'd also heard about several Japanese heroes dying, though he didn't remember if those deaths matched what should've happened. Then there was Shigaraki, turning Japan into his playground, and finally, the last battle between Shigaraki and Midoriya—which ended with Midoriya's death.
If he hadn't seen Iida's body, he might've thought things only went off the rails after Midoriya lost. But it seemed like everything had started falling apart long before that. Yuto turned over in his bed, letting sleep slowly creep over him.
"I guess I'll have to enroll at UA," he murmured to himself.
If he wanted to change the future, he needed to understand how the events that shaped it began. And UA was at the center of everything.
"Well, only until I stop the apocalypse," he told himself, trying to convince himself that once he'd done what he needed to, he could walk away from that life.
With that thought lingering in his mind, he closed his eyes and let sleep take him.
...
....
...
The next day, Yuto followed the same training routine, but this time, he finished earlier. Why? He had something on his mind.
He watched the kids playing in the yard. They were completely distracted, which meant no one would notice if he slipped away. He slowly walked toward the edge of the yard, eyeing the fence surrounding the orphanage. It was a simple structure, with flimsy metal bars rising between the trees.
Without hesitating further, he slid through the bars with ease and ventured into the forest beyond the orphanage. Once he felt he was far enough away, he stopped and rested a hand on his chin, reflecting on what he was about to do.
Yuto had decided to train his time-jumping ability. Of course, he didn't plan on making big jumps just yet. Like he'd thought before, he didn't want to risk doing something he couldn't control. His plan was to make small jumps, no more than a few minutes. Something manageable, but enough to test if he truly had control over his power.
The only problem was that he had no idea how the jumps actually worked. He'd traveled through time before, but none of those jumps had been intentional. He didn't want to end up in the Cretaceous period or a thousand years in the future. He needed to figure out how to move forward just a few minutes—or so he thought.
Yuto sat cross-legged, attempting to meditate—or at least, what he thought meditating looked like. He closed his eyes and searched within himself, hoping to find ki, chakra, a core, or anything that might guide him on controlling his jumps. He stayed like that for ten minutes, ignoring everything around him. But all he felt was the creeping realization that he looked ridiculous. Frustrated, he crossed his arms.
"Maybe it doesn't work like that," he thought. After all, his jumps had always been triggered unconsciously, without any deliberate focus. But if he followed that path, he'd have no way of knowing where he'd end up.
Yuto sighed, opening his eyes and staring at the ground. He'd been overthinking it, but maybe the answer was simpler than he imagined. He didn't need to force himself to concentrate.
He remembered the first time he'd activated the jump: the stress, the fear, the desperation... and, most of all, the overwhelming desire to change everything. That's when his power had surged, not through focus, but through an urgent need to escape.
Yuto stood up and took a few steps, inhaling deeply. He closed his eyes and clenched his fist tightly, trying to summon that same feeling he'd had during his earlier jumps. And then, he felt it—a tug that coursed through his entire body, as though something was pulling him from within.
"It's working," he thought, barely containing his excitement. He just hoped he wouldn't end up too far from where he started.
His body seemed to distort for a moment, like it was vanishing into thin air. In a blink, Yuto disappeared.
When the tugging sensation stopped, he slowly opened his eyes. He looked around, feeling a little disoriented. He was in the same spot. The sky above still showed the signs of the setting sun.
"Maybe I only traveled a second into the future?" he murmured, though he couldn't be sure.
He sighed. "I'd better get back to the orphanage before the caretakers notice I'm gone," he thought, turning to leave. But before he could take a step, something stopped him. There, on the ground, right where he'd been sitting, was someone in a cross-legged position with their eyes closed.
The sight froze him in his tracks, 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 kicked in first. Without thinking, he crouched down and hid behind a nearby bush, making as little noise as possible. Luckily, the rustling leaves and the forest sounds seemed to cover up any sound he might have made.
From his hiding spot, Yuto watched 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 it out. Watching so many time-travel movies had given him a pretty good idea of what was happening.
"Damn it, I didn't want to time travel like this," he thought, gritting his teeth as he stayed crouched behind the bush.
When he'd first activated his time-jumping ability, he'd assumed that it would just send his consciousness back into the body of his past self, like displacing his mind. But now that he thought about it, his earlier jumps had taken him to times and places he'd never physically been. That could only mean one thing: his version from that moment in time still existed.
"Ugh, this is so confusing," he muttered, rubbing his forehead as he tried to calm the whirlwind of thoughts.
He glanced back at his double, who remained motionless in the cross-legged position. Yuto knew that approaching him would be a disaster. If the movies were right, interacting with your past self could cause paradoxes—or even... destroy the universe?
"That sounds way too dramatic, but I'm not taking any chances," he thought.
However, he couldn't just stay there forever. At some point, his "other self" would open his eyes, and then he'd be in trouble.
"I need to get out of here before he sees me. But how?" he wondered, placing a hand on his chest and trying to summon the same tug that had brought him here.
He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and tried to focus, but this time, nothing happened. The tug didn't respond to his will.
"Great," he muttered sarcastically.
From his hiding spot, Yuto watched as his double stood up, crossed his arms, and let out a deep sigh, frustration clearly written across his face. He saw him take a few steps, stopping mid-path as if lost in thought. Then, out of nowhere, his body distorted and vanished into thin air, just like what had happened to Yuto minutes earlier.
Yuto slowly stepped out from behind the bush, still trying to process what he had just witnessed. He stared at the now-empty spot where his double had been just moments ago.
"Wait... does this mean that before I left, there was already a version of me from a few minutes into the future?" he muttered to himself, struggling to piece it all together. "What the hell kind of confusing mess is this?"
He scratched his head, feeling like his brain was about to short-circuit from all the time paradox nonsense. In the end, he decided not to dwell on it for now.
"If I keep thinking about this, I'm going to lose my mind," he said with a deep sigh.
Shrugging it off, he started making his way back to the orphanage. He'd had enough time travel for one day.