Chapter Text
September 28th, 22xx
Blood ran down his side, soaking through his suit until the crimson pooling at his side was all he could feel. Air came in painful, shallow pulls for Sir Nighteye. His vision tunneled. And yet, he could not look away from the boy before him.
Izuku Midoriya was alive. Alive when every certainty of the future he had seen for him had shown otherwise. His body was battered, limbs trembling with exhaustion, but still he surged forward, the full power of One For All surging through his veins and overwhelming a desperate Overhaul.
Nighteye had seen this battle’s end with his quirk's pinpoint clarity. He had seen Izuku’s body lying still, his life extinguished far too soon. And yet here he was, defiant, rewriting the future and Nighteye's understanding of reality with fists full of strength and conviction.
And in that moment, Nighteye realized the first truth he had learned that day.
The future was not set in stone.
His quirk had never lied to him before - until now.
But as the thought burned through him, he remembered something even stranger. The movie reel spread out in his mindscape depicting Izuku's life had not ended with the boy's life. Nighteye's quirk had evolved far beyond any capabilities it had previously manifested, showing him something beyond death itself.
He had seen Midoriya again, but not in this time. A young man, reborn centuries into the future, charting courses through the stars as a pioneer of space navigation. His best friend walked beside him, a girl with the same face and same warm eyes as Ochako Uraraka. Another boy matched him stride for stride, his blonde hair unruly, Katsuki Bakugou’s fire in every stride.
And then, there she was: A girl who could have been Himiko Toga’s twin, a medic who used her quirk to cure blood diseases, saving lives instead of taking them. She and Ochako were inseparable, friends since childhood, laughter and love following them everywhere they went.
The vision ran on and on. A flood of lifetimes, almost like a broken record.
Izuku meeting Katsuki again and again. Rivals, friends, lovers.
On and on.
Ochako and Himiko, bound together across ages, their fates twining until the world - or death - tore them apart.
On and on.
Birth, love, death, rebirth.
Over and over, endless and unforgiving.
The weight of hundreds of lifetimes pressed into Nighteye’s skull, making him feel as if is mind was being split from the inside. He gasped against the pain, his entire weakened body shaking with agony.
And then a shadow fell across him.
“Sir!” Ochako Uraraka knelt at his side, her face streaked with tears, her eyes raw with a misplaced guilt. She reached for him as if she could hold him together through will alone. As if there was any power that could save him now.
Nighteye’s breath stuttered. He had seen her in those lifetimes - again and again. If Izuku’s thread stretched through eternity, then that meant that so too did hers, and Himiko Toga alongside them.
And if the future could be changed, then Toshinori’s fate was not set in stone. Toshinori could live.
But Nighteye knew he would not.
Even if they carried him to the hospital, even if every surgeon in the city worked through the night, his story ended here. His only chance now lay beyond this body. If it was true, if reincarnation was real... then perhaps he would have another life, another chance. One where he would not fail Toshinori Yagi.
He had to know.
His trembling hand lifted, fingers brushing against the sleeve of her costume. “Uravity…” His voice was the weak gasp of a dying man. “Forgive me.”
The world shifted as his quirk surged, dragging him into her lifestream.
And then everything exploded.
He saw a battlefield, not long from now. Her body lifting thousands of clones, her stomach pierced, her strength bleeding out onto the battlefield. He saw her desperate conversation, lifetime vows spoken too late, promises uttered with trembling lips as she held Himiko Toga close as they fell through the air.
He saw Toga smile through the tears, with a joy and love so pure it tore through the blood. And then, with a look full of love and certainty, Himiko transformed into Uravity herself and poured every last drop of her blood into her, the ultimate act of devotion. Her last words had simply been: “You made me truly, genuinely happy, Ochako-chan.”
And in that instant, Nighteye felt Uraraka’s soul split open with the weight of centuries. In the middle of that battlefield, she remembered. Every life. Three of them. Every promise. Every time she had loved Himiko so much the intensity could have torn her heart open. Every time they had saved and devoted themselves to each other. The vows, the hiding, the separation, the desperation to find each other. The life where they almost had it all. And then, next to them all, her one failure - this life, where Himiko Toga had died by her side before Ochako got a chance to love her properly. The guilt crashed down upon her like a tidal wave, drowning all of her senses with grief and and regret unraveling her heart.
He saw her after, waking in the hospital, drowning in despair, the burden of three past lifetimes crushing her soul. Days and nights spent wondering about worlds where she and Himiko met as children, where she could have kept her safe. Thinking about what she could've done different, about if only she listened sooner, if only she reached out. If only, if only, if only.
He saw her live eighty years after that, surrounded by friends and love, a successful pro hero. And yet, the scar etched onto both body and soul never fully left.
And then again. The cycle restarted. Born anew. Meeting Himiko as a child this time, almost a cruel echo of her past life's regret. Inseparable friends then later, lovers. Memories flooding back, and with them, healing. They lived, loved and died as they pleased.
Born again, Himiko, death.
Born again.
Himiko.
Death.
A ceaseless cycle that kept playing on and on and on and on.
And the heart of this very same Ochako, unknowingly, carried it all. The vows and guilt, transcending time and space through a thread of love. And in that moment, as Nighteye bore witness to her agony and hope alike, he realized the third and final truth he would learn that day.
Some things were more important than duty.
His life had been a shrine to order and responsibility. But here was a girl whose soul carried lifetimes of love and grief, wishes and promises. A girl who hid the truth of her own heart for duty’s sake.
The weight of it was enough to shatter what was left of him.
His lungs burned, his vision dimmed. The blood would not stop pouring out of him. And still, he forced his last words out in jagged gasps that ripped his insides open, carrying the truth he needed her to hear.
“Uravity… today… I learned… the future isn’t set in stone. And… to avoid… a lifetime of grief… don’t let duty… blind you from saving… the smile that matters most-”
Her eyes widened with confusion and fear, as if she sensed there was more to that statement than she could grasp.
He gulped in burning air, trying to continue with all his might. "Save Hi-"
But a bloody cough reminded him that his body had no words left to give. The darkness pressed in, his breath tearing through him as it faltered.
And then, with those three truths carved into his fading heart, the world went dark for Sir Nighteye.