"Where... where am I?"
Izuku Midoriya drifted into consciousness on a tide of intense pain. Every nerve screamed in protest, a lingering echo of his final, catastrophic clash with Tomura Shigaraki.
Relying on the stubborn willpower that had defined his life, he tried to force himself upright. The moment his muscles twitched, tearing agony flared through his chest—as if his bones had been crushed and his insides shattered. Yet, gritting his teeth, he pushed through the torment, refusing to stay down.
"Don't move," a voice echoed. It was calm and melodic, yet carried a heavy pressure that seemed to press against his chest. "You were half a step through the gates of the underworld when I found you. If I had arrived a moment later, you would definitely be dead."
Fighting through the ringing in his ears, Izuku slowly turned his heavy head toward the sound. As his blurred vision finally stabilized, his breath hitched.
Seated nearby was a woman of peerless beauty. Her eyes were bright as the sun, and her subtle smile could captivate anyone. Even in her simple robes, she possessed an otherworldly grace.
"I found you deep in the mountains," she continued, her slender fingers deftly grinding plants in a stone mortar. "I was gathering spirit herbs for brewing medicine. When I saw you half-dead, I had some local hunters carry you back to my apothecary."
Snapped out of his daze by her sweet voice, Izuku's analytical mind finally processed his surroundings. His eyes widened in realization.
He wasn't in a hospital. There were no sterile white walls, no beeping heart monitors, and no sharp smell of antiseptic. Instead, he was lying on a firm bamboo mat inside a rustic wooden cabin. Bundles of strange, dried plants hung from the ceiling rafters, and the room smelled strongly of bitter, boiling medicine. Sunlight filtered through paper windows, highlighting rows of clay jars and a small bronze cauldron.
It looked like a clinic straight out of an ancient historical drama.
"Where... where exactly is this? How long have I been unconscious?" Izuku rasped, his throat dry and scratchy.
He remembered the final battle against Shigaraki. He had known that, regardless of whether he won or lost, pushing his body to that absolute limit meant he would die. He had made his peace with it. Yet here he was, wide awake. The intense, throbbing pain was a harsh but undeniable reminder that he was, indeed, still alive.
What happened to everyone else? Were his friends safe? Did they win? He desperately needed to know.
"You are in Spirit Stream Village," the woman answered, her hands not stopping their rhythmic grinding, "nestled at the foot of the Misty Cloud Mountains."
She tapped her stone pestle against the mortar and finally looked up, her bright eyes meeting his. "As for how long... you have been trapped in a deep coma for seven days and seven nights. Honestly, with the state your meridians and bones were in, it is a miracle you woke up at all."
Izuku's mind raced, struggling to process the information. Spirit Stream Village? Misty Cloud Mountains? As a hero student, he had memorized the geography of Japan, but neither of those names sounded remotely familiar.
Wait. That thought made him freeze. The words leaving the woman's lips, the syllables forming in his own throat... they weren't Japanese. Thanks to his family heritage, he had learned the language growing up, but the dialect this woman spoke felt older, more rhythmic and profound. Yet, miraculously, he understood it perfectly. Panic, cold and sharp, began to grip his chest. If he wasn't in Japan... who was stopping Shigaraki? Did the others manage to defeat him? What happened to U.A.
Instinctively, Izuku reached inward. He needed to get up. He needed to get back to the fight. Closing his eyes, he took a shallow breath and tried to call upon the embers of One For All, searching for that familiar, crackling lightning that always rested just beneath his skin.
But there was no response. He could feel that the flames of the Quirk he had pushed to the absolute limit in that brutal fight were still there—a faint, flickering warmth deep in his chest—but for some reason, he could not call upon them. It felt as if a heavy, impenetrable gate had been slammed shut between his mind and his power.
Desperate, he pushed harder, trying to force the embers to ignite.
"Gah—!"
A sudden, violent spasm wracked his frame. Izuku choked, his body curling inward as a fresh wave of agony radiated from his core. It wasn't the familiar, bone-breaking backlash of One For All, but a deep, suffocating block, as if his very veins had been filled with lead.
A hand pressed firmly against his shoulder, gently but immovably forcing him back down onto the bamboo mat. The woman was suddenly at his side, her movements so fluid and silent that Izuku's blurred eyes barely tracked her approach.
"Foolish child," she scolded, her tone stern but laced with pity. "Did I not tell you to stay still? Your internal pathways are entirely shattered, and your breath is in chaos. If you try to force your body's energy to move right now, you will cripple yourself permanently."
Internal pathways? Body's energy? Izuku gasped for air, his vision swimming. She was using traditional medicine terms. She had to be talking about his nervous system, or maybe his Quirk factors... right?
"Rest," the woman commanded softly, retrieving a clean silk cloth to wipe a bead of cold sweat from his brow. "The battle you fought is over. You are safe here. Do not throw away the life you fought so hard to keep."
Her soothing voice, combined with the heavy, earthy scent of the boiling herbs, began to drag him under. Izuku tried to formulate another question, desperately wanting to ask about his friends, but the exhaustion was absolute. His eyelids fluttered, and the rustic wooden ceiling faded away as he was pulled back into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Three days passed before Izuku could keep his eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time.
The agonizing pain had finally dulled to a deep, heavy ache. During his brief periods of wakefulness, he observed his caretaker. Shen Yue was a mystery. She moved with a silent, flowing grace that reminded him of a pro hero specialized in stealth, yet her demeanor was entirely peaceful. She fed him bitter broths and applied cooling salves to his chest, and Izuku—despite the dire situation—couldn't help but blush furiously whenever her delicate fingers brushed against his skin or her soothing, lotus-scented perfume washed over him.
On the fourth morning, he felt strong enough to prop himself up against the wooden wall.
Shen Yue was sitting at the wooden table across the room, reading a scroll that looked like it belonged in a museum.
"You are awake," she noted, not looking up from her scroll. "And you managed to sit up. Your resilience is... irregular."
"T-thank you for taking care of me, Miss Shen Yue," Izuku stammered, bowing his head slightly, carefully shaping the unfamiliar syllables of her language. He winced at the pull in his chest but pushed through it. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you. But, um... I still don't understand where we are. You mentioned Spirit Stream Village, but..."
He hesitated, his analytical mind kicking into gear. "Is there a city nearby? A prefecture? Is there anywhere with a television or a phone so I can contact my school?"
Shen Yue finally lowered her scroll, tilting her head. A lock of ink-black hair fell across her shoulder. "'Television'? 'Phone'? You speak very strange words, Izuku. I know of no such artifacts. The nearest major settlement is the Blue Wind City, a month's journey by horseback."
Izuku froze. Artifacts? Horseback? "Wait... no phones? Are we... is this an isolated commune?" Izuku muttered, his hands instinctively reaching for a notebook that wasn't there. He started to mumble under his breath at rapid speed. "If there's no modern technology, that implies a societal regression. But the architectural style indicates..."
Shen Yue watched him, a look of profound amusement dancing in her golden eyes. A soft, melodious giggle escaped her lips, interrupting his spiraling thoughts. "You are a very strange boy, Izuku."
She stood up and walked over to the small bronze cauldron resting on a stone pedestal. "It is time for your medicine."
Izuku watched, expecting her to strike a match or fetch hot coals. Instead, she simply extended her index finger and tapped the bottom of the cold bronze cauldron.
Whoosh.
A vibrant, emerald-green flame burst to life directly beneath the metal. There was no smoke, no ignition source, and strangest of all—no heat radiated through the room.
Izuku's jaw dropped. His eyes widened to comical proportions.
"A... a fire Quirk?" he whispered, his mind racing to categorize it. "But the thermal energy output makes no sense! It's not radiating ambient heat, and the color indicates a chemical combustion that shouldn't be possible without a specific fuel source, and you didn't exhibit any physical mutations that would suggest an emitter-type..."
Shen Yue paused, looking at her glowing fingertip and then back to him, her subtle smile widening into a teasing smirk.
"Quirk? Chemical combustion?" She shook her head gently. "You have suffered a great blow to the head, little one. This is merely a basic manifestation of Spirit Qi. Even a child in the Qi Condensation realm could summon an alchemic fire."
Izuku stared at the floating emerald flame, his entire understanding of physics, biology, and Hero Society cracking right down the middle.
He definitely wasn't in Japan anymore.