"Getting lost is not a waste of time.

To travel is to evolve."

-Pierre Bernard

Recap:

He fell out of Kurogiri's black purplish fog with a severe sense of disorientation. He had blacked in and out while inside the portal user's fog during the transit and felt incredibly uncomfortable now. He leaned on his side as he dry-heaved, seeking to get rid of acidified food that didn't exist in his stomach. He wasn't quite sure why it had been so uncomfortable; fearing the worst, the first thing he had done upon his first lengthy period of awareness was to check for any injures or things out of place. But there was nothing, no amputated arms, or tumors (as far as he could tell). He wasn't in space either, that was pretty certain.

He couldn't find Bakugo or Kurogiri either. He highly doubted that they would both unanimously decide to ditch him (The blonde was incredibly stubborn, and Kurogiri was just loyal like that). That meant that... either they were both blown to space dust smithereens (unlikely considering he was still alive) or there was some unforeseen circumstance. That theory was reinforced ten-fold as he stared into exquisitely cut, green, gem-like eyes.

"A-Are you okay?"

As the two figures stared at each other with a rather heavy haze of incomprehension surrounding them, Deku was the first one to back to his senses. He had been expecting something along the lines of amputation, but this was close enough, he supposed. The kid's... What else was he supposed to call that baby face? He had long since gotten rid of it; his admittedly poor diet and sleep routine back in the day granted him a permeant unhealthy composition to his face, effectively removing all his baby fat.

While he had been forced to change his eating habits by Kurogiri, the exercise he regularly partook in transformed that food into abs and muscles. As a result, he was tall and lanky, more so than others in his age group. Not whatever the green, short mess in front of him was. In any case, the kid was a spitting image of how he looked in middle school, albeit a slight bit bulkier in terms of muscle mass. He looked healthy. energetic even (he hadn't been healthy nor energetic for over half a year), and his eyes were clear and bright (once again, the polar opposite of himself). His eyes couldn't help but seize and contract shakily as he saw exactly what the broccoli head was wearing.

'What the hell... Why does he have the U.A. uniform? I can tell he's not like me. He doesn't have that look in his eyes. Could it be that he, no, I was born with a quirk in this universe..? Or I did achieve the impossible in this universe and get into U.A? ...There's not enough information.'

"Y-Y-You're... m-me?!"

He barely held himself back from sending a condescending glare towards the sputtering child, instead letting it settle down into a puddle of apathy and self-pity. It was technically still himself after all. Why that hurt to admit was not something he was willing to use brain cells for.

"That does appear to be the case, doesn't it? ...Hey, kid-" He didn't even rebuke him or stand up for himself, and just stood there, blushing. God, he kind of understood why every single time traveler wanted to kill their past self, even if that technically wasn't the situation here. They seemed to be the same age after all, and he had never gone to U.A. as an actual student, so at least there wouldn't be any paradoxes.

He was just in an entirely different universe he had little to no information on. No sweat.

"-No, I'll just say Izuku. To put it bluntly, there were some unforeseen circumstances with my... friend's quirk, and now I'm here. Which I'm pretty sure is an alternate dimension, but just to be safe, what's the date? Recent events? How's this world's League of Villains?"

"O-Oh, well, it's the-... Wait did you just say League of Villains? I've never heard of them before now..." He hasn't heard of the League of Villains? His brows knitted unconsciously, and Izuku No.2 somehow saw it as his fault. "I-I'm sorry I haven't heard of them... I'm not being much help, am I?"

'...He hasn't heard of the League of Villains? This timeline is either a little slower than my own, or something else happened, and the League of Villains doesn't even exist... Well, I suppose I'll figure it out with time. For now...'

He sighed as he stood up and brushed the dust clinging to his clothes off, before swinging his hand down (lightly) on top of the other Izuku's head. As the kid looked up with doe fawn eyes and a hurt expression, Deku honestly did not know how to feel. He would really appreciate a manual right about now.

"Have you come back to your senses? It's not your fault that my expectations of the world aren't in line with reality, kid. Plus, you technically are me... As weird as that thought is. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is... stop stuttering. Seriously. To be frank, getting nervous around yourself is a whole new level of pathetic," He slowly walked past him. "Being conscious of others is fine, but letting that urge overrule your own dignity and pride is not. Well, thank you for the information. I've got to find someone, so I'll be taking my leave first."

Unknowingly, the bright green orbs behind him gained a new tint to them; a fiery essence of determination and a faint shadow of recklessness. Somehow, the words he had uttered resonated with Izuku more than any he had heard before, except maybe All Might. It kind of made sense considering that the other teenager was himself (and wasn't that a weird thought), but a part of him wondered how he had come to that conclusion all by himself.

And had the courage to implement it.

He was aware that his stuttering problem wasn't exactly, well, ideal but it wasn't like he could just get rid of it because he wanted to. He was just shy and self-conscious by nature until he got to know someone, and he couldn't hope to change that. Right? Sure, he let people walk all over him, but it wasn't that bad. He couldn't really change it, so he could only live with it. At least, that was how it had been until now.

But, he had living proof in front of him that it wasn't the case. Maybe that's why his words gave him courage. In any case, those words fueled his next actions and invited a tiger into the sheep's den. Just because someone said something with good intentions and another (the same person, technically) responded with a positive result didn't necessarily mean the ending would be positive as well.

But that's a future story, not the present moment.

"W-Wait!" Deku turned around but continued to walk as he heard the other Izuku's habitual stutter. Izuku felt incredibly frustrated at his momentary lapse but plunged forward regardless. "You... You're wearing the U.A. uniform, right? You're a student, right?"

'...Are spies considered students? Well, not that I'd tell him that.'

His head bobbed in a faint nod of agreement, and the other Izuku lit up like a kid on Christmas Day.

"I-, I'm sure that Aizawa-sensei and the others will help, so... You don't know where the other person is, right? The heroes can, will probably help with that..."

'It's true that I don't know where Kurogiri is... Or even if he ended up here as well. Or even if there is a Kurogiri in this world. I can't viably find him - if he exists - on my own, either. This region is too populated. I probably have no other choice, but to go back to Yuuei...'

Meanwhile, Izuku continued to talk.

"...I'm sure a lot of things are different compared to where you came from, and you probably don't have anywhere to go either."

"So-"

His head hurt a little from listening to the indecisive and pitiful speech. It was better than the previous stuttering, shy mess the boy was earlier, but that was hardly an achievement. If it were anything else, they probably would have felt bad for the boy and felt sympathy for him, but all he really felt was annoyance. They were the same person, after all. Or perhaps that's not quite right either; the different circumstances the duo had lived through inevitably made them different from one another. Polar opposites, even.

Even though they shared the same bodies, the minds that inhabited the fleshy, star-dust forged, meat suits were different.

"I'll go if you're sure they'll help me find someone."

His expressions and reactions were incredibly comical.

"Please let me help you a little-, w-wait... Y-You'll go?"

He plastered on a grin while wondering if he really was like this once upon a time. He had known that he'd changed, rather drastically in fact, but it had been gradual. He didn't just wake up one day and become a psychopathic liar that found himself murdering people (against his will, but that didn't really mean anything, did it?). It had been a slow corruption; dipping his toe in the water of sin stung the first time, but he gradually became numb to the sensation (he was scared. Would killing people eventually feel like nothing?). Later on, he was drowning in it, unable to escape. He couldn't go back to this other self of his, not after everything he had done.

The thought stung, but ironically (pathetically) enough, he was used to it.

So he smiled wide enough to swallow the world whole but didn't chomp down. And was suffocating in silence for his efforts.

(Little did he know that he had everything he had ever wanted, all at his fingertips. But that was a story for another time.)