Everything was quiet.
Soft. Warm.
Izuku floated, weightless, in a sea of gentle golden light.
The world around him wasn't a world at all—it was memory stitched with kindness, colors blurred like watercolor.
He was small.
He was safe.
His mother—Wanda—stood over him in the early morning light of a kitchen that didn't exist anymore. Her red hair was messy, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, magic lazily stirring a cup of tea that floated mid-air beside her.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," she said, smiling.
"Mama," Izuku whispered, instinctively.
She reached out and tucked a curl behind his ear.
"You did something brave," she said. "So now you get to rest for a while."
A blur of laughter echoed across the dream. Two boys came racing through the kitchen.
Tommy—all motion and mischief—spun around the table, shouting something about a "speed record."
Billy followed close behind, hovering, a book clutched to his chest and sparks trailing from his fingers.
"Matt!" Tommy grinned, skidding to a stop. "Did you see me?"
"You were like a lightning bolt," Izuku breathed.
Billy nodded, quieter. "You always try to protect people. That's a lot, isn't it?"
Izuku nodded slowly.
They sat with him—his family, his brothers—until the room blurred into a garden, then a sky, then stars.
The dream shifted again.
Now he stood at the edge of a cliff beneath a violet sky, Wanda beside him.
"Why do I feel… scared?" he asked.
"Because something is watching," she said gently, voice almost a whisper. "Something that wants what it once gave."
Then—
The stars cracked.
A pulse of red-black chaos tore through the sky.
The world split like glass, and Wanda reached for him—
"MATTHEWWW—!"
But he was falling.
Plummeting through smoke and color and void.
Into the nightmare.
The ground beneath him was alive.
Throbbing.
Pulsing with chaotic intent.
A throne stood atop a mound of writhing shadows. Tentacles made of thought and memory weaved through the void. The air tasted like iron and static.
And there—seated on a throne of inverted stars—
Was it.
A figure without a face, cloaked in robes made of shifting dimensions, crowned in broken halos.
The Ruler of the Chaos Dimension.
The thing that birthed power.
The thing that watched the witches of time.
It stared at him.
Not with eyes.
With awareness.
"Son of the Scarlet. Fragment of Order. Vessel of Fire."
Its voice echoed in his skull like a scream underwater.
"Thou hath bent the curse to thy will… But the fire burns beyond thy choosing."
Izuku couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
The air was wrong.
"I—I didn't ask for this," he choked.
"You bear a piece of what was stolen. And others have noticed."
Suddenly, shadows formed around him—echoes of future battles, of burning cities, of people screaming his name.
One wore his face—but twisted. Corrupted. Too much power. Too little restraint.
"You will be hunted," the being said. "By those who fear your kind. And by those who desire it."
The figure leaned forward.
"I will watch your fall… or your rise. Either nourishes my realm."
It extended a hand of pure entropy.
"Return, boy of the flame."
Before Izuku could scream—
Light flared.
Wanda's magic—scarlet and gold—wrapped around his chest and yanked him upward.
Tommy and Billy were holding on too.
"Don't let him take you," Wanda growled. "You're stronger than fear."
The nightmare shrieked.
Reality fractured.
And—
Izuku gasped.
He shot upright, coughing, his whole body aching like fire and frost had warred in his blood.
The infirmary around him was quiet. Dim. The U.S.J. ruins felt like a ghost now.
But he wasn't alone.
Momo sat beside him, eyes red, hair tangled, one hand gently resting on his wrist.
"You're awake," she whispered, voice shaking.
He blinked, then closed his eyes again briefly.
"She protected me," he murmured. "So did they."
"…Who?"
"My family," he whispered. "My real one. Even across time."