Midnight.
The digital clock in the hallway blinked.
12:00.12:00.12:00.
And then—
11:59.
The second hand ticked backward.
Aizawa jolted awake in his room.
He didn't know why.
Just a sharp pressure in the base of his neck. A twist, like time had knotted around his spine.
He sat up. Eyes scanning the shadows.
Nothing moved.
But something felt off.
In the observation wing, Power Loader cursed under his breath.
"It's happening again."
Nezu didn't respond.
He just pointed to the screen.
On the security feed—
The girl blinked twice in perfect reverse motion.
Not an error.
Not sleep twitches.
A rewind echo.
Eri stirred.
She opened her eyes.
Looked at the girl sleeping beside her.
She could feel it too.
That low buzz behind her ribs. That hum in the air.
"Sensei," she whispered.
But Aizawa was already outside the room.
He cracked the door open.
His capture scarf already floating behind him.
He looked at the girl—
She was still asleep.
Still breathing.
But the air around her shimmered. Just barely.
Like heat rising off pavement.
UA's temporal monitor flickered again.
13-second pulses.
Faint.
Weaker than before.
But still there.
"She's not stable," Recovery Girl said. "Eri bought her time. Not permanence."
Nezu nodded. "Then the clock's ticking."
The next morning, the girl was different.
She smiled more.
Laughed when Eri told a joke.
But when she touched a cup—It cracked.
When she blinked—The wall flickered behind her for just a second.
And in the hallway mirror—Her reflection lagged behind.
Later that afternoon, Eri found her in the training field.
Standing perfectly still.
Eyes closed.
Palms open.
"What are you doing?" Eri asked.
The girl didn't turn around.
"I'm trying to hold the now."
"…What?"
"I keep slipping. Even when I don't mean to. I think my body remembers something my mind forgot."
She opened her eyes.
"They call it 'Residual Looping', right?"
Eri nodded. Quiet.
The girl smiled sadly.
"Guess I really was never meant to exist."
Eri stepped closer. Fierce.
"That's not true."
"But what if I am the mistake?"
Eri reached up and touched her shoulder.
"You're not a mistake."
"You're a miracle."
That night, Midoriya sat in Nezu's office.
He looked exhausted.
"She deserves to live. Like anyone else."
"I agree," Nezu said.
"But survival is not the same as existence."
Midoriya frowned. "What do you mean?"
Nezu tapped the file in front of him.
The girl's name, medical scans, quirkless signature.
"Her existence creates inconsistencies across multiple timelines. The universe—whatever rules it has—it doesn't know where to place her."
"Like a floating bookmark," Midnight added from the side. "In a book that was never written."
Midoriya stood.
"Then we'll write one."
Elsewhere, in the dark corner of an abandoned timeline—
A voice stirred.
"You took her back."
"She was mine."
It wasn't Kira.
It wasn't the girl.
It was something worse.
A fracture left behind.
A wound in time shaped like a person.
And it had begun to move.
Back at UA, the girl stared out the window again.
The stars felt closer now.
She raised her hand toward the glass.
The reflection didn't move.
Not for a full three seconds.
Then—It smiled back.
A different smile.
Not hers.
Not anymore.
To be continued.