MHA: Reincarnated with the Power to Alter Time

I had to delete the last chapter because the translator I used changed several things, and in the process, I fixed my amateur narration.

...

...

In the courtyard of the orphanage, the cries of children echoed as they ran and played with carefree joy. However, in a secluded corner, Yuto stood off to the sidelines, completely oblivious to the bustle. His gaze fixed on the ground, his arms rose and fell in a steady rhythm as he performed push-ups. It had been three days since he returned to the past, a time he had used to adjust.

Although he had not yet mastered time travel, Yuto had learned something important: how to prevent it from being activated unintentionally. Despite this, he had not experienced a time jump again. Not because he didn't want to, but out of caution. The fear of appearing in a place he couldn't return from, or worse, a place where he didn't even have time to react, kept him on his toes. He knew time travel wasn't a game. He had seen enough movies to understand how risky it could be.

Instead of obsessing over something he couldn't control, he decided to focus on the one thing he could control: his body. Although he didn't have any special gifts, he had been born with an unusually strong physique for his age. At eight years old, he possessed the strength of a teenager. In his previous life, he had never paid attention to that ability. What was the point of being strong if someone could defeat him with a single touch or an absurd power like sticky hair? Besides, he hadn't felt the need to get involved in the plot from the start.

However, this time it was different. Yuto could no longer afford to fall behind. He had a goal. Fix the future, change what was to come, and create a world without worries. To achieve that, he couldn't keep being the same weak and inexperienced boy.

He finished his push-ups and, as he stood up, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His gaze turned to his backpack, loaded with stones he had gathered to add weight to his training. Without hesitation, he strapped it to his back and began running around the yard.

The routine was new to him. In his past life, and also in the previous loop, he had never bothered to exercise. He had no idea if what he was doing was effective, but in the orphanage, with no access to the internet, he could only draw inspiration from what he had seen in anime.

As he ran, Yuto could feel the stares of the other children. Some were mocking, others simply curious. But he was already used to it. In his previous loop, the situation hadn't been much different. Since he had been diagnosed as someone without a gift, the other children lost interest in him. Most preferred to keep their distance, and he didn't make any effort to get closer.

He continued with his routine: running, doing jumps, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretches. The afternoon went on, but he didn't stop. He only did when the sun began to set, painting the sky with a soft orange hue. The orphanage caretakers called the children to come inside, and Yuto, exhausted but satisfied with his effort, finally finished his training and headed inside.

Once inside, he took a quick shower before joining the others at the dining table. The food, as always, was bland. The rice lacked flavor, the vegetables were too tough, and the meat... if it could be called meat, barely had any taste. Despite the hunger and fatigue, he wrinkled his face when taking the first bite.

He finished the meal in silence and headed to the room he shared with four other boys. Despite the discomfort of sharing the space, he was already accustomed to it. The beds were narrow, with thin mattresses that barely offered comfort, and each child had a small trunk at the foot of their bed to store their few belongings.

When he entered, he noticed the other boys were already there. Some were talking to each other, others were checking their things. One of them, Akira, a boy with fox ears and orange hair, watched him with a mocking smile.

"So, is it true what they say?" he asked, leaning over from his bed with a sarcastic smile. "Were you training?"

Yuto ignored him and sat on his bed. Calmly, he took out his backpack and began to check it, even though he had already removed the stones before entering the orphanage. It was more of a reflex to avoid giving attention to Akira.

However, Akira didn't give up.

"Are you training to become a hero?" he continued with a mocking tone. "You know you have no gift, right? Why even try?"

Yuto kept his gaze fixed on the backpack, not bothering to respond. But Akira got off his bed and approached, his smile growing more malicious.

"You're so useless," he said with a venomous voice. "No family is ever going to come looking for you. Everyone knows you have no gift."

Yuto kept checking his backpack, clenching his fists slightly but saying nothing.

"You know," Akira continued, with a triumphant tone. "I'm lucky. In a week, my adoptive family is coming. They'll love me because I have an amazing gift. While you... well, you'll always be a nuisance here."

Yuto raised an eyebrow mentally. He never understood why Akira bothered him. Even in the previous loop, the boy would make similar comments. If he had been a real child, his words might have hurt. But he wasn't.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuto noticed the other three boys had stopped what they were doing to watch. Their gazes went from Akira to him, clearly entertained by the scene. One of them even let out a mocking snort in his direction.

Akira stared at him, waiting for a reaction. When he saw Yuto didn't seem interested in responding, his smile faded. He growled and rolled his eyes.

"Ugh, you're just wasting my time," Akira muttered as he rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue before turning back to his bed.

Yuto glanced at him from the corner of his eye and thought, "Sometimes I feel like punching his face." He didn't do it, but not for lack of desire. He had done it in the previous loop, and the experience hadn't been pleasant.

After hitting Akira that time, things only got worse for him. The caretakers punished him severely, as none of the other children spoke in his defense. To everyone, Yuto was a bully. Akira, for his part, didn't just stand by. He organized a group of kids to attack him during recess. Since then, Yuto preferred to stay silent.

A few minutes later, the caretakers passed by the room to make sure everyone was in their beds. They turned off the main lights, leaving the dim light of the moon to illuminate the room through the window. Yuto lay down on his back, staring at the ceiling.

His thoughts, as always, led him to the future he was trying to avoid. He clenched his fists tightly, feeling the tension in his body still exhausted from the training. Changing the future sounded easier said than done. Without even knowing why everything had changed, he had little room for action.

The memory of Iida's body, with his chest caved in, shook him again. Could that be the source of it all? In the previous loop, Yuto had already moved out of Japan before the main events began, so he wasn't aware of much news. With the little money he had, he couldn't buy a TV, and the only news he couldn't avoid hearing were the ones related to the battle between All Might and All For One. Everything happened just as it did in the anime. He also heard about several Japanese heroes dying, although he couldn't remember if those deaths matched what should have happened. Then there was Shigaraki, turning Japan into his playground, and finally the last battle between Shigaraki and Midoriya, which ended with the latter's death.

If he hadn't seen Iida's body, he would have thought things only changed when Midoriya lost. But it seemed everything had twisted much earlier. Yuto turned in his bed, letting sleep slowly take over.

"I guess I'll have to enroll in UA," he murmured to himself.

If he wanted to change the future, he had to understand how the events that shaped it had originated. And UA was the epicenter of it all.

"Well, just until I prevent the apocalypse," he told himself, trying to convince himself that once he fulfilled his purpose, he could leave that life behind.

With that thought swirling in his mind, he closed his eyes and let himself drift off to sleep.

...

...

The next day, Yuto followed the same training routine, but this time he finished earlier. Why? Because he had something on his mind.

He watched the children playing in the yard. They were completely distracted, which meant he wouldn't draw attention if he decided to leave. He slowly walked to the edge of the yard and fixed his gaze on the wall surrounding the orphanage. It was a simple structure, with flimsy metal bars rising between the trees.

Without thinking any further, he slipped through the bars with agility and ventured into the forest that stretched beyond the orphanage. Once he felt he was far enough, he stopped and placed a hand on his chin, reflecting on what he was about to do.

Yuto had decided to train his time jumps. Sure, he didn't plan on making big jumps just yet. As he had mentioned before, he didn't want to risk doing something out of his control. His plan was to make small jumps, no more than a few minutes. Something manageable, but enough to test if he truly had control over this ability.

The only problem was that he didn't know how the jumps worked. He had traveled in time before, but none of those jumps were by his own choice. He didn't want to end up in the Cretaceous period or a thousand years in the future. He needed to figure out how to move just a few minutes ahead, or at least, he thought he'd start there.

Yuto sat down in a lotus position, trying to meditate, or at least, he thought he was. He closed his eyes and looked within himself, hoping to find ki, chakra, a core, or anything that would show him how to control his jumps. He stayed like that for ten minutes, ignoring everything around him. But all he felt was that he was making a fool of himself. Frustrated, he crossed his arms.

"Maybe it doesn't work that way," he thought. After all, he had activated the jumps unconsciously, without needing to concentrate. But the problem was that if he kept following that path, he wouldn't know where he'd end up.

Yuto sighed, opening his eyes and looking at the ground. He had been trying to think too much about it, but maybe the key was simpler than he thought. He didn't need to force himself to concentrate.

He remembered the first time he activated the jump: the stress, the fear, the desperation... and above all, the deep desire to change everything. It was in that moment, without intending to, that his power emerged. It wasn't through concentration, but through the urgent need to escape.

Yuto stood up and took a few steps, breathing deeply. He closed his eyes and clenched his fist tightly, focusing on that feeling he remembered from his previous jumps. Then he felt it: a tug that ran through his whole body, as if something was pulling him from the inside.

"It's working," he thought, holding back the excitement. He just hoped he wouldn't end up too far away.

His body distorted for a moment, as if it were fading into the air. And in the blink of an eye, Yuto disappeared from the spot.

When the pull stopped, he slowly opened his eyes. He looked around, a bit confused. He was in the same place. He looked at the sky, which still showed signs of the sunset.

"Maybe I traveled one second into the future?" he murmured, though he couldn't be sure.

He sighed. "Better head back to the orphanage before the caretakers suspect I'm out," he thought, turning to go back. However, just before taking the first step, something stopped him. There, on the ground, exactly where he had been sitting, he saw someone in a lotus position with their eyes closed.

The surprise froze him because the person sitting there was none other than himself.

Yuto's eyes widened as he tried to process what he was seeing. But his instincts acted first. Without thinking, he crouched down and hid behind some nearby bushes, trying to make as little noise as possible. Luckily, the whisper of the leaves moved by the wind and the sounds of the forest seemed to cover any movement that could betray him.

From his hiding spot, Yuto watched his double.

"What the hell is going on?" he thought, feeling a mix of fascination and fear.

It didn't take him long to understand the situation. Having seen so many time travel movies, he quickly grasped what was happening.

"Shit, I didn't want to time travel like this," he thought, gritting his teeth as he remained hidden behind the bush.

When he first activated his time jumps, he had assumed he'd simply shift his consciousness into his past self's body, as if his mind was displaced. But now that he thought about it more clearly, the first jumps had taken him to moments and places where he had never been. That could only mean one thing: his version of that moment still existed.

"Ugh, this is so confusing," he murmured to himself, putting a hand to his forehead as he tried to calm the whirlwind of thoughts.

He looked back at his double, who was still motionless in the lotus position. Yuto knew getting closer would be a disaster. If the movies were right, interacting with your past self could create paradoxes or even... destroy the universe?

"That sounds too dramatic, but better not risk it," he thought.

However, he couldn't stay there forever. His "other self" would eventually open his eyes, and then he'd be in trouble.

"I have to get out of here before he sees me. But how?" he wondered, placing a hand on his chest, trying to feel the same pull that had brought him here.

He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and tried to concentrate, but this time, nothing happened. The pull didn't respond to his will.

"Great," he murmured sarcastically.

From his hiding spot, Yuto watched his double get up, cross his arms, and sigh deeply, a clear expression of frustration on his face. He saw him walk a few steps, stop halfway down the path, as if he were reflecting on something. Then, suddenly, his body distorted and disappeared into the air, exactly like what had happened to him minutes before.

Yuto slowly stepped out from behind the bush, still processing what he had just witnessed. He looked at the empty spot where his double had been moments earlier.

"Wait... does that mean that before I left, there was already a version of me from a few minutes in the future?" he murmured to himself, trying to fit the pieces together. "What the hell is this confusing..."

He scratched his head, feeling his brain fight to not melt from all the time paradoxes. But in the end, he decided not to think about it too much for now.

"If I keep thinking about this, I'll go insane," he told himself, sighing deeply.

He shrugged and began walking back to the orphanage. He had had enough time travel for today.