Dark clouds strangled the evening sky.
The air was thick. Too still. Too quiet.
And under that silence… came the creak of a gate.
U.A.'s perimeter sensors blinked red for a moment. Then died.
On the rooftop, Aizawa's scarf flicked once in the wind. His eye twitched.
He knew what that meant.
"Code Red. Breach," he muttered into his comm.
But underground, where steel doors lined the hall to Recovery Girl's ward, no one heard him.
Because down there… Eri was already missing.
Midoriya's blood ran cold as he stepped into the empty room. The bed still warm. IV still dripping.
Gone.
No signs of struggle. No alarms. Just absence.
The little girl who could rewrite time—
—was erased from the present.
"No…" Izuku whispered, hands shaking. "No, no, no…"
Behind him, Uraraka entered, panting. "Midoriya, I—" Her voice cracked.
She saw the bed. Empty.
Her knees buckled.
A chill passed through the both of them.
A message was scribbled in red crayon on the wall.
"SHE'S MINE NOW."
Hours earlier.
Eri had awoken from her nap… to a lullaby.
A soft humming voice. Gentle. Motherly.
But her mother had died years ago.
She sat up. Rubbed her eyes.
There, at the foot of her bed, sat a woman in a long red dress. Hair black as void. Skin pale. Eyes purple.
Unblinking.
"You're not supposed to be here…" Eri said in a small voice.
The woman smiled. "Neither are you, little Rewind."
The walls twisted.
The room flickered.
Reality unraveled like a thread.
Then the world blinked.
And she was gone.
Aizawa stared at the footage.
Glitched. Static. Shadows moving where no light should bend.
Whoever took her wasn't recorded. But the security feed paused—frame by frame.
One frame showed Eri's face, right before she vanished.
She was looking at something. Not in fear. But in recognition.
"She knew them," Aizawa whispered.
Midnight sat beside him. "How's that possible? We scrubbed her records. There's no family left. No one but us."
Aizawa's jaw tightened.
"That's what we thought."
In a distant mountain.
Deep within a forgotten shrine.
The woman in red set Eri down gently.
The child's eyes fluttered open.
And she remembered.
The hidden days. The blood seals. The whispers that called her by a name not hers.
"You're not just a Quirk," the woman said softly, stroking her white hair. "You are the Final Reset."
Eri blinked. "What does that mean?"
The woman leaned in.
And whispered.
Izuku threw the chair against the wall.
"Where is she?! How did someone get inside?! She was safe here!"
All Might grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Calm yourself, young Midoriya."
But there was no calm in his eyes.
"First Nighteye. Then Sir Mic. Then Kota's village. And now her?!"
His voice cracked.
He fell to his knees.
"I'm supposed to save people…"
All Might sighed. "Even the greatest heroes lose people they love."
Izuku stared at his trembling hands. "But not again. I can't let this happen again…"
The next morning.
The sun refused to rise.
And when the moon hung low, blood-red over the city, something ancient awakened inside Eri.
Something older than quirks.
She wasn't just born with her power.
She inherited it.
And now it whispered to her.
Told her of a time before time.
Of a curse.
Of a deal made by the first Rewind—her ancestor.
And the woman in red?
She wasn't a villain.
She was Eri's real mother.
Bakugo slammed the map on the war table.
"She's got to be in one of these four zones. Remote. No surveillance. Old religious sites."
Todoroki frowned. "How do you know?"
Bakugo's eyes burned. "Because that's where the blood trails end."
Uraraka looked pale. "Blood?"
He nodded. "Not hers. Something else. Like… a sacrifice."
Kirishima leaned in. "You think they're doing some ritual?"
"No," Bakugo said, voice grim. "I think they already did."
Inside the shrine, Eri stood atop a glowing circle.
The woman handed her an orb. It pulsed like a heart.
"Break it," she said.
Eri hesitated.
"Will it bring them back?" she asked.
The woman's eyes sparkled. "It will bring back everything."
And Eri—
The girl who had lost too much.
The girl who wanted to undo all the pain—
Crushed it in her small fist.
The shrine exploded in light.
Reality buckled.
The moon cracked.
To be continued.