Cold metal. Dim lights. Slow beeping.
The girl's eyes twitched beneath their lids.
Then opened.
She gasped.
Sharp. Like drowning.
"Where am I?"
White ceiling. Restraints on her wrists. A faint, pulsing hum under the bed.
"You're safe."
The voice came from a speaker.
She turned her head. Slowly. Painfully.
A camera lens blinked red.
"Who are you?" she croaked.
Silence.
Then static.
Then—
"We don't know."
Nezu sipped his tea in silence.
Midnight paced. Mic tapped his foot. Gran Torino stood by the window, arms folded.
"She woke up an hour ago," Nezu said, placing the teacup down gently. "And she doesn't remember anything. Not her name. Not the League. Not Eri."
"She was going to die," Present Mic muttered. "But Eri pulled her back."
"She didn't just pull her back," Gran Torino said, eyes narrowing. "She left her in between."
Aizawa stepped into the hospital wing.
His coat was still wet from the rain.
He stood in the doorway. Watching her through the glass.
The girl sat up now. Back straight. Breathing slow.
She looked... empty.
As if her soul hadn't caught up with her body yet.
Eri's power did that. It didn't rewind memories. Only matter.
This girl was reborn.
But broken.
Later that night, Eri sat alone again.
Midoriya had left her some hot chocolate.
She hadn't touched it.
Instead, she stared out the window.
At the moon.
She whispered, "She's still alive."
Midoriya appeared behind her.
"You felt it?"
"I know it."
Her horn flickered faintly.
"She's not like before. Something's different."
Elsewhere in the shadows of UA…
The girl sat up in her bed.
Head tilted.
The camera buzzed. Observing.
Then—
She turned.
Stared directly into the lens.
"I know her," she whispered. "The girl with the horn."
A pause.
"I heard her crying."
She touched her chest.
Where the bullet had gone in.
Then touched her head.
Where nothing remained.
Nezu turned off the feed.
Everyone stared.
"So..." Midnight said, voice hushed. "She's not just alive. She's linked."
"Like a tether," Gran Torino muttered.
Aizawa didn't speak.
He knew what it meant.
Eri had done something irreversible.
She'd rewound time... but not history.
The moment still happened.
But the death didn't stick.
The girl lived—
Half rewound. Half rewritten.
A paradox in skin.
"What do we call her?" Midoriya asked, later that night.
Eri didn't answer at first.
She thought about it.
The girl's eyes. The way she jumped in front of the bullet.
No hesitation.
Only instinct.
"She saved me," Eri said softly.
Midoriya nodded. "Yeah."
"She didn't have a name... but she gave me time."
Eri stood.
Walked over to the wall.
Wrote a name with her finger in the fogged glass.
"Kira."
Midoriya blinked.
"Kira?"
"It means 'glitter' in old language," she whispered. "Like a light in the dark."
Down in the med-lab, the girl stirred.
Looked up at the ceiling.
Then smiled faintly.
"Kira..."
To be continued.