Chapter Text
“To go beyond. That is the intent and goal of every single academy graduate of the Intergalactic Academy ever since it was first established, and we hope that it will continue to be the intent and goal of every single academy graduate for many years to come,” a woman in a blue uniform and an enigmatic smile is saying on a large holo screen above the quad, the sound echoing across the grounds. “Students, we thank you for enrolling and continuing the peace and study of our universe across our universe.”
Shouta keeps a bored eye on the holo as he walks, one hand on the strap of his bag and another on his map and schedule.
He’s one of many, many students walking through the campus, trying to find their dorm and get settled before their first day of classes, but Shouta has a feeling - as he looks around at the frantic, excited, chattering older teenagers and young adults around him - that he might be the only one here that has done something like this before. Sure, it’s the first time doing this for an academy that has such a heavy influence on space travel, but when one has lived through what’s essentially both university life and military life as many times as he has? He thinks he might be an old hat at it.
To think that it’s been a good few dozen decades since his last life, and finally humanity has managed to move past the “Age of Quirks” to get back on track to furthering technology enough to get to this point. If he remembers correctly, there’d been a handful of philosophers who had talked about how the emergence of Quirks had all but halted the progress of technology to the point that it had stagnated. All Might himself had said once or twice something along the lines of “we’d already be on Mars” if it hadn’t been for the rise of both Quirks and the actions of All for One. Well, now that the war against that villain has finally, after so long, ended, humanity can finally focus on moving forward.
And beyond.
It had been interesting, to say the least, to wake up in this life and slowly acquire his memories throughout his childhood and see how much things had changed. For the better, Shouta thinks as he looks around the campus, at the students he’s in the middle of walking around with.
There are no more schools dedicated towards learning to push one’s Quirks to their limit, to fight, to defend oneself and others on the streets. Instead, now there are schools dedicated towards researching the world around them, researching the stars above them, and communicating with the people they find up there. There are still conflicts that are Quirk-based, sure, but nothing like on the scale that they were back in the day, and using history as a guide, it’s easy to teach individuals why it’s important to learn from the mistakes of our past.
Quirks, of course, still exist - they were a product of evolution, after all, and through evolution they only evolved more. What’s funny, at least to Shouta, is that he’s somehow ended up with a Quirk similar to the one in his previous life: By maintaining line of sight, he can cancel someone’s Quirk. The new part of his Quirk that he finds surprisingly useful is that he can actually pull people and things he’s staring at with his Quirk towards him, reminding him a little of using his old capture weapon.
The quirk specialists still call it “Erasure”. Shouta jokingly calls it “Black Hole”.
Suiting, because he’s signed up to go up into the black.
Now if he can just figure out where the fuck his dorm is.
Letting out a small grumble, he scowls down at his map again with narrowed eyes, turning it sideways to try and figure out if perhaps he’s holding it sideways or maybe upside-down. Honestly, why the hell did they print it out on paper, anyways? It’d be so much easier on everyone if the school would send out copies of the map to their holo-tablets so the students can zoom in on the map to their heart's content and actually read the fine print.
“Hey there, freshman!” a voice calls out to him. “Lost?”
Shouta looks up from the map to find a smiling woman in a clean and pressed gray and blue uniform standing not too far from him, three stripes on each of her shoulders and a few buttons on her collar. More than likely junior or senior designated to help the new students get around, he thinks, sighing before turning to face her fully. “A bit,” he admits tiredly. “I’m looking for my dorm.”
“Just like everyone else here, then,” she jokes, laughing a little. Shouta only offers her a blank stare. “Which dorm are you heading to?”
“Beta, I think.”
“Ah, that one’s fun,” she says with a sage nod. “It also has two buildings, and they’re not going to have you on the list of dormies if you go to the wrong one - which means you might want to know which building you’re in before you walk in for room assignment and stand in line for over half an hour.”
Shouta groans under his breath, looking skyward. Is this some sort of punishment for something he did in a past life? He doesn’t remember doing anything specific.
(Hizashi forgave him for all the major things, anyway.)
She laughs, pulling out her tablet. “It’s alright! I can help!” she assures, and her fingers are quick on the screen as she taps out quick commands. “Okay, Beta Dorm, new student… What’s your name, Freshman?”
“Aizawa Shouta.”
There’s a pause. “...Like that one Pro-Hero from the history books?” she asks in surprise. “Eraserhead?”
“The same,” Shouta says with a nod.
“How’d you end up with that name?” she asks as she types the name into the tablet, shaking her head. “Did your parents want you to stick out in school or something? You must have gotten so many people asking you questions. Heck, I think you even look like his pictures.”
He shakes his head in casual denial. “I don’t think so,” he lies easily. “My nose is different.”
She squints her eyes at him for a moment, then shrugs. “Yeah, I think I see it.” Her tablet pings a second later, and with a smile she turns just a little to point off into the distance. “Alright, so Beta Dorm is going to be in that direction. Just follow this pathway and take the third right - there will be a big sign that you can’t miss, okay? And you’re going to be in the building on the left.”
“Follow this path, take the third right, big sign I can’t miss, building on the left,” Shouta repeats. Adjusting the strap for his bag, he gives the woman a nod. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome!” she says, and then gives him a salute with a bright, beaming grin to rival All Might’s. “Go beyond, freshman!”
He gives a lazy salute back before walking off and inwardly thinks to himself that he’s going to actually miss UA and their use of “Plus Ultra”.
Hizashi, he knows, would absolutely and unironically love the Intergalactic Academy’s slogan.
(“It's not an expedition,” Shouta said with exasperation. He'd said that a thousand times before already, and Hizashi held back his snickers while the man turned him around so they could be face to face. “I'm going to help protect the researchers that are going to see if the island off the the south has fertile enough soil to plant crops - “
“That sounds like an expedition - “
“ - and I'm barely going to be doing anything, anyway,” Shouta finished, scowling at Hizashi playfully. “Really, they don't even need me, since they're just going to be looking at dirt.”
“It's an adventure to lands unknown,” Hizashi whispered as he leaned forward for a kiss. “It's an expedition.”
“Shut up,” Shouta murmured back at him, and then leaned in to make him do just that.)
There had always been a part of Hizashi that loved to romanticize adventure - it was part of the reason why he’d written him that song, after all. Shouta’s always loved that about him, the dramatic and impassioned side of him that could find poetry and song in anything and everything. He knows that’s what balances the two of them out: Hizashi’s ever-beating tempo that only he seems to feel or hear, and Shouta’s still and quiet.
…He misses him so much.
A couple students in a hurry, panic on their faces, come charging down the path, and Shouta easily moves out of their way as they garble out apologies to him, one of them pausing to pick up some of the papers and various other personal effects that the other drops from their arms. He watches with an edge of tiredness and an aching heart as they dash off, eyes on their hair for just a moment.
Black and blonde. There’s a small part of him that wonders if the two students are good friends, or maybe more? Do they treasure each other? Do they hold each other close? If they love each other, will they tell the other, or will they keep it in until it’s too late and the other never knows?
Will they live in regret, or anger, or fear like he did for too many years?
(“In every lifetime, I remember everything,” he said, voice low. “Every single lifetime. And every single lifetime, you never do. Do you...do you know how hard it was, over and over, to find you and...lose you all over again?”)
(“I may love you, Hizashi, but I will not love you ever again. Not in any lifetime.”)
(“You are acting like a child,” Shouta snarled, standing quickly to his feet as well. Something heavy fell to the floor, and Nemuri cursed loudly but neither of them cared. “I don't like it when you die? I fucking hate it when you die. Every single time I feel gutted and awful and I never last long without you, and – “ He cut himself off with a growl. “You have no idea what this is like, Hizashi.
“I'm not going through that again. I'm not getting close only to fucking lose you, because it hurts, and just because you're a selfish, persistent ass in this lifetime doesn't mean I have to bend to what you want. I've always been bending to what you want! Always, even when you don't want anything to do with me! This time I want to do things my own way, and you – you throw a fucking fit like a toddler!? No, fuck that – I'm going to die unhappy and alone, but at least I won't have to die with you by my side saying you, you love me, only to wake up in the next life looking into the eyes of a fucking stranger!”)
(“Why?”
“I’m sorry.”)
(“Why couldn't you have just left me alone?” he whispered roughly to himself, watching as his knuckles faded into blurred shapes of red. His eyes stung, and as the tears dripped down onto his fresh wounds a different sting flared up on them. It was like salt on them, and he let the tears continue to fall. “You should have just...left me alone, Hizashi...”)
Shouta rubs at his chest and turns away from watching the students disappear into the distance, taking a deep breath. Even now, dozens of decades later, the hurt from that time remains - but it’s not the pain it had been before, where it had festered and grew over the centuries the more lifetimes that he met Hizashi and wasn’t recognized. No, now it’s more like…an old ache, a scar that he’d gotten a long time ago that acts up on rainy days.
That day on Komoda Beach, when he’d taken Hizashi to trigger his memories and proposed to him, when he told him that he didn’t want to think that Hizashi somehow loved him less simply because his memories of their previous lives weren’t with him - he meant it. He still means it. He loves Hizashi, fiercely and deeply and completely, and there isn’t a single part of him that regrets getting down on one knee to ask the man to marry him in the last life.
Gods, though. He just wishes he could find him already.
Normally, by this point, Shouta would have at least caught a glimpse of him. He’s twenty, and in just a couple of months he’ll be turning twenty-one. It’s been an abnormally long time to not have seen Hizashi at all; typically the two of them meet sometime in their mid-teens (such as their meeting during the Sports Festival in the last life), and that’s been consistent over their multitude of lives. Hell, he’s even seen a few of their friends from the last life, not that any of them remember anything. So why hasn’t he seen Hizashi?
Shouta wants to find him and to be able to look him in the eyes in this life. From previous experience, Hizashi isn’t going to remember him.
That’s alright, though. Sure, it’ll hurt - at first. It always has, and it probably always will. But Hizashi has told him that he loves him. Always. In every lifetime. So Shouta will trust that, and trust that the Hizashi he sees in front of him isn’t a stranger and knows who he is - because even if Hizashi’s mind doesn’t remember, Hizashi’s soul does.
And that is enough.
Shouta sighs as he makes a right turn, seeing the sign for Beta Dorm. Pining desperately to himself wouldn’t help him now, not when he still had to get through dorm room assignments, getting his room set up, and the last of his schedule squared away with his campus counselor before the end of the day. Hopefully whoever his roommate ends up being isn’t a completely annoying ass and it doesn’t take them hours to figure out how many square inches of the room they have to actually split.
With one last look at the sky before entering the building on the left, Shouta hopes that one day in the future Hizashi will look up and see him among the stars.
Just as predicted by the upperclassman, the line for dorm room assignments is long. It seems that even with it being the future, this process hasn’t been streamlined in the slightest. Groaning, Shouta hefts his bag higher on his shoulder to get in line and waits, scowling at nothing in particular. He really wishes he had a sleeping bag.
…A part of him wishes he and Hizashi had done the time capsule, now. He could have put his sleeping bag in it.
Now he feels bad for laughing and calling it a dumb idea.
It’s nearly an hour later when he’s at the front of the line, and despite the fact that Shouta has never been able to fall asleep standing up (though Hizashi has claimed in many lifetimes that he probably could if he wanted to) he’s about ready to when the upperclassman at the makeshift desk finally calls him up. He grumbles to himself about ridiculous wait times and trudges over, scowling down at the brightly smiling man sitting in front of him.
“Hi there!” the upperclassman greets, wearing a similar uniform to the woman who had helped him earlier. “Welcome to Beta Dorm. May I get your name so I can get you your room assignment, please? We’ll cover dorm rules and regulations once you have your room number and keycard.”
Gods, no wonder this has taken so long, Shouta can’t help but think. “...Aizawa Shouta.”
The man pauses as he goes to check his tablet for his name. “...You mean like that one Pro-Hero from the history books?” he asks in surprise. “Eraserhead?”
“The same,” Shouta says with an exhausted nod.
“How’d you end up with that name?” the man asked incredulously, scrolling through the names on his list. “Did your parents want you to stick out in school or something? Man, I can only imagine how things went for you in grade school, with all the kids that memorized Hero names. Heck, I think you even look like his pictures.”
“I don’t think so,” he lies. “My nose is different.”
The man squints up at him for a second, then shrugs. “Yeah, I think I see it.” He looks back down at his tablet and then hums, smiling. “Ah, found you. So you’re pretty lucky, Aizawa-san - it looks like you’re going to be right here on the first floor, all the way at the end of this hall in 1-B. Don’t worry, the ceilings are very soundproof, so you don’t have to worry about anyone’s heavy footsteps or, uh, otherwise above you.”
“...Thanks,” Shouta said, wrinkling his nose.
“And you’re actually double lucky,” the man continues as he pulls a keycard out and scans it to his tablet, a small ping indicating that it’s now active and ready to use. “There’s a note on here that your roommate has already arrived!”
Shouta frowned. “How’s that lucky?” he asks, confused. “That just means they think they have first pick of the beds.”
The man, for some reason, finds his comment funny. “I’m thinking maybe the two of you won’t have any trouble fighting over who gets what bed,” he says, holding the keycard up. “Considering that apparently this guy is your husband.”
“My hus…?”
(“I dare not open my eyes,” Hizashi whispered, a smile growing on his face, “because if this is a dream and it wasn’t you who just kissed me, then I do not wish to wake. I want to stay asleep forever.”)
(“I’m glad to have you next to me,” he said, voice weak, “at the end.”)
(“Do you still love me now?”)
(“I always love him,” Hizashi continued, voice slurring. “Always. Even – even in the...ones where we barely talked. Always. I always loved him.”)
(“I can't live without you, Shouta! I'm sorry, I'm sorry – I'm – I'm sorry...!”)
(“...Because we’re soulmates?”
“Because we’re soulmates.”)
(“So here, where we made that first promise, to find each other in the next life, and in every life after - to remember each other and our love for each other - I’m asking you… Yamada Hizashi, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” he choked out, swiping at his face with the back of his hand. “Yes, yes, Shouta, a thousand times yes - “)
Shouta snatches the keycard out of the upperclassman’s hands, uncaring of how rude he’s being or that in the process he nearly upends the makeshift desk that the dorm room assignments are being held at, and then he’s turning on the spot and booking it, ignoring the startled shouts and calls for him to come back in the process. Some people are smart enough to get the fuck out of his way, some people aren’t. He’s on a mission to get down the hallway, and no one - absolutely no one - is going to stop him in his path to get there.
If this is a prank of some kind, if his roommate is pulling his leg somehow and pretending some marital relation to trick the administration for whatever reason, then there will be hell to pay - Shouta’s been a teacher. He knows the inner workings of educational management, and he’s well aware of what sort of lines this sort of prank is potentially crossing.
But if it isn’t…
If this is really…
His hands are shaking as he swipes the keycard at the lock, lungs aching and heart in his throat as the doors click and then slide open with only a hiss of air. His pulse is pounding so loudly that once he’s stepped through and into the dark entrance of the dorm room, the door sliding shut behind him, that’s all he can hear for a long, long moment. Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump, over and over, over-loud and beating not unlike war drums he heard from centuries long ago.
His steps slow as he makes his way through the long hallway; it reminds him, suddenly, of walking through Hizashi’s apartment after he’d taken his indefinite leave in their last life. He still loathes long entryways - one never knows what might lie further into the living space. This time is worse because he needs to know what waits for him further in.
Who waits for him further in.
It’s just as he’s about to reach the edge of the hallway, the light of what might be the main sleeping area bright with the afternoon sun shining across his path, that he hears singing.
“But the most beautiful thing you've got
Is a light shining clearly
And it lives within you
A compass that lights up your night …”
Shouta knows that voice.
His eyes tear up as he slowly rounds the corner, and he sees him. Standing by one of the beds in the room is a young man unpacking a suitcase, maybe a little taller than he is and certainly much more wiry, with short, bright blonde hair carefully styled up and out of his eyes despite the slightly longer locks in the front. Even though he’s facing mostly away, Shouta can see the edge of glasses with red frames, and the glimpses of his face appear golden and sun-kissed.
“They don't know anything
They have no answers
The answers are all with you
There are so many ways to go…”
He’s swaying a little as he sings, soft and slow and sweet, and each word touched with just as much meaning as it had been the last few times that Shouta had ever heard them. He presses his lips together to gather himself - because this is so much, this is too much, this is more than he ever thought he’d ever have with Hizashi in all of his wildest dreams, in all of his lifetimes… And then he opens his mouth.
“Many goals that can be reached if you dare
Believe that you have what it takes…”
The man stills, then turns around with wide, green, green, green eyes, and Shouta’s tears spill over because those eyes see him.
Hizashi sees him, and he’s smiling.
“We all have doubts,” Hizashi sings, and Shouta tries not to sob as he joins in on the chorus.
“But the most beautiful thing you've got
Is a light shining clearly
And it lives within you
A compass that lights up your night.”
“Shouta,” Hizashi greets with a bright laugh once the song comes to an end, and he opens his arms wide. “I’ve missed you.”
There isn’t a force on heaven or earth or even in the stars that can possibly keep the two of them apart. The moment Shouta drops his bag he’s activating his Quirk and pulling even as he’s moving forward, and soon he’s all but crushing Hizashi to himself, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight.
“Hizashi, Hizashi,” he whispers roughly into his shoulder, tears soaking his uniform. “You’re here, Hizashi. You’re here.”
A warm hand pets over his hair as kisses pepper his cheek, his ear, his neck, his shoulder. “Yeah,” Hizashi murmurs, and his voice sounds just as wet and choked as his does, just as full of emotion. “Yeah, I am. I am, Shouta. I really am.”
“You remember me - “
“I do.”
Shouta sobs harder.
Hizashi makes a soft noise, and he can feel his trim nails scratch gently against his scalp in soothing little scratches, down and then up again; he does this slowly, over and over, as Shouta tries to get his desperate, ragged crying under control, clinging to Hizashi with both limbs and Quirk alike. He doesn’t want to let go, not now, not ever. Not when he’s just found him again.
He’s a selfish, selfish man, after all.
Hizashi compromises in shuffling the two of them over to the bed to sit, and it’s there that Shouta remembers what it is to breathe again, blinking tears away and sniffling away his sobs to a few hiccups here and there. Finally he pulls away just enough to have Hizashi at arm's length (but only just) to wipe at his face - tears and snot and all sorts of unsightly fluids all over it - and his lover is there to help him with a soft, fond smile and the sleeve of his academy uniform.
“You’ll have to wash that now,” Shouta warns tiredly, knowing that they only get so many uniforms and Hizashi hates getting his uniforms filthy.
“I don’t care,” Hizashi says easily. “You’re more important than some clothes, Shou.”
Shouta gives him a tremulous smile, leans in, and kisses him.
The lips against his are soft and smooth, and they brush against his so gently that Shouta’s left shivering when Hizashi pulls away, trying to chase after him. It gets him a warm little laugh, the kind that always makes butterflies flutter away in his stomach and warmth bloom in his chest. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“And you’re still a tease,” he accuses, and he can feel his face form a pout against his will. It smooths just a moment later, and he tilts his head to consider his lover with a furrowed brow. “...I do have to wonder, though…”
Hizashi carefully brushes some of his hair from his face, keeping his touch sweet. “...How do I remember?”
“Yeah.”
“All I really have are theories,” Hizashi says honestly, shrugging. “I mean, let’s be honest - I don’t think there’s any science behind anybody getting reincarnated, and especially as many times as we have, y’know?” He gives him a grin, then leans forward until their foreheads are resting against each other. “But my main theory…
“All those lifetimes, where I never remembered… They all ended pretty badly,” Hizashi starts. “I mean, wow . They were horrible. Tragic ends all around. No matter what either of us did, knowing or unknowing, we died in some pretty terrible ways, huh?”
Shouta grimaces. “You don’t have to remind me,” he grouses. “I was there for all of them.”
“I know, I know.” Hizashi laughs. “Well, the thing is, I think… I think because in our first life, because I died while in the middle of trying to return the promise, and not only that but we both died pretty tragic deaths in that life, I think that in every life after that… Well, I think it was the universe pretty much trying to set things right, but it just kept getting it wrong somehow.”
“...What?”
“Well, think about it. Over and over again, you remembered, but I never did - so after a while, the universe tries to ‘trigger’ the tragic end we previously had together, hoping to reset the promise so that in the next life I would remember. Except I never did, so the cycle just continued.” Hizashi raises his brow pointedly. “Then, ‘lo-and-behold, you almost die instead of actually die, and that’s the trigger. I start remembering.
“I start remembering, and then you go out of your heartsick, over-the-top way to take me all-the-fuck-way to Tsushima,” here Shouta snorts and lightly shoves Hizashi, “and that’s where I finally see the promise for the first time.
His eyes lower, and he goes quiet. He’s silent for long enough that Shouta takes his hands between his own to hold, stroking his thumbs over the backs of his knuckles slowly. The action pulls a small smile to Hizashi’s lips, and then he shifts his head just enough to brush their lips together in a chaste little kiss before pulling back again.
“And I think… I think that was all I needed,” Hizashi says. “To see the memory of that promise, and know what we were meant to do - and be - together throughout our lifetimes.”
“Hizashi…”
Raising their joined hands, Hizashi twists the hold until he’s the one that’s holding Shouta’s hands between his own and then presses a kiss to the backs of each one. “I know that you said that I have nothing to be sorry for,” he says against his skin. “That I can’t control what I can’t remember. And you’re right.
“But I am sorry that I left you alone for so long,” he continues. “I’m sorry that I kept you waiting. I’m sorry, even if it was through happenstance, accident, or shitty, shitty luck, that you ever thought for a moment that I might not love you.
“I’m here now, Shouta,” Hizashi tells him. His eyes finally raise, and they’re shimmering with tears even through the wide smile he’s giving him. “And this time, I remember.”
This time when Shouta kisses him, there’s nothing sweet or chaste about it. It’s passionate and intense and deep, and he’s pushing him down onto the bed with a growl, one hand on his waist and the other digging into his hair to help angle his head. Hizashi lets him, kissing back just as fiercely, and it seems like all of his limbs are coming up to wrap around him with the intent of not ever letting go. Honestly, he’s more than okay with that.
It’s when Shouta finds himself trying to wrestle Hizashi’s uniform jacket off and he bumps his elbow into the suitcase that’s still sitting open on Hizashi’s bed that he comes back to himself, pushing up with several deep pants for breath and blinking down at the debauched picture that he’s made of his lover. “We…” He gulps for air. “We should… Unpack.”
Hizashi groans, head thumping back into the mattress. “Shoutaaa,” he whines, pouting. “I give you that awesome speech and we get started on an awesome makeout session and you want to stop to unpack!? ”
“Classes start tomorrow,” Shouta says, even though it kills him to push himself to sit up. “We need to finish unpacking, and I know I still have to go visit my counselor about my schedule before the end of the day. If we do anything now, we’ll never leave this room.”
“What if I don’t wanna leave this room?”
“Hizashi.”
“Fine, fine,” Hizashi huffs, rolling off the bed to stand, though he puts a hand on his hip and points a finger at him with a determined look on his face. “I will have you know, though, that I fully intend on there being reunion sex tonight! I did not hack the school’s student files to find out if you were going here to have this ruined for me!”
Shouta puts a hand over his mouth to hold back a laugh. “So that’s how you managed to get us both in a room together without me being notified?”
“Damn straight!”
“I’d expel you in a heartbeat.”
Hizashi gasps dramatically. “Is this how you treat your husband?”
“We’re not actually married.”
“Oh! That reminds me,” Hizashi leans in with all but sparkling eyes. “Shouta, just because we’ve been married in previous lifetimes doesn’t mean I don’t want an actual wedding. Think of the possibilities in this lifetime! We can get married - in space! ”
This time there’s nothing he can do to hold it back - Shouta tosses his head back and laughs, adoration and joy and happiness in every corner of his being as Hizashi jokes across from him. This man is completely ridiculous, and there’s not a single thing he would ever trade for him in the universe. He loves him just the way he is.
(It’s as they’re putting their things away, side by side, that Shouta catches the date on one of their tablets. The actual day doesn’t matter, not really, but the year sticks out to him because it’s one that’s been ingrained in his memory for centuries at this point.
2274.
The Battle at Komoda Beach had happened in 1274.
He stares at the year for a long moment, and then smiles, letting Hizashi’s talking pull him away so they can continue getting their room organized. A thousand years. He’s loved Hizashi for over a thousand years.
Shouta knows he’ll love him for a thousand more.)