#rewound

What if you could go back in time?

Replay the game from the very start?

What if the characters could hear you?

Replying to your every word?

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A reader insert SAGAU (Self Aware Genshin Characters) fic including time travel, angst, and (hopefully) emotional trauma for everyone involved!

Fic below the cut

This time she didn't trip on a loose stone as she walked up the path towards the doors. 

Testing was being held in the same rooms as before, just alphabetically split instead of by district.

Her room was N through Z, she had taken Nezu as her family name, it had felt right in a way that Midoriya never had. 

Her assigned desk was in the middle of a column but at the far left of the room, she walked down the center aisle taking note of the names she passed. Her steps stuttered as she passed Yamada Hizashi, she half hoped that it was Present Mic, the other half of her hoped it wasn't. 

Quickly shuffling away, Izumi took her seat and silently waited for the examiner to start the testing. 

The test was simple for Izumi, she knew it would be, it had been easy the first time as well. She had been the first one to finish, only taking up an hour of the two alloted. Sitting back in her chair and waiting she took the time to think over a few strategies that would be useful for the physical test. 

A loud bell broke her out of her thoughts, the other students started to groan, clothes shifted and shoes squeaked on the floor as they started to move around. 

"Students applying for general studies can go home, students applying for business have an hour break, students applying for support have a ninety minute break, and students applying for heroics should please make their way to the theatre." The teacher that had watched over them spoke, directing the students to where they should be. 

Izumi wasn't really paying attention as she walked down the hall towards the theatre, she knew the way without having to rely on the signs that had been posted. 

It was her lack of attention that had her smacking right into the back of another person, with a grunt at the impact she felt herself rebound off the person and falling backwards. 

Izumi felt lucky that she felt herself hit another person behind her as she fell backwards, until a semi familiar voice spoke. 

"Whoa there. I never thought I would have a pretty girl fall into my arms before I even became a hero." Izumi closed her eyes in resignation before she looked up to meet the lime green of who would one day be Present Mic. 

"Thanks for the catch." She says lightly, not bothering to even try to pick apart his words and ditangles herself from the blonds hands.

"I'm very sorry to have run into you." Izumi bows her head at the dark haired teen she had collided with. When she looked up to meet his eyes Izumi cursed the universe. 

"You need to work on your spatial awareness." A much younger Aizawa Shōta tells her. 

Her words are stuck in the back of her throat as dark eyes take her in from head to toe. Inspection done, he ignores the squawk from Yamada behind her at his rude words and turns on his heel. 

"Villain points aren't the only points." Izumi calls behind Aizawa, she has no idea why she even said that, just that it felt right. 

Yamada inhales a quick breath, and Izumi turns to look at him again. 

"Nezu Izumi, thank you again for catching me." Izumi introduces herself, she's a little annoyed at having to look up so far at the teen. 

"Yamada Hizashi!" He chirps as her, voice just shy of slipping into his quirk. 

Izumi nods at him, her face and body language carefully neutral. 

"Come on, we are gonna be late." Yamada says again when he gets no real reaction from her. 

Izumi falls into step with him as they restart their journey to the theatre. Yamada is nattering away beside her, he's talking about random things and Izumi is lost to most of it. 

Izumi breaks off from the blond teen as they enter the theatre, she takes a seat in the back and pulls out the slip of paper that had been on her desk to tell her what testing ground she would be on. 

"Welcome students!" Nezu's chipper greeting fills the room, it makes Izumi relax the last of the tension in her shoulders melting away. 

"For your physical exam you will be facing three types of robots, each worth between one and three points. You will have an hour to collect as many points as possible. At three quarters of an hour there will be a single robot released, this one will be zero points." Izumi takes a moment to look at the projection. 

Under the image of the robot is the number zero and a P.  The realization that the robot is 0P as in over powered makes Izumi break out in cackles. The whole room turns to her, she feels a blush rise on her cheeks and hunches down into her seat. 

Nezu claps once to get the attention back on him before he starts directing students out to the transport to get to their testing ground. 

As the group of hopefuls waits outside of the gate many clustering together to gossip Izumi makes her way to the starting line to stretch, she hadn't gotten full mastery of her whips yet, but she had good enough control of her electrokinesis that she would be able to drain the power from the robots. 

A hero that Izumi faintly recalls as FailSafe is standing on one of the pullers by the gate, Izumi takes in a deep breath just to steady herself. To her left she catches a flash of dark hair, she sends a little prayer into the universe that she wasn't in the same grouping as her ex sensei.

"Attention!" FailSafe's voice booms. He waits until everyone is clustered behind the starting line. "Begin." Is the next word from the hero's mouth, Izumi doesn't wait, she runs. 

Izumi knows that going for the center of the cityscape is going to get her caught up in a riot of people fighting to best one another. She takes a sharp turn down an ally and runs towards what would be the outskirts of the 'attack'. 

It takes her little time to manipulate the electricity in the robots, they shut down with little fanfare. She moves around spiraling inwards as she goes, stopping to pull people out of the way when they aren't paying enough attention to their surroundings. 

Izumi loses time, she's still aware of her surroundings, but it's not enough. 

The ground rumbles, the zero pointer is now in play.  

Izumi isn't really sure what happens, there is a flash of red, then gray, and she's under part of a building much like Uravity had been. 

"Fuck." Izumi scouts, she knows that the robot won't actually hurt her, but if she can get a brave soul some rescue points she will. "Help!"

She twists under the concrete, trying to figure out how to wiggle her way free. There's no chance, her left leg is completely pinned and she can feel the hot slick of blood on her skin. 

"Fucking…Help!" She called again,she knew that by how slick her left thigh was getting that she was losing more blood than was good for her. 

The quiet tap of shoes catches Izumi's attention, it's coming from the direction of her feet that the part of the building is blocking her from seeing. 

"My leg is pinned...I can feel blood...just... find a bar of some sort...lever the left side a little...find a rock to support it...and..pull me...out." Izumi pants, her sentence broken by her panic over the blood loss. 

The person she was just ordering around gave a short grunt, their footsteps moving away from her. 

Izumi is tracking the giant robot, it moves slower that the one she faced originally, by her estimation it will be moments from crushing her when time runs out. 

A slide of metal on cement alerts Izumi that her rescuer has gotten back, she finally looks at who it is and is somewhere between elated and horrified. 

Aizawa grunts as he pushes down on the rod he had found, an oddly square shaped chunk of debris at his feet. 

"Fucking run into me, then give criptic suggestions, and now needing rescue. What the fuck problem female?" Izumi catches Aizawa grumbling, she doesn't think she was supposed to. 

"Uh...hurry please?" She pleads. "I'm gonna pass out from blood loss soon." She warns quickly as Aizawa opens his mouth to most likely say something sarcastic. 

The piece of the building that's pinning her shifts, it hurts bad enough for Izumi to bite back a scream. The sound of stone on stone registers, and Izumi holds her hands above her head.