It started the way all echoes do.
Not with sound.
But silence.
Too quiet.
No birds.
No wind.
No electricity hum.
Just... still.
Eri stood in the hallway of U.A.Everyone frozen mid-motion.
Todoroki mid-step.Midoriya's pen hovering.Bakugo's eyes locked on nothing.
Even light had paused—Sunlight caught halfway through glass.
Time wasn't moving.
Because it was watching.
Then came the voice.
But it wasn't a voice.
It was a memory pretending to speak.
"Hello again, little horn."
Eri turned.
Alone in the hallway now.
Empty.
Except for one figure.
Her.
The original Echo.
The first version that had crawled from the Spiral.
Wearing Eri's face.
But older.
Taller.
Eyes black. Hair silver. Horn glowing a deep void-red.
"You've run out of time," the Echo said, smiling faintly.
"Literally."
"I destroyed you," Eri whispered.
"You delayed me," the Echo corrected. "And every delay leaves... residue."
She stepped closer.
"You rewound the world. But the Spiral never ends, Eri. You just folded it."
Cut to: U.A. Underground
Aizawa and Present Mic stared at the warping monitor.
Another alert.
No breach.
No attack.
Just a new designation.
[HOST: ERI]
Status: INTEGRATING
Present Mic looked at Aizawa.
"No backup this time," he muttered.
Aizawa's eyes narrowed.
"She is the backup."
Back in the silent hall.
The Echo raised a hand.
Reality rippled like water.
Classrooms peeled open like book pages.
Each page a different timeline.
Eri falling into villain hands.
Eri killing Overhaul herself.
Eri aging backwards into nothing.
Eri becoming All For One.
None of them hers.
But all of them possible.
And now… pressing in.
Trying to fuse into one.
"Pick a version," the Echo whispered.
"Or I'll pick for you."
Eri clenched her fists.
"No."
"I'm not a fixed point."
"I'm a scar the world refused to heal."
The hallway cracked under her words.
Tiles split.Lockers melted into clocks.Air turned heavy with future-rot.
The Echo's smile faded.
"You'd break again before you win."
"I've broken before," Eri said.
"But I remember."
Flash.
Every moment.
Deku lifting her on his back.
Aizawa taking her hand during nightmares.
Class 1-A protecting her on instinct.
Mirio laughing even after the pain.
Herself, standing again. Choosing to smile.
They stitched into her bones.
That was her Spiral.
Not the curse.The climb.
Her horn glowed.
Not blue.
Not red.
Not gold.
But white.
Pure rewind.
No pain.No loss.
Only restoration.
The Echo hissed. Stepped back.
"Don't you understand?! Rewind breaks reality!"
Eri stepped forward.
"No. Abuse of it does."
"I'm not here to erase."
Her voice steadied.
"I'm here to choose."
And with that—
She rewound herself.
Not time.
Not the world.
Just herself.
To the point before the Spiral ever touched her.
Before trauma.
Before rewrites.
Before being a weapon.
She met that girl in her own heart.
And hugged her.
The hallway shattered like glass.
Light crashed in.
The Echo screamed—Then broke apart—
Not in violence.
But like dust finally allowed to rest.
U.A. returned to motion.
Students blinked.
Class resumed.
Birds sang.
Wind moved.
But something had changed.
Not outside.
In her.
Later, Aizawa asked what happened.
Eri looked out the window.
Smiled.
"I remembered who I was… before the world told me what I had to be."
He didn't ask more.
Didn't need to.
He just said:
"Welcome back."
Far, far away...
Inside a pocket of time no one could access—
A spiral spun one last time.
Then stopped.
Lines of code faded.
One final phrase hovered in empty space:
"Eri: Access Revoked."
And below that—
A question:
"New Spiral?"
[Y/N]
No answer.
Because the only one left…had already walked away.
End of Arc One.