Chapter 34: Paradise and Its Earthly Consequences

Consciousness returned to Izuku Midoriya not like a switch, but like a slow dawn in a misty world. First came the sound: a chorus of female voices that seemed to come from far away, muffled by emotion and a kind of celestial cotton.

"He's awake!"

"Izuku, finally...! You're back!"

Then came the sensation. An overwhelming warmth, a softness that enveloped him completely. It was like being submerged in a sea of warm clouds. He opened his eyelids, which felt heavy as lead, and a pure, white light blinded him. The world was a blur of soft shapes and pale colors.

And then, the avalanche.

The relief in the voices transformed into unified action. The four women pounced on him in a group hug, a chaotic knot of limbs, hair, and a crushing softness. His face sank between warm curves that smelled of flowers, hospital, and home. His hands, instinctively searching for a foothold, found themselves surrounded by an impossible smoothness.

A smile of pure, absolute bliss spread across his face. His eyes closed again, not from sleep, but from pleasure.

So... this is it. I died. The thought wasn't terrifying; it was a peaceful revelation. I died a hero, blocking that punch to save Yaoyorozu. And this... this is Valhalla. Wow. Totally worth every broken bone. So many breasts... so much softness... This must be the ultimate karmic reward. Thank you, universe. Really, thank you.

He decided that if he was in paradise, he should act like it. He had to thank his guardian angels in the most sincere way possible. His right hand, fumbling in the tangle of bodies, found a firm and perfectly round buttock.

Mmm, so well-formed. Without a shred of shame, his fingers caressed and squeezed it with a purely appreciative lewdness, a gesture of celestial gratitude. His left hand, meanwhile, met a full, soft breast. And this... this is absolute perfection. His fingers, with a boldness only a man who believes himself dead and rewarded can possess, began to massage it with reverential delight. They were like Momo's, but were they hers? What did it matter? In paradise, all breasts must be perfect.

With a smile of total satisfaction, Izuku opened his eyes, ready to thank his celestial saviors for their magnificent hospitality.

His vision, still a bit blurry, first focused on the object of his manual adoration. He saw the delicate pink peaks that had felt so exquisite to the touch. A work of art. He looked up, following the curve of the neck, and met a pair of huge, teary, gray eyes that stared back at him with a mixture of joy and shock.

Yaoyorozu?! he thought, euphoric. Wow, heaven recruits the best! Such good taste! I knew she was an angel.

Then he heard a familiar sob to his left. He turned his head, his cheek brushing against another incredibly soft surface. Ochako Uraraka's face, inches from his, was bathed in tears of happiness.

Uraraka! My partner! You're here too! Joy flooded him. This is the best afterlife in history! My two favorite girls!

His brain, finally receiving an adequate dose of oxygen, began to connect synapses that had been dormant. The engine of logic, rusted but not destroyed, sputtered to life with a squeal.

Wait a minute... if they're here... does that mean they died too? The idea struck him with a pang of sadness. No... it can't be. They didn't deserve...

And then, another thought. The smell. Paradise shouldn't smell like antiseptic. Paradise shouldn't have the faint beep... beep... of a heart monitor in the background.

This is the hospital!

Cold, deadly panic seized him. If he was in the hospital, it meant he was alive. And if he was alive, that meant his right hand...

He looked at his other hand. The one still firmly gripping a butt. A wonderful butt, yes, but an earthly one. He followed the line of that back with his eyes, that familiar hip, the curve of a shoulder he knew better than his own... and met the face of his mother.

Inko Midoriya was looking at him with tears of unconditional love and relief, completely oblivious to the sacrilegious fondling her rear end was undergoing.

Izuku's paradise didn't just collapse. It exploded. It became a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a nightmare of humiliation and taboo. The smile on his face froze, cracked, and shattered into a million pieces of existential horror.

He let go of both targets as if two hundred volts had been shot directly into his palms.

And he screamed.

It wasn't a scream of pain. It wasn't a scream of fear. It was the sound of a soul leaving its body out of pure, absolute shame.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Izuku's sharp, piercing shriek broke the spell of relief that had enveloped the room. The four women recoiled from him as if they had touched a high-voltage wire. Chaos replaced the tears of joy.

Momo was the first to react. Her gaze dropped to her own chest, where Izuku's hand had been moments before, and then to him. Comprehension and mortification warred on her face.

Inko clapped a hand to her mouth, her brain trying to process why her son's hug had ended in a scream of terror. Her eyes met the hand he had jerked away from her butt. Her face went through five stages of denial in under three seconds.

"Oh, no!" was all she could manage.

Ochako, for her part, realized where both of her friend's hands had been, and her face turned a shade of red that would make a ripe tomato look pale. She let out a choked squeak, a sort of eep!, and wrapped herself in the nearest sheet, disappearing under it like an ashamed ghost.

The only one who didn't share the panic was Toga.

She fell back on the bed, clutching her stomach, and burst into laughter so loud and genuine it made the monitors vibrate.

"AHAHAHAHAHA!" she cackled, unable to stop. "Not even a minute back to life and you're already staking your claim, Izuku-kun! That's my hero! Straight to the point! No beating around the bush!"

Izuku's scream and Toga's laughter turned the hospital room into the scene of a surreal farce.

"Shut up, Toga!" Ochako yelled from under the sheet.

"Oh, come on, Zero Gravity, you have to admit it was bold!" Toga replied between laughs. "He gave you both a good squeeze! With appreciation! I saw it!"

"I wasn't appreciating anything! I thought I was dead!" Izuku defended himself, his voice an octave higher than normal as he tried to curl into a ball and merge with the mattress.

The four women, now painfully aware of their nakedness and the situation, scrambled to get dressed in the cramped space.

"Where's my uniform?" Momo asked, her voice tense as she fumbled for her hero costume, trying not to look at anyone.

"That's my hoodie!" Ochako said, peeking her head out from under the sheet to point at a pink garment on the floor.

"Girls, please, a little order!" Inko tried to mediate, as she put her blouse on backwards and struggled to find her skirt.

"I can't look! I can't look! I'm going to die of shame! I'd rather the Nomu had killed me!" Izuku moaned, his face buried in the pillow.

"Don't be so dramatic, Izuku-kun!" Toga said, already dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the pandemonium with malicious amusement. "It was a compliment! They like you! All of them! Especially your mom!"

"TOGA!" the other three shouted in unison.

Finally, after several minutes of chaos, stumbling, and stifled cries, the room returned to a tense silence, thick with monumental embarrassment. Everyone was dressed. Izuku was still curled in a ball, refusing to look at anyone.

The air was so thick you could cut it with one of Toga's knives.

After a long, painful minute, Inko, as the responsible adult and possibly the most mortified of all, was the first to speak. She sat in a chair, smoothed her skirt, and took a deep breath.

"Izuku... honey..." she said, her voice shaky but soft. "Look at me. We have to explain what happened."

Slowly, Izuku turned his head, his face still the color of a stop sign. He saw his mother, Ochako, Momo, and Toga, all sitting, all avoiding his gaze.

Momo, regaining a shred of her composure, tried to apply a logical framework to the most illogical event of her life. She cleared her throat.

"Midoriya-kun, when you fell at the USJ, your vital signs were... critical," she began, her voice precise and clinical, though her pink cheeks betrayed her. "The doctors weren't optimistic. Your heart was giving up. Toga-san... she had a theory."

"A brilliant theory, if I may add," Toga interrupted with pride.

Momo shot her a glare before continuing.

"She postulated that if your Quirk can transfer energy to us, the process might be reversible. A feedback loop. That we could transfer energy back to you through physical contact."

Ochako, still holding the sheet up to her neck, nodded.

"We tried it... and it worked, Deku-kun. Your pulse went up. Your body started to respond. But it was slow. We needed... more."

Izuku listened, the horror on his face slowly giving way to analytical comprehension. The engine of his brain was running at full throttle, processing the information.

"I understand..." he murmured, sitting up in bed. "So you weren't giving me your energy directly... we were creating a circuit. A loop."

He looked at his own hands, as if seeing them for the first time.

"My Quirk... it didn't just pull information or push it out. It amplified it. It took your life force, refined it through me, and sent it back, creating a cycle that fed on itself and strengthened all of us. It's not Coach... it's not Enhancer..." He paused, searching for the right word, one that defined that strange and profound connection. "It's... Synergy. My Quirk creates synergy. It connects us."

He looked at each of them, and an even deeper blush covered his face as he understood the final implication.

"That's why... that's why when I woke up... I felt..." he swallowed, the word stuck in his throat. "I felt... everything. Your relief, your joy... your warmth... all at once. I thought... I thought it was heaven."

The confession, so honest and so embarrassing, broke the last barrier of tension. Ochako let out a nervous giggle. Momo covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were smiling. Inko let out a sigh that was half relief, half exasperation.

"So, technically," Toga said, with twisted logic and a shark-like grin, "it wasn't your fault. You were high on heavenly power and hormones! Any court would acquit you!"

"It's not funny, Toga," Izuku said, though a small smile touched his lips.

The air in the room changed. Embarrassment gave way to a new, strange, and undeniable intimacy. They looked at each other differently. They were no longer just a mother, friends, and a protégée. They were a unit, a team bound by an incredibly strange, powerful, and deeply embarrassing secret.

Izuku leaned back against the pillow, his body still weak, but his mind clearer than ever.

I'm connected to them. It's not just a theory, it's a fact. I can feel a trace of their presence inside me, even now. He closed his eyes, concentrating. Ochako is warmth and a loyalty that feels like an embrace. Momo is a brilliant logic and an unexpected pressure, like a diamond being formed. Toga is an electric and playful chaos, an unpredictable current. And my mom... my mom is the pillar that holds it all together. The original source.

I'm their coach, their catalyst... and now, they are my power source. We're a team. The weirdest, most perverted, and potentially, the most powerful team in the world.

Just as this profound and revealing thought crossed his mind, the door to the room burst open without a knock. The lock Inko had set snapped with a metallic crack.

"Young Midoriya!" a familiar voice roared, full of a concern that had overcome all discretion. "I couldn't wait any longer! I came to see you!"

All Might, in his imposing muscular form, stormed into the room. He stopped dead in the doorway.

His heroic smile froze. His gaze swept over the scene: his young protégé, sitting up in bed, pale but alive. And surrounding him, as if they were his personal valkyries, the four women in his life. The air still vibrated with a strange energy, an intimate tension that the Symbol of Peace could not comprehend at all.

All Might's face went from concern to shock, and from there to a poem of absolute and utter confusion.

Silence fell on the room once more, this time, more awkward than ever.

Author's Note:

I decided to postpone the incest and harem for now; I think there's still a bit of room for more development before getting down to the real business: Exploring those curves.

I've noticed some people seem to dislike incest, but it's something I mentioned in the synopsis, and now it's my turn to clarify: "THIS STORY WILL FEATURE INCEST." If that's a reason you wish to stop reading, I apologize, and I genuinely thank you for joining me up to this chapter. I love you all.

Don't forget to leave your 5-star reviews; I need more people of culture to join the story, and there's no better messenger than the reader themselves.