Author's Note:

Please please please don't read this story here. This is a story about code, which means it requires codeblock formatting. Please read this story on AO3 (or SpaceBattles) instead, where I can actually format it properly. Just search on Google for "git good unknownlight". It should be one of the first results.

EDIT: "git good ao3" seems to work now too. That's easier. Search for that instead.

If, for some baffling reason, you're determined to read this story on FFN, here's how I'm going to do things here:

- Quotations and codeblocks use this symbol: »

» This is a codeblock
» More code here

- Inline code is underlined:

"My shirt is dirty. git restore shirt," Izuku said.

Frankly, there's no good reason for me to even post this story on FFN. I'm basically only doing it out of a sense of affection and nostalgia for this old account. It just feels weird for my FFN account to have all my fanfics... except for by far my best one.

Anyway, let's get on with it.

git good

The world stopped, then began anew.

—

» Thank you for installing Git, the free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
» Git for StarOS, version ∞
» StarOS – Bringing harmony to this world of glass and stars since the birth of time. ©Eternity

"Mommy! Mommy!" Izuku barreled into the living room with all the grace and poise expected from an enthusiastic four-year-old. "I got my quirk! I finally got my quirk!"

"That's wonderful, sweetie!" Midoriya Inko scooped up Izuku in a big hug, twirling in circles while her boy giggled. "Tell me all about it!"

Izuku twitched his nose in thought. "Um, I don't really know. I see something, kinda. I don't, like, really really see it. It's words, and I don't see the words, but they're in my mind? I don't really get what it says." Izuku's voice got quieter as he talked, suddenly feeling bad that he didn't know what his own quirk was.

"That's okay, honey. Whatever you're seeing, how about you read it out to me, and I'll help you."

Izuku nodded multiple times like a bobblehead. "Right! So, um, the start says, 'Thank you for in-stall-ing Git', and then I don't get a lot of the other words. What's it mean, Mommy?"

Inko tilted her head, and then she smiled. "I'm not sure either, sweetie. I guess we'll just have to discover it together! How about I make an appointment with the quirk doctor?"

"Yeah!"

"Why don't you write down what you see, even if you don't know what the words mean, so that the doctor can help?"

"I'll get my notebook!" Izuku barreled back into his room to grab his notebook and some crayons. He finally had his quirk! He was the last in his class to get it, but that just meant his quirk was going to be the most awesome of all! He could feel it!

—

"Well, your son's quirk is certainly unusual. I looked into everything as best as I could, but there was only so much I could do." Inko and her son sat facing the quirk therapist, Dr. Kono Teruo.

"It took some time," Dr. Kono continued, "but we were able to find a few references to the computer program that little Izuku's quirk is referring to. Do you know about the Great Data Crash of 2035?"

Inko shuffled in her seat. "It sounds familiar. I'm afraid it's been over a decade since my high school history classes."

The doctor nodded. "Right. To summarize, in the late 20th to early 21st century, the world transitioned to storing information digitally rather than using physical copies. When society fell apart during the early Quirk Wars, the servers and infrastructure that stored that information broke down. It took decades for society to rebuild, but by that time most of that infrastructure was lost. Some information was preserved, but we don't know a lot about the fifty or so years prior to the dawn of quirks."

Izuku swung his legs back and forth on the chair. He was trying to follow what the doctor was saying, and he was a bit distressed that he was already getting lost. His mom patted him on his head and responded. "And this has something to do with my son's quirk?"

"Yes. Specifically, the quirk is referring to a computer program that existed during that time. The program itself was lost in the Data Crash, but references to it still exist in archives. It was apparently called 'Git'. To our best understanding, it was a program to help programmers collaborate on work. It kept track of when new lines of code were added, who wrote it, and such and such."

"And… how exactly is Izuku's quirk a computer program? What does this mean?"

Dr. Kono slumped in his chair. "That, I don't have an answer for. Presumably, your son's quirk will replicate the functionality of this 'Git' in some way, but this is an unusual situation, and I can't help as much as I would want to. I do have some good news though." The doctor picked up a binder he had on his desk. "Surprisingly, one of the few things related to Git that survived the Data Crash was an incomplete user manual. I took the liberty of printing it all out and collecting it here." He patted the binder in his hands.

"My quirk already has instructions?!" Izuku jumped up from his seat in excitement. That was so cool! He'd been planning to write about his quirk in his Hero Notebook, of course, but to think that so much of it was already done! The binder in the doctor's hands had so many pages! All the other kids in his class had already had their quirks for months. He needed to catch up to everyone!

The doctor looked embarrassed and slightly sad. "Unfortunately, again, it's not as helpful as you might think. It's clearly missing a lot of sections, and it's not written in Japanese and no translations are available, but… to be frank, those are the least of my concerns."

Izuku wasn't listening anymore. He excitedly grabbed the binder, flipped through it, and read a random passage in the middle.

» NAME
» git-reset - Reset current HEAD to the specified state

» SYNOPSIS
» git reset [-q] [tree-ish] [-] pathspec…
» git reset [-q] [-pathspec-from-file=file [-pathspec-file-nul]] [tree-ish]
» git reset (-patch | -p) [tree-ish] [-] [pathspec…]
» git reset [-soft | -mixed [-N] | -hard | -merge | -keep] [-q] [commit]

» DESCRIPTION
» In the first three forms, copy entries from tree-ish to the index. In the last form, set the current branch head (HEAD) to commit, optionally modifying index and working tree to match. The tree-ish/commit defaults to HEAD in all forms.

» git reset [-q] [tree-ish] [-] pathspec…
» git reset [-q] [-pathspec-from-file=file [-pathspec-file-nul]] [tree-ish]

» These forms reset the index entries for all paths that match the pathspec to their state at tree-ish. (It does not affect the working tree or the current branch.)

Izuku let out a disappointed whine. "I can't read this. Is this in English?"

"That's debatable." The doctor sighed.

Izuku frowned. He was going to fall even further behind Kacchan if he couldn't read the instructions for his own quirk. But… that was okay! No one said being a hero was easy. If this is what he needed to do to become a hero, he'd learn every language in the world! And anyway, All Might knew English, so learning it would just make him closer to All Might.

"I'm going to learn English, and then I'll understand my quirk!" Izuku pumped his tiny fist in the air.

The doctor looked at Izuku with pity. "I'm so sorry."

—

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Fourteen-year-old Izuku stared at the wall clock, waiting impatiently for the end of the school day.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

BRRRIIIIINNGGG!

"Don't forget, all of you need to hand in your high school application forms by next Monday," the teacher tried to shout over the class of unruly kids who were excited for the weekend. The bell that signaled the end of the day had rung, and no one was planning to stay in the school a moment more than necessary. Izuku felt that more than most.

Ten years.

Ten pointless, wasted years.

He was running out of time.

He was running out of time!

Izuku tried to slip out with the rest of the hoard of kids exiting the classroom door, but he stopped when he felt a hand grasp him around the back of his collar. "Where do you think you're going, huh?!"

With a grimace, Izuku shook off the hand and turned to face his bullies. He expected this, of course. There was no way they would let him escape in peace.

There were three of them today. Katsuki, obviously—the only one who really mattered. Then there were two others looming behind him, trying to look cool. Or something. Izuku didn't really care. "What do you want, Kacchan?"

Katsuki snarled. "You think you can take that tone with me, Deku?"

There wasn't really a right answer to that question. Izuku decided to stay silent.

"You're pathetic, you know that?" Katsuki continued, slowly stepping forward to take up more and more of Izuku's space. "Too busy dreaming to face reality. You're such a fucking embarrassment."

"Definitely the words of a hero. You're going to be so popular at UA." Oh no, he said that out loud. Why did he say that out loud? Curse his stupid mouth!

"I'm going to be the greatest hero ever!" Katsuki roared. "Don't you dare look down on me!"

Izuku started to respond, but he was cut off by Katsuki getting right up in his face, the threat of violence implicit in his rejection of personal space. "You're never going to be a hero, Deku. Don't even think about applying to UA! I'm the only one from this school who's getting in, and I don't want a pathetic loser like you following me around trying to ride my coattails!"

As if. I'm going to avoid you as much as physically possible at the exams. "Okay, Kacchan. I won't apply to UA. I promise. Can I go now?"

Izuku struggled to keep a straight face as he saw Katsuki experience a whirl of emotions, the gears in his head turning as he tried to parse the nonsense that Izuku just said. After a brief pause, his expression became thunderous and he roared, "Don't fucking lie to me, you bastard!"

Drat. It was worth a shot.

With a sharp grin, Katsuki continued, "Not that being a liar is anything new for you, you quirkless piece of shit." He looked smug. Izuku's comeback had backfired a bit, and he knew it.

"I'm not quirkless," Izuku mumbled.

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

And there was the rub.

—

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Izuku's chest heaved and his feet pounded against the sand as he jogged up and down the edge of a beach. A while ago he read about how jogging on sand gave you a much better workout than on pavement, and since then he changed his jogging route to pass by the nearby beach.

His altercation with Katsuki and his minions wasn't as bad as he was dreading. Apparently, even they valued their weekend more than they enjoyed tormenting Izuku, and they weren't willing to hang around the school longer than necessary. Katsuki stormed out before long, and then the remaining goons spent only a few more minutes pathetically trying to insult Izuku's face, odor, life choices, genetic history, etc., before they got bored and wanted to go home. Small blessings.

He'd started working out a year ago. He didn't go to the gym or anything, that was too expensive, but he had a set of weights and the internet, and that was good enough. He had an epiphany one morning that if the day came when he finally figured out his quirk, but he failed the Hero Exam because he was too physically weak, then he might as well just crawl into a hole and die. So ever since then, he made sure to stay in shape in preparation for the day he'd finally learn to use his quirk.

His quirk.

His goddamn stupid quirk.

He tried to hide from Katsuki how much the "quirkless" jabs hurt him, how much it stabbed at his deepest fears, but it didn't matter. He knew that Kacchan knew.

At four years old, he apparently saw some sort of popup when he got his quirk. And then it never happened again. He didn't actually remember the original event anymore; he was too young. He "remembered" it, but it was more like he remembered remembering it. It was an impactful moment of his young life and something he'd thought about over and over and over.

He remembered all the times he'd remembered it. But the day itself? If he were asked to describe what the "popup" looked like and what it said, he could tell you, but only because he knew how four-year-old Izuku had described it. But the original memory was gone.

He'd spent so many sleepless nights with ugly thoughts swirling in his mind. Did it even happen? Was he making it all up? Did he have a quirk at all?

But no. He knew he had a quirk. Whether he remembered it properly or not, four-year-old him had named some stupid program that really did exist, and one that he had no possible way of knowing about. It was real.

He just didn't know what the hell to do next!

Nothing worked. Nothing helped. He'd spent so many years learning English and trying to decipher the user manual, only to discover that 1) it was practically gibberish, and 2) it was a manual for a computer program. He was a human being. What was he supposed to do? Where was he supposed to enter the commands?

There were a lot of avenues to try, and by god he'd tried every single one of them. Obviously, he tried experimenting with an actual computer. That went nowhere. Picturing stuff in his head never worked. In the VR games he played there were a lot of different ways to bring up the menu, such as making a certain hand motion or staring at a specific spot in space. He'd hoped that a screen would appear in front of him in real life if he just figured out the correct action, but no luck so far.

Judging by the manual, Git was a "command-line program". It was apparently some ancient computer interface where you did stuff by typing specific words rather than tapping on icons. Like, instead of clicking a button you'd type "click button", or something. He didn't entirely understand, and most records from that time period were lost in the Data Crash, so he never would fully understand.

So, given that, he supposed that there might be some magic words that would start the "program" that was his quirk. And then he would say those words, or think them, or write them down, or something. And then it would work. But of course, if these magic words existed, then it was missing from the half-complete dog-eared user manual stuffed in a drawer in his room. Which meant it could be anything.

UA entrance exams were less than a year away. And it had already been ten years. His quirk was a mystery inside an enigma wrapped in a command prompt, and he was running out of time.

He was running out of time!

Breathe in, breathe out.

He had reached a part of the beach that wasn't entirely covered in mountains of trash, enough that he could see the ocean cut across the brilliant golden sky. The sun was starting to set. It was time to go home soon; Mom would worry if he stayed out too late.

Izuku stopped jogging and began his cooldown walk. Between breaths, he started his ritual muttering.

"Start Git. Open Git. Start program Git. Begin Git. Start. Git start. Git open. Run Git. Git begin. Git run. Git new."

He'd done this countless times in the past. If there really were magic words that would give him a quirk, then he'd just have to try every word. In every language he could think of. It had never worked before, and it almost certainly never would, but he couldn't bear to do nothing.

"Launch Git. Git launch. Go Git. Go go Git. Git go. Git commence. Initial git. Commence Git. Turn on Git. Load Git. Git load. Git log in. Log in Git. Log in to Git."

Leaving the beach, Izuku started heading for the nearby bus stop. The bus dropped him off almost right outside his apartment, which is why he chose this route. With the setting sun at his back, his shadow stretched long in front of him on the glimmering sidewalk.

"Boot up Git. Git boot. Compute Git. Input Git. Git input. Git in. Git help. Fuck Git. Git shit. Intro git. Initialize git. Init git. Git initialize. git init. Git creat—"

Izuku jerked to a stop, almost falling over himself. He brought a hand to his mouth. Something was different about that last one. His tongue felt weird, like it had moved in a way that it was never meant to. He didn't understand. He felt almost dizzy.

And then he saw something. Except he didn't see it. He'd forgotten this. Four-year-old Izuku hadn't known how to describe it, but now he remembered how it felt. He didn't see it. He was reading words, but he wasn't reading, and they weren't words. It wasn't Japanese, or English, or anything. It was just meaning, plastered directly against his brain.

Reinitialized existing Git repository.

Izuku crumpled to the ground, right there on the sidewalk, and sobbed.

He had a quirk!