Dragon2234: Wonderful world building great story just one question is the MC going to start making things like gear and weapons from R&C and other worlds any time soon because I would love if he made the Omni Wrench and patented it and not just like in the game which is basically more a battle wrench than some kind of all purpose tool but an actual Omni Wrench that can preform basic/minor mecha shift and become multiple tools in one.

Re: . . . Not really phrased like a question… but let's just say that Takei will grapple with one existential crisis at a time until he's rooted himself.

Trux-Killer: Looks like Clanks going to have to figure this dimension out since they DID say something about rifts. This is not good for this dimension, this is about to be life threatening to the whole world. Better get Clank down there sooner or later.

Re: To be fair, the MHA world is as-well-equipped to handle a structure like this as any of the other Dungeon-Crawler manhwa/manga out there where Rifts are gone into for "fun and profit". I mean, with the way that things like "Birth" and "Talent" play a role in people's self-worth and how society values the individual...
That, and I love that I've been able to do something with all the Hero Course dropouts and those who didn't "make the cut" other than them all turning into Villains instead of getting office jobs.

Harleking31: Ah, this is the Ratchet and Clanking I was waiting for
Rifts, huh
I wonder if we'll visit a universe with parallel UA students, but without Take being a reincarnated guy because he's a special case
That'd probably really hit our Take pretty hard

Re: Needed to set a foundation for it to happen first, let it occur "organically" or it'd feel shoehorned in if I didn't give it the proper build-up. Hell, I already "jumped the shark" with the over-the-top "not-Truck-kun"/"Kami-sama" angle I played to get him/myself Reincarnated into the MHAverse while still involving a post-series Ratchet & Clank universe.
When I saw the "UK Rift" Live-Action trailer for Rift Apart, the idea was too good to pass up. I mean, given there are Space-Time Quirks like Kurogiri's [Warp Gate] or All for One's [Warping], why wouldn't there be a pricey market for the use of these super-rare Quirks in a Dungeon-Crawling market like in commerce-based Dungeon-Crawling manga/manhwa? It'd already been established canonically that Quirks like Kurogiri's were on the "rare" end of the spectrum, after all.
He/I already has/have to contend with "Cosmic Nihilism" regarding an infinite universe "bereft of meaning" (outside what you yourself make, for yourself). Other than being caught on the back foot by an evil foot/soccer ball that speaks in a cockney British accent, there isn't much that could upset him/me outside people in MHA being massive dickholes to one another.

*AHA*

" . . . "

" . . . "

" . . . Papi can fly faster than this!"

"Please don't. If you get lost on the way back, your dad will have a cow," I said looking out the tinted window of the black SUV Papi and I were riding in through a winding forest rode, nothing but Japanese wilderness for miles in all directions. "Hey, I gotta ask, why not give us a ride back in the Hovercraft?"

"Hovercraft are prohibitively expensive, even with all the time that's passed since their debut in America, so unless we're in a crisis situation, we get by with SUVs and vans," the driver answered.

"Makes sense…" I hummed, feeling less like the last two-hundred years since Quirks manifested were 'wasted' now that I had a little more context on what had truly been occupying everyone's time. " . . . You didn't microchip us while we were in that luxury cell, did you?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"Because I want to know where I should point on the doll when the lawyer asks me where the bad man touched me."

"Jesus Christ you are dark…!"

"I watched two people get eaten alive and countless others mauled like extras from Jaws, or Sharknado. I would think that dark thoughts would be a given from now on."

"Well… Just make sure you don't neglect your mental health, alright?" the driver hummed. "What you went through would mess anybody up, and while I haven't seen it personally, I've heard stories of people 'cracking' after some Lovecraftian horror squirmed out of a Tear and got its tentacles on someone."

"I'll be sure to avoid any 'cognitohazards' in the immediate future," I returned, staring boredly out the window eyeing the Japanese wilderness.

" . . . Onii-chan, what's wrong?" Papi asked a minute later.

"What do you mean?"

"You're making that face again. The 'thinking heavy thoughts that make Papi's head hurt' face," the air-headed Mutant pouted.

"It's nothing. I'm just… reeling…" I sighed tiredly, thoughts swirling like storm clouds in my head.

What Kuroko and the bushy-tailed babysitter said to me… I guess I was still "processing" everything.

Only poorly-written Light Novels have people dump exposition on common knowledge to someone 'unprovoked'. When I'd woken up from that coma and had no idea what Quirks were, that was a valid reason to fill 'Takehiko' in since he'd been collecting bedsores as a vegetable for a year. For this world to be a blend of Superhero and Dungeon-Crawler 'genre' was a bit of a shock, but the multiverse was/is a huge place, so I guess I drew the short straw of landing in a world that had one too many 'after-market extras'.

If an Isekai Protagonist can pass themselves off as a "foreigner", usually from that-world's equivalent of Japan (in the case of Reincarnators from Japan), then it's perfectly reasonable to ask and actually be-told about the way a magical fantasy country as a whole works. However, me being a 'native' of this world, at least in body, there were bound to be things I wouldn't know about that differed from how my birth-world operated. I couldn't just go around asking about how an entire world worked, even with the excuse that I'd been brain damaged; that'd be too-suspicious in the world of "DC Comics + Portal".

That aside, there was something else that had dawned on me after I'd left RDA custody: How-often could Rifts happen around me, specifically…?

If I were a "Protagonist", then it's a given that I'm pretty much completely screwed already. Doubly-so if I were one of those Isekai Protagonists devoid of Plot Armor who'd have to suffer countless indignities and mind-scarring horrors before the end-of-publication credits roll.

By that same metric however, if there are other Reincarnated people in this world who are keeping their heads down, like me, then it's equally possible I won't even have to be on the same continent as whatever "Demon Lord" or "Injustice League" this mentally-diseased world can regurgitate onto itself. I mean, the world's a big fucking place, and Japan is just one tiny archipelago on an entire world of super-powered assholes.

Right…?

Before I can ruminate on this existential topic any further, we're already back home at Asaka's edge, Kuroko in her black van and Koichi with his patrol car.

*AHA*

"Kuroko… What are you hiding?" I asked a few minutes into the drive back.

"Hiding? Don't be silly, I'm not hiding anything!"

"Kuroko, you're a real shitty liar when you're sober; just come out with it already."

"Geez, Take… You make it sound like I'm soused all the time," she grumbled rubbing her head.

"The beer cans all over your floor don't help your case on the inverse."

" . . . Fine. I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to be mad at me?"

"What did you do this time?"

"Okay let me rephrase that. 'I' specifically didn't do anything… but you're going to be pretty mad when we get home if you happen upon the Mon Agency's social media page."

"I temper my sense of decency in expectation…"

"Christ, kid, what eleven-year-old talks like that?"

"This one. Now get me home so I can get this bitter medicine you're so freaked-out about out of the way."

*AHA*

Truly, the people of this world have a shorter attention span than in my old one. Why do I think this, you ask?

Because as it turned out, within hours of my dust-up with the "Football from Hell", somehow, some way, I'd become a fucking meme!

"No Tongue-kun'... Are you fucking joking…?!" I asked incredulously as I looked down at the Mon Agency's social media page, once I had become associated with the brand when people found out I was their 'young ward'.

It was bad-enough someone had steady-enough hands and a camera phone on hand at the time to capture the whole thing instead of, you know, helping me! What made it worse was someone had recognized me in the lobby and asked me to record my "line" for their phone's answering machine.

What cheesed me off on a personal level were the damn T-Shirts I'd begin to spot in town a few days later. And other than the fact that my image was being used without my consent, I wasn't even getting my cut!

That last one was probably the most-irritating of all since in my original world I wasn't famous by any stretch of the imagination.

Though to be fair, becoming famous because of internet memes was probably no different than being famous "for being famous" like… I guess The Cardashians?

I just hoped this whole shitshow blew over before I started school again, otherwise classes were going to be a complete and utter hell to go through…

*AHA*

"Hey Take-chan! Look what I found in town!" Doppel grinned at me.

"EVIL!" I cried throwing it to the floor with a *SMACK!*

"Hey, any publicity is good publicity, right?" Zombina asked with a toothy grin.

"I think he looks cute. Like a papa kat protecting his kittens~" Tio beamed.

'Urk…! Heart Power…! Too…! Strong…!' I recoiled in the face of Tio's smile as Doppel threw the shirt she'd bought over her head and wore it like a dress. Tauntingly...!

Back to the current subject of my ire… it was a basic shade of cotton white you could find anywhere, the sort of shirt that custom T-shirt companies bought in surplus to slap graphics on. Situated on this one was a still image of me holding the "Football from Hell" at bay with my bare hands, the playground backdrop cropped out and replaced with a field of black, the words- "No tongue until the third date!" written in both English and Japanese across the top and right sides respectively in white. The thing was tacky as hell, doubly-so because it was me on there, even if it were technically someone else's body.

"Did you really have to show it off to me?" I grumbled.

"What? I thought kids your age wanted to be famous," Zombina hummed.

"Yeah! But not because of a fucking meme!" I bit back.

With the way Hero dynasties rose and fell, it made sense that there would be new 'merch' so-soon, but still…

"Well, hopefully your 'fifteen minutes of fame' will end before you start classes, otherwise they're going to be a complete and utter hell to go through," Kuroko hummed thoughtfully. "By the way, we have a surprise for you~"

For the love of god, please don't let it be another shirt.

-thought I as the door opened admitting-

"Takei-kun!"

"H-Hitomi!?" I gawped as the bawling mono-eye ran towards me, scooping me up in a hug and burying my face into her bosom.

"Takei-kun, I was so worried about you!" she sobbed, a river of dears drenching my hair. "When I heard the RDA took you away… I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again!"

"D-Don't worry! They didn't strip me for parts, and they didn't microchip me, . . . I think…" I amended. "What about you? I've been worried about how you're doing, and no-one would tell me anything."

"Damn, he noticed…" Doppel muttered off to the side.

"Oh… Well…" Hitomi hummed nervously, brushing some of her hair behind her ear and dominating the whole of my attention. "I… I probably won't be working at the HPSC for much longer."

"It's my fault, isn't it? You got canned because you helped me."

"Nonononono! I didn't get 'canned', not in the slightest!" she stammered with a wide eye. "It's just… The HPSC wasn't a good fit for me is all. Too many… cloaks and daggers, you know?"

"I still feel like this is my fault. The pay, and those benefits… you probably lost out on a lot because of-"

Before I could say anymore, Hitomi had taken a knee and pressed my face between her hands, shooting a stern gaze into my eyes with her one.

"What happened was not, your fault, do you understand me?" she ordered, the wall of her gaze inescapable. "I'm leaving the HPSC by my own choice, and come spring, I'll be watching over you and Mitsumi both as your school nurse. All the smoke and the noise and the bodies of the big city… it just wasn't doing it for me like I thought it would. I'm happy I get to come home, and watch the two of you grow up. So don't think that because I helped you get away from the HPSC that I'm 'losing' anything; do you understand me?"

" . . . A part of me is always going to feel guilty about this, no matter how much I say otherwise," I returned somberly. "The HPSC might've scared the living daylights out of me… but if you'd stayed with them, you could've retired comfortably, traveled the world-"

"Takei-kun, it was never about the money," Hitomi pouted. "Money's nice, but I've never been one to spend frivolously. And I've still got my benefits for all the hard work I've put in, so don't worry about it~"

Huh… I guess being attacked by a Villain alongside me had some benefits…

"But anyway… What was this I heard about you grappling with some toothy monster instead of running away?" she pouted angrily at me, the 'tick mark' she was feeling almost visible in her one eye.

A part of me wanted to blurt out that I thought Hitomi looked cute with that expression… But thankfully the "Council of Tokei(s)" in my head Vetoed the hell out of that motion.

*AHA*

Some Isekai Protagonists hate the King and/or the citizenry because they're racist, or corrupt, or they're insufferable pricks, or because at the end of your adventure after they've slain the Demon King they try and/or succeed in killing you because you're "too strong" and they'd been lying to you the entire time about sending you back home; regardless of whether or not you'd settled on the "Stay Ending".

As for me, as a wise man once said…

"It's not about hating the guy on the other side because someone told you to. I mean, you should hate someone because they're an asshole, or a pervert, or a snob, or they're lazy, or arrogant or an idiot or a know-it-all. Those are the reasons to dislike somebody. You don't hate a person because someone told you to. You have to learn to despise people on a personal level. Not because they're red, or because they're blue, but because ya know them, and you see them every single day. And you can't stand them, because they're a complete and total fucking douchebag."

-Leonard Church in "Why Were We Here?"

I personally hated most of the people in this version of Japan because they had so much free time for bullshit like "No Tongue-kun" when they could've been directing that energy towards real issues like Quirk Elitism or Quirk Stigmatization… And while I quite vocally admitted that the HPSC scared the living daylights out of me, I didn't really hate them for what they did to my comatose body. Whoever has to police a world like this… they're going to have to make some tough decisions, because whether it's a Quirk that can level an entire city, or a Quirk that can only kill a single person at a time unless you have its exact antithesis, people never really change. Even with superpowers.

So I guess for Hitomi's sake, I'll stop feeling guilty about "not costin" her her job. I'll endure all this bullshit with the memes. I'll even try to put the Rifts in the back of my mind. Because at the end of the day, I'm just "one more person" in this superhuman society. Me being Reincarnated… it shouldn't even matter anymore. If I dwelled on my "past" forever, I'd just sour this second chance I was fortunate-enough to get after whatever had killed me, killed me.

And that'd be an injustice to all the goodwill everyone around me had given me.

*AHA*

AN:
In case I was being too subtle, yes, this is a jab at "Can't Ya See-kun" of My Hero Academia fame, but no, this isn't a jab at Horikoshi in particular.

I mean, given how-quickly "Hero Killer: Stain" rose to prominence, complete with merchandising, it shouldn't be surprising that an ordinary guy cheering on Endeavor in a crowd became a Meme. And while I myself have never done or said anything particularly meme-worthy, or particularly care for memes in the slightest beyond quoting lines from my favorite web series in my FanFics, I thought it'd be fun to explore being on the receiving end of it, since until Japan becomes a mid-apocalyptic hellscape like in the "Final Act Saga", the Japanese people of My Hero Academia seemed to have no shortage of free time for frivolities like memes and rumor-mongering.

Sorry this chapter wasn't as-exciting as the previous one, and so-short to boot, but I couldn't think of any other misadventures to fit in "organically", so you'll just have to make due with this until the girls at the Mon Agency celebrate Thanksgiving.

In their world. The next update should be well before Thanksgiving in ours~