Em led them to a home that Dimentio was all too familiar with. Em waited for him to catch up. He felt sick to his stomach when he saw they were going inside.
Olivia skipped on ahead, then slowed to a walk and went over to Dimentio. "Are you okay? You look a little green."
"I-I'm fine. I-I don't want to be back here. Never again." He accidentally hit Olive's head on the doorframe, so he carried him over his shoulder instead.
"Dimentio, are you okay?" Em paused, everybody else stopping as well.
"Why here? Out of all places?"
"Is this Piper's house or something?" Todoroki asked.
He shook his head.
"Does it belong to your mom?" Ochaco questioned.
"Used to."
Olivia clapped her hands together. "Ooh! It's Em's house!"
"Not even close!" Em said. "I live in the palace now! My house was destroyed a long time ago!"
"I know what this place is," Olly said sadly. "It's your house, isn't it? You used to live here, right Dimentio? All those awful memories came back when you saw it, that's why you didn't want to come inside. I understand how you feel. It's the same way with me and the Origami Craftsman's home."
"Oh..." Izuku pat Dimentio's shoulder. "I'm sorry that you have trauma."
He dug his claws into Olive's leg. "I-I'm fine...Sorry if I end up throwing up..."
"You're good." Em continued. "Feel free to look around, I guess. I need to see if they're here."
Izuku walked over to the dresser nearby. On it was a framed picture of an extremely young Dimentio wearing a pirate outfit. On the floor near him was a deflated balloon animal dog. Izuku giggled at it. Dimentio peeked at it over his shoulder.
"I remember that. Mom said to look cute, but I didn't want to. I can still make balloon animals, but I feel like that's more of a clown rather than a jester, so I just don't." He grabbed the framed image and lied it down, image against the wood of the dresser.
"Who's this?" Ochaco asked.
Dimentio and Izuku came over. She held up an image of a beautiful woman with straight. long, white hair. She was dressed in a red kimono. Izuku blinked, then rubbed his eyes. She had pale red skin and three tails with flames at the end. The thing that finally connected the dots was that her left eye was missing, a large black hole where it should be.
"Dimentio is that...your mom?"
Dimentio grabbed the image and stared at it for a long time before responding with a simple "Yes."
Izuku watched his hand begin to shake and saw a tear hit the glass of the image.
"It's so well preserved...My house was right by the square, so the fire got it pretty bad. Based off those tails...I'm a Fire Oni. It must be acid because of my father or something."
Izuku noticed Dimentio tightened his grip on the image to the point where the glass broke and the bottom of the frame fell off. The lights flickered to life and Izuku saw only his left eye had tears. He was trying to smile, but couldn't.
"I found the lights!" Olly cheered. "Dimentio, are you okay? Are you crying?"
He wiped it off and stared at the tears on his hand. "It's not-"
"Dimentio! They're upstairs." Em peeked around the corner. "They say they're excited to see you, and they hardly get excited! This is good news indeed!"
"We should go." He placed the image, face-down, on the table and went upstairs; accidentally hitting Olive's head against the wall as he turned the corner.
Olly and Izuku shared a glance before following.
Upstairs sat a giant shadow. Em bowed before it, signaling for Dimentio to do the same. Olive whacked against the ground when he did so.
"Didinolock..." The towering shadow said. "This is your home, no?"
"Y-yes...Might I ask what you're doing in here?"
"I am the Elder, Sephteren."
"Elder? That sounds familiar..."
The Elder chucked quietly. "You may recognise me by the form you are most familiar with..."
The room was engulfed in a glow for a split second before a female about ten walked towards Dimentio. She nearly matched the image of Dimentio's mother in every way except had black skin and green hair. Her eyes were glowing blue, having no pupils or iris.
"Maya? You're the Elder? I thought you were my cousin."
"Yes, I am the Elder. I took this form to keep an eye on you, Didinolock. Or should I call you Dimentio? You seem to favor that name dearly."
Dimentio stood. "I can't believe it...The Elder was watching me this whole time."
"I lost you when you fled. I wondered if you were okay. Your powers...They're so feeble and fragile now. What happened, my dear pupil?"
Dimentio explained everything from his fleeing the battle with Piper to when they returned to his home world. He tried to leave out the part about Piper, but the Elder knew and talked him into telling.
"Fusion, hm? Twice...That's some power there, Dimentio. Most cannot even cast a basic spell anymore. They've become too reliant on your friend for help and guidance. Is that wrong, Eleanor?"
Olly's jaw dropped at Em's female name.
"It's uh...Emerald now. Just call me Em, please. This is so embarrassing..."
"You're a girl?" Olivia asked.
"W-was..."
"That...explains a lot," Dimentio admitted. "I just thought you were gay."
He blushed. "Sh-shut up about that! That was a little thing! It wasn't anything! I swear!"
"Pardon the confusion. Emerald, they have been leaning on you for magic, correct?"
Em nodded, face still red.
"I thought so." He looked back to Dimentio. "You used to be so powerful. You became too reliant on the Chaos Heart."
"Yeah..."
"But this new Oni form...I never knew you would finally accept it. This comes as a surprise. Seems as if you have changed a lot while you were in this other world."
He looked at Izuku. "Thanks to him, anyways."
"False. You changed on your own. You finally accepted the kindness in your heart and realized it was a good thing to be kind. This Luigi figure is what finally made you realize this."
"Luigi helped me...?"
"Yes, I can see it."
"B-but my powers...!"
"Your new form is blocking them. I was the one who gave you your Dimensia. I knew it was what had to be done."
"Y-you...?"
"You and Olive Oni-Kami...You are not connected. If you were, you would have lost the kindness in your heart, and he would have lost the darkness in his. But you two are people, separate but whole."
"Olive...I guess he did blast off Frostbite's head to save me. Before, he hated confrontation."
"Let me meet Ninshisho no."
"It's just Shi. B-but why?"
"I wish to tell them something."
"O-okay..." He crouched down to Olive. "Can I fuse with him when he's dying?"
"You can. If you could do it twice, you can do it again."
"But that was with the Chaos Heart."
"What about their shows? You had no Chaos Heart then."
Dimentio stared down at Olive. "But fusing while he's knocked out feels...wrong."
"That means you truly have changed. But he has no issue with it. I can see his thoughts. Just because he is sleeping doesn't mean his mind is not active."
"Okay. I guess if you're fine with this, Olive."
He gently pressed his hand onto Olive's face and closed his eyes. He looked for Olive's consciousness and found a connection to it. Izuku flinched when dark mist engulfed them. Shi was back, eyes closed and arm outstretched. They put their arm down and opened their eyes.
"Huh? This isn't the tent." They looked around. "Wait, this is..." They met eye contact with the Elder. "M-Maya?
"A pleasure to meet you, Shi. Why the deception?"
They placed their hands on their chest. "What deception? We're hiding something?"
The Elder waved their hand and Shi was revealed to be a lot taller than they had been. They crouched down a bit since they hit their head on the ceiling.
"No need to hide anything from me. Tell me why you hid your true self."
They sat on the ground and stared at Izuku for a minute. "We...we made ourself shorter so we wouldn't scare anyone! If a 2.8 meter tall person came at them, they would be terrified! Nine feet is horrifyingly tall for children. We're sure they already feel threatened by adults..." They rubbed their wrist, their tail wrapping around their leg. "But what are you doing in our house, like a creepy person?"
The Elder smiled. "I knew, of all places, you would return here. You cannot deny that your home is very special to you."
Their arm sparked and fell limp. "Oh, that's bad."
"You may unfuse now."
"We...don't know how."
"That's alright. You will find out in time. For now, I will separate you two."
Shi was split apart by the wave of a hand, Olive's neck and arm sparking aggressively. Dimentio stood from the floor and brushed off his clothes.
"Wait, why do you have an Elder and a King?" Izuku asked.
Em rubbed the back of his head. "I kind of made myself King so I could be in charge of fixing the area...The Elder sees our fates."
The Elder made eye contact with Izuku for a few seconds, a warm smile on their face. "Hmm...You become a lot more powerful than you would first believe."
Izuku smiled.
"And you get the girl."
Izuku beamed, blushing. He bowed. "Thank you!"
"That child is sweet. I like him." The Elder frowned slightly. "Dimentio, your Oni side is blocking you from accessing your powers."
"Does that mean I can't go home?"
"No, no. You are perfectly able to. But I'll need to remove your Oni blood. And that means you will lose your eye."
Tears came from it again. "Lose...mother? But I already lost her once I-I..."
"I am sorry, but this is what will happen. You could always keep it and find another way home, if that is your wish."
Em looked concerned. "Dimentio, why are your tears black?"
He wiped it off. "It's not tears. It's bleeding. It was bleeding earlier too, when I was thinking about my mother..." He began shaking lightly, his tail tucking between his legs. "Do you think it's because of...the demon side of me? Mother gave it to me when I wasn't a demon so it must be bleeding because of that..."
"Then that means she knows she needs to let you go. And you need to let her go."
Dimentio looked at his hand. He placed it over his left eye. Izuku winched when he dug his claws into the skin around it and brought his hand away. There was a gaping black hole where his eye should have been, and a small yellow orb in Dimentio's hand.
The Elder held out their hand. "Please, may I have it?"
Dimentio placed the orb in the Elder's hand. He moved his hand in a circle above it and it cleared up to reveal it was Dimentio's eye. Izuku felt sick. Yet, he was surprised to see there was no blood or anything else disturbing.
"W-was your eye e-even connected t-to your head?" Ochaco asked, disturbed.
"No."
The Elder stared at the eye for a minute. "She says she loves you and is proud of you."
"Th-thanks...Goodbye...?"
The eye vanished in a puff of smoke. The Elder closed his eyes and placed his hands on Dimentio's forehead and chest.
"Are you sure? You can always say no."
He inhaled harshly through his nose and nodded.
Em backed away a bit, coming over to the rest of the group and forcing them to back up as well. Dimentio's eye glew a deep purple and he began screaming. His hair faded to black and his tail curled and vanished. Dimentio tried to fight the Elder, but wasn't able to get out of his magic. After he removed his hands, Dimentio fell to the ground.
"I may have forgotten to tell you that it is extremely painful..."
"Dimentio?" Em moved a little closer. "Are you okay?"
"Being a demon is f%^$ing creepy..." He stood, stumbling a bit. "Aah...my head..." He fixed his hair and checked for any fangs. "Okay...I think it worked." He staggered a bit. "Woah...I'm all dizzy..."
Izuku came over to the jester. "Are you okay?"
"I heard you the first time!" He shook it off. "I'm fine. Let's just go home." He placed a fist into his open palm and bowed to the Elder. "I appreciate all that you've done. Sorry for leaving so quickly, but we have things to do." He spun on the heel of his foot and held out his hand. "You all ready?"
The group nodded.
"I'll stay here," Em said. "I have a Kingdom to run and people to apologize to. Take care."
"This might uh...feel weird, going through one of my portals. Last time didn't matter because I rushed your exit but I can't do that very many times because it's likely to mess something up really bad."
"What do you mean by that?" Tsu asked.
"Teleportation is no easy feat!" He faced them. "For example, if you tried to rush going through a portal, you could turn inside out or lose your head! So we're going slow, for your sake. The more you go through portals, the shorter the journey gets. Get it?"
"Because your magic gets more powerful," Olly mentioned. "I get it. I didn't need such a...graphic example, but I think it's safe to say that we should trust you on this."
Dimentio snapped his fingers, and a dark purple portal appeared behind him. He backed towards it a bit.
"I'll stay with you to make sure you don't get lost."
"Lost? How the f^&% do you get lost in a portal?" Bakugou questioned.
"Portals are a space between places, mine a space between dimensions. It's a system of portals, like a subway track. You can picture that, right?"
Izuku nodded. "So basically, using a portal is like riding one of these so-said subways, right? But it's not a single subway track you're crossing. You could end up going the wrong way with an unreliable conductor."
"Exactly. And if I leave you behind, you could fall through another portal and end up in a universe where humans are food, or something crazy like that. You see some weird s%*# traveling dimensions. Lucky for you, I know how to get to your world from here. We can just trace the path of my last, rushed, portal and end up right back where we were. It'll be the end of September by then though. This place's time is throwing me off after being in other places for so long."
"Mom is worried sick!" Izuku cried.
"My mom's going to kill me," Bakugou said.
"I'll explain this to your parents, don't worry. Adult to adult. No teens will be involved in this. But anyways, the sooner we leave, the quicker we can help Olive!" He stomped his foot. "I'm going in last to keep an eye on all of you, so who's going first? I vote Mister Grumpy-Pants there, since he questioned my portals!"
"Fine with me! But you get us killed, it's your fault!" Bakugou tossed his arms into the air and moved closer to the distortion. "But are you sure this isn't some sort of trap?"
"If I was so sure, I wouldn't do this!" He shoved Bakugou through, getting panicked reactions from everybody else. The portal closed and he faced back to them. "Japan, World of Superheroes, coming right up!" He snapped again.
A portal opened right under them and they all fell in at once. Izuku braced for a painful fall, but was instead floating. He looked around. The area around them matched the portal he had opened. Dimentio found Bakugou and dragged him back to the group.
"Portals are cool, right?" He spun in a circle. "I feel so at home in them..."
"Wow! The magic in here is incredible!" Olly clapped. "I've never seen magic so strong before! I severely underestimated you, Dimentio!"
"Don't flatter me," he said monotonically. He tapped his chin. "If you want this journey to go by even faster, I can drop you off at your homes. What do you say? Yay or nay?"
"That would make it easier," Todoroki said. "Sure."
"Hm?" He motioned to the rest of the group.
They all agreed, except Bakugou, who was still very suspicious of Dimentio.
"Silent type now, huh? Fair. If I were you, I wouldn't trust myself either. But don't worry. This is payback for those times you all have helped me. No vile twist, no tricks. Complete promise." He held his hand out to Bakugou. "Truce? For now? When we go back to UA, you can be mean to me all you want. Yay or nay?"
"Take out your other hand, and don't put it back."
Dimentio revealed his other hand by untucking it from his poncho. "See? I mean it. I usually do. I only take back my promise if you lie to me. Only call the truce if you mean it."
Bakugou actually shook on it, but wiped off his hand afterwards.
"Eww...Your hand is so sweaty! Wipe them off every now and then, would you?" Dimentio wiped his hand off on his poncho. "I could feel it through my glove. Blech!"
"Dimentio..." Olly started. "You lost your arms again. You had arms when you went full Oni on us, but they vanished again when the Elder took it away."
Dimentio folded his arms. "Uh...yeah. I guess I should tell you all how I really lost them. Izuku knows a bit of the story, but not the whole tale."
"Y-you don't have to! I was just noticing that detail!"
"It's fine. You should really know. I'm done keeping secrets." He hugged his knees. "Okay...Here we go."
They all got silent and waited for him to begin.
"It was after the battle with Piper. She tried to use her strings on me, so I burned them off. They ended up burning down nearly half of our little town. I fled, like a coward. I had my powers for about six years, but that would have been more like six days in your world, so I still wasn't used to using it. Trust me when I say that when you're still new to using your...Quirk, you should not be using it out of fear. That makes it too uncontrollable and unstable."
"I know that feeling," Olly sighed. "My Fold of Life got the best of me."
Dimentio nodded. "Yeah, but I learned that the hard way. I was panicking-I was only sixteen at the time I remind you-and I couldn't keep it stable." He removed his gloves and showed them the broken glass pattern on his wrist. Izuku noticed his hands seemed to have repaired when he entered his Oni rage. "If you noticed, my poncho still moves with my arms." He raised his hand above his head as an example. He put his gloves back on. "My arms uh...they shattered." He ruffled his hair. "Hench the look of glass on my wrists."
"It looks kind of cool," Olivia said.
Dimentio faced away from her. "After that, I just gave up and ended in the Mushroom Kingdom. I was in egregious pain since I practically lost my arms and I cried on the floor like a baby for about an hour but I didn't really need to tell you that..."
Tsu smiled. "Take you time, ribbit."
"Count Bleck-I mean Lord Blumiere-found me after that while I was working as a mercenary. He promised me, after I told him about my past, that he would create a new world without pain and suffering. I decided to go with him. But I found out from eavesdropping on him and Nastasia that he was not going to create a new world. He wanted to destroy everything. That's why I betrayed him." Izuku noticed he fought back tears. "I betrayed him like Piper did to me...I guess I am just as bad as her, huh? I can't believe I actually told Blumiere about her, and he used my pain to trick me into working for him! I don't blame him though. I've done the same thing to make Mimi join his side."
"Why did he turn evil anyways?" Ochaco asked.
"Do you know?" Izuku wondered.
"He found no meaning of life anymore when Timpani died. He wanted to destroy it all in revenge for Tippi being almost killed by his father."
"Reasonable," Olly said. "It's better than my reason. I was just scared of my father after he wrote on me. He sounds like a way better villain than me!"
"Heh. I haven't seen Blumiere since. I kind of miss him. He actually took care of me, in a weird sort of way...I was still young then, so I guess I found some comfort in his...taking-me-under-his-wing thing? I don't know. This is getting really awkard, so maybe I should just stop talking now..." He rubbed his wrist, then froze.
"Dimentio? You okay?" Tsu asked.
"If he's dead, I'll be glad," Bakugou sassed. "He's fine."
Dimentio jolted. "Where in the Underwhere is my mask?!"