Chapter 5

.::Familiar Faced Strangers::.

"Ooh, this is actually really cute!"

Mina grinned at her reflection as she stood in front of the mirror, turning to admire herself. After spending about two hours freaking out and then exploring each and every inch of her new apartment, she'd decided to try on some of the clothes in the closet for lack of anything better to do. Her favorite find thus far had to be this off-shoulder white shirt with a flowy, almost frilly asymmetrical bottom, which she paired with red denim shorts and black stockings with large holes ripped in them.

"Punk, but feminine," she decided with a firm nod, mentally giving the outfit her stamp of approval. Clearly, she had good taste here—wherever here was. Mina admittedly still had no idea what was going on and should probably get on that, but she'd already spent about two hours freaking out over it, so she deserved a little break.

With her clothing for the day settled she strolled out of her bedroom and into the main room of the apartment, flopping onto the couch. Stretching her limbs as she positioned herself for optimal comfort, she idly snatched the cell phone from the coffee table next to her and held it above her head. It had taken her two guesses to figure out her password, but now that she had she figured she should probably do some reconnaissance or... something.

...Okay, she could feel the panic returning. Not good.

Nope. Mina quickly pressed the power button before the cold bubble of anxiety growing in her stomach could explode, and the phone's screen lit up with a glorious distraction in the form of a photo. The lock screen used a picture of her and some girl she didn't know with their faces smushed together and their eyes crossed, making her laugh lightly as she unlocked the phone. She might not know the story behind it, but it looked silly, and that was good enough for her!

Since waking up she'd gotten no texts or any other alerts like that. She did see a little alert from some mobile game, which she'd already played for over half an hour. It had been surprisingly addicting, solving the puzzles gave her money which she could use to buy clothes and accessories for her avatar. Playing that a bit more wouldn't hurt, right? Having literally nothing better to do (except investigate what was going on, and nopenopenope not gonna panic), she decided to do just that and opened the game.

Mina had been playing for fifteen minutes when a knock on the door startled her, nearly dropping her phone as she bolted upright on the couch. Blinking, she stared at the door as the knock repeated, her expression fading to something more uncertain and almost anxious. Just like that, all her earlier uncertainties and anxiety came rushing back, the pink girl biting down on her lip as she tightened her grip on her phone.

At the end of the day, Mina had no idea what was going on or where she was. She had no idea what to expect on the other side of the door, it could be a friend or a heinous villain seeking to attack her in her current confused state. Stomach clenching uncomfortably, she slowly got up and crept towards the door, rising on her toes to peer through the peephole.

A boy with shaggy-looking black hair stood outside, wearing a black button-down shirt with a red collar and trim, and dark red slacks with zippers on the side. The colors almost instantly reminded her of the uniform still hanging in her closet. Is that the boy's uniform? Does he go to the same school? He rocked uncomfortably on his feet, his head bowed so his bangs hid his eyes, allowing her to only glimpse a small sharp-toothed frown that spoke of nerves. Sharp teeth didn't automatically equal villain, right?

Then the boy looked up, and Mina found herself staring at a pair of familiar red eyes. Her brain shut down for approximately 2.5 seconds as she processed the boy's identity, but then it resumed grinding away and gave a name to the face. All her anxieties flew right out the window as she lit up with recognition and she threw the door open with a beaming grin, making the boy jump.

"Kirishima!" she yelled gleefully, flinging herself at him in a tight hug. Kirishima yelped, tensing at the sudden embrace.

"A-Ashido!?" he sputtered, and Mina quickly pulled back, still beaming at him.

"I'm so excited to see you!" she cheered. "Look at you! Your hair's black!" She reached out and poked at his head, surprised at how limp his hair was. Kirishima leaned away with a small frown, rubbing his head where she'd poked it.

"Uh, y-yeah...?" he muttered, frowning before quickly shaking his head. "Uh, a-anyways, where were you today?"

"Today?" Mina looked at him blankly, her smile fading and replaced by a look of confusion. "What about today?"

"You... weren't at school?" Kirishima answered, sounding a bit uncertain. It took about four seconds for his words to register, and when they did Mina jolted.

"Wait, you went to school today!?" she blurted, gawking at him in disbelief. The not-redhead frowned, shrugging uncomfortably as he glanced away.

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's a Tuesday, so... Kinda have to." Then he frowned and turned back to her as he hastily added, "Hey, hold on a second, do you think I skip!?"

"Not... really." Mina frowned, her earlier exuberance at seeing her classmate quickly fading. Something about Kirishima felt off, and it wasn't just that his hair was black like it had been in middle school. Once again she felt that pit of anxiety growing deep inside her, but this time she didn't try to smother it, looking at him more critically. He seemed... quieter now, way less confident than he'd been at UA. Sort of like how he'd been in middle school.

Was this even the Kirishima she knew?

He shifted uncomfortably under her scrutinizing gaze, grimacing slightly as he quickly averted his eyes. "A-anyways," he continued, "you weren't at school so I thought you might've gotten caught up in that villain attack."

"Villain attack?" Mina's sharp look faded to blank incomprehension once more, before something suddenly clicked. "Oh! You mean that explosion I saw earlier this morning?" In all her confusion over suddenly waking up in Kamino, she'd almost forgotten about the explosion she'd seen at a distant high-rise building. At the very least, there hadn't been any news on it when she checked her phone two minutes later, and after that it kind of slipped her mind.

Kirishima looked visibly relieved by her response, nodding quickly. "Yeah. One of the buildings ended up falling on the monorail tracks by the school, so a bunch of kids couldn't make it. The teachers decided to just call it a day and canceled classes after first period. I didn't see you when I headed down or back, so I... wondered if you got caught up in the explosion on your way there." His voice trailed off towards the end, his expression becoming more somber.

Oh, she thought with a frown. He thought she'd gotten hurt, or worse. No wonder he'd looked so uncomfortable when he'd knocked at her door. That wouldn't do.

Mentally nodding to herself, Mina pasted on a bright smile and threw up her arms. "Well, I'm totally okay!" she declared cheerfully, her loud volume making Kirishima jolt in surprise. "I wasn't anywhere near the explosion! And even if I was, I'm way too awesome to get taken down by something like that!"

"R-right," Kirishima stammered, still looking a bit wide-eyed and off-guard. Taking a breath, he seemed to steel himself and smiled back at her, wide and cocky just like the one he usually sported at UA. "Yeah, you're right. You're way too awesome to get done in by something like that." He paused then, and his smile faded as he looked at her in confusion. "But then... Where were you?"

"Here, of course!" Mina responded, throwing up her arms again to gesture to the apartment. "Where else?"

"Well..." He trailed off, frowning as he seemed to mull over his words. "Uh, Ashido, the explosion happened, like, five minutes before first period was supposed to start."

"And?"

"...And... school's, like, twenty minutes away from here, y'know?" Mina's smile faded again, looking at him blankly once more. Frowning at her silence, Kirishima seemed to hesitate before continuing, "Were... were you planning to skip school today?"

Oh. Well, there was a loaded question if she'd ever heard one. And now, Mina found herself with a dilemma.

At this point, she could tell that this Kirishima was different from the one he knew. He didn't seem as familiar with her as they'd been at UA, and he seemed a lot closer to his middle school self, down to his hair. Ergo, this was probably a different Kirishima who did not go to UA, and thus did not know what was wrong with this whole scenario.

If he had, he'd probably be a blubbering mess right about now. The guy had toughened up since middle school, but some things wouldn't change that easily.

Had she been a more serious or studious sort of person like Iida, she might have made up some excuse about feeling sick. Had she been serious but not as serious and rigid about rules, like Bakugou, she might have said something about her alarm failing to go off that morning and she'd overslept. If she'd been Tsuyu, she probably would be totally blunt about it and try to explain how she might be from another dimension.

As it stood though, Ashido Mina was a mischievous and easygoing person. And so, with a bright grin, she had only one way to answer.

"I woke up and have no idea what's going on!" she announced cheerfully.

And then her smile vanished and she burst into tears, throwing her arms around a startled Kirishima while letting all her earlier fears and anxiety finally burst forth. This might not be her Kirishima, but he was at least familiar, and she needed that now more than ever.

As several students at UA could now attest, their classes never covered how to deal with waking up in an alternate reality where UA no longer existed and All Might had perished. If such a class did exist, trans-dimensional displacement was probably considered a bit too advanced for first-year students, which still didn't help them one bit.

At least Denki wasn't alone.

He had basically spent the past two hours curled up on Jirou's couch huddled under a blanket, alternating between crying and panicking as he read article after article about how messed up and different this world was. Each new discovery made him feel more and more hysterical and freaked out, and only Jirou's presence kept him from devolving into a total mess.

His wonderful classmate set down a can of Electric Limeade soda on the end table next to him before plopping into the armchair with her own phone. He weakly grabbed the can and popped the tab, sipping at it almost gingerly. The familiar flavor was almost like a salve for his frayed nerves, the tingling along his tongue reminding him this was real, but hey, at least he still had his Quirk. Apparently only people with electricity-based quirks felt that tingle, so if he felt it, he still had it. That was something, right?

"Find anyone else's profiles yet?" Jirou asked, and Denki groaned, his brief spike in positivity quickly plummeting back into the negatives once more.

"Almost everything is set to private," he said mournfully. "Everyone's using fake names, too, like we'd use on the group chats except they use it everywhere! Even their FacePages use fake names and anime pictures and stuff for the profile pictures! It's like we went back in time!" Denki himself found all his social media profiles used the name 'Thunderbolt777,' which—what the heck? Why did he need to use a fake name?

"Kinda makes sense though," Jirou muttered as she looked at her phone. "It looks like people with strong Quirks are getting targeted by villains more often. Having your name and face out on the internet for anyone to see would probably just be asking for trouble here. They only have to see you use it once to make a connection, and Class 1-A definitely had some pretty strong Quirks." After a beat, she added, "Except for Mineta. Don't think he'd be targeted."

"Speaking of Mineta, he's, like, the only one I can find," Denki muttered sullenly, staring balefully at the grape-haired boy's profile. "Should I send him a message?" Jirou paused, raising her head and arching an eyebrow at him.

"No," she said flatly, and went back to looking at her phone. Denki sighed and exited out of Mineta's profile, silently conceding it would probably be for the best. Don't get him wrong, he liked Mineta, but the dude didn't do too well under extreme pressure. And this? This was more pressure than they'd ever faced before. Denki was already freaking out enough, they'd probably just feed off each other and make it worse.

Besides, the guy had posted a photo of himself (face blacked out) at some school in Tokyo about an hour ago. He made no mention of waking up in another dimension or anything else of that nature, just commented, 'Totally gonna ace that test today! Get ready to pay up worstjeanist555!' so he probably wasn't affected like they were.

Which brought up another problem Denki didn't want to face. If Mineta wasn't caught up in this, then who else might not be involved? Were he and Jirou the only ones actually here in this weird alternate reality?

The thought made him want to hyperventilate, his throat closing up as he stared at his phone with tears pricking the corner of his eyes. If it was just the two of them, could they even do anything? He and Jirou made a pretty good team in training, sure, but this was way beyond anything they'd faced before!

Ding. He startled as Jirou's phone suddenly buzzed with a text, the girl sitting a bit straighter as her eyes narrowed at the screen. "That's..." She trailed off, her lips pursing in a frown. "Yaomomo?"

Denki practically jumped off the couch at the name, darting to her side. "Yaomomo?" he repeated excitedly as he peered over her shoulder. Sure enough, the name Yaoyorozu Momo headed a text conversation on the screen, and he almost jumped with glee at the sight. "You have Yaomomo in your phone! Sweet!"

Yaoyorozu was smart—way smarter than him—and she could keep her cool pretty well. She was voted the Assistant Class Rep for a reason, even if it was just that two or three people thought that way about her back then. She'd definitely earned her title since then though. Already he felt a surge of relief at knowing she was there.

"Not sweet," Jirou said, cutting through his joy once more. She had a small frown on her face, her eyebrows furrowing as she read over the texts. "She's just asking where I am."

"Where you are?" Dread settled over him at her tone, and Denki leaned further over her shoulder to actually read the latest text.

'Where are you? Are you sick today? Do you need me to bring today's notes?'

The phrasing didn't give Denki much hope, shooting a nervous glance at Jirou. "Maybe she's just trying to gauge your reaction...?" he suggested, but it sounded uncertain even to his own ears.

"Maybe," Jirou muttered doubtfully as he watched her tap out a quick reply. 'Just under the weather. Sorry to worry you. I'll be fine, don't need to stop by. Thanks tho'

Within a minute Yaoyorozu responded: 'Are you sure? It won't be a problem, my chauffer won't mind going a little out of the way for you Kyo.'

That reply told them almost everything they needed to know: she didn't remember. Even Denki could tell there was no obscure, hidden meaning to be found by reading between the lines. But more importantly:

"Since when does Yaomomo call you Kyo?" he blurted before he could stop himself. Jirou just stared at the phone blankly, clearly just as surprised as him.

"...We might need to go to your place instead," she finally said.

The journals seemed to be just as much of a lifeline as Izuku had hoped.

He only skimmed the first few, figuring he should focus on the most recent one first, but he planned to read them all eventually to try to get his bearings. The oldest one dated back about three years, the earliest entries overly verbose and wordy with some spanning multiple pages. By the fourth one he seemed to have trimmed down on a lot of stuff, the events of each day concisely catalogued in at least a paragraph with exceptions for particularly eventful days.

The most recent entries all neatly fit into the "exception" category. Every day for the past week he had filled multiple pages describing Bakugou's sudden capture by the Alliance. Apparently it had been a surprise for everyone involved, the Alliance not knowing about his connection to Izuku until they met, when Bakugou turned white as a ghost upon seeing him. It seemed he thought Izuku had died, which... yeah.

So it wasn't too surprising that after getting over his shock Bakugou reverted to his typical explosive personality and began cursing out Izuku with every name he could think of. Izuku cringed as he read about how Shigaraki had not taken well to the nickname "Deku," nor did he appreciate the threats. It had taken a joint effort with Kurogiri and Magne to stop their leader from killing Bakugou over his expletive-laden threats to blow up Izuku where he stood.

On the bright side, the plans had changed from "force Bakugou to join the Alliance and make him a potential suicide bomber if that fails" to "make Bakugou Izuku's full-time bodyguard and companion" instead. Which meant Izuku got to visit him every day to get his old friend used to the idea that he was actually, you know, still alive this entire time. Though judging by his brief visit today, that wasn't going too well.

Just reading the entries, Izuku found himself cringing at how awkward and uncomfortable the situation was. Bakugou clearly viewed him as an enemy and traitor (and Izuku did not blame him), and had yet to calm down enough to listen to Izuku's explanation about how he got into this mess. That would be even more difficult to achieve now, since Izuku no longer remembered (and never would, since these weren't his memories) how his counterpart got adopted by the Alliance.

On that note, "adoption" was the only word he could think of to really describe his situation based on what he'd been able to glean from his writings so far. If he'd been working with the Alliance in any capacity the letter or journals would have referenced that. At the very least, Izuku certainly would if he was in a situation where he suffered from random amnesic episodes while expected to work with someone, hero or villain. He didn't see any reason an alternate version of him would omit a detail that important.

So, yeah. He hopefully hadn't done anything too illegal... a thought which made him almost want to cry. He settled for a long moan instead, letting his head plop onto the desk as he wallowed in misery. No way he hadn't been roped into something illegal during his time with the Alliance. His presence alone probably qualified him as an accessory to all sorts of unspeakable deeds, much to his dismay.

A knock on the door jolted him from his sulking and he bolted upright and spun around just as it opened. His heart caught in his throat as an all-too familiar head of messy pale blue hair poked in the door, red eyes almost seeming to glow beneath his bangs. "Izu?" Shigaraki greeted quietly. "Are you feeling better yet?"

Absolutely not! Izuku screamed inside his head, and it took everything in him to not shout it outside his mind too. Every instinct screamed at him to run from the presence of the sinister leader of the League of Villains and All Might's self-proclaimed greatest enemy, his mere presence ringing all sorts of alarms in his head.

Somehow, though, he managed to keep relatively calm and swallowed, forcing a wobbly smile. "Uh, my head's s-still a bit fuzzy, S—uh, T-Tomura...nii." The overly familiar title felt heavy on his tongue, a small chill pricking at spine as he hoped the letter hadn't been wrong about their relationship. Fortunately Shigaraki didn't seem perturbed by it, even as he frowned slightly.

"I see," he mumbled. "Then, do you want to watch some movies?"

"Movies?" Izuku squeaked.

"It's been a while," Shigaraki mused. "I have nothing to do today, and Toga got a bunch of new ones last time she went out with Aiko. What do you say?" As he spoke his mouth quirked upwards into a smile, a creepy-looking thing that tugged on the scar by his lip and had a lot more teeth than Izuku found comfortable. Yet even as he suppressed a shudder he couldn't help but note the expression felt oddly, impossibly... genuine? Or at least, not fake or overly malicious?

This was so weird.

"Y-you don't have to," he croaked out. "I—I'll be fine on my own."

"I just said, I have nothing to do today," Shigaraki deflected casually. "I'll get Kurogiri to make you some soup or something. Be back soon." With another flash of the... smile, he withdrew his head and closed the door, leaving Izuku sitting in stunned silence. The green-haired boy slowly slumped in his chair, sinking lower and lower until his back laid against the seat and he stared at the ceiling blankly.

Well, looks like he had a movie date with Shigaraki. All Might kill him now.

Please let this be a bad dream, he prayed silently.

The next morning Uraraka Ochaco opened her eyes to a still-unfamiliar ceiling, along with the sound of her phone's alarm going off.

"Ochaco, breakfast!" her mother called from elsewhere in the house. Ochaco pulled a pillow over her face and whined in frustration. Not a dream then. Crap.

Fun fact: I have a little list in my scraps file keeping track of all the days in this fic. Their stay isn't going to be just one week, and since at least one student is actually in school in this world, I kind of need to keep track of the days. I totally forgot that Day 1 was a Tuesday instead of a Monday until editing this chapter though. So yeah, hopefully I'll manage to keep all the days in order!

With this chapter, I want to confirm once and for all that not all of Class 1-A got transported to this dimension. For those who don't know (minor spoiler for the Overhaul arc), Kirishima and Ashido went to the same middle school. Also, Kirishima's hair was originally black and he had some pretty bad confidence issues. As you can see, he did not get inspired to fix them in this world. Also, Yaoyorozu and Jirou are friends in this world! That should be interesting.

Next time, some more world building!