Chapter 11
.::Week 2 Start!::.
"But whyyyy?"
"Because it's too suspicious if we both stop going."
"But I hate school! Why can't you go?"
"Because Yaomomo will find me and figure out something's wrong. Now suck it up and get to class." With that Jirou hung up, and Denki moaned mournfully as he lowered his cell phone and shoved it into his pocket. Next to him Hatsume clapped a hand onto his shoulder, making him jump and look back at her.
"Don't sweat it, Battery-kun!" she chirped. "You fail all your classes anyway, so it's not like you not understanding anything will be suspicious!" He just glowered at her sullenly, too grumpy to respond as she flounced away towards the school building. He grimaced as he gazed up at it, tugging at the hem of his dark blue sweater uncomfortably. And to think, he could be testing out their new gear right now.
The previous night he and Jirou had decided that it would be too suspicious if they both randomly stopped going to school and a pair of vigilantes with Quirks similar to theirs showed up a few days later. Because Yaomomo was likely to search out Jirou to question her and recognize something was wrong, it fell to Denki to go to school, removing the one good thing about being trapped in this crazy alternate dimension.
In order to successfully pull off the ruse they'd had to recruit Hatsume as a guide in navigating the school. They came up with a story to tell her that Denki had short-circuited so hard recently that it screwed with his overall memories, using it to also explain why Jirou had been at his place. Denki still didn't know if he should be offended by how easily she accepted the explanation or not.
Hopefully other people will buy it too, he thought with a sigh. From what Hatsume said he had a pretty large friend group. His cell phone had enough conversations to figure out his relationships with most of his classmates, but he didn't have faces to go with the names. For some reason people seemed to hate sending selfies here. Hatsume would be absolutely no help there—he didn't even know if she remembered his name given she just called him Battery-kun all the time—so he was on his own with that.
Denki had already resigned himself to the fact that he would screw up with the first person to call his name. With luck they'd also buy the short-circuit explanation they gave Hatsume, and could help him identify all his other classmates. They'd rather not broadcast the story too widely since it would be pretty easy for it to fall apart if questioned deeply enough, but they couldn't think of a better solution.
And I thought Mondays sucked at UA, he thought glumly.
"Kaminari?" Speak of the devil, looks like it was time to put the plan in action. He frowned, turning to face the stranger... only for it to not be a stranger.
"Yaomomo?" he blurted without thinking. Yaoyorozu frowned, folding her arms as she looked at him.
"Yaomomo?" she repeated, sounding faintly confused. Denki winced, quickly looking away with a sheepish laugh.
"Uh, s-sorry! Yaoyorozu-san, I mean. Sorry, I don't know why I called you that, haha..." He trailed off into half-hearted laughter, all too aware of her eyes boring into him as he internally screamed. How the hell did they not see this as a possibility!? Shoving down the rising bubble of panic, he turned back to her with a grin and quickly said, "A-anyways, did you need something?"
She frowned, still looking a bit suspicious, but didn't press the point. "You were gone all last week. Are you alright?"
"You noticed?" Denki asked, not bothering to hide his surprise. It was normal he'd be surprised, right? It's not like he had her phone number in his phone, so they probably weren't friends or anything. Right?
Yaoyorozu didn't respond right away, and he felt a brief spike of panic of crap he messed up before she spoke. "I'm the class representative," she murmured, glancing away and looking almost nervous as her fingers played with the hem of her sweater. "It feels like it's part of my job to pay attention to when my classmates are absent."
Oh. Oh. "Oh, yeah. I guess so," he agreed with a slow nod. So she was the class rep here? It made sense, she did have the highest grades even back at UA and made an awesome vice rep.
"Besides, you're the bottom of the class," she added, looking back to him with a stern frown. "Mori-sensei told me to make sure you're caught up on everything you missed. Which won't be easy, since you missed almost an entire week."
Denki flinched at the bluntness of her tone, feeling like she'd hit him over the head with a textbook. "Ack! S-sorry!"
"And where were you?" Yaoyorozu continued. "Mori-sensei said you never gave the school a proper explanation for why you called out every day."
Another wince. Denki sucked on the inside of his cheek as he scratched the back of his head, openly grimacing. "My, uh, Quirk kinda short-circuited," he mumbled half-heartedly. "It, uh, kinda messed with my immune system so I got, like, a super-bad cold, I guess...?" His words sounded weak and uncertain even to his own ears, and his grimace grew as he hastily continued, "B-but I'm better now! Mostly. Head's still kinda woozy though, so if I act weird don't think too hard on it."
...Yeah, he did not blame Yaoyorozu for that doubtful look she gave him. He inwardly groaned, preparing himself for a lecture and more questions when suddenly someone grabbed his arm. He jumped and whirled to find Hatsume next to him, that same static grin on her face. Denki never thought he'd be happy to see the psychotic inventor, but here he was, feeling a swell of relief as he looked upon his savior.
"Battery-kun, come on, we still have fifteen minutes before first period! That's enough time to drop by the science lab and test one of my babies!"
Never mind, he'd rather be interrogated by Yaoyorozu.
As Hatsume began dragging him off he twisted to look over his shoulder at his classmate, mouthing a silent, "Help me," as he tried to wrench free. Alas, Yaoyorozu held no mercy towards his plight, only offering him a sympathetic smile and a half-hearted wave. Groaning, Denki turned forward and hung his head, resigning himself to being used to test yet another of Hatsume's inventions. Hopefully this one wouldn't explode...
As the pair disappeared into the building Momo let her smile slip away, replaced by a serious frown. Kaminari was hiding something, anyone could tell that—and on top of that, he'd disappeared from school the exact same day Kyouka did.
Biting her lip, she pulled out her phone and sent a quick text. 'Kaminari showed up today. He's hiding something and acting suspicious. Still no sign of Kyouka.'
Thankfully she didn't have to wait long for the reply. 'Do you think there's a connection?' She wavered a bit as she saw it, hesitating to answer.
'I don't know yet, but I think maybe? He said he had Quirk-related issues too.'
There was a long pause, but then, 'You should trust your instincts, Your gut feelings tend to be right more often than not.' A brief wave of relief washed over her, her mouth quirking into a small smile as she felt a small boost to her confidence. The smile quickly faded as another text came in though, her mood instantly sobering. 'It's been a week since you last saw her, so I think it's safe to assume *something's* going on.'
Her fingers clutched her phone tighter as she read it, her thoughts trailing to her best friend. Momo still hadn't heard anything from Kyouka since she disappeared, save for that brief text about her Quirk acting up. Momo knew she'd read most of the other texts—she used a messaging app that showed read receipts—so the total silence on Kyouka's end didn't sit right with her.
And now Kaminari shows up acting suspiciously after disappearing the same day Kyouka did?
Something was going on, and Momo was determined to find out what.
(Please, just let Kyouka be safe.)
Monday morning found Ochaco on her bed staring at her newly created FacePage profile, her body curled protectively around the phone as if to hide it from prying eyes. As far as she'd been able to tell she'd had no FacePage profile in this world, her parents likely deeming it "too risky" given their family's status. Creating an account made her feel guilty, like she'd broken some sort of unspoken rule in the household, but she'd seen no other choice.
It's for the greater good, she reminded herself as she typed her classmates' names in the search bar. Although Ochaco had no idea how she'd gotten into this alternate world, she didn't believe for a minute she was the only one from Class 1-A in this situation. Or at the very least, she didn't want to believe it.
These past seven days had been the loneliest of her life. After getting used to living with all of her classmates in the dorms at UA, waking up in a world where she lived with her parents and only her dad's employees and Suimin-sensei for company left her with an aching sense of isolation. It felt suffocating, not knowing if any of her friends might be here too or if she really was alone in this strange world.
But more than that, she just wanted to talk to someone her own age.
Tsuyu, Asui, Tsu-chan, Froppy, Frogger... None of them are her. She frowned as she tried any variation of her friend's name, finding nothing resembling it. Finding people's profiles on FacePage was hard when everyone used fake usernames. She'd already tried entering variations of Izuku, Midoriya and Deku, then Tenya, Iida and even Engine, but no dice. She'd hoped Tsuyu would be easier to find since her Quirk would make for plenty of potential nicknames, but "frog" turned out to be just too broad.
Biting her lip, she mentally reviewed her classmates for who to search next. Some, like Todoroki or Shouji, didn't seem like they'd use social media at all. I don't think anyone will use their actual names, so I guess I'll try their Hero Names first, she decided. Typing in the first one to pop into her head, a string of results quickly showed up and she scrolled down the list only to pause as one profile picture caught her eye.
Ochaco bolted upright instantly, clutching at her phone tightly as she pulled it closer to her face. A pink-tinted alien with a messily drawn crown stared up at her from a blue and purple camouflage-pattern background, the name "Alien_Queen_Pink" next to it. Could it be? Clicking the profile, she saw it had been created just the previous day, most of the fields bare with only one status update:
'The Glorious Alien Queen Pinkie is now online and ready for friends!'
"Ashido?" she breathed to herself.
At that moment someone knocked on her door, making her jolt with a yelp and nearly drop the phone. Fumbling to keep it from following, she quickly jabbed the "send friend request" button and exited out of the browser just as her mother opened the door, a warm smile on her face.
"Ochaco, dear, Suimin-san is here," she told her.
"Suimin-sensei?" Ochaco repeated blankly. So far she had only seen her tutor when she'd go to construction sites with her dad. Today he'd left her at home though since they didn't have any work she could specifically help with; he preferred not to take her to work too often, to avoid drawing attention to her and her Quirk. On those days she usually just had homework to do on her own, so why was Suimin here now?
Seeing her obvious confusion, her mother's smile softened. "Don't you remember? She promised to take you shopping today for doing well on that test last week."
Recognition clicked and Ochaco bolted upright, her eyes widening. "Oh! Right! I totally forgot!" She remembered Suimin offering a chance to go shopping as a reward if she did well, but it hadn't really stuck out to her at the time. The test had been really easy since they'd just covered the material at UA before she woke up here, so she hadn't really thought it deserved any special reward. Apparently Suimin disagreed though, not that Ochaco would complain. She'd take any chance to get out of the house.
Jumping off her bed, Ochaco quickly ran to her dresser to fling open the drawers and root around for clothes. She hadn't bothered changing out of her pajamas yet, and if she was going into public she wanted to look cute! Behind her she could hear her mom chuckle, clearly amused. "Just come on down whenever you're ready, there's no rush."
"Got it, mom!" Ochaco called, not bothering to look back as she lifted up a cute pink top with lacy sleeves. She heard her mom chuckle again before the door closed, and Ochaco's face lit up with a beaming smile as she held the shirt against her body in front of her mirror. Shirt decided, now onto some cute bottoms!
As she began looking for something fitting for the chilly weather she heard her phone ding from the bed, making her jump. Dropping the shirt onto the dresser she scurried over to check it and found a notification from the FacePage site saying her friend request had been accepted.
Oops, I should probably mute that, she thought sheepishly. She hadn't been outright told she couldn't use the site, but she'd rather not risk her family finding out and banning her. As she went to her settings to mute the notifications another one popped up, this time about a waiting message. Surprised, she quickly silenced the notices before switching to the browser, finding the messenger already open.
'Hi Infinity_Girl_8! Thanks for the request! I can't really talk now because I'm at school (bleh!) but I couldn't wait all day! Your name is so cool! Where'd you come up with it?'
A small smile touched Ochaco's lips, her fingers curling around the phone even as her mind buzzed nervously. For the first time since waking up in this world, she felt a bit of genuine hope that maybe she wasn't quite so alone here after all.
Perks of being a villain: they can do whatever they want.
Tomura really liked that part of being a villain. The law was so pesky and annoying at times, limiting people's usage of their Quirks and insisting they pay for everything. Just look at those "high-end" fashion shops. Fifty thousand yen for a shirt? They didn't even give any sort of status buffs to defense or agility or anything, they just looked cool! Given how easily his clothes disintegrated with a single distracted touch, he saw no point in spending exorbitant amounts of money on clothing.
But of course, some people didn't care how stupid some laws were.
"And in other news, today an attempted robbery at the local bank was stopped by the Pro Hero Ingenium..."
Tomura scowled as he jabbed the power button on the remote, silencing the TV a little less violently than he'd like. The bank robbery hadn't been part of the main story; it had been a side quest, something to get all the annoying mob NPCs in his party to stop complaining about having nothing to do. He hadn't participated in any way, just assigned the job and let them go.
But the fact it had been foiled at all irritated him.
His fingers itched to scratch at his neck, to dig his nails into the skin and peel it away bit by bit, but he forced himself to abstain if only because Aiko would get annoyed. The woman currently sat at the bar next to him, idly sipping from a glass while he glowered at the now-dim screen. "Thank you for not destroying the TV," she commented. "Replacing them is a pain."
"You don't even live here," he scoffed.
"And yet I end up being the errand girl more often than not," she replied, rolling her eyes. She set down her drink and produced an envelope from thin air, sliding it along the counter towards him. "Here's the map of that place you wanted. Pretty standard layout, and none of them have Quirks that can change it up. Should be pretty cut and dry. Might want to hurry though, I think a bunch of heroes have their eye on it too."
"Thanks," he grunted, pushing the envelope to aside to review with the others later as he eyed her. "You not interested in joining?"
"Not this time," she responded with a light shrug. "Like I said, this group's on the heroes' radar, and I'd rather not risk running into anyone I know."
Tomura scoffed, the urge to scratch his neck growing. "You haven't seen any of them in years. And don't you wear a mask anyway?"
"Still too much of a risk for my tastes," Aiko deflected as she got up. "My usual goggles are out of commission, and the only spares will just get me a lot more questions and scrutiny than usual. I prefer to stay off the radar as much as possible." Tomura narrowed his eyes, not buying the excuse about her goggles for one second, but he decided not to call her out. Aiko was by far one of the most finicky NPCs of all in his party, but also easily the most game-breaking.
Their relationship points might tip things in the Alliance's favor now, but if he ever pissed her off enough she'd either drop them entirely or become the worst final boss ever. At least she wouldn't join the heroes—her morality meter tipped too much to the dark end to ever rise above neutral at best—but she could still easily wipe them out.
"Leaving already?" he asked instead.
"I'd love to stay and spend time with you and Izun, but I've got some stuff to do today," she responded with a light shrug. "Trafficking rings to track and all that. Have fun with the raid or whatever." Tomura just grunted, not even bothering to watch as she left. With Aiko gone the bar was left empty once more, and it didn't take long for his thoughts to drift back to his irritation at the failed bank robbery.
Ingenium wasn't even a high-level boss. All his stat points had been put into speed; he didn't even have a good base defense, just buffs from his armor. They could just trip him with a tripwire, and then Tomura could slap the back of his head and disintegrate the helmet. It'd only take one more touch to dissolve the back of his skull. Easy. Really, he was so low-level he was barely worth the EXP.
Tomura might go out of his way to take care of him now though, just to make up for his fallen party members' failure. It wouldn't do to let their loss cause a hit to his own reputation points, he'd been steadily building them for years even before the Alliance made its public debut. After some thought he dismissed the idea though; he didn't want to risk potentially triggering a main story event and up the overall difficulty.
Speed-running this wasn't an option. Tomura didn't really care for speed runs anyway, a lot of them involved breaking the game with glitches to skip over parts of the story and levels. Skipping over levels meant losing crucial EXP, and they'd get no spare lives if they messed up, so for now he'd just have to occupy himself with side quests while waiting for the rest of his party to level up appropriately. Maybe try to get Aiko to join up more actively, or try to recruit some new party members.
The thought made him pause. New party members, huh... That reminded him of the two brats Izuku had become so interested in—and by extension, Izuku himself.
Izuku was different from the rest of his party. He didn't directly contribute any skills like everyone else, or serve any support role like healing or item storage. By gameplay standards he was more like an NPC or a "pet," except calling Izuku a "pet" grated on his nerves. Maybe a mascot? No, that still irritated him. Little brother? Yeah, that worked. Plenty of games had a younger sibling NPC who served to provide incentive to players to complete an objective, and Izuku definitely filled that role.
Izuku had been cursed with the permanent affliction and title of "Quirkless". Society spurned him for a default status condition beyond his control, to the point it didn't care when he disappeared. Tomura had seen how nervous and shy the boy had been when they first met, how little confidence he had in himself. For years, the only time he really showed confidence was when he spoke about Pro Heroes and their Quirks.
Izuku epitomized the injustice of the hero system. After being casted to the bottom of the NPC hierarchy with the lowest base-reputation possible, he became obsessed with Quirks—the source of his troubles, something forever out of his reach—and by extension, he became obsessed with heroes. Heroes were the epitome of Quirks, treated as celebrities by everyone. Izuku practically worshipped the ground they walked on, and even though he'd toned it down over the years he still had a few he liked enough to ask Tomura please don't kill this one, they're one of my favorites.
The praise and admiration was irritating, but Tomura could let it slide. As long as he kept Izuku away from the actual heroes they captured, it was easy enough to ignore his obsession with them. In any event, Izuku might not be the most critical member of the party—he might even be a detriment at times thanks to his unfortunate affliction, especially since those episodes started—but he was definitely Tomura's favorite.
Izuku was his little brother after all, even if not by blood. They might have their differences, but plenty of brothers in games were polar opposites. That didn't make their interactions any less satisfying though, if anything it made the cut scenes that much more poignant. Tomura had even been working on a side quest in the background to boost his relationship points with Izuku further, assuming it hadn't been maxed out already.
Come to think of it, Tomura hadn't spent much time with Izuku lately.
He should fix that.
This is probably the most eventful transitional chapter I've ever written. Uraraka has found Ashido's profile, Denki goes back to school, and Aiko appears for like two minutes. Still no news on Aizawa.
Question for next time: Who do you think will be the first dimensional strays to actually meet?