Chapter 18

.::High School Gossip::.

Denki felt ready to explode as he walked through the school on Thursday morning. Classes resumed after the sudden day off with no special fanfare, everyone else apparently used to spending a day taking classes online instead of in person. The most he heard about it was a few people groaning about not being able to connect to the internet due to the big villain attack knocking out the power in some areas for a couple hours, and having to watch the recorded lectures later over dinner.

Instead, a lot of them were buzzing about the two new vigilantes.

"I heard the guy had taser gloves!" one student whispered as he passed a small huddle. "Just shot him with a needle and electrocuted him like, wham!"

"I heard the girl stabbed him right in the arm!" another person said. "Just stone cold!"

"Sounds to me like the girl did pretty much nothing, lame," a third scoffed, and then hissed as someone smacked his arm.

"Her Quirk probably just wasn't good for that guy!" someone else said. "They literally just debuted yesterday, it's way too soon to make judgments!" The chatter faded as Denki moved away, but it didn't quell the pounding of his heart as he heard more whispers around him.

Apparently the woman from last night had a reasonably popular blog among their classmates, and she'd posted the pictures of them tying up the guy with Sero's help. Thankfully she had blacked out Sero's entire figure (not just his face, but his store uniform too) and emphasized he was just a regular civilian, but she had made no effort to hide his and Jirou's costumes. While it didn't seem to be the main topic of the day, the fact anyone was already talking about their debut freaked him out.

He itched to pull out his phone and text Jirou about this, but he knew it would be a bad idea to put their activities in writing anywhere. Even if he just linked her the blog post, it could seriously backfire if one of their phones ever got stolen or someone used a Quirk to read the messages somehow. Jirou and Hatsume had both drilled it into his head to be as careful as possible and not leave any evidence behind.

Still, he was kind of freaking out here. He knew people would talk eventually, but he did not expect to get this much buzz in just one day! He wasn't ready for this yet! What if someone connected his Quirk to him? Electric Quirks were a dime a dozen, but not many were as strong as his. Even if he didn't use it to the fullest power to avoid overloading his brain, they might make the connection anyway.

(He completely missed the fact that a majority of the gossip assumed that the electric charge came from his gloves and the lightning rod rather than a Quirk. And also that most of his classmates here only knew of him as the living phone charger.)

Denki felt nervous as he walked down the halls, his stomach rolling uncomfortably. What if someone confronted him? He knew he wouldn't be able to keep up a good enough poker face, he'd be screwed in an instant! He was seriously the worst option to send to school, Jirou would be way better at keeping her cool. Why was he the one here and not her!?

"Kaminari?"

Denki jolted and turned to see Yaoyorozu, barely suppressing a startled yelp. Oh yeah, that's why. He kept forgetting that Yaomomo knew Jirou in this world. The dark-haired girl looked at him with a small frown, arms folded over her chest. "Is everything alright? You seem kind of tense."

Crap, he couldn't let on about the vigilante activity! "Oh, just, uh, thinking about that history test first period," he replied, saying the first thing that came to mind. Then his own words registered, and he felt his soul leave his body. "Oh crap, there's a test first period!" He totally forgot about it! He'd meant to cram some more before reaching homeroom, but hearing all the gossip about their debut had made him totally forget.

And now less than five minutes remained. Cue panic. "Crap, crap, crap! I'm totally gonna bomb this! I am so screwed!" He began tugging at his hair anxiously, feeling seconds away from crying. He hadn't taken any tests in this world yet, so he had no idea what it would be like. But if it was anything like the tests at UA, he had absolutely no hope of passing.

(He completely forgot that UA had a much harder curriculum than the average school, and that the test in question had been stated on multiple occasions to be open book. Such is the hard life of Kaminari Denki.)

As he proceeded to freak out Yaoyorozu just stared at him, a bit overwhelmed by his sudden shift in mood. "Um, Kaminari?" she asked tentatively. "Are you talking about Murasaki-sensei's class?"

Denki paused his panic session long enough to scour his memory for the teacher of his first period class, having not memorized all of their names yet. "Yes," he confirmed after a moment.

"Um, all of her tests are canceled because of the online day yesterday. Her parents' apartment was near the villain attack, so she needed to take today off to help them settle everything."

"Wait, they are?" Denki blurted, and his entire body just sagged with relief. He was so not ready to take a big test, his mind was already frayed enough from all the vigilante gossip. What an awful way to start the day that would've been.

"Didn't you see the announcement on the portal last night?" Yaoyorozu asked, and it took a few seconds for him to realize that "portal" probably referred to the website the school used to host the online classes. Mainly because he did not, in fact, check the portal. At all. He'd been really hopped up on adrenaline from the vigilante thing, okay?

"Uh, my internet kinda glitched out," he lied, thinking back to some of the non-vigilante-related conversations he'd overheard that morning. Then he realized something from what Yaoyorozo said, and added, "I lived by the villain attack too." And surprisingly, that part wasn't a lie. When he and Jirou left his apartment to start their first patrol the attack had been pretty far away, but the fight had ended on his block. They ended up crashing at Hatsume's warehouse to avoid the police blockade around the area.

Her expression instantly shifted from confusion to outright concern, giving a small gasp and covering her mouth. "Oh, Kaminari, I had no idea! Is your building okay? Did anything get damaged?"

"Uhhh... I don't think so?" It now occurred to him that he actually had no idea if his building was alright or not, per the whole "slept in the warehouse" thing. The news didn't mention any buildings being destroyed though, just damaged, so it was probably fine... right? Right?

...He decided not to worry about it and just focus on getting through this conversation. "Anyways, thanks for letting me know the test is canceled," he said, wiping his forehead in an exaggerated show of relief. "Seriously, HUGE weight off my shoulders."

"No problem." She offered him a smile, but then it seemed to become strained. Uh oh, not good. Sure enough the smile fell a few seconds later, replaced by a look of concern. "But that aside, I actually wanted to ask if you've heard anything from Jirou." Dang it, Denki KNEW that would come up. It always did.

"Uh, sorry Yaomomo, haven't heard anything," he denied quickly, shaking his head. "Is she still ghosting you?" Yaoyorozu winced at the word "ghost" and he realized that was probably a pretty cold choice of words on his part, but too late to fix it now. Her expression hardened a bit, biting down on her lip as she looked down.

"I haven't heard from her, no. She isn't responding to any of our other friends either."

Now, Denki knew he wasn't the brightest kid out there, but her words still set off alarm bells in his head. He knew no one else had been trying to reach Jirou, she would have mentioned if anyone else had texted her. So Yaoyorozu was lying, but why? "Huh, that's weird," he said with a frown, trying to play it cool. "Maybe she's just really busy?"

"Maybe..." She frowned, not looking too convinced by the argument. Before she could speak further though the warning bell rang, and Denki had to stop himself from reacting to the sound. Saved by the bell, literally.

"Sorry, Yaoyorozu, I need to get to Murasaki-sensei's class," he said. "If she's out today there's probably gonna be a sub, and I don't wanna piss them off by being late."

"Alright, that's fair," she sighed, but then frowned and added, "But if you hear anything, anything at all, please tell me. Please." Her voice took on a desperate note at the end, her expression losing its brief sternness, and Denki felt a pit of guilt in his stomach. Damn, she really WAS worried for Jirou.

"I'll keep an ear out," he promised hollowly, and hurried off to class before she could say anything else to make him feel even worse. He couldn't help but wonder if avoiding Yaomomo really was the right course of action after all.

"So you're alright?"

"Yeah, Akino-sensei, I'm fine," Kyouka confirmed with a nod. She currently sat on the couch in Hatsume's warehouse with her laptop on her lap, the screen displaying a live video feed of one of the teachers at school. "As you can see, I'm still alive and in one piece."

"That's good to hear," the man replied with a nod. Akino-sensei, her homeroom teacher in this world, had a strangely hippie-like vibe about him, with long orange hair and even pink-tinted circular sunglasses. His teeth created a stark contrast to the peaceful image he presented though, tiny little spikes with sharp points that glinted whenever he opened his mouth to speak. "Do you know if you'll be able to return to classes anytime soon?"

"Don't think so," she sighed, idly twirling one of her earphone jacks. "My hearing's still super-sensitive. I had to turn off the fan last night because it was too loud to even sleep. No idea how I'd even get through five minutes in a crowded school."

"That's unfortunate," he murmured. "Have you been to a doctor yet?"

"I want to, but I'd need to see a specialist and that would require, you know, going outside. We're trying to find someone who can come check me here, but no dice yet. We're not too worried though," Kyouka added. "This kind of thing happened a couple times when I was a kid, and it always wore off after a couple weeks. It'll probably wear off soon."

Akino-sensei hummed as he nodded. "I'm surprised that wasn't mentioned in your file. You're supposed to mention any special accommodations you might need, Jirou-san."

"I know, but I haven't had a flare-up since elementary school, so we didn't think it would happen again." She shrugged, averting her eyes from the screen and webcam as she scratched her cheek. "I remember my mom said this used to happen to her too, we had the same Quirk and all that, so she probably would've mentioned it in my paperwork. But..." She trailed off, and the silence hung for a moment before Akino-sensei sighed.

"Right, I understand. Well, as long as you're safe and healthy, it's fine. Just keep up with your schoolwork and watch the lectures. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You got it, sir," Kyouka promised with a lazy salute and smirk, and when the video feed went blank she slumped against the couch with a tired sigh. Using her mom's death like that to deflect questioning left a bad taste in her mouth, but at this point she'd started to become numb to it.

In order to avoid raising any suspicion over her extended absences, she'd called the school to claim her hearing had become hyper-sensitive and she couldn't leave home without experiencing sensory overload. The story wasn't entirely a lie, she actually did have similar incidents as a kid that caused her to miss school a couple times. Just, the flare ups didn't last as long as she claimed they did.

As it turned out, Munakata High School had a system to let students still attend classes online without physically attending. Along with emergency closures like the one yesterday, apparently a lot of kids had become shut-ins for one reason or another. It had actually been a massive relief since Kyouka didn't know how long she could call in sick without being suspicious. The only requirement was that the students check in with their homeroom teachers over video chat every morning before class to prove they hadn't been kidnapped or anything.

Talking to Akino-sensei always set her nerves on edge. While he was nice and pleasant enough, she had no idea how well they knew each other so she always worried he'd see through her act or sense something was wrong. So far he hadn't noticed anything different about her though, and now that she'd gotten through another day she wouldn't have to worry about it until tomorrow.

She still had a few minutes before the first class began, so she switched over to the other open tab currently open to a Hero-centric message board. She spent a lot of her free time just browsing locally-based sites and message boards to get ideas on where to patrol, so she'd found out about their overnight popularity pretty fast.

Their debut didn't make front-page news, or news, period. The woman they'd saved ran a popular blog about good bargains in Hosu, so most of the talk about them only existed on boards specifically about Hosu. The amount surprised her, back home she doubted there would be even a single thread about them. Apparently people just really liked to gossip about vigilantes in this world.

Most of the posts she found felt like they were written by teenagers, so she figured there was probably a lot of gossip at school. Kaminari was probably freaking out, she was impressed he hadn't texted her yet. Overall, it didn't really concern her though. Given they'd only made one appearance so far and the whole thing didn't even last a full ten minutes, no one had really figured out anything about them.

Actually, all of the gossip and theories were pretty amusing to read. So far a lot of people seemed to think Kaminari's gloves and lightning rods had been designed with some sort of taser function, not many people guessed the electricity came from his Quirk. The last-minute addition of a wire to help reel in the lightning rod and further guide his electricity helped. That might actually be useful, they'd have to see if they could make that the obvious explanation.

Meanwhile, Kyouka hadn't used her Quirk at all during the actual fight, relying purely on their physical training to dodge the blows. Some people guessed she had a reflex Quirk, or something that let her map people's positions. Not much speculation existed on her yet since they didn't have much to go on. The most she'd done was use her earphone jacks to listen for audio cues to the robber's position, and neither Sero or the woman had noticed or known that.

Thinking of Sero made her frown, squinting at the blacked out blob covering him in one of the photos. This had been the first time she'd actually seen one of their classmates since entering this world, and he had shown no signs of recognizing them. Even if he had just been fooled by their disguises, the way he behaved made it pretty clear he had no hero training. He acted like any regular civilian would.

The realization that yet another classmate hadn't been dragged into this mess left a heavy pit in her stomach. Logically, Kyouka knew they were likely alone. She may not have actually seen her yet but she already knew that the Yaomomo in this world didn't know them, her texts and reported interactions with Kaminari had made that much obvious. But to finally see it with her own eyes just made her feel... alone.

They had started the vigilante venture to get gear in order to defend themselves, but now she had no idea what to do next. They still had no decent leads on how to get home, or people who might be able to help. They didn't even know how they'd ended up here in the first place. They'd gone to sleep in their dorms like every night, and the next morning—wham! Suddenly they were in another dimension.

As best as Kyouka could guess, it had to be the work of a Quirk, but she didn't even know where to start with investigating it. The most she'd been able to find online were articles about purely theoretical Quirks that could jump dimensions, but no actual records existed of such a Quirk or even one that could prove the multiverse existed. All of it was purely theoretical, and most of the articles were full of technical jargon she couldn't understand, so she gave up researching that angle.

Maybe if something weird had happened before this, like they'd been fighting a villain and suddenly blacked out. Hell, maybe if she'd even just felt off the day before, but no. There was nothing odd or different about the day before this whole mess started, just another totally uneventful Monday at UA. She went to class, had a totally normal school day, went back to the dorms afterwards...

Absolutely nothing happened to indicate that the next day might be remotely different from any other Tuesday.

Looking back she hadn't even talked to Kaminari that day; he'd cut his arrival pretty close to homeroom and they didn't sit together for lunch. She'd then spent most of the evening working on homework in her room or hanging out with the other girls. She hadn't seen him once between last bell and going to bed. The only pattern Kyouka could think of was that she and Kaminari lived on the third floor of Heights Alliance while Sero and Yaoyorozu didn't. So maybe only students on the third floor ended up here. But that still didn't help her figure out what the hell actually happened.

Her inability to find anything just left her frustrated, and she had no idea what their next step should be. She didn't have Midoriya's extensive knowledge of Quirks to make any educated guesses, or Yaoyorozu's natural propensity for studying to think of other angles to research.

Thinking of Yaomomo made her purse her lips into a tight line. The texts had largely tapered off, the last one sent on Monday, but that didn't make her feel any more comfortable. No, she had a feeling Yaomomo definitely figured out something was wrong and had changed gears to investigate it from other angles. And that meant she'd probably question Kaminari.

A ding from the laptop's speakers broke her line of thoughts, and Kyouka switched back to the tab with the school's portal. The blank video feed she'd used to talk to Akino-sensei now showed one of the classrooms, the students still chatting lightly as they waited for class to begin. A few of the desks she could see from this angle were empty, adorned by name tags that marked other students who only attended online.

Her gaze lingered on one in particular, eyes narrowing as she stared at the familiar name on it. She pulled out her phone and shot Kaminari a quick text. 'Hey, I remember KK was next to you back at HA but who else was there?' She hoped he'd recognize the initials of Heights Alliance and Kouda, and would similarly disguise his answers. They hadn't bothered settling on a code for their classmates, but she had to know. Preferably before class started.

Sure enough, a few seconds later she got a reply. 'You mean on my floor? KK, President & Tail Guy. Why?'

'I'll explain after school,' she replied, and put her phone down as the teacher called the class to attention. While the others started to quiet down her gaze strayed to the nametag on the desk one last time, focused on the familiar name: Iida Tenya. If she was right and everyone from the third floor got caught up in this, then maybe she knew their next move after all.

Big news: someone created a TV Tropes page for this fic! I am in shock and awe, I almost squealed out loud at work when I saw it. It's not too detailed yet but this is the first time I've had someone make a TV Tropes page for one of my fan fics and I'm just so excited! Ahhhh! I feel like as a fan fiction writer I've officially hit all the major milestones, I've already gotten fan art of other stories and now I've got a TV Tropes page for one. This is just so cool and amazing! I can't link it on FF obviously, but you can find it on TV Tropes by searching Ignite To The Call.

Question for next time: what do you think should be Jirou and Kaminari's vigilante names? (For added fun, remember they probably won't be able to name themselves and will have to go with whatever people call them.)