Chapter 34

.::Tuesday Beginnings::.

Kyouka mounted the steps to Kaminari's apartment with a bag full of food on Tuesday morning, her mood much more somber than usual.

Ever since talking to Iida, the world just felt hazy and grayscale. The test had been a welcome distraction, and she was endlessly relieved that she only had one while Iida had multiple tests. She'd finished hers while he was halfway through his second test, letting her leave first. If he'd finished before her and then waited for her to confront her about Yaomomo, she didn't know what she would have done.

The realization that Iida wasn't from their dimension still felt like a punch to the gut even after a full night, eliminating the one solid theory she had. Kyouka had gone straight to Hatsume's warehouse after school, opening her laptop and blasting music for hours as she tried to distract herself. She kept it up even after the inventor came back from school, and ended up spending the night there.

She'd probably still be there if Kaminari hadn't texted her begging her to bring him breakfast. He had called out from school again, still a bit sore and not wanting to stress his injuries too much. Apparently he'd pulled a muscle while heating up leftovers last night, which made her feel a bit guilty for not checking in with him. But last night she just couldn't stand being around other people, especially Kaminari.

Kyouka had no idea where to go from here, no idea what direction to take their search now. Their most viable lead on potentially figuring out how they got here had been crushed in a matter of minutes, and she couldn't figure out what their next move should be. And knowing Kaminari, he probably wouldn't have any good ideas either.

She heaved a heavy sigh as she reached his door, pulling out the spare key they'd found. With her effectively living there it had been only logical to give Kyouka her own key, but she still knocked before unlocking and opening it. When she entered she immediately spied Kaminari lying facedown on the couch. At least he'd moved from the bed.

"Yo, Kaminari, I got breakfast," she announced as she closed the door and carried the bag of takeout to the table. She turned to face him and then promptly released an undignified squawk as she came face to face with a pillow flying right at her.

Training kicked in and she jerked to the side in an effort to avoid it, but it was too late to dodge. Kyouka yelped more in surprise than pain as it collided with her chin and chest before falling to the ground limply. For a second she just stood in shock, staring at it wide-eyed before snapping her head towards the couch with a fierce scowl that would make even Bakugou proud.

"What the hell was that for!?" she snapped irritably. Kaminari turned his head enough to look at her with one eye, his expression clearly unhappy.

"Everyone's calling me Taser Brain now," he grumbled, and that made her pause, her irritation fading and replaced by confusion.

"Taser Brain...?" she repeated with a frown. Rather than respond Kaminari groaned and buried his face in a pillow again, while using his free arm to grope the coffee table for his phone. He pulled it over and turned his head to look at it long enough to tap the screen, and promptly re-hid his face just as Kyouka's phone buzzed with a text.

Frowning, she pulled it out and saw he'd sent her a link. She absently recognized the url as a fairly popular gossip site before she tapped on it, and then went very still when the page loaded. Plastered top and center was a photo of her and Kaminari in their vigilante costumes standing over the weirdo at the grocery store from Sunday.

'WHO ARE THE 1-A VIGILANTES?' read the bold text above it.

And below it, in equally bold but smaller text: 'Hosu's newest sensations: Taser Brain & The Mysterious Punk Vigilante!'

Kyouka stood in silence, just staring at the photo and headline and processing it. "...I did call you Taser Brain at one point," she said slowly.

The resulting noise Kaminari made sounded like a cross between a groan and a scream, thankfully muffled by the pillow. "It's so lame!" he whined as he finally lifted his head to glare at her. "You gave me the lamest vigilante name ever, Jirou! Everyone's calling me that now! How could you!"

"In my defense, I didn't mean to make it your actual codename," she replied somewhat lamely. She had just been shouting to get his attention. She didn't expect people to think it was his official name.

"It's too late to take it back!" Kaminari replied. "Since you got me stuck with it, I demand the right to choose your name!"

"No." He groaned in frustration at her instant refusal, but didn't try to push the topic as he just buried his face in the pillow again. Kyouka set her phone on the table as she headed to the kitchen to get the plates and cups for their breakfast. "Is your back okay to sit at the table?" she called as she set the table.

"Definitely not," Kaminari mumbled, and Kyouka nodded, grabbing the bag of takeout and carrying it over to the couch. He rolled his head as she dropped it on the floor next to him, letting him see the logo for a local bakery.

"Hatsume told me about this weird bakery that makes stuff you can eat bare-handed," she told him. "This stuff is basically omurice, but wrapped up in bread rolls. She said you shouldn't even have to sit up."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but Hatsume's an angel," he said, reaching into the bag to pull out some of the rolls. Kyouka huffed an amused snort. Helpful as Hatsume had been since coming here, 'angel' was the last word she'd use for the girl. The only reason Hatsume knew about the place was because the food was convenient to eat while working on her inventions.

She pulled out some of the omurice rolls to load onto her own plate, and they lapsed into silence as they began eating. Her eyes flickered to Kaminari, calculating the way he seemed to wince when he stretched his arm too much. "Think you'll be good to go back to school tomorrow?" she asked, and he grimaced as he swallowed a mouthful of bread and rice.

"The pain's mostly gone, but I'm still super-sore," he replied gloomily. "Any chance I can skip tomorrow too?"

"Yeah, sure," she agreed easily, and he actually startled, almost choking on another bite of his roll. She looked away in disgust as he coughed it into his hand, coughing and hacking for a few seconds.

"S-seriously?" he sputtered. "I thought you'd put up more of a fight about it!"

"Yeah, well, things change." She twirled her earphone jack around her finger as she stared down at her half-eaten omurice roll. "The only reason we decided you should go was so we could avoid suspicion while we tried to figure out what the hell is going on."

"We still haven't done that, though," he reminded her sullenly.

"Yeah, but school's not going to help either," she replied coolly, bitterness seeping into her voice as she scowled at her roll. "Dropping out now that we're vigilantes would be suspicious, but we can probably get you set up to do online classes like me."

She took a big bite to punctuate the end of her sentence, and silence lapsed over them. At this point, she saw no real benefit to making Kaminari continue attending school. They wouldn't be able to find answers there, and it just cut into time they could be using to do other stuff, whether it be vigilantism or searching for real, solid leads.

Kaminari didn't respond right away, just watching her chew with an oddly pensive look. "...Jirou," he said slowly. "Did something happen yesterday?" She frowned but didn't immediately answer, taking her time to finish chewing

"I was wrong," she finally said after she swallowed, not looking at him.

"About what?"

"Iida didn't recognize me."

"...Oh." A heavy silence fell over them after that, Kyouka just focusing on taking another bite. She'd given Kaminari a rough rundown of her theory about the kids on their floor being hit by the Quirk after she first noticed Iida's name on her class roster. At the time he'd agreed that it seemed like the most likely explanation, especially since so far all of the students they'd met had been from other floors.

Kyouka noted almost bitterly that he probably didn't feel the impact as heavily as she did, or else he'd probably be crying or freaking out or—something. Instead, Kaminari was just quiet, a contemplative frown on his face as he stared at his half-eaten roll.

"...I made a FacePage profile yesterday." That got her attention, and she looked over at him curiously.

"What?" she asked, and he shrugged, grunting as he forced himself to shift and sit up straight. He winced as the motion pulled on his back, but ignored it to focus on his phone.

"Well, we're trying to make a name for ourselves online, right?" he asked. "You know, see if anyone recognized us as, well, us. But I realized that doesn't really mean anything if they can't figure out a way to reach us, so I figured I'd make it easier." As he spoke he tapped the screen, and seconds later they heard a chime from the kitchen table. They both paused, turning to look at the direction of the table.

"...Did you just try to text it to me?" Kyouka asked after a few seconds.

"Yeah," Kaminari confirmed lamely, and let out a tired groan. "Dang it, I thought it'd be so cool to do it like that!" Kyouka snorted, rolling her eyes as she got up to go retrieve her phone. She quickly opened the link Kaminari just sent her, eyebrows arching as the profile page loaded. It had a simple banner at the top, black with a white lightning bolt and the stars like on her own mask on either side of the name "1-A Vigilantes."

"You already made a banner for us?" she asked, and he just grunted in affirmation, still a bit sulky about his grand reveal being ruined. She ignored his sullen mood as she skimmed the page curiously.

It wasn't anything fancy. He'd shared the photos from that blogger they'd saved in their debut and Satou's Instagram. He hadn't made any actual text posts yet, and that realization made her arch her eyebrows more as she glanced back at him. "So you made an account, even made a banner, but haven't actually posted anything?"

"Not much to post right now," he said sulkily. "It's not like we've taken any pictures or anything, and I didn't feel right making a post without you. I mostly just wanted to grab the profile name before a copycat could take it and pretend to be us." She hummed, turning back to look at her phone.

All things considered, this was actually a pretty good idea. While their goal was to make themselves more visible in hopes of finding people who recognized them, she hadn't thought about how they might contact them. It's not like she and Kaminari walked around in vigilante gear full-time or anything. Using social media like this had especially never occurred to her. Then again, she'd been focused on other stuff.

"I texted Hatsume after school, too," Kaminari continued, "about making accounts on other sites. She said FacePage is really secure, but some of the other sites might be easier for police to track us. She said she'd get a guy she knows to install some program or something that'll hide our computers somehow if we want to do it anyway. I don't know, a lot of what she said went over my head but it sounds like she knows how to handle it, so I guess we can just leave it to her."

"That's pretty smart," Kyouka said, and turned to him with a small smile. "Good going, Kaminari." He just gaped at her, and her smile faded. "Yo, something wrong?"

"Did... did you just compliment me?" he asked dumbly, and she found herself snorting.

"Yeah, dumbass," she deadpanned, ignoring his offended cry. "You're not an idiot all the time. If you have a good idea, I'm not going to lie just to keep up an image or something. That'd be stupid. I wouldn't have thought of this anyway." Kaminari just stared for a moment before slowly nodding, and then he broke into a big smile.

"So I'm not useless!" he cheered, pumping a fist into the air as he jumped up. "Yes!" He paused then, arm still in the air, before collapsing onto the couch with a pathetic whine. "Owww, my back...!" As he whined in pain Kyouka just rolled her eyes, returning to her place by the coffee table to continue eating. Later she'd see if they had a heating pad or something that might help the soreness, but for now she needed to eat.

Still, leave it to Kaminari to make her feel better. What started as a pretty crummy day had become notably more hopeful. The future was more uncertain than ever, but maybe things would be a little brighter.

Morning had never been such an anxious affair for Izuku.

Don't get him wrong, breakfast was fine and tasted pretty good, and it felt great and familiar to be eating with Uraraka again. Even Aiko was actually pretty pleasant to be around despite his initial concerns. She'd prepared breakfast by the time they woke up, and had teased Izuku about his longing look at the most sugary cereal on the table before opting for something healthier. It was an all around friendly atmosphere, and really the most peaceful morning since he'd woken up in this world.

But that didn't remove the anxiety from what the rest of the day held.

"Okay, Giri will probably call soon to ask about you coming back," Aiko said as she checked her phone. "I'd offer to let you stay a bit longer so you could hang out with your friend some more, but..."

"I can't leave them alone," Izuku replied, feeling equal parts miserable and determined. As much as he hated leaving Uraraka alone with Aiko, he couldn't leave Kacchan and Shinsou alone with the Alliance, and he especially couldn't ignore Aizawa-sensei. He needed to go back and make sure they wouldn't kill him.

Maybe his thoughts showed on his face, because Aiko's expression softened and she leaned over to ruffle his hair. "Don't be so worried, Izun. If they were going to kill anyone, they would have done it before bringing them to the base."

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?" Uraraka asked in Izuku's place as he grumbled and pulled away, her voice faintly disturbed.

"I have no idea actually," Aiko replied with a nonchalant shrug as she settled back in her seat. "I'm mostly just stating facts. If you're worried about the hero you saw yesterday, he's definitely alive. It's easier to kill someone than to capture them, so the fact you saw him getting dragged into a cell means they don't plan to kill him."

"...That's awful, but also weirdly helpful," Izuku said with a miserable groan. "But why would they capture him?"

"...You'll probably find out soon," Aiko muttered after a few seconds, very pointedly not looking at him. That... What the heck, that was so ominous!

"Do you know something!?" He half-rose from his chair, staring at her pleadingly as she continued to avoid looking at him. "Can't you please just tell me!?"

"If I'm right and I tell you, Tomura will probably get mad," she replied, and added under her breath with a sheepish smile, "And I kinda owe him for yesterday..."

Everything. Everything about this conversation was highly concerning, and Izuku felt mildly terrified about what the heck was going to happen. "What did you do yesterday?" he asked, dreading the response, but Aiko just avoided looking at him and instead glanced at her phone with an innocent smile.

"Oh look at that, Kurogiri says you can go back now," she said cheerfully as she began typing. Uraraka leaned over from her own seat to glance at the screen.

"You're texting him to ask him to take Deku back," she commented flatly, and Aiko turned that way-too-cheerful smile to her.

"No I'm not." Judging by the unimpressed look on Uraraka's face, Aiko had probably just hit send. A few seconds later the phone dinged with a text, further proving that Kurogiri had not been the one to initiate the conversation since her phone hadn't dinged earlier. "Oh, he can open the portal right now if you want."

Seriously!? "This is going way too fast!" Izuku yelped. "I can't just leave now, I still need to work out contact stuff with Uraraka!"

"We'll buy her a burner phone of her own later today," Aiko assured him with a smile. "Giri won't mind if you want to come visit me again to clear your head, but you really need to go back today." The reminder made Izuku feel almost nauseous, but he found himself sighing and nodding as he got up, shoulders slumped with resignation.

"Yeah, I know." He had to go back and face them properly, and find out what the Alliance wanted from Aizawa-sensei. Aiko checked her phone and glanced at Uraraka.

"Might want to pop into the bathroom or something. I never did figure out if Giri can see stuff when he opens his portals." She nodded seriously as she got up, giving Izuku a reassuring pat on the shoulder as she passed him.

"Don't worry Deku, we'll talk again soon!" she told him, and he found himself smiling at the undertone to her words: You're not alone anymore. That reminder made him feel much lighter, the knowledge that others were here too lightening his burden just a little bit. He watched Uraraka disappear into the bathroom before turning to Aiko.

"I'm ready," he said. She nodded and tapped away on her phone, and a few seconds later an inky black portal opened near the table. He felt tense as he stared at it, once again flashing back to the first time he saw it back at USJ. But despite the thrill of dread he shoved it down and forced himself to step into the portal.

Black consumed his vision immediately, and when it cleared he found himself not in the bar as he'd expected but the hallway outside his room. He blinked in surprise as he looked around, finding Kurogiri and Shigaraki standing not far away. The younger of the two was leaning against a wall playing a game console, and Izuku's eyes instantly locked on his right wrist.

"What happened?" he blurted in surprise. There was a brace wrapped around his wrist, the black kind found in hardware stores, and beneath it he could see bandages.

"Aiko happened," Shigaraki replied with a snort, and Izuku just stared. Suddenly he was remembering her very cheery comment about needing to talk to Shigaraki about "things," and he found himself shuddering. Aiko really was a scary person, wasn't she...

As he mulled over that Kurogiri cleared his throat, and Shigaraki scoffed before turning off the console and sliding it into his pocket. "Okay, I was a bit rough yesterday and didn't explain anything, and I guess that might have freaked you out."

"Might have?" Izuku repeated without thinking, voice dripping with sarcasm. Spending so much time with villains really must be impacting him, because he'd never have spoken to Shigaraki or any villain like that even just last week.

Fortunately Shigaraki didn't take offense, just scoffing again as he turned and began walking. "Yeah, fine. I was too rough on that guy. I didn't think you were around to see it though, and I got annoyed because you weren't supposed to know."

"So you didn't plan on telling me he was here?" Izuku asked with a frown as he followed. "Why did you even capture him, anyway? And where did you find him? He looks like he was a prisoner for a while already, right?" The questions tumbled out one after another, his anxiety from this whole mess too much to hold it back anymore.

"Calm down, Izuku," Shigaraki muttered, and reached for his neck only to flinch and quickly lower his hand. "Yeah, we're not the ones who captured him. We found him in a minor raid yesterday. We'd heard rumors those guys had captured Eraserhead, but I didn't think such shitty NPCs would actually pull it off." That made Izuku's heart leap into his throat, quickly catching onto the subtext.

"You... you were looking for him specifically?" he asked, his horror growing. Why? Why would the Alliance want to look for Aizawa-sensei? What did they want with him?

"Of course," Shigaraki responded, hand once again flinching and retracting as he reached for his neck again. "It was supposed to be a surprise, which is what made me so irritated you saw it, but whatever. I found him for you." That made Izuku stop short, staring at the back of the villain's head in shock.

"Wait, what?" he asked, and Shigaraki paused, turning to look at him with that eerie smile that sent chills down his spine.

"Surprise. I got you a hero."

We now know why Shigaraki captured Aizawa! Shoutout to Hollyingrd6 on AO3, who remembered Shigaraki mentioning a side quest to boost his relationship with Izuku a long time ago and correctly figured out it was referring to Aizawa.

Not much else to say. My internship is now having weekly Zoom meetings every Monday, and my workload's about to ramp up a bit. I'll try to keep up Monday releases but they're going to be posted a bit later than before. I may move the release time to another day. The main reason I do it on Mondays is to give people something to look forward to after the weekend ends, but right now the world's in such a weird state that it might not have that much impact in that regard. We'll see!

Question for next time: which canon character would make the most hilarious villain or hero if their alignment swapped?