Chapter 54
.::Phones are Exploding::.
The response to Izuku's introduction was instant.
The phone's speakers had nearly exploded with all the shouting after he spoke up, the noise enough to make him wince. Uraraka meanwhile had abandoned him to his fate, curling up on his bed to quietly groan to herself and scream into his pillow.
He kinda wished he could do the same right now. He'd actually already done that the second Todoroki mentioned waking up next to Dabi, because oh sweet All Might, Todoroki was the "Yuki" Dabi mentioned to Uraraka. Everything added up perfectly, from the fact that Todoroki had trapped him in a glacier to the fact he had a phone Dabi kept calling.
Which meant Dabi was Todoroki's brother.
Izuku seriously, seriously wanted to mute the phone again and just scream for a while. He had no idea if it was unique to this world, but he couldn't see any reason it would be! He and Uraraka had basically had the most panicked game of charades in the history of charades when they realized that, and then they had to mute the phone while Todoroki finished the rest of his story so they could actually talk.
Their conclusion: they were NOT dropping that on Todoroki and everyone else right now. Under literally ANY other circumstance, Izuku would have been all for telling him everything right away because mother of All Might, Dabi was Todoroki's brother! This explained so much, except it didn't really, it just raised all sorts of questions. Why was Dabi a villain? Did he just hate Endeavor that much? Did he want to kill Todoroki, too?
They seriously needed to tell Todoroki all this, and they would. Just, not now. Now was not the time to tell him that bombshell, because Izuku's story was the most insane of all, and everyone would have enough to process from just that.
The giant cacophony of voices finally started to die down as everyone realized he wasn't saying anything, meaning Izuku had no more time to think. "Midoriya?" Jirou pressed sharply. "You're actually Midoriya? Our Midoriya?"
"Yeah, I am," he confirmed with a small cringe. "I guess that makes six..."
"Dude, this is AWESOME!" Kaminari exclaimed. "You're, like, one of the smartest guys in our whole class! And you're like a Quirk expert or something, right? I mean, you keep all those notebooks! You've gotta know how we got here, right?"
"Not... really," Izuku muttered lamely, and he could almost feel the dejection at his response. "I don't really know what could have triggered it. I keep thinking over the last day in our world—by the way, you guys all woke up on Monday, November 14th, right?" he asked just to be sure, and when he got affirmatives he continued, "So yeah, I've thought about the day before, but I can't figure out anything that would tie all of us, specifically, together. And... I don't think any of us would have met in this world, either."
"...Midoriya," Todoroki said, and Izuku flinched because that just reminded him Dabi was Todoroki's brother. "You said Bakugou was captured, right? And that the League of Villains is called the Villain Alliance?" Izuku winced for a different reason now and shrunk in on himself further, Uraraka shooting him a sympathetic glance.
"...Midoriya, you've been missing in this world for over eight years," Anjou said slowly, and he could almost hear the gears turning in her brain. He didn't know her, but Izuku could already tell she was incredibly sharp and observant, almost reminding him of Aizawa or Sir Nighteye. "Where have you been this whole time?"
Izuku sucked in a sharp breath, squeezing the fabric of his pants as he grimaced. Even though she asked, he had a feeling she and everyone else knew the answer. "...You said talking on the phone isn't the most secure, so I can't tell you guys everything," he said after several seconds. "And even then, I don't know everything, either. I just know what I read in a letter to myself."
"A letter?" Jirou repeated, and he nodded.
"Y-yeah. Apparently, I got hit by some Quirk a few years ago that sometimes kinda scrambles my memories, so I wrote a letter to myself to help explain, uh, everything. Like... my parents dying." He hung his head at that, the words almost painful to say even now. He shook his head, frowning as he continued. "And, to answer your question, Anjou-san... I, kinda ran away from home, or the Bakugou house, I guess, and then somehow got adopted by Shigaraki and the Alliance...?"
There was a tense silence after that as everyone processed his statement. "What," Kaminari finally whispered, and that seemed to be all Izuku's nerves needed to fully unravel and have him explode.
"It's true! I don't know how, but when I woke up I was in this room full of hero merchandise except there was none for All Might, and then Shigaraki showed up asking if I still 'felt bad' and—he was actually concerned, guys! He actually sounded really worried and not like he was mocking me or anything! He talked about watching movies and left, and then I found that letter I mentioned that explained everything, and it said to check this list at the end so I did and it mentioned Kacchan—"
He was cut off by a soft whack to his side, gasping in surprise. "Deku, breathe!" Uraraka told him with a worried frown. "You're working yourself up too much!" Staring at her dumbly, after several seconds Izuku slowly nodded and greedily gulped in air while she took over. "What he's trying to say is that after he ran away in this world, he got adopted by Shigaraki and the Villain Alliance at some point. And then something weird happened with a villain, so this world's Deku sometimes just... forgets stuff, I guess?"
She shrugged and shot him a helpless look, and he nodded miserably in confirmation. "Hold on, Midoriya totally said Kacchan at the end of that," Kaminari pointed out, making Izuku wince. "That's what you call Bakugou, isn't it?"
Izuku and Uraraka exchanged grimaces. By this point he'd calmed down a bit thanks to the breathing, so he nodded as he responded. "Yeah, it is. The letter had a list of recent events, so I could keep track of what's going on if I have 'episodes'—that's what the letter calls it when the other me forgets, uh, everything, I guess—and the most recent one was that... Kacchan got captured to be recruited."
"What?" Izuku couldn't tell who said it, the voice barely above a whisper, but their horror was audible in it.
"Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt," he muttered. "I... kinda freaked out really bad. When I visited him, he didn't recognize me though—I mean obviously he did, but not from UA. So he's not our Bakugou. And... it's not just him, either," he added with a frown. "Shinsou's here too. This world's Shinsou, not ours."
"Shinsou?" Ashido repeated, sounding confused.
"He's that gen ed kid you went up against in the first round, right?" Jirou asked. "The one with the... brainwashing Quirk, I think?"
"Yeah, him," Izuku confirmed, grimacing. "I... I didn't even see him for a couple days though. I'd made a note about it on that list, he actually got captured before Kacchan, but... I didn't realize it was him. It didn't use his actual name, it called him Hijack. I guess he's a vigilante in this world? Except... He got captured, and he's..." He trailed off, swallowing harshly before he forced himself to speak. "He's trapped in a muzzle."
Dead silence followed, the horror palpable in the air. "...Fuck," someone whispered, which summed up his feelings pretty well.
"Anjou?" Kirishima spoke up now. "Hey, are you okay? You look really pale."
"No, I'm... not fine," she muttered, voice sounding strained, and Izuku realized she'd been the one to curse just then. "Look, just... Ignore me for a second. You said there's two people there? Bakugou and Shinsou? Are either of them hurt?"
"No, they're not," Izuku said, feeling relieved he could at least say that much. "We started working together to try to work towards escaping. I didn't tell them everything obviously, because it sounds insane, but I showed them the letter. I think my other self might've wanted to help them get out too, so thankfully it didn't take long to convince them. And Shigaraki wants them to join my party, anyway...?"
"Wait, you mean like a party in RPG games?" Kaminari asked.
"Yeah... He likes video games a lot. We were actually out buying games when I ran into Uraraka."
"Oh, so that's why you were out there?" Uraraka piped up in surprise.
"Yeah. And it was so weird," Izuku added with a shiver. "He was talking to the clerk normally and everything! He must be a regular because he called Shigaraki 'Shiro' and they were talking about games. He even had money to buy it!"
"...We are talking about Shigaraki, right?" Jirou asked. "You know, the guy that almost killed Aizawa at the USJ, had Bakugou kidnapped, threatened to disintegrate your neck at the mall or something like that...?"
"I know, I'm just as surprised," Izuku muttered. "But yeah, that's when I ran into Uraraka. I was still really freaked out by everything with Bakugou and Shinsou, so I didn't give her my phone number." He paused then, turning to shoot her a deadpan look that made her flinch as he added more dryly, "And that's when she decided to run away and try to join the Villain Alliance." Uraraka cringed at being called out so openly.
"...You did what." Jirou was perfectly deadpan, making her cringe some more.
"I didn't have any other ideas!" she whined. "I was kinda stuck on constant guard at my house and when I looked up Deku, all I found were articles about his parents dying and that he'd been missing for years! My parents had to both leave me home alone the next day, and I didn't know when I'd get another chance so I just—I just ran, and hoped for the best." She shrank in on herself, looking thoroughly chastised.
"I feel like Aizawa-sensei would expel you over this," Todoroki commented blandly. Maybe it was meant to be a joke, or maybe it was just a casual observation, but either way it had them both wincing and looking at each other with matching grimaces.
Aizawa-sensei.
That was what made this call so tricky and why they were so paranoid about anyone overhearing it. Beyond all the normal concerns about someone finding out Izuku lived with villains—beyond the fact they were holding two teenagers captive against their wills—the Alliance was holding a Pro Hero prisoner. They hadn't been the first ones to capture him, but they were now the ones locking away Eraserhead.
And that—that was a MAJOR red flag, the kind of thing that would spur any eavesdroppers into immediate action.
Izuku gnawed on his lip anxiously as he thought it over. They didn't actually have any real reason to suspect someone might be spying on them, let alone someone who might be able to report it. Sometimes, you had to take a risk to make progress. And if any situation needed progress, it was this one.
"...There's something else," he finally said, and he could see the moment Uraraka recognized his intent. Her expression hardened, nodding at him in silent encouragement and support, and he took a deep breath. "This week, Shigaraki... captured sensei, and kinda gave him to me as a... pet." The word felt like tar on his tongue, ducking his head shamefully.
"...He did what?" Todoroki sounded genuinely horrified, speaking with some of the most emotion he'd ever heard from the other boy. It kind of hammered in how utterly screwed up this whole thing was, making Izuku hang his head further. From the corner of his eye he saw Uraraka shoot him a worried look before taking over.
"It happened right after we met up again—or, kinda, when we met, I guess? Like, uh... So the day we met again, I was found by..." She paused and settled for a vague, "Someone."
"Someone?" Jirou repeated, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.
"We can't really say too much for safety reasons, same as you guys," she mumbled, and Izuku nodded in agreement. "Anyways. I can't say who it is, but I was spying on this place I thought might be the Alliance's base, and a bunch of them showed up following Shigaraki. That's when I was found by this person who's connected to the Alliance somehow—and I'm not just being vague, we really don't get what the connection is. We don't remember them in our world, so no idea from there either. I mentioned Deku, and they took me to their place and made me hot chocolate. And around the same time, I guess that's when the Alliance captured sensei...?"
She shot Izuku a helpless shrug, and he frowned as her words jogged a part of his memory. "There was a raid that day," he muttered. "Magne told me a bit about it later. They wanted to wipe out some rival group, and when they did..."
He trailed off again, unable to finish the thought. "...They found him there, didn't he," Todoroki finished grimly, and Izuku hung his head.
"...He was already in bad shape. I don't know how long he'd been held prisoner, but it's obviously been a while. At least a few months." If Present Mic's signoff was for Aizawa like he thought, it was likely closer to six. "But, I guess the other me is a big fan of him, because instead of just... f-finishing him off," and those words felt like ash, awful and repulsive and horrible on his tongue, "they brought him back. For—for me. They... they broke his leg," he added, and he heard multiple horrified gasps from the phone. "He can't really walk or do... anything, really."
"He's not being, like, t-tortured, right?" Kaminari asked shakily, and Izuku felt so much relief he could honestly shake his head.
"No. Like I said, he's basically supposed to be my... pet," and that still felt so wrong to say, "so, everyone else mostly leaves him alone. It's basically my job to feed him and all that stuff. I've been trying to make him as comfortable as possible and build up his trust so we can get him in on the escape plan, but... It's been pretty slow going. And today he met Bakugou and Shinsou, and I think that probably made it worse."
"Why don't you tell him you WANT to help him?" Kirishima asked.
"Yeah!" Ashido piped up. "I mean, it's sensei! Can't you just tell him everything? Maybe he can help us out too!"
"Okay, before Midoriya says anything, think for a second," Jirou cut in. "How would you feel if you were captured by villains, kidnapped by a different group of villains, given to the leader's kid brother as a pet, and then this kid says he wants you to escape. And also, he says he's from another world." Despite his low mood the deadpan remark had Izuku smiling slightly, amused at how ridiculous it sounded.
"...Okay, never mind, I totally get it," Ashido relented sheepishly. "Sorry, Mido."
"It's... kinda okay, I guess," he sighed. "It's just a really bad situation all around. I'm kinda surprised I haven't had a panic attack yet. Well, except for when I first saw sensei," he added with his shoulders drooping. "That's when Shigaraki had Kurogiri send me here to... that person's apartment." He had to stop himself from referencing Aiko's name. Mentioning it on a potentially unsecure line felt more dangerous than everything else so far for some reason, even revealing Aizawa's captivity.
"Damn," Jirou breathed. "You know, of all the things to happen in this world, I never would have predicted something like... this."
"And here I thought Todoroki had the craziest story," Kaminari added.
"Midoriya," Todoroki said, and then paused. "You're with the League of Villains?" For some reason, Izuku suddenly felt very wary.
"They're called the Villain Alliance in this world, but yeah," he confirmed after a moment. "It's, kinda different from our world's version, but it's got some of the same people. Like Magne, Mr. Compress, Twice... Toga..." He froze then, finally realizing just why he'd suddenly felt that sense of foreboding.
And to confirm his fears, Todoroki then pressed, "Then what about Dabi?"
Izuku shot Uraraka an absolutely panicked look because Dabi was Todoroki's brother and they did NOT need to dump that on him right now. Seriously, everyone had enough to worry about right now! "He's not part of it in this world!" Uraraka blurted while his brain quietly proceeded shut down so he could internally cry.
"...How do you know that?" Todoroki asked after a few seconds, and now Uraraka was the one shooting Izuku a panicked look that got his brain back into gear.
"...He's, uh, not in any of my notebooks?" he replied, voice sounding a bit too high pitched and close to a question. He hastily added, "I mean, I made notes on pretty much everyone in the Alliance, except that person and—oh crap, Seiko." He blanched as he remembered Seiko existed, his panic over Dabi being a Todoroki replaced by the sheer discomfort from the odd girl's existence.
"Seiko?" Ashido repeated, and he blanched again.
"Don't ask," he begged, whimpering. "Please, don't ask."
"...Uh, Uraraka?" Kaminari asked after a few seconds. "Could you, maybe...?"
"I haven't met her, so I don't really know her either...?" She shrugged helplessly. "All I know is that she's a kid in like elementary school, and really freaks out Deku for some reason."
"How scary could a kid be?" Todoroki asked, sounding more confused than anything.
"Depends on the kid, I guess," Jirou said. "I... don't think I've heard someone sound genuinely terrified of one before, though...?"
...They weren't going to let him drop this, were they? Izuku groaned in dismay, realizing he had to tell them something. "I don't know what's wrong with her, but there's just something really off about her," he confided miserably. "Every time we meet, she just feels wrong, and it feels like every time that feeling just gets worse instead of better. I just—I don't know, I just feel this urge to atay away. And the worst part is, she's always in the shadows. She can merge with them or something, so you never know when she's watching."
"Wait, could she be listening now then?" Ashido sounded genuinely alarmed and worried, and Izuku couldn't blame her.
"I don't think so," he replied, shaking his head. "This apartment is apparently the only place she doesn't go, because A—that person made a deal with her or something. I asked Seiko about it too, and she said this place is off-limits. I asked her to tell Kacchan and Shinsou I was leaving anyway, so she'll probably spy on them for a while." He still felt slight guilt for unleashing her on them.
"Wait, you said her name was Seiko?" Anjou said suddenly. "Does she have black hair, cherry blossom hair clip? Eyes kinda like Ashido's, but white instead of yellow?"
Izuku literally jumped at the description, leaping out of the desk chair. "That's her! That's her exactly! Wait," and now he jolted again, eyes bulging as he stared at the phone. "You've met her!?"
"...Once," Anjou said tightly. "I was visiting my brother and noticed this kid kept popping up and watching us while we were shopping. Kept seeing her at different stores. Freaked me the fuck out, you're understating the creep factor. Those eyes feel freaking dead. When I pointed her out to him, he called out to her and told her to stay away from me, and she just vanished. He said she shows up sometimes to watch people when she's bored."
That... absolutely sounded like something Seiko would do. "...Anjou-san, why does your brother know someone connected to the League of Villains?" Todoroki asked.
"Yeah, I honestly have no idea," she admitted after a moment. "Last I checked he's more active with vigilantes than villains." Okay, that was worrisome in its own right. "I don't think he knows her that well though. All he told me is that she finds everything in Odawara interesting." Izuku paused to consider that, and soon found himself nodding.
"Yeah, that kinda checks out, I think." He still had no idea what Seiko did for the Alliance, but he'd gotten the sense that she did nothing but watch people. Pretty much every time she'd helped him or given him information without him directly prompting her had been to make things more "interesting" to observe. "Do you think she'd find whatever is up over there to be as interesting as a bunch of villains?"
"Probably," Anjou replied.
"Absolutely!" Ashido chirped confidently.
"It is pretty unique to this world," Todoroki said thoughtfully—and okay, what did that mean?
"So... Anjou's brother's probably not connected to the villains, then?" Uraraka suggested hesitantly.
"Hopefully not," Izuku murmured, while mentally adding, 'I am so sorry.' Being the subject of Seiko's interest was something worth pitying. "But, yeah. That's... That's all the biggest things on my end, I think." He ducked his head as he finished, feeling absolutely miserable. For a moment no one spoke, the air thick with tension.
"...Okay, I think we can all agree that Midoriya's situation is the most screwed up, and should probably be priority number one," Kaminari finally said, and there was a soft chorus of agreement from the rest.
"Gonna guess you're not up to sharing your location," Anjou remarked.
"Not really," Izuku sighed, and then flinched. "Also, I just realized I forgot to mention this, but Kacchan and Shinsou, uh... have bombs on their ankles."
"...Wait, WHAT?"
"Yeah." By this point Izuku had grown kind of numb to that part, because he no longer felt any real horror as he continued almost blandly, "They're primed to explode if they leave the building, so we'll have to get them off first. No idea how to remove them though, just that there's probably a key."
"Probably?" Todoroki repeated.
"They don't have key holes. Still haven't crossed out Shigaraki just disintegrating them."
"Ah."
"Okay, I don't know who this Shigaraki is, but holy shit," Kirishima whimpered. "I really don't want to meet him."
"Good, you shouldn't," Jirou deadpanned.
"...Ashido, Todoroki, brief us on the League of Villains after this," Anjou ordered. "We need to know what we're up against, and we shouldn't do it over the phone."
"Okay," Todoroki agreed, while Ashido said, "I am so sorry." Izuku felt like that apology summed it up perfectly.
They spent nearly two hours on the phone.
Two hours of the most exhausting game of catch-up ever.
By the time they finally ended the call, Ochako felt mentally and physically exhausted. She all but flopped onto the bed with an exhausted groan, while Deku slumped and laid his head on the desk with a moan of his own.
"...That was so much," he mumbled, voice slightly muffled as his face pressed against the wood, and she could only manage a faint grunt of agreement.
After divulging as much of Deku's adventures as they felt safe sharing, the others filled them in on their speculations thus far regarding other dimension jumpers. So far the most likely candidates left, if anyone else had come here, would be Tokoyami and Hagakure. They had a lead on Tokoyami in the form of Phantom Shadow (and she had a lot of research to do about him), but no leads on Hagakure.
They also now had questions about if anyone from 1-B came over since the others had all met at least one person from 1-B, but they all decided to just assume they hadn't until they learned otherwise.
Then, conversation turned to the plan to escape from the Alliance. Deku had explained some more about their current biggest obstacle, the anklets with bombs built into them. A suggestion from Kaminari to try to fry them into a broken state had been immediately and forcefully vetoed by everyone on the call, as had Kirishima's tentative suggestion to bash them with a rock. ("That's what they do in movies, right?") Unfortunately, they made no real progress on that front.
On the other hand, Shinsou's suggestion about getting a wheelchair for Aizawa through a wheelchair race had been met with a very amused and comparatively cheerful reception. It was the kind of ridiculous and silly idea they needed to hear after such a heavy conversation, lifting the gloomy mood, so it had felt like a good place to leave off.
Overall, they didn't come away with any new plans. Everyone had been too emotionally drained to do any real planning, and they were also all missing key details they couldn't divulge over the phone. It made it too complicated to decide on any solid course of action right then and there, so they'd all agreed to take a day to process everything and have another call the next day. They were reluctant to postpone the conversation since Deku probably wouldn't be able to join tomorrow, but Ochako could relay the key points to him later.
Which meant she had plenty of time to properly freak out about what they'd realized.
"Todoroki is Yuki," she said hollowly as she stared at the ceiling. "Todoroki is Dabi's missing brother."
"Mmhmm," Deku moaned miserably, face still firmly planted on his desk.
"Are they actually brothers?" Ochako mused aloud with a frown. "Could they be like, not actually blood brothers, but he adopted him in this world...? I mean, Todoroki didn't recognize him back at the training camp, right? And Dabi was really nice to me. So maybe he's just really nice to runaways in general, and kinda adopted him after he ran away?" Deku made another muffled groan/grunt, and she rolled her head to look at him. "...Deku, can't you say something? Please?"
"...Dabi's eyes are really blue, and it was dark at the training camp but I noticed because they kinda matched his fire. And his Quirk is fire, which isn't too rare but when I think about it, fire and blue eyes? I don't really know what shade his eyes were because it was dark, but Todoroki's one eye is blue, and so are Endeavor's. And besides all that, Todoroki didn't really spend much time with his siblings as a kid because of Endeavor's training. So if Dabi was his brother and left, and got all those scars afterwards, Todoroki might not recognize him."
The mumbling was slightly muffled by his desk, but Ochako still heard it clearly and felt her nose scrunch up. "...So they're probably biological siblings then," she summed up, and he made a miserable sound of affirmation. Darn it. "Do we tell him tomorrow?"
"I don't know," Deku groaned, somehow pushing his head against the table even more. "He has every right to know and we can't hide it forever, but there's so much going on, we don't need to deal with that, too."
"But if we tell him, Dabi might be able to help us," Ochako pointed out with a frown. "Deku, I spoke to him and I'm telling you, he's a good person in this world. He went out of his way to help me, and the way he talked, he was genuinely worried about Todoroki! And I feel like we need every ally we can get right now."
"We do," he agreed reluctantly. "I haven't seen him or that lizard guy—uh, Kacchan said he was called Spinner, I think...?—in my notebooks in this world, so I don't think he's connected to the Alliance." He lifted his head and turned to look at her with a frown. "But, you're sure he's good in this world?"
Ochako bit her lip and looked down. She wanted to say yes, but the fact was that she'd only met Dabi in person once. He'd been nice and helpful enough at the time, but one meeting didn't mean she knew everything about him. Then there was the fact he'd been the one to point her to Nabu in the first place when she mentioned the Villain Alliance—
She froze and then suddenly lunged to the desk to snatch up her burner phone. Deku startled at the abrupt movement, yelping a surprised, "U-Uraraka?"
Ochako didn't respond, opening up the messages with Dabi. She hadn't texted him again after letting him know she'd made it safely and was staying with Aiko, and her mouth thinned as she read over the short exchange. "Deku," she said. "When I texted Dabi, he sent me this." She turned the screen to show him the last text he'd sent:
'Listen to her and stay away from the Alliance. Also stay away from anything chemistry related. You're still playing a dangerous game kid.'
Deku's eyes widened as he read it, reaching the same conclusion. "Wait, chemistry?" he squeaked, face draining of all color as he gave an involuntary shudder. "Y-you don't think...?"
"Aiko's the friend he mentioned," Ochako confirmed gravely, and he grimaced. Recruiting Dabi's help was probably out if he knew Aiko. They couldn't risk him telling her about their plans. "...We are still going to tell him anyway, right?"
She didn't need to clarify what she meant. "You said Dabi's looking for him, so chances are he'll find Todoroki sooner or later," Deku said with a resigned nod. "It's better to let him know so he's prepared for it. And even if that wasn't going on, he deserves to know anyway," he added with a frown. "Especially since this affects him in both worlds." Ochako could only nod in grim agreement.
The tricky part would be the timing. This was the kind of revelation that could easily derail, well, everything. If she were in his shoes, she wouldn't be able to focus on anything else for a while, even getting home from another world. On top of that they couldn't just do it over a giant group call, this probably wasn't something he'd want everyone to know.
To think, Dabi and Todoroki were brothers... Ochako wasn't sure if that was the most shocking part, or the fact that it meant Dabi was Endeavor's son. For the son of the now-number one Pro Hero to join the League of Villains? "I wonder what made Dabi turn to villainy in our world," she mused to herself. Across from her she noticed Deku suddenly pause as if a thought occurred to him, making her frown. "Deku?"
His face scrunched up as he looked down, clearly struggling with himself. "...I might have some ideas," he finally said after several long seconds. "But I can't tell you because it involves some personal information Todoroki told me, and I don't think he'd like me telling everyone." That made her frown grow further, because that definitely sounded ominous.
(Besides, she might have a guess as to what he thought. Todoroki hadn't hidden his resentment towards his father the few times he came up in conversation, there was definitely some sort of history there.)
"Well, we should probably tell him when he's alone," she decided. No point in pressing for details now, she'd respect Todoroki's privacy.
"I guess we could ask for his phone number," Deku agreed. "Just... need a way to ask without sounding suspicious." Ochako paused, glancing at her phone. Then, slowly, she began typing.
'Hey, can you give me Yuki's number? If he has his phone, maybe he'll answer if I call him.' As she pressed send Deku came over to peer at the screen, eyes widening as he read it.
"Wait, do you think he'd have the number?" he yelped.
"They did say Todoroki still has the phone he woke up with," Ochako replied almost sullenly. "And Dabi told me he's been calling it, too." Even as she spoke the phone chimed with a next text, and they both looked down to see a reply.
'Sure, go for it. If he answers, tell him I say "what the fuck" I'd get more specific but there's too much BS'
He followed it with another text with just a phone number, and they grimaced. "...I'll wait five minutes and say he didn't answer," she said.
"Yeah, that works," Deku agreed, and they both heaved heavy sighs.
To everyone looking forward to the Dabi bombshell: sorry, now is not the time. They'll tell him soon, but this call isn't the time or place.
Question for next time: what would be the most hilarious and inappropriate way to drop the Dabi bombshell?