Chapter 58
.::Memory Games::.
Himiko had a definite bounce to her step as she made her way to the hall with Eraserhead's cell. She carried a sandwich courtesy of some guy whose name she could never remember but who had Kurogiri's approval to cook, perfect for a guy with mittens. Or so she'd been told. She hadn't actually seen Eraserhead since he got kidnapped, everyone had been ordered to stay away from his cell.
Honestly, she hadn't really cared that much about Eraserhead. Sure, Mido-kun talked about him sometimes, but he talked about a bunch of heroes. She never saw him back at that other place, and from what Magne and Twice said he sounded like a crusty old man, not the kind of person she was interested in.
But now Aiko was coming, and Himiko was curious. She knew Aiko had some sort of history with the man, and those yellow goggles she sometimes wore belonged to him. But she didn't know the details or full story behind it, and whenever she asked Aiko just gave her a coy smile and simply said, "He's fun." So yes, Himiko was very curious, and was eager to jump on the opportunity to meet the man to try to understand.
So it was with a bright smile that she rapped on the door to his cell three times in quick succession before pushing it open and skipping inside. "Good morning, Eraserhead-san!" she greeted cheerfully. The captive hero seemed to have been woken up by her entrance, jerking into awareness with a startled gasp.
"Wh-what—" He stopped short as his head twisted towards her, blinking at her with wide, bloodshot eyes. Himiko just grinned as she bounced over to him and dropped into a crouch. This close she could see the heavy bags under his eyes, and the still present bruises around his neck from when Tomu had some people change up his restraints.
"Aww, those bags don't look good at all," she commented, setting down the plate. "Did you have a bad night too?" Eraserhead didn't respond right away, just stared at her blearily. His eyes darted to the plate for the briefest of seconds before returning to her, still wide and rimmed with red.
"Who are you?" he asked roughly. "Where's Midoriya?"
Himiko perked up at the questions. "I'm Toga! Toga Himiko! I'm Mido-chan's friend!" She beamed at him, lips pulled back to show off her sharp incisors. "Mido-chan didn't sleep too well either, so I'm bringing you breakfast instead!"
He stiffened at that, eyes growing just the slightest bit wider. He abruptly snapped his head towards the plate and shifted a bit so he could properly sit up, grunting as it jostled his bad leg. Himiko didn't bother helping, rising from her crouch to skip a few steps back to give him space before plopping back onto the floor. The hero didn't look at her, movements stiff and jagged as he took the food. While he ate she glanced around the cell curiously, noting the pillows, a plate with a single pill and a half-empty water bottle, and another empty plate.
The last one had her tilting her head, and she crawled over to pick it up. "Hey, Eraserhead-san. Did Mido-chan forget to take your dinner plate last night?" She glanced back at him and wondered aloud, "Did he even stay?" The man went even more tense at the question, visibly gritting his teeth as he hung his head.
"Just let me eat in peace," he muttered before taking a bite of his sandwich, and Himiko hummed in thought. That was so defensive. So they had a fight then, didn't they? How strange! How interesting!
How bad.
"You must have really upset Mido-chan if he doesn't want to see you," she commented, and pretended not to notice his flinch as she continued, "He's super nice and friendly to everyone, and never tries to avoid people unless they scare him. And you're totally one of his favorite heroes! So he has to be really upset to stay away and ask someone else to bring you breakfast."
Eraserhead had stopped eating or even moving, head hanging so his bangs hid his eyes from view. He somehow looked even more stiff and rigid, mittened hands gripping the half-eaten sandwich hard enough to leave indents in the bread. Himiko smiled then, leaning forward to pat his shoulder and making him startle and snap his gaze towards her. Their eyes met and she let her smile grow bigger.
"Don't worry though, I won't tell Tomu!" she promised. "As long as you say sorry, Mido-chan will come around eventually, so Tomu doesn't need to know!"
And then Tomu wouldn't get mad and hurt Eraserhead for upsetting Izuku. That was the real danger here. If Tomu thought that Eraserhead made Mido-chan sad for some reason, he might not wait for his side of the story before doing something stupid. That protective instinct of his could make him do rash stuff that just upset Izuku in the end. Himiko would rather not see that happen again, especially since Aiko-nee liked Eraserhead too.
The implied warning seemed to get his attention, the man cringing before putting down the sandwich on the plate. "I'm not hungry anymore," he intoned dully, head bowed and not looking at her. "You can go now."
He'd only eaten half of it, but Himiko just smiled and bobbed her head as she grabbed the plate, stacking it on top of the one from last night. "Okay! Bye bye, Eraserhead! I'll see you later!" She turned and bounced out of the cell, giving him a cheerful wave before closing the door. The last thing she saw was Eraserhead curling on his side to face away from the door.
Ochako had been in the middle of breakfast when she checked her phone to find the messages from Deku. Her chewing slowed to a stop as she read it, cheeks still puffed with bacon as she frowned at the recounting of the weird events last night.
"Something up?" Aiko asked across from her, and Ochako quickly swallowed before shaking her head.
"Not really," she said hastily. "Just saw some weird news, is all." Aiko hummed around a mouthful of bacon, but thankfully didn't press for more details. They lapsed into silence once more as Ochako returned to eating, mulling over Deku's message.
The sudden white-out and disorientation was worrying and alarming, as was the stuff he'd apparently said to Aizawa-sensei. Deku had outlined what he could remember of the conversation, complete with a rough transcript. Like he noted, some of it seemed weirdly specific, and also covered stuff he probably shouldn't know. Ochako had no idea what that might mean.
Good thing they weren't alone in this. Anjou suggested they have the call sooner, and Ochako hadn't wasted a moment agreeing. Which was how one hour later she found herself in the warehouse Deku had told her about, sitting on the couch with the phone pressed to her ear. Aiko hadn't asked many questions thankfully, just lent Ochako a coat from her closet and a pink wig for a disguise. Ochako had to admit, no one would look for her with bubblegum pink hair in two giant, bushy pigtails.
After seeing how different she looked, she ended up taking a picture of the disguise and sent it over the chat. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised that it was the first topic they discussed after the call started. "That's a wig?" Ashido sounded genuinely surprised. "That looks totally real though!"
"I know, right?" Ochako asked, twirling a strand of the hair around her finger. "It's kinda heavy though... I'm not used to having this much hair, I guess."
"Wigs can feel weird," Todoroki agreed.
"When did you wear a wig?" Jirou deadpanned.
"Kamino," he replied, and there was a brief silence as they all processed that.
"Okay, so I know you guys went to Kamino, and talking about that is kinda, you know, taboo," Kaminari said after a few seconds. "But why did you wear a wig?"
"Because they needed disguises, duh!" Ashido replied for him. "Come on Kami, how many people have come up to you after the sports festival!?"
"And UA was kinda all over the news during Kamino," Ochako agreed almost sheepishly, thinking back to the endless news stories about Bakugou's kidnapping. She had to actually cut off all her social media for a while because the clips from her fight with Bakugou at the Sports Festival had been plastered everywhere. It had been too frustrating to go online and see it constantly, especially with all the comments about Bakugou's behavior during it. Everyone seemed to still see her as a victim to his brutal nature, even after Aizawa-sensei called out that pro back then for that very issue.
"Hold on, did everyone wear wigs?" Kaminari asked curiously.
"No. Everyone else just styled their hair differently. Mine's too distinct to do that though, so we grabbed a black one."
"How different could they look?"
"Well, Kirishima had some fake horns that looked like Mirko's ears, Iida had a mustache and Midoriya had a goatee. I think he was going for a 'gangster' look...?" That had them all pausing to digest that information.
"Okay, so for the record, we have zero context so all this makes almost no sense to me and Kirishima." Ochako startled as Anjou spoke up, having genuinely forgotten she'd be listening too. No doubt she and Kirishima were totally confused since they hadn't really explained everything about Kamino. "But that said, picturing Kirishima with rabbit ear-horns is weirdly hilarious."
"Hey," he grumbled.
"Oh, maybe we can do that again!" Ashido exclaimed eagerly. "You already look super-different with red hair! No one would look for you with horns!"
"I could help find similar ones," Todoroki volunteered helpfully.
"Okay, so disguises can actually be useful," Anjou commented before the discussion could devolve further. "Maybe you guys can use that stuff to sneak over to Hosu or something so you can all actually meet up in person. But that's not really the point of this call."
Just like that the mood sobered, the main purpose of the meeting brought up to the forefront of their minds. The idle conversation had been nice and a fun distraction from the constant stress of their situation, but they couldn't put it off forever. There was too much to talk about, and Deku's message was the tip of the iceberg.
"Okay, so I read those messages Midoriya sent, and I'm... kinda confused?" Surprisingly Kirishima started it off. "Like, I kinda get that amnesia thing isn't a thing with him in your world, and it's not total amnesia or anything, but... This kinda sounds like that thing, maybe? Does it normally happen while he's talking to people like that?" Ochako pursed her lips. She hadn't missed the similarities to Deku's vague description of his "episodes" either.
"Maybe it's a sign he's about to forget again?" Todoroki suggested. "Some Quirk effects have warning symptoms before they happen."
"Oh man, Midoriya having one of those things now would be bad," Kaminari groaned. "Really hope that's not what's going on."
"I don't think it is," Ochako said. "We talked about his 'episodes' a bit when we first met up. We don't know for sure, but apparently this world's Deku usually tries to hide them as a kind of game or test or... something, so I don't think it happens when talking to people or has warning signs. But we don't really know much about them other than what that letter said, some stuff in his journals and what he heard from Seiko."
"Well, maybe he can ask her?" Ashido suggested. "You guys said she already thinks he has one, right? So it wouldn't be TOO weird for him to ask!"
"But if it's not normal, she might tell someone else," Jirou pointed out. "And the last thing he needs is scrutiny." Ochako found herself nodding in agreement even if they couldn't see it. Part of her had actually debated asking Aiko about the episodes when she first read his messages, but she had quickly dismissed the thought for those very reasons. They hadn't even decided whether or not to tell Aiko that Ochako knew about the episodes at all, since they didn't want Aiko to ask too many questions about their relationship. Frankly, it was kind of a miracle she hadn't asked many questions yet.
"But if it is connected to his episodes, why is it happening now?" she wondered aloud. "And it's not like he's forgotten everything, or anything really. He still has all his memories, he's just disoriented. So is it really connected to that?" There was a brief silence after that, no one having any answers.
"...Actually, I think it might be," Jirou said, surprising her. "Sorry for the tangent, but there's this thing that's been bugging me. It's kinda small, but I remembered it yesterday while Kaminari was talking about that villain fight, and Midoriya's message this morning kinda reminded me of it...?" She trailed off and Ochako could almost hear her shrug.
"Sure, go for it," Anjou said when no one else responded. "Not like we've got any better ideas."
"Cool. So like I said, it's nothing big or fancy, but after that villain fight when we got onto the roof, Kaminari somehow knew how to open up the rooftop door to his apartment building."
The remark had Ochako feeling more confused than anything, especially when Kaminari muttered, "Oh man, I forgot about that."
"So?" Ashido asked, voicing Ochako's confusion.
"Ashido, we didn't know that roof was my apartment building," Kaminari explained. "I didn't even know we could go to the roof. And even then, I don't know how I knew how to open it. The door wasn't locked, it was just stuck and needed this one trick to open it up. But..."
He trailed off, seeming to search for the right words, and Jirou took over. "He shouldn't have known how to do that. I tried the handle first and just thought it was locked. It never crossed my mind it might just be stuck. He didn't even try to open it normally, either. He just went straight to some weird trick that worked." There was a brief silence after that, Ochako finally understanding just why it bothered her.
"...Maybe he remembered how it worked?" Kirishima finally said.
"What?" Kaminari said. "No, that's impossible, how would I remember it? I'm not from this world!"
"Actually, he might be onto something," Anjou said, catching Ochako further off-guard. "Ashido, why did you trust me so much?"
"Huh?" Ashido sounded surprised before saying, "Well, we're friends, right? We hung out every day after I woke up here and you seemed super cool and dependable!"
"Then what's my given name?" Anjou asked, and Ashido didn't reply right away.
"It's Ran, right?" Ochako said awkwardly after a few seconds of dead silence. "You said it at the start of the call yesterday."
"Yep."
"I totally knew that!" Ashido said quickly.
"And when did you learn it?" Anjou countered, and once more Ashido was silent. "Kaminari, you seem similar to Ashido. Mind answering a question?"
Ochako perked up, curiosity piqued as Kaminari replied with faint confusion in his tone. "Uh, sure, I guess?"
"Imagine you had a friend in this dimension. You technically don't know that person, don't even know their full name, but you spend every day with them at school. Finally you tell that friend that you're from another world, and they say they believe you, and might be able to help you. But to do that, they say you'll have to run away and cut off all contact with everyone you know. You don't know where you're going, and you have to ride in a car, alone, with a total stranger. You can't even take your phone, you just have a burner they give you. What is your reaction?"
Kaminari was silent for a moment as he thought it over. "I'd... be kinda suspicious, I guess," he said slowly, before correcting himself, "Actually, no, I think I'd be really suspicious. I mean, even if we're friends, that all sounds super shady, y'know? I'd probably think that car's actually taking me to a mental hospital or something."
"And yet Ashido got in without an ounce of hesitation," Anjou remarked. "She didn't even stop when she could hear people shouting and screaming from the distraction."
"That is really weird," Jirou muttered. "That sounds like a massive trap to me."
"But, but I wasn't alone!" Ashido protested. "Kiri was there too! And Kumiko didn't come with us, but she helped with all the planning so she knew about it too! Kiri, you wouldn't have gone along if you thought it was dangerous, right?"
"Actually, I only really went along because you seemed to trust Anjou so much," Kirishima said meekly. "She was kinda freaky when she talked about why she believed you. I mean, she said she ran a background check on Jirou and Ingenium's brother, and even figured out the patrol schedule for Ingenium's agency!" That had Ochako almost jumping in surprise, some dust flying up from the couch and making her cough.
"You ran a background check on me?" Jirou demanded. "Why, and when?"
"A friend of mine asked for reasons," Anjou replied. "I can't say more over the phone, too insecure. All that matters is that it wasn't for anything illegal, and it convinced me to believe Ashido instead of writing her off as crazy."
"You know, saying it's not illegal doesn't really help," Kirishima muttered.
"Yeah, I don't think 'illegal' means as much here," Ochako mumbled, thinking back to everything she'd seen and experienced since running away.
"But it's An-chan!" Ashido exploded. "She's not a bad person, even if she's a FacePage hacker!"
"...Yeah, that's another thing," Anjou drawled. "You dropped the whole 'logged into your FacePage to read your messages' thing pretty easily. Most people would be more upset about that."
Ochako was definitely alert now, even as Ashido protested, "You were just making sure I wasn't being catfished! I'm still not happy about it, but it came from a good place and that's just how you are."
"And that's the thing: You don't know that." Ashido fell dead silent as the other girl continued, "From your viewpoint you honestly shouldn't know me at all, but you trust me as if you do. You were willing to run away, alone, without your phone or any way to contact anyone you knew, all because I told you to. You don't put that sort of trust in someone you've only known for two, three weeks tops."
"What are you getting at?" Ashido asked.
"This is total conjecture, so I could be absolutely wrong. But I think you guys still have some memories of this world stored in your subconscious." That had them all sucking in sharp breaths.
"If we do, I haven't noticed anything," Kaminari replied tightly.
"Same," Ochako muttered.
"Me neither," Todoroki agreed.
"Says the guy still hanging onto a cell phone that an apparent villain keeps calling," Anjou retorted, and he went silent while Ochako stiffened at the reminder that Dabi was Todoroki's brother. She really needed to talk to him about that, but now was not the time.
"Good, so I'm not the only one who thinks that," Jirou said with an obvious sigh of relief. "Feels less crazy hearing someone else say it."
"Wait, what?" Kaminari yelped. "You never mentioned it to me!"
"It only really occurred to me this morning when I saw Midoriya's message. I was still thinking about the rooftop thing after yesterday. But that's not even the only time that sort of thing happened. When I had to go to the school to take that test, I had to check my phone a couple times after leaving Kaminari's apartment. But after a certain point I didn't need it anymore. I didn't even notice at the time. And after the test, I was able to get back to the school entrance alone without any help."
Ochako frowned as she listened, gears starting to turn in her head even as others spoke. "Actually, come to think of it, I figured out how to reach school pretty fast too," Kaminari said slowly. "The other day I cut through this alley as a shortcut, but I'd never used it before. And then we had a PE class in a different building than usual, and I didn't need any help finding the changing rooms there."
"Well I haven't noticed anything weird!" Ashido declared.
"You got the hang of navigating the school pretty fast," Anjou pointed out. "Even the chemistry class on Fridays after lunch."
"Oh yeah, that one's in a totally different part of the building from the rest of our classes," Kirishima agreed. "I remember the first month the teacher always waited five minutes before starting because someone would always be late because they got lost."
"...Okay, yeah, it is weird I could find it," Ashido agreed.
Ochako had no similar experiences so she couldn't really relate, but she couldn't help frowning as she mulled over it. "I did adjust to life here pretty fast, I guess," she mumbled, "but I don't know if it's because of subconscious memories though. I mean, I mostly just stayed at home or went with dad to construction sites before I ran away. But if this subconscious memory thing is true, what does that mean?"
"I don't know," Anjou replied. "Could mean the memories are tied more to your bodies. Or this really is a weird and insane conspiracy and everyone had fake memories implanted." The last part had Ochako's face wrinkling with annoyance, but thankfully Anjou added, "But at this point, there's too many weirdly specific details so that's somehow the most insane option." Her voice took on a familiar dry note of "what even is my life anymore" that Ochako could fully sympathize with. "But that said, that transcript Midoriya wrote freaks me out."
"What part?" Todoroki asked curiously.
"The end, right before... whatever happened. It feels like he must've said something to trigger it, or been about to say something." Ochako frowned, feeling a creeping sense of discomfort. Honestly, that part stuck out to her too, among other things he'd said. Like his responses to Aizawa about why he wouldn't go to the police. Her mind flitted to Aiko returning last night, how she'd been so cheerful and friendly when Ochako saw her in the hallway about to enter her apartment.
(How the hem of her pants were torn and she had one boot missing, and how her sleeve had specks of blood on it.)
"Guys, I don't think Deku's wrong about how dangerous it is going to heroes," she said slowly. "There's people we know nothing about in this world. We really don't know who we can trust. And the Alliance... it feels like it's more, I don't know, powerful than the League of Villains. And I mean, the League attacked us at USJ and found the training camp, so..." She trailed off with a grimace.
"Wait," Jirou said. "You don't think they'd have a spy or something in the heroes, right?"
Ochako's grimace grew even stronger to the point her cheeks almost hurt. "I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised," she admitted sullenly. If anything, she'd be surprised if there wasn't some villainous spy among the heroes with how screwed up this world seemed to be. Maybe not for the Villain Alliance, but there were plenty of other organizations too.
"Actually, I think the bigger concern is the Hero Commission," Todoroki commented thoughtfully, surprising her.
"Huh?" Ashido asked. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know much, but... I think there's definitely some shady stuff. When I started at UA, my father warned me to be careful if anyone from there ever approached me." That was really surprising, having her sitting up straighter. "He said they're good as allies and have decent resources, but they have a policy of treating heroes more as assets. He didn't go into too much detail, but he seemed wary of them."
Ochako felt a distinct tension as they listened to him, the air growing heavy in the empty warehouse. She had never heard about any of this before—honestly, she'd never really thought about the Commission beyond the rankings and public information. "Wait, do you think that thing about Hawks might be true then?" Kaminari asked breathlessly, and Ochako's eyes widened in alarm.
"Maybe?" Todoroki sounded unsure, making her wince. Please, please, please be wrong... "I never met him so I don't know. But..." Oh dang it, there was a but. "When he warned me about it, he said he once had to help get them to back off trying to get custody of someone. He didn't give me all the details, but in that same conversation he mentioned something about them valuing Quirks too much. It felt hypocritical coming from him."
"I take it he's elitist about powerful Quirks?" Anjou asked dryly, and there was a brief pause on Todoroki's end.
"Okay, so Todo looks kinda weird, so I think we need to change the topic," Ashido piped up after a few seconds a little more high-pitched than usual, making Ochako frown. This really did not ease her growing concerns about Todoroki's home life, seeing as something had to drive Dabi to villainy and oh sweet All Might, Dabi was a Todoroki. Dang it brain, stop thinking about that already!
"Okay!" she piped up, clapping her hands and dispelling the thoughts before to summarize. "So to summarize everything! We might all have subconscious memories or something, and everything Deku said last night was probably connected to his memories, right?"
"Sounds about right, I guess," Kaminari agreed quickly.
"Seems like it," Anjou added.
"Yeah," Jirou muttered. "So going by all this, and that one line about the world, what are the chances that this world's Midoriya got caught up in some crazy conspiracy beyond the Villain Alliance, and involving the Hero Commission could be just as bad?"
Somehow, the resounding silence felt like answer enough.
"Dang it," Kaminari groaned. "Why couldn't this just be a simple 'call the heroes and beat the bad guy' thing?"
"Honestly, even if we did call heroes, now I don't want the Commission to hear about the dimension jumping," Ashido moaned pitifully. "All that stuff Todo said is making me super-paranoid!"
"Yeah, me too, and I'm barely involved in this," Kirishima grumbled.
"Honestly, I'd be against calling them anyway," Anjou piped up. "Or at least right now. Even without the risk of some other conspiracies going on there, which I'm kinda leaning towards, they'd probably want to question everyone involved. And not sure how much investigation we could get done after that since you'd all be in custody."
"This is so complicated," Ochako groaned, pressing a hand to her face.
"Guess we should focus on what we can do then," Todoroki remarked. "Does anyone have any ideas on how to get everyone out?"
"It would help if we had some more details," Jirou said, and Ochako winced at the pointed remark.
"Sorry, I'm still not comfortable sharing everything over the phone," she muttered guiltily.
"Us either," Anjou added with a sigh. "Sorry, it's complicated."
"Then maybe we can, you know, meet in person?" Kaminari suggested eagerly. "You guys can come to Hosu, or we can all go to Odawara! But uh, I guess it'd be tricky for Midoriya to leave, huh," he added dejectedly.
"It would," Ochako agreed glumly.
"And guessing you still don't want to say where you are," Anjou muttered.
"...Not really." Saying the city with the Alliance's base over the phone still felt too risky. "I don't even know where you guys would stay overnight, either..."
"Honestly, a meeting in person would be best," Anjou said. "I'd prefer to meet all of you so I could tag you with my Quirk, but I've got to go back to Kamino today because I still have school tomorrow."
"Your Quirk?" Kaminari repeated curiously.
"It actually would be useful," Todoroki murmured.
"Yeah, totally!" Ashido agreed brightly. "I mean, I don't remember all the details and I'm pretty sure there's more stuff I don't know, but it can—"
"I'd rather not say it over the phone," Anjou cut in sharply. "You know, paranoia saves lives and all that. But now I'm thinking, if you guys can all get to Odawara, I can at least leave a letter explaining everything. I'd rather do it in person, but like I said, I've got to go back to Kamino, and the police might be watching me since they're looking for Ashido and Kirishima. But if you agree to let me use it, maybe you can head over to Kamino and we can meet up just long enough for me to tag you. I'd only need to touch you for a couple seconds for it to work."
Listening to her made Ochako frown in thought, her curiosity rising. There did seem to be something big going on in Odawara since they were all so cagey about their answers, and even Todoroki said Anjou's Quirk would be useful. More than that though, she'd like to be able to talk to everyone in person. Talking to them over the phone was great, but it still felt so distant. She wouldn't feel like this was really happening until she actually saw them with her own eyes.
"I can probably make a day trip to Odawara," she said after a few seconds. It wasn't too far from Nabu, Nabu was right on the border to the next prefecture where it was. "And maybe even a trip to Kamino, too, since I have the wig."
"Yeah, no one would recognize you with that!" Ashido exclaimed. "Oh! Oh! Chako-chan, do you have more wigs? Do you think one could hide my horns?" Ochako paused at the question, thinking to when Aiko led her to an apartment across the hallway and opened a bedroom door to reveal shelves with row upon rows of wigs. The room also had a lot of clothes, too; actually, the clothing racks far outnumbered the wigs, but the literal rainbow of wigs had been more eye-catching.
"Yes," she said firmly. "Give me a color and style request, and I'll see if I can get it." Ashido whooped in excitement and quickly listed off some ideas. It might be presumptive to answer like that without even asking Aiko first, but something told Ochako that she would be more than happy to help find a wig for someone with horns like Ashido's. The woman seemed oddly passionate about disguises, and it had taken some effort to not get a full makeover from her.
And besides, AIko already knew Ochako had an online friend, so it wouldn't be too hard to explain the whole runaway situation to her. She could use delivering the wig as a pretext for the trip to Odawara.
"Kaminari and I can probably head over to Odawara tomorrow too," Jirou said when Ashido finished. "Or any day that works for Uraraka, really. We're both doing school online, so we can catch a train after the morning check-in."
"I should be able to come over tomorrow too," Ochako agreed with a nod, feeling a little bit of relief at being able to meet them all in person to explain everything. Relief, and excitement. They'd been waiting to meet other people from 1-A for so long, and now that it was finally happening she couldn't wait! Still, one little detail dampened her excitement though. "I just wish Deku could come too..."
Her remark seemed to sober everyone's mood, a sense of tension palpable even over the phones. "We'll figure something out," Jirou promised. "Maybe tomorrow when we all meet."
"Yeah, we're not leaving Midoriya in the dark!" Kaminari added.
"We'll find a way to meet Mido-kun soon, just you wait!" Ashido declared cheerfully, and Ochako smiled. Things might be looking up.
Today fucking sucked.
First off, Deku never showed up that morning. No, that Toga chick did to bring Katsuki breakfast (which was just sandwiches) and drag him over to Hijack's cell. Apparently Deku was feeling down or something and wanted to stay in his room for a while, he didn't know the details and neither did she. She just figured it'd be "boring" to sit around alone in his cell, which she wasn't wrong about.
But then she'd hung around for about half an hour to just talk to them before she finally left. She wasn't too bad compared to some of the freaks around here, but she was still a fucking psycho with a creepy obsession with Hijack. It clearly rattled his nerves, so of course Katsuki booted up Mario Kart to get his mind off it. He even let the guy win a race because it took two rounds for him to finally focus on it.
And then fucking Seiko appeared to watch them play. Again.
Katsuki didn't even know how long she was there. He only realized when the cat suddenly jumped and darted behind Hijack, and when they looked over there she was, sitting on the floor by the bed staring at the TV. No words or even anything to show she noticed them notice there, just sitting there with her head staring forward at the screen in total silence.
It almost gave Katsuki a heart attack. Then Eyebags actually offered to let her play for some damn reason, but she'd refused and said she just wanted to watch. So they just went back to racing, trying to ignore her and how the cat kept hissing and shrinking away. Given how silent Seiko was, that should be easy, but it wasn't. How the hell did someone cause so much stress by just being there?
By the time the door finally opened and the nerd walked in, Katsuki's nerves were just at their end. "Hey guys—Seiko?" He startled upon seeing Seiko watching the TV, and of course she turned to look at him, dead silent. Deku just stared at her wide-eyed, almost dropping the notebook he was holding. "Uh."
"Where the hell were you," Katsuki seethed as he jabbed the pause button. He considered it very impressive he didn't shout or explode his controller given how on edge he was.
"I had a... weird night and morning...?" Deku trailed off and remained in the doorway, eying Seiko warily while the creepy brat turned back to the screen. "Um, why are you here?"
"I'm watching the race. The pink one keeps losing." Okay, what the actual fuck. Katsuki had no idea how to respond to that, and neither did Deku or Eyebags judging by their silence.
"Deku, just get get inside already and close the door," he snapped instead, and that seemed to snap Deku out of his stupor and scramble inside. Before he could close the door though Sushi suddenly jumped off the bed and raced out like a bat out of hell, making Hijack shout in muffled indignation and horror. Deku jumped with a yelp as the cat darted around his legs to squeeze through the gap.
"Oh, shoot, sorry Hijack! I'll go catch her! Just—here!" He sprinted over to the bed and shoved the notebook at Katsuki. "Hold onto this while I'm gone, I'll be back later." He turned and sprinted back to the door, but then paused in the frame before turning around. "Uh, Seiko, c-could you maybe help look too?"
The creepy brat turned her head to look at him, and Katsuki tried not to focus on how that was literally the only motion she made. Just her neck turning perfectly smoothly, her head not even bobbing even a little with the movement. "Why?"
"Because I kinda have no idea which way Sushi ran, and the base is kinda... big." Deku rubbed the back of his neck, and after several moments she finally gave a solitary nod and her head turned forward again.
"Fine." With that she disappeared into the floor, the shadows reaching out to envelop her without her even bothering to stand up. All at once Katsuki felt a good chunk of his tension fade, and Deku breathed a small sigh of relief.
"I'll be back after I find Sushi. Keep an eye on my notebook until I'm back." He hurried out and closed the door, but the last remark had Katsuki's eyes narrowing. He turned the notebook over in his hands and quickly noticed one of the pages had the corner folded over, so he flipped it open to there. Hijack leaned over to look as well, clearly picking up on Deku's barely hidden message to read the damn notebook.
'We have more allies outside now. Can't give many details because it's too risky & we only briefed them last night so nothing solid planned yet, but we can trust them. You-know-who will handle calls and keep it updated because it's too risky to do it here. I wrote some basic stuff about them on the next page, so read it now because we need to destroy this later. Let me know if you've got any ideas from it, I'll keep you updated on any plans.'
The message had Katsuki quietly scoffing, and even Eyebags looked a bit suspicious. "Think this is credible?" he asked flatly, and the vigilante shrugged, grabbing the whiteboard and a marker instead of his phone this time.
'Do we have any choice?' he wrote. The answer: Not really. Katsuki huffed as he flipped to the next page, and as promised Deku had scribbled down some basic stuff on the allies.
He'd somehow found a total of five other people, including the floaty chick they already knew about. None of them were police or Pro Heroes, which would have been the most helpful right now, but he had to raise an eyebrow at their descriptions. A pair of vigilantes with some kind of electricity Quirk and a sound-based one, a girl who could produce acid or some shit, and a guy who who could make fire and ice. It was a weird and random group, and he had questions on how they got involved in this.
Still, one detail caught his eye. The vigilantes had an inventor friend apparently, who wasn't in on this situation, but Deku thought that they could provide some decent resources. That part at least could be useful, and when he glanced at Hijack he could tell he probably had some ideas too.
With the way things were going, they could use any allies they could get.
Fun fact: Jirou originally mentioned the rooftop thing in the original phone call. Because of that, I have two other drafts of this revelation from Kaminari and Izuku's POV. Also the manga is still chaotic and didn't really give any direct confirmation on that one character's status, but hopefully the initial fervor has died down a bit. But anime-only fans should still be careful.
Question for next time: What do you think the Ignite counterpart of a character we haven't seen yet is up to? (By the way, if you have any suggestions for these questions, throw them out!)