Chapter 71
.::All in Good Spirit::.
Like with Uraraka, the reunion with Midoriya had been going smoothly for the most part. Denki had gotten to talk to and hug his classmate, managed to keep his distance from Toga, and even got to see his teacher's counterpart. The last bit filled him with some bittersweet pangs of homesickness, but nothing too bad. The table had some cards and pictures waiting to be signed, just headshots and stuff, and Denki wondered if maybe he should grab one for his counterpart as an apology for, well, everything.
Then just as Midoriya went up to the table the sound of the crowd suddenly cut out, and Anjou's voice whispered as if she were right next to him. "Kaminari, get Kubo away from Present Mic. Jirou just messaged that he knows his face."
Just like that Denki's good mood evaporated and was replaced by dread. The chatter of the crowd returned as soon as Anjou finished speaking, and he glanced back to see Anjou had moved away from Toga, giving him a pointed look. He had no time to ponder what just happened because Midoriya's voice got his attention—specifically:
"Oh, it's Izuku." Denki turned back just in time to see Midoriya tense, no doubt realizing his own mistake. It took a lot of self-control for Denki to not freak out and openly stare at him, because seriously dude!?
Maybe disembodied voice made him paranoid, but when he looked at Mic for his reaction, Denki had zero doubts he recognized Midoriya. He had no specific reasons, but he just had this gut feeling that Mic knew something. A gut feeling which felt validated when Mic suggested Midoriya hang around until after the signing to "talk more." Even Denki could recognize Mic had ulterior motives despite how casually he phrased it.
Panic briefly seized him as he recognized the urgency of the situation, scrambling to think of a way out as Midoriya no doubt internally freaked out over all this. He couldn't give away his connection to Midoriya or he'd be under suspicion too. He glanced back at Anjou again, trying to find inspiration, but found his attention drawn to Toga who'd started jumping and waving her arms for some reason.
Excuse found. "Hey dude," he said to Midoriya. "I think your friend's waving at you." Midoriya turned to look at Toga, and Denki could see the brief flash of relief on his friend's face before turning back to turn Mic down. Soon enough Midoriya was running off to join Toga, Mic's gaze lingering on him as he vanished and smile fading ever so slightly.
Nope. Denki quickly stepped forward to take Midoriya's place, successfully drawing the Pro's attention. "Dude, can I get one of those postcards?" he asked, pointing at the pile. "The design's like, super cool!" It actually was, featuring a stylized drawing of Mic's head speaking into a microphone, but mostly Denki wanted to distract him. Mic's smile returned at full power as he snagged one from the pile.
"You got it!" he said in English. He drew a line from the microphone like a cord to spell the word "Mic" in looping cursive English. "Say, you know that kid just now?"
Yep, Mic definitely recognized Midoriya. "Not really?" Denki replied with a shrug as he took the card. "We were just talking 'cause we were heading the same way and he had that poster, so, you know, obviously a fan. Never met him before." He really hoped none of these people had a lie-detecting Quirk. "You're really interested in him, aren't you?"
"Just neat to find a long-time fan," Mic replied with a shrug. He wrote "Present" above the microphone cord, also in English, crossing the t with a flourish before scribbling the more familiar katakana characters below. "Want me to add your name?"
"Oh, sure! Make it out to Denki. The 'den' is electricity, 'ki' is spirit!"
"Ooh, cool, cool! Don't think I've heard that one before!" Mic nodded as he added Denki's name and pushed the card forward with a grin. "Nice meeting you, little listener!"
"You too, sir!" Denki agreed, and took the card before leaving to join up Anjou. As he reached her he almost slumped with relief. "Holy shit, that was nerve-wracking."
"Come on, let's go back to my place," she said, already starting to walk away.
"What happened with the bit where I suddenly heard your voice, anyway?" he asked as he followed her. "Are our minds linked or something?"
"No, I just swapped our hearing." That had him pausing and shooting her a quizzical look.
"Wait, is that part of the hijacking thing you mentioned, or...?"
"Guess you're not a total idiot after all," she snickered, and ignored his glare as she continued, "It's basically kinda like I'm hacking into your senses. I could keep mine, but my brain isn't designed to handle the input from two sets at once. So, I usually just swap them to avoid sensory overload."
"Huh," he said softly. "Neat." They spent the rest of the walk back to her apartment in relative peace and quiet. Upon arriving Anjou sat on the bed to quickly read Midoriya's letter while Denki got out his phone. Since he last checked, Jirou had sent a couple messages in a group message to him, Midoriya and Anjou. Midoriya hadn't replied yet, so most of the conversation had been between Jirou and Anjou.
'powerofmusic: Present Mic knows Deku's face!
powerofmusic:The heroes made a picture based on someone who met him, and the people at UA got a photo in the last month. They know he's connected to the League!
nettmegg: Passed on warning to Chargebolt. Deku is talking to PM right now. How do you know this?
powerofmusic: This is going to sound crazy, but there's a guy here claiming he's a ghost and followed around the hero Dancing Queen and Riot when they headed out.'
"What?" Denki asked out loud.
"Just saw the ghost bit?" Anjou guessed, still skimming the letter.
"Uh, yeah. What the heck?"
"Keep reading. I need to focus."
'nettmegg: what the heck?
powerofmusic: yeah I know. Long story, but apparently he followed them here when they ran off and has been here since then. And I guess that Glitch guy's Quirk is "compatible" with him or something, because normally people can't see him?
powerofmusic: I don't know, it's weird as hell. He says he won't tell anyone about the stuff in your letter, and he can't call anyone because ghosts can't use phones or whatever. Dunno how true that is. But I'm kinda at my limit with weird mysterious BS that makes no sense, and I think he's implying he knows SOMETHING about our situation?
powerofmusic: so Chargebolt, head back ASAP so we can get answers.'
Denki frowned as he finished reading the conversation. There was a lot to unpack there, and he had a lot of questions about this guy. Like, was he actually a ghost? And did he really know something?
As he pondered this Anjou finished reading Midoriya's letter and folded it back up, and suddenly it was thrust into Denki's lap along with the scale Kabuto gave him. "Alright, time to go back," she announced while he stared at it.
"Wait, hold on. I'm supposed to leave this with you? And take a train back to Odawara?"
"That was the plan before a ghost showed up, and before we realized heroes knew Midoriya's face," Anjou replied bluntly. "I don't know if he saw enough to clock onto the fact that you and Midoriya know each other, but the sooner you get back, and the less security footage of you getting on a train to Odawara, the better."
...It was hard to argue with that logic. "Kabuto won't like it," he said as he got up, gripping the scale with both hands.
"I already texted him, he can give another scale to Kuroe by the end of the week," Anjou dismissed. "He doesn't have school, so it's way easier for him to visit me than the other way around. Rintaro can live with it." Denki opened his mouth to respond but then paused.
"Wait, Rintaro?" Anjou tensed briefly before glowering at him.
"You will not repeat that," she told him lowly. "Now break that stupid scale and go!" Denki bobbed his head and quickly snapped the scale, and just like that he was back in Odawara. It was pretty jarring to go from Anjou's brightly lit apartment to the dimly lit abandoned kitchen. He appeared next to a counter with a matching purple scale on it, and a sulking Kabuto not too far away.
Since he'd left Ojiro and Monoma had shown up, along with two other guys he didn't know at all. Denki assumed the guy floating out of Monoma's reach was the supposed ghost. "Seriously, just give it up," he said.
"Never!" Monoma hissed, scrabbling at him, while Ojiro and the other runaways just looked done with the situation. Denki just stood there awkwardly until Ashido happened to glance his way and promptly squealed before tackling him in a hug.
"Kami, you're back! I missed you so much!"
"He wasn't even gone a full hour," Jirou deadpanned, while Rogue frowned.
"Hold on, did you break Kabuto's other scale? Wasn't the plan to ride a train back?"
"Ran is a jerk sometimes," Kabuto grumbled, and okay, so they were both on a first-name basis? Interesting, but unimportant.
"Uh, yeah, but since Mic recognized Midoriya, she said I should just teleport back, just to be safe," Denki said with a shrug. "She didn't want them to see me getting on a train and try to follow me since he saw us talking, too." Several of the others perked up.
"So he did recognize Deku?" Uraraka asked, and Denki nodded.
"He didn't say it out loud, but he tried to get Midoriya to stay after the signing, so uh, pretty obvious he recognized him."
"So you weren't lying about that," Shouji murmured, gazing at the ghost, who just shrugged.
"Why would I lie? I currently have a personal interest in not letting Midoriya get caught by Pro Heroes and whisked away for questioning."
"Uh, sorry to interrupt, but who are you?" Denki asked nervously. "'Cause Jirou mentioned there's a ghost that followed Ashido and Kirishima, and I'm guessing she means you, but...?"
The specter nodded, straightening out of his relaxed reclining position to sit cross-legged in the air. "Mail," he introduced himself. "And yes, I am a ghost. But I'm not gonna bother trying to convince you because these guys don't believe it either."
"Because ghosts aren't real!" Monoma snapped, still trying to grab him.
"Seriously kid, stop. Bad things happen when people touch me."
"If you're a ghost, then I shouldn't be able to touch you!"
"Yeah, well, I'm not a normal ghost," Mail deadpanned, and turned his attention back to Denki. "Anyways, yeah, I followed those two when they made their grand getaway," he gestured towards Ashido and Kirishima, "and I've been hanging around since then. And I have to say, this is the most entertainment I've had in years. Watching you guys has been better than messing with the interns back at the agency!"
"Agency?" Denki repeated.
"I stay with Sir Nighteye because my sister works for him," he said with a shrug. "That, and there's a guy with another compatible illusion Quirk there. Hey Glitch, are you related to Figment?" he asked, glancing at the other guy Denki didn't recognize.
"Who?" he asked blankly, voice borderline hostile and also fluctuating in pitch.
"Hmm, guess not," Mail murmured. "Then, how about Utsushimi?" That had Glitch looking noticeably stiff and tense, not responding, and Mail perked up. "Oh? Interesting."
"Utsushimi," Todoroki murmured, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you mean Camie?" Mail glanced at him with mild surprise and interest.
"You know her?"
"She's in my remedial class for our provisional licenses, along with Bakugou." Mail paused, eying him quizzically.
"Hold on, aren't you guys first years? Provisional licenses were a year two thing, weren't they? I know Camie's year two, so."
"We're having a really weird year," Uraraka said tiredly, which was an understatement.
"...Okay then, fair enough." Mail shrugged before turning his attention to Denki. "But enough about that stuff. You went to meet Midoriya and get that letter about whatever Uraraka can't say, right?" Denki tensed at the reminder, suddenly hyper-aware of the papers Midoriya gave him, but before he could speak Todoroki stepped between them.
"We're not reading that with you here," he declared bluntly, getting nearly everyone else nodding in agreement.
"You've spied on us enough, we're not letting you eavesdrop anymore," Kirishima added sharply.
"Yeah, it was bad enough Yaomomo listened!" Ashido said with a glare. "But at least we know her! You're just a creepy stalker stranger!"
"Rude," Mail huffed, though he looked more amused than offended. "You really think you can stop me?"
"We can just send you somewhere else with Glitch," Rogue interjected flatly. "As long as he can see you, you can't spy on them. We've gotta send everyone else off before anyway, so."
"Which I still have some mild objections to," Monoma commented lightly, before glancing at Rogue to ask, "And what's this about a letter?"
"Nope. Not telling you. Objection overruled. Don't make me get Lee to drag you out." Monoma glared at him while Ojiro just looked resigned, but they were soon derailed by Mail loudly sighing.
"Fine, fine. I won't pry," he declared with a shrug. "Ultimately I am the outsider who can't be trusted yet, so fair enough. Not like I can read the letter myself, so I'd need you guys to read it to me anyway."
"You can't read?" Denki asked in surprise.
"Apparently he came from another country and learned Japanese by stalking grade school students," Ashido muttered, and Mail jolted and dropped his cool demeanor to scowl at her.
"Hey! Don't say it like that, it makes me sound like a creep!"
"That's because following little kids is creepy!"
"It's not like—ugh!" He threw up his arms in exasperation. "Screw it, I am not having this argument with you." Ashido just glared and stuck out her tongue.
"Hey, now that he's here, can we get back to the part where you mentioned you had a personal interest in these guys?" Ojiro cut in. "Because it sounded like you had something you wanted to say about that, and I'm pretty curious about that."
"I did," Mail agreed with a nod, regaining some of his cool composure. "Shouji." Shouji straightened sharply at being addressed, Mail turning to look at him. "Do you mind telling everyone about your dream?"
"So you heard that too, huh," Todoroki muttered darkly while Denki perked up.
"Dream?" he repeated in confusion.
"Does this have to do with those memories you mentioned earlier?" Jirou asked, and added to Denki, "After you left, these guys mentioned something about how the other world thing matches up with his memories."
"Wait, what?" Denki whirled to stare at Shouji wide-eyed, blurting, "Dude, you remember our world too?"
"Not exactly." Shouji crossed his arms, gazing back at Mail steadily. "You were listening back then?"
"To every word," the apparent ghost confirmed with a nod, and gestured to the room. "Go on, tell them. It's some pretty major information, and I don't want to steal your thunder." Shouji huffed before turning to face the room at large.
"Fine. It happened around the start of November. I decided to go on a walk in a park when I met a foreigner..."
As he retold the tale of his encounter for the third time, Mezou found the words came almost naturally now. Last time he'd been admittedly stilted in his delivery, having been put on the spot by Anjou and struggling to recall everything clearly. Since then he'd spent a good chunk of time thinking about that day though, making it easier to recount the details. Everyone listened in silence until he repeated the fateful question that had started everything.
"Multiverse theory?" Jirou repeated in shock while Uraraka and Kaminari both dropped their jaws in shock. Everyone else had already heard it and didn't react—well, except for Houjou, who looked just as stunned as the other first-time listeners. For safety reasons, they'd chosen to conceal the details of Mezou's dream from the rest of the runaways. No point bogging them down with overall unnecessary details (or opening the door for more curious questioning).
Uraraka recovered from her shock first and blurted, "Wait, do you mean this guy came from another world? Like—like us?"
"Guys, he saw that day that janitor-bot stole All Might's tie!" Ashido cut in before he could continue, effectively ruining the suspense he'd been trying to build. Mezou bit back a sigh while the other three dimension-hoppers straightened with recognition, Uraraka and Kaminari visibly suppressing giggles at the memory. Houjou, meanwhile, made a loud choking sound and nearly fell down, only his tails keeping him from falling completely.
"All Might?" he squeaked. "Wait, wha—? H-how, what? All Might? What?"
"Oh right, we never mentioned that part to everyone else," Ojiro muttered. "Yeah, so apparently All Might's alive in their world. Somehow."
"...What did you guys tell everyone about the other world?" Kirishima asked with a frown.
"Mostly just that UA still exists, and several of our members attend it," Monoma answered with a lofty shrug.
"Honestly, the All Might thing is so out there I kinda forgot it," Tsuburaba admitted, and amusingly enough Nakamura nodded too, looking a bit sheepish as he did. Seeing as Mezou had deliberately chosen to not mention that he'd thought of the skeletal man as All Might inside his dream since it seemed so insane... Well, he didn't blame them. It had been surreal enough that it was easier to not focus on it.
"A world with All Might," Houjou whispered, still looking shell-shocked. "A world... with All Might..." He looked up at them wide-eyed and whispered, "How?"
"It is a pretty massive change," Nakamura agreed with a nod. "Been wondering about that too."
"We're not really sure," Jirou replied with a shrug. "I don't remember any major fights at that point in our world."
"Yeah, and definitely none as big as the one in this world!" Ashido said, nodding vigorously. "I didn't read about it too much because it was too depressing to think about, but it sounds like it kinda wiped out a whole city?"
"The articles said it was against some dude named All For One," Kaminari said. "Name's familiar, but not sure where I heard it." Todoroki's eyes narrowed.
"That's the villain from Kamino," he said, and there was a grave silence from the other dimension jumpers. Mezou didn't know the full details of what happened in Kamino in their world, but if it was the same villain that killed him in this world... It had to be pretty bad.
"Did they fight before in your world?" Kirishima asked awkwardly, and they all shrugged.
"If they did, it never made the news," Jirou said.
"From the way they talked, I think they did," Todoroki murmured with a frown. "I don't know much though. Midoriya would probably know, since they spend so much time together." That was news to Mezou. Made it even stranger that Midoriya ended up with villains in this world.
"I asked him about it, and I think there was one, but he didn't want to talk about it," Uraraka piped up with a frown. "I guess it was private, so I didn't push it. But he started mumbling a little while later, and I couldn't catch all of it, but I heard something about the date mentioned in the letter being... early..." She trailed off into wide-eyed silence, and there was a brief pause as everyone realized the same thing.
"We never finished reading the letter," Ashido said faintly, and Mezou almost snorted. Uraraka had tried to read it out loud when they first discovered the censoring Quirk, but after she realized she couldn't and stopped reading in frustration... Well, everyone just forgot. Figuring out a workaround for the Quirk had felt more urgent.
"Huh," Kaminari said. "Come to think of it, wonder if Uraraka could've just... pointed to stuff in there or something." Uraraka just sank into a chair with a groan, confirming there probably was some stuff mentioned there that she couldn't say or hint.
Mezou paid little mind to the conversation though, his attention focused squarely on Mail who seemed more amused than anything. "Why did you want me to talk about the dream?" he demanded, getting the conversation back on track.
"Ah, that," the specter said, drifting a bit closer to Mezou. "About that guy you met." Everyone snapped to attention at that, abruptly remembering what had spawned this whole tangent in the first place. "When he used his Quirk, he touched you and his eyes flashed white, right?"
Mezou felt his blood chill and eyes go wide. "You know him?" he asked breathlessly, and now everyone else was shouting in shock and hurling questions. Mail ignored them, just grinning with a smug glint in his eyes.
"So it was him," he said quietly to himself, and then nodded. "His name is Porter. He's one of my little brothers." That had the room going abruptly silent.
"Wait, aren't you our age?" Kaminari asked. "Shouji made it sound like the guy was, like, an adult!"
"We already went over this while you were gone, I'm dead and older than you guys," Mail replied with an eye roll. "Anyways, I say that, but I doubt that was actually our Porter. Ours managed to skip out to another dimension six thousand, two hundred seventy-nine days ago." That got a lot of stares, and a small gasp from Houjou.
"That's seventeen years," he whispered faintly, and Mail nodded.
"Right, thanks for doing the math, Kabuto. I just count the days, don't bother converting them to years most of the time. He was about eleven at the time, just couldn't take it anymore. We always told him if he got a chance to run he should do it, even if it was alone, and he finally did. Man, Kintsugi was pissed," he added with a smirk. "Porter did it right before he could shatter him. He was not happy to realize Porter actually did have a Quirk that whole time."
"...Dude, what kind of childhood did you have?" Kirishima asked quietly, and Mail's smirk faded as he sighed and folded his arms.
"Yeah, no, I'm not talking about the details. All you need to know is that the underworld can get far darker than any of you can imagine. I'd say one of the main reasons any of us turned out okay was because of Porter's Quirk. It let us see worlds where we didn't end up in that hellhole, so that gave us an idea of what 'normal' actually was. Not all of us did it, for... reasons," he shrugged vaguely. "But those that did could help us see what was wrong with it."
"Wait, so you're saying you basically grew up dreaming of other worlds?" Ashido asked, looking increasingly eager and excited. "That sounds awesome! Did you guys ever see super-fantasy worlds?"
"No, just basically alternate takes on butterfly effect stuff. Stuff like 'what if we didn't get kidnapped or trafficked,' or 'what if another version of us managed to use Porter's dreams to send a warning to a third version pre-kidnapping, and set off a chain reaction that ends with us technically rescued and raised neutral.'" The last one got some strange looks, and he shrugged. "Multiverse stuff can get complicated. There's a reason we don't try to get too involved with it."
"Makes sense," Ojiro murmured. "I'd be way more weirded out if they could go to worlds with magic and stuff like that. But like that, it sounds... believable."
"An actual multiverse Quirk," Monoma breathed, eyes wide. "Fascinating."
While they spoke Mezou noticed Houjou frowning, briefly closing and covering one eye before speaking. "Um, what about what you said about that not being your Porter?" he piped up hesitantly. "And... what are the rules of his Quirk?"
Those weren't the sort of questions he would usually ask, so Mezou quickly realized Anjou must have hijacked one of his ears to listen. While she usually swapped the entire sense, she could also target one eye or ear specifically. He knew from experience that it was easier to process shared hearing than sight, so she'd probably been eavesdropping and had just swapped the eye Houjou closed to write a message for him to read.
"Like I said, our Porter vanished to another world when we were kids, but there's plenty in other worlds," Mail responded. "We've met three Porters since then, all adults, seems like they usually just go mobile if they skip out before a rescue or grand escape. It's just too hard to start building an identity without proper connections when you reach a certain age. As for rules..."
Here he frowned. "Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I doubt he's the one responsible for your mess."
Mail is having a good time. And hey, they got a lead! Not the lead they'd hoped for, but it's still SOMETHING. (Also in case it's not clear, Houjou is Kabuto, his full name is Houjou Rintaro. Since I got a lot of comments last time, Kabuto's codename comes from one of the Japanese words for pangolin: "kabutome".)
...
A warning to anime-only fans: Leaks came out for the next chapter tomorrow, and it's a wrap-up for the current arc. And since it's a wrap-up, it's revealing a LOT of characters' fates who were left up in the air with all the action. I'll be blunt: some characters are dead, including some fairly popular ones, and I don't think this will blow over soon. I've already seen a couple fan fics on AO3 about it. And these are just the LEAKS, I expect more to pop up when the chapter releases next week. And many more in the coming weeks.
To everyone on FFN, I'm sorry, but I don't think you'll be able to fully avoid this spoiler because it doesn't give the option to block manga spoilers. On AO3, block the major character death and manga spoiler tag. Fan art could get pretty spoiler-heavy depending on the artists you like. And if you watch a lot of MHA stuff on YouTube, good luck. People have spoiled stuff in titles and thumbnails before. The only consolation I can give is that a lot of YouTube content creators like to exaggerate stuff/details in the past (like "Dabi is dead" or "Dabi is a Todoroki" reveals), so read it with a grain of salt.
Just know that if you see a character dead in a fic, that doesn't mean they're ACTUALLY dead. This is the time when a lot of people write "what if" scenarios, and sometimes they go for the worst case. But just... be careful.