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Chapter 92

.::Hearing Things Out::.

So. Day three of captivity in Odawara, and Hizashi was cold. He didn't know if it was cold outside, or the cement tunnel was just naturally colder or what. All he knew was that today he'd woken up cold, even with the thick blanket they tossed over him at night, and felt steadily colder.

The kids felt the cold too, and had made a fire. For the past hour they had mercifully forgone the cube so Hizashi could sit with them and enjoy the warmth, on the strict provision he not use his Quirk. An easy enough agreement to make. He did not want to deal with the reverb from his Quirk on the cement walls and ground. Just talking normally had a bit of an echo to it.

Now, if only they would untie him so he wouldn't have to be hand-fed...

Alas, that part wasn't likely to happen anytime soon though. So there was Hizashi, being embarrassingly handfed yet again. At least they weren't skimming on meals, but still. "Wacdonald's today, huh?" he asked as he eyed the bag with the familiar golden W.

"Yep, we splurged!" Ashido confirmed cheerfully. Which was the other good thing about today: Ashido was here. He hadn't seen the pink girl since the first day, so it was good to see her again. So far she seemed unharmed and in good spirits, judging by her bright grin as she unloaded the bag. And damn was it good to actually see someone's face for once instead of those creepy masks.

"What time is it, anyway?" he asked casually. Hard to tell with no windows. The flickering candles and lanterns made him feel like he was constantly in the middle of the night, which didn't help his internal clock much.

"It's afternoon. I think maybe one thirty?" Ashido shrugged as she unwrapped the hamburger. She then paused, her smile fading as she looked at the burger, then him, then back at the burger.

"Finally realizing the awkwardness?" Fuse drawled.

"Yep. This is so awkward."

Hizashi took the opportunity to say, "You could just—"

"No." They didn't even let him finish the sentence, and he rolled his eyes but didn't try again. He was used to this song and dance now, the kids were hyper-paranoid of him. Frankly he'd rather not push his luck and get cubed again, even if Mime was currently outside. Poor kid had earned the break; he'd been there almost constantly since his Quirk was how they contained Hizashi.

Hopefully it was at least sunny outside, even if it was cold. Hizashi already kinda missed the sun.

...How long had it been since Shouta saw the sun?

With that, Hizashi's mood completely plummeted, shoulders sagging with a sigh. "We're still not untying you just because you're sulking," Fuse informed him bluntly, and the blond scowled.

"Wasn't trying to guilt you," he grumbled. "Just give me the burger already." Ashido seemed weirdly hesitant now, probably mindful of the awkwardness, so the dragon kid—Ryuu, as he'd learned—took the food. The feeding passed in silence, his mood dipping as his thoughts drifted to Shouta. He still had no idea how Shouta was doing now, whether he was okay or even getting fed regularly.

Fuck it. Wondering was going to just drive him mad, and he'd already gotten captured anyway.

"Hey, Ashido," he said after he finished eating, making her glance over. "You know Midoriya Izuku, right?"

Immediately the atmosphere in the room became tense and rigid, everyone snapping to attention. Ashido looked wary, but then said, "Yeah, I do."

"Then you know what he's up to, right?"

"Hey, hold on," Ryuu said. "The hell's going on here?" Hizashi's eyes flickered their way and narrowed.

"What, they don't know?" he quipped. Were these people connected to the Alliance or not?

"No, we know more than enough," Fuse responded, crossing his arms. "Tch, so you really did come here looking for the villain-kid bastard, huh..." That had Ashido's face hardening, whirling to glare at him.

"Don't call him that!" she snapped. "Mido's one of the nicest people ever!" That was highly defensive, but Hizashi also wanted to call bullshit on her.

"Nice people don't hold other people prisoner," he snapped. She leveled him with the most sour look possible, though she also looked highly conflicted. Her eyes flickered towards the other two, and Hizashi quickly understood the source of her hesitance. "How much do they actually know?"

Ashido seemed to be just as unsure, because she turned to look at them questioningly. "Do you really want us to answer that in front of him?" Fuse asked flatly, and her face relaxed a bit as she nodded. Dammit, why did they actually have to be smart about this? He'd hoped their answer would give him some information too.

"Yeah, good point. Okay, maybe we can go out and you can whisper to me?"

"Fine." They both stepped past the curtain, leaving Hizashi alone with Ryuu. He could faintly hear them talking, but couldn't make out words, much to his irritation.

"I really hope you guys know what's going on," he muttered to the dragon-masked kid, who remained pointedly silent. To make it worse, Hizashi then heard a familiar pair of chimes in his ear, again. Very faint, but further souring his mood.

Soon enough Ashido and Fuse returned, the pink girl sitting down in front of him. "Okay, they know all the super-important stuff," she announced. "But I'm not telling you anything!"

"And why not?" Hizashi challenged, meeting her glare with a stern glower of his own. "Kid, just to double-check, you do realize that Midoriya kid is Shigaraki's brother, right? Do you know who Shigaraki is?"

"Of course I do!" Ashido snapped. "And they're not actually brothers! He just got picked up by the Alliance for some reason when he was a kid!"

"Why is that, by the way?" Hizashi asked lightly, not expecting an answer but taking the opportunity to fish for information anyway. That had been one of the bigger questions after Midoriya's identification: why did Shigaraki get so attached to a Quirkless orphan?

"We don't know," Ashido groaned, throwing up her arms in exasperation, and hold on, she was actually answering? "We've been trying to figure that out from day one! It's so weird and creepy and wrong, but apparently they just play games together all the time? And Shigaraki totally hates heroes but he doesn't mind that Mido likes them, and even offered to watch All Might movies with him when he thought Mido was sick? Even if Mido said he looked like he'd rather swallow a bug, that's still insane!"

Wow. That told Hizashi a lot, and also nothing at all. "Why don't you ask Midoriya?"

She just made an aggravated sound and threw up her arms. "He's trying to figure it out too!" Wait, what?

"Ashido," Ryuu said before she could continue. "Uh, remember the audience, maybe...?" That had her freezing, eyes widening as she stared at Mic. Well, was nice while it lasted.

She bit her lip, clearly conflicted, but then whispered, "Screw it." She turned so her body directly faced him, meeting his gaze squarely. "Okay, you really want to know what's going on? We're actually all here from another dimension."

...Okay, Hizashi did NOT see that coming. "What?" he asked dumbly.

"Mido and I and a bunch of others are actually from another world where we all go to UA, because UA is still around there because there was never any super-awful massacre there! We're in Class 1-A with Aizawa-sensei, Eraserhead, and you teach English and All Might teaches heroics because he's not dead there!"

...Oh dear All Might, these kids were brainwashed. It was so obvious, there must be some sort of Quirk messing with her memories. Had they tortured Shouta to get information about UA? She knew his name, so obviously they'd gotten some information from him somehow. The thought had him swallowing down rising panic.

"I see," he said, keeping his voice level. "And you said All Might's alive and teaches at UA? Is he not as active as a hero anymore?"

"He was, but he's totally retired now after fighting this creepy guy who kidnapped Bakugou! Well, he didn't kidnap Bakugou," Ashido amended, "that was just Shigaraki, but he's like, the super-secret shadow leader of the League. Or was, until All Might beat him and sent him to Tartarus. The Villain Alliance aren't the Villain Alliance in our world, by the way, they're called the League of Villains."

Okay, a lot to unpack there, and all of it bad. "I'm guessing Bakugou's a classmate?" he asked. The name felt faintly familiar, but he'd think about that later. "Why did Shigaraki kidnap him?"

"Because when he won the Sports Festival he was super-mad because Todoroki didn't use his fire even though he used it in his match against Midoriya, so he was all angry and they had to chain him on the podium to get the medal!" What.

"Seriously?" Ryuu asked in surprise. "That's just messed up. And wasn't the UA Sports Festival broadcast on national television?"

"Yeah, that's how Shigaraki found out! So I guess he thought Bakugou would be angry at heroes and might be willing to join them or something? And they were totally wrong by the way," she added with a huff. "He's an asshole, but he's not a villain!"

"Yeah, sounds about right," Ryuu murmured with a nod. "Fuse can sound like an asshole, but he's definitely not a villain."

"I will hurt you," Fuse growled, before turning to Ashido. "Why'd he target one of your classmates though? Just because All Might worked at your school?"

"Yeah, probably?" Ashido shrugged. "Honestly, the League's been attacking UA since the start of the year. The field trip to USJ was just a giant disaster." Oh, so now UA was taking field trips to Universal Studios Japan in this fantasy? This would be funny if it wasn't so horrifying that she clearly believed this.

And worse: so did the others. They exchanged looks behind her back, but neither of them tried to to point out how crazy this all sounded. They didn't seem to have the memories Ashido did, but were they affected by this Quirk too, to believe her?

"Anyways!" she continued. "So All Might fights this freaky guy at Kamino, and he wins, but he got hurt really bad and used up his power! I don't know the full details, just that he had to retire and now looks like a skeleton all the time!" So now All Might could transform into a skinless form? That, or she was really understating the severity of his supposed injury in this fantasy. The fact she didn't see anything wrong with that description just spoke of the Quirk's power.

"Sounds painful," he commented mildly. "But uh, how did you get here, exactly?"

"We don't know!" she moaned. "One day we went to bed in the dorms—we had to build those after Bakugou got kidnapped, by the way—and then we wake up here! I had a school uniform I didn't recognize, and then Kiri came over but his hair was black instead of red because he never dyed it here because he never became super-manly here, and he didn't remember either—"

She stopped to take a deep, much-needed breath. "So I'm totally confused but go to school because I have no idea where anyone else is, but then I get a message from Uraraka on FacePage! Except that was like a day before she ran away which just sucked, and then Midnight-sensei came to question me but you probably know all about that, right?"

"...Yes." So whoever created this illusion knew Nemuri had taught at UA too. Not quite as surprising since Midnight was pretty popular in her heyday, and there'd been some debate about her teaching there.

Rather than continue Ashido stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowing. "...You don't believe me, do you," she finally said. Crap.

"No, no, I totally do!" Hizashi protested quickly. She obviously believed this, and he believed that she had these memories. He just didn't believe that it was real. "Come on, tell me more! What made you decide to run away?"

It wasn't working though. Ashido now looked like she'd sucked a lemon and like he'd kicked a puppy as she frowned at him. It was a weird combination and very effective at guilt-tripping him. "Screw it, I'm done," she declared, getting up. "Can't say I didn't try. I am not in the mood to go through another fight about this again!"

"No, no, no, don't go!" Hizashi protested. "You should stay and tell me—" He cut himself off as the last words suddenly sounded off, eyes briefly going wide before his head hung in dismay. "Shit."

"What?" one of the kids asked, but it sounded distorted and muffled. Hizashi scowled, wondering if he should even point this out since it would be exposing a potential weakness, but it was too late anyway.

"In case you kids didn't notice, I have hearing aids," he said briskly. "And one of them just died. The other one's probably gonna go any minute now." That had the kids all jolting in alarm, Ashido's face contorting with horror.

"What? Don't you have some kind of warning!?"

"Yeah, it beeps when the battery gets low. I've been hearing them for a couple hours now. But since this was supposed to be a quick day trip, I didn't bother bring the charger," he added dryly, shooting them a glare. He'd charged them before leaving, so he shouldn't have had to worry. "If anything, I'm surprised they lasted this long. I usually charge them every night."

"Wait, can you even hear without them?" Ryuu piped up, sounding faintly panicked.

"Yeah, I'm not totally deaf," he huffed. "You'll just have to talk more loudly." Contrary to popular belief, his Quirk actually didn't impact his hearing too much. His ears had some natural defenses towards it, otherwise he'd have deafened himself as a newborn. However, it wasn't a perfect defense, and his career choice hadn't helped much. Between his Quirk and listening to music pretty constantly, it had all started to take its toll.

It wasn't too bad yet thankfully, but right now? Inside an empty cement room where nearly every single surface tended to bounce sound? Yeah, this was a recipe for a migraine and a half.

"Well, you don't need to worry about me using my Quirk," he huffed. "I'm not going to risk it when I have trouble hearing myself clearly." The group exchanged looks at the remark, but he didn't care, just flopped onto his back with a sigh.

Captured by a bunch of teens who had been brainwashed by villains, and now his hearing was going. Yep, he was so screwed, and so were these kids. Fuck.

After talking to Uraraka and Todoroki, Izuku had a lot to think about. There was a lot to take in: the situation in Odawara with all the runaways, Mic-sensei, and most importantly, the newly confirmed existence of Porter. Their first actual lead on getting home, or at least figuring out how they got here.

But then there was the other revelation he'd had: they had no idea when this world diverged from their own. Team Storm Chaser had proved itself to be the anomaly that revealed it, namely through its roster. When they'd looked it up, the only deaths that seemed to remain the same from their world had been Veilance, who died when they were all infants, and Storm Chaser himself (and details were frustratingly scarce).

Cosmonaut had still perished in the line of duty, but in a large wildfire rather than an earthquake. Phoenix still died from a chronic illness, but at a later point in time. Noir meanwhile had received the same vague announcement about his sudden retirement that Shadesse had in their world... when they were three. So it wasn't even the same time frame that Shadesse had disappeared.

That was perhaps the biggest change of all: Shadesse was still alive and active. She wasn't a hero, but she participated in publicity events and the like. In their world, none of the core members remained. Both worlds still had Skylight, who operated largely in America, but he'd been a later addition to the team. For most of Izuku's life, he was more known for his own right than as a member of Team Storm Chaser.

Right now, the composition of Team Storm Chaser was the only divergence point they could solidly identify before All Might's death. When this world diverged might not matter much in the long run, but he couldn't help his curiosity over it. Especially since something had to happen to have All Might and All For One fight earlier.

As it stood though, there wasn't much they could do with this knowledge, or even to investigate. Where would they even start? Unless it was a major event, it probably wouldn't be obvious. They'd all been so young; it wasn't like they paid much attention to the world or news back then outside stuff related to All Might. It was pure luck that they even knew enough about Team Storm Chaser to notice the change.

So Izuku felt mildly frustrated when he returned to the Alliance's headquarters, still without seeing Aiko. He also hadn't found the secret notebook, which only added to his frustration. And with a quick visit to Shinsou resulting in asking Izuku to just give him space for the day after all, that made a total of three mysteries he couldn't solve right now.

Three mysteries to haunt his every thought.

It still bugged him when he went to visit Aizawa, finding his teacher fast asleep when he entered but the second sandwich gone. Izuku could have just taken the plate and left then, but instead he sat in the corner of the room. It felt reassuring and comforting to be in the same room as his teacher's counterpart, so he took the time to try to relax and focus on the last of the three mysteries.

Why was Shinsou so distant? He should be elated to have the muzzle off and be able to talk freely again, but instead he seemed even more defeated than before. He'd been curled up on his bed when Izuku visited him, hadn't even looked at him. What should have been a cause for celebration instead seemed to be the exact opposite, and just highlighted that something was wrong.

Izuku had said as much to Bakugou earlier, and the blond had suggested he'd made some deal. "They wouldn't just take that thing off for good behavior," he'd scoffed. "Shittyraki's paranoid as fuck about your safety, and Hijack's a fucking vigilante. If anyone would try to fake good behavior to escape, it's him. They must have made a deal, or have something on him, that makes them sure he won't do anything."

It made sense. Shigaraki wouldn't risk Izuku's safety unless he was absolutely certain Shinsou wouldn't do anything, and he doubted they'd reached that level of trust. It wasn't just his Quirk that made Shigaraki wary of him; otherwise Bakugou would still be stuck in those handcuffs, seeing as his Quirk posed a more immediate and physical threat.

No, what made Shinsou so dangerous was that he was a vigilante.

Just running away and living on the streets as a thirteen-year-old required a bit of skill and craftiness. You'd have to find food, shelter and supplies, avoid raising suspicion of police and shopkeepers—as well as avoid attention from villains. A homeless child made an easy target after all. Surviving as a vigilante on top of that took skills that average people lacked, and from what Izuku could tell, Shinsou was good.

His Quirk alone, while useful, wouldn't be enough to make any of that particularly easy. Brainwashing was actually fairly limited in many situations, especially when it was known. To use it effectively required being clever, and that made him much harder to predict than Bakugou.

Shinsou hadn't been captured purely as a "party member" for Izuku. He'd already been on the Alliance's radar for causing trouble and getting members arrested. None of them ever talked about it, but chances were the only reason he was captured rather than outright killed was because Shigaraki thought he'd be a good companion to Izuku.

So Shigaraki suddenly agreeing to remove the muzzle did make Shinsou a larger threat than he'd been before. Something was definitely up.

"The hell?"

Aizawa's bleary voice and subsequent hiss of pain had Izuku jolting in surprise, head snapping over to find his teacher had woken up. And upon noticing Izuku, he'd obviously jolted and jarred his bad leg. Yep. Cue instant guilt.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!" he apologized hastily as he hurried over. "Is your leg—"

"It's fine," Aizawa cut in before he could ramble. "I didn't shake it too bad this time. Just more sore than usual." He rubbed his eyes as he spoke, hissing under his breath. From his scowl, Izuku got the sense his dry eye was the more immediate source of pain. Times like these made him really wish he knew Aizawa's prescription so he could get him some eyedrops.

"Sorry again if I surprised you," Izuku reiterated. "I just..." He trailed off, not knowing how to finish it. What was he supposed to say, 'I just wanted to be around you while thinking about stuff because you're familiar?' That sort of thing could easily alarm Aizawa and just make him more wary of Izuku. Aizawa had made it rather clear he still didn't fully believe Izuku had no secret nefarious intentions.

Instead he asked, "Um, did you sleep better this time? Your leg didn't bother you as much?"

Aizawa sighed, shoulders sagging as he pulled his hand away from his eyes. "Yeah, I did," he confirmed quietly, and then paused, eyes catching on something behind Izuku. Immediately his expression became guarded as he muttered, "What's in the bag?"

Izuku felt a twinge of panic at Aizawa's sudden wariness up until he asked the question, at which point he perked up. "Oh! Right!" He turned and retrieved the bag he'd brought with him, having forgotten about it. "I had to go out for those errands I mentioned earlier, so I got you some magazines!"

He pulled out several magazines to carry over to Aizawa. "I thought you could use the entertainment, but like you said, books would be risky. These are thinner and easier to hide though, so I thought that would be better in the long run! And I think it works with the mittens, too, so that's another plus!"

"You're willing to let me read magazines?" Aizawa muttered incredulously, looking honestly stunned. "Aren't you worried about me reading news?"

That had Izuku deflating slightly. "Um, not really, but I also didn't get news magazines," he said, almost sheepish. "I figured that if they got found, those would get us both in trouble. So I got you these!" He fanned the magazines on the floor for Aizawa to see the covers. There was a nature magazine, one about films, another about literature, a technology magazine... And also two about cats. One with photos, and the other more cutesy and themed around a cartoon cat mascot.

Aizawa stared at the last two for a long moment before slowly raising his head to look at Izuku. "Cats?"

"You really seem to like Sushi," Izuku replied with a shrug. It had been hard to find magazines he thought Aizawa would enjoy that didn't feature current events. A vast majority were about fashion—which obviously, was not Aizawa's cup of tea. He was kinda surprised (and relieved) he'd found so many options at the convenience store.

Aizawa slowly turned his attention back to the magazines again. He seemed conflicted, eyebrows furrowing. "...Thank you," he finally muttered, and Izuku's heart twinged a bit at the slightly more formal wording. It was fairly obvious Aizawa had more he wanted to say, but was debating on actually saying it.

Still, Izuku didn't want to push. He was still trying to build trust with Aizawa, and to that end he asked, "Anyways, I'm here now, so do you want to listen to Present Mic's show now?" He'd asked on the chat if anyone had listened to it, and Jirou had confirmed that it had been normal. Nothing to suggest anything was wrong, not even a technical error like with last Friday's recording. Izuku didn't know when the backlog of pre-recorded shows would run out, but as long as they didn't, he'd play it for Aizawa.

Except the man seemed to be hesitant for some reason, looking conflicted again. "...Don't you want to hang out with the others?" he finally asked. "It's not even dinner time yet... Is it?" Izuku frowned.

"No, it's not."

"Then we can listen to it after dinner," Aizawa decided with a firm nod. "Spend time with the others instead. After all, that's the reason they're here, right? To keep you entertained." His voice took on a bitter note that had Izuku's frown growing, suppressing a wince.

"Th-that's not..." He trailed off, sighing. Yep, his relationship with Aizawa had definitely backtracked a bit at some point—and honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to try to address it right now. He already had enough on his plate to unravel, so he didn't want to get into this particular debate with Aizawa now.

"Um, actually, I visited Kacchan first but he told me to just come here," he confessed. "I got him some magazines too, and he wanted to read them." The blond had all but kicked Izuku out of his cell, wanting to read the fashion magazines alone without worrying about Shigaraki overhearing him. With both parents involved in the industry, he could get rather... passionate about some designs.

"Right," Aizawa said. "And... the other one?" He hesitated on the last bit, deliberately choosing to not use Shinsou's codename. They had all noticed how Aizawa avoided calling Shinsou "Hijack" and only used it when absolutely necessary, usually preferring to just call him "kid" and other generic terms. He didn't have any problems with "Midoriya" or "Bakugou," so they'd concluded it was due to it being a codename.

Izuku's frown morphed into a grimace as he ducked his head. "He, uh, wanted to be alone," he muttered. He hesitated, not sure he wanted to give Aizawa more stress in an already stressful situation, but then decided, screw it. He needed advice, and now more than ever, there was no one he trusted as much as Aizawa. He looked up at his teacher and took a breath.

"Actually, he got the muzzle removed," he started, and saw Aizawa tense, eyes going wide. He didn't give the man a chance to respond as he quickly rambled on, "And it's great! He can finally talk again, and we can even have lunch or dinner together sometime! Except, he's... not happy. In fact, he seems like he's really upset about it? And it makes no sense, he should be excited! So..."

He trailed off, looking down at his lap miserably. "Something happened, but I don't know what. He won't tell me what it was, just says he wants to be alone, and I'm afraid to push him. I'm also afraid to ask Tomura or Kurogiri or anyone because they didn't tell me before, just that he had it removed and had some new rules like he can't talk to any of the grunts, and—"

"Midoriya," Aizawa cut in, and Izuku immediately clamped his mouth shut and looked at him. Aizawa had a heavy frown, brow furrowed and looking almost conflicted, but then his expression smoothed. "I... get that you're upset, but... You can't push him to talk if he's not ready. If... if he's upset, give him space. He's got enough going on. Let... let him make the first move."

The advice felt more stilted than Izuku was used to hearing from Aizawa, almost uncertain and doubtful as he continually paused. He seemed highly uncomfortable at the end, almost grimacing.

It all just reminded Izuku that this man wasn't his Aizawa.

He'd taught at UA, sure, but not for long; he lacked the experience that his Aizawa had. Eraserhead was an underground hero, someone who rarely interacted with civilians outside of the immediate aftermath of a rescue. He hadn't dealt with teenagers on a regular basis. Giving advice on this sort of thing, or anything really, probably wasn't something he had much experience with.

The reminder had Izuku swallowing down a lump in his throat as he slowly nodded. "Right... I guess you're right. Thanks, sensei." The title slipped out naturally, even if this wasn't his teacher, and he noticed Aizawa tense before giving a stiff nod. Izuku turned his attention to his phone as he asked, "Anyways, do you want to listen to Mic's show now?"

Aizawa huffed out a breath, shoulders slumping. "Sure, kid," he agreed tiredly, and Izuku quickly opened the site for Put Your Hands Up! Radio.

Readers: "They should tell Mic the truth!"

Mic: "Oh crap, they're being brainwashed and think All Might is a skeleton."

Before anyone harps on Ashido TOO hard, I want to point out that Mic's already naturally geared to be suspicious towards them, especially since he knows the Alliance has Aizawa and can get information from him. The main reason they managed to convince Anjou is because Shouji met Porter, so she was already open to the idea. Yaoyorozu and Tokage would be just as suspicious as Mic if they knew about Izuku and Aizawa, since as Setsuna stated it was the details about him specifically that convinced them. Convincing Mic they're NOT being brainwashed or manipulated is an uphill battle.

Especially since Mic now has dead hearing aids. Totally forgot I gave him those and that they'd probably run out of battery. On that note, I have no idea when they start that "low battery" beep and how long is left until they run out of juice. Took a while to just find a video on what the beep would sound like. xD

...

In bigger news: we're now at 92, and on the way to Chapter 100. That is a HUGE milestone! So to celebrate:

For Chapter 100, I'm holding an art contest. Draw your favorite moment from Ignite!

Can be any moment that happened in the story (like Mic vs The Bird), or a hypothetical image like "the Ignite!Kids in Canon-land". You can choose one moment, or draw multiple scenes. Can be a single drawing or a comic. I'm open to anything and everything. The deadline is Chapter 100, and the prizes are an omake about anything you want, and/or you can give me a sentence and I have to incorporate it into the story. (Even if it's something like "That apple terrified him, and he hoped it wouldn't catch up to him anytime soon.") I'll decide on the number of winners (and also how we'll judge the contest) when the deadline comes closer.

You can submit entries to me on Tumblr, my account is called cannibalisticapple there! Submission box is open to guests without accounts, too, so if you don't have an account, at least mention your username or some way to get in touch. If you have an account, you can also just post to your blog and tag me. Just send me an ask to let me know if you do, sometimes the tagging system on there can be a bit wonky.

Thank you so much for everyone's support so far! I still can't believe it's almost at 100 chapters. I hope you guys continue to enjoy this wild ride!