Before today's chapter: got an entry for the art contest! It's by AO3 user LifeOfMystery (AKA Eevee on the Ignite server), who is also a phenomenal writer (especially with angst). She drew Shinsou with muzzle, because she likes angst. You can see it over on my Tumblr!

Anyways, enjoy today's chapter. c:

Chapter 99

.::Mistakes were Made::.

So something great happened to Denki.

Tokage had deemed him a total loss in terms of acing the exam.

That was probably not great in the long run, but as she herself noted, he wasn't in the top bracket of exam scores. He wasn't even in the middle tier of scores. "You're not rock bottom, but it won't be weird if you score low," she had announced bluntly. "It'd probably be more suspicious if you scored high. You won't completely flunk it, so there's not much point in you cramming any more."

Most of the time, he might be offended and upset by that dismissal. But that last sentence was like an angel's choir for study-weary Kaminari Denki. He didn't have to study anymore. He was free, free, free!

(He might have laughed maniacally as he ran out of Yaomomo's apartment, but that was neither here nor there.)

Jirou hadn't been so lucky since her scores tended to land towards the middle, so she still had to study, which—sucks for her, but not his problem! She had absolutely death-glared at him when he left, but he didn't care. His brain felt overloaded from all the heavy studying they'd done yesterday and that morning before Tokage had released him from his suffering, and he wanted to just chill out and do nothing.

A glance at the group chat quickly put a stop to those plans though. Not because they asked him to do anything, but because everyone else was busy doing their own stuff. Anjou had revealed that Shinsou was part of the runaways, with Ashido adding some details about why they couldn't tell Ojiro or Monoma. Todoroki and Uraraka had chosen to stay in Nabu an extra day because of the situation with Shinsou, and had added some new graffiti to the Tweeter account.

Most recently Ashido had messaged to reveal that Kirishima and Shouji had been followed to Odawara by Kendo and Spinner. Apparently they were a vigilante duo in this world, which had to be the weirdest team up Denki had heard yet. The runaways were in the middle of briefing them about the situation with the Villain Alliance, along with the search for Porter.

'So apparently the Tweeter account looks SUPER suspicious and they thought we're part of some weird cult that worships a skeleton man?' she wrote. 'So uh gotta clear that up. We're not telling them EVERYTHING, but we told them we're using the graffiti to look for Mail's brother. But also, they might help us with the escape thing?'

'How? By raiding the place?' Denki typed. 'Didn't you say that's the reason we can't tell Kaitou or Lee about Shinsou? And aren't THEY vigilantes too?'

'Yeah, but Spinner says he can probably drive the getaway car.' A second later she added, 'Probably.' Then, 'Okay, so apparently he learned from video games, but no one else has any idea how to drive. Except maybe Loud-sensei, but I don't think he'd drive us to the Alliance since he kinda thinks we're all crazy and/or brainwashed.'

Ashido had naturally explained her attempt to tell Mic the situation yesterday, and the aftermath: infinite doubt. After his reaction, Mic had been summarily eliminated as an option for assistance in... pretty much everything. At least until after they finished the big escape/rescue from the Alliance.

'Where would we get a car?'

'I don't know, but it's not like Aizawa-sensei can walk to a train station.' Oh right, Denki forgot about the broken leg for a second. In his defense, he hadn't actually seen Aizawa in this world so it was easy to forget he wasn't the same fully-mobile badass they knew back home.

The conversation got him thinking about the escape though. They hadn't really talked about how it would actually work yet. They'd been setting up little pieces in advance for the escape, like getting the wheelchair for Aizawa, or getting Midoriya on Anjou's network. However, Denki had never really thought about what would happen right after the escape. Going to the police in Nabu probably wouldn't be enough to guarantee Shigaraki wouldn't find them, it'd be better to get out of the city entirely.

Midoriya still hadn't responded to this whole conversation, nor had Todoroki or Uraraka, so he had to assume they were all busy. Denki didn't know what they'd think, but the conversation made him want to do something. Which was why he soon found himself at Hatsume's warehouse to check on the progress in investigating the bomb anklets.

As he stared at the battered steel door lying on the ground, he silently noted that everyone owed him big time for risking his life for this. Beyond the now-bare doorway he could hear the clinking of metal and female voices, telling him Hatsume and Yaomomo were there. He didn't peek inside to actually look, because he did not want to risk getting hit by whatever blew the door off its hinges.

"Hey, uh, is it safe for me to enter?" he called from beside the doorway. "I won't get hit by exploding metal or anything, right?"

The voices briefly went silent. A moment later there was a loud bang that made him jump, followed by some light metallic clattering and then almost unsettling silence. "Yeah, come in!" Yaomomo called, and Denki hesitantly and cautiously slunk inside. Thankfully nothing exploded or went flying in his general direction, though he did notice some smoke rising from... was that a drone on the floor?

"Okay, so that one had too much recoil," Hatsume said as she fiddled with a controller. Denki couldn't help notice that the ends of her hair looked slightly singed on the left side of her face as she continued, "And also, the laser didn't work properly this time, so we need to fix the output again."

"Next time will be perfect!" Yaoyorozu declared, and holy shit, what in Endeavor's blazes happened to her? Her hair looked wild and unkempt, long since thrown out of the usual spiky ponytail and sticking in multiple directions. Even her clothes looked more rumpled than usual, wearing a jumpsuit with light scorch marks all over it. And that didn't even touch on the look on her face.

Denki had never seen Yaoyorozu look anything short of composed, even at her happiest, but right now... Right now she had an almost manic fire in her eyes as she grinned, reminding him of some unholy combination of Uraraka at her most fired up and Hatsume at her mildest. She held her fists in front of herself as she excitedly continued, "We know why it failed the last two times, we have enough data to configure the settings properly and make this baby sing!"

Denki had no idea what she meant by sing, because he did not associate that word with lasers, but he was appropriately terrified.

"Anyways, what do you need, Battery-kun?" Hatsume asked. "Do you need some new babies for your next patrol? We have a lot of new ones for you to try out!"

"Support gear is so fun!" Yaoyorozu added as she turned to face Denki. Doing so revealed a chunk of the hair framing her face had been chopped off at the bottom, with the ends frizzled and frayed and also singed. "I never knew how amazing it could be to see what I can make using smaller components rather than creating whole objects with my Quirk! There's so many ways to combine all these different parts I never thought of!"

Oh sweet merciful Nedzu, they infected Yaomomo with Hatsume syndrome.

This might very well be the worst thing that they had accomplished in this giant mess of an adventure, and Denki wasn't sure if they could ever be forgiven for this. He and Jirou would likely have to spend the rest of their lives atoning for this mistake in both worlds. His poor counterpart would absolutely never get his original life back now that they'd unleashed this unholy combination on this world.

May All Might have mercy on our souls, he thought grimly as he flashed a shaky thumbs up. "That's great," he said weakly as he cried on the inside. They screwed up so bad. "But, uh, I'm not here about patrolling. I was wondering if you guys found anything out about the bomb anklet we gave you...?"

He trailed off questioningly, almost dreading the answer. "Oh, that thing?" Hatsume asked, putting the controller onto a table and rifling among the many other gadgets and gizmos littering the surface. "Yeah, we finished analyzing that last night!"

"Wait, what?" Denki's jaw dropped. "Last night?"

"Yeah, we made totally functional duplicates and everything!" Hatsume threw something at him, and Denki nearly dropped it when he realized it was a bomb anklet. Not the one they'd given her, as the material looked different and lighter in color, but overall it was near-identical.

"You made more?" he squeaked.

"Well, we only had the one sample, so we couldn't just disassemble it," Yaoyorozu explained. "We didn't know what sort of bomb was inside or what could trigger it, aside from what you said about it being tied to a specific location. So we decided the best method would be to recreate something similar first, and then figure out how it works from there!"

Denki had no idea if that was how this should actually work, but he'd rather not ask for too many details. "Okay," he said slowly. "And so I guess you guys, uh, figured it out then?"

"Yep!" Hatsume chirped. "It took us three days of tinkering and trying various models, but we finally made some that are near-identical, down to the shock function!" Oh crap, that was a thing? That was almost as bad as the bomb! "We even figured out the most likely type of explosive without having to disassemble the original! So basically—"

What followed was one of a ramble full of technical jargon that flew right over Denki's head. His brain instantly shut off, not even trying to follow along with what she said.

His incomprehension must have shown on his face, because Yaoyorozu stepped forward. "Mei, I think that's a bit much for him," she said gently, sounding like the normal Yaoyorozu again, thank goodness. "Maybe I should take over?"

"Go ahead, Momocchi!" Hatsume replied. Oh crap, she knew Yaomomo's name and had a nickname for her based off it? This was even worse than he thought! The inventor turned to continue tinkering with stuff on the table while Yaoyorozu took over, oblivious to Denki's growing despair.

"Basically, the type of explosive isn't too sensitive, so there's no risk of accidental detonation. However, it's impossible to disarm it without removing a certain part of the anklet, and, well..." She gestured to the anklet Denki held, and he glanced down at it. As far as he could see, it almost seemed like a single piece. He couldn't even see any screws when he turned it around in his hand.

"Uh, how do we do that?" he asked blankly.

"That's the problem," she said with a frown. "Removing it requires exposing the latches, and you can't really do that with it closed. So, there's not much point in disarming it." Oh, shit. "There's not really a way to remove the plate while closed without potentially triggering the explosive, either. And even if you did, it's a bit tricky for amateurs to disarm."

"Do you have a way to unlock it, then?" Denki asked almost desperately, and felt his stomach sink when she grimaced.

"Not through brute force. I won't go into full detail, but the clasp involves some magnetic components that are fairly strong. The seam when closed is also too narrow to fit in any tools that could help open it. All the ways we can think of to force it open, like strength or electricity, would potentially trigger the explosives, too."

"So, we need the key," Denki said slowly. This was the worst possible scenario. They'd been counting on that.

"I still don't know where you got this, but can you get the key?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"Maybe?" Denki hedged with a grimace. Midoriya would be the only one who could get it. "It might be dangerous to take it without someone noticing."

"Well, if you know where it is and can look at it, that's all you need!" Hatsume piped up, and threw something else at him. He caught it and saw it was some sort of key fob, a little black remote-like thing like used to start cars. It had a tiny digital screen with two buttons on either side. "This little baby is the key used for this type of fastener!"

"You were able to make a key?" Denki asked in surprise.

"Not exactly," Yaoyorozu said. "The fastener is commercially available, so we were able to identify it by comparing the parts. They all use the same key, they just tune the frequency for each fastener." She stepped over to his side, lightly tapping the screen and making a green '0' appear on it. "When you tap the screen, a number will appear showing the frequency, and you can use the buttons on the side to adjust the number."

Even as she spoke she pressed the right button, making the '0' change to '1'. "Every fastener has a frequency assigned to it during setup, so any key that's set to that number will work. If you can get a look at the number on the original key, you can sync this one to the fasteners. There are a couple other ways to spoof the frequency and unlock it, but it's easiest to just adjust another key."

Denki suspected this was a highly simplified explanation, and it was still kinda hard for him to follow, but he thought he got the gist of it. "So basically, if we look at the original key, we can just copy it over to this one?"

"Exactly," Yaoyorozu confirmed with a smile, and Denki grinned.

"That's great! Thanks!" It wasn't the instant solution they'd all hoped for, but this was better than nothing. He didn't think Midoriya could get the actual key without Kurogiri or Shigaraki noticing it gone, but he could probably at least check the number.

"Um, by the way, why do you need this?" Yaoyorozu asked tentatively, and Denki froze. Oh crap, he should've expected her to ask. They'd all agreed to keep any information about Midoriya and the Alliance away from her until after the big rescue, so how did he answer this? Okay, obviously don't mention the Alliance, but—

"Because some bad guys are using it to make sure people can't escape or something like that," Hatsume called from her worktable, and Denki winced. He forgot she'd been there when they talked about that.

Naturally, Yaoyorozu looked pretty horrified by that, and Denki quickly hurried to do damage control. "Uh, let's just say some of the others are in really weird situations," he said hastily. "They're not in immediate danger, and neither are we, but, uh, we do kinda want to save people if possible. Anyways, thanks for the key, but I should really get going, gotta get back to studying, bye!"

He took off before she could ask anything else, shamelessly fleeing the warehouse. Given Hatsume had just picked up some unknown machine, he felt doubly justified in his decision.

When he got a safe distance he checked FacePage again. Still nothing from Midoriya or anyone else in Nabu, but that was fine. He began typing hastily. 'Hey, so I just talked to Hatsume and Yaomomo, and they finished looking at the anklet. They can't unlock it, but they got this key we can use instead...'

Ochako had been frantically searching Aiko's apartment building for two hours now. She had meticulously combed through a total of five apartments now, making sure to leave no stone unturned. Each passing minute left her on edge about Aiko suddenly returning, but she couldn't let that scare her away. She needed to find that notebook.

That notebook Deku mentioned had information on Aiko. Ochako had seen his notebooks back home, and they could get scarily detailed. If this world's Deku was anything like theirs (and it sounded like he was), it would have plenty of notes on Aiko's Quirks. Honestly, the exact details of how they worked didn't matter as much as the fact she had multiple Quirks.

She still hadn't been able to tell anyone about that other Quirk Aiko used. She'd tried multiple times, but it never worked. Every time she tried to mention the way her hands had looked like claws, or that void-like space she'd used to move Ochako to her apartment, her mouth skipped over it. The most she'd ever been able to say was "pushed me into" which had massively concerned Todoroki and Ashido as they tried to figure out what that meant.

Deku still seemed totally clueless to the fact Aiko had multiple Quirks, or else he would have mentioned it by now. No one else suspected anything like that either. Unless Aiko herself owned up to it, this notebook was her only hope for getting it across. That, and maybe it could help them figure out how to make the Quirk stop. Ochako was really tired of being unable to talk about anything.

They weren't having much luck though. She groaned as she exited the fifth apartment, having spent a good twenty minutes searching it since it had more furniture than some of the others. "It's not here," she called tiredly.

"Are there any other apartments left on this floor?" Deku called from one of the other rooms.

"No, I think you and Todoroki are searching the last two," Ochako called back. "I'll go down to the third floor and start there!"

"Alright, we'll come down when we're done!" Deku replied, and Ochako headed for the stairs. They'd started on the fourth floor where Aiko and Deku had their apartments, and then went to the fifth floor. Partially because that would be closer to Deku's room and thus more likely to have the notebook, but mainly because Deku did not want to search the one with the doll alone. Which had turned out to be a good idea since the bedroom was full of even more dolls. That room would probably show up in her dreams tonight.

She shuddered as she passed the door to the fourth floor, continuing onto the third floor. Like the other floors they'd checked, this hallway also had just six apartments. Two of the doors seemed to be missing entirely, with a third door actually on the floor in front of the doorway. Morbid curiosity took hold and Ochako went to that one first to peek inside.

The interior could be best described as a battlefield. Broken pieces of furniture everywhere, shattered glass, scorch marks on the walls, the works. It looked like a genuine battle had been fought there at some point. That, or someone throwing a very destructive tantrum. The wall to the bathroom had a giant hole in it.

Ochako decided to leave that room alone for now and went to the door closest to the stairs. This one had an actual door, unlike some of the apartments, and she grabbed the handle only for it to not budge—as in, the handle didn't budge, not the door. "Huh?" she muttered to herself as she tried to twist it a few more times. The handle remained steadily motionless though, not budging even with her full strength.

The thing was, it didn't feel like it was stuck, but more like it had just never been meant to move in the first place. She frowned as she gripped it with both hands pushed down with all her strength, grunting at the effort.

"Uraraka, what are you doing?" She turned to see Deku had appeared from the stairs, looking at her curiously. She released the handle and stepped back.

"Hey Deku, can you try to open this door?" she asked, and he shot her a puzzled look but obliged. Soon enough he frowned, visibly putting in just as much effort as she had as he tried to push down on the handle.

"Is it locked?" he asked after a couple of tries.

"I don't think so. Even locked door handles move a little bit." Deku squinted at the door before knocking, and Ochako perked up at the hard thumps it produced. Her family owned a construction company so she'd grown up seeing doors and other building materials being moved around, and that sound did not match with what she expected.

She stepped forward to knock on it herself. It felt more like knocking on rock rather than the fake wood the door used—way too hard for this type of material. Just to be sure, she tried knocking on another door, and sure enough it didn't feel nearly as hard and stiff. Even the sound her knocking produced was different, more light as the door rattled against the frame.

That last part had her spinning back to look at the other door, and Deku had clearly picked up on the same thing. He pounded on the door, and sure enough, the door didn't move at all inside the frame. "It's got to be a Quirk," he declared, and Ochako felt her heartbeat skyrocket. A Quirk.

"What if it's?" Aiko, she shouted in her head. This Quirk must be one of Aiko's. Who else would come here?

"You can't say who it is," Deku realized. Yes, yes! "So that must mean they're part of the Alliance in this world." Okay, not the grand revelation she'd been hoping for, but he was on the right track... "Do I know them?"

...At that moment, Ochako realized Deku would never guess it was Aiko. The possibility just didn't even exist in his brain. And even now, she couldn't so much as nod to answer his question. All she could do was scream.

So, she did.

She just threw up her arms and screamed in frustration, making Deku jump back in surprise. "I hate this stupid Quirk!" she shouted.

"What Quirk?"

"The one" Aiko "used!" Ochako shouted, but then froze. That... wasn't Deku, or even Todoroki. Deku actually screamed while Ochako whipped around to see Seiko standing behind her.

"Seiko-chan!" Ochako squeaked in surprise.

"Hello, Uraraka-san," the child greeted dully, face blank and placid just like the last time Ochako saw her. She didn't look any different, from the same sailor uniform-style dress to the cherry blossom hairclip used to pull her bangs to the side.

While she stared they heard footsteps running down the stairs. "I heard Midoriya scream, what—" Todoroki's voice cut off as he presumably laid eyes on Seiko. Ochako was still looking at her so she couldn't be sure, but it seemed like a fair assumption to make.

Seiko's head tilted slightly to the side as she gazed at the newcomer. "Ah. Hello."

Todoroki stared at her blankly for a moment before giving a single shiver and stepping towards Deku. "Who's that?" he asked, but Deku still seemed a bit shocked at Seiko's appearance.

"Heiwajima Seiko," Seiko introduced blandly, head still inclined. "And you are?"

"...Yuki." Seemed like Todoroki was rather paranoid of Seiko.

"I see. And why are you here?" Seiko straightened her head from the tilt and turned to Ochako as she added, "I thought you had no intentions of returning."

"Deku called us to help look for something," Ochako said sheepishly, and then paused. Wait, didn't Seiko follow Deku a lot? Wouldn't she know where the notebook was?

Before she could ask Deku finally got over his nerves. "What are you doing here?" he blurted. "Didn't you say Aiko banned you from here?" The declaration had Ochako jolting in alarm. Deku had mentioned that before when talking about Seiko, it was the only reason they'd felt comfortable enough to talk about everything here. But if she was here now—

"She did," Seiko confirmed plainly, apparently unbothered by this.

"Then, why are you here?" Deku asked, seeming almost frantic.

"Because I have no way to contact you, and a group of lower-ranking members of the Alliance intend to attack Eraserhead."

One week until Chapter 100 c: