Note: First part is best viewed on AO3 because ~~(strikethrough text)~~

Chapter 122

.::And Then There Were Seven::.

Tuesday, November 14. 2:52 AM.

Tooru bit back a yawn as she sat hunched over her laptop, doing her best to ignore the clock in the corner of the screen and focus on her work. Everyone else had been asleep for a long time by that point, but she'd spent the past several hours totally immersed in coding. She had only started trying to learn recently, and her latest practice assignment from Manami was making a simple memory game.

And she'd only finally made a breakthrough an hour ago.

"Come on, work," she whispered to herself as the page loaded with sixteen gray squares arranged into four rows. She clicked them in order, watching as they shifted briefly from gray to red, yellow, blue, orange... A second red square flashed on her fifth click, and she quickly clicked the original one, making them both vanish. And without making the other squares move to fill the empty spot!

That bit wasn't the issue though; solving that had been part of her initial breakthrough. What had her stuck for the past hour was the automatic reset at the end. She needed to see if it would actually reset and properly randomize the colors.

She clicked through the squares in order, quickly finding more pairs. Orange, green, blue, brown. She had only three pairs of colors left to find, yellow, purple and pink, and she'd already seen most of those once. She clicked the next square, watching it flash yellow, and quickly slid her finger on the trackpad to the second square of the top row.

And that was when her brain blue-screened.

Her body stilled and she slipped off the chair to the floor in a crumpled heap, eyes open but unseeing as her thoughts ground to a halt. Her mind didn't go blank exactly, it was more like the opposite: there was too much, her mind suddenly too overwhelmed with information. It was too much to process, so instead, her brain essentially shut down.

And then, after about a minute, it rebooted.

Tooru groaned softly as awareness returned, mind still groggy but more coherent now. Her first thought: this wasn't her bed, or any bed. She instead found herself staring at a wooden floor, a hand splayed atop it. She shifted to get up and the hand twitched and moved to support her weight, making her pause. She then shot upright and stared at two fleshy, tanned, visible hands.

Hands which responded to her movements.

Tooru screamed in shock, nearly falling onto her back. As she fumbled around the floor a door slammed open, and she snapped her head to see two boys, one familiar and one (not).

"Hagakure, what's wrong?" Tokoyami asked, his bird-like head ruffled and eyes wide with alarm.

"Did something happen?" the boy with void-like skin (Kuroiro) added while looking around the (dining) room (and how did she know that, why did she know his name or what room this was)—

"Tooru?" a red-haired girl—no, woman, Aiba-Manami-La Brava—said, poking her head from another door. "Wait, were you still working on coding?" And then from yet another door appeared another person, (Tobita-san) looking out with concern.

"What is all this commotion?" he demanded, and Tooru just stared, his face familiar and not, a safe person and a stranger, and her brain hurt—

She screamed as she grabbed at her head, the slew of conflicting thoughts too much again. This time her brain didn't shut down and grant her a reprieve though.

This time, Hagakure Tooru was wide awake.

On Wednesday, December 13, the thirtieth day since waking up in another world, it finally became clear that there were not six, but seven students from Class 1-A.

"I can't believe I finally found someone!" Hagakure sobbed, wiping away tears even as she flashed a beaming smile that they could see. Because in this world, Hagakure Tooru wasn't perpetually invisible, but could apparently trigger it instead. "I was starting to think I really was the only one!"

"Man, we thought we were the only two at first, too!" Denki said, flashing her a grin while struggling to get out of his pants. He and Kyouka had both worn regular clothes under their costumes, both as extra layers against the cold and also to quickly change and hide in plain sight. Which was convenient since they were still in the same alley due to not really knowing of any nearby bathrooms to change in.

In his case, he had two layers of jeans, which made pulling off the top pair without removing the second and exposing his boxers a bit tricky. He grunted while struggling to tug down the left leg, leaning against the wall for support. "We got lucky though since we—hah—were at the same school, but then—oh, crap, I'm falling!"

He yelped as he lost his balance and started to keel over. Kyouka quickly moved to catch his shoulder, shooting him an annoyed look. She'd already removed the dress and pants, leaving her in a long-sleeved shirt and leggings. "You know what, why don't Hagakure and I just turn around so you can get those off," she suggested flatly, and Denki sighed.

"Yeah, that's probably better." Kyouka nodded and stepped over to join Hagakure, both girls turning away so he could peel off both pairs and quickly separate them. As they did Kyouka grabbed a backpack—formerly stashed in another alley and helpfully retrieved by Hagakure—and pulled out a coat and boots. Because while they wore other outfits under their costumes, they still couldn't wear a second pair of shoes or a coat.

"I still can't believe I found you guys!" Hagakure exclaimed, bouncing excitedly. "I mean, obviously I've been with Fumiyami and Shikkun this whole time, but they're not, like, our versions of them, you know?"

"Fumiyami?" Kyouka repeated, arching an eyebrow while tugging on the boots.

"Yeah, Tokoyami!" Hagakure said with an eager head bob. "I call him Fumiyami in this world, and it's kinda stuck. Same with Shikkun—but I mean, I don't really know him in our world, so uh, not like I'd have any other habits. Oh, his name's actually Kuroiro by the way, Kuroiro Shihai—but we're kinda like, almost childhood friends here, I guess? Um," she lost some of her vibrancy as she slumped, her smile becoming downright sheepish. "My life's kinda... different here, heh."

"I'll say," Kyouka snorted, eying the not-so-invisible girl. "We were thinking Tokoyami might be from 1-A, since the timing of him and Gentle Criminal coming to Hosu was kinda suspicious. Never crossed our minds that you were part of their crew, though."

Hagakure instantly perked up as she nodded, flashing another bright smile as she waved her hands. "Yeah! Me and Shikkun are basically their secret weapons! It'd be a big problem if you did think I was there since no one's supposed to know about me! So that just means I did my job right!"

"So uh, how much do they know?" Denki asked, joining them after finally shedding rid of the outer layers of his costume. Kyouka handed him the bag so he could retrieve his own shoes and second coat, and he quickly pulled them on. "I mean, were they already planning to visit Hosu already, or uh, did you...?"

Once again Hagakure's expression became sheepish, rubbing the back of her head. "They... kinda know everything. I uh, didn't really react well to waking up with, you know." She shrugged, the rise of her shoulders exaggerated to accommodate for her usual invisibility.

"Your Quirk's totally different, isn't it?" Kyouka commented, and Hagakure perked up and nodded.

"Yeah, it is! Guys, it was so freaky to see my own hand. And my face and my hair—they're totally different, too!" She tugged at the ends of her hair with comically wide eyes, exaggerating a look of shock. "Like, seriously, I barely even recognized myself!" With Hagakure's personality, it was hard to say how much of that last comment was serious and how much was her joking around.

They didn't have much time to ponder it before she brightened and continued, "But that's not important, because I finally found you! I still can't believe it's really you guys! I mean I thought it might be when I found that Tweeter account, but I couldn't be totally sure, you know?"

"Yeah, kinda hard to be sure until you make first contact," Kyouka agreed, thinking back to their own reunions.

"Exactly! But I still can't believe I even talked to Kami for like an hour and he still didn't recognize me!"

"Hey!" Denki yelped. "In my defense, I'm used to you being totally invisible! And if you knew it was me, why didn't you say anything back then? Or try to test me or something?"

"Because you said you were studying for a test!" Hagakure replied with a laugh. "Everyone knows you need all the time you can get!"

"Wha—you scored sixteenth place on the midterms! You're barely any better than me!"

"Yeah, but I also wasn't trying to cram a whole alter-semester's worth of classes in a couple days!"

Kyouka snorted at the exchange while Denki slumped with a dejected groan. Listening to the animated girl brought back fond memories and nostalgia, a sense of home and familiarity settling over her. She had missed all of their classmates so much, so getting to see another one from their 1-A, and one of her friends at that, was just... good.

"We seriously have a lot to go over," she said, drawing their attention. "But maybe not here. It's a bit... you know, open." She shot a pointed look at the top of the alley towards the rooftops, and the other two quickly nodded.

"I could take you guys to our hideout!" Hagakure suggested. "The others will probably want to talk to you too! It might be kinda chaotic to go back there right now, since the heist is getting wrapped up, but it's pretty close to here. And it'll probably be easier to go over it all at once, you know?"

"Might be better if we talk alone first, actually," Denki said. "We uh, have a lot to go over. And some of it is kinda... big." An understatement if Kyouka had ever heard one.

"Let's do it at your place," she interjected. If Gentle Criminal or anyone else from their crew tracked Hagakure, it would ultimately be safer if they found Denki's apartment than the warehouse. Paranoia had proven their ally in this world more often than not.

Hagakure seemed a bit surprised, but quickly nodded. "Okay, that works for me too. Let me just tell La Brava real quick and we'll head out!" She tapped her ear and presumably an earpiece hidden by her hair as she turned away to talk to someone.

"Wait, who's La Brava?" Denki whispered to Kyouka. "How many people are involved in this?" She just shrugged as Hagakure turned back.

"Okay, she gave the all clear! Let's go!" And then she vanished entirely, making them jolt. They jumped again when she then declared, "Lead the way!"

"Okay, why does that feel so weird?" Denki yelped, and Hagakure laughed.

"You think it's weird? Imagine how it is for me!"

"Well, let's just get going then," Kyouka said, and Hagakure gave an affirmative cheer as they headed for the alley's exit. They could still hear the commotion from the heist a few blocks away, the voices of the crowd audible even at a distance. Screams and cheers echoed down the streets, gradually fading as they quickly headed in the opposite direction.

It took half an hour to reach Denki's apartment. They had to constantly check if Hagakure was still following, especially when they had to ride a train for a few stops. Thankfully though, they managed to get there with no interruptions, and the moment the door closed Hagakure nearly bowled them over with a hug.

"I still can't believe you're here too!" she laughed as she flickered to be visible once more, and it was so jarring to have a face for that voice. "Seriously, guys, so much happened! Did a lot happen for you?"

"That's one way to put it," Denki muttered wryly, and Kyouka snorted.

"We should probably sit down," she said with a gesture to the couch. "There's a lot to go over. It'd probably be faster for you to start first, but... well, would probably be best if you only had to go over it once."

Hagakure instantly snapped to attention, picking up on the hidden meaning. "There are others?" she gasped, a smile breaking out, and started practically vibrating with excitement. "Oh my gosh, who? Is Yaoyorozu one? She's at your school too, right? Manami said she was anyway. Oh! What about Iida? He's there too!"

"Okay, before we answer, who is Manami and how does she know that?" Denki cut in with a look of alarm.

"She's Gentle's partner in crime, and like our little big sister!" Hagakure laughed, which... what? "She's a super-awesome hacker. She's the one who helped figure out how to contact you and that you'd be free today! I also told her everyone else's names, but... she wasn't able to find everyone. Or at least, nothing good."

Hagakure's good mood diminished, her seafoam green eyes filled with discomfort and worry as she frowned. "Guys, please tell me you've heard something about Mashirao, or Bakugou and Midoriya. Especially those last two. Because the news articles we did find on them..."

She trailed off and bit her lip, but Kyouka knew exactly what she meant. All of them had gotten similar unnerving pits of dread at finding the articles mentioning the circumstances of their disappearances. "Well, uh, you're kinda in luck," Denki said with a weak laugh. "Because we do know where all of them are, and they're alive... heh..."

"...Why does that sound ominous?" Hagakure asked after a beat. "What happened to them?"

"So uh, you see, uh. I guess we'll start with who else is here first? Because there's Mina, Todoroki, Ura—Ochako, and Midoriya."

"They're all here too—wait, since when were you and Mina and Ura-chan on a first name basis!?"

"Since last night, actually? After going through all this, we figured it was only fair. Todoroki and Midoriya didn't respond last night or today though, so still waiting on them to give us permission. Those two... They, uh, are having a really wild time right now, even compared to everyone else—which is seriously saying something."

While Denki talked Kyouka went to the kitchen table where she'd left her laptop, his comments reminding her of her messages to Anjou at noon. They'd left their phones at the warehouse, but she could still log into FacePage on her laptop. By now the heist should be all over the news, so if someone had seen it they should feel it safe to send a message without distracting her or Denki.

Sure enough, she found a message from Ochako. 'Hey, so I saw a livestream of the Gentle Criminal fight and you weren't there, so figured it's safe to update you. One, I got un-Quirked. And Yuki's brother is coming back with me so we're going to have to tell him tonight. So just a heads up, that's a thing. And two, um. Might work better to just show a screenshot.'

And attached was a screenshot of a message from Anjou that had Kyouka's heart drop, physically recoiling. "Shit," she blurted, interrupting Denki's (slightly mangled) rehash of everyone's situations.

"What happened?" he asked sharply, quickly joining her, but Kyouka slammed the laptop lid before he could look.

"Two things," she said as she turned to Hagakure. "One, Dabi is a Todoroki. And he and this world's Todoroki lived together on the run after Endeavor died, up until our Todoroki froze him over and ran. So we have to let him into the loop now, because Dabi's been looking for him ever since and won't let it drop now that he's found him."

Hagakure just stared open-mouthed, eyes bugging out of her skull. "...I'm sorry, I stopped listening after 'Dabi is a Todoroki,'" she admitted after a few seconds.

"Yeah, that's how most of us reacted," Denki said with a sheepish laugh. "But hold on, so I guess that means Ochako's taking him back to Odawara and briefing him? Did she get un-Quirked?"

Kyouka nodded. "She did. And we'll explain that part in a second," she added to Hagakure who sported a visible look of confusion. "But the other thing is more urgent. We don't know how, not even Midoriya knows, but he lives with the League of Villains and is Shigaraki's adopted brother in this world."

Hagakure physically recoiled with a gasp, blurting, "What!? How—wait, you just said you don't know that, but still! What the heck?"

"Yeah, his situation's kinda... majorly fucked up," Denki said with a grimace. "Like, it's actually the biggest problem for us right now because it has a lot of other people involved. Like Bakugou, Aizawa-sensei, that Shinsou kid from Gen-Ed..."

And now Hagakure looked even more stunned, needing several seconds to process that. "We'll explain the details of that in a second too," Kyouka sighed. "But right now, what you need to know is this: he's been able to avoid suspicion because his counterpart has these weird amnesia-things they call 'episodes' and left a letter and a bunch of notebooks for himself covering all the major stuff."

That seemed a little easier for their classmate to digest, blinking out of her stupor and perking up. "Oh! So is he just pretending he's having an episode right now, then?"

"Kind of," Kyouka hedged. "He's told a couple people that, namely Bakugou and Shinsou to help get their trust. Toga, that girl Ochako and Tsuyu met in the woods, figured it out on her own, but is kind of an ally? And then these two people named Seiko and Aiko—who is a huge problem, but again, we'll go over that later—but. Apparently the episodes are because the other-him got attacked a couple years back by some guy with a memory Quirk, and he's done some dangerous things during a couple of them..."

As she spoke she could see realization strike Denki, jolting as if struck by lightning and his face draining of color. "No," he whispered. "Y-you can't mean..."

"Shigaraki figured it out last night," Kyouka confirmed grimly. "Anjou confirmed it at lunch. He's stuck in isolation until the episode ends."

The others look physically struck, even Hagakure understanding the severity with what little context she had. The blue-haired girl stood dazed for a moment before turning to head over to the couch, almost collapsing onto it. Denki followed in a stunned stupor, face still pale as he sank onto the cushions next to her.

"Shit," he whispered, clutching at his head. "Shit, shit, shit... This is seriously the worst-case scenario! That episode won't end because it's not a freaking episode!" Kyouka couldn't even muster the will for a witty remark about stating the obvious. Next to him Hagakure still looked shocked, but took a deep breath and seemed to collect herself before lifting her head.

Suddenly, she seemed to carry an air of authority and command, so radically different from the Hagakure they knew that it had to be her counterpart's influence. "Tell me everything, from the start," she demanded firmly.

And naturally, they obliged.

Across the city, Tobita Danjurou slipped into their apartment hideout with no small amount of relief. "La Brava, we have returned at last!" he announced while Tokoyami stumbled in beside him, Kuroiro tumbling out of his cloak and onto the floor. Manami, seated on the couch, leapt to her feet and almost skipped over.

"You're back! I was watching the news broadcast, and that was really close!"

"That... was too close," Kuroiro groaned from the floor. "We should have run earlier..."

"You were not the one running," Tokoyami muttered back, staggering to an armchair to sit down. He pulled off his mask and lightly tossed it onto the couch, almost seeming to melt into the chair. "We deeply underestimated Ingenium's persistence."

"I cannot disagree there," Danjurou said, walking to the kitchenette to prepare some tea. "Losing him was quite the challenge with his speed, but we succeeded in the end. Speaking of that, however, what about Hagakure? Did she succeed in her own goals?"

"She did!" Manami confirmed brightly. "She told me they're definitely the real deal, just like she thought, and went to talk to them at that Kaminari kid's place."

"Is that a good idea?" Kuroiro asked, peeling himself off the floor to frown at them. "This could still be a trap. We still don't know for sure if those memories are real or not, and she's a big target..."

"It could be a dark deception in part of a grander scheme we cannot fathom yet," Tokoyami agreed with a nod.

"Well, we know exactly where she is," Manami replied with a confident smirk. "We have three different ways to track her down if it is a trap. Her location hasn't moved for a while, so we can call and go there in an hour if she doesn't respond."

"Why don't you call right now," Kuroiro ground out.

"Now, now, they probably have a lot to go over," Danjurou interjected. "We can give them some time to catch up."

"If you're really that worried, I already copied the surveillance footage of them going to that apartment to your laptop," Manami added, gesturing to the kitchen table where the device sat. "You can't see her, but it all matches with her location." The teenager grunted as he went to check it without another word.

Danjurou returned his attention to brewing his tea, Manami joining him. Her bravado quickly faded without the teens looking at her, her uncertainty showing on her face. "We're not making a mistake, right?" she asked quietly, poking her fingers together nervously. "I mean, we've got all these fail-safes, but..."

"We must have faith in young Hagakure," Danjurou replied smoothly, masking his own nervousness. "While her mind may be scattered, she is still herself. If it is a trap, we must trust she can escape."

Manami nodded and they lapsed into silence, mainly because the tea kettle began shrieking as the water reached a boil, making them all jump. "Why do we even have that?" Tokoyami squawked as Danjurou hurried to move the kettle to another burner. "You never even leave that kettle unattended!"

"It's safer than being distracted, my boy!"

"But does it have to be so loud?" Kuroiro griped. "Why is it so loud? I can't hear the computer!"

"There's no audio on the surveillance footage!" Manami told him, and he paused to squint at the laptop.

"...Huh."

At this point Dark Shadow extruded from Tokoyami's back, hissing at them, "Be quiet! We're trying to watch the news coverage of our getaway!"

"We don't need to watch it! We just got away!"

Needless to say, things got a little chaotic at Gentle Criminal's hideout for a while, but that was par for the course for the group of thieves.

OMAKE: Her Name

Two days later, things had finally settled down a bit after the chaos of Hagakure professing to having her mind swapped from another universe. Danjurou was in the middle of his afternoon tea, Manami was on her laptop and the boys were reading books when Hagakure burst out of her room. "Guys, I figured out another one of the differences between me and this world's me!" she exclaimed.

"Oh?" Danjurou asked, setting down his teacup to give her his full attention. "Do tell."

"This world's me is named Tohru, but I am named Tooru!"

There was a moment of silence. "...What?" Tokoyami asked.

"It's so weird, right?" Hagakure babbled. "It's such a small and specific difference! And that makes me wonder: is there another world where it's just Toru? Or maybe one where we use Tōru! Wouldn't that be wild?"

As she babbled the four thieves all slowly exchanged blank looks, having no idea what she was talking about. To them, it sounded exactly the same. "Do you mean you use different kanji?" Manami asked, and Hagakure huffed.

"No, I just said, my name is Tooru, but your Hagakure is named Tohru!"

Needless to say, their confusion did not clear anytime soon.

ENTER: HAGAKURE!

Fun fact: I've actually known from the very beginning, before I wrote the first word of this giant monolith, that she would be with Gentle Criminal and crew. Other details came later, but she was one of the only students whose location I had set in stone from the start. Someday we'll get a whole chapter dedicated to her flashbacks of this past month, but not right now. It would reveal a bit too much~

Also, the omake is based on the fact that I have seen both spellings for "Tōru" in translations. I was literally waffling on which spelling to use up until the very last second XD

Question for next time: What new elements of chaos do you predict in the escape with this new variable?