Chapter Text
On one early Tuesday morning, just like any other, Teruhashi Kyoko woke up. This was not an usual event. And as Kyoko was a normal (totally normal) teenage girl, she woke up without special note, and made her way to the bathroom.
(Unfortunately for her, today would be anything but normal. Maybe she should’ve just stayed in bed.)
“M’ hair...” Kyoko mumbled, as she slowly grabbed a hair brush and began to set her hair back into place. Bangs over her (pure black) eyes. Sure, having weird eyes wasn’t a bad side effect of her quirk, but... it was weird, okay? And her eyebrows were thicker than most girls.
She was allowed to be self conscious. That was a normal thing.
As Kyoko continued to brush her hair, she absently reached over to peck at her phone, poking the screen until she finally, finally managed to pull up the radio. Early Tuesday meant that Present Mic would be on the radio, and everyone listened to him. He was... energetic, Kyoko would describe, and it was nice to get energized without screaming at the sky... for at least one day a week.
So naturally, Kyoko found herself surprised when the radio station was silent. No shouting, no English nonsensical phrases, just... silent.
“Eh?” Kyoko peered at the screen. She tapped a few things, and was about to give up, when a voice finally came on the air. Kyoko smiled, but…
“Hello, Tokyo! This is Yuu Yamato, coming to you live from Tokyo City Tower! Today, we’ll blah blah, blah....” an unfamiliar voice announced. Kyoko stared at her phone, until a song was finally started, the woman’s voice gone, replaced by American vocals filling the bathroom.
Click. Off, the music was turned, and the phone flipped over. Whatever. Kyoko liked the silence better anyway.
As she began to dress, putting on her academy blazer, she tried to think about what had happened. A guest speaker?... a wrong station?... maybe Mic-sensei really had to pee and left?...
“Maybe he’s sick,” Kyoko offered to herself, sliding on socks. Hopefully he was sick. Then he couldn’t ask for that grammar homework she didn’t do.
And with that, Kyoko stuffed it out of her mind. Disappointed, sure, but it wasn’t the end of the world or anything. She could poke around at school and see what was up, nothing major. What was major was that, oh great, the toilet paper was gone.
“Moooom!” Kyoko called, knees bunched together. Silence. Mom must’ve already left for work, and that meant Dad was gone too.
Normal people, in this situation, would only have one option: die. But Kyoko- whether she liked it or not- wasn’t really normal. So, with a heaved sigh, Kyoko extended her arm into the air. Her fingers wiggled, then slowly, her entire hand disappeared, as she began to rummage around in something unseen. Pop, she pulled her arm back out, now holding a roll of toilet paper.
Kyoko made a mental note to return a new roll to whatever time period she’d just stolen this one from.
If it wasn’t obvious by now, Teruhashi Kyoko had an… interesting quirk. Time Warp; the ability to shift oneself to any timestream, within a hundred years.
She’d done the math on it once, actually. Less than 0.0000001% of people had a quirk like she did- about 700 people, on the entire planet. Which sounded really cool on paper- and was really cool when she’d first gotten it, sure- but it quickly turned into a nuisance when it turned out that, hey, some of those 700 people will definitely go back in time and mess with as much stuff as physically possible.
Thankfully for Kyoko, most of those idiots died doing that. Because, hey, it also turned out that messing with all of space-time was a surefire way to erase yourself from existence.
But unthankfully, those that didn’t want to be helpful and just die, ended up doing really dumb stuff. And Kyoko would have to go back and fix it. Because she was a nice person. And because, maybe, someone attending UA academy to become a hero would want to help people. A shocking twist.
“Hmpf,” Kyoko grunted. Her bad mood was transfering to her thoughts now, too. And the day had started off so well. She swiped her phone up, depositing it into her pocket and hoping that Present Mic’s radioshow being MIA wasn’t anything more than a fluke.
After a few minutes of preparing breakfast (not toast. Kyoko honestly, truly despised toast. Yes, she had lots of opinions on things) and then a few more minutes of eating that breakfast, Kyoko slid on her backpack and stood in front of the hallway mirror. Time for some standard checks.
Sky, still blue. Grass was normal. Her uniform was fine, her homework was still unfinished, and a quick google revealed that the Prime Minister was the same as ever. That was… really all that Kyoko could think of (or be bothered to) check. Nothing overtly wrong today. She’d do an actual, more careful check later, as she always did. Now, it was time for school. And school meant no uncomfortable scowling. Kyoko smoothed her face into its usual features, and then, she was out the door.
Though the effect was a little ruined by the lack of music. And whatever weird American music that was on Mic-sensei’s station just wasn’t her tastes.
About a forth of the way into her walking, Kyoko met up with her best (best best) friend, Asui Tsuyu.
“Tsu-chan!” Kyoko greeted, falling into step beside the girl. Tsuyu merely waved, wordless. She looked as tired as Kyoko felt.
…
Maybe she had the grammar homework.
“Hey, Tsu-chan,” Kyoko stretched the words out, “Did you do the homework for English?”
“I think so, ribbit,” Tsuyu gestured sluggishly to her backpack, giving Kyoko permission to dig around for it. She smiled gratefully.
“Thanks! Mic-sensei would’ve totally killed me,” Kyoko began to dig around for the paper. She missed the blink of confusion that Tsuyu gave her.
About halfway through the walk, as Kyoko scrawled something that vaguely resembled English onto her paper and Tsuyu pattered silently along, the two girls came across the next addition to their group: Hagakura Toru.
“Hi, Teruhashi-chan!” Hagakura jumped slightly in her exuberance. Kyoko returned the greeting, before continuing to focus on her paper. Her handwriting… was so bad.
“Aizawa-sensei told me I’d better start studying for math, or else,” Kyoko muttered, finally finishing the last grammer problem and settling the finished paper away with a sigh. She interpreted the silence from the two girls as a request for more information, so she waved her hands around, flustered, “W-well, I did really bad on the last test because of my quirk and then there’s my homework grades, and, ehheh…”
It was Tsuyu who spoke first, face as blank as usual, “... Did you get any sleep, Kyo-chan?”
Was it that obvious? Kyoko rubbed the back of her neck, lying through her teeth, “Yes.”
“I’m sure Sensei will let you retake the test if you do poorly!” Hagakura reassured. Kyoko politely didn’t mention how crazy that idea was, instead deciding that she wasn’t the only one in need of sleep today.
And, just like that, the group had passed about ¾ of the way into their daily trek to school, and Uraraka Ochaco appeared.
The usual chatter of the group started up again, in full force, as each girl talked about whatever came to mind. Uraraka told everyone about something Midoriya had done the day before, and Tsuyu mentioned that it would rain later, while Hagakura complained about Mineta being Mineta (again). Kyoko, meanwhile, couldn’t shake the slightly awkward feeling that Something was Wrong™.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Teruhashi Kyoko prided herself in being observant when it counted, but as of right now, she couldn’t even think about could’ve gone wrong. The whole air had this stink off… time-goop. Like someone had stuck their grubby little fingers into the blanket of spacetime, and then punched a hole in it gleefully. That kind of smell. Vaguely marshmallowy.
And this time, it wasn’t her fault, because it had started before the toilet paper incident.
“Hang in there, Teruhashi-chan!” Uraraka encouraged as the four of them entered the school gates. Kyoko really didn’t think she’d be able to, but she still flashed Urakara a supportive smile.
“Don’t worry, Uraraka-chan, I’ll be fine,” and Kyoko was also a very good liar. The perfect normal girl had to have a few tricks up her sleeve somehow.
Geez. It was a good thing that no one really knew what her quirk could do, or they’d never stop worrying about her.
Thankfully for everyone, the walk to homeroom was relatively painless. Kyoko split away from her three friends, also waving to the few other students she were friends with from class 1-A, before she meandered over to the homeroom of class 1-B. The classroom was its usual lively self, and she quietly slipped into her seat. Unnoticed and unseen, just how she liked it. She tilted her head to listen for anything out of place around her.
“I totally aced that Foundations test-”
“-wanna go to the arcade after? I-”
“-oatmeal, are you crazy?”
But, everything was normal. Fairly normal, at least. And by then, their homeroom teacher walked in, and it was time for school to officially begin. Kyoko let her mind wander as she picked at the problem of “what’s wrong” until it slipped her mind, just in time for math class.
Because of course, that’s when everything went wrong in rapid succession.