Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Friday afternoons were always your favorite. After the hustle and bustle of a long day (school day or otherwise) the perfect lax time was always a Friday afternoon. This particular Friday had marked the start of your summer break, and you were super excited to start your summer in the best way possible: with a super long anime marathon. 

What?

It was no secret (to your friends and to the chagrin of your family) that you were a huge weeb. You had poster after poster of many shonen franchises. Figurines that were WAY too expensive. Heck, you even cosplayed with your friends from time to time, the boxes of costumes as well as containers full of props in the back of your closet were a testament to that. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first thing you did upon entering your room is to text your friend Lidia for some anime recommendations. 

You opened your phone to -surprise- zero notifications. It’s not like you were expecting anyone to contact you or anything but it still stung nonetheless. 

‘Note to self: Try to socialize more in the new school year…. Actually scratch that, I’m too awkward for social interaction’

The blinding yellow of Snapchat starting up makes you hiss. Even if it was summer and it stayed bright for longer periods of time (which you hated), it still couldn’t protect you from the max brightness of your cell phone. But fucking hell, that’s beside the point. You hissed. You fricking hissed, like for real feral hissing. What are you? A stray cat?

‘I really need to get out more’ you thought to yourself ‘Before I turn into a fucking hermit or one of those old ladies from that show Hoarders’

You finally open snap, swiping promptly to the right to avoid seeing your face in the front-facing camera. You scrolled through all of your “best friends”, even though most of them were given that title because you send streaks to each other and not that you actually talk to them, and spot the bitmoji accompanied with the name, Karma’s Whore. You snicker to yourself, remembering the whole conversation that led to you dubbing such an immaculate title upon Lidia, and swipe right striking up a conversation with her. 

Me:

| Hey Dia got any of the good stufff?

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| that depends whatcha want?

Me: 

| LOLLL anime recomendations pls

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| Oh oki

| Wait fuckinn….

| herkjjubfjkngteubaskrbbvla why are you asking me im a fucking mess I- 

Me:

| LMAO I felt that

| nah but fr I trust ur judgment sis you could never steer me wrong

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| are-are you saying I have good taste?

| Is that a compliment

| OML 

Me:

| Dont get it twisted siss you liked SAO and the last few seasons of bleach LOLLL nasty

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| stfu ur the one with poor taste smh

| shit what were we even talking about again?

Me:

| oh uh anime recs

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| oh okioki

| hmmmmmm

| you good with another shonen series?

Me:

| yea sure smth interesting

| I dont mind if its soft but like i would prefer action ig

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| oh okay

| evgwuirngw i got a good one

| what about my hero academia?

Me:

| oh ive seen memes

| its on my to watch list wuts it abt?

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| Oh sis dont even get me started ive been hyperfixated on this show for lord knows how long

| ok ok fuckin hell

| im not gonna spoil gve me a sec ill tell you

You watch her bitmoji- a little cream-colored girl with hair to match her skin color, and light brown eyes- think up dots for what felt like five to ten minutes stopping every minute to show Lidia’s pause in her train of thought. After what felt like forever you finally were greeted with a long paragraph detailing rather vaguely what this show was about. Jesus christ you were too tired to read all that but hell you did ask her to explain.  You skim over the paragraph stopping at the part where it is stated that the main character, Izuku Midoriya, a literal green shrub (she sent a bunch of pictures of him), wants to become the number one hero and laugh. He wants to become the best of the best, just like Naruto in fact…

Me: 

| so he’s like green naruto?

| that doesnt sound very interesting

| or original 

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| u know wut fuck you and fuck ur mother 

| why the fuck are you even saying that you haven’t even watched you fucking ingrate

| not original my ass sis over here watching the same cookie cutter romance anime continuously

| and don’t do my bb like that he’s trying 

| its different i swear

Me:

| lolllll i was fuckin with ya lmaooo

| it seems cool ill watch it

| besides you really seem to simp for a literal bush 

KaRmA’s WHoRe: 

| oh you think I only simp for him sis you should look at this

Lidia began to send you pictures of what you would assume to be other characters in the show. You had to admit they all had very bright and diverse designs, and not to mention how attractive they looked. You saved all the pictures, of course, you had to start your fan gallery somewhere, especially if these adorable characters were part of the main cast. There were a few that caught your eye, one boy with blonde spiky hair and red eyes and a choice tank top on that brought out his collar bones nicely. Another boy with heterochromia, one greyish-silver eye, and one bright blue with duo colored hair as well, white and red. You laughed when you saw this character, the colors of the Japanese flag, but besides that, he seemed like an interesting character if his scar was anything to go by. And of course, you could not forget the main character, Midoriya. Lidia seemed to like him a lot and you can see why. His baby face exuded innocence and a certain type of charm that made it hard for you to look away. Yep green naruto, you would never drop that for as long as you live. 

The female characters were also very interesting. One had earphone jacks on her ear lobes, not to mention she was hella cute. The frog-like girl had the cutest hairstyle but not to mention, she was hella THICC. Like super thicc. In fact, a majority of the girls were really pretty and adorable looking. You nodded in approval and texted Lidia thanking her for the drugs  recommendation before dropping your phone on your bed and changing into your pajamas.

After changing into your onesie, which was fashioned to look like Happy from Fairytail, you walked over to the corner of your room where your glass case full of figurines were. You sat in front of the display and took out your Goku figurine. It was the only one that was broken, mainly because you were the one that broke it, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to trash it. It was the first anime-related purchase your parents, although quite begrudgingly, bought you, and sometimes when days were beginning to get too stressful you would look at Goku and imagine what it would be like to just go Super Saiyan and fuck shit up. It wasn’t… the most ideal of cheer ups or motivational spiels, but it was quite funny to imagine going berserk in the middle of class and just blasting your annoying math teacher into oblivion because you just felt like it. 

But as you looked at the broken figurine with one janky arm and chipped paint, you began to wonder what you would really do if you had a “quirk” as they called it. You’ve never been one to go out of their way to save others. You honestly wished you could ignore the world and do what you wanted without worrying about the problems of others, but you couldn’t help but wonder. 

“Hey Goku, do you think that if the world were in trouble, and I had the power to help save it, that I would help, even if others had the ability to do just that, even if they were much stronger than me?”

You look at Goku for a second, half expecting an answer. Then you laugh, maybe at yourself, or that stupid question you asked to an inanimate object, and shake your head. You already knew the answer to that question. The answer was no. It didn’t hurt to think about it. You were selfish. Just like for many people on this earth, your survival came first. You were no saint, you couldn’t possibly imagine putting your life on the line for people you hardly knew. Your family and friends maybe, but even then you still couldn’t stop fearing for yourself, your own well being, your own life. The world is not forgiving to those who put their lives on the line for others. The best you get happens when you are already dead. And even then a few hundred flowers and candles on your grave are not enough to bring you back. Not enough to fulfill your hopes and dreams, not enough to fill the hole in your loved one’s hearts. 

You place Goku back in the display and lock it. You thought about My Hero Academia, and you mused how it must have been one perfect world. Where thousands of people go out of their way to put their lives on the line for others. How kids your age already knew what they wanted to do, how they were actively making a difference in the world without a single fear for their lives. It didn’t make you feel bad. I mean who could blame you. They lived in a fictional world where they could live with zero consequences. They were not real people and that was the end of that. Their lives did not hold any weight, although as a viewer it still hurt watching characters die, especially if you had really liked that character. 

After a few minutes searching through the clothes pile on your desk chair for your charger, you dived onto your bed, plugged it in the outlet next to the headboard, and charged your laptop. You then scrolled through your long list of bookmarks to find Crunchyroll. You didn’t really enjoy using the site, mainly because of the ads, but it was more trustworthy than a few other sites you’ve used in the past. You looked up My hero in the search bar and it was the first anime to pop up. Not only that but it had a large number of episodes out already, up to 4 seasons. It really did come as a surprise that you hadn’t watched this anime sooner. It certainly had a huge fanbase, and it had been constantly filling your feed since your favorite creators had also been a part of this fandom. But you weren’t one to back down in the face of popular opinion. If this anime was as good as everyone had said it was, well you were going to find out for yourself just how good it can be. 

Episode 1 - Izuku Midoriya: Origin

You began watching and to be honest it was quite engaging. Izuku Midoriya, a four-year-old boy fighting off “Kachan”, to which you could only assume was Katsuki Bakugou, and his friends to defend others. He was quirkless it seemed, and he was bullied because he was the only one out of his school mates who did not receive a quirk. After that fact set in you had to pause to listen to the opening theme. It lowkey slapped, but you were not sold on the show yet. The backstory was interesting to you, the start of mutated or evolved humans that were born with extraordinary powers, and how over time people with quirks became the norm. You were introduced to society’s love for heroism and putting well known and flashy heroes into the spotlight. You laughed at Midoriya being called out for being a fanboy, only to get embarrassed when admitting it. Mood. Only for the fight between the baddie and the heroes to end off with some huge lady in a skin-tight suit shoving her ass in reporters’ faces. 

“I already know this is not an anime I can watch with the family around, huh” you mumbled. 

The episode played on as Izuku continued world-building for you how having heroes with superpowers also came with superpowered villains. How heroes became an important part of society, and how they were paid for it.  You didn’t like that. That mainly people were being heroes for the money or fame, but what could you do? People can still be selfish whether it’s in real life or in an anime you thought. The sour taste seemed to dissipate after seeing Midoriya’s passion for becoming a hero, his need to analyze fights between heroes and villains showing that he had a real zeal for the profession… Only for it to come back when you watched how Midoriya was treated like shit by his classmates with Katsuki Bakugou constantly trying to put Midoriya down.

“I don’t like you one bit, fucking annoying, why are you bothering Izuku, do you really feel like you have something to prove by belittling him and his efforts?” You asked coldly. 

It wasn’t that much of a big deal really. It just irked you how this was all happening and no one, not even Izuku himself was doing anything to stop it. It irked you because you knew what it felt like to be picked on. It irked you because even though you just met these characters you wanted nothing more than to slap Bakugou across his face and tell him that he will never be a respectable hero with that kind of attitude. And your irritation just got worse as Bakugou went to harass Izuku after school, destroying his property, and Izuku could not say anything. Not one word to defend himself. Surely Bakugou could not be accepted into this UA school if he had a record for beating other kids up. What did Izuku have left to lose? You seethed wanting nothing more than for Izuku to grow a spine and tell him off. 

“If you want to be a hero so badly, there’s a quick way to do it. Believe that you will be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a last chance dive off the roof.” 

Did he jus- did he just tell him to kill himself?

Okay, now you were livid. After knocking this kid down, peg by peg, Bakugou had to add insult to injury by telling him to kill himself if he really wanted to be a hero. This was the future of heroes. This disgusting pathetic excuse of a human being. And his friends are letting this happen! You huffed as Izuku started to bash Katsuki behind his back. Why waste your words on him now if he’s not even there to hear them, huh Izuku? You saying nothing is enabling his behavior Izuku, do you not realize this, or are you too much of a coward to fight back?

You paused the video and took a breather. You would admit this was much different from the lightheartedness of Naruto’s first episode, you would have to apologize to Lidia for doubting her, but then you remembered Lidia liked Bakugou and thought better of it. If you’re going to watch this show while Bakugou was in it you would watch it partially because you were hoping that Karma would come for his ass. Or for when he learns how to not be a literal piece of shit.

You chuckled, Bakugou Katsuki, his Quirk: shithead, he has the ability to have not one redeeming quality about him, it causes others to not want to be around him lest he starts to rub off on them.  

Unpause. Flashback to when Izuku realized his dream to be a hero just like his role model All Might. More disappointment. More unhappy times. Were you crying….? Scratch that, Izuku’s laughing in a dark tunnel like a doof, that’s kinda cute. Shit. Is that a tentacle monster? Everything was happening so fast. He’s not gonna die you know but still, this boy must have the worst luck. 

You continue watching, fewer thoughts run through your head as you just absorbed the information the show was giving you. You eventually got to episode two and watched as not only were Izuku’s dreams bashed again, by his role model no less, but that fucking tentacle monster got loose again. Good job All Might! You continued being salty while watching Bakugou almost die at the hands of the slime villain, almost ashamed with yourself for thinking that he got what he deserves when Izuku rushed in to try and save him. You smiled besides yourself. 

“Not all of us can be good people like you Izuku, I know that if it were me in your shoes I would let Katsuki die. I mean he did call you useless, who would blame me if I watched him take his last breath right in front of me? I know I wouldn’t.”

All Might finally grew a pair and finished off the villain once and for all and understandably Izuku was scolded for putting his life in danger. But to put the icing on the cake instead of a thank you or a “sorry for bullying you and being a whole dick in general” Bakugou yells at Izuku saying he didn’t need help and continued to degrade him. Such a brat, you thought, and whatever guilt you felt in thinking about leaving him to die dissipated immediately. 

You ended off that episode with All Might telling Izuku that he too could be a hero and saying he was worthy of inheriting his power One for All. 

Wow, you really were not expecting that. Some part of you thought that Izuku had some kind of dormant quirk that was super OP and that he would realize it when his life was put into danger, hence him attacking the slime monster when it had Bakugou. But when nothing happened, at least nothing significant happened between Izuku and the slime monster, you were at a loss for what was next. Some part of you was disappointed that he really didn’t have a quirk and he was receiving one from All Might, but then you thought better of it. Izuku wasn’t some special case, he really was just quirkless, and by him being recognized by his role model for having the heart of a hero, it gave him the strength to back up his dreams and goals. He already was a hero, and he didn’t need a quirk to prove that. 

You were sold, this show was indeed interesting and charming in its own right, and you could honestly see yourself getting deep into the fandom. But just as you clicked on episode three, your laptop shut down.

That’s weird you were sure you plugged in your charger.

You checked if your charger was still plugged in and it was, the light on the side of your laptop next to the charger slot was green, signifying that it was fully charged. Fuck, that meant that it crashed.

You spammed the power button desperate to get back to watching the show, and after a while when you were just about to give up, the screen lit up in a slightly lighter shade of black. You were ecstatic! And they say spamming buttons does you no good.  The screen lit up a bright blue, only to show a loading sign with the words, Working on updates 0% Do not turn off your device. This will take a while. You scoffed, so much for getting your hopes up. You didn’t schedule an update at this time but to be fair you have been procrastinating on that for months, it was only a matter of time. 

You then took out your phone and tried to watch it from there, but Crunchyroll was having maintenance issues? Talk about horrible timing. You sigh in defeat and decide to do some research on MHA. It couldn’t hurt to learn more about the creator, and to be honest you really loved seeing behind the scenes works, how characters were drawn, and stuff like that. 

Kohei Horikoshi, the creator of the series, you learned was a very interesting person. He mostly wore a mask, and his inspiration for some of his characters was downright hilarious. He had originally planned on making Izuku a hero without a quirk but was advised on giving him one so he won’t fade into the background. And from what you saw in comments he was maybe a little sadistic? Wow. This guy seemed alright. 

You stopped yourself before you had to face any spoilers and decided it was time to go to bed. Surely by tomorrow, your laptop would finish its software update or whatever. You went to bed wondering how it was that Izuku would inherit All Might’s power. 

  Working on updates 14% Do not turn off your device. This will take a while.

That was what you woke up to in the morning. You were already annoyed by how everything was just falling out of place. You had planned to not leave your room once that Saturday but now you had to find something to entertain yourself. You chose to take a walk around your neighborhood, maybe go to Lidia’s house while you were at it. Your neighborhood was quite small, so you had been growing around the same people all your life, everyone was familiar with you. As you walked down the sidewalk with your earbuds in you received polite waves from people’s mothers and from the occasional schoolmate. It wasn’t unpleasant, you just preferred not being pulled into polite small talk every time you decided to wave back. After 30 minutes of aimless walking you bounded up Lidia’s doorsteps and knocked on her door, three times rapidly, and two times a little slower. A little thing you and her made up when you were kids, the knock never really meant anything but it was fun to see the confused looks on other kids’ faces when you and Lidia would ever come over to each other’s houses. The doorknob twisted and to your surprise, Lidia’s mom opened the door. Not her. Maybe she’s busy?

“Good morning Lidia’s mom! Is Lidia doing anything right now? I want to talk to her.”  You chirped.

“Oh um...uh sorry what was your name again?” Lidia’s Mom asked rather hesitantly.

Okay... that was weird. Lidia’s mom never forgot anyone's face. You knew this first hand. This woman was so in tune with her memories that she once identified you by your footsteps alone. It was rather odd that she would forget your name. Heck with the way she was looking at you you might have thought you came to the wrong house. But you were sure. You repeated your name rather slowly and when you did she seemed to get even more confused. She stared at you for a second then let you go inside the house, to Lidia’s room. 

Lidia was always one to adore bright colors, and her room was no exception. Bright pinks and lilacs had made her room incredibly bright; the only non-pastel colors in her room were from the various Soul Eater posters. Yeah, Lidia was a whole Death the Kid simp. You knock on the wall to get your friend's attention. Her pale albino face meets yours, then twists into one of confusion. You didn’t really think much of it. You did tell her you were going to hole yourself up in your room for the entire day, so your presence should come as a shock to her. 

“Hey, Dia! I have so much to talk to you about My Hero. I take it back you have good taste, SAO or otherwise. But fucking Bakugou is an actual piece of shit, so you have to explain what it is that you like about him. And Izuku he’s okay I guess but he lacks a spine and it makes him insufferable to watch because it’s just so annoy-”

“Who are you?” Lidia whispered.

You paused. Fucking hell what is up with people today? First Lidia’s mom and now Lidia. Did you do something wrong? Did you offend her somehow? You repeated your name for the second time that day when Lidia began to protest saying she literally did not know anyone by that name. At that point, you were going to cry.

“Lidia It’s me! Your best friend since grade school, we have a secret handshake. When we were ten you broke your leg when you fell off the big oak tree in my backyard. We shared secrets with each other, we’ve been together with each other since forever. Look if you're mad at me or something, just say it! I’m truly sorry whatever it is, but you are being hella immature roping your Mom into this!” 

Lidia then exploded. She yelled about how you were probably just some stalker, how dare you waltz into her house uninvited and claim that you had known her, her whole life? How dare you claim these things about her, call her immature when you are literally trespassing in her home. While she had said these things you just stared. Lidia would never raise her voice at you no matter what, even if she was angry. Does that mean that she really does not remember you? No that could not be. But even so, she isn’t the type to joke around with something like this. 

“-and if you don’t leave I’m calling the police.” She huffed. 

That had gotten your attention. 

You quickly left her room, not stopping once to thank her mom for her time, and ran out of her house. Something was not right. Something was NOT right, and you were going to get to the bottom of this. One way or another. You ran home, locked yourself in your room, and cried the entire day. Coming up with reasons as to why? And possible apologies as well. 

  Working on updates 92% Do not turn off your device. This will take a while.

It’s been a whole week. A. WHOLE. FUCKING. WEEK. Since your laptop started this fucking system update, and you were this close to chucking it out of the window. You had nothing to distract you from Lidia’s sudden amnesia (?) If that’s what you would call it. Not just that but more things seemed to change. More people seemed to have forgotten who you were. Inanimate objects moved from one place to another. At this point, you were convinced you lived in a simulation and someone had chosen to delete you from it. Whatever, you thought. If the world was out to get you then that’s fine. At least your family knew and recognized you. If everyone forgot your existence at least you had the few people in your life who were not allowed to. 

You come downstairs from your room and find your mother in the kitchen making breakfast. You sit at the dining table next to the counters in the kitchen, both rooms combined as one. As she continues to cook for you, you stare at her in silence. Will she forget you too? What are you going to do if she does? What about your father, your siblings, will at least one of them remember you? Thinking about that made you feel uneasy. Nauseous even. Things you didn’t understand were happening to you and you just wanted to talk about it with someone but you were scared. Scared that if you called out the universe for what it was doing it would take this last semblance of normalcy from you. 

“Something on your mind kiddo?” Your mother asked as she slid you pancakes across the table

“Nothing really Mo-”

“And before you brush me off remember that these walls are really thin, don’t think we haven’t heard you crying in your room all week.” She said sternly.

You sighed. You knew your Mom would notice your weird behavior, you just weren’t expecting her to blatantly call you out like that. 

“Mom, can we just eat. Like just sit down and enjoy ourselves for once. I promise I will talk to you about it when we finish. I just… I need things to be normal for once.” you mumbled.

Your mother quirked her eyebrow at that and gave you a small smile, before belting out the name of each family member with a following “Come get your breaky!” You laughed at that. You absolutely hated it when your mom tried to sound relatable and cool, but at the thought of her saying it just to make you feel better than to embarrass you, you couldn’t help but smile. One by one your family came down the stairs and as soon as you all sat down for breakfast you all began to wolf down the food. You all laughed and made jokes and for a while everything was normal, everything was fine and maybe, you thought, maybe things would be okay like this. That is until an alarm went off. 

It was quiet at first. But when the laughter of your family died down the sound just seemed to get louder and louder. It was unnerving, painful. As if you were being warned about something,

Unfortunately, you didn’t have to wait long to find out what that something was.

Your father was the first to go. It didn't even take long, he glitched, seemingly having himself ripped into pieces before letting out an ear-splitting scream, before just disappearing in a blinding white light. Then one by one your family members were ripped apart bit by bit then poofed. All in the same bright light. All while you sat there and watched them. Then you were yanked to your feet. Your mother was pulling your limp body to the back door of your house, begging you to stand and run. But you were out of it, replaying the grotesque scene of your family literally being ripped up to their core. Piece by piece, bit by bit. No blood, just floating chunks of flesh. It was only until your mother slapped you that you had snapped out of it, albeit only a little. She was saying something, but all that really went over your head when you noticed, she was slowly being ripped apart from the leg up. She yelled again, pushing you out the door not apologetic about you landing hard on your ass, and this time her voice was more level. Even when distorted you heard it loud and clear. 

“Ȑ̶̛̠̜̼͖̟͔̬͉͉̦̮̠̰͌͋̊͐̾̃̏̾̀͒͑̕Ư̸̢̭̳͈̻̪̖̅͑̊͐͐N̵̡̻̭͓͉̻̦̣̮̘̪̝͈̈̔͂̇̂͛̑̋͂͋̈́̊̔͜ͅ!.̶͊͆͛̃̐ ̸̨̫̰̙̙̳̖̯̰͇̪̘̊̈́̑͌̒̿̒̌̓̇̌̋̽ͅÎ̷̛̲̬͓̥͓͉̥̳̥̻̄̀̊̽̕̚͘͝ ̷̢̩̗̰̭̩̹̰͍̝̝̏͌̒S̴̡̭͍̜͗͌̏̔̍͗͐̊͘Ḁ̴̧̦̘̺̭̝͕̥̪͐͊̾̑̏̚I̶̞̯̓́͛͊̏̑͌̐̋D̵̹̰̗̟͎͔͉̩̹̣͍͆̈̾͗ͅ ̸̗̭̈́͐̓̈́̒̋͐̓͛̎̓͘͝Ŕ̵͙̻̳͍͇U̵͉̬͙̗͒N̷̢̩̪͎̭͎̹͙͙̩̹̟͖͚̆ ̷̡̧͙̼̯͈̟̟̯̖͙͂̐̾̐̽̂͂͒͘̚̕͜͠͠D̷̻̗̒́A̵̛̯̦͓̟̙͇͙̰̠͐͛͜ͅM̷̧̘̫͙̪͖͔̥͇̜̦̎̄͌͒̾͆̅̆̂̌̚N̴̡̟͉̝̥̽̄̈́͛́̎̔̓́̌̋̚͝͝ ̷̡̼͖̭̬͔̑͜Ḯ̸̡͙̱̆̿̂̓͗͂̈̅͛̈́͛̚͘T̵̠̘͔̑͆̈́͊̇̿̌̒̄̕͝!” 

Needless to say, she didn’t have to repeat herself. You ran as fast as you can, without looking back. The last thing you wanted to see was your mother being ripped apart screaming in unimaginable pain. You didn’t even look back to tell her how much you loved her. You didn’t get to hug her one last time. The only thing on your mind at the moment was to run, just like your mother had told you. You were to run as far away as you could from whatever it was that killed your family. When you made it to the front of your house you saw a bright white light, similar to that of the light that your family had emitted when they poofed away. It was coming from your laptop. In fact, the sound that you all heard, which was much louder now than it was before, was also coming from your laptop. 

The update.

You didn’t let that stop you though, as you were cautious of the light that was now consuming the other houses in the neighborhood. You ran as fast as your legs could take you, dodging the cracks of light emerging from the concrete below, you ran for a long while, outside of the suburbs of your home into the local shopping district. You were tired but you didn’t dare rest, you had to make sure you were safe, you had to reach a place where the light couldn’t get you. 

You were running past a construction site when you spotted someone stuck in one of the ditches they dug up for the plumbing. It looked like a little boy. He was far down and it looked like he was in pain, he was obviously too small to get out. For the first time in a while you had turned around and saw that you had a good distance away from the light, but it was moving fast, faster than before. If you left this boy here he would surely die. You had to do something quickly. You looked around frantically looking for something that you could use to pull this boy out of the ditch. Your eyes scaled the site until they rested on a pole just a little longer than five feet. You quickly ran to it and checked to see how heavy it was. Not too light but enough to pull this boy up. You quickly run back, pole in hand, and call out to the boy.  He peers up at you.

“Hey kiddo, I’m gonna need you to do me a favor, ok?” You called “Can you do that for me?”

The little boy nodded.

“Okay good, I'm going to lower this pole, when I do you are going to hold on to it and at the count of three I’m going to pull, you have to be quick okay, and whatever you do, do not let go you understand?” 

He nodded once more. 

You did just as you said you would, lowering the pole, careful not to hit the boy in the face, then when he latched on you counted to three and used all of your strength to pull him up. It was surprisingly not as hard as you anticipated. But now was not the time for celebrations. That crazy light was dangerously close to the two of you by now and you both had to gain some headway so as to not get consumed by it. 

While you two were running, him on your back, he taps you. Multiple times. You huffed asking him what it was he wanted, and he pointed left. You told him you couldn’t go that way, as it would be harder to dodge the light this way but he just pointed again, kicking into your sides while doing so. Yeah, you couldn’t run if he was going to be like this. So you obliged. 

And he leads you to a burning building. 

To be honest, you had never seen this building in your area before but before you had the time to even recall whether you had seen this building here before or not the boy spoke to you for the first time. 

“Can you save him?” He whispers.

You stop. Save who? Oh God was someone stuck in this flaming building? Did this kid expect you to go inside said building? 

“I’m sorry kid, I’m no firefighter, besides, I could get hurt, I could put someone else's life in danger. I couldn’t possibly go insi-”

“You’re a hero aren’t you?” He asks, louder. 

You stop talking and look at him bewildered. Yeah sure you saved this kid from being eaten up by whatever that white light was but you? A hero? No, you just didn’t want to feel guilty about leaving a little boy alone to die. Right? You opened your mouth to respond to which the kid cut you off, again.

“ You saved me, so that makes you a hero.” He yelled.

“ I mean yeah sure technically I did but that doesn’t mean-”

“Please save him!” The boy screams, crying hysterically, he seemed to glitch a bit, and when you noticed this you hastily put him down. “Please! He’s scared and alone, and h-he didn’t mean it. He DIdn’t MEan It. HE DIDN’T MEAN IT!”

At this moment you noticed a change in the boy's appearance. His skin was sickeningly pale, his hair that was once spiky had turned into whisps, his eyes a bright white, akin to the monstrous wave of light they were supposed to be running from. He looked like he was already dead. He looked like a ghost. And just as you thought that he began to fade. Your vision was blurry and it was just then that you had noticed that you were crying.

“Please.” the boy pleaded one last time, “Please promise me you will save him, I have no one to go back to but he has people waiting for him, promise me. Please.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to talk so you nodded instead. And with that, he was gone.

Well fuck.

You walked through the open doors of the building and were instantly greeted with heat. It was intense and you couldn’t breathe but you had a mission. You had promised this boy you were going to save someone, and that’s what you were going to do. 

A few minutes of hell on earth and you could hear faint screaming. It sounded like that of a child. Soft but terrified. And if you were slow before, you were definitely running now. You ran from corner to corner. Up flights of stairs, taking detours running from the intense flame, until you came face to face with a small child.

He was glitching from white to red, sitting in the middle of an apartment, in the middle of flames. He was crying, he was in pain. You wanted to ease that pain. You took one step into the room and as soon as you did that, he snapped his neck towards you.

“Stay back!” He screeched, flickering between red to white again.

You stood there for a second contemplating on what to do, before realizing that you both did not have time for formalities. You stepped forwards again speaking lowly to him.

“Hey, I’m not here to hurt you I’m just trying to help, if you could just come here I’ll get you out of this building just-”

“I SAID STAY BACK” he screamed

And at that exact moment, the ceiling came caving in, landing right on top of you, burning you. You tried to force your way out of the rubble, but it was crushing you, too heavy for you to lift. The flames were eating at your skin little by little and after a while, you just laid there limp. Is this how you were going to die? By trying to be the hero? You laughed. Who were you kidding you were going to die anyway, there was no way you could outrun that light. Everywhere you would go the light followed. It was inescapable. Your death,  inevitable. At least you wouldn’t die alone you thought darkly. At least you wouldn’t die in vain. 

Little old you died a hero after all. 

And the last thing you saw before losing consciousness was a brilliant blue flame engulfing the poor boy, and a bright white right behind him.

Chapter Text

…

Huh?

Mom. Dad. Lidia...The little boy!

Hold on. I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black. 

Didn’t I just…

Wait-

Am I dead?

𝕐𝕖𝕤 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕟𝕠. 𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕠 🅶🅾.

Woah! Who are you? God?

ℍ𝕦𝕣𝕣𝕪 🆄🅿, ℍ𝕖'𝕤 𝕨𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕪𝕠𝕦.

What do you mean “He’s waiting for me.”? Also, you didn’t answer my question, who are you?

𝕋𝕚𝕞𝕖 𝕚𝕤 🆃🅸🅲🅺🅸🅽🅶, 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕪𝕠𝕦. 𝕀𝕥'𝕝𝕝 𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕒 🅷🅰🆂🆂🅻🅴 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕒𝕘𝕒𝕚𝕟.

Okay, listen here ominous voice in my head! If I knew how to hurry up with… whatever this is, trust me I would have done so already. 

𝕆𝕙, 𝕨𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕪! 𝕎𝕙𝕪 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕓𝕪 𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕖𝕪𝕖𝕤?

You pause for a second. Why didn’t you think of that! To be fair it hadn’t occurred to you that your eyes might have been closed and that was the reason why you could not see anything. And with the remnants of what happened earlier going through your mind, you were not in the right mindset. Of course, anything to excuse this prime example of your stupidity you just performed for your captive, not-so-there audience. You open your eyes.

And there was static.

Lots and lots of static.

It was so loud and ever-present that your head felt like it was going to explode. The sound tearing at your thoughts, making it impossible to make sense of anything. After a while, you opened your eyes fully, taking in your surroundings with much caution. You were in what you would assume, was a hallway. The farther you looked down it the farther it got. It was like one of those gosh-darned optical illusions. You grumbled, hoping this was not like one of those hallways you see in movies and cartoons that just went on forever, for your sake at least. 

The hallway was incredibly bright. A stark white, and was filled with doors that shone and even brighter white. Each door knob different from the last but each door frame incredibly similar, to the point, that even the grooves were the same.

You got up, kind of unbalanced and wobbly, and start trudging towards a door, any door. You didn’t know why but you felt an intense urge to open a door. Not a specific one really, just that you had to open a door. Maybe it was less of an urge to open a door and more of an urge to invite yourself into what was behind it. 

Shit.

You get hit with a sudden pang of realization and maybe some common sense too. Fingers nearly inches away from a doorknob, you hastily pull your hand away. You stand there and look at your hands in shock. While it was obvious that you needed to get out of this hellscape and fast, you also had to be careful around here. You knew this, and yet here you are about to open random doors because you just felt like it. Fucking hell you really could just be dumb sometimes. Not today though. You’ve had enough weird universe shit for a lifetime, you had to find a way out of here ASAP. 

From what you could assume these doors could lead to anywhere. You couldn’t open every door and check which one led back home. That could prove to be dangerous. You needed to find a way to get back home safely. You needed to find a way to differentiate your door from the rest. But when you thought about it you hesitated. Your family is dead. Your friends and everything else you’ve known are all gone. Even if you miraculously find your way back home what would you find? Would there be anything for you to even go back to? What if the rest of the world had poofed away too? What are you going to do? 

No.

You shook your head. Now was not the time for what-ifs, nor was it the time for questions you did not know the answer too. What you knew now was simple, One of these doors led to home, you did not know how many doors there were, where exactly YOU were, and you were on a time limit. Whoever it was that the ominous voice warned you about, you sure weren’t sticking around to find out. 

You walked down the hallway looking at each door but not touching any. You silently contemplated your situation and grimaced at the fact that you had nothing to go off of except the word of a disembodied voice you heard in your head. You thought to yourself whether what you heard could even be trustworthy, then you abandoned the thought and chalked it all to a hallucination. 

Yes, a big ol’ hallucination. I’m at home in my room sitting on my bed hallucinating, heck I’ll be damned if this was all some bad dream. You wince at that. It’s been a while but even if a bit fuzzy, you knew that cold stinging feeling on your back was your burnt exposed flesh courtesy of the fire in that burning building you were in (a while?) ago. You knew that such a thing could not happen in a dream and you could not think of anything in your house that could harm you to this extent if you were in fact hallucinating. Not like your family would just stand by and watch you harm yourself right? Oh right, they’re gone. 

The burn on your back was quite a nasty one. You could feel the polyester of your T-shirt melding into your skin, itching, and burning all the same. It was not as painful as it ought to be mainly because you were out cold for lord knows how long. Your body had accustomed itself to the pain, although it was still uncomfortable to move. You paused, looking around yourself again. With no checkpoints or visible differences in your surroundings, you had no way of knowing whether or not you were going in circles. This was bad considering even if your back did not hurt now, you were already in need of some serious medical attention. Becoming increasingly more desperate, you began to think.

“If I belong in my world and not wherever this is, wouldn’t my door react to my presence or touch? Wouldn’t it just know?”

It was wishful thinking, you knew, but walking around in circles and not touching any doors was the equivalent to some even fucked up version of Schrodinger’s cat if you’ve ever heard one. 

You walked up to the nearest door, apprehensive as ever, and stared at the doorknob. It was a 3D octagonal shape, really pretty, with a slightly discolored bronze tint. Ridges were on the sides of it, and at the center, the knob sported an engraving of an odd-looking trident. Black tendrils twisting and turning up into the ridges of the iron. It looked like one of those items that people would sell at antiquity shops. Old but majestic all the same.

You reach out, fingers tracing the engraved image before holding the knob fully. A moment passes, ringing in your ears from the scratchy static, never-ending. Then the noise blasts at an even higher volume. The static likened to the sound of thousands of nails on a large chalkboard, then magnified through a megaphone next to a microphone hooked up to professional bass speakers. Even then that would be an understatement. Yeah, it was that bad. The door started to glow even brighter, an unknown force willing you to open the door. You screamed upon realizing you couldn’t remove your hand. It was stuck to the knob. You tugged harder only to be rewarded with even louder ringing in your ears. You screeched due to the pain, cursing yourself for being so stupid, for knowing that this was a bad idea and still going through with it anyway. 

There were tears in your eyes and blood on your palms from trying to yank your hand away from the doorknob. The pain from your back increasing due to the strain of pulling yourself away from the door and the increased stress of what-the-fuck was going on in your life right now. You took a deep breath and with all your remaining strength, you gave one last tug on the door and went barreling towards the floor. You grunted, slowly rising from the ground, but very relieved nonetheless. 

Silence.

The static had stopped. For the first time since you had woken up in this hellscape, it was completely silent. Not even any ringing in your ears remained, even though you were sure that your eardrums had gone through some serious trauma and you were soon to develop tinnitus. If the circumstances were different, if you weren’t in so much pain, you might have taken that as a sign that maybe things calmed down a bit, and that you could relax. Nope, nope, nuh-uh. You definitely were not falling for that, you’ve watched enough scary movies and anime to know that complete silence is never a good thing. Unlike all those dumb heroines in scary movies, you weren’t going to wait for the threat. So you did what any smart individual would have done in your situation. You high-tailed your ass outta there!

You ran so fast you barely noticed the hallway get darker (or were the doors just getting brighter?) and the screeches you heard behind you. As you kept on running, passing door by door, they all began to glow one by one. The more you ran the louder and more intimidating the sounds got, some even whispered to you.

“Want to play a game?”

“Yes! Play with usss, it’s been sooo long!”

“Common, don’t be such a party pooper!”

“Yeah, we just want to play!”

“Hide and seek? OH! What about tag that’ll be fun!”

“Ready or not here we come!”

“Ready or not here we come!”

“READY. OR. NOT. HERE. WE. COME!” 

You told yourself that you wouldn’t look back, you really did, but the more you heard them chant, the more you ran, the more curiosity got the best of you. The noise soon began to multiply, as if the owners of the voices had increased in number. A wave of pleading, begging voices had reached your ears and through your better judgment, you snuck a glance over your shoulder. In doing so you almost trip on your feet.

What. The. Fuck. 

As if reliving the terror of watching your family die in front of your eyes,  you were brought back to that moment looking at a bright inconceivable light, except this light was made up of bodies or it seemed to. Some of them were so twisted and corrupted it was hard to decipher whether they had human forms at all. One of them, in particular, had caught your eye. It had the body shape of a young boy, white spiky hair, with a small grey crown adorned on his head. He was leading the pack, speeding up with every second. In his hand, there was a trident, it was twisting and curling coming closer and closer to you. You looked at the boy’s face, pleading with your eyes, hoping he would see reason, that he and his friends would leave you alone. He took one look at you, and his distorted face only cracked showing a malevolent smile. Or what he could manage for a smile at least. 

You saw the tendrils of his weapon come closer to your ankles and booked it as fast as you could with third-degree burns and a bleeding hand. As you ran for what seemed like forever, something came into your field of vision. 

‘A-a black door?’

That has to be the way out! All these other doors were white. The same white that killed your home, and everyone you loved. If anything, this was most likely the way out of the hallway. You forced your legs to move forward, putting your weight into each step, you bounded your way towards the door. Running turning into leaping and then full of sprinting. You were about 15 meters away from the door now and if you didn’t freak out you would be able to ensure a safe escape to the other side of that door. Suddenly the ground shakes, and you sneak another glance over your shoulder eyeing the tendrils from the trident stabbing at the floor. The cracks produced from the collision, massive. But that wasn’t on your mind at the moment. You had noticed that you had a sizeable distance between the banshee-like creatures and at the look on the face of the young boy, he seemed to have noticed too, having trouble catching up to you and scowling with his disfigured face in the process. To your surprise, you smirked, more to yourself than to the creepy little boy and his nightmare friends, but he didn’t know that. He growled, becoming physically more angry and frustrated, screaming and wailing like a child. 

“It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”

He began to bubble? Sickening popping sounds erupted from his body, and as more and more of his figure popped, so did the figures behind him. They were screaming as if they were in pain, the popping continuing throughout the hallway, until to your horror you witnessed all those bodies fuse together. Like one sick human heap of chewing gum. You turned around, not bothering to look at the monstrosity again, and bolted towards the door. You were almost there, almost within reach of the door, just a few more meters to go. 

“I’M NOT LETTING YOU GO! I HAVE TO GET BACK! I HAVE TO GET BACK HOME. AND YOU’RE MY TICKET OUT OF HERE!”

The ground shook, with each step he (they?) took, and with every step you took you could feel yourself relaxing a little. You were almost there, this nightmare could end. You could get back to your world and look for any family you have left, maybe you could stay at your aunty’s house. How would you explain what happened to your family? Would she even remember you? You stop. The door, you’re at the door. You didn’t even notice, too preoccupied with your thoughts. You put your hands on the door and try to twist the handle. Oh no. No no no no no. Come on open stupid door. The door refused to open.

You look over your shoulder and see the monster coming closer, so close too close. You pleaded, screamed cried. 

“Please open! Please let me in! Please.”

𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕕𝕠 𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖, 𝕕𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥?

“Oh thank goodness! Please whoever you are, could you please open the door?”

𝕂𝕟𝕠𝕔𝕜, 𝕂𝕟𝕠𝕔𝕜.

"Are you serious?! I don’t have time for this! Please just open the door.” 

𝕂𝕟𝕠𝕔𝕜, 𝕂𝕟𝕠𝕔𝕜.

Sigh. “You’re not going to let up huh? Oh well, who’s there?”

𝟛𝟚.

32? Where are they going with this?  “32 who?”

𝟛𝟚𝕍𝕋𝔹 𝕒𝕝𝕡𝕙𝕒

“32VTB alpha? What does that eve-”

ℂ𝕆𝔻𝔼 𝔸ℂℂ𝔼ℙ𝕋𝔼𝔻, 𝕎𝔼𝕃ℂ𝕆𝕄𝔼 𝔽ℝ𝔼𝔼𝕃𝔸ℕℂ𝔼ℝ.

Wh-what?

The door opened then. The expanse beyond the door just as black as the outside. You gulped this doesn’t look like home. And what did the voice mean by calling you a freelancer? This could be a really bad idea, you could get stuck in some other place, or world or wherever this could lead to. You turned around seeing as the monster, although slowed down by the extra weight was just a few seconds away from grabbing you. You gasp. You have no choice then, it’s either you go into this mysterious door that goes to lord knows where, or you get captured by the living nightmare behind you. You didn’t like those choices but you knew which one you preferred. You quickly jumped in grabbing the knob from the inside and slamming the door shut. You make sure the door is locked and step away from the door when you hear loud screaming and scratching on the door. The only light in the room coming from the tiny gap in the bottom of the door. You try to look around the room, only to be met with more darkness. You stay alert, in case there were more threats around you. And then suddenly, as if the floor was ripped out from under you you fell.

Yeah, that’s the last time I listen to body-less voices. You thought as you continued to...

fall

fall

fall

fall

Oh.

Oh!

You wake up with a jolt. Not even surprised in the slightest that you didn’t die. You hoped this wasn’t something that you would have to get used to. You take in a deep breath, new surroundings. You take a look around, and you had to admit. This place was much nicer. In fact, it was huge. The room you were in was a study, a large polished desk that took the left side of the room. There were shelves with books on all sides of the walls where the desk was situated. On the other side of the room, there was a small sofa, where you were lying down at the moment, a vintage tv and a large window. There was a cute little coffee table in front of you, filled with cookies and juice pouches. The old-looking tv was facing you, static-filled the screen, but unlike the torture you experienced in that hallway, the sound the tv emitted was a more serene sound. White noise if you will. The light coming from the huge window was an orange-reddish color, signaling that it was late afternoon, almost the evening. You sat up slowly making sure you were truly safe in your new environment and slowly gave your full attention to the television, which was now staring at you. Wait, no. There was a face there. And it looked awfully familiar. 

As you continued to look at the man you slowly pieced together his appearance. The black goggles he wore with three silver spikes on either side of them. He also wore a black mask with a patterned design on it, as well as a filter, or you thought, the picture on the television wasn’t the best quality. He had long curly black hair that reached his shoulders and you had to admit even though you couldn’t see his actual face, he was conventionally attractive. It just irked you so much because you knew his face, you knew who this person was. Your brain was just being too slow to process anything at the moment. A moment went by when you realized that not only were you staring but this person was now talking to you. But that wasn’t the thing that confused you. The problem was that not only was he speaking in Japanese, but you could understand him. 

You stop paying attention to the man on your screen for a second and think back to a time your mom teased you about your anime obsession.

“Geez, I wouldn’t be surprised if after all the anime you watch you start to speak fluent Japanese.”

After that statement, you became very focussed on learning the language, planning on showing off your knowledge to your fellow weebs in arms. But that was utter bullshit. One week of trying to understand their lettering system and you gave up entirely. But this, this right here was so fluid. What the man was saying to you was going into your brain and bein processed as if it were English. Of course, after a while, you realized you were zoning out due to the pure confusion and astonishment and upon waking up from your dumbstruck limbo you were greeted with silence. 

“Oh, I’m sorry can you repeat that?” You say in a slight whisper. 

The man in the tv seems to flinch a little, seemingly startled or surprised by your English. He stares at you for a moment before clearing his throat attempting to speak to you again. 

“Umm… sorry, my English is not well, I- I mean good! Ahh goodness, I should have checked what language you spoke first, but thats behind the point-”

“Besides the point you mean?”

“Oh… well, what I said earlier is that I need your help. Many people are in danger and I do not have the strength alone to fix this, God I wish I didn’t have to do this surly-”

“Okay sorry for cutting you off, but can you start with telling me who you are, and how- excuse my language- in the ever-loving fuck I even got here?”

The man winced at your language. It seems he understood curses too. Good because you were pressed and you knew the f-bomb wasn’t the only thing you were going to drop today. Hey, you did warn him, it wasn’t your fault he seemed a little sensitive to cussing. The man sighed. 

“You don’t know who I am?”

“No, it’s more like I have seen your face (or lack of rather) somewhere. I just don’t know where. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but people don’t normally go out of their way helping strangers, do they?”

“Oh, I guess they don’t. Well, I’m Horikoshi Kohei. Creator of My Hero Academia? I’m assuming you know of it if you were brought here.”

You stiffen. There is no way that Horikoshi Kohei, the creator of a very popular shonen jump manga series and anime with a large fanbase somehow summoned you to this… mansion asking you for help. You subconsciously laugh out loud, thinking that this was just one long and scary lucid dream. You even press your fingers into your back, no longer feeling pain, or swelling flesh. Yep, one scary, very realistic dream. But if this was a lucid dream, you could do what you want right? While Horikoshi continued talking you tried to levitate one of the cookies into your mouth, while hopelessly trying to convince yourself you were in some type of meta lucid dream, where you could feel pain and apparently speak fluent Japanese. 

“As to how you were brought here, that was per my request. Although I didn’t pick you specifically, I need help controlling this universe so it doesn’t… are you okay?”

His English is very polished give or take a few mistakes. “Oh! I’m fine just being stupid. What were you saying about… universes?” You say cautiously.

 “Oh uhh, it’s kind of hard to explain. Uhm. Well, you see, erm.” He stumbles upon his words. 

“Look Mr. Horikoshi or Horikoshi sensei or whatever you want to be called, I went through a whole lot of shit in the past- in the past I don’t even know how long, because my sense of time is skewed by this universal fuckfest. Hopefully, this is me just dreaming but the more things happen the more I am forced to accept that I am awake and this is really happening. So honestly if you have any explanation as to why this is happening to me it would be greatly appreciated.” 

Horikoshi stares at you for a second, maybe more. He ponders whether you are emotionally stable enough to hear his reasoning, or at least you think he is. He asks again whether you’re sure you want to go through with this, to which you reply, “I’m sure I’ll be more open to helping you if I knew the hows and whys of how I got here.”

Another beat later, and he sighs. Giving in to your curiosities and concerns he yields his caution, eyes shining brightly through his goggles as he begins to go into detail on this whole, ordeal you’re in.

“This is not a dream, this is real life. Real-life in another plane of existence. You were randomly chosen, out of those who knew about this universe and as soon as it zeroed in on your code, the tilting process began.”

He looked at you again, the screen of the small tv, flickering slightly. You nodded to show you followed, silently asking questions that Horikoshi seemed to pick up on. 

“The tilting process, in simple terms, is the system of transferring one’s existence to another. Although how it is done varies from the type of residence that entity will be occupying, the most common way is to first transfer that person to “white space” or what others like to call, purgatory.” He stops to look at you again, understanding and sympathy in his eyes. “After being transferred, the paradoxical plane you had been on began to “tilt” and the more it did the closer your being came to this universe, hence why those around you slowly began to forget who you are until your existence in your world was unregistered, only for the process to come to a halt when you died.”

You gasp. So some freaky process had erased you from the world you grew up in, and from what you could understand there was no way for you to go back on your own. Heck, you didn’t even know where you were or what you were doing here. You were angry of course. You were in this alternate universe, and this man was to blame. Why you? Why did your family have to die? Wait- did they even die?

“Your family is fine if that’s what you are thinking. Everything that happened in white space was just a representation of the mark you leave on your world, the only person that was harmed was you, of course even then you didn’t really die. The white space both exists and does not at the same time, so what happens there can both happen and unhappen. Your family “dying” was just the equivalent of erasing any presence of you in their memories. No harm was done.”

You seethed. Yeah, “no harm was done” but you were sure this was gonna bite you in the ass in your dreams soon. It baffled you how this man could talk about something that could potentially, if not already, traumatize you, even if what you saw did not actually happen. The fear of losing your family had now increased tenfold, and if you were ever going to get back home, you knew that you would never be able to look at your family the same again. Imagining their bodies being broken and ripped apart every time you saw their smiling faces. Yeah, you were going to need therapy after this, and Horikoshi was going to cover the bill. But with the way he seemed, hesitant, maybe even sympathetic you thought to yourself that this man must have been really desperate to make anyone go through what you had, and honestly, you would be lying if you were not the least bit curious. 

“Okay but what about that hallway full of doors? What about the crazy white shadow people? What did they want? Is that part of White Space too? Wait, that wouldn’t make sense, didn’t you say the tilting process ended when I-” You shivered. “Died?”

For like the fifth time that day, Horikoshi became visibly more uncomfortable. It’s like he didn’t want to be in this situation at all but he is in dire need of help. And with every question about this whole new world of revelations you are being exposed to, the more you seem to be entering sensitive topics for him. Like this entire ordeal, is something he’s been through, or the things you have seen wound him deeply. 

“Ah, I see you entered through the Hall of Whispers, I take it you tried to open a door that you weren’t allowed to enter.”

“Okay, but how was I supposed to know which door I was allowed to enter, and also were those people… like me? One of them said something about getting home and me being the key to getting there.” You fiddled with the T-shirt you had on, feeling uncomfortable with the thought of you possibly ending up like them. It didn’t seem like fun being a white shadow person forever locked behind a door, only to ever be freed if by some random chance someone were to open your door. 

Horikoshi sighed again, seemingly getting more tired by the second with each mention of all the horrible things you experienced. He really didn’t want to be here. 

“Those were the… fragments of other universes that I-” He faltered a bit, voice shaking. Oh no did you cross a line? Fuck, you knew this was a sensitive topic. Before you could tell him it was alright though, he continued, taking a deep breath as he did so. “That I helped create. Those people that you saw were all once characters from my previous works. Only for them to perish because of the little power I had to protect them.”

“Wait what do you mean characters from your previous works? Also, you created universes?! Okay something’s not adding up, could you please explain?” 

“The same way authors start novels, is similar to how a universe is created. Although this is based on how I do it since I know little of who else has this ability. I first come up with a focal point a person that the universe centers around. Of course, the entire universe does not center around the focal point, in fact in the realms of white space, this universe exists already, with history and events that happen way before the birth of the focal point. What I do is give the being of mass, substance to latch unto, and in the process, a universe takes form, following the story of the focal point and even after the story takes place it lives on. The problem here is that for some reason the universe does not understand that the focal point is what gives it life and that if you take it away, the universe will cease to exist, ripping apart the residents of that plane into nothingness.”

“Then the people in the hallway were…”

“Yes, they were all former focal points of mine. Killed by their universe’s need to entertain itself, or outright neglected by their universe to the point that they didn’t have “plot armor” as people call it, and they died by the hands of others around them.” 

You remained quiet. What could you say? These worlds were like Horikoshi’s children. And he had to idly stand by and watch them get snuffed out by a mindless entity that held no love for the people that inhabited it. You grew sad, thinking about how desperate those people were. Not only did they die, but their loved ones did. They had to suffer thinking that all of this was their fault. Some of them were children too. 

Horikoshi had said your name for the first time, removing the goggles on his face to look at you. Pleading with his eyes alone as he continued with what he had to say. “These are real people. This is not fictional. They are not just anime characters anymore. They breathe and feel and cry the same as me and you. What I am asking of you is to help me protect this world. Help me protect this universe, its come so far and the more it progresses the more I fear the same thing that happened to my other works would happen to this one.” 

“Wait so you mean that right now I am currently in the My Hero Universe?!” You screamed, more afraid then you were surprised or even angry. “And-and you want me to what? Oppose the power and will of a whole fucking Universe!! Something that you, who can create whole universes could not do? I’m sorry Horikoshi but that is something I cannot do. You are going to have to find someone else crazy enough to assist you. That being said, I would like to go back home, please.”

Again with the uncomfortable look from Horikoshi. But to be fair you could see it more clearly since his goggles are off. He shook his head slightly disappointed, but it didn’t seem like it was directed at you, maybe himself. “I’m sorry but I cannot send you home at the moment.” He says.

“Why the heck not!”

“There was a period where this Universe was distracted enough for me and Yuma to be able to extract you from the “real world” without being noticed or looking suspicious. If I were to send you back now- not like I have the strength or power to at the moment- It would find us suspicious and most definitely find a way to stop you from going home. It doesn’t need to know that you are not a threat, it finds you suspicious so it’s going to get rid of you.”

You stand up from the couch, unsure of what to do. So you are stuck here, in this dangerous world, with no means of defense until Horikoshi harnesses enough power to send you home. And even then, we have to wait until the Universe is too preoccupied with other things to be able to track Horikoshi’s movements. Who knows how long that would take! You could be here for months! 

Without thinking you took off from the mini office, hearing Horikoshi’s voice follow you faintly until you could no longer hear him anymore. You ran down the long luxurious hallway, hearing your slippers click on the marble floor frantically. You didn’t know why you were running, it’s not like the tv as going to sprout legs and begin to run after you or anything. You were just confused and scared, and you had no one you were familiar with to talk to. You never asked for this, you never asked to be the savior to some distant universe. You just wanted to enjoy your summer, is that all too much to ask? 

Before you knew it though you found yourself running outside the door of the mansion, running wherever your feet were taking you. You ran from corner to corner, passing small shops and neighborhoods, looking for something anything that could possibly take you back home. Not like you were expecting much. You ran away from the people, not even bothering to note how some of them didn’t even look like humans, you received a few weird glances along the way but you didn’t care. You needed to get out of this atmosphere. Nothing was familiar to you, all the faces in your peripheral vision was blocking your rationale. You continued to run, feeling the acid burn in your legs, tears welling up in your eyes. 

And then you slammed your torso into a rail. 

You felt the air leave your lungs in a dry heave. More tears were streaming out of your eyes now. More from the pain then the mind-boggling confusion and fear you felt mere seconds ago. You looked around noticing that you had arrived at a beach. That is if you could call it a beach. There were trash and junk all over the place, interrupting the serene view of the sea. You laughed remembering how Horikoshi said that these were real people with lives. Yeah, these are humans alright, only humans could fuck up a beach with so much trash. Who the fuck throws away a broken air conditioner at the beach anyway? You were staring at the trash heap for a while before you noticed one familiar head of messy green locks bobbing up and about in your peripheral vision. 

You paused and shifted your whole body to witness, low and behold Izuku Midoriya carrying a broken tv over to the bed of a truck. You were frozen in place, mainly shocked to see the boy in 3d. The sun reflected off of his shiny green hair, making him look otherworldly. He still had his usual charm even from a distance, you could feel yourself being drawn to him by just his inviting smile alone. You leaned in on the railing to get a better look, only to witness Midoriya dropping the heavy vintage tv on his foot. You laughed despite all the shit that went down earlier. And you continued to laugh when you witnessed All Might's frightened behavior at Izuku injuring himself. He cares for him so much, you thought. 

You stood there for about 30 minutes, laughing at Izuku’s display of clumsiness. This was the boy that was going to become the number one hero? You laughed, although he’s got charm, you didn’t think that by smiling at villains he would be able to enforce justice. You became troubled thinking about what Horikoshi said, that if the focal point- which was no doubt Izuku- died so does their entire world. You thought about his mother, you thought about all those kids, the people you saw in the streets. In truth, you wished with all your heart that you could do something about it. That you could help keep this world alive. But what could you do? 

Watching Midoriya try his best to become stronger for this world might have emboldened you. If he is training to put his life on the line for a world that depends on him, well then, who were you to leave him to die? And thinking about things objectively, you would be stuck in this world for lord knows how long, why not try to do something worthwhile during your stay? He is the main character, after all, so you doubted that you would have such a major role, or that he would need much “protecting”. Yeah, you could be like, his lookout. This couldn’t be so hard, just play your chips right and you can ensure that no one in this world has to suffer in the Hall of Whispers.  Maybe it was time to go back to Horikoshi and tell him you’ve decided to help him. You sigh, leaning away from the railing, maybe he wouldn’t be too mad?

Bzzt! Bzzt! You jumped hearing the vibration of a cellphone, looking around before realizing it was yours. When did you even take your phone? You took out the phone noticing that is was very different from your actual phone, a pretty turquoise phone case that was translucent. The phone though was not a brand that you recognized, so it must have been one from this universe. Ah, right because using a phone brand from the universe you came from would only bring unwanted attention to yourself. You glanced at the phone screen and the name “Sensei” was displayed on it. Without a doubt, you knew who it was. You picked up the phone, waiting a few seconds. Then you heard him, speaking softly like you were a creature easily spooked.

“Do you see it now?”

“Yeah… I see what you mean, it’s wonderful.”

“So, do you still want to leave now?”

“...”

“You know you don’t have to stay, it’ll take a while but Yuma and I will make sure that you get home as quickly and safely as possible.”

“I know, but you know what? Fuck it, I’ll help. I can’t just sit by and let this world die without putting up so much as a fight. Besides, when will I ever have the chance to do something quite as impactful as saving a whole universe?”

It got quiet on the other line. You wondered whether you accidentally hung up the phone on him. That would have been embarrassing, proclaiming that you would save a whole universe while no one was even listening to you. Gosh, when did you become so dramatic? All you needed was some super inspirational background music and this could be a scene straight out of some sci-fi anime series. Horikoshi then cuts through your thoughts, and you swore you could hear the smile in his voice when he said this.

“You know for someone as apathetic as you, you seem to have a bleeding heart, even if you try to downplay it. But anyway I give you my thanks.” 

“I-I don’t, I’m not-”

Horikoshi laughs. A pleasant and comforting sound, and for once during that late afternoon, you felt safe, comfortable. Maybe even amused. You laugh along with him, enjoying this small moment of peace.

“Hey, Horikoshi?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I going to live in that house, alone, or are you like, my guardian now?”

“I have to look out for you, don’t I? You aren’t doing this on your own you know.” 

“Oh, okay. It’s kinda funny you know?”

“Why?”

“So that means you’re my dad now, right?”

“W-what?!”

“I mean you ARE my guardian, so I might as well call you my dad. It’s not like I can call you by your name.”

Horikoshi sputtered for what felt like minutes. You smiled, at least you weren’t the only one that became a sputtering mess when called out. You let him ramble for as long as he needed, waiting for him to calm down a bit to form coherent sentences. He manages to mumble out a “please” and a “call me Kohei” between sentences. 

“Hmm, can I call you Horhei?”

“Horhei? Like Jorge but spelled differently? Why?”

“Oh well, I just took the first three letters in your last name and the last three in your first. Smooshed them together, and boom! Super cool alias that I can call you by!”

“Honestly you can call me what you want as long as it’s not Dad or any variation of that.”

You laughed, “Ok, Horhei.” you mumbled over the phone. You stood there for a few minutes admiring the view that the beach gave you. Sometimes watching the green-haired boy from the corner of your vision. Another ten minutes go by before you realized that the line was still on, and “Horhei” hadn’t cut off. You called his name, asking if he was still there. 

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I was just wondering when you were coming back?”

“Oh! Um..”

“You, don’t know how to get back home do you?”

“No clue.” you sighed.

“Alright, I’ll try to give you directions come on.” He laughed. 

And so you went. Leaning off of the railing, and walking from the beach back to the road, describing exactly where you were to the man on the phone, already knowing it was going to be a long journey back. The breeze on your shoulders, and a teasing smile on your lips, as you and Horhei cracked jokes to each other on the way home. And at that moment, and only then did you feel pure tranquility. And if you didn’t notice the jade pair of eyes watching your silhouette walk away from the sunset, well you might meet them later. Only time will tell.

Chapter Text

You and Horikoshi-ahem-Horhei were sitting in the living room of your shared estate. Although now he was there in person instead of speaking to you from that cloudy vintage tv. Normally you would take your time staring at him, trying to imagine his face behind those dark goggles and conspicuous mask, but today was different. Horhei felt confident (or at least comfortable) enough around you to show his full face. Oh, joy! Now you could see the shy demeanor and anxiety in his eyes. It annoyed you, it just made it harder for you to hate this man for all the trouble he’s caused you. But to be honest with the way he accommodated your needs (albeit a little too much, I mean who needs a bedroom as big as your average one-bedroom apartment?) it was starting to become a little bit easier to accept your “situation”.

That was until Horhei brought up training and -ugh- dare he say exercise.

“Look, if you are going to be watching over Midoriya you can’t do it from the comfort of home, you have to get close to him, and to do that you have to get into UA.” He huffed.

Horhei had been repeating this point for the past ten minutes. But it seemed no matter how many times he had tried to explain the importance of passing the UA entrance exam, you just became more and more stubborn. And all because you were too lazy to train and too tired mentally to study so then you could enter a school. Last time you checked this was supposed to be your summer break, you weren’t ready to start school just yet. Or was this even summer break? The schooling system in Japan was much more different than what you were used to. Anyway, all you knew was that putting any effort into anything was a no-no.

You turned to face Horhei giving him a determined glare. “How the f…. heck am I going to get into UA anyway? Isn’t the school for like superheroes and whatnot? Last time I checked I couldn’t even do a simple cartwheel.” You continued to stare at the older man, hoping to discourage him from whatever he had planned for you. But by the way he was staring at you, you could tell that you had only further proved his point. Shoot, now there was no way to get out of this.

Horhei took out a cream-colored folder from his backpack (where it came from was a mystery to you) and placed it on the very expensive looking grey quartz agate coffee table in the middle of the living room. He motioned for you to open it, a look of accomplishment in his eyes. Opening the folder you came face to face with well, yourself as well as a lot of information written in a form of kana. If you had to guess it would mostly be katakana, it looked a little different from kanji, but then again you couldn’t tell as much. You only studied Japanese writing for a week after all. As you stared at the writing on the documents the words did not make sense to you at first. ‘Fuck I can’t read’ you thought. But a few seconds later something kind of just… clicked. It was freaky, kinda like that scene in the first Percy Jackson movie when the greek writing of one of the stone portraits on the wall just scrambled into English, except there was no fancy word shuffle. It was more like your brain was able to register the sounds each character made and then converted them into a language you could understand. So like reading in English, but much more complex.

“I see you have me registered in the system Horhei. Boy, do you work fast…” You trailed off eyeing a certain part of the documents. A part pertaining to your quirk. Huh, weird there’s something there.

“Hey Horhei, what's this thing about me having a quirk? Isn’t it illegal to falsify documents?” You teased. Eyeing the document you read over the description of your so-called quirk.
‘Probability: The subject can change the outcome of a situation or change the form of an object depending on what they want to achieve. The probability of getting something that fully ensures success varies the more it is used.’

“I know what you’re thinking and don’t worry. Yuma and I planned this through. That quirk there is only what’s going to be written on paper. Something to hide the true nature of the quirk you are going to receive. You know, so then the entity behind this universe doesn’t figure us out and target you.”

“Oh okay, so you’re gonna give me a quirk, okay cool. Um, by the way, I know I should have asked sooner, but you know with the whole ‘being stuck in an alternate dimension or another universe or whatever’ I wasn’t in the right headspace. So who’s Yuma? You’ve brought them up a few times now.”

"ℍ𝕖𝕪! ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕪 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕝𝕖𝕘𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕞𝕠𝕚!"

“OH SHIT WHAT THE FUCK!”

Horhei laughed, a good and loud boisterous sound it was. He laughed so much, tears seemed to come out of his eyes. It was a nice sound, but just seeing his facial expressions while he laughed seemed kind of… wrong. Him laughing maniacally like that didn’t fit his face at all. Heck, his smiling-teeth and all-started to unnerve you. ‘He looks like he eats babies for a living’ You mused while making fun of him for laughing at your startled outburst.

Horhei began to settle down, trying to form words between snorts of laughter. After a few wheezes and some furious eye rubbing, he finally came to.
“I see she’s introduced herself. Does that answer your question?” Horhei snorted.

“I hate you, I hate Yuma and I’m this close to punching you and that shit-eating grin of yours.”

"𝔸𝕨𝕨, 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕪 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕞𝕖. <𝟛"

“How the hell can you speak in emoticons? Why can I understand you? I’mmmm hhhngggg!!!”

Horhei started dying of laughter again. Luckily you were able to cut him short with an annoyed glare.

“Okay back to what I was saying. About your quirk, I’m going to give you half of my power. The half that pertains to this universe. I’m not going to give it to you now, mainly because it would make it much harder for us to communicate since I wouldn’t be able to hold my form here physically.” He explained

You didn’t see the logic in that. Even if he gave you his power didn’t you need to train with it first? How was he going to coach you if he wasn’t there to see your progress? Horhei must have seen your visible confusion because he began to speak again.

“We have ten months before the UA entrance exam. In those ten months, we have to help you study all things Japanese culture. Get you up to date with the Japanese curriculum as well as strengthen your body mind and quirk.”

"ℕ𝕠𝕥 𝕠𝕟𝕝𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕓𝕦𝕥 𝕨𝕖 𝕘𝕠𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕞𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕝 𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕤 𝕦𝕡 𝕥𝕠 𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕖, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕨𝕖 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕣𝕜 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘. 𝕁𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕘𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕗𝕗.¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

“Umm… okay well, how are we going to do all of that in 10 months? I mean this is 15 years of the Japanese curriculum that you guys have to cram into my brain, so what’s the agenda?”

If Yuma had a physical body you would have sworn that she and Horhei shared a look before they both responded simultaneously.

“As we said, we have a plan.”

---

Remember when you said that you were this close to punching Horhei in the face? Yeah, let’s just say you’re going to have to cash in on that promise sooner or later.

Horhei and Yuma spent all of yesterday introducing you to the staff of the house. There were many people in the manor, so it wasn’t just you, Horhei and Yuma (if she even counts as a resident).Horhei wanted to introduce you to four people in particular. Mr. Kenji Maeda was the butler of the house, when Horhei described him you initially thought he was the stereotypical old caring butler that has served the house for thirty plus years but that went out the window the moment you met the man.

He had Snow white hair and the appearance of a God. Pretty violet eyes that could put you in a trance with a single look, and he was very fit. Like a swimwear model, lean but incredibly strong, which was surprising since the suit he was wearing wasn’t form fitting. But for some reason you were able to make the outline of his olympian form just fine.

If you got one thing right it was the fact that Mr. Maeda was a resident of this Mansion for more than 30 years. From Horhei’s introduction of him you learned that Maeda had an immortality quirk. So Even though his appearance screamed mid twenties he was for sure ancient. Like a century or two old.

“Wait so if he’s been alive for hundreds of years, and has been working in this mansion for over 30 years, then how do you two know each other, wouldn't you be like, I don’t know, a child when he started his service here?”
Horhei and Maeda shared an amused look. Maeda, looking like he wants to laugh at your blatant confusion, just shoves Horhei forward, as if the mangaka is better at answering your question than he is.

“I don’t think I explained this to you earlier but it's more of a time thing. Like… you know how time is essentially a concept that we humans created? Yeah, the universe doesn’t work in a timeline, it's just impulsive or sporadic events that just take place at random, we just perceive it as a timeline because we live constantly through those events. It’s also why “time” can go slower or faster in different universes. So to put it in simpler terms, time doesn't exist and I can decide how fast I want these events to take place. Whether I want “time” to be faster than the speed of sound or for it to stop entirely, it’s all up to me”

“That and also, this universe has history from before Kohei brought it to life, all the people have full memory of their history and any past events prior to Midoriya’s birth.” Maeda added with that sinful voice of his.

You shuddered slightly. All his “hot anime man-ness” making it incredibly difficult to focus on the information they were giving you. Well if you actually think about it he looked no different from a normal human. His skin had the same depth as yours, and his features weren’t two dimensional. His eyes and mouth very realistic, the only surreal thing about him being his iris color and how he was able to naturally have white hair while having his youthful twenty-something appearance.

Well… that and the fact that this man was essentially immortal.

Maeda and Horhei went around the large estate of the mansion introducing you to the staff, the hundreds of maids that worked there, the on hand nurse near the west foyer, even the gardener. Every person who worked at the mansion had some idea of who you were and what Horhei wanted you to do, so you were often advised to call on them anytime you were in need of assistance.

“What does ‘assistance’ entertain actually?” you asked Maeda when you arrived at Horhei’s office on the top floor. You were kind of out of breath considering that Maeda decided that he would start your training immediately by making you walk up eight flights of stairs to his office while the other two take the elevator (yes this place was huge enough to warrant one).

Maeda throws a small pamphlet your way as you approach the door of the office. Upon first notice you see your name embroidered on the black leather of the cover of the book in gold thread, but when you read its contents you realized it was a schedule for the next ten months. You even had a little checklist for goals they wanted to achieve before the entrance exam.

Maeda straightens up his suit jacket and replies with a huff. “Oh you know, if you ever have any run ins with the law, or need help covering something up. That kind of assistance.” He finishes fixing himself up before holding the door open for Horhei, and giving you an expectant look when you just stood there, staring at him.

“Geez, talk about over dramatic much, you make it sound like I’m gonna commit murder.” You chuckle before walking past him through the door adding a little under your breathe just for the butler to hear, “Well you never know, I might call you the next time I go on a murder spree.” At that utterance he snorted. Like a full on, choking on air, piggy snort. It was as cute as it was unexpected, mainly because you didn’t think your joke was that funny and because of the stoic impression he had established beforehand.

‘Darn it! Get it together. You can’t go falling for a man that’s old enough to experience the beginning of time.

You discard any thoughts about Maeda and his stupid adorable laugh and walk further into Horhei’s office, carful not to knock anything of his onto the floor. You look around taking in your surroundings like you had been doing all morning in each new room you were brought to. You’d think it get tiring considering the large number of rooms in the house, all of which had names and purposes you were supposed to remember, but considering that you and your family were comfortable in the middle class with a house that had an downstairs and an upstairs, this mansion might as well have been an apartment complex. Horhei’s office was no less than a large library, filled with books on topics like injuries and medical conditions, mutation, basic biology textbooks, dictionaries, translators. He even had a shelf for manga volumes. You suspected that he used the books to better portray the plot, when you noticed most of the books had to do with cuts and scrapes and all sorts of descriptions on genes and evolution. The shelves were made of mahogany wood and were the types that were connected to the ceilings and the floors. Farther towards the back of the room there was a seating area with black couches, a loveseat and a coffee table in the middle. Further to the left of the seating area there was a large desk with an assortment of art supplies on it. Pens, drawing pencils, fine point markers, and large sheets of paper. The ambiance of the room tied together with the light coming from the artificial fireplace behind the seating area and the two large panelled windows on the back wall. It just turned noon, so the sky was on its way from turning into a deep orange hue.

After you finished processing the room you took notice of the people sitting in the seating area drinking tea and other beverages. Aside from Hori who was sitting in his loveseat to the left, there were three women there. Maeda moved from beside you to stand by Horhei and asked the women if they needed anything else, to which a tall black woman with her hair in a pretty gold puff and red eyes laughed at Maeda’s attempt to be “professional” and told him to “Sit his ass down before he puts a stick up it”

Maeda, offended, began to argue with the tall woman...surprisingly. And by the reactions of the others in the room, or the lack thereof, this behavior was normal for the two. Between the bickering and coy laughs of the tall woman, Horhei introduced you to the other two women in the seating area, a slim, petite, woman with red hair with black eyes and a woman who was just a few inches taller, with her curly black hair in an undercut and deep blue eyes. The redhead’s name was Akari Inoue, her bangs were swept to the left while one large strand on the right fell straight. She greeted you with what seemed to be a kind smile but it fell a little flat because of how dead her eyes looked. She seemed to have noticed the weird look you were giving her because she immediately closed her eyes and smiled a little harder to get the point across that her “pleased to meet you” was genuine. She had wings akin to that of a monarch butterfly and they were such a deep maroon that they were borderline red. Horhei introduced her as your “arts” teacher. That being said, over the ten months you were to train for the UA entrance exam, Horhei and the others in this room were going to train you in a various number of subjects. Inoue was to train you in the art of dance and music as well as all the other denominations. All genres were to be practiced and ingrained in your head, all instruments were to be played for countless hours till you were at the point of peak perfection. Just hearing her tell you about her lesson plan, with stars in her eyes, was tiring enough. The woman sitting next to Inoue was Rin Nakamura, your Academic teacher. She had short curly jet black hair and really pretty blue eyes and large ivory ram like horns. She gave off that rocking chair grandma vibe with her silver eyeglass retainer, but she was relatively laid back and pretty nice. She basically had a quirk that allowed her to amass large amounts of information simultaneously as well as give an in-depth analysis on anyone she looks at. She called it “Gossip” and incidentally that is how she found out about Hori-san. Inoue made some joke about how “If you’re going to kill someone, don’t do it within at least 50 meters of Nakamura.” and even with the way her dark black eyes were staring you down, the comment still got a little chuckle out of you. Nakamura handed you a syllabus from her hand bag and explained how rigorous the school year would be since she had to cram at least 10 years of Japanese history and literature as well as customs and culture into you. Just the mention of night classes had you stressed. After her little spiel on the importance of keeping you up to date with foreign knowledge you heard Maeda yelp while the tall lady hauled him over her shoulder in triumph. It seemed that their argument had come to a close.

“Alright, now that lil ol’ Kenji over here has admitted defeat I guess it’s time for formalities! Hey, I’m Jaime, sorry about what happened back there, that was so unprofessional of me. But hey I can’t help being a bitch to my bestie over here.” Jaime said while hoisting a now struggling and thoroughly embarrassed Maeda back over her shoulder. You guessed he was shy over the fact that she called him by his first name in front of you or maybe it was because Jaime, in all her giantess glory said if he didn’t stop wiggling around she would carry him bridal style, and he probably knew she would do it from experience. You laughed in his face, half because it was funny to see such a put together man crumble at the hands of pure disciplined woman-muscle and half because you considered this your retribution for before when he made you walk up eight flights of stairs. Were you being petty? Maybe. But hey, those flights were long and excruciating. A glare from Maeda and a thorough introduction from you, and you were granted an opportunity to ask a few questions.
“So, Jaime, I can call you Jaime right?” She nods. “What subject are you teaching me? I know that Inoue sensei and Nakamura sensei are teaching me regular school things and Maeda sensei is teaching me self defense, so are you teaching me something quirk related? It seems to be the only thing we haven’t touched upon.”
Jaime shakes her head before plopping herself down onto one of the couches in the sitting area. It was at that moment you noticed everyone was standing and you became self conscious so you sat down in the seat across from her.

“I’m not the one that’s going to train you for your quirk, at least not at the beginning. I’m more of your tactics/engineering teacher.”

“Engineering, why do I have to learn about that? Am I entering the support course or something?”

“No, I think we mentioned it in the files Kohei showed you this morning, or at least the reason for it. Check your “backstory” file.”

You didn’t read past the first page of the files earlier might I add. What? You’re lazy, no one can blame you for it.

Luckily, being in Horhei’s library-office he just had to open a file cabinet and hand it to you, opening up to the section in the packet that held your information regarding the life you would be living here in this universe.

So your backstory, you were the only daughter and heir to an appliance conglomerate that was the first when it came to support items and all other mobile devices, only the best of the best, Messiah Tech…

“Messiah?” You looked up from the documents to ask Horhei, “Why that name of all names?”

Horhei looked to Maeda, who was finally released by Jaime, and he sighed as if this was a question that has caused him insurmountable long suffering and ridicule.

“It was more of a play on words. I didn’t want to use the word ‘hero’ but the word ‘savior’ did not get across the mission of our technology. A Messiah is someone who saves all, who makes a big difference, someone that is said to come in the future and is hope for generations to come. The technology we made was so advanced that it is said to have brought the world a century into the future. It’s helped save millions of people’s lives so I thought it was a fitting name.”

“You seem to have put a lot more effort into it than you should have, honestly, but It’s not bad!” You reassured Maeda, who looked like he was on the verge of tears. “Okay, so are you all the founders of the company? Or is it just Maeda? Also why is this relevant to my background?”

Jaime stretched her arms above her head before kicking her legs on top of the table in the center of the seating area. She fixed you a look before gently knocking on your head.

“You aren’t as bright as you seem huh? Well think about it this way, you are currently living in an estate that rivals Japan’s grandest of venues. Even without Kohei’s power to influence the perception of the people here, it would be difficult to explain what you are doing here. You have to know who you are in this universe and everything has to check out or else -although unlikely- our cover might be blown.”

Inoue crossed her chest and nodded. “If you read on you would see that Messiah Tech, or just Messiah as people call it, is run by one man, Akihiko Daichi, which is the alias that both Jaime and Kenji go by. Those two, with Kenji’s extensive knowledge and Jaime’s technological know-how, founded Messiah as not only a way to amass more knowledge for Nakamura-san to absorb, but also as a way to indirectly interfere with the outside world without getting caught.”

“Interfering with the outside world without getting caught? Why would you need to do that?”

Inoue continued, “Besides the obvious being that we are directly involved with Horikoshi-san and that acting out could put all of us at serious risk, we can’t be where we are needed whenever we need to be.” She sighs as lifts her teacup to her lips, blowing on the steam billowing out of the beverage, before fixing you a tired yet slightly determined look. “There is something you are going to hear a lot during your time here, that ‘You can’t save everyone.’... I don’t know about you, but for all of us in this room, even Horikoshi-san, this is our world, and it is very real and dear to us. Our true objective at Messiah is to distribute our products far and wide to make sure that the next time someone leaves their house to go grocery shopping, that doesn’t mark the end of their story.”

The mood in the room turned chilly, slightly grim even and due to your inability to reign in your social awkwardness you broke eye contact with her and continued reading your background file.

Your last name, to no surprise, was now Daichi and from what you read your “father” raised you all on his own. He taught you all there is to know about the company, about coding and technology. You even had a few accolades under your belt, with awards all in the STEM category.

Being that no one had seen Akihiko Daichi’s face (for obvious reasons) you had become the face of Messiah Tech, which meant that everyone knew you a lot more than they would a regular rich girl. You had done a series of interviews, and were even on the cover of a few magazines (not that you would ever agree to putting your face out there but that's another story). You were known as a renaissance girl, the pride and glory of Japan, and since you’ve had to speak on your father’s behalf for the past 3 years, you had become the most well known and respected teenager in the country.

With a further look into your documents you noticed a few more things, like the fact that in this world you are fourteen years old, even though in your original universe you were sixteen turning seventeen. You guessed it was to keep the story line consistent with your profile. To make up for your accent when speaking Japanese, on your profile it says that you’ve lived most of your life overseas, and that you weren’t born in japan. The rest of the document was just filled with minor details that made hiding in plain sight much easier. If you were to describe how you felt reading it though, it felt as if these were all just excuses for things that you might do in the future that would be a little… weird for the heir to a major technology company based in Japan to do. But with this new knowledge everything ws now falling into place. It’s part of why you had to learn so many new skills, as well as why you were living in an actual castle of a mansion. After you verified a few details with your new mentors Maeda explained your schedule for the next ten months to you at length.

“Inoue and Nakamura will take on the mornings, with Inoue drilling you in all categories of art, especially dance. Nakamura-san will be teaching you normal school subjects with a mix of conventional medical know-how, this includes home-ec and Japanese literature. For the rest of the day, after a 2 hour break, Jackie will teach you all there is to know about engineering, and architecture, and she will assist me in teaching you mixed martial arts, and this will go on for the first five months.”

“The first five months? Isn’t the school year ten months? What am I going to do for the last five then? Study for exams or something?”

Horhei chimes in, “For the remaining five months we will shift the schedule a little. By then I’ll have transferred half of my power unto you and you’ll have to go under intensive training.”

“What?” You turned towards Horhei, with slight concern written across your face. He was sitting hunched forward, hands clasped together in his loveseat. His face was serious and unreadable, like this was something he shouldn’t be doing, and it probably was. “Horhei, wouldn’t that weaken you? Significantly? What would happen if the entity behind this universe were to find out?”

“...”

He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. Sitting up straight, he stretched his hands over his head and lets out a tired yawn. You look at him slightly annoyed. “Nothing” he says, “Nothing is going to happen because after those five months I won’t be here, at least not physically.”

A few seconds go by before you respond to him, you can hear the slight conversation that your teachers, who have moved to the other side of the room, are having. It fills up the atmosphere with white noise.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is that I’ll be going back our original world-”

“!”

“-and before you start biting my ear off about how that isn’t fair, listen. The half of my power that you’ll be receiving is the part that deals with changing things and outcomes within this universe. It’s the part that allows you to have direct interference with the story, the half that I will be left with is to oversee the universe and its timeline, while keeping the entity in check. If I don’t have the second half my body will not withstand the toll of interdimensional travel, and either my atoms will rip apart trying to bring me back, which will essentially kill me, or I’ll become corrupted and slowly infect the people of this world till they become something like those characters you saw in the Hall of Whispers.”

A shiver went down your spine at the mention of that god-forsaken place.

“Okay, I get it. And by me having the other half it both protects me from being pulled apart by my atoms and makes it harder for the entity to find you.”

Horhei smiled. “Exactly”

It seemed like your mentors had finished up their discussion, because not a moment later you were ushered all around the house. Nakamura-san (who turned out to be the housekeeper of the manor) had the maids rush you from room to room, taking your measurements, having you fill out documents, drawing blood and running tests and lastly getting you ready for dinner at the end of the day. The dining room was huge, much like all rooms in the mansion, but it was fun and homely, hearing about Jackie’s exploits and Nakamura’s sleepwalking adventures. You spent the night thinking about the next ten months and dreading that you have to wake up at five in the morning the next day.

---

It’s been a week since you started training with your mentors, and let’s just say you absolutely hated it.
There wasn’t really anything wrong with their teaching, no! It’s just tiring. You wake up early to Inoue teaching you the five positions in classical ballet, move on to Nakamura teaching you about classical and quirk history and then after a coding and physics session with Jackie, she takes you to the gym (which is also huge) on the first floor and she and Maeda teach you the basics in self defense and mixed martial arts. The units change every two weeks but even with the meticulous lesson plan, the reason why you hated it was because of Jackie’s quirk. Yeah, turns out being big wasn’t enough, Jackie had the ability to create time illusions. Which was great for teaching course material that would take days for you to master in under a few hours, not so great for your tired and aching body. Especially with how hard Maeda’s punches were. Though, you were grateful for her quirk since it allowed you to have free Saturdays. Today though, was Friday and unlike before, you, Jackie and Maeda-san were going on a “field trip” which was just another way of them saying “Now you’ll get your ass kicked by trained professionals while their entire class watches.” Well, that was an exaggeration on your part. The point of the occasional field trips was to give you a feel for other types of fighting.

“You are more likely to counter your opponents fighting style when you have a whole library of them to choose from.” Maeda said, as he opened the door for you before swiftly letting it go as Jackie tried to enter the building. Jackie immediately caught up to him and put him in a headlock. Leaving those two to bicker between themselves you proceeded into the dojo and stood towards the side while watching the other kids spar against each other. By the time those two had finished their lovers quarrel the Sensei of the dojo had evaluated each of the kids and given them pointers on how to improve, all while you had taken notes to review and practice later. Jackie and Maeda motioned for you to come with them to the front of the class.

“Okay, time to get this shit show started.”

---

If you were to describe that entire experience, then you’d say it wasn’t so bad. You introduced yourself to the class, though it seemed that they all knew who you were regardless. Some asked to take a picture with you, which you declined, mostly because you didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures in general, though it didn’t stop the look of disappointment on their faces. You learned a few of the basics from your peers, had a few spars and spent the rest of the afternoon working with the Sensei on how to improve your fighting speed while also putting enough weight behind your attacks.

Both Maeda and Jackie had to go back to the manor to take care of things, so they told you to call when you finished at the dojo. So here you were walking down a sidewalk in Musutafu, trying to find the bus stop at which Jackie texted you to wait at. It was getting kind of dark, so like any person would do, you quickly tried to make it to a heavily populated area that would be close to the bus stop, like a convenience store, or a shopping district. You had been passing by a few dark alleyways, and to be honest it was creeping you out a little, like the feeling of someone watching you, or that something bad was going to happen.

"𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕪! 𝕀𝕗 𝕒𝕟𝕪𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕪𝕠𝕦, 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕜𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕡 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖 𝕠𝕣 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘."

“Shit!” you hissed. Of course it was Yuma, she always finds the worst (or from her perspective, the best) time to speak with that loud transcendent voice of her’s. You want to scold her again but choose not to, because one, she did it on purpose and she’ll most likely do it again and two, it kind of shook you out of your scared panic and to be honest she made you feel a little safer. You weren’t alone technically.

"𝕊𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕪, 𝕀 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕣𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 𝕛𝕠𝕜𝕖. 𝕀 𝕕𝕚𝕕𝕟'𝕥 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨 𝕀 𝕤𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕋ℍ𝔸𝕋 𝕓𝕒𝕕."

Alright, she didn’t sound insincere when she said that, surprisingly, so she gets a pass. For now.

“It’s alright.” You say while turning the corner of the sidewalk. You sigh when you look at the street, just two more blocks and you’d be at your destination. You should hurry so you can get there before Maeda pulls up with his car, or you’ll never hear the end of it. “I’ll forgive you even though I know your apology ain’t worth shi-”

“Well, well, well. If it isn't our favorite little kohai.”

You pause just as you round the corner. Just ahead of you was a group of boys, six in total. From the looks of it, five of them were circling around this one guy who was obviously younger than them. He and you might even be the same age. Peering from around the building you survailed the situation. The older guys hadn’t seen you yet. Good, who knows what kind of unneeded trouble could come from them recognizing you. From the angle you were watching them from you could barely even see the face of the kid they were ganging up on. The altercation between the boys was getting louder as one of them pushed the younger kid to the ground and another stepped on his book bag of which made an audible crack.

You could feel the anger festering within you before you even knew it. It was white and hot and burned in your chest. Nothing was on your mind other than punching the cock sucker who led this shitshow of a gang square in the jaw. The more you saw them rain abuse onto the poor kid, the more you felt yourself leave from your hiding place.

"𝕎𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗, 𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕝𝕖 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖𝕣."

“...”

That was close.

She was right and you knew it deep down. You couldn’t risk getting yourself in trouble, and the chances of you getting out of that situation unscathed were very low. Where was your common sense going? You weren’t some plucky anime character that could get away with practically anything. If anything you should just mind your own business. Yeah. If you thought about it, that kid probably goes to the same school as those pricks, if you did something now it would probably make things worse for him the next day. He probably wouldn’t appreciate it. You turn away to cross the street in the opposite direction.

Yeah, I’ll just call the police and they’ll handle it. Maybe if those kids get scared by the authorities the abuse will mellow out for a while. It’s none of my business, it’s not what I’m here to do-

“Ha! Look at him cry Fujikawa! Doesn’t he look fucking pathetic?”

The ringleader of the pack stepped forward and squatted in front of the younger kid, pulling on his hair, growling in his face to look at him. You still couldn’t look at the kid's face from where you were standing, but from the slight snicker of the other boys it didn’t look pretty. Their insufferable shitstain of a leader began to speak to him again.

“Oi, listen here Shinsou, next time you talk back to me again I’ll make sure I break more than just your fucking phone.”

The kid, who’s name you learned to be Shinsou, opened his mouth to say something, but before he could utter a single word the older guy punched him right in the mouth. Shinsou cried out in agony and tried to move back, away from the hands of his aggressor. But Fujikawa just grabbed onto his purple hair again.

“Serves you right, dipshit. Trying to use that fucking quirk of yours.” Fujikawa laughs again, pulling on Shinsou’s hair even harder. “Don’t you know that’s illegal Shinsou?! Well I wouldn’t say that comes as a surprise, right guys?”

His friends all laugh and continue to rain abuse on him. They had all grouped up to kick him while he tried to shield himself with his arms, to no avail.

"ℍ𝕖𝕪 𝕜𝕚𝕕, 𝕚𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦'𝕣𝕖 𝕘𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕠𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕙𝕦𝕣𝕣𝕪 𝕦𝕡, 𝕀 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕙𝕖'𝕝𝕝 𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘."

You knew you had to do something, but for some reason you couldn’t move your legs in the other direction. Your body wasn’t allowing you to run away like you had planned, but you had enough sense to know that at the state you were now you couldn’t take five guys at once. Maybe you could get Maeda or Jackie to help. But would that get them in trouble? The responsible thing to do would be to call the authorities, but they wouldn’t get here in time. The possibility of you being able to save the guy was slim to none. Is it even possible for you to help him?

By now the boys had ceased their torment on Shinsou. He laid on the ground bloody and in pain, his face shielded by his arms. Fujikawa and his gang dusted themselves off as to say they were done with him getting ready to leave him in the cold alleyway, alone. Fujikawa turns back to say one last thing to Shinsou, to make sure that he knows his place.

“Hey, when you end up in Tartarus, don’t include me in your villain backstory, can’t have shit like you tarnishing my reputation. Alright.”

“...ou”

“What did you say you bastard?”

Shinsou slowly raises his head “I said, FUCK YOU-”

Shinsou stopped talking as Fujikawa suddenly fell face forward into the concrete. All the boys had turned to you as you stood there at the entrance of the dark alleyway.

You jump kicked Fujikawa right in the back of his stupid head. You were irrational, angry beyond compare, and you were now going to get your ass kicked by a bunch of seniors. Fujikawa got up from the ground looking quite enraged. To his left a few of his friends had activated their quirks, one of them could turn to stone and the others had mutation type quirks.

Shit, how could I forget that people have superpowers here!

“Look how fucking weak you are Shinsou!” Fujikawa yelled in annoyance, his attempts to spit venom at the younger boy telling. “You’re so pathetic that you need some little bitch to come help you!”

It’s times like these that you are grateful that you remembered to wear your hood because if you hadn’t you didn’t know whether you would have the boldness to do what you did next.

You kicked that piece of shit right in his balls.

….

Honestly you probably would have done it regardless of whether your identity was kept a secret or not.

As soon as you heard the telltale ‘ooooh’ of the other boys feeling the phantom pain of your kick, you grabbed Shinsou’s hand and his book bag and ran as fast as you could across the street. You heard Shinsou say something to you, but with the sounds of the boys chasing you two, you were too focused on getting somewhere safe to properly answer him. The past week gave you immense progress on your stamina, even though in reality the amount of time you were training could amount up to years without the use of Jackie’s quirk. Because of this, you could easily outrun those bullies, Shinsou though? Not so much. Luckily for him there was a convenience store just up ahead, and the boys were far behind the two of you now.

You ran into the store and took a breather, the cashier giving the two of you a weird look. Well it’s not like it wasn’t warranted. The two of you did run into the store like your lives depended on it. After a few minutes of getting yourselves together you heard the boys run past, hearing one of them yell about how you could run so fast. You were texting Maeda about your situation when you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“Um, excuse me? Can you hear me?”

You turned around to face the kid you just saved/abducted -to face Shinsou- and immediately winced. His face looked terrible, not to say he was ugly, no! He was far from that, with pretty purple wavy hair and even prettier purple eyes to match. He had bags under his eyes but for some reason they seemed to make him look even more attractive. His lips were busted with dried blood crusting on his bottom one, probably from the punch that jackass gave him to the mouth, and he had a couple of bruises on his cheeks, and probably more on his torso and arms though you couldn’t see them because his school uniform covered most of his body. Increasingly aware of how long you’ve been staring at his lips you turned your attention to his entire face. Surprisingly you were met with a red faced Shinsou.

“...What?”

“Y-you’re...you-”

“I’m what?” Your social awkwardness came in clutch , making you touch your face right then and there, when you finally realized that while you were running for your dear lives your hood had come off. Which made sense as to why Shinsou was at a loss for words in front of you. “Oh, right.”

A few more awkward seconds went by where neither of you said anything, you avoiding eye contact like a pro and Shinsou progressively becoming more and more fidgety. You break the silence by abruptly going through your duffel bag, if you remembered correctly Nakamura made a whole fuss about being prepared, and because of this you had a first aid kit in there. Instead of saying anything -you know like any normal social human being would- you grabbed onto his sleeve and led him to the small seating area towards the front of the store. Luckily he went with you with little protest and you both sat next to each other.

Setting down the materials you did some basic first aid for his wounds. Wordlessly gesturing towards his face, a silent act of permission, You got some cotton balls and soaked them with rubbing alcohol and proceeded to disinfect his cuts. He flinched a few times, hissing when you had to do the bigger cuts. You murmured little apologies as you concentrated on treating him. After you rubbed bacitracin on all the cleaned wounds you put bandages on the bigger cuts. You got up to buy Shinsou an ice pack for the swelling, which he profusely argued for you not to do, and when you got back he almost haggled you into accepting his money as payment.

…

Ah, the awkward silence again.

…

“Thank you.” Shinsou grumbled under his breath, his cheeks slightly blushed.

Goodness he’s cute.

“No problem, I couldn’t stand them treating you like shit anyway.” You noticed that he seemed surprised at your language, but thought not to say anything about it. Probably because of the reputation you have in this world. “Does this usually happen? The bullying I mean.”

“Ah, that was more of a time limited event, if you get what I mean.”

“Well hopefully that doesn’t happen again, I don’t think I’ll be around this part of the neighborhood often.”

“Oh.” Shinsou said, with a hint of disappointment. “Well wasn’t I lucky having you run into me?”

“No not really, you still got your ass kicked.”

If Shinsou’s cheeks were pink before, they were blazing red now. “T-that’s because I couldn’t use my quirk, that wasn’t a fair match.”

You laughed as he still tried to convince you otherwise. “Uh huh, so what is your quirk Mr. One Punch Man?”

Shinsou all of a sudden got really quiet, even his expression changed. It was a solemn one, a serious one.

A scared one.

“U-um you don’t have to answer that, I forget that can be a super personal question. Silly me! Haha.” You were panicking, comforting people was not your forte, and you can tell he was not comfortable at all. Maybe you should change the subject?

“It’s alright, just please don’t… don’t get mad at me”

“Why would I get mad, it’s not my quirk neither is it my business.”

“...”

“?”

“Brainwashing. My quirk… it’s brainwashing.” Shinsou closed his eyes, expecting… well you didn’t know what he was expecting.

“Okay…? Cool I guess? What were you so afraid of? That's a really powerful quirk you got there.”

He opened his eyes, surprised. “You mean you don’t think it’s villainous. That a quirk like mine is only suited for a villain?”

You scoffed. “Dude literally your quirk is just a superpower. It’s an extension of yourself. By that definition anything can be a ‘villainous’ quirk, heck a person with a super strength quirk could cause just as much trouble as a person with a mind reading quirk. It’s all really about how you use it.” You turn to look at him, did he get all that?

Shinsou looked at you, but his face was one full of shock, one full of confusion. You guessed it wasn’t something that he heard everyday. To be honest you didn’t really get it. Why would brainwashing be something considered villainous? Were people that scared of being brainwashed that they had to make him feel like he did something wrong for having his quirk? It was honestly super dumb, but before you could continue with your spiel, Shinsou got up from his chair and hugged you.

He didn’t say anything when he did, not that he needed to. You get it. It was just something that he really needed to hear. Even though you were getting embarrassed from all the looks you were getting from the cashier and other people in the convenience store, you still returned his hug slightly.

HONK

You and Shinsou both looked out the window where Maeda stood staring you both down with an obvious (though only to you) heatless glare. “Oh shit, that’s my ride.”

Shinsou, having finally broken eye contact with Maeda, turned to you. “Oh, you’re leaving? Alright good night! Thank you for your help.”

To be honest, you were having too much fun talking to pretty boy over here, and from the small talk you had with him you could tell he was a funny guy, in his own right. So… why not try making some friends while you were here?

“Hey, your name is Shinsou right?”

He looked back at you while reaching into his book bag for something. “Yeah, Shinsou Hitoshi. Why?”

You pull out your phone from your duffel bag. “Well we don’t know whether that ‘limited time event’ will be making a comeback, so maybe we should exchange numbers. Ya know, just in case.”

Shinsou looked at you incredulously for a moment, like he couldn’t believe that you were asking him for his number. Then he pulled out his phone… or what was left of it at least. You both silently watched as bits and pieces of his phone crumbled and fell to the ground.

“Oh… can I write down my number instead?”

Shinsou gave you his number on a slip of paper and you both said your farewells. You finally walked out of the convenience store where you were met by a rather cranky Maeda-san, who did not let you off without a lengthy lecture. When he was done all you could ask him was one thing.

“Hey Maeda-san, could it be possible to buy Shinsou a new phone?”