Chapter Text
Five knew something was terribly wrong. He didn’t know how he messed up the equation so much, but here he was, in the year 2062. Delores had told him the equation was off. Bet she was laughing at him now. It baffled him though. He had seen the newspaper. The apocalypse should have happened in the year 2019 and yet here the world was, safe and sound. No ruins or ashes, no corpses covering the ground. The sky was blue and clear instead of red and scorching.
Unless this was some alternate dimension or his time travelling had diverted events, it shouldn’t be possible. Something to figure out later. First he had to figure out where his family was. A lot had changed and Five couldn’t even recognise a single building.
At least his ability to teleport shouldn’t stand out too much. Apparently more than half the population had a power now. They called these powers quirks. During the rise of quirks almost all documents were destroyed amidst uprisings and riots, leaving Five with nothing to work with. When he had gotten to a library and searched on one of the public computers, he had found nothing on the Umbrella Academy except for some obscure rumours on conspiracy websites, but when he dug deeper most of them were baseless or just plain wrong.
That road had become a dead end. He had even looked up the address of the academy and found it had become a retirement home. So now he was wandering down the streets, getting a lot of weird looks from passerbys. Not unwarranted, mind you. He looked like a 13 year old who was wearing a too big formal suit. A child playing dress-up. At least nobody had deemed it necessary to stop him. He had seen other kids walking around and figured it must be a holiday. Looking around he found a clothing store that was still closed.
Five walked into a side alley and blinked inside the store. Picking out some comfortable clothes, Five also took the liberty to take some cookies and - surprisingly - booze from someone’s ‘secret’ stash he had spotted in the back office. Once done, he blinked back outside and wanted to leave when a voice stopped him.
“Stealing is bad, you know.”
“No, really? Thank you for telling me. I’ll be on the look-out for anyone doing such a devilish act.”
He responded in the most sarcastic way possible, turning to face the righteous man who had stopped him. It was a middle aged Japanese man with short white hair who was wearing a suit not that much unlike the one he had been wearing. The man laughed at him, making Five scowl.
“Aren’t you a little young to drink that?”
He pointed at the booze Five was still holding in his hand. Five scoffed and held up the bottle.
“What, this? It seems you need your eyes checked, old man. This is clearly just some fancy water.”
“Hmm, looks like vodka to me, but maybe the years are getting to me.”
Not wanting to waste any more time on this man, Five snorted, turned back around and started walking away.
“Hey, kid! You got a place to stay?”
And here it was. The old man turned out to be a creep after all. Five didn’t even turn around and kept walking.
“Yes, somewhere far away from you!”
He heard the man laughing a deep laugh behind him.
“Here, call me if you need someplace to stay, or just some food.”
Five decided to keep ignoring the man, not taking anything the man was probably trying to hand out to him. The man didn’t chase after him so Five figured he wasn’t that persistent kind of creep. Five held up the bottle of vodka and put it away in an inner pocket of his newly acquired jacket. While that man hadn’t taken it too seriously, others might and call the police on him. With that done he shoved his hands into his pockets when he felt something in the right one. Taking out the object, Five found himself staring at a business card. On it was a name ‘Shigaraki Zen’ and a phone number on the back.
How had that man gotten that in his pocket? Was that his quirk? No matter. Five wanted to throw it away, but something made him hesitate, a small nagging feeling. The man's demeanor, the way he had been dressed, the ominous looking business card. Everything pointed to the man being bad news. But for a superpowered assassin who had never failed a mission, bad news was nothing to him. Maybe this guy could even help him get a fake ID or something if he was from some criminal organisation. Of course, Five was aware that he would most likely have to do something in return. Which was a matter of course in that kind of transaction. Or he really was just an ordinary business man who had an interest in children.
The man had seen him blink, so unless it was some weird fetish shit or sex work, anything to repay the man was fine. For now, however, he hadn’t exhausted all his options yet and the need to call the man was nonexistent.
…
Five was dumbstruck. After three days of searching he had been unable to find his family. No matter where he looked, he hadn’t found a trace. No names in phonebooks, no paper trails, no descendants. Nothing. They should be in their seventies now and yet Five couldn’t find them. All that rested him now was working on his equation so he could travel further back to a time when he knew for certain his family was alive and kicking.
He brought the public phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“I need a place to stay.”
“Ah, the boy from the alley. You want to take me up on my offer?”
“Yes. What do I need to do in return?”
“Quick on the uptake. I like that.”
“Just tell me.”
“Quick tempered too. Hmm, can you tell me more about your quirk?”
“Teleportation.”
“What a short description.”
“That’s all you need to know.”
“Really? How far can you teleport?”
Like he was going to tell this geezer his limits.
“A radius of two kilometers.”
“Good.”
The line fell silent and Five waited for the man to make a decision.
“All you have to do is teleport goods or people at certain times.”
“I won’t be your taxi 24/7.”
“I don’t expect you to be. You can expect to have to use your quirk once a day.”
“I will be working on a personal project and don’t like to be disturbed.”
“Hmm…How about this? Once a day and at least an hour in advance, unless it is an emergency. If it is an emergency, you can ask for something in return for the extra service.”
That sounded not bad actually. Five thought over the proposition and found it acceptable.
“Where will I be sleeping?”
“I have a building that I also mostly reside in. You can have one of the rooms. All other rooms will also be open to you except for a select few that I will point out when you get there.”
“Deal. What’s the address?”
The man listed off a street name and house number where they would meet up before bidding him farewell. Five ended the call and started walking towards the address. Let’s see what kind of house that old man was living in.