Chapter Text
Five groaned as he regained consciousness. Everything hurt, making him want to just lay on the ground he had found himself on, but the cold stone was forcing him awake and up as a shiver ran through his body. He slowly cracked open his eyes and regarded his surroundings with a still half-asleep gaze. Confusion clouded his mind as he looked around. Where was he? No, more importantly, why was he still alive? He should be dead. They had resetted the world, they should not exist anymore. So why was he breathing still?
Five pushed himself off the ground into a sitting position and shook his head to clear the haze. The room was dark. The only thing illuminating the space was a strip of light coming from a cracked open door. It provided just enough for Five to recognise the room he had found himself in. Most of the furniture was gone, as was the carpet that had covered the stone floor, but he still recognised it. This was Shigaraki Zen’s office. The place he had last been in before he time traveled back to his family after refusing the man’s offer to become his heir.
He stood up and stumbled a little, groaning as his legs partially gave in, almost sending him back to the ground. Five stood still for a minute, getting his bearings and, when he didn’t feel like a newborn foal anymore, moved to the door. Opening it he found himself in the long corridor he remembered always having to travel through to get to the office. It looked the same apart from the hole in the ceiling where the light he had seen was coming through.
Walking through the familiar halls, Five couldn’t help but ponder his reappearance in this place. As he looked at the slightly dilapidated state of the building, the confusion only grew. As he walked further more holes and other marks appeared on the walls and floors. It was clear some kind of struggle had happened here.
Following the winding paths he finally got to one of the exits. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he pushed open the emergency doors and stepped outside. The complex had clearly been abandoned as he had seen nobody else around or any signs that anyone had been inside for a few years at least. Outside weeds were growing through the concrete and the outer walls of the complex were dirty and full of cracks and holes. Honestly, Five was surprised that part of the building was still standing.
Figuring that staying here would not be beneficial for finding out what had happened, Five started walking away towards the street. The first thing he had to do was find out the date. He had to know what year it was. From the state of the complex he concluded a couple of years had passed since he had left. The weeds and neglect confirming that conjecture.
Luckily, Five didn’t need to go shoplifting at the moment as the suit he was wearing was the same one he had on back in his timeline. It was a little dusty so he quickly brushed it down with his hands, frowning a little when his hair fell in his eyes. Even though he had grown used to having slightly long hair, he did miss his short styled hair. He should find a barber when he gets the chance.
The streets were mostly empty, the houses lining the street looked worn, with some of them in desperate need of a new roof. The sidewalks were dirty, trash scattered on the ground, overflowing trashcans everywhere and Five was sure he saw one of them move. He remembered the place being more, well, pleasant when he had stayed at the complex. This had been a busy street. People filling the street going about their days, children laughing, worried parents, and cars passing by none-stop.
It was clear that whatever had been the cause for the abandonment and partial destruction of the complex was also the reason for the current state of the area around it. Somehow the place had turned into some kind of slum. Five’s scowl deepened as he noticed some shady figures watching him from an alleyway. It became apparent that his appearance was attracting some unwanted attention. He kept his guard up as he started moving towards where he remembered a library being. If he had any luck, the computers would still be there and he could look up the date and some more information about what had happened here.
When Five got to the library the little hope of an easy search for information was squashed as he looked at the remains of the building. The roof was gone, the walls were blackened with ash and not a single window had survived what had apparently been a big fire. There was no way any of the computers had made it out of there intact. Five sighed and moved along. It was of no use dwelling on it. As he walked he eventually made it out of the slum area onto more populated streets. He kept close to the walls as people passed him by.
Keeping a lookout for anything that could give him a hint to what year it was, he wandered around. Occasionally he saw some colorful figures walking the streets, who got surrounded by people clamoring for their attention. Those must be heroes. Five didn’t recognise any of them. When he had been staying with Shigaraki he had, under the man’s insistence, learned about the local heroes. These were obviously still greenhorns if their bashful reactions to the attention was anything to go by.
Still, Five tried to avoid their attention. He didn’t want some happy go lucky hero all up in his business. Everything was going fine until some guy with scissors for hands decided to make a commotion. He had grabbed a woman and was now holding her hostage. The heroes who had been indulging in their fame just a second ago all rushed forward to try and save the day. Five leaned against a house when he noticed that nobody was really screaming or running away from Edward Scissorhands. Instead, everyone had formed a circle around the man and were filming the entire thing on their phone, speaking with excitement about what was happening and speculating on what the heroes were going to do.
The man shouted at the top of his lungs something about revenge, jada jada, give me this or else, blah blah. It didn’t take long for one of the heroes to make a flashy display and throw a glitter bomb at the guy's face. It stunned him long enough for another hero to come swooping in and take the woman from his grip. The one from before who had thrown an actual ball of glitter did so again, only this time managing to knock the guy out.
Everyone started cheering as the heroes struck some poses, not even securing the guy they had just knocked out or properly caring for the woman who had been held hostage safe for a brief ‘are you okay?’. Reporters were already on the scene and immediately started interviewing them while police officers and medics also appeared to take the man in custody and care for the woman.
Five had seen enough and walked away. What a farce that had been. All these people had something wrong with them. Everyone had treated it as some kind of entertainment, as a short stage play where the heroes defeated the villains and then bowed under thunderous applause from the audience. He remembered it not being like that when he had stayed in this timeline. Sure, the ending was still the same with the heroes getting praise and interviews. That had been the same as when he and his family had been masqueraded around as child superheroes. Everything else though? At least from what he had seen, the people had had the common sense to stay away from the bad guys instead of hanging around to get a closer look.
Shaking his head, Five finally made it out of the crowd of people. He had better things to do than stay and watch these idiots.