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Toge slams a kick into the curse, using the momentum to push off and backflip onto his feet. He ducks low to avoid a sweeping blow and springs up to spit a weak command. It grants him a moment's reprieve, allowing him to dart down the hall and put space between him and it.
A cry echoes against the hospital's walls and Toge curses under his breath, snagging a pair of scissors off an abandoned operating cart in the hall. He kicks the cart over for good measure and takes a few steps back, desperately trying to imbue cursed energy into his makeshift weapon.
The curse's screech gets louder as the thing rounds the corner and charges, the eyes along the side blinking rapidly. Toge draws his arm back and whips the scissors as hard as he can. It pierces the thing's head—dead center—but doesn't go through entirely. All it does is wrench a scream out of it and anger it enough that it starts to shake.
Gojou thought he could take this last mission before going back. It was supposed to be a third-grade—something easy. Obviously, they were wrong. This curse likely devoured the other one he was sent after, considering the strength. It looks to be a first-grade, at the very least a second-grade. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. Normally, he isn't bone-deep tired.
Goddamnit. Gojou's not even his sensei anymore, what the hell?
“Sleep,” Toge croaks at the curse, hoping the command combined with the scissors sticking out of its skull will give him enough time to get out of here, especially since his cough syrup is running out. He can't afford to use a command that uses more cursed energy, so the simple one will have to suffice. I should buy bigger bottles, he thinks, a little hysterically. Of course, the one day he forgets to bring extra… maybe he should start carrying three.
The curse's tries to force its eyes open, sinking down to the floor as it keens. Toge doesn't waste the chance. He turns and darts into a room, fumbling for his phone as soon as he's inside. Gojou's right outside the curtain—if only—
"Sleeep? Sle-sleep, nono!" the curse chuckles, and Toge stiffens. The thing had oozed under the door like slime. An eyeball peers up at him from the floor. He stomps on it. It screams. It's beginning to get repetitive. His effort is futile, anyways the curse seeping around the doorframe and dripping from the ceiling. Toge backs up, closer to the room's window, and taps at his phone impatiently until it turns on with a cheery chime.
"You knowwwww? You knowww? Awayyyyyyy," the curse croons. "Ni-nigh-mareeeee?"
He glances behind him. His lips thin—there is no window behind him. Or if there once was, there isn't one any longer, because the curse has all but surrounded the room.
"Comeeeeeee... You, awayyyyy..." The entire room is saturated with the curse. Boxing him in. A rookie mistake, to choose a place like this without an escape route.
help, he texts Gojou, and then the curse is wailing loud enough that he drops his phone instinctively to plug his ears. The last thing he sees in this world is a disembodied mouth with eyes for teeth staring and screaming, because a portal opens up under his feet that sings with cursed energy.
He falls.
And falls and falls, tumbling through inky darkness that crackles with that blue energy, darting across his body and the blackness around him irregularly. It's oddly soothing on the raw edges of his throat, almost—healing? Wind—or what passes as wind in this strange in-between—snaps at his clothes and his hair.
The blue stains purple, for a moment, and another hole rips open in the space below him.
Toge Inumaki drops from one universe to another, with nothing but the near-empty cough syrup in his pocket and the clothes on his back.
--
A bang sounds, like a gunshot, and everyone's eyes snap upwards. Shouta watches as a person falls, almost in slow motion. The crackling blue portal he emerged from stays open for one, two seconds before snapping out of existence with another bang-snap-crackle of energy. For a moment, the fighting is still.
The teenager—a teenager, what the hell—executes a perfect roll on the ground and stumbles to his feet. He's near the edge of the plaza, decently distanced from the fighting but still too close for comfort. He’s clothed in some sort of blue jacket and pants, his platinum blond hair wind-frazzled.
Shouta keeps a side-eye on the potential enemy, breath rasping through his skull as he fights. The boy looks lost, confusion spreading across his face, lips tugging into a frown and eyes roaming, as if looking for something he recognizes. Should Shouta help him?
It's a split-second decision, in the end. He sees a knife headed towards the boy's face, and his instincts kick in. Protect the kid.
He shoots out a length of capture weapon, taking a knock in the arm from a nearby thug as compensation for his distracted mind, but the knife clatters harmlessly to the floor. He exhales heavily, sweeping out a leg to trip someone and then breaking their arm.
"KID, GET OUT OF HERE! VILLAINS!"
--
Toge's a little off-balance when he sees the glint of an approaching knife. He's about to dodge when something knocks it away. He traces the weapon(?) back to its owner, the man in black. Wasn't that a movie, or something?
"KID, GET OUT OF HERE! VILLAINS!" the man yells, fending off the maybe-cursed spirits.
Toge stoops down and snags the knife off the ground as extra protection, imbuing it with cursed energy. Just in case. Villains seemed a bit harsh, they're just curses (probably), but he'll help the sorcerer out.
Not a damaging command, though. Despite the fact that his voice seems to have healed in his… trip… his control still isn't good enough to pick out civilians/non sorcerers from a mob of curses, especially if none of them seem to radiate cursed energy. Maybe they're disguising it, somehow?
He focuses his energy into targeting everyone but the man in the black jumpsuit. “Sleep,” he calls. Cursed energy blasts out from his mouth, an almost tangible wave of power resonating through all the maybe-curses surprisingly easily. A pale-haired person with hands covering their body staggers mid-sentence, collapsing alongside many of the others. Seems he'd overestimated them. They won't be waking up for a while, yet.
The man who protected him freezes as the maybe-curses drop like flies. Toge moves to go help exorcise or trap them, depending on whether they're human or curse. The other man seems trustworthy enough, if a bit foolish, protecting someone he doesn't know.
"—k… nomu!" the blue-haired man/curse rasps out from his place on the ground before succumbing to sleep. Huh. Must’ve resisted, however futile.
Toge turns around, aware that whatever “Nomu” was is likely to attack now, but the cursed spirit—and oh, this one definitely looks the part—doesn’t go for him. It shoots towards the other sorcerer instead, pushing off the ground with explosive power.
“Don’t move!” Toge cries out, the hulking curse halting scarily close to the other jujutsu sorcerer. That thing is fast, despite its size. Toge barely had the time to react. First-grade, maybe even a special-grade.
Toge pauses for a moment, thinking. “Sleep,” he tries. The curse doesn't move. A shiver trails up his spine. Something that never sleeps? It feels wrong, an instinctive reaction he can't explain. So he shoves his knife into the waistband of his pants, decides he’s not taking anymore chances today, downs the last of his cough syrup, and then rapid-fires commands—
“Get twisted! Get crushed! Explode!”
The monster convulses, twisting and folding onto itself, and then it, well, explodes. Guts rain down from the sky, pieces of skin and organs splattering the floor in a gruesome display. He takes a few steps back in an attempt to get out of range, but the curse's blood splatters onto his new white shoes anyways. Maybe a second grade, then, if it was defeated that easily. Semi-first at most.
And... he heard about curses having physical bodies, knew he might have to face one eventually. Knew that this curse used to be a person, if it's even a curse at all. He glances at his feet, feeling a little sick.
Thankfully, Toge's attention is drawn to the side, where the sorcerer stares at him. He chokes back the taste of copper. He overused his cursed speech.
"Salmon?" he asks a bit wetly, zipping his jacket back up to cover his mouth. He coughs, inconspicuous as he can.
The sorcerer stares at him in confusion, maybe shock, and doesn’t say anything.
You know what, he just fought a big curse. His throat feels raw. He can taste the blood in his mouth. He deserves a break. The sorcerer seems to be in decent shape; he can do the cleanup.
Toge walks over to a broken fountain and sits himself right on the edge, nearly poking himself with his knife. He switches his empty cough syrup out for the aforementioned knife, flipping it cautiously a few times to get a feel for it.
"Dude, that was so manly!" someone shouts, running up to him and beaming with big, shark-like teeth.
Wait, why is he shirtless? Oh god, is this Todou all over again?
“What’s your quirk?” he asks excitedly, and Toge is mildly confused. He speaks in onigiri ingredients. That’s a quirk, right?
“Salmon,” rasps Toge as example, tucking his knife—yeah, that’s right, it’s his knife now, how about that?—back into his waistband and peering up at him. He holds back another cough, eyes starting to burn.
“What?” the redhead asks, still beaming. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”
A blond stomps up, hands sparking erratically. “Shitty hair, don’t talk to him! He could be a villain!” That’s rude. What’s up with all the villain talk? He’s only committed arson once. Or twice, if you count that time with Okkotsu…
Just as he’s distracted, he hears a soft displacement of air and spins, at the ready. It only takes him a split second to spot the swirling portal and he makes a run for it, trying to catch the curse-thing before it can disappear, but he’s too late. The portal closes with a soft whisper, leaving nothing behind.
Toge glares at the empty air like it personally offended his mother, mumbling a choice ingredient that means absolutely nothing nice.
"I AM HERE!" yet another person yells out, bursting into the… actually, he doesn’t know where he is.
"Kelp," he greets, giving a quick if slightly confused wave. It’s a muscle-man. A bodybuilder? Muscle-man falters in the doorway, like he expected a scene other than two jujutsu sorcerers—one covered in leftover blood—standing over a mountain of sleeping bodies.
--
Shouta stares at Kirishima, zip ties dangling from his hand. He resumes restraining the criminals, more warily this time. He'd left the boy-who-fell alone because he didn't seem inclined to hurt him, but his students are another story. He keeps a half-eye on the odd pair, just in case.
Oh no, Bakugou’s approaching. Oh, goddamnit, he doesn’t need someone exploding before he has the chance to question them!
He steps out of the pool of sleeping bodies to usher three of his students up the stairs, all of them dripping wet, trying not to worry about the trio by the fountain. His concern costs him.
A whoosh, a flicker of purple, and the ringleaders are gone, sky-boy skidding to a stop. Shouta didn’t even see him move from the fountain. He's fast.
The boy says some sort of food and then All Might breaks the door down, yelling "I AM HERE" loud enough to wake the dead, or, in this case, wake people from a quirk-enhanced sleep.
“Kelp,” sky-boy says from behind him.
What the fuck, All Might. That man wouldn't know subtlety if it came and slapped him in the face.
People began to rouse, indignant cries rising. At least All Might isn't the number one for nothing. The villains are swept away, his students safe, and sky-boy is led carefully outside. More heroes begin to flood the doorway, and he hears the wail of sirens outside. What a mess.
--
"Kelp," Toge says for the third time that day, greeting a rather unenthusiastic audience.
A man sits across from him, presumably an officer. The sorcerer stands slightly behind him, tensed and battle-ready. Toge thinks he knows what's happening, and he almost wants to laugh.
Is this an interrogation?
Concrete walls, a presumed double-sided window on the wall and yet there's no handcuffs, only these light metal bands on his wrists that do nothing to hinder him. They didn't even search him. The knife he snagged from the maybe-curses still presses uncomfortably against his side. If this is an interrogation, it’s a terrible one.
"Who are you?" the officer asks, leaning forward.
Toge thinks about it. "Mentaiko," he swears in lieu of an answer. He swallows back blood, settling his hands pleasantly on the table.
"What."
He mimes writing, then sets his hands down, waiting patiently. His foot taps on the ground. Maybe not so patiently.
"Do you need something to write with?"
Toge nods, almost responding but thinking better of it at the last moment. His throat still hurts, but it's dulled to throbbing sort of pain, at least.
Taking a pad of paper and a pen out of one of his pockets, the officer frowns a bit.
"You know what that means," he tells the sorcerer, and they huddle in the corner for a discussion, voices low but loud enough that Toge catches a few words every couple seconds. "Quirk… paper doesn't… lies… Nedzu… body language… ”
He tunes them out, his attention to the paper as he debates writing about the existence of curses. How much do they know? Were those men really curses? Maybe the inhuman one is normal, wherever here is.
"Salted salmon, cod roe!" he says, almost coughing, near choking, but it draws their gazes to his paper. His voice nearly cracks midway through and he ignores it, tapping his writing pointedly. He slides it back over to the other side, his cuffs clinking on the metal.
The officer returns to his seat, reading it out loud, pausing oddly at his smiley face.
[my name is toge inumaki! i was fighting a cu monster when a hole opened up under me, and i was sent here. what's the date & year? thx! :) also where are we? im a little confused right now, haha]
The officer tells him the date. Toge's eyebrows raise. The sorcerer studies him carefully.
Oh shit, is he in a parallel universe? The future? A pocket dimension? An illusion? Another universe entirely? Whatever the case, Toge is not where he's supposed to be, if the year is a century ahead.
Toge sighs, gesturing for the paper.
[i'll answer your questions if you tell me what that big monster thing was] he writes, metal bracelet things clinking against the table again.
He holds it up for them to see, carefully angling it so it's also visible to anyone behind the glass.
The officer frowns. "We don't actually know what they are. Were." He side-eyes Toge. “Some… tissue has been taken to the lab, but we won't have definitive results until tomorrow at the earliest."
Toge nods. Guess it must've not been native to wherever he is, after all.
These people don't seem to mean him harm, so he should be okay with answering their questions…
"Why can't you talk?" the sorcerer asks, cutting bluntly into his thoughts.
[my power is always on :( don't wanna hurt someone by accident!!]
"Where are you from? What's the year back from where you came?"
[japan! um, i think i'm about 100 years into the 'future'? if this is the future]
"Where do you go to school, if you go to school? How old are you?"
[i go to a priv school,] he pens, his script slowly crumbling into scribbled shorthand. [nvr bothered to learn geography. in the mountains, i think? im 17 yrs old!] He keeps it vague, just in case.
"What does your, um, power do?”
Toge taps his chin with his pen, thinking. Cursed speech isn't a power, not really—it's a use of cursed energy. Cursed energy is what powers it, but he hasn't seen any cursed spirits since he came here…
[i can tell people to do things? basically]
The sorcerer—actually, surprise surprise, he might not be a sorcerer after all—looks unsatisfied. "Way oversimplified, but okay," he mutters.
Suddenly, a voice fills the room, Toge just barely repressing his reflexive flinch. "Hello, Inumaki-san! What thoughts do you have on where you are currently?" the unknown person says, presumably someone behind the mirrored glass.
[i feel it's likely i'm in a different/parallel dimension of a sort, maybe even the future] he pens, showing it to the glass and the two people in the room.
He tells this theory because these people might be insulted if he insinuated that they were fake, or didn't really exist, or existed only in his mind. Although it seems unlikely this is the future—the complete absence of any curses, for one—he adds it in anyways. Somewhere with no curses, huh… What an idyllic place to live in.
Static crackles. "Why?" the voice asks.
[u guys might be mad if i said this was an illusion] he puts down, because screw it, they asked, why not. He wasn't going to say anything, but if they ask…
Toge can almost feel the cackling laughter.
"Well, let's test it," the voice replies, if a bit late. “Do you have a phone number you can call? If this is just your imagination, it should work, should it not?"
Toge begins to shake his head but switches at the last minute, giving a thumbs up. Hey, it wouldn't hurt to try, right?
The maybe-sorcerer grudgingly hands him a phone.
Everyone watches him as he dials Maki-san's number first, setting the phone to speaker mode and sliding it to the middle of the table. It rings twice before someone picks up.
"H-hello? I don't want to buy anything," a young, feminine voice says, crackling with errant static.
"Kelp," he tries, just in case.
"Pardon?"
He shakes his head. A bust.
Taking the phone back, he dials in Gojou's number.
It rings. And then there's a click, and Toge can't help the hope rising in his chest.
"Leave a message!” a cheerful voice cries out. A beep. Toge startles, letting out a surprised “Salmon?” before hurriedly pulling the phone back and ending the call.
Toge huffs out a small sigh, blowing his bangs up a little. He hopes these people can actually find him a way home.
He calls Panda next, and then he hesitates, fingers ghosting over Okkotsu’s number. He calls it too. Neither Panda nor Okkotsu answer.
Toge doesn’t remember his family’s numbers, usually just relying on his contacts, so after Panda and Okkotsu he hands the phone back with a frown.
The rest of the interrogation goes by without any more hitches, thankfully, and nobody comments when Toge sits, stunned for a bare moment at quirks. The very notion of heroes and villains. Sure, there's jujutsu sorcerers, but none of them are heroes.
Finally, as it wraps up, they introduce themselves. Backwards, if you ask him.
"My name is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, and this is Aizawa Shouta." He smiles. Detective, not an officer like he previously assumed.
"Do you mean us any harm?" Aizawa cuts in, just as Toge hopes they're finished.
Toge thinks about it for a moment.
[no] he scribbles. And then, after a moment, [do you?]
"Not unless you endanger any of the students here," the newly-dubbed Aizawa answers. Oh! This place is a school, too? "Well, I guess we're going to have to find you a way home," Aizawa continues, looking put out.
"Why don't you come into my office, then? We can get you settled," the voice says, and Toge nods, slowly.
Soon after he's led out of the room and through an absurd amount of identical hallways, Tsukauchi and Aizawa in front. Toge walks in silence for a good ten minutes, and he's pretty sure they're just going in circles.
Finally, they reach a door that swings open before anyone touches it, leading to a brightly lit room. The desk is backlit by the huge window behind it, a glass coffee table set in the middle with chairs all around. A pot of water simmers quietly in the small kitchen area on the side.
They file in, one by one, and then something speaks from knee height. Toge takes in a little bear-mouse doll and he panics.
"Hello!" it exclaims. Toge reacts instinctively.
Swathing his leg in cursed energy so his leg doesn't break on impact—those cursed dolls are strong—he slams his leg into the middle of the doll viciously. It smacks into the desk and cracks the wood. He sets himself into a defensive stance, keeping his back to a wall.
Someone swears, someone else chokes back a snort, and Toge grabs his knife and flings it a mere moment before he darts in. A grey whip comes at him but splits paths at the last minute, smacking the knife away from the doll a breath away before it would’ve hit.
Toge leaps gracefully over the coffee table, snagging that motherfucker by the neck and throwing it out the window, wreathing some cursed energy into his arm for good measure.
He traces the arc of its fall, watching as the distant white falls into someone's arms. Toge curses, staring balefully at the two far below.
He's distracted for that split second, and then his arms are restrained by the scarf Aizawa was wearing earlier. Did he commit some social faux-pas? Surely this was a test of some kind.
Plus, he's been subjected to the principal's cursed dolls before. He wasn’t going to sit still and wait for it to make the first move. "Salmon?" he asks irritably, arms pressed tight to his sides.
Aizawa opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. "What," he says.
His eyes dart to the window, the splintered wood, back to Toge.
"Oooo-kay," Tsukauchi mutters, opening the door and stepping out. Aizawa looks like he envies the detective, shooting a longing glance at the hall outside the office.
Right after he leaves, a probably-hero wearing a suit clinging tight to her skin sashays in, closely followed by a man with a ridiculous hairstyle with a speaker hanging around his neck. They fan out to the sides of the room, the blond man's tall hair swaying gently.
"What's going on?" the female maybe-hero questions, spotting the currently incapacitated Toge and immediately on edge, hand curling towards her whip.
Aizawa gestures helplessly. "Inumaki-san threw Nedzu-san out the window."
"Didn't Nedzu-san confirm his claim that he wouldn't harm anyone? With High Spec, no less?" big-hair man asks, eyebrows furrowing.
Aizawa shrugs, ignoring the torrent of rice ball ingredients coming from Toge. None of them are nice ones, not that he would know.
"Well, I guess he was wrong," Aizawa says, shoulders hiking up like even the notion of Nedzu being wrong is foreign.
A cowboy man bursts in, the white doll in his arms. Toge tenses as much as he can at the sight of it.
"Y'all, there's better be a good reason Nedzu-san came flyin' into my arms," cowboy huffs out.
Everyone turns to look at Toge. He crinkles his eyes into an innocent smile.
--
[it was accident okay??? he scared me what do u want me to have done i was terrified c'mon]
--
“My best guess is that the ‘black hole’ you mentioned is just a transition place, a bridge to connect the two universes, or to connect the past to the future,” Nedzu says, feet not touching the floor from where he sits on the cot. Toge sweats. He threw the principal out the window?
"You suspect this is not the future, but an alternate reality or another universe. Why?"
Toge taps his pad of paper with his pen, thinking on what to write.
Nedzu’s beady eyes glint, roving over him with interest. Hopefully not the sexual kind. Well, it’s more of a clinical interest, noting his appearance, mannerisms, probably filing it all away to profile him. Sexual interest, though… Now he can’t get that image out of his head, oh god, someone help, please—
“And,” the principal starts again, thankfully cutting off his current train of thought, “what have you not been telling us, hm?” He counts on his little paws. “What caused the quote unquote black hole? Your power is not a quirk as we know it; what is it? Is it possible for someone else to harness your power?”
Toge shifts in his plastic chair. He hesitates before putting pen to paper. [can u promise that it will not leave this room?] he asks, as seriously as he can. Just because he hasn’t seen any don’t mean they don’t exist, and the reveal of cursed spirits would upturn the world.
“Unless this information is vital for survival, I will not,” Nedzu says, spreading out his stubby arms.
Toge sighs. He supposes that’s as good as he’s going to get.
[first, could u tell me how u knew my power wasn't a quirk?]
"Easy." Nedzu grins. "The interrogation room is furnished with all manners of quirk-suppressors, and yet you noticed none of them. Theoretically, you could be trained in deception or have faced this power before. Realistically, your power is something bigger."
Nedzu keeps talking. Oh. "... and the bands on your wrists, right at this very moment. They're special-made to suppress quirks, and yet you didn't even flinch when they were put on! You don't seem tired, either, but this specific one tires out the bearer, drawing on their quirk factor, and yet…" Nedzu continues to rant, eyes gleaming with maniac interest. Toge had forgotten about the metal bracelet-like things on his wrists. It just… slipped his mind.
"... now, where was I?"
Toge resists the urge to stand up and take his leave now.
[okay, so when someone has really strong negative feelings…
--
Shouta really wished they had made time to search the boy before bringing him in. Everyone was just too busy handling the influx of petty criminals, and he supposes that the boy was overlooked. If he hadn't needed to block the knife, he could’ve gone straight for Inumaki, and they would have saved a good couple hours…
Anyways, the almost-murder of the principal had apparently been an accident. Once Nedzu woke up from his Recovery-Girl induced nap, he told them that Inumaki had no micro-expressions to denote lying while he pleaded his innocence. Nedzu was crucial for the interrogation, too—Tsukauchi's quirk isn’t compatible with written things. After he woke up, he ordered them all bar Inumaki from the room.
The glint in the principal's eye had sent a shiver down his spine, and when Inumaki exited the room, he seemed just a little shaken. The quirk suppressors on his arms were gone, too.
"Alright, you'll be staying at my apartment," Shouta says, eyeing the boy suspiciously as they move away from the infirmary.
Hizashi says something. Aizawa doesn't care enough to listen.
Inumaki nods, lagging a half step behind them both.
The walk is silent, save Hizashi’s comments about anything and everything. Soon enough, they reach the parking lot.
"There will be a guest room for you," he says, breaking the silence. Shouta waves vaguely at his car. "Hiz-Yamada-san lives with me, too."
He looks back at the kid. Shouta nods. Inumaki nods. Hizashi says something that doesn't matter. "Get in," Shouta tells him gruffly.
The car ride is awkward. Hizashi chatters. When he's done that, he plays some inane song and starts to sing along. Shouta kind of wants to die.
Shouta's relieved when they reach the apartment, all but running out of the car.
"Here we are!" Shouta exclaims, locking Hizashi in and guiding Inumaki hastily to the door. He ignores Hizashi's banging, instead slipping off his shoes and showing Inkumaki to his room.
"Futon, desk, lamp, closet." He names each item, pointing as he goes along.
"Food is in the kitchen, eat whatever you want. Breakfast at seven. Dinner at eight. Lunch at school. Tell us before you go somewhere. You'll be coming with us back to Yuuei tomorrow, and will be updated on your situation every day. Ask if you need anything."
His sentences are clipped, stern, even. Tossing the boy a pad of paper and a pen, he waits until Inumaki nods before he makes his exit, giving him privacy.
“Oh,” he adds, poking his head back around, “toiletries in the adjoining bathroom, guest pajamas in the closet, plus some plain shirts and pants if you want to change.” Inumaki nods his assent again, and Shouta retreats gratefully.
God, he hated that.
Sighing, he goes out and frees Hizashi with a warning not to overwhelm the boy, and sets to making a few phone calls. Today was a total shitshow. Guess he needs to cancel his patrol if he doesn’t want to leave his (totally capable) husband alone with an incredibly powerful kid from another dimension-slash-time. His life will never get easier, will it?
Dinner is a simple stir-fry Hizashi whipped up and also an awkward affair, much like the car ride. Right before they‘re all served, Inumaki passes him a note.
“Do you have any cough syrup?” he reads out loud, the note slightly crumpled.
“Not on me, but I can check,” he offers, tucking the paper under his plate.
Inumaki still wears his blue high-collared jacket, although he’s swapped out his pants for a pair of too-big white sweatpants, evident by the extra fabric bunching up by his hips. He makes for… an odd sight, definitely. After they say their thank you for the meals, he unzips the turtleneck-like part of his jacket only to eat quickly and zip it back up as soon as he’s done.
Shouta notes the tattoo-like markings around the teen's mouth with interest, stealing a couple glances at the design before Toge hides it away. Definitely something to do with his quirk.
Sushi wanders in shortly after dinner, sauntering right up to the Inumaki. The cat purrs, rubbing against the leg of the silver-haired boy.
Inumaki freezes, and then tentatively moves to pet Sushi. He slowly squats, running his hands through Sushi’s orange fur, the cat purring louder. Inumaki keeps at it, almost entranced, and Shouta catches a glimpse of something that might be a smile in his eyes.
Shouta firmly presses down on his own smile edging his lips, instead shoveling the rest of his food into his mouth.
“You like cats or dogs?” pipes in Hizashi, stacking his dish into the sink. Shouta's told Hizashi so many times not to do it like that, what the hell?
Inumaki looks up. “Salmon,” he answers, offering them a wry crinkle of the eyes. Shouta’s heard him say that a lot.
It doesn’t really fit here, but… He swallows the rest of his mouthful. “Is that a yes?” he guesses. Inumaki bobs his head, returning his attention to Sushi, the cat is absolutely adoring it.
Soon after, Shouta moves to the living room, Hizashi goes out to his radio station, and Inumaki hides away in the guest room with a new bottle of cough syrup Shouta managed to find.
Shouta’s determined to make a dent in the copious amounts of paperwork the USJ incident will have made. Hours pass, trickling through his fingers like sand. He tunes into Hands Up Radio when it’s Hizashi’s on, setting it on the counter as white noise.
Hizashi comes home late, but not late enough for Shouta to be asleep. Shouta mutters a welcome home, listening to him flop on the bed. He’s a little envious, but he has work to do.
He ends up getting to bed at somewhere past two am, almost falling asleep with his hero uniform still on. Groaning softly, he strips and tosses it somewhere into the dark before burrowing down into the covers, throwing an arm over Hizashi.
Finally, he’s just fallen asleep when his phone blares. He slaps it off the nightstand, grumbling. Why now? Hizashi turns, flinging the blanket over his head. Shouta can relate.
“What?” he snaps into the receiver, irritation leaking into his voice. If this is about his patrol, he’s going to kill someone—
“Where is he?” a voice demands, right into his ear, low and almost bleeding with a feeling he can't quite catch. A crash sounds in the background, paired with a yell. Someone swears distantly. Shouta yanks the phone away, squinting blearily at the number. Oh, it’s his burner.
“Sorry, wrong number.” Yawning, he moves to end the call when the man says something that jerks him awake and sends an ominous feeling down his spine.
“Where’s Toge?” the person on the other end seethes, a tone that hints at danger, malice lacing his words and Shouta—
--
“Inumaki!” Shouta yells, crashing his way through the house with his pants askew and Hizashi on his tail. “Inumaki!” he calls out again, dropping the honorific in favor of speed.
Inumaki emerges from the guest bedroom, bleary-eyed and still wearing his jacket. “Salmon?” he mumbles, obviously irritated to be woken up at—Shouta flicks a glance at his phone—two forty-seven in the morning.
“No time,” Shouta rushes out, grabbing the clothes Hizashi throws at him and tugging his shirt on. “Explain in the car!” he adds, hurrying the boy out the door. Shit shit oh fuck—
--
Hizashi’s driving, it’s ass o’clock in the morning, and Shouta’s trying to explain the situation.
“There’s someone after you, and we don’t know if he's hostile or not. He identified you by name, asked after you personally, and we need to make sure you’re safe,” he says, locking eyes with Inumaki in the rear-view mirror.
Inumaki nods, slowly.
“He addressed you by your first name, no honorifics, and then hung up. The number goes straight to voicemail, and it almost sounded like a threat.”
“Don’t worry, kid, we’ve got it handled,” Hizashi soothes, eyes fixed on the road. They swerve, narrowly missing a pothole. Shouta’s pretty sure they’re breaking at least three speed and safety laws.
“Is there anyone you can think of that would hold a grudge against you? Enough to travel to—” Shouta indicates his surroundings, almost frantic “—here?”
“Bonito flakes,” Toge returns after a moment, crossing his arms in an X, a seemingly universal signal for no.
Who, then? Shouta wonders.
--
A sharp intake of breath. So they do have Toge. His grip tightens on his phone. A crack sounds, followed by the crunching of metal.
“Oops,” Satoru mutters sheepishly, shifting a little as a portal opens up beneath him, smoothly stepping to the side. He looks sadly at the mess of metal and broken glass in his hand.
Returning his attention to the scene in front of him, he shakes his head in mock disappointment.
“Sorry, but I’m not here to join… what did you call it?” Satoru pretends to think, stepping out of the way of another purple hole. “Ah, that’s right,” he crows, “the Legends of Virtue!”
“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up stupid hackers, messing with my gameplay! You’re both going to die!” the unstable one shouts, slamming his hand on the counter. Satoru watches with interest as part of the surface crumbles away under his fingertips, turning to ash in his touch. A cursed technique?
“Tomura—” the purple mist starts, before seemingly thinking better of it. “Why are you here?” the mist asks instead, questioning Satoru directly. “Who was your accomplice?”
Satoru sidesteps around another hole, watching as a chair gets toppled in.
“My accomplice?” Satoru’s eyebrows would be raised if they were visible.
“The boy that emerged from the same—”
“DIE!”
The mist is interrupted by Unstable, his war cry falling flat as he meets empty space.
“Quiet,” Satoru murmurs, behind Unstable. “Can’t you see the adults are talking?”
A few well-placed blows shatter both of Unstable’s kneecaps. He crumples to the ground, a hoarse shout escaping his lips. Satoru’s lips edge up into a blank smile, cold and uninterested.
The mist makes an aborted move towards Unstable, purple strands curling towards him. Satoru steps in front, towering over Unstable in an obvious threat.
“So,” he starts, grin starting to pull at the edges, “what were you saying about an accomplice?”
The television in the corner crackles with static.
--
Toge taps his foot to the soft classical music in the background, listening with half an ear as the principal explains what will be happening. He notes absently that the principal’s desk has been fixed.
“Salmon,” he says for what feels like the millionth time, his eyes watering as he yawns.
“Ah.” Nedzu grins. “Apologies. I had forgotten humans needed sleep.”
Toge blinks, slowly. He’s… not going to think about that.
“You will need a watch to ensure your safety. Being here at Yuuei is already the safest you can get, but Aizawa-san will be your primary observer; however, he is a teacher at this school and has a primary obligation to the students. You will pose as an underground hero-slash-teacher’s assistant and will shadow him throughout the day.”
Oh. Shit.
“Bonito flakes,” he grumbles, stifling a yawn. The rat doesn’t give. “... Salmon.”
“That is all!” Nedzu finishes, clapping his hands. “Class starts in roughly four hours. Here is a map, and you can nap in the staff room.”
Toge leaves the office behind, dread pooling in his bones, the map clutched in his hands like a lifesaver.
--
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Toge trudges from the staff room, a quiet yawn escaping. He’s not a morning person, but at least he wasn’t the only one to have fallen asleep in the staff room. If his memory is correct—which it was liable not to be—Aizawa dropped by for a quick nap. But where the hell did he go? How’d he even get out of there without waking him?
Now, he has to meet Aizawa in the class, and it should only take a couple minutes, but he gives himself forty minutes to find it without Aizawa's help.
Toge glances at the map, and back to the hallway. There should be a turn… here… a left… a right… straight ahead… another right… Toge looks up from his map.
Ah, he's lost.
Toge turns the map sideways, upside-down, onto the other side. Crumples it, and then smooths it out. Squints. Holds it to the light. Blinks rapidly.
Nope, still lost.
He has about a half hour before class starts, and Toge tries, he really does.
Five minutes turn to ten, to fifteen, to twenty, and Toge is no closer to reaching his destination. The school is built like a maze, and Toge peers suspiciously at a potted plant he could’ve sworn he’d seen before.
Toge's starting to attract curious looks as the early students begin to trickle in, his odd outfit standing out. He still hasn't changed out of the white pants two sizes too big.
Does he care? Toge considers this for a bare moment. No, he doesn't.
A clock hanging on the wall ticks at him tauntingly, and Toge resists the urge to just sit on the floor and hope someone will find him. He’s not very good at it: resisting. He sinks to the ground with a sigh, staring hatefully at the potted plant next to the wall that looks too familiar for comfort.
“Oh, are you a transfer?” the potted plant asks, a face appearing in the base.
He gives a so-so gesture as an answer, too tired to give a proper response.
Toge lets his head fall against the wall, watching a flash of something in the vents. Now he’s hallucinating. Closing his eyes, he decides that his earlier plan of sitting on the floor is perfectly valid.
“Hey, are you okay?” the potted plant inquires, concern bleeding into its voice.
Toge grunts.
“You sure?”
Toge grunts again, if only to make the plant shut up.
"Are you supposed to be somewhere?"
He opens his eyes, disgruntledly staring at the ceiling. He picks himself off the floor with more effort than it should take, and begins his journey again. Four minutes until class starts.
"Huh?" the potted plant asks, and then Toge kicks it in the face as he walks by.
The two students who were watching him—he's not blind, they're not being inconspicuous at all—shoot twin glares his way.
Pretending not to notice, he makes his way into the throng of students and disappears into the crowd.
In record time, he finds his way to the roof. He has one minute to spare. Not even close to the classroom.
Fuck it.
Toge scales the chain link fence around the edges, and then back down on the other side. Balancing precariously on a tiny lip, he spots a windowsill below, maybe a ten foot drop. He lets go, bracing his legs with cursed energy. His landing is smooth, only a light thud belaying his presence. Crouching, he raps smartly at the window, peering curiously inside.
He can hear the room explode with noise even from here. He frowns, watching a dark-haired boy topple off his chair. This is why children are horrible. The dark-haired boy scrambles off the floor and turns to look at him with wide green eyes.
Catching sight of Aizawa, he waves excitedly. First try, he gets the right classroom! Toge squints at a clock in the classroom. He’s not late, either, although he is cutting it very close.
Toge watches Aizawa’s lips move and hears the noise quiet, and then the teacher gestures at him. He waits patiently for an angry-looking blond to unlatch the window.
Blond does so, flinging the window open with unnecessary force. Toge hops down, striding to the front of the room. After grabbing his pen and paper, he writes, [hey! sorry, got lost :(], and presents the page to Aizawa with a flourish.
Aizawa rubs the bridge of his nose. “Go sit over there,” he grumbles out, pointing at a lone desk and chair at the back of the room. Toge acquiesces, tossing a solemn nod back at him.
The class settles down, but Toge can almost feel the tension in the air. He sits as prim and proper as he can, waiting for—
“SENSEI WHO’S THAT?” another blond screeches, more yellow-golden then the other with a black design on his hair.
There it is. The class erupts with shouts again. It goes on for a solid four seconds until Aizawa flares his cur—quirk, his hair rising and eyes glowing.
“Quiet,” he hisses, annoyance saturating the air. The class shuts up obligingly.
“He,” he says, waving a hand at Toge, “is my apprentice. He’s temporarily interning under me. His name is Inumaki Toge.”
Toge throws up a peace sign. Noise starts to build, again.
“What was he doing at the USJ?” angry blond demands, cutting through the murmurs.
Aizawa stiffens, barely noticeable. “Classified.”
That’s such a bad excuse.
“Now, onto the Sports Festival…” Aizawa begins, steamrolling over all the protests. Toge tunes him out, letting his eyes shut in the hopes of a catnap.
He slips into sleep. Sooner than he’d like, the bell rings and Aizawa’s motioning for him to leave. Toge makes his way to the front of the class, offers the students one last wave and follows him out. Yamada passes him on the way, smiling.
“Time for English! For review…”
And then they hear the alarms.
"Security breach," Aizawa mutters, shoving Toge back into the classroom. "Stay here." He pauses, barely half a moment. "Protect the students."
Yamada blows past them, tugging Aizawa by the arm. "Hurry!" he cries.
Toge glances at them, then reluctantly heads back into the classroom. These aren't cursed spirits. He doesn't know what to expect.
He steps back inside to complete and utter chaos, yelling and crashing and chattering.
"Who do you think it is?"
"The press, again?"
"—it back!"
"I COULD FUCKING FIGHT THEM—"
"Quiet!" someone calls, and the din is reduced to a low murmur. "Thank you! There are safety protocols in place for this sort of thing. I, as Class Representative, will inform you of all the rules." Someone cheers quietly in the back, a round-faced girl.
Toge stands awkwardly in the corner, slowly trying to slide the door shut as the square-ish boy adjusts his glasses and waves his hands.
"Wait! The windows!" a pink-skinned (and whoa, isn't that a sight) girl yelps excitedly. Cue a rush to the windows and another wave of chatter as people jostle for a view.
Toge loiters silently, still awkwardly.
The green-eyed boy that fell off his chair earlier is closest, practically kissing the window panes as he mumbles. The same boy flinches back violently as a wave of grey slams up in front of glass, blocking their view.
A few people complain but the majority erupt into discussion, talking about the "mysterious white villain," and saying things like "wow, I didn't get a good view, but he's pretty hot," and "I bet he could get all the girls," and—wait. That sounds familiar. Gojou?
Toge lifts his eyes to the sky and prays that Aizawa makes it out alive.
Bangs sound from outside. The chatter continues, and no amount of hand-waving will help the so-called class rep.
He debates putting them all to sleep. Before he can, Toge nearly falls, stumbling as the illusion of knowledge crams itself into his skull. It passes as quickly as it comes, and he watches, bewildered, as everyone else collapses. Spares him the trouble, at least.
Sorry, he mouths at them, and then goes outside to meet Gojou because he’s finally here.
--
Satoru appears in the right place. At least, he thinks so. Mist-man had said Yuuei, right? He watches with disinterest as students run from him, broken and twisted metal on the grass around him. An alarm wails.
“I know you have Toge,” he calls over the loud noise, “so where is he?”
Strangely-dressed people start to pour out from the front entrance, first and foremost a man wearing a trenchcoat. As he watches, smoke begins to surround the man. Then a torrent of people—clones—rush him. He flicks them away easily, like one might bat away a fly. Bullets break through the hazy air, reaching his infinity and falling to the ground.
Cement rushes up as the last of the people emerge, making a wall and blocking his view of the school. A purple haze begins to drift towards him and red eyes flare, piercing and staring right at him.
A torrent of attacks reach him at once, one of them a wave of sound reminiscent of Toge. His infinity stops them all, of course. He catches a bullet coming straight at his torso between his thumb and forefinger, tossing it back and smirking when he hears someone yell out.
“I’m not going to ask again,” he simpers, sickly sweet. Baring his teeth in a grin, he tugs his blindfold up. Embracing the surge of cursed energy that comes with showing his eyes, he blinks languidly. “Where is Inumaki Toge?”
No answer, only another wave of attacks. The smoke starts to swirl around his ankles. He doesn’t really want to kill these people. Plus, they’re all laughably weak. It’d be like crushing a bug.
Satoru raises two fingers in a familiar gesture, putting his middle finger behind his pointer. Only zero-point-two seconds, he reminds himself. Any longer would kill everyone, the rush of stimuli too much for those without cursed energy.
“Domain expansion: Unlimited Void."
--
Shouta wakes to the sight of his ward talking casually with someone who beat them all in one move.
Fuck, he thinks, I don’t want to deal with this shit.
The villain(?) glances over at him the moment Shouta settles eyes on the two and sends him a smirk. Definite improvement from the sheer bloodlust earlier.
Inumaki follows the intruder’s gaze, waving merrily at Shouta.
Shouta tries to get up, stumbling to his feet. Approaching them is harder than he thought it would be.
Just as he manages to stand, the villain(?) makes a slicing motion with his hand. A hole rips into the fabric of space, and he tugs Inumaki after them by his arm.
"It was nice to meet you!" the villain(?) calls out brightly. Someone groans in pain.
--
[sorry for any trouble i caused! the person who came to take me back is my former best looking sensei. he's nice (most of the time) all the time so don't worry! thank you for taking care of me. im not in any danger. i really appreciate all that you've done! and you guys couldnt find a way home, but it's okay. you tried. Sorry I knocked you all out! I was just worried about my student!
regards,
Inumaki Toge, Gojo Satoru!
(ps. id say let's meet again but im really hoping not, haha!) If you take Toge again, I might have to kill you! Haha!]
Shouta squints at the mess of a note. It's written hastily on the back of a receipt that he found taped to his leg. Two people have written on it, some parts are scribbled out and occasionally, the ink is barely legible.
(The receipt is from McDonald's. They bought four packs of six chicken nuggets, a cheeseburger without cheese but with extra pickles and three ice creams in a cup.)
He passes the note around the table, slowly. Snipe winces when it comes to him, picking up the paper awkwardly with his left hand. The bullet had gone straight through his hand, and Recovery Girl had given him a cast, just in case.
Nedzu smiles when it reaches him. "Not written under duress," he confirms. Shouta exhales in relief.
"Well then," Hizashi says weakly. "How do we feel about forgetting this ever happened?"