Work Text:
When Kusuo Saiki came to, it was to a well-lit, entirely unfamiliar room. He sat up, rubbing at his head absent-mindedly as he looked around, trying to place where he was. The room was set up like a nurse’s office, though it was nothing like the nurse’s office at PK Academy. It was largely stark in appearance, with white walls, white furniture, and a white curtain separating the bed he was in from the rest of the room. It had one window on the far wall, though equally white curtains blocked the outside world from view. To his right, there was a small office set-up complete with a desk, a computer sitting atop it, a chair, textbooks, and various medical posters on the wall above the computer. The rest of the room was void of decorations, making the desk-area the most interesting part of the room. He frowned down at the bed he was in, trying to remember how he’d landed himself here in the first place.
Nothing came to mind.
He sighed, muttering an exhausted “good grief” to himself as he made to stand from the bed and go home—
When he pushed off from the bed, it rocketed backwards, the entire piece of furniture slamming into the far wall, cracking the concrete and breaking the metal frame of the bed.
Saiki froze.
He reached up, finding the same place on his head he’d been absent-mindedly scratching at just a moment ago. Where his fingers should’ve found an incredibly important piece of technology crucial to keeping his powers in check and stopping him from accidentally destroying the world, he found… hair.
If this were an R-rated anime, Saiki would be cursing furiously right now.
He looked frantically around the room, trying to spot his control device. How in the world had he not noticed that it was gone sooner? Wait, what about his glasses? And the other control device? He reached up towards his face and sure enough, the glasses were gone too. Luckily, his second control device was still in tact, although it was probably making him look like some sort of weird, lopsided alien.
Taking incredibly careful steps towards the desk, Saiki began gently poking through the drawers, hoping to find his glasses and missing control device. Luckily, the glasses issue could be easily fixed by getting literally any pair of glasses on his face, but he really would prefer to have his own.
In the second drawer down, the one that nearly broke in half when Saiki opened it, he found his glasses. Shoving them onto his face, he instantly felt marginally better. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally turning someone to stone anymore.
He lowered his hands, trying to figure out where his control device would be. He didn’t even remember how he’d gotten here, much less when he’d lost a control device, but he could only assume that losing the control device was the reason for his current…
A matryoshka doll fell from his hand and onto the floor.
…situation.
Oh great. Now he was activating useless powers without meaning to.
He leaned down to pick it up, internally glad that he hadn’t activated one of his more problematic abilities, while also frustrated that he’d activated any ability at all. At least he hadn’t set the room on fire or anything—
The matryoshka doll in his hand combusted into flames.
Saiki stood there, barefoot in this empty nurse’s office, holding a flaming matryoshka doll, glaring up at the ceiling. Why does God hate him?
Clearly, he needed a plan. He needed to find his control device and get to it without ending the world, which was easier said than done, and then he needed to make sure that he hadn’t accidentally activated his powers while he was asleep and affected anyone else. If this went like it did with Teruhashi and the hotel replacing the pirate ship, then he was going to have a long day. He was not interested in having a long day.
Saiki crossed his eyes, activating clairvoyance in order to search for his missing control de—WHAT?
Saiki had seen a lot of weird stuff before using clairvoyance. A lot. But this? He didn’t even know what to make of this.
In the world around him, people walked about with animal heads or entirely animal-like features. One woman stood over four meters tall, and another was quite literally a rat-bear-thing that couldn’t possibly be more than a meter in height. Everything around him was wrong, wrong, wrong and Saiki didn’t know what to make of it. Had his mind control activated while he was asleep and changed the make-up of the entire world’s population? He’d done it before so it wasn’t impossible, but still…
He needed to find that control device. Now.
Pushing past all of the weird and highly concerning details of his surroundings, he instead zeroed in on his control device. He found it, rather nearby, in a room filled to the brim with people both familiar to him and unfamiliar. The rat-bear thing was sitting on one side of a large table, flanked on both sides by his colleagues. Those that sat with him included a man blatantly dressed in combat-pajamas, a skeleton barely passing as a human, and a cockatoo-looking man dressed head to toe in leather. On the other side of the table sat Saiki’s friends—Kaido, Nendo, Teruhashi, and Kuboyasu. Great.
Kaido was in tears. Nendo was… Nendo. Teruhashi was sitting pretty and smiling as per usual, though she was notably shaken by her surroundings. Kuboyasu was ready to throw hands with everyone in the room, including the rat-bear.
Good grief.
A quick switch of his powers over to mind-reading got Saiki the answers he needed. The rat-bear-thing’s name was Nedzu and he was the principal of the school Saiki’s uncontrollable powers had landed them in. UA High School it was called, an institute for future heroes and hero-related careers alike. The man with the pajamas and incredibly comfortable looking scarf was Aizawa Shouta, a professional hero by the name of Eraserhead at night and teacher at the school during the day. He was the teacher who’d been present at the time Saiki had unintentionally teleported himself and four of his classmates to UA. The skeleton was the former Number One Hero: All Might. He’d since retired due to injury, hence the god-awful appearance he currently sported. Not that his previous appearance had been much better… Anyways, the last one was Yamada Hizashi, better known as the Voice Hero: Present Mic, who was a close friend of Aizawa’s and incredibly intelligent despite his fashion choices.
Switching back to clairvoyance, Saiki chose to tune out Kaido’s cries of Dark Reunion having finally come to kill him and Kuboyasu’s pulling of a knife in favor of locating his control device.
It was in Nendo’s pocket. Of course.
Saiki frowned. His options were limited, but at least they were there. He could risk using Apport to switch out something in the room for his control device, though it might be difficult to find something of equal value in the room, or he could hazard the walk from the nurse’s office to the meeting room the teachers and his friends were currently in. The two options were, unfortunately, equally dangerous.
After some debating with himself, Saiki settled on attempting to use Apport. If anything went wrong… ah, well, how much worse could it get actually? To the best of his knowledge, he seems to have either brought himself and his friends to a parallel universe or to the future. He was leaning towards the future, but one could never be too sure with Saiki’s powers.
He sighed and glanced around at the room. The room was rather threadbare in terms of things that could be exchanged for his control device, but the computer sitting on the desk the would work.
Very carefully, he reached for it. His control device was currently in Nendo’s pocket, meaning that if he tried to directly exchange the computer for the control device, it wouldn’t go well. First, Saiki needed to find something of equal value to the computer that was much, much smaller.
Without his control device, Saiki’s range of what he could and could not access in order to Apport something was much larger than usual. That was, to say, that he had access to all of Japan.
Concentrating, careful not to mess this one up, Saiki zeroed in on a luxury watch sitting within a glass case in a window-display in what Saiki assumed was the future/alternate dimension equivalent of Roppongi. The display was about to get much more interesting, that was for sure.
Saiki furrowed his brow and… apport!
He clutched the watch in his hand. It was, admittedly, quite a nice watch. He wondered if there was an alternate dimension version of himself somewhere out there who liked expensive watches as much as this-Saiki liked coffee jelly. If so, Alternate Saiki would be very impressed with Current Saiki’s tastes.
Focusing back on his target, Saiki squeezed the watch once for good luck and then switched it out for the control device that sat in Nendo’s pocket.
The control device landed safely in his hand. Oh, yes. Maybe the universe doesn’t hate him after all.
Saiki quickly put the control device back into its place and breathed a sigh of relief. Okay, now he could start to deal with the mess he’d made while his powers had been uncontrolled. First, he obviously needed to figure out where he’d brought them—or perhaps, when—and then deal with his friends and the professional heroes. Both groups were sure to have many questions. Saiki wasn’t looking forward to answering any of them.
Saiki knocked twice on the door to the meeting room that separated him from his friends before letting himself in. The heroes were already halfway to standing when he caught sight of them, meanwhile his friends hadn’t moved aside from turning in his general direction.
Nendo was the first to speak. “Buddy! You’re awake! Man, you’re not going to believe what happened while you were out.”
Saiki slipped into the room, giving Nendo a vague nod before turning his attention on the heroes sitting on the other side of the table.
‘Where’d the second antenna come from?’ Present Mic was thinking, scrutinizing Saiki’s appearance. ‘I could’ve sworn he only had one when I saw him in Recovery Girl’s office.’
Saiki grimaced internally. His friends might all be a bunch of idiots, but these heroes weren’t. He’d have to be incredibly careful around them, especially when his friends were in the room. That would be a pain—how was he supposed to figure out how to get himself and his friends back to their dimension/timeline without exposing his powers?
“Your friends said you passed out not long before a portal opened up and dropped you all in front of Class 1-A,” Nedzu began, directing his words at Saiki. “Do you remember any of this or should we fill you in?”
Saiki found himself a seat next to Kuboyasu, who had tucked the knife back into his pocket at some point between when Saiki had last checked on him and now. His thoughts were also much more relaxed, more focused on worrying about their current situation than fighting people who fight villains for a living.
Saiki nodded in response to the principal’s question, letting him know that he knew what was going on.
“Very well,” Nedzu said, smiling and returning his attention to Kaido. “Now, you were telling us about the villain organization that sent you here?”
“It’s all my fault,” Kaido wailed. “Dark Reunion was supposed to be my responsibility, I’m the only person capable of fighting them, but I failed. It’s a miracle they didn’t get ahold of the Black Beat,” he clutched at his right arm dramatically. Saiki rolled his eyes.
“I didn’t realize Dark Reunion actually existed,” Nendo admitted, scratching at his head.
They don’t.
“But nothing else could’ve brought us here, right?”
Maybe the psychic powers of the person sitting right next to you?
“Yeah,” Teruhashi joined in. “I’m just glad they didn’t hurt any of us. Since we landed in a place with a bunch of heroes, we should be safe, right?”
You too?
“Of course,” Kaido nodded, sobering up. “Surely they wouldn’t dare attack again, not now that they’ve sent us to a world in which they would so very clearly lose.”
Good grief.
“The real question is how do we get back?” Kuboyasu added. To his credit, it was the most intelligent addition to the conversation yet, however, it was the one point that even Saiki didn’t have an answer to.
Was he capable of bringing them back without taking out his control device? Or did he have to take out his control device and risk sending them even further away?
“That,” Aizawa started, “is what we should focus on. Did this ‘Dark Reunion’ use a teleportation quirk of some kind in order to send you all here or was it technology-based? Could we replicate it?”
Kaido shook his head, still clutching at his right arm. “I don’t know. I’ve never known them to use such a power before, nor have I known them to drag any of my friends into their battles. They’re truly making their biggest move yet…”
One look at the heroes, and Saiki knew that not a single one of them was convinced by Kaido’s spiel. Saiki didn’t blame them—even without his telepathy, he wouldn’t believe the words of a blubbering teenager who supposedly fights an evil organization that literally no one else has ever heard of before.
“Okay,” Nedzu said, leaning forward a bit. “We’ll discuss this more later. For now, why don’t we get you all some food to eat?”
“Food?” Nendo, Kaido, and Kuboyasu all repeated. Even Teruhashi was excited at the prospect, though she didn’t voice it like the others did.
Nedzu nodded. “Yes, the four of you can follow Present Mic to the cafeteria and he’ll introduce you to our school’s chef, Lunch Rush.”
Four pairs of eyes went wide. Three bodies scrambled to stand. Teruhashi remained seated, looking curiously over at Saiki. “The four of us? What about Saiki?”
“I’d like to have Saiki stay with us for a bit longer so that our nurse can check on him one last time. Don’t worry, he’ll join you soon.”
The first part of that was a lie, but the second part was true enough that Saiki didn’t bother trying to argue. Instead, he just waved Teruhashi away. She frowned, but followed Present Mic and the other boys out the door regardless.
With the pro-hero and Saiki’s classmates out of the room, it left only Saiki himself, Nedzu, Aizawa, and All Might.
“I hope this all isn’t too overwhelming for you,” Nedzu said, sympathetic. “Your friends had quite the shock when they landed here.”
“I’m fine,” Saiki responded telepathically. Without his friends in the room, Saiki didn’t actually care if the heroes saw his powers. Powers—or rather, quirks—were completely normal here, meaning that Saiki showing his own abilities to them wouldn’t be much of a shock. He just didn’t want his actually normal classmates to know about him.
The pro-heroes all blinked at him.
“You can speak without opening your mouth?” All Might asked.
“Telepathy,” Saiki responded. “Don’t tell any of them. Powers aren’t normal where we come from and therefore my powers are more of an inconvenience than anything else.”
The heroes nodded slowly, coming to terms with Saiki’s statement.
“You hide your quirk entirely?” All Might questioned further.
“Not entirely, just mostly. Luckily, most of my classmates are too self-absorbed to notice anything out of the ordinary with me.”
Aizawa raised one silent, judgmental eyebrow. ‘They don’t see anything out of the ordinary with the mute kid that has hot pink hair, antennae, and neon green glasses?’
“Mind control,” Saiki responded. “It’s how I make my appearance seem normal to everyone else. I’ve made it so that my looks don’t draw attention, similarly to how those in this place don’t question people with mutant quirks.”
Aizawa reeled slightly. “You could hear my thoughts?”
“You seem to know a lot about our universe already,” Nedzu noted.
Saiki nodded. “Clairvoyance.”
“This is quite the array of quirks you have,” All Might said. “Are they all part of one quirk or do you have multiple?”
“We don’t have quirks where we’re from. Aside from the one person I know who can see the dead, I’m the only one with superpowers.”
“How interesting,” Nedzu grinned. “Was it your abilities then that brought you and your friends here?”
The rat-bear was smarter than it looked, Saiki noted. In fact, reading the principal’s thoughts was almost… difficult. It wasn’t impossible, but there were many trains of thought happening at once, leading to Saiki only being able to parse one or two sentences before he was led in an entirely different direction. Given that, the principal’s question surprised Saiki briefly.
“Yes,” he responded after a moment. “I don’t remember what happened, but my control device was taken out.” He gestured up to the pieces of technology on his head and gave the heroes a brief explanation of what he thought happened regarding his control device getting taken out; AKA his accidentally teleporting them to either an alternate reality or the future, and the risks involved in getting them back home.
Nedzu nodded contemplatively. “I see. Perhaps we could fashion some sort of device that could stabilize your powers in order to bring you back home without dampening them entirely like your control devices do. This way, you’d still have access to the power you need in order to bring yourself and your classmates back home without running the risk of destroying the world at the same time.”
Saiki liked that idea a lot more than his current plan, which was “hope to God that I don’t kill my friends and/or the entire world.”
“Will we be able to ensure that my powers stay a secret from them?” He questioned.
“I’m sure we could work something out,” Aizawa said. “We have a teacher on campus capable of safely and temporality sedating people. It would be simple to have her sedate your friends and then send you all home.”
Saiki was liking this idea more and more by the minute. “How long will it take?”
“Well,” Nedzu started, putting a paw to his chin, “Power Loader and I should be able to figure out the mechanics behind building such a device rather quickly, especially if we can study the technology in your already-effective control device. The minimum time should only be a few days, but I would caution you that it could take up to a couple of weeks if we want to ensure that the device is properly tested.”
Saiki was willing to work with that. He was admittedly a little curious about this world as it was, so he wasn’t going to complain about the opportunity to spend some time in it. It wasn’t often Saiki could say he knew nothing about a world, after all.
“What about our accommodations?”
“UA will make sure you’re comfortable your entire stay here! Food, water, clothing, beds, you name it. In fact, there is enough space in Class 1-A’s dorm that all five of you will each have your own room while you stay here.”
“They’re joining Class 1-A?” Aizawa asked, his lazy drawl not sounding quite like a complaint but also not like he was pleased about the idea. His thoughts made it clear that he didn’t like the idea of having to deal with more problem children, but was feeling kind enough to allow it.
“Yes, of course,” Nedzu chirped in response. “They landed in front of your class, after all. It’s best if we answer the many questions I’m sure your students have, and what better way to do it than to let them all interact with each other.”
Fair enough.
Saiki nodded his approval of the idea, a sentiment which eventually got echoed by the rest of the heroes in the room. Nedzu, satisfied, clapped his paws together. “Then it’s settled! I’ll make sure the necessary arrangements are made. In the meantime, why don’t you go join your friends in the cafeteria?”
Saiki scowled at the idea. He’d rather teleport himself into a villain hideout than—
“Perhaps you’ll catch dessert time,” Nedzu mused further. “I heard Lunch Rush was considering making coffee jelly this afternoon.”
Say no more.
Saiki, without further prompting, teleported himself to the nearest empty room to the cafeteria—a storage closet, go figure—and then promptly made his way into the room where dessert was being served.
And yes, it was coffee jelly.
Life is, on occasion, good.
Not ten minutes into dessert, the school bell rang and hundreds of students flooded the cafeteria. Saiki winced as an onslaught of thought processes—most of them being 'FOOD FOOD FOOD' assaulted his mind. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been hearing the students’ thoughts beforehand, but most of the thoughts around him had been monotonous drones about how boring class was, and how some kid from Gen Ed was supposedly sleeping with a Hero Course student, and how someone’s hair had totally been on fire today and no one believed them. You know, the usual.
For the record, the rumor regarding the supposed hook-up was not true, but the flaming hair incident was.
Saiki sighed and returned to his third coffee jelly so far. It was delicious. He was currently, silently, blessing Lunch Rush for supplying what was quite possibly the best coffee jelly Saiki’d ever had. Perhaps the dessert wasn’t that good and his perception of it was being skewed by the fact that it was free, but if that were the case, then Saiki would happily keep living in ignorance.
“Man, Saiki, how many of those are you going to eat?” Kuboyasu asked, eyeing Saiki as he cleared his third coffee jelly and flagged Lunch Rush down to bring him another. The hero nodded his confirmation, but his thoughts further revealed that the hero would be unable to bring him said dessert until after the rush of students coming in for their lunch period had swept through. Saiki was fine with waiting.
“You really like sweets, dontcha buddy?” Nendo added on, leaning uncomfortably close to Saiki. Saiki leaned away, giving a nod of confirmation.
What wasn’t to love about sweets, honestly? They were the only thing that made life worth living. After all, if it weren’t for cake and cookies and coffee jelly and all the other amazing treats the world had to offer, Saiki might’ve intentionally destroyed the world by now. At the very least, he wouldn’t have put up with all the bs he’s gone through as of late without them.
Desserts make the world go ‘round, truly.
“What did the nurse say, Saiki?” Teruhashi asked, diverting the topic off of sweets, likely due to Saiki’s lack of verbal response. Don’t be fooled, though, she was currently thinking of the many ways in which to use her newfound knowledge of Saiki’s sweet-tooth in order to get him to go on a date with her. The issue with that? It might actually work. Saiki would put up with a lot if it meant more dessert. “We were all really worried when you passed out.”
“I knew the work of Dark Reunion the second I saw you hit the floor,” Kaido remarked, clenching his fist in anguish.
That was just my control device being taken out.
“It’s a miracle you got out unscathed,” Kaido continued. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you entirely, my friend.”
Saiki located a security camera in the corner of the room, which he could tell Nedzu was happily watching him through, and gave it a deadpan stare.
“Did the teachers here ever tell us how we’re supposed to get back?” Kuboyasu questioned.
This time, Saiki gave a response. He nodded.
“Oh really?” Kuboyasu blinked in surprise. “What’s the plan then?”
Saiki didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell him that the plan was to build a sketchy and probably minimally tested device, knock them all out, and then teleport back. So instead, he focused his attention on where some blond kid was yelling at an “extra” to move out of his way. One look at the guy at Saiki knew he had just as much of a personality as the people surrounding him did. He even had a tragic backstory regarding getting kidnapped and blaming himself for the fall of All Might but being unable to admit to it due to his superiority and inferiority complexes. Amazing.
“Excuse me,” a rather squeaky voice cut into his thoughts, directing Saiki’s attention from the angry blond’s internal rant about how useless he’d been as of late and towards the freckled face of the hero student that had just nervously approached their table. The kid—Midoriya Izuku—had emerald green hair, matching eyes, and a poorly tied tie that belied how intelligent the boy was. “Are you the people that teleported into our classroom this morning?”
Not unlike Nedzu’s thought processes, Midoriya’s mind was also a whirlwind of ideas, theories, and connections. His tragic backstory involved his own previous status of quirklessness and the angry blond from earlier—one Bakugou Katsuki. In a miraculous turn of events, All Might took pity on him and gave him his quirk: One for All. It was meant to be a well-kept secret, however Saiki had a terrible knack for finding out secrets. Luckily, he was even better at not caring about them.
“We are,” Teruhashi answered kindly, that stupid angelic glow emanating from her even stronger than usual.
As expected, Midoriya—and the three boys who’d followed him—all stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of her, mouths falling open wide and minds going blank aside from the simple thought of “oh wow”.
Teruhashi’s beauty strikes yet again.
“R—really, that’s, yeah that’s—wow…” Midoriya breathed, trying and failing to answer Teruhashi’s confirmation. She preened at the response, clearly glad to see that her perfect-pretty-girl-ness worked even in the future.
“Can I buy you a coffee sometime,” the blond boy behind Midoriya blurted out, without any tact whatsoever. His name was Kaminari Denki and he’d asked out five different girls at this school already, all to no avail. Fortunately for him, Teruhashi was too perfect to deny his request, however she wasn’t going to agree to go on a date with him either. She was too perfect for that too.
“Oh sure, I am feeling pretty parched,” she commented, twirling a section of hair around her finger.
Kaminari nearly fainted.
The other two boys that had joined them were Iida Tenya, the class president who had nearly forgotten why he’d walked over here in the first place, and Kirishima Eijiro, just a generally nice guy who wanted to greet them, but had also forgotten why he was here.
Kirishima was the first to recover from the Teruhashi Experience, oddly enough. Saiki had placed his bets on Iida, who wasn’t far behind. Unfortunately, the class president was too caught up trying to figure out if dating students from who-knows-where was allowed at UA to speak first.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Kirishima grinned, waving a joyful hand at them. “I’m Kirishima Eijiro!”
Saiki squinted. Between Kaminari’s eerily familiar voice and Kirishima’s personality, he’s 90% sure that if the two were to be combined, they’d make Hairo. Even the hair would match up.
Kirishima didn’t miss Saiki’s judgmental expression, pausing momentarily and internally freaking out about what he did wrong in his introduction.
Before Saiki had to assure him otherwise, Kaido jumped in and happily greeted Kirishima in turn. Nendo and Kuboyasu followed soon after, giving their own names, and then…
“This is Saiki,” Kaido happily introduced.
“He’s my buddy,” Nendo added, as though being his buddy was the highest of honors. Saiki would disagree.
Saiki gave the four boys the good ol’ nod and half smile greeting, and then mentally begged Iida to make his introduction in order to save Saiki from any further conversation.
Good news was that the class rep had him covered. “It is nice to meet you all,” he said, chopping the air with his hands as he spoke. What was he, a robot? “My name is Iida Tenya, and I’m Class 1-A’s class representative. I’d like to formally greet you all on behalf of 1-A.”
Saiki’s friends were momentarily taken aback by Iida’s formality and directness when it came to talking, but Saiki wasn’t surprised at all. His thoughts were just as choppy, if not more. Saiki felt like he was listening to the world’s most persistent sales robot.
Before anyone could respond to Iida’s greeting, Midoriya jumped back in. “I was wondering how you guys got here actually. UA has really tight security, so no quirk should’ve been able to teleport you five in here.”
Oh you don’t know the half of what my “quirk” can do.
“It was the work of Dark Reunion,” Kaido said, clenching his fist again and staring at it dramatically as though the forces of evil really were contained in his right arm.
“Dark… Reunion…?”
Here we go again, Saiki thought, and then promptly spaced out the second the four hero students took seats at the table and started soaking in Kaido’s increasingly dramatic tale regarding his battle with Dark Reunion in which he had to prevent them from getting to the Black Beat. At one point in the story, Kuboyasu interjected to inform the hero students that he’d swung a baseball bat at the head of one of the Dark Reunion fighters and taken them out in one shot. This was, of course, a complete lie. But at least Kuboyasu knew that… Kaido, on the other hand, was so immersed in his story that Saiki wasn’t sure he could tell the truth from reality anymore. The story ended with Dark Reunion realizing that they could never hope beat Kaido’s immense strength and therefore they had to resort to banishing him and his allies to the future in order to save face.
Unlike the teachers, who’d seen through Kaido’s story pretty quickly, the hero students ate it up.
Oh well, if it stops them from asking questions.
“So what year are you guys from?” Midoriya intently asked at the end of the story.
“2016!” Nendo proudly exclaimed.
The entire group, Saiki included, turned to stare at him.
Wow. Nendo really was a moron.
“It’s… 2014…” Kuboyasu corrected, voice scathing.
“Right, that’s what I said.”
“No, you said—ah forget it.” Kuboyasu reached under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. Saiki understood the sentiment.
“Right… well, it 2256 now,” Kirishima said slowly, giving Nendo a once-over as he put together what kind of IQ level he was dealing with here. After no one answered his previous statement regarding what year it was, he wisely decided to change the subject. “So, Kaido has Black Beat, do the rest of you have quirks?”
Teruhashi quickly shook her head. “No, not at all. Superpowers are actually really rare in the past,” she smiled warmly. “In fact, I didn’t even believe that Kaido had powers up until all of this occurred.”
Saiki knew for a fact that she still didn’t entirely believe Kaido’s story, however since she had no better explanation for suddenly time traveling roughly 250 years, she was stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of beliefs. Kuboyasu was in a similar boat. Nendo absolutely believed Kaido’s tale.
Personally, Saiki was starting to disagree with the statement regarding superpowers being rare in the past. The longer he spent here, the more information regarding the world he took in, and that meant Saiki had begun to form some opinions on what constitutes as a super power. In his opinion, if “traffic cone head” and “purple sticky balls for hair” counted as quirks, then Nendo’s stupidity and Teruhashi’s angelic glow should also be viable options. It was just common sense.
When it came to people that actually had superpowers though, Saiki couldn’t help but picture a certain medium having the time of his life in this universe. Too bad Saiki left him behind… not.
The conversation devolved quickly after that into the hero students (Midoriya mostly) ranting about various parts of their timeline and how heroism was a whole profession in the future, et cetera, et cetera. To be honest, Saiki was having trouble focusing on the conversation at hand because a) about five minutes in, Lunch Rush brought him a whole tray full of various desserts including three more orders of coffee jelly; b) the more people that crowded around their table, the more he had to listen to various people look at Teruhashi and go “oh wow”; and c) the only person who didn’t go “oh wow” was the angry blond, Bakugou Katsuki, at which point Saiki decided he liked this guy a lot more than literally anyone else in the entire building.
Except for Lunch Rush. Lunch Rush and his endless supply of desserts was easily the best person to ever walk this Earth. Past and present.
A teacher came by not long after the hero course students had to leave lunch in order to bring Saiki and his friends to their new rooms. Saiki, who’d already seen what the place they’d be staying in looked like due to clairvoyance, was not as impressed as everyone else was upon reaching them. Reactions from his friends included:
“Oh my, I didn’t think we’d get entire rooms to ourselves,” - Teruhashi.
“Oh hell yeah! My room is right next to my buddy’s!” - Nendo.
“This is suitable accommodations. I trust the security in this building is strong enough to ward against any possible attacks by Dark Reunion?” - Kaido.
“Wow, this place is way nicer than I thought it would be. Makes my room back home feel like the slums,” - Kuboyasu.
Suffice it to say, Saiki’s friends were happy with UA’s ability to accommodate a gaggle of accidentally time-traveling idiots (+ the one non-idiot who got them all into this mess).
Immediately upon getting to his room, Saiki promptly shut the door, locked it, and took a nap.
Three hours later, he was (rudely) awoken by a sharp knock on his door and summons to meet with Nedzu and Power Loader regarding the device to send them all home.
Good grief. Well, at least UA didn’t waste time.
Roughly two days later, after extensive amounts of social interaction that he didn’t want to be apart of, Saiki was coerced into even more social interaction by some of the more outgoing 1-A students. Ashido Mina—one of the members of what Kaido dubbed “the Bakusquad”—decided that a group shopping trip involving Saiki and his friends plus herself and all of her friends was the best way to spend the weekend.
Saiki wholly disagreed.
And yet here he was.
If you asked Saiki, the group they were spending time with today was better called the Kirisquad because Kirishima Eijiro was the one in the group that was actually friends with everyone and genuinely liked people. Bakugou, on the other hand, only vaguely tolerated those around him.
Which was exactly why Saiki was sticking close to Bakugou for the entire shopping trip.
Bakugou’s thoughts as Saiki followed him around the mall largely consisted of ‘why the hell is this pink-haired loser following me around’ and ‘if I just ignore him maybe he’ll go away’ and ‘why did I let myself get dragged into this?’ These thoughts were exactly how Saiki knew that he and Bakugou would get along great; this guy wouldn’t try to talk to him. It was perfect.
So that’s how the trip went: him and Bakugou following their respective friend groups around as the extroverts bonded over their shared lack of braincells.
Ashido Mina clung to Teruhashi as they bounded between shops, buying absurd amounts of clothing, talking about boys, and complimenting each other at every turn. Saiki tried to ignore them, but to be honest, he was somewhat astonished that Teruhashi was capable of having a conversation with someone without thinking about how perfect she was all the time.
Kaminari Denki and Nendo had found a friend in each other in their respective levels of idiocy. After the first minute of conversation, Saiki gave up on trying to figure out what they were talking about in between the excited exclamations and the confused ‘huh’s?’ that happened every so often. Their conversation was entirely nonsensical. (But at least Nendo was having fun…?)
Kaido and Kuboyasu also found friends for themselves in ones Kirishima Eijiro and Sero Hanta. The conversation they were having at the moment was about various fights each person had been through in their lifetime. Kirishima and Sero talked about their respective villain fights from the USJ attack, Kuboyasu talked about this one brawl he’d been in in which he continued to fight (and win) despite his arm having been broken at the beginning of the fight, and Kaido detailed a lengthy battle with Dark Reunion in which he’d nearly destroyed the world by releasing the Black Beat on his enemies. Kaido was lying about everything. The others were not.
As the girls dragged them all into the second boutique of the day, Saiki heard intense internal yelling from Bakugou as Teruhashi picked up a certain outfit. The yelling only got worse as the shopping spree continued, with Bakugou silently screaming that 'PURPLE IS NOT YOUR COLOR' and 'THAT CLASHES WITH YOUR SKIN' and 'THAT CUT LOOKS AWFUL ON YOU, GO FOR THE SHIRT WITH THE CINCHED WAIST!' Despite the immense rage going on inside his head, Bakugou only looked mildly pissed on the outside. It was impressive.
Regardless of Bakugou’s heated opinions when it came to the clothes everyone else was picking, he only grabbed the blandest, most basic items for himself. A plain black t-shirt here and a pair of loose-fitting jeans there was all he needed to be satisfied. Saiki followed suit, grabbing a similar pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a hero on it that Saiki recognized to be the new Number One Hero, Endeavor.
“Do you think I should buy these?” Teruhashi innocently asked Ashido from behind them, holding up a series of dresses that Saiki knew for a fact were the exact ones Bakugou hated.
Smoke curled from Bakugou’s fist. Saiki made a mental note to never shop for clothes around someone who was raised by two people who work in the fashion industry and also happened to have an explosion quirk. Not that he’d ever be in this situation again, but it was important to take notes on things like this.
“Yes! They’re all so cute!” Ashido chirped.
“No, they’re not,” Bakugou huffed. Oh, so he’s finally snapped.
“Wh—what?” Teruhashi asked, silently offended that anyone would ever say something like that to her. She was perfect and therefore the clothes she picked out were too, thank you very much.
“All of those clothes except the blue one look terrible on you. You’re not even considering the undertones of your skin and what colors look right with your hair. You should be wearing more cool colors and silvery tones, not pinks and reds. Give me all of those and I’ll show you the right clothes to pick.”
There was no room for argument. Teruhashi handed her collection of dresses over and watched with horror as Bakugou put all but one of them away. He then began grabbing dresses, blouses, and tops off the racks with deft ease, leaving the rest of the group in a state of bewilderment. Only Saiki, who could read Bakugou’s thoughts and therefore see the boy’s mother yelling fashion advice at him, understood what was going on here.
Like mother, like son.
Ten minutes later, not only did Teruhashi have the perfect set out outfits to go along with her overall perfection, but so did Ashido. Saiki had to say, Bakugou was right, these clothes did look a lot better than the others. Teruhashi knew it too, but didn’t say anything other than a brief thank you to Bakugou. Ashido, on the other hand, practically hired Bakugou on the spot as her personal stylist.
To which Bakugou’s response was, “Tch. I don’t work for free.”
Not ten minutes after they checked out did Saiki feel the ground shake. Everyone around him tensed up, looking around wildly as they tried to place whether or not the tremors were being caused by an earthquake or by a villain fight.
The answer was a villain fight. Saiki quickly picked up on the battle happening on the other side of the mall. A hero was already on the scene and battling her heart out, as were several rescue heroes who were helping injured civilians get out of the area. Everyone else was filming the fight, excited to see whether the hero would win or not.
Saiki conveyed this information to his friends in the form of pointing a finger in the direction of the fight. Nendo immediately perked up.
“Oh, there’s a hero fight going on over there?” He asked, turning towards where Saiki had pointed. “I’ve wanted to see one of those ever since we got here. Let’s go!”
Saiki marveled at the ability of the super-powered future to clear out all of the people around him faster than any of Saiki’s own powers could do so. It was amazing, really, the way the six boys ran off to watch the fight go down while the two girls decided to go take advantage of the lack of customers at Starbucks in order to get lattes. The mass clear-out left only him and Bakugou, the two of them uninterested in watching the villain fight or getting lattes.
Well, that was a lie. Bakugou wanted to watch the villain fight, but was more interested in the limited edition All Might merchandise being sold at the other side of the store. With everyone flocking to watch the hero fight, Bakugou was free to snatch up whatever he wanted.
Thus, Saiki followed Bakugou silently as he walked into a store selling merch for the Top 10 heroes, bought a massive All Might poster along with several hero trading cards, and then walked out as if he wasn’t the world’s biggest fanboy.
Saiki didn’t buy any merch for the heroes. To be honest, he’d accidentally touched the fabric of the shirt he’d bought at the last store and, due to his psychometry, gotten a play-by-play of Endeavor’s entire arrest-record. He wasn’t looking forward to doing it again with another hero. So, no more hero merch for him.
After the merchandise shop, Bakugou let Saiki lead him towards a sweets shop for dessert. The blond scoffed at Saiki’s unhealthy eating choices, but quickly shut up once he spotted an extra-spicy cinnamon dessert in the display.
Apparently Bakugou had a thing for spicy foods. Saiki couldn’t relate.
To be frank, Saiki couldn’t understand a lot of things about Bakugou. Despite the fact that Bakugou kept to himself, Saiki still knew the blond’s every thought and emotion. His history, his motivations, his aspirations. All of it was laid out clearly to Saiki, just as everyone else’s were.
Bakugou’s desire to be in the spotlight, to be the number one hero and be the best, was a complete mystery to Saiki. He just couldn’t understand why someone would want to be noticed. To be anything other than average. But, to each to his own, Saiki supposed.
Much to Saiki’s disappointment, the shop did not sell coffee jelly. It did, however, have coffee-flavored ice cream, which was a close second. Two scoops on a waffle cone later and he was quite pleased with his purchase. He and Bakugou left the store, looking for a place to sit where they could find their friends once they returned from watching the hero fight. Saiki spotted a nice table in the corner and—
There was a cockroach.
Suddenly, Kusuo Saiki was gone.
In Saiki’s defense, cockroaches were God’s worst creation. His teleporting out of the mall and into… this room… was completely and utterly justified.
The room he was in now was dingy, poorly lit, and smelled strongly of cheap alcohol and smoke. It was certainly not where Saiki had intended to teleport; he’d meant to teleport to his house. However, seeing as the entire city of Tokyo didn’t exist in the future, it was reasonable that neither did the Saiki residence. However, there was something disconcerting about the location of his house being a disgusting, run-down apartment in the future with cobwebs in the corners and a couch in the middle of the room with more holes in it than cushions. Sitting near the couch—not on it, as sitting on the couch was practically a death wish—was a girl around his age and an adult man in a skintight costume. Toga Himiko and Jin Bubaigawara. Both blond, both confused as to how he’d gotten here, and most importantly, both absolutely insane.
Saiki wished he was kidding. Bubaigawara’s thoughts in particular were like listening to two different people talk at once. ‘Who is this? WHY DO I CARE? Let’s say hello. PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE! No, he found our hideout, we have to kill him. Shigaraki won’t be happy with Toga-chan and I if we let him leave and tell the heroes about where we’re hiding out. LET HIM! WE’LL BEAT HIM AND THE HEROES TO A PULP! Oh no, what if he’s a hero? No no, he can’t be, he looks like he’s only Toga’s age. He’s probably not a threat. WHO CARES HOW OLD HE IS, KICK HIM IN THE NUTSSSSSSSSS!’
Toga’s thoughts weren’t much better. ‘Who is this guy? How did he get in here? Is he in league with the heroes? Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just make him go away.’
Consider Saiki disturbed. Scared? No, not really. Even if the two villains in front of him tried to kill him, it wouldn’t work. Saiki had the ability to create a fifty centimeter barrier around himself to protect from attacks, time leap a few minutes into the past to undo any damage done by their weapons, turn the two villains to stone with just a look, shoot lasers out of his eyes, turn himself into a man-eating tiger, light the villains on fire, turn them to ice, pick them up and throw them all the way to the Eiffel Tower, mind control them into thinking they’d killed him when in reality they hadn’t even touched him, et cetera, et cetera. The list of ways he could avoid getting killed was extensive and frankly only got more ridiculous the longer he thought about it. For example, one of the more absurd ways he could think of to avoid getting stabbed by Toga would be to summon a large murder of crows and have them descend upon her and Bubaigawara while Saiki made his escape. The hardest part about dealing with these two would be picking how to go about dealing with them.
“I love your hair,” Toga settled on saying, instead of admitting to her numerous plans to kill him. A smile crossed her face as she studied Saiki’s hot pink locks as though he were an art display. “Though I think you’d look much cuter if you were bleeding, don’t you?”
And with that she lunged at him, knife barred. Saiki dodged easily and tried to pick one of the many ways in which he could handle her, thinking that half of his options were out the window due to not wanting to hurt her. Plans laser eyes, man-eating tiger, yeet, fire, and Elsa were all out the window. Sad.
Bubaigawara stood back as Toga slashed at Saiki with her knife, having more and more of a mental breakdown as he thought about whether or not Shigaraki would want them to leave the base unattended in order to dispose of a body. How dark.
Saiki was just about to summon the murder of crows when a better idea popped into his head: he could just leave.
So he left.
Not three seconds later, Saiki inquired Lunch Rush to serve him more coffee jelly. He needed a pick-me-up after having to deal with a cockroach and two lunatics within the span of only a couple of minutes. Good grief, things were too exciting in the future.
“What do you mean he just disappeared?” Kaido asked incredulously, gesturing wildly around him at the mall.
Bakugou, fury mounting as he explained this for the fifth time, huffed in exasperation. “I don’t know you shitty extra! One minute he was here and the next he was gone and his ice cream was on the ground!”
“Dark Reunion must’ve gotten to him,” Kuboyasu hissed out.
“He’s dead,” Teruhashi concluded, voice breathy with grief. Her skin gradually became paler the longer she thought of what could’ve happened to Saiki. “Oh my god, Saiki is dead.”
“I shouldn’t have left him alone,” Kaido clenched his fist, tears welling up in his eyes. “It was my duty to protect him from Dark Reunion and instead I let them capture him. This is all my fault. Saiki’s death will forever rest on my consciousness.”
“I don’t,” Kirishima started, hesitantly reaching out towards the grieving teenagers, unsure what to do in order to convince them that Saiki probably wasn’t dead. “I don’t think he’s dead, guys. Maybe he’s just… taking a walk?”
Bakugou gave Kirishima a judgmental look that said, ‘Really? Taking a walk?’
Kirishima shrugged in return.
“Yeah, what Kirishima said,” Kaminari piped in. “We lost Bakugou a few weeks ago, it’s totally normal here.”
Bakugou and Kirishima both turned to him as if to say, ‘It’s normal here? That’s what you’re going with?’
Kaminari gave them a helpless look, pointing to Kaido’s now-sobbing form, clearly thinking that they needed to say something to make them feel better.
“There there,” Ashido consoled, patting Teruhashi gently on the shoulder. “Why don’t we all head back to UA and tell the teachers? I’m sure Principal Nedzu will be able to do something to find him.”
Teruhashi and Kaido sniffed, nodding pathetically. Kuboyasu grunted seriously, agreeing. Nendo stood there, looking lost.
“Why are you all worried about my buddy? He does this all the time.”
“Hah?”
The two groups got back to UA to find that Saiki Kusuo was completely fine. Better than fine, actually, as he was currently sitting in the common room with Yaoyorozu, watching some obscure hero-related tv show while munching on desserts. They were also inexplicably surrounded by matryoshka dolls.
Bakugou Katsuki was, understandably, quite upset.
Saiki knew that Bakugou had already told his friends about the teleporting thing, however seeing as his friends were all morons and Nendo of all people was the one to back up Bakugou’s claim regarding the teleporting, none of them believed it. Well, Nendo did, but Nendo was… Nendo… so it didn’t matter much.
At the end of the day, the entire fiasco was once again Dark Reunion’s fault. Heh. Maybe Kaido’s overactive imagination was good for something after all.
Despite the fact that none of Saiki’s friends believed Saiki had straight up teleported out of his own volition, Bakugou definitely did. After all, Bakugou had two things the others didn’t: an eye-witness account and actual brain cells. So, Saiki needed to have a conversation with him.
About ten minute after the groups’ return, Saiki cornered Bakugou. No one was around (they were all too busy playing video games in the common room now), but knowing a certain few dumb-dumbs, that wouldn’t last for long. He had to be fast.
“Tell anyone else about my abilities and I’ll have no choice but to get rid of you,” Saiki threatened through telepathy. Of course, he didn’t mean that he would kill Bakugou, just… get rid of him. Poof. Not even a trace!
“What the hell?” Bakugou recoiled. ‘He can talk? Wait, he didn’t even open his mouth? Telepathy?’
Saiki, regardless of Bakugou’s confused thoughts, continued on with his threats. “You heard me. I want my life to be as incredibly normal and average as possible, and I won’t have you telling anymore of your classmates about my powers.”
You might be wondering: didn’t Bakugou already tell some of his classmates about the teleporting? The answer to which was yes, however Saiki had already cleared up that particular issue. Unfortunately, due to various conditions regarding how mind control worked, Bakugou still remained a loose thread.
“Powers? Plural?” Bakugou asked instead of answering to Saiki’s demands. Good grief, this guy sure did give off the vibes of someone who doesn’t originally come from a comedy-anime. He can’t even stay on topic when being threatened.
“Yes, plural. Now,” Saiki stepped closer, giving Bakugou his best scary face, “agree to my terms.”
Bakugou, at a loss for words, nodded. “Yeah, okay got it. I wasn’t going to mention it again anyways.”
That was because Bakugou had attempted to bring the conversation up with Kaminari eight minutes ago, only to find that Kaminari didn’t remember Saiki ever being on the trip in the first place. Neither did Kirishima. Or Sero.
Saiki nodded, pleased that Bakugou understood. He made to leave, but Bakugou cut him off before he could get more than a few feet.
“Hey, if you can teleport, use telepathy, and potentially alter people’s memories, what else can you do?”
Saiki sighed. He ran Bakugou through the list. Apport, astral projection, barrier, cryokinesis, changing other people’s sense of humor, clairvoyance, electrokinesis, laser eyes, hydrokinesis, the ability to turn any drink carbonated, flight, teleportation, hypnotism, invisibility, mind control, the ability to produce matryoshka dolls from the palm of his hand, petrification, precognition, the ability to turn anyone’s coffee bitter if they’re drinking it gracefully, telekinesis, psychometry, summoning a large murder of crows, pyrokinesis, restoration, forced dehydration of any living thing, size augmentation, super strength and speed, the ability to censor things with anime-like steam, telepathy, teleportation, mosaic-ization, the ability to upgrade any device instantaneously, thoughtography, time travel, the power to temporarily change anyone’s voice to that of Hiroshi Kamiya, transformation, and x-ray vision.
Amongst other things.
Bakugou stared at him.
“What the fuck?”
No! You can’t say that! This is a PG anime!
With a quick flick of his wrist, Saiki erased that word from Bakugou’s vocabulary, silently tsk-ing and apologizing to his viewers for letting the angry blond up the rating of this anime to PG-13.
“How… how can you have so many powers and not want anyone to know about them?” Bakugou asked, bewildered. Saiki understood; the kid was so big on being the best and being at the top of the hero world that genuinely wanting to be average was beyond his realm of comprehension.
Saiki patted him on the shoulder and then disappeared.
The next few days were largely spent with Saiki helping Power Loader and Nedzu out with the device to send them all home. By the end of the week, Saiki was confident that it would work, but they were going to run a test regardless.
“Okay Saiki,” Nedzu chirped. “We’ll send you through and once you figure out where you are in the timeline, you can press that button and come back here. If it’s correct, then we’ll make the arrangements to send you and your classmates home!”
And if it’s incorrect, we get to do more testing. Yay…
Saiki nodded, they switched on the device, and Saiki activated his powers. Saiki wasn’t at all bothered by the sensation of traveling through time, as he did it pretty often. He landed, took a look around via clairvoyance, and determined that the device was successful.
He pressed the button and got pulled right back through the time stream.
To be honest, it was pretty relieving that the device had worked on the first try. As much as he’d initially enjoyed the future (and the endless supply of coffee jelly), he kept running into more and more reasons to go home. For example, Kaido was starting to complain of being homesick, Teruhashi and Ashido had gotten into an argument yesterday regarding who’d bought the light blue scarf, and Kuboyasu was getting far too comfortable around a group of kids who fought people for a living. He was even starting to grow his hair out and speak in slang again…
At least Nendo was still the same. Not that that was a good thing. Nendo could’ve used some character development.
Saiki landed in the future once more and gave the expectant heroes a thumbs up.
He and his friends were slated to leave in two hours.
Saiki relished in his final moments spent with Class 1-A. That was, to say, that he stood back and looked vaguely interested as everyone else relished in their final moments spent with each other. Teruhashi hugged the girls of Class 1-A goodbye, having taken subtle, but full advantage of her beauty in order to free herself of the responsibility of carrying the numerous bags full of the clothes and accessories she’d bought by having Nendo and Kuboyasu carry them for her. A task which they were pleased to do. What a bunch of simps.
“Good luck on your return trip man,” Kirishima said, clapping Kaido on the shoulder with a bright smile on his face. “Make sure to punch Dark Reunion in the face when you see ‘em next!”
“Right back at you,” Kaido returned, reaching up to hold his shoulder from where Kirishima had hit him. He was crying on the inside from the force of contact but refused to let it show on the outside, instead continuing to talk through the pain. “Make sure you and your classmates beat up those League of Villains guys.”
The words might’ve been encouraging if he didn’t sound so pathetic due to the pain.
The words “League of Villains” brought a twinge of emotion upon the minds of every Class 1-A member in the room with him. Flashbacks to the USJ and training camp attacks, along with a few memories regarding the mission to rescue Bakugou from the villains after they’d kidnapped him, entered Saiki’s mind. Saiki pursed his lips in thought, sending a stray glance Bakugou’s way.
The blond looked back at him, sending a challenging thought his way. ‘What?’
Saiki averted his gaze. He sighed and stepped away from the farewell session, needing to run one last errand before he left.
Good grief.
It only took a few seconds for Midnight’s pheromones to sedate all four of his classmates, at which point Saiki levitated them all and pulled them onto the platform of the device meant to send them home.
He nodded to the teachers in farewell.
“By the way,” he started. The teachers all stood up straighter upon hearing his voice out loud for the first time. “I left the League of Villains in my bedroom. You’ve got twenty-four hours until they wake up again.”
With that, he took himself and his classmates back to the past.
The teachers of UA and students of Class 1-A all stood in the door frame to the temporary bedroom Saiki had been using during his stay. The space was pristine, without even a speck of dust to be seen, however the effect was slightly ruined by the eight massive stone statues sitting in the middle of the room, all frozen in various states of surprise.
“How… how did… what?” Midoriya asked in confusion.
Bakugou, however, was less confused and a lot more pissed. “Petrification,” he said, as if that explained everything. To those in the know, it did. To the rest… not so much.
“What do you mean ‘petrification’?” Kaminari asked, gesturing to the statues.
Bakugou tsk-ed and turned away, muttering under his breath about a pink-haired bastard and his over-abundance of abilities. Aizawa agreed with the sentiment whole-heartedly, but couldn’t find it within himself to be upset about this turn of events. In his opinion, a little interference from a time-traveling, god-like, anti-social teenager was exactly what they needed.
No one would disagree with him either.
Saiki sighed and relaxed into his bed, delighted by the softness of his mattress and the smell of home in the air. His parents were making a ruckus downstairs about something or another, he could hear the thoughts of the birds outside his window, and the neighbor was once again spoiling him for books that he might’ve read if it weren’t for her.
He’d missed this. The future was nice (especially the coffee jelly), but it was just a bit too exciting for Saiki. Average was all he needed to be happy.
Saiki went to school the next day as per usual. His friends greeted him, all wide smiles and stories about what they’d done over the weekend. Saiki nodded along to their tales, almost sad that they didn’t remember what they’d actually done. Almost.
At the end of the day, their little foray into the future was for Saiki to remember and Saiki to remember alone.
That was okay, after all, it didn’t make it any less real.