Chapter Text
oman I didn’t quite recognize was sitting at the table, just like my mom used to. She looked almost exactly like my mom if she had been half-Japanese. I took a seat at the table and scanned the room. It was fairly similar to the kitchen I’d see back home, surprising me a bit with how the rest of the house had been more traditional.
“Y/n! What are you doing?! You can’t go to school in sleepwear!”
I looked back down at my chest and took note of my clothes. I grimaced and stood up, shoving my stool back. I walked back to my room and threw open my dresser, pulling out a school uniform and changing before heading back to the kitchen.
My mom greeted me with a closed-eye smile, warmth radiating from her comfortingly. “Much better. Now eat some of this food before you leave. I packed your bento in your bag; it’s with your shoes by the door like always.” She smiled at me even though her words were stern, and I smiled back as I began eating my food.
Once I had finished, I was beginning to stress about how to get to school. I knew I would walk but wasn’t sure where to go. Luckily I heard a knock on the door, I approached and found a girl around my age smiling at me. “Hi Y/n!” Are you ready to go to school?”
“Almost. Just let me get my shoes and bag!” I bent down as I spoke, slipped on my shoes, and grabbed my bag.
“Goodbye Okāsan! See you later!” Where is this Japanese coming from? Have I been somehow speaking and understanding this whole time?
I waved to my mom and linked arms with my apparent friend, still confused but not willing to mess with this world.
My friend immediately began chattering away and luckily she knew the way to school. I barely caught a word she said to be honest, I was too busy freaking out about the situation I’d found myself in.
I was dead–I died. But now… now I’m in Japan? Or some version of it? And I have a slightly different mom and a friend I’ve never met. Everything is so confusing!
~~~~~
We arrived at the front gate of a relatively large secondary school.
We headed inside and switched our shoes, putting on slippers for the indoors.
I was eternally grateful for this girl who was with me because it seemed we also had classes together. She led me to our first class of the day: math! So fun. Not .
~~~~~
I learned throughout the day that along with speaking and understanding Japanese, I also knew how to write in katakana, hiragana, and kanji, so I was good there, but I still struggled to remember to write up and down instead of left to right. I guessed muscle memory wasn’t quite kicking in.
Not to mention that the math here was so much more complex than it had been back home; they used a bunch of complex systems and I’m sure everyone thought I was stupid.
~~~~~
“Hey, Y/n! Could you answer number three on the board please?”
“Um… Is it 46?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Telling?”
“No, it’s not 46, anyone else?” The disappointment in his tone was obvious and I shrunk down into my desk.
“Y/n! What’s up with you today? You barely talked this morning, and now you aren’t remembering math, and you keep writing your notes wrong! Are you okay, should we go to the nurse?”
“I’m okay, thank you. I’m just having an off day.”
“…Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced, but she dropped it, and thank God the teacher didn’t call on me again that day.
We headed to the next class, English, and our home-room class. Luckily, due to living in an English speaking country, I excelled during this period, and my friends’ suspicions went away for the most part.
That class went the best, I found out my friend's name—Keiko—and I thought up an excuse for my weird behavior. I was going to fall really bad (on purpose) and get a severe concussion (hopefully fake).
The bell rang and once again we left class, but Keiko handed me off to another girl who was waiting outside the room, Sayuri. Apparently, the three of us were long-time friends. Sayuri and I had health and physical education together. I knew this class would be my best chance, easier to get a severe injury in this class than just walking home.
When I got to the locker room, I realized something was crazy different. A bunch of the girls had odd things about them.
Unnatural hair colors that weren’t permitted by dye at this school, different skin colors and textures, and parts of bodies defying all gravity and logic. One girl was completely red; she looked like a cherry, then another girl had hair that had a mind of its own, moving all around in the air.
I looked to my left, and a girl was made of diamonds (or glass?). On my right, another girl looked completely normal, but when she was engaged in an argument steam came out of her nose and ears like a cartoon.
Most of the kids looked normal, which was why I hadn’t noticed anything different throughout the day, but coming into the room with more people and a lot more skin on display, I saw just how different we all were. Even kids I’d thought were normal in other classes had things like gills or extra limbs hiding under their clothes.
I quickly tried to school my face back into a neutral expression and followed Sayuri to our lockers. When we stopped, she looked at me oddly.
“What?”
“What yourself, go to your locker. We’ve got to hurry up and change or we’ll be late.” I must’ve looked like a moron because she shook her head and sighed exasperatedly. “248? Your combo is 12, 9, 32? Are you okay? Keiko said you were acting weird but I didn’t think you were stupid.”
“Sorry, I really must have just woken up on the wrong side of the bed today; I’m wiped.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” She rolled her eyes but laughed lightheartedly and shooed me off to change.
I opened my locker and pulled out the change of clothes and shoes, quickly changing. We met back up and rushed out to the gym.
~~~~~
“Alright, class, listen up!” We sat on the floor as the coach stood in front of the gymnasium, giving information on our class for the day. “Today, we’re going to be doing volleyball, same as the past week. But today, I’m adding a twist: We’re going to play with Quirks!”
Quirks? As in My Hero Academia? I got isekai’d?!? …I guess that sort of makes sense, I was hit by a truck.
“I got permission from the principal so as long as you avoid hurting each other it will be fine. The goal is to help your physicality but avoid actually trying to inhibit someone else.” She spun a ball on her finger and threw it into the air, catching it like nothing.
Cheers and whoops were all around me and kids started using their Quirks in preparation.
The coach raised her hands, “Hey, hey, hey! Settle down now! I don’t want to have to cancel this activity.”
Everyone sat down, stilling on the floor.
She smiled. “Thank you. Now, get into your teams and find a net. We’re not doing rankings today; it’s all about you and your team. How can you help your teammates win?”
Hurriedly we all started moving and getting into clumps.
This is perfect. Not only is it physical activity, but Quirks are mixed in too, making it much easier for someone to be injured.
Sayuri and I weren’t on a team together but that was okay, I didn’t need help to play volleyball, I’d done it plenty in PE classes at home.
I set myself up in the middle-front, prime spot for action. The coach blew her whistle, and we began; one of the girls up front with me could aim well, and another could jump high. With those valuable Quirks up front and center, it made me wonder, what the fuck is mine.
The other team was serving first. They launched the ball over, and I quickly leaped up and hit it back across, surprisingly agile. They passed it around on the other side before it got over the net. This time, it went to the back. A guy behind me launched himself into the air and hit it back to us. The girl on my right got it, setting it to the girl on my left, who spiked it over with her aiming abilities.
I grinned a little to myself, this match was gonna be fun .
Soon I got my opportunity. One of the kids with a crazy arm hit the ball right at me, he must have had a strength Quirk or something because it came insanely fast at my head, I realized it was going to just miss me so I ducked to the right, making it look like I was trying to get out of the way. Almost everyone was looking at me as the ball hit me right in the face. I heard my nose break and felt the pressure in my ears and neck as I collapsed to the ground, useless.
The game stopped, the world stopped, and suddenly, everything was in slow motion. My vision was blurry, my head was ringing, and people started rushing at me, crowding over my body and getting in my face.
I tried to gesture for them to go away but my head felt so weak. My vision went dark.
~~~~~
I woke up in the nurse’s office, my head felt cool, likely an ice pack, and there was a bandage on my nose, but luckily it didn’t feel broken anymore. I tried to speak but as soon as I opened my mouth, the nurse coddled me.
“Oh no Y/n! It’s okay, I’ll do everything for you, I’ll get you some water hmm?”
I opened my mouth again, but she didn’t wait. She rushed out of the room and called behind herself, “It’s a ways away, so I might be a second, dearie!”
I just sighed and closed my eyes, bracing myself to sit up. I did, and a searing pain rushed through my head, along with blinding lights in my vision. I knew I had to leave while she was gone, she seemed crazy.
Slowly, I stood and began edging out of the office. The hall was clear, so I rushed out into it and looked around for someone to help me. I found a perplexed staff member to my right.
“Hey, can you help me?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“I’m Y/L/n, Y/n; I don’t know what class I’m in or where it is, so you have a way of finding that out for me?”
“Yeah, let me look it up really quick.” The man flipped through his clipboard and pulled up a schedule, allowing me to check what class I was placed in.
“What period is it?”
“…Sixth.”
“Oh gosh, okay. Arigato, gomen.”
“You’re very welcome.” He rubbed his head confusingly as I took off down the hall to my class.
I burst into the room, nearly slamming the door open. “Oh, gomen’nasai, I was in the nurse’s office.”
“Yes, take a seat, Y/n.”
The class ended up being Japanese, something I also excelled at—minus my affinity for writing the wrong direction. However, I was slacking due to how badly my head was hurting.
When I exited the class, I found Keiko and Sayuri waiting for me. Their faces were frantic and worried.
“Oh my gosh, Y/n! Are you okay? You’re still covered in bandages!” Sayuri cried
“Did the nurse not heal you enough?” Asked Keiko.
“No, she fixed me up quite a bit, I just left in a rush and kept the bandaids on because I was still in pain.”
Sayuri sighed in relief and Keiko nodded as she spoke. “Oh, okay that’s much better than what I was thinking.”
I smiled at them genuinely, thankful that I had two friends by my side in this unfamiliar world.