Portal Panic

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

All scenes with only MHA characters will be written in English, for ease of reading, but the characters are actually speaking Japanese to each other.

If a scene is being translated the entire time, and there are no language issues anywhere in an entire scene because of a translation device, the scene will just be written as normal. But you know who speaks what. I believe in you.

Wow, there's been a lot of love recently. Thanks everyone who subscribed, commented and voted!

And thanks especially to KBRMO3 and BronzeShark488! KB, for the encouragement and push I needed to get this behemoth done, and Bronze for the nice-sized comment!

Tuesday, September 18th

7:01 am

"Kiddo, breakfast is ready! Get your ass down here before it gets cold!"

Katsuki Bakugo pulled on his socks, willfully ignoring an untucked, white dress shirt and the scent of baked salmon wafting up the stairs.

Double-checking a calendar—crowded with gym appointments, self-inflicted reading assignments and online classes—that hung on the wall above his bed, the blonde huffed at the door.

He still had to get through at least one chapter of Common Mistakes of the Novice Hero AND Basic Electrical Engineering before he could even think of leaving this room. No way in hell would he half-ass his studies.

Pushing off his mattress, the teen sauntered over to a small desk to grab a highlighter and the first of the aforementioned books.

He hated that his plan already relied too much on luck; he had to out-nerd the nerds or he'd never get hired on at a hero agency as an in-house repair mechanic. And if he couldn't prove his worth there, he could kiss all chances of an apprenticeship goodbye.

There were just too many black dots on his record for anyone to take on that kind of liability without knowing him personally.

Flipping open a bookmarked page, Katsuki's eyes started to scan.

At least the government sucked at removing outdated laws. The stuff for grandfathering in first-gen-hero was just janky enough to exploit.

"KATSUKI! COME ON!" his mom's voice bellowed from below.

"Just eat without me! I got shit to do!" Bakugo yelled back, then bit the cap off his highlighter and put ink to paper.

Tuesday, September 18th

7:48 am

Lost in thought and strapped into an elaborately plush child's safety seat, a dog-mouse-bear glanced up from a tablet. Briefly taking in the suburbs of Musutafu through the car's tinted back window, he rocked his head in a stretch before pressing play on the device with one thick paw pad.

On screen was a video, viewing the baby blue walls of UA's visitor center from ceiling height and giving full surveillance to a door in the corner. It didn't take long before a young ginger wearing a lavender t-shirt, a middle-aged greenette in a pale yellow blouse and a curvy, black-haired woman in full-body, dungeon-play attire pushed through.

When Kayama ushered towards the lounge area's light beige chairs, Midoriya and Jazz took a seat and the R-rated hero exited with a bow. In the lull, the two guests chatted idly about the differences between trans and polyunsaturated fats.

So far, nothing too out of the ordinary.

Continuing to watch the video from beginning to end—paying extra attention to when Katsuki's last name was mentioned (Jazz's initial lack of recognition was strangely genuine), how the girl had said Hagakure's name (her suffix use in prior interactions all but confirmed the "chan" to be intentional, so how could she not know what Bakugo looked like?), the details she'd dropped about her brother and the name of the person in her nightmare—Nezu frowned.