Chapter Text
Mina is in her third year of high school when it happens. The war is in its final stages, having erupted at the end of second year after two years of growing radicalization. Everything is a mess. She's on her way from Amajiki's funeral to Tsu's birthday party, because that's what her life is like now. Snow lies thin and wet on the ground, turned to brown slush on the roads.
There's commotion behind her. Raised voices and the bump of bodies.
She's in motion before she knows it, whirling around with one hand full of acid - only one, since the other clutches a precious pumpkin spice latte she's unwilling to give up.
"What's going on?" she demands, and blinks.
There's a man stumbling towards her. Behind him is a group of clearly ill-intentioned pursuers. Recognition flashes across his features, chased by the immense relief of someone being rescued. It's an expression she knows well.
"UA," he breathes, slumping towards her.
"Don't worry!" Mina conjures a smile. "I'll save-"
His hand touches hers. Immediately, two things happen: his has its skin burned off, and her world goes black. Then, it flashes bright white like a disorienting camera flash, and Mina stumbles back. When her vision is finally not crowded by spots anymore, she isn't sure if what she sees is real at all. It's the same street, yet it's not. There are different people here, for one. Other billboards, too, an actual Yoroi Musha-themed ice cream ad on the bus stop even though that old hero is cancelled, and a noodle place whose vendor cheerfully calls at her to try his food.
It's warm and sunny. Hadn't it been about to snow? Actually, where is the snow?
"'Scuse me," sighs an annoyed mother with a twin pram, trying to maneuver past Mina, who is frozen on the middle of the side walk.
"Sorry," she says automatically, stepping aside.
The mother moves past. Mina remains, looking around with rising bewilderment.
Think, she reminds herself, think. This must be an elaborate illusion Quirk. There are too many details for it to all be in her head or a dream (she double checks this by biting her thumb, which hurts exactly as much as it should), which means she's in an actual location. Alright, fine. Then she'll run until she reaches its edge; Quirks like these never span far.
She sprints down the street, dodging passersby with ease. Some look up, startled, but most don't care. Odd. Nobody jumps, nobody seems suspicious. She's just another young adult in a black skirt suit, late for her job or a date.
The illusion doesn't want to end, though. She's sprinted for twenty minutes before slowing to a halt, breathing heavy and feet aching in their ankle boots. Sweat drips down her back. Her armpits and under boobs must be swamping, too. Why is it summer? Couldn't the illusion have remained in December?
"Fuck," she breathes, leaning on her knees.
The news being played from an ice cream parlor's radio talks about Endeavor's latest arrest and that he's sure to go from the No. 3 to No. 2 hero after this one. A poster for Ladies' Lineage's first-ever tour after their debut album hangs cheerily in the window display of a vintage store.
Huh.
How accurate. That really did happen at the same time.
A strange, cold feeling claws up her spine, where it clings like a parasite. Could...
Is there a possibility...
"Nah," Mina says. "No way."
This is probably like that one practical exam she had in first year, when she simply had to find the exit. She can do that.
Setting off in a jog, she takes sudden turns and darts into random side streets. The world never wavers. No faces become odd and warped in the corner of her eye. The voices don't warble. There's no janky repeat of conversations. It just keeps going, calmly and consistently and credibly.
Eventually, she reaches a small city park. Most benches are taken by retirees or mothers with young children, but she finds an empty one beneath an elm tree. She flops down on it, mind racing. What is going on? What should she do?
Shit. Was this something covered in class? Why does she always pass notes to Kaminari or Jirou throughout most!
"Okay. Okay. This is fine," she tells herself, breathing out slowly. The wind rustles the tree, making the dappled light dance across her face. Blinding, dark. Bright, quiet.
Something happened when that man touched her. He'd been so relieved. She can't imagine he'd put her in a coma or something that nefarious. So what happened?
She goes over her classes in her head. They're a boring gray haze. Nothing useful stands out.
She goes over her practical experience instead. This is far easier and more extensive. She's dealt with illusionists before, but she's starting to suspect this goes beyond that. Camie's a good friend and undoubtedly powerful, yet even she could never come close to this.
She goes over pop culture next. Those possibilities are endless and neon. None are good.
Alright. Fine. She can't figure out anything by sitting and chewing on it, that might work for others but not her. Time to get up and move.
Mina's first step is to find a newspaper. There's been a small but insistent bell ringing in the back of her head for a while, which gets twice as loud when she discovers it's not the year 2164 but 2148. That tracks with the ads and music. It also makes her blurt out "Holy fucking shit!" right as a kindergarten class walks past, obediently following their teacher. The kids giggle and gasp.
"My bad," she tells the teacher, managing a sheepish grin, and walks the opposite direction in a daze.
Time Quirks are rare. There are some that can temporarily slow someone down or speed someone up, but actual time travel is almost unheard of! There was a Top Ten Hero in her youth who could rewind time by four seconds, which earned him great popularity until he got cocky and failed to turn time back quick enough as a swarm of daggers descended on him.
Four seconds.
This is sixteen years. Sixteen years and three months, even! Jesus.
Okay, so it's a powerful Quirk, she thinks, trying very hard to be reasonable. Powerful Quirks usually have limits. She should be back in her own time within the hour.
Yes, that seems logical. Yaoyorozu would totally agree.
"An hour," Mina nods to herself. "What to do for an hour?"
The possibilities are endless. What is it they do in manga and on TV shows? The main characters there usually have a concrete goal, like apprehending a villain, rescuing the love interest, or keeping a super-hacking-USB-virus or something from being invented.
Or they're there permanently.
Mina is not here permanently, because this is the real world, not a movie.
Chances remain that it's all in her head, but her pain receptors are working remarkably well for that, and she could read the newspaper. Being able to read things is a good hallmark for something being reality.
This is before inflation, she realizes, having stared absently at a shopping center while thinking. That means everything is basically half-price, and since it's sales season, it means items are a quarter of the prices in the present!
A jewelry shop is her first stop. There's a pair of golden hoops with a threaded bead on each that's just stunning. They'd be far too expensive usually, but now it's doable. The beads match the violet dress she has with her for Tsu's party perfectly.
"Have a nice-" begins Mina, only to have her card decline. "Oh, uh, that's weird, I know I have enough money..."
She tries again. Same result.
"Do you have another card?" asks the shop assistant politely.
She flounders for a moment before realizing that of course her card would decline. She doesn't have an account here.
"I have cash."
That works just as well, and she leaves with the hoops in her ears. Everything is bright and warm outside. The funeral was a sober place, no room for color or conversation. Mina hadn't known Amajiki well, but Kirishima did and she'd gone to support him. Bakugou was there too, glaring awkwardly by Kirishima's side while others wept.
Will they notice she's gone? She left early to help prepare the karaoke setup for Tsu as a surprise. Uraraka will be there too. She'll notice Mina is late. Would she think it odd, though? Mina isn't great at being on time, and she's coming from a funeral. No, Kirishima and Bakugou will be the ones to notice if she's not back in three hours.
Mina wanders down the shopping street, looking around her with great interest. She's stuffed her blazer and stockings into her handbag, which just barely zips around the bulk. That's better. With the cash she has left she gets herself a double portion sushi for what feels like no money, as well as a baseball cap with the discontinued Nah It's Chill meme on it (said by a frost hero mid-battle seconds before he broke his arm) and cutouts for horned people.
An hour passes before she notices. By the second hour mark, she's resting her feet at a trendy cafe with an iced mango matcha latte. She doesn't actually need it, but she wouldn't have been allowed to sit inside in the aircon and use the bathroom without ordering something. By the third, she leaves the cafe and marches back towards where she first appeared here. Maybe the location is marked, or something? Maybe she needs to stand in exactly the same place to go back?
People stare as she strikes various poses in one place, whirling around and starting to promise to save someone, only to then take a step to the side and resume the process a fraction to the left. She can't remember where exactly she stood! It was somewhere between the bus stop, the noodle stand, and an apartment with the white door.
"Sorry, it's a dare!" she calls out with a determined laugh when people start giving her a wide berth.
By the four hour mark, she's back on the park bench and racking her brain.
By the five hour mark, she's getting hungry again and has - thanks to pretending to think like Yaoyorozu - come to the conclusion that this is the sort of Quirk effect that needs to be slept off. Dinner is acquired in a supermarket since her cash is running low. Now to find a place to rest. Were she a guy, the park bench would seem pretty good, but the past is no better than the present in terms of weirdos and perverts. Two strange men approached her on the street while she was minding her own business, and she's not about to fall asleep where it's so easy to spot her.
Maybe she shouldn't have bought the hoop earrings. That would've been enough money for a capsule hotel.
Too late now. The store is closed, anyway.
It's dark out when she realizes she's effectively homeless. Going to a homeless shelter could probably work, except she's got no idea where they are and no internet on her phone since her fucking chip card isn't registered anywhere.
This is exciting, she tells herself. An adventure. It's been such a nostalgic blast to walk around in this vintage version of Musutafu, full of throwback music and fashions. Is another version of her out there? A two year old Mina, laughing and curious, not a clue about the dangers of the world. The others won't believe when they hear where - when! - she was for a day. Kaminari will totally freak! Sero especially will love it, he's always been into retro stuff and has the coolest collages from this era.
It's hard to keep feeling like it's exciting when she steals a blanket from a bar terrace, though. She leaves the central area and into a somewhat rundown residential neighborhood, where some businesses have closed down. One has a broken window that she climbs through, careful not to cut herself on the shards of glass remaining in the window frame. There are traces of squatters in the abandoned store, empty sandwich wrappers and cigarette butts and a broken bottle, but they're all old and the place is quiet.
Mina finds a corner without a draft, where nobody peeking in through the half-boarded windows can see her, and curls up in her blanket. The floor is hard. She's fallen asleep on carpets before, but never stone. Even with her backpack as pillow and blazer slung over her blanket as a second layer, she's cold and uncomfortable. Should she have snatched a second blanket? She already feels plenty bad about the first one.
It's hard to fall asleep. Her mind whirls and dances, full of bright colors and creeping shadows. Why is it that it's so hard to fall asleep when there's pressure to do so? If she could only get some rest, the time Quirk will run out and she'll be back.
People pass by outside, a flicker of voices that laugh about a karaoke story without stopping. She still listens carefully, in case anybody tries to enter. It's easy to defeat people in a fight, but that doesn't make her feel much safer.
It's an exciting adventure, she reminds herself.
What are the others doing now? Have Kirishima and Bakugou sounded any alarms yet? Did Uraraka call them when Mina didn't show up?
Has time even passed there?
She needs to stop thinking. That's hard, too. Her mind pulses with fears and questions and catchy refrains that gleam like neon lights in the night.
Against all odds, sleep takes her around two in the morning. It's fitful and light, always peripherally aware of being in a strange, uncomfortable place. Her feet get cold. Her mouth tastes gross, teeth covered in a film since she doesn't have a toothbrush with her.
It's still the year 2148 when she wakes up.
.
After spending a morning panicking, Mina pulls herself together. There's plenty of time to cry later, but for now she needs to act. After spending her last cash on a breakfast roll and using her old middle school tactic of using testers in stores to spray peachy body mist all over herself, disguising the smell of sweat, she goes to an internet cafe.
It isn't hard to find the number to UA's help desk. Their website is a little different (their color scheme and chosen promotional pictures are so retro!) but it's easy enough to navigate.
Getting into contact with school is a good start. They've always had all the answers.
The phone rings once, twice, thrice.
"This is UA High's secretariat office, how may I help you today?" a woman answers in a smooth voice.
"Hi! Yes. Could you transfer me through to the principal, please?"
"I see. Who is this?"
"Ashido Mina, I'm a student. Er, prospective student," she tacks on, just barely remembering that there'll be an error similar to her bank card when she's asked for her student number. "I need to speak to Principal Nezu, it's really urgent. It's about a- an unexpected Quirk effect."
"I see," the woman says again, slower this time. "Unexpected Quirk effects should be discussed with your GP, or if serious, directed to a Quirk specialist. I suggest you-"
"No, I need to speak to Principal Nezu," she repeats. "He'll understand."
He won't, but as long as she's transferred through she can explain-
"I'm afraid the principal is not Nezu, miss," the secretary tells her. "Nor is there anybody on the staff by that name. UA's principal is Takahashi Hideo."
Mina's mouth clicks shut. No Nezu. Nezu is always there for students, and he's not here. What is Takahashi like? She's always had an ear for gossip; some students in the year above talked about him once. Takahashi was the last of the traditional UA principals in that he encouraged competitiveness and a strong student culture, which really just meant there was a bullying problem that kept being smoothed over through graduation, when all the UA students closed ranks and supported each other through their careers.
It's her turn to say, "I see."
A rustle of paper. The woman says: "What is the purpose of this call? If this is to register a disability in your application, may I have your application number?"
Mina thinks quickly and settles on a bright laugh. "Whoops, my bad! I think I'm meant to be calling Ketsubutsu, not UA! Sorry!"
"Oh, that's alright, would-"
"Have a nice day!"
She hangs up, smile evaporating.
No Nezu.
Of course there's no Nezu. No Aizawa either - unless he's at UA as a student right now. A student! It's an image that's as funny as it's upsetting. Instead of steady answers, all she'll get if she tracks him down is a moody twerp. No use there either.
What about older faculty members? Recovery Girl is ancient, she's gotta be around!
...somehow, Mina doesn't think calling again and asking for the school nurse will do much good.
She attaches her phone to one of the many chargers, exhales slowly through her nose, and closes her eyes until the anxious tingles go away.
What's the next step?
The Hero Commission has far more knowledge of unusual Quirks, if anybody could help her it's them. Had Mina still been a naive first year, that's where she would've gone. Only, as the war progressed, more and more of their schemes and operations has been revealed and though she doesn't agree with Kaminari that they're evil, she doesn't think Yaoyorozu's blind faith in that institution is right either. Jirou and Bakugou always sounded reasonable in their skepticism.
What had Bakugou said, after that one scandal about privacy breaches?
Trust them? Hah, just 'cause they're not as bad as fucking Shigaraki who's tryna bring about the apocalypse doesn't mean that they're good.
So no Hero Commission. Who can help her? What does she even class as? A missing person? Missing people should go to the police. She supposes she is a missing person in a sense, so that seems a good place to start. They can put her in contact with a relevant Pro.
Mind made up, she heads into the bathroom and splashes her face with water. It's not as good as micellar water, but it feels far fresher than wiping the oil from her skin with the back of her hands. Her morning breath has been made better by the breakfast roll, and she's avoided dying of thirst thanks to the public drinking fountain in the park. The funeral outfit has the unintended consequence of looking quite professional, even if the shoes remain too warm, so it's not too bad.
Mina walks into the nearest police precinct with her head held high. She's made to wait for a whole hour before speaking to an officer since the questionnaire she filled out didn't mark her as urgent (putting "other" on the category of what crime or incident she's here to report may not have been smart, even if it'd been honest), which she tells herself is fine. Being bored here is better than wandering around outside, where she'll get sweaty in the sun and overpower the fragrance of the peach body mist.
Time passes dreadfully slow. If only she had internet! But alas.
Finally, she's allowed to sit down in one of the cubicles. The police officer helping her is a tired man with a dad gut and a picture of twins playing on swings on his desk.
"Good afternoon. How can I help?"
"Hi." She pauses, suddenly unsure of how to say the absolutely insane and unreal thing happening to her. Time travel happens on media, not in real life! Quirks aren't that crazy. "I need to speak to a Pro Hero or a Quirk specialist who knows about time travel. I'm under the effects of a time Quirk."
The man blinks at her. "ID please. Are you in a time loop? I'd recommend going to the GP or-"
"Yes, yes, but I can't get into contact with them since I'm not from this time."
The man blinks again, incredulous. "Really now."
"Really," nods Mina, sliding over her ID card. "I'm here from 2164."
He bursts out laughing. She laughs too, because it really is outrageous, but can't keep it up for long.
"This is pretty good," he acknowledges, studying her ID card before handing it back. "I'll need your real one. The only reason you're not in trouble for giving a fake ID is because it's not even a good one."
What?
Staring down at her card, something nags at the back of her mind. She's had the same model card for eight years, but before that, the cards looked different, didn't they? More reddish around the edges, and with the outline of Japan vaguely visible in the background.
"That is my real one. It's what they look like sixteen years from now." She leans forward, insistent. "I don't have another ID because I'm not from here- from now. You have to believe me. Fuck, wait, okay, here's some info on the future: Endeavor will become the number two hero, and Ladies' Lineage's debut album will win the Pow-Power Prize."
He's not laughing anymore. "Anyone with a brain can see that."
"I- that's not-" She flounders. "Minister Ishii has four mistresses, and All Might's going to lose his power thirteen years into the future and retire."
The officer looks at her seriously, mouth downturned. "That's ridiculous. Do you really think you're the only one to come in here, trying to get out of work or attract attention by claiming to be under the influence by a fantastic Quirk? We had another 'time traveler' yesterday who was a common hick. Before that was a woman who claimed she had a vision of crimes her husband would commit, only for it to turn out she wanted to inherit his money. Last week we had a bunch of high schoolers playing pranks on us."
"But I'm serious! The prime minister is going to resign over cult killings of Quirkless children in 2163 and the ice cream brand Winter Rainbow will quit and give all its money to cryptids-"
"That was me telling you to quit your prank," he interrupts. "You're not in trouble, but you will be if you don't leave. People with actual problems could've been helped while you were here, having a laugh."
"I'm not having a laugh!" she protests indignantly, fear skittering across her with sharp claws. "I'm being serious!"
The look he shoots her is so done. "You really want to get fined over this?"
Mina opens her mouth to shriek that she can't be fined because she doesn't exist here, doesn't have an address for the bill to go, before catching it just in time. That's just going to make things worse. Being unable to give an address will probably be considered obstruction of justice, which is mad. She's all for justice; hell, she enforces justice!
"No," she mumbles, pocketing her ID and hurrying out of the precinct.
The nearest alleyway trash can is kicked to bits as she yells her frustration. It's so unfair! She can't help that she doesn't have any documents, that's just how time travel works apparently! Why can't systems be more flexible? And fine, yes, she may be the first ever time traveler to be in the past for more than a few seconds (certainly the first one to be sent back sixteen whole years), so of course it's an absurd scenario to begin with, but still. Someone has to help her. Someone has to believe her. Someone!
In that moment, she misses home so much that it hurts to swallow. Tears burn in her eyes. Closing them, images from a childhood of bright colors and safety and the certainty that everything will be alright crowd her. Mom's cluttered desk and easy laughs, Dad's old rock music while he's working in the garage, the parrot cackling from its perch over the TV.
Home...
She could go to her parents! Mothers always know who their child is, that happens in every single movie and series about lost children. It's instinct or whatever. If she gets back to Chiba, she'll ring the doorbell and her mom will see her and just know.
How does she get to Chiba? There are bullet trains, but she has no money and her train card has a similar issue as her bank and ID cards. Why do institutions keep updating them!?
She could walk.
Mina immediately winces. The 1A girls looked up how long it'd take to walk home for everyone. It's a day and a half from UA High to the suburb outside Chiba City. Considering she needs sleep and is likely to take wrong turns since she can't access Hoohle Maps, that's three days.
Except, no, more than three days because at this point, the Ashido family hadn't moved to Chiba City yet! They lived out on the countryside in the middle of the prefecture, didn't they? By Noumizu Falls or Kururi Castle? Somewhere between, she thinks. Or wait, was it between Kururi Castle and Yoro Waterfall?
After the breath of relief at the thought of going home, this plummet is what makes her cry. She hadn't this morning, even while panicking. Now she does, hiccupping and ugly, crouched behind a container in the alleyway. Her arms wrap tightly around herself. Imagining that it's her mom hugging her only makes her cry harder.
The tears slow eventually. Crying's thirsty work and she's nothing if not practical. She wipes her face, sucks in a deep breath, and stands, feeling lighter and cleaner, like a pressure valve let off steam.
First things first. Get to the park to refill her sad plastic water bottle, then go to the jewelry store and give the hoop earrings back. Money is good at solving problems. Through a miracle she kept the receipt, which she gives to the shop assistant (a different one today) with a quick, smiley explanation that the earrings were meant as gifts for her sister but that the sister didn't like them.
"And she's making you return them?" asks the assistant, opening the till to collect the bills. "That's sister behavior, alright."
"I know, right? She's so mean," whines Mina, laughing, and barely refrains from snatching the money when it's handed over. "Thank you so much! Have a lovely day."
"You too," smiles the assistant. "Tell your sister to be more grateful next time."
"Will do!"
Mina exits with a breath of relief that's so bright it's like waking up in a room where she forgot to close the curtains the night before. Money! It's been hours since the morning breakfast roll and she's starving. Being active and sportsy means she's always enjoyed large portions, which she hasn't had in the past twenty-four hours.
Wait another two hours, then you can call it early dinner, she tells herself. Is this how Uraraka has it all the time? No wonder she loves canteen food so much! That girl's never happier than during lunch break.
Mina chugs two bottles of water at the park, which stills her hunger somewhat at the cost of making her queasy and bloated, and paces around until a plan has formed. It's hard to make it to Chiba (even now her money's not enough to afford the train), so she'll make Chiba come to her, so to speak. Time to find her mom's number! If they can just video call, then Mina can explain and her mom will do that mom thing where they just Know and then Mina won't have to worry about sleeping in abandoned stores or having to skip meals.
First stop is the internet cafe. Hoohling Ashido Ryouta and Ayaka yields little results. Ryouta has social media, but only those he follows can message him or view his posts. Ayaka's online presence is far more private, although she is mentioned in a six years old article on a university debate team.
That's fine.
Second stop is a corner shop. Mina heads for the owner with thinly veiled excitement, and asks what lost heroes in old timey stuff always ask: "Do you have a phone book I could borrow?"
And the woman does!
Flipping through it, Mina is full of hope. It dims when there are no Ashidos in it. Luckily, she knows her mother's maiden name was Hattori and goes there instead. Ten Hattoris show up, though none of them are Ayakas. Nor do they have Ayaka's parents' names.
Now Mina's hope falters.
"Excuse me, is this the latest one?" she asks the owner, who nods.
"I'm not that out of date," she huffs. "Landlines may not be popular, but they have their uses."
"Landlines?" echoes Mina.
The woman raises an eyebrow. "Yes, landlines. You didn't think all the numbers in Japan are listed there, do you?"
Embarrassment and panic wars. "Well, yes, I mean no, no of course not, but- but I have to call the Ashido family. They're, uh, around twenty-nine, maybe thirty, and have a kid. Pink, like me."
The old woman's other eyebrow joins the first one. "You think I know a random family, girl? I don't know if I should be flattered or think you're stupid."
"I'm not- never mind. How can I find them?"
Now the woman is scowling, yanking the phone book back. "That's not my problem, is it? If they don't want you to find them, then maybe you should respect that."
Mina opens and closes her mouth, caught off guard. "No, I'm not- I'm not a stalker."
"You said it, not me. Are you going to buy something or not?"
Offended, Mina whirls around and leaves without buying anything from the rude owner. The sunlight, previously so happy, is disorienting to step into. It's only when she's down the street that the indignation crumbles, swept away by a sea of lostconfusionfear.
What now?
.
Day Three begins with a bleary yawn. Her neck is stiff, and her shoulder aches from sleeping on a stone floor. At least she has a toothbrush and toothpaste now, which means she leaves the abandoned store with a clean mouth. The rest is downhill, though. She needs a shower, stat. Sneaking into a women's gym takes the better part of the morning: she's always stood out (happily!), but now she has to wait until the lady at the front desk has gone to the toilet and a group of university students to enter. She follows behind, playing it cool and rummaging around in her handbag in the changing room to look busy. She does it shirtless for good measure, so nobody looks too closely at her and she seems to be in the process of changing.
When the students leave, Mina finally throws off the rest of her clothes and steps into the shower. Bliss. Getting rid of the sweat and dust is like peeling off a layer of skin. She luxuriates in the water for a long time, setting it at a lukewarm temperature to finally chase off the summer heat from her bones. There's no conditioner, but there is free shampoo and soap in cheap tubes.
The room is quiet when she switches the water off. It's calm in the gym at this hour. Only mothers with an hour to spare from their chores or college students. It's only her in the changing room. An insane thought strikes her; she could acid her way through the lockers and steal cash. Then she could go to Chiba and track down her parents one way or another.
But no.
Never.
It doesn't matter how desperate she gets, Mina will never act like a villain.
Instead she changes into the birthday dress and stockings and quickly washes her white shirt and panties in the shower. It's technically prohibited, but who does it hurt? There are multiple showers, and it's not like it's rush hour.
Walking out of the gym, resolutely staring ahead like she's got places to be so she doesn't meet the desk lady's eyes, Mina returns to the park, where she sits on the grass, far away from everyone else, while her shirt and panties dry in the sun. Thankfully the weather has remained good, so she only has to spend two hours there before finding a large bush behind which she can shimmy into her panties again.
It's so absurd that she has to laugh. Who could've imagined that Ashido Mina's greatest trouble would be hygiene!
...and food. Water is accessible enough now that she's located two drinking fountains she can alternate going to, but hunger is still a thing.
As is sleep. God, what she wouldn't give for a mattress. Maybe she can check into a capsule hotel-
And then what? She has enough money for two nights at a capsule hotel, maybe three, and then that's it. It's looking like she won't be going back to the future any time soon, so she needs to be smart. Saving and scrimping hasn't been something she ever had to do, but she's learning quickly.
Day Four starts early. Voices wake her up at seven in the morning, when it's still cool and quiet in the area.
"-we can start on renovations next week," a man is saying outside the door. "We'll do measurements and checks for damage today. The circuits are quite old, sir, do you want us to redo those too?"
Mina is immediately wide awake. It takes less than a minute for her to collect her things and shove her feet into her boots, leaving with her stuffed handbag and stolen fleece blanket. Her meme cap is pulled low over her face as she climbs out a window in the back, emerging in an alleyway. Thankfully, none of the construction workers are here.
She spends it walking. Not on purpose, but because there's nowhere to be but sitting still makes her feel like she'll crawl out of her own skin. There's a cold wind, which means it's not as nice to sit in the park today. At least the wintry birthday dress isn't horrendously hot today. The city shifts around her in fragments, a bright kaleidoscope that doesn't care if she exists or not. Narrow side streets full of potted plants. Office workers outside on lunch breaks. Teenagers in the oversize-style fashion of this era laughing outside of karaoke bars. People, everywhere she goes. She talks to some; laughs with a girl outside the store where she used the spray deodorant testers to freshen up, chats with a salaryman while buying a sandwich, flirts with a young man so he buys her noodles in the evening.
Nothing sticks. Mina moves on, and so does the world.
It's hard to find a place to sleep. She makes it to a suburb around midnight and sneaks into a shed, dead on her feet, where she falls asleep under the work bench on some garden pillows. They're heavenly soft after the cold stone floor of the previous nights. Luckily she's not afraid of spiders. She's never been afraid of anything, she thought until these past few days.
What are her parents doing right now? Her classmates? Panicking, worrying, searching? Have they found CCTV of her disappearance?
That still assumes time has passed in the present. It rarely does in media. Mina doesn't like her luck right now.
What if she's dead in the future?
It's a horrifying thought to fall asleep to.
Day Five is full of rain. She leaves the shed in a hurry, not about to find out how the family will react to a strange girl sleeping on their property. The rain intensifies as she heads back into Musutafu central, passing through Naruhata before making it to Kiyashi Mall, where she seeks refuge from the rain.
She changes into her dry clothes in a cafe bathroom. Nobody else is there when she exits the stall, so she quickly washes the armpits of her birthday dress in the sink before wringing it out and heading up to one of the girls working at the counter.
"I'm so sorry, my dress was soaked in the rain," whispers Mina after ordering rice balls for the last of her money. She doesn't have to feign the embarrassment coloring her words and cheeks. "Is there a backroom where I could hang it to dry? I'm only visiting Musutafu for a day and I need it tonight for an interview!"
The girl is unsure at first, but Mina whines shamelessly and begs with teary eyes (this part she does have to force) that this could make her career in the hero support tech business.
"Otherwise I have to go home to the middle of nowhere," she sobs, keeping her voice low and urgent like it's a secret. "Mom doesn't even believe women can have careers!"
This softens the girl right up. Mina gets to put her dress over a radiator in the kitchen and gossips with the waitress the next two hours. It's quiet in the mall at this hour, since all the school kids only arrive in the afternoon. The girl seems happy for the company. Mina is too.
Then other customers arrive at lunch, the girl asks if she's going to order something more, and Mina has to make her excuses and leave. At least her dress is mostly dry.
Kiyashi becomes her home for the day. People come and go, water through a waterfall. Mina lives on its stones, staring at the discounts and bright colors with an odd, helpless feeling bubbling up inside. She'd thought everything was cheap when she came here, but even the discounted stuff is expensive now.
She finds an internet cafe where she researches hero agencies, trying to find heroes with time-related Quirks. Sir Nighteye's is at the top of the list. She's halfway through filling out a report to them (struggling at the culprit/victim section, not sure where she fits in since it's the culprit who's usually brought in and she very much wants to be brought in), when she hesitates. It looks even crazier now, on paper. She's convincing in real life, a force of personality only tired old police officers can puncture, but...
Her report looks sad and insane.
She sends it anyway. By the end of the day, there's no response.
Mina tells herself that's fine. Maybe they're just busy today.
The rain has quieted to a drizzle when she exits the mall, which is closing for the night. All around her, dinners are being had. Fathers returning home, salarymen huddling at food stalls, women buying takeaway while talking on their phones. Her stomach keeps growling, unused to the small, irregular portions. Lunch Ruch really spoiled her, huh?
Well, dejection's never helped anyone!
Dinner can hardly be procured from a closed mall, so she heads back into city center, wishing she had an umbrella. A group of young men bump into her, loud and pink-faced from alcohol.
"Watch where you're going," she snaps, full of roiling emotions.
"Ooh, what attitude!" snorts one.
Another winks. "Don't be mad, babygirl. Come with us and we'll apologize real sweet."
He looks her up and down, lingering on her breasts. The corner of his mouth curls up.
The rest are too busy whistling and snickering to say anything, but Mina has had enough. Acid gathers on her skin, a chemical smell she detects just on time to keep it from becoming more concentrated and burning through her clothes. It'd be easy to punch him in the face. His nose would break, acid would get in his eye. He'd be hurt. Very hurt. Wail, probably.
"Gross," she huffs instead, walking in the opposite direction.
She'd had vague plans to flirt for dinner, but now the thought disgusts her. Their eyes and laughter follow her until she turns a corner, ducking into a cozy side street full of crowded restaurants and hipster nooks. None have Mina-shaped places even though they're exactly the sort of places she'd have gravitated to before.
It's the first time she doesn't find dinner. She attempts another abandoned building instead, heading past Tatooin Station and towards Naruhata. It's a warehouse this time, close to a factory that stopped knowing its purpose years ago.
It already has occupants.
They freeze when they see each other. Mina, hungry and tired and damp. Four men, surrounded by supermarket trash and cigarette butts and old, stained duvets. One is a mole heteromorph who flinches at the sight of her, like being seen is painful. Everything smells of ash, wet clothes, and stale cabbage.
"Fuck off," snaps the tallest of the men immediately.
She hesitates. It'd be easier if she were threatened; wiping the floor with them would be easy. Only there is no aggression in his face, only the deep, base fear that comes from having little and being used to having even that taken by force.
"Leave," he repeats, territorial and defensive and hunched. "S'our spot!"
"Sorry," says Mina, taking a step back. The fear in his eyes clings to her, makes her chest hurt. "My bad."
She leaves through the gaping window again, glass crunching underfoot when she drops down. The sight of them is stuck in her mind's eye. Squatters made small by the world. They can't go into stores and use their body mist like she does. They can't make easy smalltalk with cafe workers and get an extra roll of bread. They can't walk into a library and be met with smiles. For all that Mina is displaced in ways she can't begin to wrap her head around, she's young and pretty and charismatic, and though her clothes have an unusual cut for the time, she still appears to be a trendy young woman.
Is that her future?
The thought fills her with dread, which isn't made better by the insistent knock of hunger tugging at her from the inside. Nor by the fact that she can't find a place to sleep, which means slipping into the courtyard of an apartment complex and curling up in the back of the bike shed. She'll have to wake up early tomorrow, or she'll be spotted.
Rain keeps pouring. Mosquitoes whine in her ears, waking her up every two hours. She's certain someone is about to come in and find her every second time she wakes up. Would it be someone kind, who takes pity on her and invites her in to sleep on their couch? What if it's a perv, and she wakes up to someone jerking off in her face? Or someone calls the police on her? Or screams so loudly a Pro appears and arrests Mina on the grounds of- of trespassing or intimidation or something?
Probably, she'd only be shouted at if she's spotted. Told to leave. That she can't be here.
First light comes quick. She leaves before the sun peeks over the horizon and vanishes into the golden-gray morning mist.
The internet cafe is her first stop. No response from Sir Nighteye's agency. She tries some other agencies too, but their online forms demand either an ID number or passport number, which means Mina is unable to submit it.
The second stop is the women's gym. Her trick works just as well this time, though she doesn't clean her clothes since she's got no way to dry them. It's still drizzling outside.
Her third stop has a happy coincidence on the way. Someone forgot their umbrella at a bus stop, which she happily picks up. Finder's keepers! It makes her real mission of going from vending to vending machine much nicer. Sero taught her a trick that works on old ones: pressing 1, 3, 2, 4 enters the debug program, after which she has to use the 1 and 3 to navigate around. There's no way to access the money without a key, but she does find two vending machines where she can spam buy protein bars.
"Hell yeah," she grins, chomping down on breakfast in Kiyashi Mall. Is this theft? Well, owners of public vending machines have always felt like a sketchy bunch. They sell cigarettes and alcohol to underage kids. Mina knows, because it's how she got drunk with friends at fourteen. Terrible mistake.
Having clean hair, a full stomach, and a dry place to loiter for the day makes her thoughts turn.
What if she doesn't ever go back? What if she's stuck? This is no way to live. According to the system, she's not actually alive. Well, there's a two year old version of her, but nobody would ever believe that's her.
A DNA test?
But that's assuming she isn't institutionalized first, or simply ignored. Christ, how good society is at ignorance. She never noticed before. And that's not even mentioning how institutions don't seem to know what to do with her. They're so efficient and streamlined that everything and everyone who doesn't fall into their neat boxes doesn't seem to exist to them.
Mina's good mood after the triumph has vanished.
No, this is not a way to live. So how to get back on track? A diploma from a hero high school and a hero license is the best option. How would she get into a hero school like this, though? They don't accept late transfers, not unless it's from another hero school and she comes highly recommended. Fat chance. So, pretend to be fifteen and redo high school altogether?
The thought alone gives her a headache, but it makes her feel lighter too. Trustworthy teachers, lunch food, laughing classmates. It sounds perfect. What does it matter if she has to redo old material? She might end up looking smart! Can she finally kick English's ass instead of it kicking hers?
Only, how the hell does she get into a high school? She needs a middle school diploma for that.
Mina drops her head in her hands and groans.
Evening belches swathes of deep red across the sky, like fiery rivers between the gray clouds. Thoughts are made slippery by exhaustion. Hunger doesn't help. Who'd have thought she'd crave vegetables? After eating only protein bars for a day, she feels sugary and heavy. There's a terrible moment when she's not sure how many days she's been here, and has to triple count it to be sure.
Five days.
Five days of being in the past.
Five days of being homeless.
Homeless. What an awful word. She's not just lacking a home, she's lacking so much more. Homeless doesn't fit at all. Homeless implies older people, rougher, dirty, forgotten. She's not old or rough or dirty and definitely not forgotten. She's a girl with skincare routines, favorite idols, and a bright future as a hero. She can't be homeless. It's not right.
The ugliness of the thought makes her shrink into herself.
It's not right for anyone to be in this situation.
When Kiyashi Mall closes for the day, she wanders. For all that Naruhata is rundown, it's busy enough to melt into and has enough hollow places for her to have a chance at finding a place to sleep. Halfway the search, Mina settles on the step of an electronics shop closed for the day, stretching her legs out in front of her. If only she'd gone to the funeral in sneakers instead of boots. Days of walking in heels has made her feet swell and ache.
Traffic blurs across the street in front of her. Red and white tail lights catch the water on the road, dancing joyfully between the cars. When the traffic light turns red, an old car pauses in front of her. Two kids bicker in the backseat. The mother is behind the steering wheel, sighing heavily at her children's antics. Their raised voices are made muted and indecipherable by the glass.
The light turns green. The family leaves.
"You alright, kiddo?"
Mina startles. How long has she been sitting here for? Her mind had finally quieted as she watched the world churn around her. The streets are quieter now and club music emerges from a block down.
A woman in her thirties emerges from a side street. Half her head is shaved, the rest of her hair dyed a bright green that's pulled into a braid. Silver piercings catch the light when she comes to stand next to Mina, frowning down at her.
"Yeah." It comes out thin. "I'm fine."
"Hmph. You look like your boyfriend just died."
It startles a laugh out of her, high and incredulous. "Oh, I wish."
The woman's pierced eyebrows rise. "He a shithead?"
Mina opens her mouth to agree, or say she doesn't have a boyfriend, but what comes out is: "It's not even that."
It's the woman's turn to snort. It's short and scoffing. "I bet. You got somewhere to go tonight?"
The wariness is immediate. Mina is quick to stand, even though the woman hasn't seemed aggressive so far.
"Yeah," she says again. "I'm waiting on a taxi right now, actually."
"Sure you do. Must be the slowest fucking taxi."
It's said dryly. That doesn't keep Mina from taking a step back and scrutinizing the woman. The woman stares right back with cool blue eyes.
"What do you want?"
"Be a champ, apparently," she sighs, shaking her head. "There's a guy who owns a restaurant in Kenari. He hires people to do the dishes under the table. He's a dickhead, but he's not a creep and he pays on time. Old woman upstairs rents out a room as long as you don't steal her shit or make a mess."
It catches her off guard enough to make her next intake of breath be uneven. "Why are you helping me?"
The woman shrugs. "Someone did the same for me, couple of years ago. Wouldn't be here today if not for her. Guess it's my turn today."
Mina stares. She's passed Pros here, passed countless of good citizens and hard workers. She has worked as a hero herself, in the future. Extended a helping hand more times than she can count. She's never thought about how rare it is to be helped until she's needed it herself.
Heroism isn't always grand.
"Well?" says the woman. "Are you coming or not?"
Naruhata has its faults, but it's not all bad. Kenari, however, has always felt dirty and desperate to Mina. It's not a nice thought to have, but it's one she grew up with anyway.
Mina is desperate, though. And in need of a shower and washed clothes.
"Okay," she hears herself say in a small, young voice. "Okay."