Never in his life did Sanyu think he would be sitting on a couch watching his own funeral.
But here he was.
Tao had gone into his future while he was asleep to double check that he would make the journey back to Jackson's apartment in the other world and be able to come back. When he confirmed that he would be able to do it, he left to get some things.
He came back with a lot of things. Two military issued duffel bags containing all of Sanyu's clothes and possessions, a third weirdly shaped bag and the all important cardboard box containing every Marvel movie ever made (except the incredible hulk, that one was awful).
Honestly he would rather be watching one of those movies instead of watching an orchestra play as people filed into a massive stadium to watch his funeral.
Logically he knew that heroes got a lot of publicity and they had many supporters, but he was so far removed from the rest of the world he never saw any of them.
"We tried to keep it short." Tao explained as they waited for the funeral to actually start. "We were all too sad to say much. And we were very picky about who we let speak, except for-well you'll see.".
The music, which was a song Sanyu actually liked thankfully enough, came to a close. The lights went down and a spotlight appeared on stage, next to the memorial thingy covered in flowers.
The picture they chose wasn't a bad one. It must have been one of the one's Lela took and not one from the government, because he was smiling.
"You look so different with short hair." Keigo observed. Sanyu had to agree. He definitely liked it better long though.
Two people emerged from the darkness and stepped up to the podium. Sanyu's mouth fell open. His parents?
"We really didn't have the right to stop them from speaking. Jackson made sure they didn't say anything bad about you." Tao assured the kid, looking pretty nervous himself. "We didn't know if you'd want them to or not, honestly.".
"I haven't seen them in ages." Sanyu said honestly. "They look...older.".
"They are older." Tao replied.
"My name is Oyama Riku, and this is my husband Akimitsu.". Sanyu was shocked that the speech was in Japanese, but then he saw the translations being displayed on a projector above them. "We are Oyama Sanyu's parents.".
His mom appeared to take a deep breath before continuing. "3 years ago my husband and I set out to create a device that would do the impossible.".
"Of course they mention their research." Sanyu said, white hot anger bubbling under his skin.
"Give it a chance." Tao responded.
"We wanted to create a star on earth." She said, "And what we didn't realize at the time was that we had already done it 12 years before on October 31st, when we had Sanyu.".
"Most of you know our son for the person he was after getting his powers. After becoming the savior this world didn't deserve." His father cut in. "The other speeches you'll hear today will focus on that part of his life. The part you all owe your lives too. But we wanted to talk about the child. The little boy we raised for 12 years before his youth was stolen from him.".
Sanyu could barely believe his ears. Was this normal for a hero's funeral? Didn't they usually just pin a medal to some flowers and have someone recall all their achievements.
"Sanyu was a happy child. He excelled in reading, writing and making friends. There was never a dull moment with Sanyu around." His father said, smiling ever so slightly.
"He loved sports, any and all sports. Sanyu was even the captain of his elementary school's basketball team.".
"We used to take him to see every new superhero movie. Sometimes we even took him out of school to see them on opening day.".
"He had a pink stuffed bunny named Toru that he took with him everywhere.".
"Sanyu once spent hours making a sandcastle for a crab he found on the beach.".
And they just. Kept. Talking.
Sanyu felt overwhelmed. He couldn't even tell if it was good or bad.
He did know that he wasn't mad at his parents for speaking at his funeral. He was worried they'd try to take credit. Say that it was their experiment that made him a hero.
But they didn't. They didn't speak about his life after joining the Six, after being removed from Japan.
They spoke about what they knew. About what only they knew. No one else in Sanyu's life would be able to stand in front of millions and say with certainty that he used to try to cheat at monopoly.
He laughed a bit but it came out wet and sounded more like a sob. "We should have just watched Captain America." He joked.
"I wouldn't complain." Keigo said, looking quite emotional himself. "He's way hotter than I thought he'd be.". The trio laughed. It was easier to talk like this now that Sanyu knew this world was accepting.
"We have the same taste in men." Tao told Keigo. "Muscular, blond, heroic..." He trailed off.
Sanyu looked between the two, a pout settling on his face as he tried to decipher the looks they were exchanging.
They decided to save the rest of the funeral for later.
--------- ----------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------------
Coming back to school after that weekend was insane.
Like an emotional rollercoaster combined with emotional bumper cars. Were emotional bumper cars a thing? Sanyu didn't think so, but hell, it didn't really matter.
He had spent the morning clearing up his whole 'lashing out' mess with Inue and Aizawa. When he described how people were treated for being gay in his world, he swore Inue teared up a little bit.
He also came out to them, which was nerve wracking in general. And then he had to do the same thing to the rest of the class. He couldn't bring himself to come out to them though. It still didn't feel safe to him.
It was also really hard to do all of that knowing that there was a second person from his world just sitting at home right now. They didn't want to take Tao to the government just yet. He had just gotten away from them in his world, he didn't need them on his back in this one. Plus, unlike Sanyu he wasn't a Japanese national. He probably wouldn't immediately get citizenship like Sanyu had.
Perhaps he had let his chaotic morning distract him too much because he definitely didn't remember being told they were having older kids in their class.
"Problem children, these are the big three. U.A's most promising third year heroes." Mr. Aizawa explained. They were strange looking, but Sanyu was used to that. There were two boys, one with pointy ears and dark hair and the other with blonde hair and blue eyes. The girl had purple hair and similarly coloured eyes. She had a lot of hair too. Sanyu wondered how long it took her to brush it every morning. "Why don't you introduce yourselves?" The teacher asked.
It looked like the dark haired one was going to speak first but he just glared at the class, mumbled something about potatoes and turned to face the wall. Sanyu was a little confused. Were they their best?
"I'm Hado Neijire!" The girl said excitedly, "And I've been waiting to meet you guys for so long! I have so many questions.". She ran towards the desks. "Why are you wearing a mask? What happened to your face? Is that a burn? Why do you have horns? And why is your skin so pink? Hey-what species of frog are you? Why does your tail only have hair on the end of it? What happened to your leg?".
Question after question. The entire class, Sanyu included, was overwhelmed.
Aizawa shooed the girl back to the front of the class. "You lack rationality as a group." The teacher commented. The blond boy gave the man a sheepish smile.
"Don't worry. I'm the star of today's show anyways." He said, turning to the class. "The future's gonna be-".
He waited for a response and when none came, he answered his own question. "Awful!".
When the class remained confused, the boy scratched the back of his neck. "Wow, that didn't work at all! I'm Togata Mirio." He said excitedly. "And I know what you're all thinking. You're all excited about getting your licenses early but that comes with responsibilities and a whole new world of difficulties.".
Sanyu had to kind of agree with the guy, but his introduction was clearly going south.
"You know what? Why don't I just show you guys how cocky you are? All of you vs me, right now in one of the gyms." Togata suggested.
That was something the class could understand and get excited about. Cheers rang out throughout the room as they shuffled out to get dressed in their gym uniforms. Mr. Aizawa just looked exhausted.
Sanyu followed the group to the change rooms without a second thought. Togata had to be strong to have that sort of confidence. He wondered what sort of quirk he had.
Then, he noticed a note taped to his locker.
'I believe this is yours. -N'.
He opened it up to see, to his relief and excitement, his prosthetic. Without a second thought he sat down on the ground, rolled his already rolled up pant leg further to reveal the socket, and slotted it into place.
Nearly blinding his class in the process.
"Sorry." He said awkwardly when the light faded. "My power is what lets it move, I had to put a lot into it to get it operational again.".
"No worries." Kaminari said with a smirk, "With your leg back, there's no way we can lose.".
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Okay, I've got too many ideas floating in my head to talk about the chapter just yet.
Its mostly just 'lets pretend we don't have another human hiding in our house' mixed with a bit of 'oh yeah school is still a thing'.
I want to give you guys a concept-I did a one shot once for my fanfic 'Shatter' where I had the main character Nao plus Midoriya and Bakugou get hit with a quirk that turned them into toddlers for like 72 hours. Its one of my favorite tropes.
Then I realized that if Sanyu got turned into a toddler it would be absolute chaos because that's enough power to level half the country crammed inside someone who'd probably cry if they couldn't have the food they just threw on the floor. 😂
But it might be a fun idea to have a one shot like that for this fic. It would sit outside the storyline of course, but if you guys think it'd be fun to see that, I would be more than down to write it!
Also, lets talk PTSD and emotional support animals for a sec. Hound Dog is a responsible mental health professional, so he's probably going to offer all sorts of coping mechanisms and ways to manage Sanyu's PTSD.
In my fics in the past most of the pets have been cats (I love cats but can't have one so this just might be me projecting). But I was thinking that maybe giving Sanyu a non cat animal would be good? I think he'd do well with a fluffy friend!
I was thinking a dog or a bunny-which would you guys rather see?
(to me Sanyu vibes both tiny lop eared rabbit or massive fluffy dog so I'm torn 😭)