Chapter Text
Shota was just enjoying his morning coffee in a secluded corner, to get away from the chatter of his fellow teachers of course, when a body fell from the air in front of him. It made a disgusting splat noise, leaving Shota to stare in shock before finally numbly reaching for his staff radio.
“Security alert, we have a code red! Possibly a code blue, at the eastern courtyard. Unidentified intruder fell from the air. Looks to be male, covered face and unusual clothing. He’s unconscious.” He lowered the radio from his face, studying the man further. He didn’t look like any villain or hero he’s seen.
He was wearing a cream colored bear mask with ears that peeked out from his chocolate hair, bangs covering up the top border of the mask. He had his hair messily pulled back into a small ponytail.
His clothes were odd, a yellow suit vest over a light blue dress shirt and a black tie, with regular dark jeans and black shoes. He had black gloves on as well.
Quickly security arrived, and they ended up having a discussion over what to do with the intruder, eventually settling down on bringing him to Recovery Girl after restraining him.
One of her stretcher robots came out and they lifted the man onto the stretcher. Shota couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong with the man as he watched him get carted away.
Michael woke up to a blinding light. This must be the afterlife, since last he could remember he was sitting in his office watching flames lick at his rotting skin while he heard the screams of his father and the other ghosts.
He squinted his eyes, reaching over to cover them from the light. Except they stopped after a few inches, something keeping them restrained. Ah. So he was in hell, nice to know. He let his arm fall limp, settling for closing his eyes, even though the light permeated through his rotting eyelids.
“…llo? Can you hear me?”
Michael jolted at the sound of an old voice, eyes opening once more to the brightness. He opened his mouth to respond, the dryness that he had grown accustomed to having grown stronger over the time it took him to get to the afterlife.
He rolled his tongue in his mouth, grimacing. “Here, dear, have some water.” He felt a hand touch his mask and he jolted away, he did not want his mask removed, for the poor person trying to comfort him to see the monster he was.
“Okay, okay, I get it. No touching your mask.” The old voice chuckled. “But I can’t give you water if I can’t lift your mask.” The voice continued. Michael didn’t know how to tell them that he literally couldn’t drink water anymore.
The voice sighed, and at this point Michael’s eyes had adjusted and suddenly it didn’t look so bright, more like a dull white ceiling. He turned his head and startled when he saw an old lady standing next to him.
“Hello, dearie.” She said, waving a wrinkled hand at him. He had to take a moment to pause and take her in, recognizing that she was the old voice. He looked further down only to realize that his hands were cuffed to what looked like a hospital bed. This was really weird for what was supposed to be hell, but oh well. He guessed hospitals were pretty hellish, especially for him.
He blinked slowly before looking up at the woman. “I see you’ve noticed your restraints. They’re quirk repressors, so don’t even think you can use your quirk against me or anyone else in this building.” The old lady lectured him. For some reason. What the hell- haha- was going on?
“Quirk?” He rasped. It sounded awful, kind of like if you rubbed two bugs together, probably because he hadn’t spoken since the interview he had with Henry for the job at the pizzeria.
“Yes dear, your quirk.” She sounded kind of annoyed now. Oops. He tended to have that effect on people. “Do you know where you are?”
“The afterlife?” He guessed, feeling a lot less certain in that now that the old lady was talking about being, as the guy on the phone would’ve put it, quirky. The woman looked more annoyed and seemed like she was going to say something before the door opened and a tired looking man walked into the room.
“Actually, you’re in Musutafu, Japan!” A smooth voice said, a creature popping out of nowhere. Michael definitely did not scream, and definitely did not strain his vocal chords so much he felt one snap. Nuh uh.
He felt his chest heaving trying to simulate breathing while he listened to the mouse creature talk a mile a minute about where he was. Apparently he was in Japan, and in the top hero school of Japan. What the fuck did the mouse mean by hero, he didn’t know.
“Anyways, we should get you cleaned up! You smell like death.” Honest to god, the fucking mouse winked. “But first, it’s questioning time! We need to make sure we know what happened to you, and whether you’re a threat!” The mouse continued.
Michael just blinked in shock, mouth gaping a little. He was still hung up on the fact that the mouse winked after practically calling him dead to the entire room. The tired guy still hadn’t said a single word yet.
“O-okay??” he said, still bewildered.
“Officer Tsukauchi should be arriving shortly, in the meantime I would like to introduce you to those two.” The mouse said cheerfully, pointing at the old lady and the tired guy.
“This is The Erasure Hero: EraserHead, and this is The Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl!” the mouse said. “Eraserhead can erase your quirk with one look, though I don’t think you have to worry about that,” What did he mean by that???,” And Recovery Girl can heal you with a kiss.”
Michael just looked at the mouse as Eraserhead, what a stupid sounding name, just as stupid as eggs benedict , sighed. “Stop being so cryptic, Nedzu.” So the mouse was named Nedzu, nice to know.
“Hello? Am I interrupting something?” A new voice said. Michael’s head snapped up to reveal a clean cut man in a trench coat, fiddling with his gloves. Michael didn’t even hear the door open. He was falling off his game.
“Not at all! Now come have a seat, Officer!” Nedzu said, gesturing to a chair near the bed Michael was chained to. The man sat down quickly, giving the mouse a look of dread. Great, the mouse was someone to be feared.
Then Tsukauchi turned to Michael. “We have a few questions we’d like to ask you, please answer truthfully. This conversation will be recorded and saved to our records. Do you understand?” He explained.
Michael nodded before realizing the man had already pulled out a recorder and was probably looking for a verbal answer. “Yes.”
“Okay, first question. What is your name?” Tsukauchi asked.
“Michael Schimdt.” Michael responded.
“I’ll need you to be a bit more truthful than that.” The officer said.
Michael stared at him in shock. How the hell…?
“M-Michael Afton. My name is Michael Afton.” He finally said.
“Thank you, Mr. Afton. Next question, where were you before you came here? Be specific.” Michael felt some of his shock come back at how the man just brushed off his last name, but he figured it’s not like someone in Japan would know what his father did.
“I was in my office with my uncle at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, in the states. I don’t know how I got to Japan.”
Suddenly Recovery Girl leaned over to whisper into the detective’s ear, and his face twisted with confusion.
“Okay, do you know what a quirk is Mr. Afton?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Alright. For the sake of clarity, a quirk is a power a person has. It can be anything, such as having water for hair or fire abilities.” Michael nodded along to the explanation, okay, that made more sense. Quirk was just another word for superpower. “Alright, final two questions. Do you intend to harm anyone in this building? And what is your quirk?”
“Um, I don’t know what my quirk is. And no, I don’t want to hurt anyone in this building.” There was confusion on Tsukauchi’s face again, but then he nodded and steeled his expression. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Uh, you’re welcome?” Michael hesitantly said. He really didn’t like dealing with cops.
Nedzu suddenly clapped his paws together. “Great! Now that that’s settled, how would you feel about being a teaching assistant for Eraserhead and helping out with class 1-A?”
“What?!?” Both Michael and Eraserhead said at the same time. Glad to know they were on the same page.
“Yes, yes, I know. Very out of the blue. But I think Mr. Aizawa here could use some help in his classroom, and why not use some free help?” Nedzu chucked. Michael could already tell he was an evil little rat.
“Nedzu, we can’t just let a random stranger help with the students-” Aizawa hissed into Nedzu’s ear.
“Relax!” The mouse squeaked to him. Then he turned to Michael. “How about we get you a room and some time to get used to your surroundings?” The mouse said, before walking over and reaching up to unlock his restraints. The others stared in shock while Michael rubbed his wrists solely out of habit.
“S-sir are you sure that’s a good idea…?” Tsukauchi said, trailing off into a murmur at the look Nedzu gave him.
“Follow me, Mr. Afton!” Nedzu said, walking to the door and then turning to wait for Michael to get off the bed and onto his feet. Which he did, albeit very awkwardly. He shambled towards the door, getting a weird look from both Recovery Girl and Aizawa for how he was walking. Well, fuck them. Being a corpse will do that to you.
Nedzu led him down a hallway, pointing out different rooms and what they were as they went, eventually stopping in front of a room with a sign that said “Teacher’s lounge” in Japanese. Now that he thought about it, how was he able to read that? Whatever, probably some of the freaky magic that got him there.
“...And this is where the teachers lounge during their off hours or when classes are let out! How about you meet them, since you’ll be here in the mornings helping Aizawa?” Nedzu proposed. Michael hesitantly nodded, the instant he did the mouse pushed the door open and announced something along the lines of “Am I a bear, a mouse, a dog? Whatever I am, I’m your principal!”
Michael walked in after him, the teachers murmuring to each other as soon as he was in view. There was a woman leaning against a desk talking to some guy with bright yellow hair sticking up in the air. There was also a really skinny blonde guy reclining on the couch next to some freaky looking guy in a trench coat. Some buff looking guy in a really weird costume with a snarl on his face walked out of the group and pointed at Michael. “What’s he doing here, I thought he was an intruder?”
“Mr. Afton here has been cleared by Officer Tsukauchi and me, and will be working as a teaching assistant for class 1-A.” Nedzu said coolly.
“Well then, hello cutie~” A woman who was dressed very provocatively said, flippantly laying her arms across one another. “I suppose introductions are in order. I’m Midnight, but you can call me Nemuri.”
“Vlad King.” The accusatory man said gruffly. Crossing his arms and looking away grumpily.
The bright blonde waved and shouted, “I’m Present Mic, but you can call me Yamada!”
He stood up and approached Michael and held out his hand for a shake while the freaky guy in the trench coat said quietly, “Ectoplasm.” Michael distractedly shook Yamada’s hand.
Finally, the skinny blonde guy piped up to say, “I’m Yagi Toshinori, nice to meet you.” Michael nodded at him. Only he got acknowledgement since he was nice and actually said “nice to meet you.”
“Michael Afton.” He introduced. He’d rather had said Michael Schimdt, but he figured it wouldn’t be a good first impression to lie right off the bat.
“Well, I should be helping Mr. Afton here to a room so he can get some rest. See you all later!” Nedzu said, clapping Michael on the back, making him grimace.
The mouse turned on his heel leaving the room immediately, clearly expecting Michael to follow. He quickly shuffled after him, waving absentmindedly at the teachers. Aizawa didn’t come with this time. He followed Nedzu through the building, eventually landing in an area that had a sign stating “Staff Only!” hanging over it. Nedzu continued on in, so Michael guessed he counted as staff now.
“These are our temporary lodgings for teachers and other staff, and you’ll be staying here for a while. Also now that we’re alone, I want to clear up some things.” The mouse said as he led Michael into a specific room. It was plain, a small kitchen set up combined with a living room that only contained a simple couch and a coffee table. There were three doors lining the walls on each side.
“But first! The tour!” The rat excitedly said. He gestured to a door next to the kitchen. “This is the bathroom, don’t worry it doesn’t have cameras. And neither does your,“ he walked across the room to a door, “bedroom! However there are cameras outside in the entire school, but teacher lodgings are exempt from that after some… incidents. Also, this door is just a closet.” He explained, gesturing about. Michael nodded along.
“So… what’re the things you wanted to clear up?” he hesitantly asked.
“First of all, do you need to eat? Who am I kidding, you’re a corpse, you don’t need to eat!” the mouse cheerfully said, leaving Michael to gape at him in shock.
“How did I know that? Well, I am just that good.” the mouse said not even a second later. Damn, that rat was not going to give him a break.
“Also, I will provide a laptop for you to learn about Musutafu and our world! Now, now, don’t give me that look. I can assure you I am much smarter than you believe me to be. Anyways, I think you’ll find that whoever you’re running from isn’t here.” Nedzu said before chuckling. “Oh do I love that look on you humans, anyways, toodles!” The mouse said before walking out of the door and into the hallway with a shit eating grin.
What. The. Fuck. He thinks he deserves a shower after that. Jesus christ.
He crawled into a hot shower, not that he could feel it that well, after removing his clothes and sat there a minute to contemplate. That just happened. Actually, everything just happened. He was in what he now believed had to be another world, sitting in a shower in a high school of all places. And he was going to help teach students. Holy shit, he wished he had his life together.
After warming up in the shower and cleaning himself using the soaps left behind that he really hoped someone else hadn’t used, he got out, dried himself off, dressed himself, and purposefully didn’t look at himself in the mirror. After slotting his mask back onto his face, he didn’t trust Nedzu that much, he opened the door to the cool air of the rest of the…apartment? Boarding? Something or other.
There was a laptop and charger laying on the coffee table. Guess the mouse hadn’t been lying about that. He sat down onto the couch and pulled the laptop onto his, well, lap and booted it up. He went through the lengthy set up process, thank god he could magically read japanese. Eventually after what seemed to be an hour, he got it working. Time to make some searches.
He ended up researching for several hours, learning all about the pro heroes and villains of Japan, as well as what the top hero school of Musutafu was. He also searched up himself and people he knew, only to no avail. If they existed in the world he was in, they weren’t the same people.
He let out a sob when he found out that Freddy’s never existed, and neither did his family. It was a sob of relief and sadness, one born from knowing that his little siblings never lived in the world and that his father wasn’t around to terrorize anymore people. He was free, finally free.
He ended up passing out on the couch, slowly slouching down until he was laying down and the laptop had fallen off of him and onto the floor. His eyes closed and didn’t open until the next morning.