Chapter Text
“Would you like some coffee?” the young man in a blue hospital uniform and white shoes asked.
His voice was so gentle Shouta almost missed it. He stopped massaging his brows with his fingers and looked up.
“Can I get you coffee?” The young man repeated in case Shouta hadn’t heard. “Or water?”
He was glad the seats were leather and not hard plastic like the ones in the main waiting room. His overworked back wouldn’t have liked that. “Hmm. Coffee.”
The young man gave a node and walked away. It was nice of the clinic to have a separate smaller waiting room next to the main one. At least this waiting room had comfy (albeit, sunken and worn out) couches, and he was a short hallway away from his student. After the disturbing display he had witnessed an hour earlier, he wasn’t about to let the boy be too far away from his eyes. He remembered each detail, how the boy went rigid before losing control of his Quirk. The realization had eaten away at him. His behavior had been similar to that from the night before when Shouta had caught him in the midst of what he’d previously assumed was an emotional outburst. It had happened before, and Shouta had let him go.
If he’d pressed harder, maybe he would’ve gotten an answer out of the boy then all this wouldn’t have happened. It had taken a puff of Midnight’s sleep pheromone to knock him out for his and others’ safety. The kid had uttered a drowsy “’m sorry,” before slumping to the side. He let Hizashi take over his class while Shouta delivered Izuku to Recovery Girl on a robot-powered stretcher. She’d examined him for any physical damage or hints of what was going on. She healed the only injury the boy had: a sprain caused by his wild stomping. Shouta already suspected the involvement of someone's Quirk. He needed to rule out medical causes to be absolutely sure he could go along with his assumption. The nurse redirected him to a neurologist for check-ups with larger equipment to spot any health conditions even the boy had been unaware of. Brain scans, blood tests, EEG, spinal tap.
“Here you go,” the young man from earlier stood before Shouta with a small paper cup of coffee from a coffee machine.
Shouta grunted when he finally moved to get it. “Thanks.” He hadn’t realized how still and stiff he had been until he’d shifted.
The young man seemed pleased with himself and went to the larger waiting room to tend to other people. Shouta took four sips and his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled his phone out halfway to peek at the notification on the top of the screen.
Toshinori: what happened with young Midoriya?
Other incoming messages buried the first one:
Toshinori: is he alright?
Toshinori: kids told me hes been unwell
Toshinori: have you alerted his mother?
Shouta wanted to curse the man for his incessant questioning. Sure, the boy’s teacher was worried, but Shuota was much more than just worry; guilt, irritation, and paranoia being a few of them.
Guilt, because he hadn’t acted sooner when he could’ve – when the boy had shown distress a night before.
Irritation, because he’d stayed up grading essays, failed to properly nap, and had gone from observing the students on the big screen with a hunch in his tired back to running full speed across the training field to fetch his student.
Paranoia, because if this was indeed someone else’s Quirk then it had lingered inside the boy for at least two days. It felt like finding out Shouta himself had a parasitic host hitchhiking in his own body.
His phone buzzed again, and this time, Shouta had been ready to just give Yagi a short answer to ease both their minds when he stopped and read the name of the sender.
Yamada: Sho!
Yamada: hows the little listener? :(
Yamada: his friends were asking I said hes fine n you got it covered
Yamada: they gave me sad puppy faces so I told them I ll ask >.>
Yamada: he ok??
Shouta looked at the time displayed on the top of the phone’s screen. The kids had to be doing Math right now, which meant Hizashi was in the teacher’s lounge. The longer Shouta withheld answering the more unread texts clogged his phone’s notification. Sighing, Shouta typed:
You: I don’t know. I’ll tell you when I get answers
He thought about his earlier suspicions and added:
You: no one leaves campus after school hours
Until he got Izukus results, there was no guarantee this was a Villain’s doing. It could’ve been the prank of a teenager or an accidental Quirk activation from an inexperienced toddler, or it was all Izuku. His Quirk was an anomaly to Shouta. During his entrance exam, he’d broken three limbs. While the power had been impressive, Shouta knew better than most that power alone wouldn’t get him anywhere. At the start of the first semester, the boy had displayed enough self-control to limit his power to the tip of his finger. Over time, his Quirk continued morphing. That proved three things:
1-The boy was smart,
2-He had potential,
3-His progress had been so fast it was suspicious. First-year Izuku Midoriya’s Quirk hardly resembled now Izuku Midoriya.
It was unpredictable. Or maybe the boy himself knew how to suddenly use it like playdough, turning it into something new every time, adding new parts, squeezing it into a new shape that held better.
If this had been the doing of his Quirk, then Shouta would need to plan extra training lessons for him. Training that wasn’t graded or timed. Training to figure things out.
He’d have to see.
The door finally opened. “Mr. Aizawa?” the woman asked, holding the door open with her elbow.
Shouta rubbed his eyes, ready to use them if needed. She looked relaxed, which meant the boy’s Quirk hadn’t gone haywire again. Good. He got up and felt the popping in his stiff back.
“He’s all done,” she said. “He can rest here for another hour. The results might take a few more hours or a day. You can come by tomorrow if you want. We’ll send everything up to his Doctor by then. For the blood tests, you’ll have to ask the front desk.”
She led him inside, past two beds curtained away. Izuku was on the third one, the curtain only halfway closed. He was in a hospital gown. The IV line connected to his arm hung with the middle forming a clean U-shape. On his head, there were patches of curled hair that had a bit of shine to them: residue from the gel which had been applied to stick the electrodes to his head. He was looking up at the ceiling, the lines under his eyes making him look like he’d just gone through a massive surgery instead of simple tests. He shifted his eyes to look at Shouta and the nurse when they come closer.
The look on his face was a mix of confusion from being unfocused, and guilt for his earlier uncontrollable behavior. “Aizawa-Sensei?”
The man stood next to the empty chair. He’d done enough sitting. If he sat any longer he was sure he’d need to see the chiropractor.
“Stay in bed for another hour, sweetie,” the nurse said, used to younger children, or she’d assumed Izuku to be younger. She messed with the IV bag. “He might feel a headache for a while. Don’t let him do exercises tomorrow. No school, if you can manage.”
Izuku’s face kept drooping. Any other kid would’ve rejoiced upon hearing they could skip school. Not him. He was already a workaholic at a very young age.
“He won’t go to school,” Shouta said. He wasn’t planning on letting the boy go to class tomorrow. Not after what he’d seen today. He should’ve ordered him to stay at the dorms that earlier night.
Izuku looked horrified. “Bu– But Sensei!”
“Stop that.” Shouta managed to sound neutral. “I shouldn’t have let you come to class today.” He recognized the panicked look on the boy’s eyes. “Let me make this clear: none of this is your fault. Today’s incident was negligence and oversight on my part.” He kept his voice steady, firm. “Until you can get back on your feet, I’m pulling you out of class. This is not punishment,” he quickly added when the kid looked distraught. “Again, this is not your fault. You won’t be penalized. I don’t want to do this, either. I’ll assign your classmates to take notes for you. If they don’t, you tell me.” He gave him some time to slowly digest all of that. It was clear no matter what Shouta said, the boy would blame himself for something clearly out of his control.
The nurse placed Izuku’s folded UA uniform at the end of the bed. He’d switched out of his Hero costume at Recovery Girl’s after waking up and being checked over. “Blood tests should be done. Here.” She handed Shouta two pieces of paper stapled together by the corner. “Give this to reception when you want to collect everything.”
When she left, Shouta took out his phone, ready to make a few calls. “Whatever the results turn out, your mother needs to know.”
Izuku’s lips thinned. Oh. He’d probably hoped his mother wouldn’t be informed. Shoto took note of that. He didn’t like the idea of sending the boy home when the cause of the outburst was still unclear. The night before had most likely been a smaller form of what had transpired this morning. If so, it meant this was the second time this had happened; or, at least, the second one Shouta was aware of. What would happen if the boy’s Quirk acted out without Shouta around to stop it?
“I want you to stay on campus if your mother allows it,” Shouta said while texting Hizashi one-handed.
Izuku’s head turn was delayed. “Oh.” Oddly, he wasn’t saddened by that. “Okay. Yeah.”
Shoto lowered his phone and kept watching the boy’s expression. It was subtle, but the kid almost looked relieved. Maybe Shouta’s paranoia was being too loud, but after knowing he’d missed interfering when he could have, Shouta reluctantly listened to it. He wanted to ask about his mother. It was probably nothing, but last night had ended up being something. He’d ask Yagi what he knew or talk to the mother herself if she showed up.
Slow down. Put the pieces together, first.
“Midoriya,” Shouta said, his voice gruff even. “What happened?” he asked the simple question and hoped for everything that was holy the boy could see deflecting the question wouldn’t work anymore. It was cruel to interrogate the boy when he was in an already distressed state of mind. It was, however, an urgent question. It wasn’t a specific question. What happened… to you? What was that? What happened recently? Last night? Yesterday? Izuku could answer any of them and it would be a string Shouta would catch and not let slip like before.
Izuku fisted his hospital gown.
Shouta said nothing, letting awkward silence be what pushed the boy to answer.
“I don’t know, Sensei…” Izuku whispered disparately.
Maybe the kid truly did not know. ‘I don’t know’ was a very, very thin string...
…
Izuku was exhausted, sleep-deprived, disoriented, and the check-ups and scans had added extra weight to everything.
“Midoriya,” though possibly slightly frustrated, Shouta kept his voice firm, “I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” he said bluntly, getting right to the core of the problem that was mysterious to even Izuku himself.
He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop sleeping. He’d already explained himself. What else could he say? Did he need to make something up? The guilt was already gnawing deep as it was. He knew he was making things worse for himself. He’d already worried his classmates, then disrespected his teacher as well as the rules meant to keep them safe, then… then he’d done whatever he’d done earlier. He’d almost hurt his friends.
Something was very wrong. It was scaring him.
“I can’t…” His vision went hot and blurry. Too ashamed to look his teacher in the eye, he turned his gaze down, opting to stare hazily at his scarred hands fisting the gown. Gravity pulled the tears out; they leaked in opposite directions, down the sides of his head. “I can’t study at all, Sensei,” he mumbled, his headache worsening. “I know I should try harder but I tried – I’m really trying, Sensei, but I can’t remember anything. I know it’s been one day but I’m already so behind – I have to catch up to e– everyone but – but I can’t e– even read over the notes Iida and Uraraka wrote for m– me.” His eyes squeezed shut.
The way he’d behaved up until now had been bad enough, now he was having a breakdown in front of his teacher. He wanted to take it all back, go back in time and undo everything he’d said.
After some time, when Izuku’s breaths evened out and his headache was worse than ever, Shouta finally spoke, “How long has this been going on?” He was unperturbed by Izuku’s tears, having seen them before. It was hard to tell what the man was feeling just from his voice. It was always either flat, or commanding, or threatening. Whichever voice he used, his words were always of meaning. He never spoke empty words, no matter how cold he sounded.
Still, Izuku feared what his teacher thought of him at this moment. “Yesterday morning. When I woke up.” Thoughts swirled through his mind; thoughts of how much trouble he’d been so far.
“Midoriya, look at me.”
Recurrently, Izuku did so, the pounding in his temple feeling like the nerves in his face were being twisted like they were rubber bands.
Behind the man’s trained, still expression meant to keep his reactions under a mask, there was a hard gaze in those abused eyes. “Listen carefully. Don’t jump to conclusions. Ask questions only when I’m done.” His tone was calm.
Izuku gave a weak nod, bracing himself.
Shouta began, “I awe you an apology.”
Izuku didn’t understand.
Shouta quickly added, “I’m your teacher. At the moment, I’m responsible for you. You weren’t doing well and I still let you go through classes. If anything happened, I need to know. You may be a Hero-in-training, but you’re my student first and foremost.” The man laid out the foundation for what was to come. “The day you went to the park. Did anything strange happen?”
“The amusement park?” Izuku’s brows pinched, his mind trying to get at what his teacher meant.
“Did anyone approach you?” Shouta specified.
Izuku thought too long and too hard about it. “Uh, no…? I… don’t think so. No.” Now, he did catch what his teacher was trying to get at. A possible Quirk. No one had personally walked up to him and his friends. But then, he couldn’t fully trust his memory. “I can’t remember, Sensei...” he added because Shouta deserved to know.
This was going to be difficult.
…
Whatever tests finished on the same day came up clean. His teacher said he’d drop by the clinic tomorrow to retrieve the rest. He’d been told it was safer to stay at the dorms. It made sense. Izuku didn’t want that happening at home. He’d been close to hurting his friends. He could hurt his mother. He didn’t trust himself, especially not with his false memories.
“W – Wait,” Izuku stammered, stopping in front of the dormitory and almost collapsing right there. He wanted to sleep. “My bag!” He’d forgotten all about it.
Shouta answered quickly, “I’ll have a student bring it. Try to sleep. I’ll be downstairs.” If you need me.
Izuku relaxed. “Oh…” He lingered. “…Okay.” He wanted to sleep but was afraid to do so.
“Use this.” Shouta held up a miniature, travel-sized perfume bottle. It had a pink body (thanks to the few drops of liquid inside) and a white spray head.
Very Midnight. So far, it has been the only time he’d managed to sleep during those two days. He would’ve liked to be able to sleep normally, like normal, like a normal person. Would one spray before bed work? How long would a quick sniff let him sleep for? An hour? Two? It was better than no sleep at all, he supposed. He wasn’t sure how bad he visibly looked at the moment.
Shouta, seeing hints of recognition on Izuku’s face upon seeing the bottle, figured he didn’t need to explain what that was and what it was for. “I’ll be grading essays in the commons,” he said, grunting and massaging the stiffness at the back of his neck. He swiped his UA Teacher card and unlocked the door.
The lights were on. Someone was already inside.
A pair of plain brown shoes sat by the step. Izuku recognized them and hurried to pull off his own shoes, almost toppling over thanks to his aching muscles. “All Might?” he tried to call, but it came out more level-sounding.
Shouta sighed exasperatedly behind him. Izuku didn’t need to look back to know the man was pinching his brows.
The boney man on the couch had stopped twiddling his thumbs when he’d heard the beep of the lock. Izuku stumbled forward and the man stood to place a hand on his head.
“You had me worried, my boy.” The man sounded tired. He must’ve worried the whole time.
“Sorry, All Might…” He hadn’t meant for all this to happen. He wasn’t trying to worry everyone.
“Don’t you have a class to teach?” Shouta reminded the other man sternly.
Yagi, used to his colleague’s attitude, didn’t seem fazed. “Ah. Eraserhead. Not in another few minutes.”
“I’m guessing Mic told you,” Shouta concluded.
“I – uh, heard the short version,” Yagi corrected awkwardly. “Thank you for saving him.”
“I did my job.” Shouta messed with the coffee machine and left it to do its thing. “And you do yours. You have class. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.”
“Ah, right.” Yagi reluctantly grabbed his teaching folder off the coffee table and ruffled Izuku’s hair one more time.
“And you,” Shouta nodded at Izuku. “Bed. Now.”
Ah. He knew he was lingering. “Y– Yes, sir.” He did want to go to bed but didn’t at the same time. Bad things happened when he tried to sleep. Bad things and things he couldn’t remember and things he couldn’t control when he could remember. He leaned against the elevator’s wall as it rose to the second level, the sway gentle enough to almost have him fall asleep standing, but the jolt of the stop so abrupt he slid across the wall and he almost face-planted with the elevator doors before they could open.
His room was just as he left it. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, he searched for any clue despite not knowing what he was exactly looking for. A spying device? His teacher had suspected an outside Quirk. It made a shiver rattle up his back. It felt… wrong. The idea of someone using his body or mind without him knowing made him feel vulnerable. Vulnerable and exposed and wronged, like someone stripping off his skin and wearing it as their own, leaving Izuku shivering without what was his.
Maybe it wasn’t that. It was just one possibility out of many. While talking with the doctor (with Shouta on the other seat, ready to fill in important blanks Izuku left out,) the doctor, a brain surgeon, had asked if his family had a history of seizers, brain tumors, blood clots, or any other health complications he was aware of. Izuku had to take a while to think that over with himself. He hadn’t known most of his family members. His mother had told him they’d visited her only surviving parent when he was a toddler, so he recalled nothing from that visit. His mom had no siblings and he wasn’t informed about his family from his father’s side.
A creepy thought slowly morphed like a fog in his mind. He’d been medically diagnosed as Quirkless when both of his parents had the dominant Quirk genes. Then, he’d gone from Quirkless to Quirked and his body suddenly had to hold in the unnaturally heavy power that threatened to kill him over and over. All Might had admitted he hadn’t had as hard of a time with One for All. The Quirk did not fit Izuku as snuggly. It was like sticking an adult’s foot in a toddler’s shoe; it did not fit.
Handing over a Quirk to someone unrelated by blood was unheard of by the main public and hadn’t been scientifically researched. He was the ninth holder, dragging along the powers of those before him. What kind of complications were involved with Quirk hand-me-downs? The doctor’s question had opened up possibilities Izuku hadn’t even considered. Had the transfer of One for All done damage to parts other than his bones? How badly had he screwed up his body chemistry? Was it possible the Quirk he’d worked so hard to make his own was now slowly destroying him?
The rest of his results would be available tomorrow. He would know then which thing to worry about. He wanted to know, but also didn’t want to know.
Sleep. Right. Worrying wouldn’t answer anything. Getting dressed in more comfortable clothes to sleep with the sun still up, he climbed into bed and noticed the backlog of unread messages sent today. It was a lot. Multiple messages from each classmate. Looking at the number made him even more tired. He wouldn’t be able to get through them all without falling asleep. He hoped the teachers gave them reassuring words because he couldn’t form any at the moment. Would setting an alarm matter? He wasn’t sure how long Midnight’s bottled-up perfume would let him sleep for. Did it matter if he needed to wake up at a certain time? He wasn’t allowed to go to class. Still, he’d have to go for his usual run (if Shouta permitted it. If not, he’d have to ask to use the on-campus gym).
Alarm set to 5 pm, he grabbed the bottle and tried to spritz over the back of his hand. The bottle was still new, so the first few presses came out empty. Finally, it came out as a mist. He was drowsy with one inhale, then went slack with the second. He was so tired.
…
Tenya had been the one to fetch the teachers for help. He’d sped through the halls like a madman, for once, not caring that he was running in the halls. He should’ve pressed Izuku harder to stay in the dormitory. Even their teacher had jumped in without throwing a word at them.
Mic had taken over. He was louder than Eraserhead and somewhat easier to sway. Whenever he visited their dormitory, he let them get away with things Shouto wouldn’t. So, they felt safe enough to pester him about Izuku. Tenya and ochaco hadn’t found him with Recovery girl. She’d told them he’d been sent to get a check-up. That made them panic, and when they panicked they made the rest of the class panic. They begged Mic for information: asking if Izuku was okay, if he knew when he’d be back, if they could visit wherever he was, and so on.
He caved in and said he’d ask. They were later told to not leave campus after school, which was not good news. It meant something was up. Mic told Tenya to take Izuku’s bag back to the dorms. Tenya humbly accepted the simple mission. When the bell rang, they all trickled out of the classroom with their bags. Tenya held onto the yellow bag belonging to his ill friend.
“I hope Deku’s okay…” Ochaco said beside him.
“It’s quite worrying, yes.” He should’ve known Izuku wouldn’t sit put. He was a hard worker. A dangerous type of hard worker. Tenya should’ve done more than just take notes. He’d watched his friend’s health deteriorate at a fast rate. The blame rested on him. He failed as a class present to look after his classmates, and failed as a friend.
Momo swiped her card and held the door open for everyone else. The moment they entered the building and saw Shouta in the common area standing with his back to the wall and ignoring the many couches, they knew their teacher had a few important things to say.
“Sensei?” Eijiro stood with confusion, very aware of the silence.
“Put your bags away and sit down,” Shouta instructed.
Ochaco was brave enough to step closer and blurt out, “Sensei, is Deku okay?”
The teacher, who was still in costume, looked down at her with tired eyes. “He’s in his room. Don’t disturb him.”
Tenya, Ochaco, and a few others sighed. He was still here. That was good. Whatever he had, it wasn’t urgent enough to make him stay at a hospital. It was evident their teacher wasn’t going to spill more information until they cooperated. The students run upstairs to put away their bags and get into more casual, homey clothes. A few were tempted to knock on Izuku’s room but didn’t go through with it.
“Sit,” Shouta ordered. He sounded slightly frustrated. Or maybe they were paying too much attention to the little things.
They didn’t dare speak. He waited until everyone nervously showed up. A few sat on the floor.
“I need each of you to tell me what happened at the amusement park,” he ordered. Tenya hypothesized he was looking for anyone who might be withholding information. “In as much detail you can remember.”
A few students had confused looks on their faces. Tenya raised his hand as if he were still in class.
“Yes, Iida.”
“Pardon me, Sensei, but I must ask: does this have something to do with Midoriya’s illness?”
Shouta took a long second to answer. “We need to be aware if a Quirk has been used on him.”
Tenya heard his own breath hitch. Everyone was suddenly more alert. A few visibly shivered and rubbed at their arms.
“Tell me everything,” Shouta said. “Every detail. Doesn’t matter how useless it sounds.”
They had split up. Tenya remembered he’d gone with Izuku, Ochaco, Shoto, and Tsuyu. He told which rides they went on. Ochaco reminded them what they ate and from where. They had used a bathroom at the park.
“I still have the map,” Momo said with a hand politely raised. “Should I go get it?”
Shouta allowed it. She retrieved it, along with a marker. Tenya circled each spot they’d stopped at. Shouta scanned the map with his eyes, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
“Then… I believe the haunted house was last,” Tenya thought allowed.
Fumikage spoke up, “As much as I find the darkness aesthetically pleasing, I’d say that was an odd one.”
Shouta raised a brow in interest. “Explain.”
Mina remembered, too. “Oh, yeah, wasn’t that the one you said was closed before?”
“Not to mention their peculiar scare tactics,” Tenya added.
“I said in detail,” Shouta reminded them.
“They were really touchy-feely. It was so creepy.” Mina shivered at the memory.
Shouta’s brows shot up. The look on his face was one of shock that slowly morphed into silent anger. That made them worry. “What happened? I need you to tell me everything.”
Tenya started first. He tried his best to recall everything; the structure of the attraction, the employees outside and inside, the décor, the traps, how they lined up.
“Oh, yeah, you guys said you didn’t get the lion guy in there,” Mina remembered.
“What lion guy?” Denki asked, confused.
“We had this lion dude who pulled a water gun at Bakugo.”
“No, we had a different monster, kero,” Tsuyu said. She put a finger up to her cheek. “You know, I think it sprayed something at Midoriya, too. From the mask, not a water gun.”
Ochaco said, “It was so scary, it came at Deku from the wall.”
The revelation made everyone go silent.
Shouta’s eye twitched. His rage was slipping out. “They sprayed him? With what?”
“I thought it was just water…” Eijiro admitted nervously.
“Did…” Ochaco tried to remember. “Iida, did it grab Deku’s face?” She whispered.
Tenya went through his memory of the event. “I… I believe so? I think it merely touched him.”
That made Shouta’s eyes turn red and his hair lift up. “The employees were touching you?”
The way he worded it made everyone shrink.
Mina hesitated to lift her hand. Too late. Shouta saw that.
“Ashido,” their teacher called her out.
She squeaked. “They… uhh… I don’t know if they touched me in the shoulder or if it was an accident…”
Eijiro glanced at Katsuki and unconfidently raised a hand. “I… uhh… Bakugo, that guy really looked like he wanted to grab him…”
“That creep got in my face,” Katsuki growled.
The look on Shouta’s face made them shut up again. They’d done something wrong, Tenya suspected. That place had made him feel uneasy, but at the time, he had assumed it was how horror attractions worked.
Shouta folded his arms and sighed to calm himself. Tenya noticed how the man’s hand gripped his other arm. “Did the attraction ask for your ages?”
The kids exchanged looks. Most shook ‘no’ with their heads. Momo was brave enough to say, “No, Sensei.”
“No attraction like that will allow children in.” Shouta was angry. “Even if you had been adults, no person-to-person contact attraction will let anyone through without the adult participant signing a waiver of consent.”
The revelation sent chills up their spins like claws wracking down their backs. It took an adult to say it to them for them to realize just how bad that sounded. It was suddenly very uncomfortable.
“Is there something else I need to know?” Shouta’s eyes glowed even though there was no Quirk to Erase. “Can you describe the employees? Write it down for me. I want every detail.”
Each of them wrote a page or two in a school notebook. Tenya wrote down five pages in the hopes that any drop of detail could help his teacher handle what they had failed to report.
The teacher took the notebook and flipped through it. He sighed, calming down a tad bit. “Thank you for being honest. If anything like that happens again, I need to know. Or tell another teacher. Point is, tell someone. You were put in a position that tricked you into believing the situation was normal. I’ll be forwarding this information and have the attraction investigated.”
Tenya was sure the teacher would’ve gone himself if Izuku hadn’t needed him here.
“For now, no one leaves campus until we get this sorted,” Shouta continued with his instructions. “Midoriya won’t be attending classes this week. If anything happens, send a message. Iida, you’re responsible for taking notes for him. Yaoyorozu, help him if he has questions with class material. If you have any questions you do not feel comfortable discussing with me then go to Hound Dog. Dismissed.”
Tenya now knew what happened in that attraction hadn’t been legal, and he’d been right there in front of Izuku. He should’ve paid more attention; instead, he had allowed his friend to get targeted by what they had assumed to be an actor. When their teacher gave them permission to leave for their rooms, his fellow classmates sat in awkward silence and shared worried looks.
No matter how tempted he was to check up on Izuku, he opted to do so later and let his friend get some well-needed rest. The kids silently left one by one. Some headed for the stairs, and the ones who lived on the fourth floor went for the elevator. Tenya still had Izuku’s backpack. He’d give it to him at an appropriate time, so he shouldered it with him up the stairs to the third floor. However, as soon as he reached the floor, he stopped in his tracks with one foot still on the top step.
In the hall, Denki, Koji, and Mashirao were standing there with their backs facing Tenya. Judging by their stiff postures and Mashirao’s nervous tail swishes, they were uneasy.
Perplexed, Tenya asked, “Is something the matter?” He got his answer when a skittish Koji moved out of the way. “Midoriya?” Tenya couldn’t grasp what he was seeing.
It was strange, having Izuku on the third floor; even stranger when he looked to be ignoring everyone and facing the door to Denki’s room.
“Midoriya, you mustn’t be out of bed,” Tenya couldn’t help but scold; though, he was almost reluctant to step too close as his friend wasn’t being himself.
“He came outta my room,” Denki said in a whispered panic.
“What?” That… did not sound like their Izuku. “Midoriya? Is everything alright?” Tenya approached. His friend did not respond, continuing to stare at the wall with open eyes. “Did you need something?”
“We tried talking to him but…” Mashirao explained, “He won’t respond.”
This didn’t look normal at all.
Denki reached for the phone in his pocket. “I’m gonna call Aizawa-Sensei.” As soon as his phone lit up, delayed notifications popped over the screen. The noise was subtle to them, but it seemed to trigger something within their unresponsive friend. His head jerked in Denki’s direction, his eyes unblinking. Tenya finally noticed the spider web-thin green sparks zipping up Izuku’s torso. Had his Quirk been active the whole time?
The response had been so sudden it scared everyone from making a move. He heard that but not them. After a long five seconds, Izuku started moving, walking right past them as if they weren’t there, and headed for the stairs, never looking anywhere but forward.
“Call Aizawa-Sensei!” Tenya yelled and hurried after him. He worried what was happening to his friend. That did not look like a physical illness. After what their teacher had said, Tenya was more on edge, worried if his friend was going to hurt himself, or was already hurting. They reached the fourth floor and Tenya walked alongside Izuku.
“Midoriya, can you hear me?” he asked with a hand chop, attempting to see if his friend was aware of any of this. “If so, Aizawa-Sensei should be on his way.”
He attempted to place a comforting hand on Izuku’s shoulder and learned that was a mistake, for his best friend had halted in his tracks so abruptly, so violently, the movement of his super-powered calves was a blur, and the simple act of stopping sent a gust of wind that made Tenya stagger back and his glasses perform a jumped on the bridge of his nose. The stop had uttered a stomping sound that shook the whole floor. It was enough to disturb the fourth-floor residents and rouse them out of their bedrooms.
Katsuki’s door was the first to open. The alerted boy stuck his head out and stared suspiciously at Izuku who simply stood there as still as stone. Already calculating how abnormal the situation was, Katsuki never looked away. His muscles tightened in case force was needed.
Mezo and Eijiro came out a second later and, just like everyone else, froze upon seeing a Quirk-activated Izuku and the other classmates being unnaturally silent.
“Midoriya?” Eijiro risked it. His worry over his friend trumped over his instinct to not trigger anything. “You… You okay, buddy?”
Izuku didn’t react. His eyes were still open and soulless, glowing with electrical energy but not seeing anything.
Katsuki quickly gave Eijiro a short shush between clenched teeth, aware there had to be a reason why the rest were being quiet. The green sparks meant his Quirk was still activated, but he wasn’t (for lack of a better word) in his right mind. They knew what Izuku could do with his Quirk. To have him use it with a blank expression on his face was like having a half-sleep person with a grenade dangling by the pin from their pinky.
Urgent footsteps were coming up the stairs. The noise vibrated up the stairway.
Tenya had assumed his friend wasn’t responsive to sounds. He then realized that deduction was wrong. He’d reacted to Denki’s phone, and now, he flinched upon hearing the pounding footsteps. Just as Shouta reached the last step (with Tenya, unfortunately, blocking his view), in a fast blur, Izuku lifted a foot and stomped so hard the wooden floor cracked and the burst of air blew everyone back. Tenya accidentally backed into his teacher who managed to save them both from falling back down the stairs. That lucky second was brief, cut short by the rumble beneath their feet.
“The– fuck?” Katsuki was the first to voice out their confusion.
Izuku had kicked a hole through the floor. He’d gone straight through layers of flooring and pipe and dust and disappeared below. Tenya’s mind had momentarily stopped working and he only came to when Shouta ordered, “Someone get Midnight!” and jumped down the hole with bridges of his neck scarf in his hands.
Another explosion rattled the building, and this time, the dorm alarms went off. The robotic security system repeated, “Security breach! Please evacuate. Security breach! Please evacuate.”
It meant two things: that Izuku had broken through the building’s walls, and that an alert might’ve been sent to the nearby dorms where most of the teachers stayed. By now, most of the students had burst out of their room to investigate the commotion.
“What just happened?” Denki yelled out when he picked himself off the floor and dusted off powdered debris.
…
A few minutes earlier, after dismissing the kids and giving himself time to calm his temper, Shouta went to his office area and rubbed at his forehead. He was now more certain this whole mess was the doing of someone – some adult taking advantage of their working position at an amusement park where kids went to have fun, relax and not think about worries of day-to-day life, or in his kids’ case, the constant anxieties of Villains and taxing lessons and merciless training. Someone had struck – no, slithered behind them, like the coward they were – when his kids were out to play and just be kids.
He’d been ready to phone detective Naomasa Tsukauchi when he heard his name being called.
“Sensei!” Denki yelled in an almost panic. His voice was in the commons, looking around for Shouta and not yet realizing the man was in his office. Shouta opened the door just as Denki had been close to touching the door handle. The boy had made it to his office in a hurry. Oddly, the kid had his phone in one hand. It was like he was so panicked he forgot how to use a phone, or that he was even holding one.
“What happened?” Shouta speed-walked out, not wanting to waste time. It had to be Izuku.
“Midoriya’s sleepwalking!” Denki followed alongside his teacher, making weird hand gestures as he tried to make his teacher (who wasn’t looking at him) see what he had seen via vague hand reenactments. “Not ‘sleep-walking’ sleepwalking – it’s more like – like he’s brainwashed or something. He came out of my room! He didn’t even blink the whole time, Sensei. Not once! His Quirk was on, I think–”
That last part made Shouta pick up speed and sprint up the stairs. On the third floor, Koji redirected them farther up, where all hell broke loose.
He’d hoped Midnight’s perfume bottle would’ve at least gotten the boy a few more hours of sleep. “Midoriya!” Now, Shouta was chasing after his runaway student. Barefoot, the kid had broken out of the main building and had gone past the courtyard and straight into the mass of trees that surrounded the dormitory. It was a place mostly used as a training ground for those with nature-related Quirks; a place for someone like Koji to be himself with squirrels and chipmunks and birds and raccoon dogs and the occasional civet. Now, it was a maze Shouta needed to run through in vain. The boy had been using his strength Quirk when running like he was escaping a predator. It wasn’t his usual Gran Torino pinball style. It was more like a deer, going forward and only making a turn when he’d trip on a protruding root or shoulder a tree. He ran without looking up or turning his head to survey his surroundings.
He’d momentarily slow down when Shouta had him in sight, but there were too many trees that constantly blocked his view. The boy made a turn, disappeared behind dense shrubbery, and a blast of air made every leaf and strand of grass shiver. It caused Shouta’s eyes to dry up. Izuku had used his Quirk. Even when Shouta had resisted blinking, he’d missed the boy. That one second of lost visual contact had been enough to let him slip.
The absolute madness of the situation was unbelievable. He’d gone from taking the kid out of class before he hurt someone or himself, to waiting at the clinic, to discovering the possible root of the problem, to chasing after his ‘sick’ student and losing him in a forest.
Shouta would call himself an honest man. He slipped up. He made mistakes. It was a human trait, nothing to be done about it, even if he did try. He could say, with every fiber of his being, how utterly useless he’d felt today. He was suddenly very empathetic of young mothers with too many kids to round up, and parents who lost sight of their children in crowded places, or even the families who waited for news on their sick family members. If Hizashi could read minds, he’d never shut up around Shouta about his supposed ‘teddy-bear’ side. Right now, screw that and screw Shouta’s inability to keep the children safe.
He was too slow. He had ignored a warning sign. He had fucked up and he wasn’t planning to head back until he combed through every part of this forest. Five minutes of running and his adrenaline-induced mind reminded him he had a phone.
…
His vision went from black to bright in flashes. It reminded him of video edits of old black and white films the had square frames visibly shuffle while film tapes played. That was how he saw. That was what his vision played: a tape of a dream. Or a nightmare. The latter sounded more accurate. It was similar to this morning’s incident, but not quite the same. On the tape played to him by his mind, he could see either only a few inches in front of his face or only far away. Never together. Never what was between. It switched without him knowing. Or he just couldn’t remember. It was hard to remember dreams. Though, nightmares did leave traces. Maybe that was what he was seeing; traces of something.
He blinked to regain some control over his vision. The vague greens and browns didn’t make sense to his fogged-up eyes. A forest. Was he still seeing fragments of a film in his head? His body hurt; especially his back, knees, and the soles of his feet. Looking down at himself, he was perplexed to see himself in his bed shirt that said SHEETS and black shorts. More surprising were his bare feet, dusted with dirt and strands of grass and burning cuts sustained from sharp plants and natural rocks. Small insects, both dead and alive, sprinkled his feet.
A bird screamed up in the trees. His ears felt like they hadn’t heard anything in a long time. It was the hint he needed to suspect this was not a fragment. He was awake. At least, it was just a thought for now. He didn’t trust himself anymore. He was wrong so many times. What little his brain told him never made sense anymore.
His legs gave out, and he didn’t have any energy left in him to stand up. There was a rapid brushing of grass behind him. The man stood to catch his breath. Izuku’s neck hurt when he slowly turned his head.
“Aizawa-Sensei?” His voice felt like he’d been screaming. It was raw and dry.
The teacher’s panting evened after he found something worth relief in Izuku’s equally tired eyes. He reached over and dropped his hand over Izuku’s bushy head and kept it there.
“You gave me the runaround, kid,” Shouta said almost casually, taking deep breaths in between words.
“Sorry.” Izuku didn’t feel like putting this puzzle piece together anymore.
“Stop apologizing.”
Izuku bit back another ‘sorry’. Instead, he asked in a weak voice, “What did I do, Sensei? I can’t remember anything.” He heard another voice behind them. Turning his head more, he saw Tenya among the trees, keeping his distance but smiling and giving Izuku a wave with one hand while his other held a phone to his ear. Izuku gave a weak wave back, his hand only reaching his shoulder. Had he found him before the teacher had?
“You ran out,” Shouta said, his hand sliding off Izuku’s head. “Through the wall, I might add. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” he read the sorry look on Izuku’s face. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
He wasn’t sure. He looked down at his feet. Cuts were everywhere and splinters stuck out.
Shouta must’ve seen that, because he turned back and told Tenya, “Call off the search. Tell Mic to ready a car.”
“Yes, Sensei!” Tenya saluted.
“How… How’d you find me?” Izuku asked, still dazed.
Shouta crouched. “Jiro, Shoji, and Iida. Now, get on.”
Izuku blinked. Oh. His teacher was going to carry him. “It’s okay – I can walk, Sensei.” He tried to get up and cringed at the pain in his knees and hips.
“You’re not walking on those legs. Get on.”
He shamefully did accept the piggyback ride through the forest. His body was slowly waking up, and with reality came the aching pains sweeping through his body in waves. He wanted to sleep. Had he slept at all? What would happen if he slept now? Shouta had said he’d broken through the wall. He’d used his Quirk – that was the only conclusion. He’d used One for All without knowing. He could’ve hurt someone. He could’ve done worse than hurt someone.
Ten minutes of silent walking, then Shouta said, “Someone at the park had thrown a Quirk on you.”
“…What?”
“The last attraction you and your classmates went through,” The man explained, jostling him on his back. “They explained what happened. That attraction violated safety codes. They either failed to perform necessary rules, or they knowingly broke the law. I plan to have it investigated.”
“Oh.” That was a lot to take in, and with his mind still half-sleep, he gave up trying to bundle it up into an understandable formation. “Sensei.”
Shouta grunted in response.
“I’m scared to sleep, Sensei,” he mumbled. “I’m tired, but bad things happen when I sleep.”
Shouta sighed after a long minute of thinking. “There’s a place you can sleep. I’m asking you to stay awake until we get you there. I’ll handle the rest.”
To Izuku’s slow mind, it made as much sense as a worm finding an apple. The whole tree was a giant blur. The apple was the only thing that mattered. “Okay.”
Turned out, All Might, Mic, Midnight, and the students had all ventured out into the forest in slippers. Their voices were background noise at this point - something about Recovery Girl and him passing out. He let them strap him to the backseat of a car. He wanted to sleep. The rumble of the car was almost peaceful, like a mother soothing a baby. Every time his head touched the car’s window he jolted himself awake and reminded himself his teacher wanted him to stay awake. Every second was a minute, and every minute was an hour.
…
They took him out of campus, stopped at a red light. With Nemuri in the steering wheel, Shouta made the call he should’ve made earlier. Much earlier.
“The Hero amusement park, you said?” Over the phone, the detective said with polite interest, “If any of your students can give me their personal accounts, I can ask to have the place looked into.”
“You’ll have to talk with Mic,” Shouta said. “He should be with them.” He saw the hospital approaching as the car made a right turn.
“Alright. I’ll see what I can do. Take care of the kid.”
He planned to. In the seats behind them, Yagi looked over the boy with pity, telling him they were almost there. The groggy kid asked where “there” was.
“Hospital,” Shouta said.
“Why?” Izuku sounded like he wasn’t aware he’d asked a question. “Not that bad…”
“It’s not just for your injuries. Quirk rehabilitation. Their buildings are designed to handle strength and elemental Quirks,” Shouta calmly explained and hoped the kid wouldn’t try to overthink and understand everything wrong. “Their rooms are Quirk-proof to most Quirks, in other words. Sheets and windows and all. I booked a room for you. Sleep there if you want. We’ll be nearby if anything happens. The place is mostly meant for kids who can’t control their Quirks, so I hope you won’t mind the room designs.”
Turned out, he didn’t need to worry about that. It was an All Might room. An All Might themed room that would’ve been shamed by Izuku’s All Might shrine of a room. Yagi himself pretended he didn’t find it almost amusing, turning away and brushing a hand down the bottom half of his face to his mouth. Shouta, while slightly irritated the man seemed to have his face on the bed the blanket, figured it was for the best. Maybe the room would seem more inviting to the boy that way.
The person responsible for supervising this room showed Shouta, Yagi, and Izuku what was behind one of the walls. It looked like a studio with one big window that looked into the room and two display screens on the control panels. In the bedroom, Nemuri had her back to them.
“It’s one-way glass,” the supervising woman said, most likely to Izuku. “It’s very durable. Mostly used by counselors or parents to talk to the kids from here.” She knocked on the glass with her knuckles, and Nemuri turned and looked at them as if they weren’t there. Well, to her, they weren’t there. “It’s still a hospital, so if anything happens, the doctor and supervisor will handle it.”
In a chair with his feet being treated by a nurse, Izuku mentally struggled when he asked, “How long am I staying here?”
Yagi sugar-coated it. “Not too long. I’m sure your friends and the detective will handle things. Go sleep, my boy. You’re tired.”
Izuku was too sleep-starved to think over everything said to him. “Yeah… Okay…” With his feet bandaged up, he obediently went to the bed in the corner. All Might said something about his friends and a detective. He hoped they figured this out so he could sleep. He was sorry he couldn’t help. He was behind in his studies, now. Oh. Right. Shouta said he wasn’t going to school this week. What else had he said? He couldn’t remember. Something about sleeping. Okay.
…
Shouta encouraged the other teachers to go back. He’d watch the kid. “Call me if you need a ride,” Nemuri told him. Yagi was harder to persuade.
“I remind you you have classes, too.” Shouta hoped his strict tone would be enough to let the other man know he had it up to his neck with everything.
Yagi wanted to say something but didn’t. He looked away sadly with his droopy, blackened eyes. “I… Alright. Take care of him for me, Eraser.”
As if Shouta wasn’t trying his darnedest. After the rest left, it was just him and a supervising nurse near the control panel in front of the one-way glass. Shouta adjusted himself in his plastic seat more times than he could remember. He wished he’d brought a book or his laptop. Logically, he hadn’t had the time to grab anything nor think about his own future discomfort until things had calmed down. He threw his head back over the top of the chair’s backrest. He stared up at the blurry ceiling and slowly closed his eyes.
The nurse woke him up and told him he could go home. They had it covered. He declined the generous offer. They hadn’t seen what Izuku was capable of. They were used to toddlers with no Quirk Training. Izuku was much bigger, much older, much stronger than their usual kids. He’d been told the walls and one window and the one-way glass were all unbreakable. His kid had broken through thick layers of concrete, so he couldn’t get himself to believe he wouldn’t be able to break out in his sleep until he saw it with his own eyes.
The kid’s powers were in degrees, he’d noticed. It either came out in full force, breaking the limb he’d used and wracking everything and himself with air pressure, or it was spread throughout his body, also in degrees. When ‘sleepwalking,’ he seemed to use the latter technique in a weaker manner. He could’ve been more destructive, but he wasn’t. He could’ve run faster, but he hadn't.
Then came the question: what was the perpetrator’s quirk? Sleepwalking? A type of brainwashing? The anger from hours before returned to him. If what his kids told him matched up with his hypothesis, then it was possible an employee – an adult dressed as a child entertainer – had done this. They had yet to gain anything from inflicting harm on the boy; though, Shouta wouldn’t know. Two possible theories came to mind. One: that the perpetrator had recognized the kid(s) as UA students and, perhaps, wanted to cause a commotion, see their work on television on a headline that reads ‘UA student goes berserk’ and watch with fake innocence, or two: they planned the unthinkable to the boy. Villains came in all sorts: robbers, beaters, child abusers, rapists, murderers – the ones not often broadcasted because not many wanted to hear about that. People wanted to see cool fights, not feel bad. As an underground Hero, Shouta dealt with what people did not want to see.
And he did not want to see Izuku end up in a horrible way.
Two hours in, and he heard the nurse’s rolling chair scrape the tiles. He opened his eyes and moved his neck too fast for comfort. Behind the glass, the faint green sparks were visible through the dimmed light of the bedroom. Still in bed, Izuku had yet to move until now. He turned in his sleep once, and his eyes opened. It was like an animatronic blinking. It did not look natural.
Shouta debated if he should Erase the kid’s Quirk, or watch and find out just what the boy did when no one was around to disrupt whatever this process was. Izuku got out of bed and dangle his bandaged feet off the corner. He sat like that for a full four minutes, his eyes never blinking. Shouta began to wonder if the boy ever blinked in this state. If not, it would explain the reddened eyes and dark eye crescents.
Izuku finally got out of bed. The nurse pressed a buzzer on the control panel. Nothing happened. It was for other nurses or the doctor, probably. The boy walked to the center and stopped. A minute later, he began walking again, stopping just before he could bump into the one-way glass. For a moment, Shouta thought the boy could actually see. His eyes were wide open, but they were soulless. Izuku turned away and repeated the behavior elsewhere in the room. It was unnerving, seeing him walk around like a blind animal.
The nurse wrote something down.
A thought occurred to Shouta. Was the kid surveying the room? Mapping it out in his mind? The short-distant traveling pattern reminded him of Nemuri’s Roomba vacuum. Izuku reached the door and tried the handle. Shouta and the nurse abruptly stood up when the door clicked open.
“It’s not locked?” To think he’d been so close to sleeping in his chair when the door was open the whole time.
“We don’t lock the kids in, sir,” the nurse said. They went over to Izuku and placed hands on his shoulder, turning him around. “Alright, buddy. In you go.”
And, to Shouta’s surprise, sleepwalking Izuku obeyed; though it wasn’t clear if he’d even heard the order. The nurse closed the door behind him. The doctor came in.
“Something happen?” she asked, not distressed at all.
“He’s up and walking,” said the nurse. “Walked right out. I got him to walk back in. Doesn’t seem conscious.”
Izuku walked until he stopped inches away from the wall, facing away from them.
The doctor looked at the papers on the control panel (confirming her patient’s name) then pressed a button. “Midoriya, can you hear me?”
He didn’t react.
“Can you talk to me, Midoriya?”
Nothing.
The doctor pointed at the paper in front of the nurse and the nurse wrote something down. An hour in, the boy continued his sleep-walking. Two hours, he sat on the bed, but then went back to walking, later trying the door again, and again being guided back in. Shouta answered the doctor’s questions; questions she already knew the answers to. He answered anyway; things about the boy’s Quirk, his age, his parents’ Quirks, and so on. She showed interest in Izuku’s past Quirk injuries and theorized the boy, his family, and his teachers didn’t know the full potential of his Quirk. She said that it was probably more than ‘super power’ and that it was common to update Quirk information after the individual explored with their Quirk more.
Three and a half hours, and the boy went back to bed, this time slowly climbing over the mattress and covering himself with the blanket. The green sparks died down.
Shouta sighed and got up. It was his turn to walk in circles and stretch his legs. It had been so abnormally quiet the past few hours, so when his phone rang it truly scared him for a second. Even the nurse had turned around in fright.
Detective Tsukauchi – the ID read.
He hoped for some answers. One would be good enough, even.
“Ah, Eraserhead. This a bad time?” the detective’s distant voice came from the tiny device.
“No. What did you find?” Shouta talked while standing.
“I’m at the park with a few Pros. I have some news you might want to hear.” He’d needed Pros. Something had happened. “It’s a good thing the kids told me. One of the employees at the attraction has a criminal record for a history of illegal public Quirk activation. He has his Quirk listed as Dissociative Hypnosis on his ID, but he also listed it as Skull Head on his resume.” Quirks got updated, but going from Dissociative Hypnosis to Skull Head was a big leap. They did not sound similar at all, and frankly not close enough to be mistaken for one another. “He’s being vague with his Quirk description. Mutation Quirks don’t fall under the public Quirk activations laws he’s been accused of. I’ll be looking through his previous crimes. If you have enough footage the hospital can send, I can have a look at it and do a comparison and I’ll see if I can get a Quirk expert to judge if these cases are linked.”
The Quirk listed on the perpetrator’s ID sounded more likely to be the actual one by title alone. Shouta was now even more sure than ever. This was the perpetrator. “I’ll ask the hospital for the footage.”
The nurse had heard him and gave him a nod.
It wasn’t long before the door flew open and the boy’s chubby mother stumbled in all teary-eyed. “Where is he?” she sobbed, looking around, her hyper-awareness ironically blinding her to the fact that there was a glass wall right there. “Where’s my – Izuku!” Ah. There it was. Recognition. She slapped a hand over her heart.
Shouta wasn’t sure how much Nezu had told her. The detective’s findings were too early to have reached the mouse. He’d have to tell the mother himself.
…
Izuku woke up, actually woke up, when it was dark blue outside. There was no clock in here so it was hard to tell the time. It took him a few blinks to recognize the room. It felt like remembering a dream. Patchy. Blurry. Unclear. Wispy, like in clouds.
Someone came in wearing slapping slippers. The person hugged him so tightly he almost forgot to breathe. He knew this hug. “Mom.” He hugged her back and his arms felt boneless.
“Oh, sweetie…” She brushed his hair back and ran her hand down his back. “The police are looking for who did this. Did you get to eat anything, baby?”
His stomach growled at the thought of food. “I don’t think so…” He was still drowsy. It was hopeless. No matter how many tries and in what ways he tried them, nothing got him to sleep.
“It’s okay,” she said, “I’ll ask them if they can bring you something.”
A buzz sounded from the ceiling. The voice that spoke sounded distant, “That can be arranged. We’ve mostly got kid’s meals if that’ll work with you. Small quantities so you’re free to order more, free of charge.”
He was fine with anything. He didn’t feel like going through the options. A nurse he hadn’t seen before rolled in a trolley – the tray rattling and wheels squeaking. The tray looked like the one he’d seen in a prison movie; divided with differently shipped dips in the stainless steel that was yellow-colored to make it look more appealing to the eyes of youngsters. He wasn’t going to complain. Food was food. Small portions, yes, but still food. They even gave him a chocolate bar on the side.
His mother gave him a kiss on the cheek and hugged him again. This felt nice. Maybe not being in his dorm room was a good thing. It made him forget he had classes to get to and lessons to catch up on and friends to explain himself to.
Unfortunately, his nightmare wasn’t over. He was still very, very tired. Not ‘I just pulled an all-nighter for a test’ tired, but ‘I just woke up from a surgery after a Villain fight that obliterated my arms’ tired. He could hardly hold his head up. Heck, his hands weren’t even grasping things right and his mother had to feed him - as if all this didn’t make him feel de-aged enough.
“I’ll be right outside that door, okay, Izuku?” his mother told him kindly while she tugged the blanket up to his shoulders so he could give in to useless sleep that left him not quite asleep, not quite awake.
“Hmm,” was all he could manage. His mother kissed him on the forehead.
Before the darkness swallowed him, or maybe just as it was doing so, there was a brief flash of something: a picture, or a vision, of an animal skull with hollow eye sockets and long spidery fingers reaching for him, reaching to pull him deeper into its mind web.
…
Shouta finally got to talk with the mother over a cup of tea. Now that the real issue began to unravel itself, to think he’d assumed Inko as a candidate for the boy’s out of character behavior was somewhat a tad bit embarrassing on his part. Just a tad bit. She was nice enough as far as he could tell. A massive worrywart with jittery anxiety she’d passed on to her son. But so far, there was nothing to support his ‘bad parent that resulted in child trauma’ theory. He could put that away for now and focus on the actual problem – one he couldn’t do much about until he got more information from the detective.
For a while, the boy slept. Actually slept. No zombie-like activities. No waking up without actually waking up. Shouta hadn’t considered what the deactivation method for that Quirk might be. He’d hoped it was a time limit that just needed to run its course. Nothing permanent or difficult to reverse. Most Quirks turned off through the source, such as Ochaco’s Zero-Gravity. Let it be a time limit, he hoped, because goddamn if he was this tired then he couldn’t imagine how tired the boy was from all of this.
“You can use the parents’ rest beds,” the doctor told them when she stopped by to check on Izuku’s progress. “It’s just behind you. I can have someone clean it if you need. Most parents just drop their kids and go so those don’t get used often. We’ll wake you up if something happens. A nurse will take the night shift.”
Shouta wasn’t sure if she thought he and Inko were in a relationship, but he didn’t want to bring it up and make a fool of himself if he were wrong or create an awkward atmosphere if he were right.
The room looked like a plain hotel room, thankfully with two beds. If there had been just one he would’ve slept on the floor. He was used to the floor. It wouldn’t matter much. But if Inko was anything like her son, then he would expect guilt pouring out of her.
“Mr. Eraserhead?” she called meekly as he dropped himself over the bed and the covers.
He hummed in response, his arm lazily dropped over his eyes to shield them and his headache from the lights.
“Thank you,” she said, “For keeping my Izuku safe.”
“I don’t know how much they told you or what. I hardly did anything.”
“He told me about you,” she continued, her voice gentle, like she was a dream talking to him, “He was so excited you were his teacher when he talked about school. I admit I was a little worried he’d get disappointed if the teacher he liked didn’t turn out to be a good teacher. But I’m so relieved, now. The teachers told me how it happened at school. He could’ve really hurt himself.” She was talking about the incident that had happened during the lesson Shouta had let happen.
Something in her wording struck him the wrong way. It wasn’t about a student being disappointed in him. No – Shouta was used to that, if his record of pupil expulsions wasn’t enough to go by. It was the why. He came to the closest conclusion, “He’s had bad teachers before?” he asked with the arm still over his now-open eyes.
Inko turned off half of the lights, turned all off, then turned a few on again, testing out which switch controlled which light. “Oh, he’s had a bad time in middle school… My poor baby got picked on a lot in front of the teachers and they didn’t say anything. They didn’t even try to stop it. The kids told him mean things... I only found out about it after he went to UA and started talking about how much he liked his new teachers.”
Shouta could suddenly think again. The kid’s unwillingness to come to him - to ask for assistance, to call for his teacher - made sense, now. He’d been a fool to assume any kid would be trusting of adults and not have a bad experience with them. It all made sense. No matter. He’d deal with that obstacle through new lenses when the time came.
…
The thuds woke them up before the nurses could. Shouta snapped his eyes open. He heard it; the buzz of electricity running over muscles. He threw himself out of bed and tripped as his legs got entangled in the covers. The thuds – they sounded like a body slamming into every wall – continued until the last one turned into a glassy crash. By the time he’d made it to the supervision room on sock-covered feet, he was too late.
The supposedly unbreakable window that looked out into the city was now flexible pieces of white-cracked glass. There was a massive hole in the middle – a hole with jagged edges like shark teeth. The floor underneath the broken window was litter with shiny glass. The doctor was stepping over them to peek out the hole. The glass on the floor crunched under her hospital white shoes. The rest of the room was a mess; the bed’s blanket was on the floor, there were indents in the matters, and the walls had blood-dusted footprints. The glass between Izuku’s bedroom and the supervision room was cracked and the center of the spider web break was slightly bent inward.
Izuku had escaped.
‘Unbreakable-window’ my ass.
“Damn it!” Shouta ran in with half of his scarf trailing behind him. Shoes on, he broke the rest of the glass with his elbow, perched on the windowsill, and searched with his weaker-than-usual eyes. Aside from the dots of lights from passing cars and street lamps and the few still-awake office buildings, it was black outside. Past 2 AM, to be more accurate. “Damn it, kid!” He jumped out, briefly hearing the mother sob for her boy behind him.
He performed what Hizashi would call ‘the Spiderman,’ swinging from streetlamps by his scarf and throwing himself into the roof of a building. The boy was usually easy to spot, especially at night thanks to the green sparks. But Shouta had a problem: he was too used to how Izuku thought. This Izuku did not think like Izuku. His Izuku would use medium-sized buildings to get around. This Izuku didn’t. If he could just see him…
“Midoriya!” He called out uselessly. Shouta kept running from rooftop to rooftop, his fingers now pressing numbers on his phone. Location sent and voice message recorded, he kept running with one hand holding his scarf and the other holding the phone in case back-up needed more directions.
It started raining. As if all this wasn’t enough, now it was hard to keep his eyes from blinking. It was a full fifteen minutes of searching. Most alleys and unlit buildings were surrounded by pitch-black shadows. He might as well try Erasing while blindfolded.
His phone rang. He had expected one of the teachers. He had sent the message in the Teacher’s Group, had he not? He had not, he found out. The caller was a student.
“Sensei?” a distressed Momo called on the other end.
“Yaoyorozu, forward what I sent to the teachers.” If she hadn’t already.
“We did, but Sensei, we found Midoriya!”
Shouta almost tripped when landing on a rooftop. He skidded to a halt. “What?” Two more numbers tried calling him. His other students were trying to reach him. “Where?”
“Iida, Shoji, Todoroki, Bakugo, and Midnight are following him.” She sent him a location pin. The kid had gone back, closer to the school.
“No one get close to him. Know where he is but keep your distance.” He’d scold them for going out to find their friend later. If Midnight was there, it meant so were the other teachers. And if the other teachers were there, it meant the kids were given permission to head out.
He changed direction, trying not to slip over rain puddles. He knew he reached the location when he spotted a few of his students out in the open rain – Ochaco, Mina, Yuga, Denki, Rikido, Koji, Toru and Kyoka – in just flimsy raincoats hastily put on and in their regular outdoor shoes. They were all huddled by the entrance of an alley and Kyoka had her earjack out and wriggling. Not all of them were here. It only meant they had joined the chasing party, which put them at risk. Izuku wasn’t exactly Izuku at the moment.
The other teacher around was Yagi in a raincoat that made him look like a skeleton wearing a parachute.
“Sensei!” the kids all yelled in unison. Most of them were panting.
“Where is he?” Shouta asked. He got his answer in the form of an explosion beyond the maze of the alleyway.
“They’re after him right now,” Yagi told him anxiously, “Native offered to help. He was in the area.”
Great. More Pro Heroes just to catch this one kid. Wasting no time, Shouta ran into the maze. On the way, he found scattered bits of metal rings on the floor, along with a mesh sheet. A net, possibly made by Momo. She’d tried to net her classmate and he’d simply broken out of it. There were also bits of ripped-up tape. Hanta’s. A few turns ahead, he found Momo and Mashirao kneeling next to a dazed Midnight. She was bleeding from the nose.
“Aizawa-Sensei!” Momo exclaimed with relief.
Midnight waved him off. “I’m fine. Tried to get him to sleep and he ran right through my Quirk and into me. He didn’t have time to breathe it in. Kid’s got a thick skull.” She touched her sore forehead and grimaced.
Shouta would’ve found the ‘thick skull’ comment humorous if it wasn’t for the stressful situation.
He climbed up to reach the rooftop and see well. Another explosion that lit an orange glow between two buildings. He followed it. A person was perched on a corner of one of the buildings. It was Native holding what appeared to be a wooden blowgun.
Native heard him and glanced back for just a second. “That your boy?” He gestured down below where Katsuki and, Shoto, and Tenya were trying to stop a runaway Izuku. He’d run right through Shoto’s ice, creating a human-sized hole where he’d crashed through. Shouta was sure he felt a miniature heart attack when he saw Katsuki get up close to Izuku to try and knock him out. Izuku didn’t react to the punch in his gut. He picked himself up so fast he created a wind blast just by standing up. Was it even possible to knock out an already unconscious person?
Shouta Erased Izuku’s Quirk. Now, the kid was running in a more believable speed and Shouta didn’t have to worry about the kid throwing his own punch if he wanted to. He just hoped he wouldn’t turn and disappear into an even darker alleyway. “He’s not himself,” Shouta said, watching Hanta shoot a line of tape that wrapped around Izuku from shoulders to knees and he toppled over, shivering like he was being electrocuted when he wasn’t.
“Don’t hurt him, he’s under a Quirk.” Shouta was ready to go down there. He resisted blinking whenever raindrops poked around his eyes.
“Do I have permission to dart him?” Native asked, lifting his blowgun for emphasis. “Sleeping dart. A smaller dosage for his small body.”
If Midnight’s Quirk had worked, then so should the dart. At least, that was what he was hoping for. “Yes.”
And the man did. It pained Shouta to watch the dart stab the boy’s thigh even if Izuku didn’t react to it at all. It had punctured through the tape. Shouta lowered himself using his scarf. The kids – still panting and looking like they had all woken up from a sweaty-bad dream – gathered around.
“Took you long enough!” Katsuki shouted at Native.
“I’d rather your teachers don’t accuse me of attacking a child,” Native shouted back from the rooftop.
The kid tried to get up in a way a robot would; with jittery movements and never looking up at them or down where all the tape was. He slowed and went lax on the floor. Shouta got to him just as those eyes began to close.
The kids moved closer.
“Will he be alright, Sensei?” Tenya asked.
“He will,” Shouta said, picking the boy up. He wasn’t going to leave him on the cold, wet alley floor any longer.
…
Dissociative Hypnosis – that was the Villain’s Quirk title. The man had an animal skull for a head. It wasn’t a mask, which was one of the reasons why he was quickly hired at the amusement park. He’d been arrested before for using it on people he had been familiar with, which was why he’d been caught so quickly at the time. The Quirk was described as strings on a puppet. With him, instead of strings, he had saliva that needed to inter through the eyes or mouth. Izuku had been sprayed in the face. He could only give vague orders when the victims were asleep. The man’s previous victims had suffered extreme fatigue, short-term amnesia, insomnia, dissociation, and had led one person to almost rob her upstairs neighbor. He’d also hypnotized a number of the employees.
During interrogation, he’d admitted he had recognized Izuku. He’d seen him on television. The man wasn’t doing well financially, but he said messing with the kid had been for fun and nothing more. He said, “That school’s get drama after drama coming after it. Kind of a joke by now. Would one more really matter?” It did. Not only had he landed himself on the police force's Villain’s List, but the knowledge that he’d attacked a minor made him open for further investigation. After hearing that, he panicked. “It wears off after a week or something, but I won’t mess with them no more – I promise! I won’t be telling them things – they should be fine!”
Naomasa was glad the Quirk specialist had confirmed the footage of the boy in the hospital had been a match. They had evidence from one victim out of many. Many who were going to be angry it had been a friend and coworker this whole time.
Naomasa wasn’t buying the Villain’s reasoning, but most low-level Villains had pity motives. For now, they had approval from the Quirk specialist to strap a pair of Quirk-cancelling cuffs on the man. Better to stop it sooner than wait a week.
…
The kids laughed in the common area. Shouta stopped looking at his computer screen and flexed his shoulders. He’d have to tell them to head to bed in an hour. With his hair tied back and his neck exposed to air, he lazily walked out of his office and found the kids on the couches and all over the floor with a wave of blankets everywhere. It was a movie night. All the lights were off. The coffee table had been moved aside so the kids could be on the floor to face the television screen. Denki was so close to the screen Shouta was tempted to tell him to scoot back for the sake of his eyes.
On one of the couches, Izuku shared a blanket with Tenya and Ochaco. He was in the middle. Their knees lifted the blanker like a tent. His eyes looked healthier, more alert. He had the energy to laugh.
“Sensei, come watch, too!” Mina invited.
“Bedtime in an hour,” he reminded, instead. He walked closer to have a look at what they were watching. Some sort of Indiana Jones type of film. He expected unrealistic scenarios and ridiculous survival moments. He sat next to Tenya and hoped no one would make a big deal about him joining in. He wasn’t here for the movie.
He caught Izuku leaning to the side to peek at him past Tenya.
“You sleeping alright, kid?” Shouta asked.
Izuku smiled. “Yes, Sensei.”
“You’re still not going to class until next week.”
“I know…” The boy accepted his fate reluctantly.
“Talk to me if anything happens.”
“I will.”
Shouta raised a brow at him.
Izuku quickly added, “I promise, Sensei. Real promise this time.”
Ah. He was self-aware. Good. Shouta would be ready for when the kid felt comfortable enough to talk to him; not as student-to-teacher, but as child-to-adult. Izuku had formed a protective shell around himself, one that materialized around teachers specifically. He couldn’t blame him. Hopefully, his sessions with Hound Dog would do him some good. During the past two days after the City Run incident, Hizashi and Nemuri stopped by to ‘hand out’ with Shouta when really they came to check on the boy who wasn’t allowed to go to class just yet. At least Yagi was honest when visiting the boy.
The students still roped Izuku into social games. They tried to think up things to do in the common area so Izuku wouldn’t be left out.
Other times, if Shouta was too close, they’d try to drag him into it. He refused all of them.
Movie night didn’t count.
END