Chapter Text
“Dinner’s here!” Hizashi, still donning his highly recognizable hero gear, bellowed upon heavily tipping the delivery man and shutting the door in his face as politely as possible to end the man’s impending bout of gushing over delivering food to a pro hero. Heroes had to eat, too, and quiet dinners at home were not meant for a gushing fanboy or a possible paparazzo. Paparazzi were the worst, and Hizashi had somehow kept his place of residence hidden from the media throughout all his years as a hero. He wanted to keep it that way—for both Shōta and himself.
A deep frown marred his features when Shōta did not respond to his shout, and Hizashi set the pizza box on the kitchen counter with a bit more force than was intended. Frustration burned his insides, creeping up from his gut to his throat like stomach acid. His aggravation was not with Shōta directly so much as with his own helplessness when Shōta fell into one of these moods. He, of course, understood what had triggered this one; after he had caught wind of the students’ worried conversations, he had badgered Kan until the man had spilled all of the details of the joint training session between 1-A and 1-B.
“Shōta,” Hizashi called in a sing-song tone, sighing when there was no response from their bedroom. Shōta had gone in there to lie to down the second they had set foot into the apartment, and knowing that his friend needed some space, Hizashi had left Shōta to his own devices for several hours.
But now, it was time to eat, and Hizashi was nothing if not stubborn when it came to caring for Shōta. After all, the man was terrible at maintaining his health when left to his own devices.
“Shōta,” Hizashi huffed, stepping into the dark bedroom and homing in on the large lump under the blankets. He reached out and tugged the top of the blanket down to around Shōta’s shoulders, exposing his ever-impressive case of bedhead. Two bloodshot eyes blinked up at him, bleary with upset and fatigue, and Hizashi brushed back Shōta’s mop of hair in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “Hey, it’s time to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Shōta’s response was quick and sharp, and Hizashi felt his lips purse in agitation. Tonight, it seemed he would be dealing with a petulant Shōta Aizawa. It was nothing he had not dealt with before, but doing so rarely resulted in smiles on both of their faces.
It was time to appeal to the cold, logical side of his friend.
“Shōta, you need to eat something to regain your stamina. You’ve got several more of those healing sessions coming up soon.”
“I don’t—”
Hizashi clucked his tongue against the back of his front teeth, eyes narrowing as he forcibly tugged the blanket down to Shōta’s waist. Seriously, the man was just as bad at times as the students they taught, given how he pouted when frustrated or upset. Most people liked to imagine Shōta was an immovable rock when it came to his steady emotions, but anyone who was close to him could vouch for the fact that he was one of the most emotional people they knew; he was simply awful at outwardly expressing himself.
He was also terrible at using his words to convey his thoughts.
“Shōta. Eat dinner while you brood,” Hizashi commanded, voice as tight as the sad smile on his lips. “We can talk about whatever’s bothering you after you’ve stabilized your blood sugar. I can see you shaking.”
That did it.
The power of logic was something Hizashi had come to appreciate when dealing with Shōta Aizawa.
Hizashi felt a small burst of pride as Shōta sat up with a groan, his arm that was bracing his form trembling with exhaustion. Seeing Shōta shake and shiver made Hizashi realize just how much strength his dear friend held in his heart, mind, and body; Hizashi had never seen anyone with severe injuries or afflictions cope with Recovery Girl’s healing as well as Shōta. Shōta may have thought himself weak as he struggled to recover, but Hizashi respected that Shōta was willing to push himself to his limits even while he was upset and hurting. There were several pro heroes who would have retired after all that Shōta had been through in the last year.
To be honest, Hizashi thought Shōta embodied UA’s “Plus Ultra” culture far more than any other hero Hizashi knew, including All Might with all of his grandstanding.
“You’re annoying,” Shōta grumped breathily.
Hizashi just smiled, knowing those words rang hollow and had since their teenage years. There was no bite behind them, and Shōta was quick to grasp his hand to be helped to his feet.
“Want me to carry you to the couch?” Hizashi teased with a large grin, imagining himself hefting Shōta into his arms bridal-style.
“Hell no.”
There was laughter in Shōta’s adamant protest, so Hizashi considered that a victory, as well.
Dinner was a quiet affair. They sat on the couch and ate straight from the pizza box which, along with two glasses of water, Hizashi had retrieved from the kitchen. Thighs pressed together, they settled down to watch the evening news. Shōta fell asleep mid-bite several times, and although Hizashi was amused by his friend—boyfriend now, he supposed—and slightly tempted to take a picture with his phone to relive the moment at a later date, he refrained and merely nudged Shōta’s shoulder to wake him up again.
It was cute, watching Shōta startle into awareness. His eyelashes would flutter along the swath of immutable bruising beneath his eyes. Then his nose would wrinkle. His hand would lower to rest against his thigh, pizza still firmly held in his grasp, as he blinked himself into consciousness once again.
Sometimes, if Hizashi was lucky, Shōta would grumble a bit and lean against his shoulder before finally prying open his eyes. This was one of those times, and all Hizashi could do was beam brightly, cheeks alight with a pleased blush at the clear sign of Shōta’s trust.
“ Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Keep eating. You haven’t even finished two slices yet,” Hizashi laughed softly, leaning back against the couch. Shōta followed his movement, bringing his half-eaten slice of pizza to his mouth again as he settled against Hizashi’s side, drawing his legs up onto the ouch. “Are you gonna be up for teaching classes tomorrow, or should I call you in sick?”
A small noise of distress escaped Shōta, and he leaned forward to set his slice of pizza back in the cardboard box.
“I’ll be fine,” Shōta sighed, reaching up to rub at his face.
Hizashi could only imagine what he was thinking about, but he was certain he could assume it involved his students mimicking Shōta’s strikes from when he was delirious and out-of-his-mind from the fever brought about by his poisoning.
“It just wasn’t a good day. I’ll get over it,” Shōta said, ducking his head to hide his eyes behind his bangs.
“I know,” Hizashi stated simply, reaching behind Shōta’s head to carefully—oh-so-carefully—stroke his hair. Shōta began to relax with the soothing contact, clearly not associating it with a hand grasping the back of his head this time—thank goodness for small miracles. If anything, Shōta leaned into the touch, dropping his hands from his face to stare down at the pizza box on the table as he heaved another sigh.
“But—it’s okay to be upset, Shōta,” Hizashi whispered, moving to cup Shōta’s face with both hands. He firmly held Shōta’s head in place so that Shōta was forced to meet his serious green gaze. “It’s understandable. It’s logical to be upset about what happened . One of your students mimicked you from one of the worst times of your life.”
Shōta’s mouth twitched downward, distress etching its way across his brow at the reminder. He clenched his jaw and pressed his lips firmly together to keep them from trembling.
That was good. That meant Shōta felt safe enough in the comfort of Hizashi’s apartment— their apartment—to feel like he could safely break down and cry. Hizashi never wanted to see that happen, of course, but there were times when a person just needed to let go of their worries. Shōta needed some sort of catharsis right now.
“It’s okay,” Hizashi repeated, voice a rough whisper as he pressed a kiss to Shōta’s forehead. “But I don’t want you to dwell on it. There’s nothing you could have done differently, nothing that would have changed how that played out. You were protecting your kids, Shōta. They mimic you because they view you as strong.”
“They’re not—”
“Yes, they are,” Hizashi cut him off with a light, bright laugh and a fond smile. “We all know you’re a proud and exasperated dad to twenty-plus kids. Nemuri and Kan have commented on it, and Snipe, Ectoplasm, and Thirteen have noticed, too. You’ve never been this attached to a class in your life. Your students are your children, Shōta, even if not by blood, and I think that’s probably why this has upset you so much.”
Shōta did not want his children to view him as weak.
Hizashi highly doubted that would ever happen, and he wished that Shōta’s self-esteem was of a higher caliber. If the students saw Shōta Aizawa, the relentless pro hero, Eraserhead, as weak, then no other pro stood a chance when it came to being admired by the youngsters. The man he loved was easily blemished, but in the end, he was unbreakable.
“We’re all proud of you, you know.”
Simple affirmations were sometimes the best when it came to Shōta. Such appeared to be the case now with how a ghost of a smile crossed Shōta’s lips before he gently tugged Hizashi’s hands away from his face.
“I think I need to make a lesson about the dangers of CQC. Do you think that would help them not to copy me?” Shōta sighed with a sideways glance away, looking away from Hizashi before steadfastly returning his stare.
“I think that’s a start. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about using too much force in your combat, too,” Hizashi half-joked, remembering his stray thought from weeks earlier. “I know it’s because you deal with a lot of villains with mutation quirks, but let me just say this: you hit harder than necessary—‘excessive force,’ I believe we should call it.”
Shōta grimaced.
“Guess that’s what I did to break your speaker.”
“Absolutely. It looked awesome from a spectator’s point-of-view, I’m sure, but let me tell you: it was something of my nightmares. You’ve had a lot more practice with hand-to-hand than me, but thankfully, when you’re delirious, you’re fairly predictable,” Hizashi said playfully, despite the way his stomach flip-flopped with the memory of their clash in the classroom.
Shōta was silent for a moment before leaning forward to reclaim his slice of pizza from the box. Hizashi moved to grab another one, as well.
“So ‘Dangers of CQC’ it is. Maybe I’ll teach a lesson called ‘Poisoned or Just Sick?’ Think they’d pay attention to that one?” Shōta asked dryly, clearly in a better mood from their simple talk.
Hizashi choked on his pizza as he laughed.
Shōta began to reintegrate himself into the Underground network after his third treatment with Recovery Girl. Upon his announcement that he would be returning to his hero work, the small woman had fussed at him for what had seemed like hours before Shōta relented and modified his declaration. He would lie low and help the detectives at Tsukauchi’s precinct with troubling cases for a while before physically throwing himself into the fray. That seemed to appease Shūzenji, and she let him leave after extracting a promise that he would to do nothing highly physical while helping the police investigate strange cases until she had cleared him for a full return to duty.
Truth be told, it was probably for the best that Shōta had essentially been relegated to acting as a bench-warmer by his colleague. While he had more energy, he still felt like he was dead on his feet. He apparently looked like he was, as well, if the way that Tsukauchi ushered him into his office was anything by which to judge.
“Are you here just because you’re being stubborn, or are you here because you’ve been cleared to return to work?” the detective, his brow creased with concern, had questioned him upon his arrival.
Shōta had been quick to assure the kind detective that he was fine, a claim he was quickly learning invited eye-rolls and scoffs of disbelief. He shook off any possible annoyance with a simple explanation that Recovery Girl had approved him for hero work with the stipulation that he continued to rest and helping out at the precinct was the best way to do that.
Apparently proud that Shōta was actually heeding someone’s advice for once, Tsukauchi had grinned fondly and had asked a simple question: “How do you feel about research?”
“Research” meant poring over details of recent unsolved murders under Tsukauchi’s watchful eye. Shōta put his skills as an Underground hero to work as he took in every piece of information and every bit of speculation as he studied some particularly troubling cases that had occurred while he had been away—all of which were conveniently under his jurisdiction as a pro hero of this area and some which were likely preventable had he been on patrol at the time.
Learning about all the crime that had happened while he had been away from the heroics scene left a foul taste in Shōta’s mouth as he skimmed the details of numerous reports. Large upticks in drug-dealings, overdoses, muggings, assaults, and general larceny had kept the local area police along with the few other Underground heroes who worked the same shifts as Shōta on their toes trying to catch the culprits. He had been told that they were struggling because inside information was little to none recently due to a series of murders targeting informants along the routes which Shōta regularly patrolled.
It seemed like no one wanted to speak up or provide crime tips, and because of that, very few offenders had been apprehended from what Shōta understood. That in itself was frustrating. Knowing that he could have helped clear the streets of some crime if he had not been poisoned was extremely annoying, but even more so, knowing that his informants and those of several other Underground heroes had been targeted made fury well up in his chest.
Informants were the lifeblood of Underground heroics, and they were not easily replaced, despite what those in the media seemed to think. It took years to build up positive rapport with those in position to offer vital information regarding crimes. They were suspicious—rightfully so—and hardened by years of unfortunate circumstance in which they had been let down and disappointed by the system too many times to count, so trust was a hard-earned element in their relationships with heroes.
There was a definite pattern in the path of the reported drug deals, and Shōta was quick to crudely map them out on a piece of paper using a red marker. He remembered all too well his conversation with Dr. Nakamura about how several of his informants wound up in the emergency room or the local morgue due to overdoses from thallium-laced drugs, and he vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to keep his few remaining informants free of poorly cut drugs, even if they were no longer willing to dole out inside information on drug deals or other, heavier crimes. He would honestly love to help them get clean for good, but some people were simply unwilling to change or did not have the means to make a better life for themselves. Shōta usually let their habits slide in lieu of the helpful information they provided about the happenings on the street. He had done the same for the well-intentioned vigilantes he had come across in the past, as well.
In the world that was full of aspects of violence and peace, there was no easy way to divide the task of true heroics. A mother who sold herself to earn money to feed her children had just as much right to be called a hero as someone who donned a bodysuit and a cape and punched out thugs for a living. A drug addict with a quirk that made his mind spin and constantly distort the world who took to substance abuse to keep those around him safe by reigning in his escaping sanity was also a hero. A little boy who saved a cat from the rain, a young girl who stood up to a bully, a teacher who stepped in to alert authorities regarding trouble in a child’s home life—every one of them was a hero, even if they did not have the license to prove it.
All the people he had helped or was going to help as Eraserhead had been or would be a hero to someone at some point in their lives. Everyone was worth saving, even those considered to be lesser because of their positions in society.
Feeling strong from his new sense of resolve, Shōta decided the first thing he was going to do upon returning to his regular patrols was check in with all of his remaining informants and ask if they had seen anything strange. At that time, he would be able to subtly assess their health and see if they required medical assistance of any sort. He would gladly act as an escort to a clinic if any of his informants required help. It was the least he could do for failing to protect them during his downtime, particularly when he suspected they had been targeted to keep him from disrupting drug shipments.
In the meantime, he tediously scoured the text and images of various case files, many of which lead to dead ends. They had little physical evidence on record, and occasionally, they caused Shōta to grimace at the ineptitude of the lead investigator on the case. Evidence that was present was often mishandled by newer hires who had been left alone far too soon, and when Shōta noticed anything of the sort, he alerted Tsukauchi to the anomaly in the case file, flagging it for later inspection by a source with more authority than himself.
He solved several simple—well, he thought they were simple—cases of breaking and entering and grand larceny from small pharmacies and electronics stores alike by utilizing the CCTV feeds from businesses within a close range of the location of the thefts. The police had done so, as well, but from years spent searching above ground level at night, Shōta knew the locations of more cameras than the officers on those cases. He made a list of those cameras and their associated storefronts or owners, and Tsukauchi filled out the paperwork to have his task force request the camera feeds for investigation.
The simple cases were solved quickly, and Shōta was left staring at files featuring photos and police reports that left him just as stumped as many of the officers who had been assigned to those cases. Investigation was a strong part of his work in the Underground, but procedural evidence collection and processing, while interesting enough that he had taken related courses when they were available, were still beyond his means at this point in time.
Thus, Shōta helped where he could and set the unsolvable cases aside, lamenting the fact that they were likely to go cold, and there was nothing he could do to prevent that.
During his third and last week working directly with Tsukauchi for what Shōta not-so-fondly referred to as “desk-warming duty,” Shōta felt the first inklings of apprehension about returning to the field as he was faced with a series of cases that funnelled in over the course of three days. The photos in the files were overly graphic in a way that made Shōta’s stomach roll unpleasantly, and it was through the application of many strategically taken breaks that he was even able to make it through the information that had been collected.
The first case file labeled “Wada, Kojiro” contained a photo of a tall, lanky blonde slumped against a grungy alleyway wall. The subject’s long, light hair was stained crimson from where it fell next to his slit throat, the skin and muscle parted in such a way that the slick muscles of the esophagus could be seen with ease even in a general photograph, rather than in a close-up shot.
Wada was a male adult of twenty-seven years of age, his eyes—dark brown per the details listed—covered by gaudy aviators that seemed like something Hizashi would love to wear. He was the owner of a small bookstore in the heart of Shōta’s patrol route. He had been reported missing only a few days earlier around the time that Shōta had rejoined the heroics fray under Tsukauchi’s careful eye. His employees had been distraught by his absence and had clammored that he was never gone from work, going so far as to request a home check by the police to make sure that Wada was still alive.
He had not been at home, and he had not been alive by the time the police located him.
Shōta took in the details from the case file with a firm press of his lips and an air of clinical detachment formed from years of personal interactions with gruesome crime scenes. He had seen many grisly things in the Underground, but it was rare that a criminal would leave a person to bleed out from a neck wound in an alley where they could potentially survive long enough for someone to come along and help. Usually, the perpetrator of the crime would dump the body down by the docks in the worst part of town to delay its discovery. Wada’s body, however, had been left as what Shōta could only assume was a warning for someone beneath a message hastily scrawled in blood: STOP .
The second case that was presented to him pertained to a young woman who had been bound and left hanging upside down from the rafters in an abandoned warehouse, dangling from a thin, strong rope wrapped around her ankles. She had not been poisoned or wounded aside from the stitches that pulled her eyelids together in tight seams. The coroner’s report in the case folder declared that she had ultimately died from asphyxiation, a common affliction when one was left to hang upside down for hours without break due to the extra pressure put on the lungs by the rest of the body. She had passed away before her brain had had a chance to hemorrhage, and Shōta was not certain whether that was a blessing or curse, honestly.
Shōta had been stranded, hanging upside down from rafters or sturdy tree branches, often enough during his training with his capture weapon to imagine how unpleasant remaining in such a position for hours on end might be. Hizashi had usually been there to rescue him during such instances, but when he had not, Shōta had suffered while trying to free himself, usually just shy of passing out when another classmate, usually Nemuri or Kan, would take pity on him and free him from his self-made prison.
Keiko Suzuki, the victim, had been reported missing three days prior by her distraught fiancé. It was unfortunate that the resolution to her missing persons case came to a close with the initiation of her homicide investigation which appeared to yield no obvious clues.
Shōta’s stomach flip-flopped as he put himself in the fiancé’s place. He could not imagine how he would react if Hizashi had been found dead in a similar situation. The mere thought of that made him feel ill, and he and Hizashi had only just recently become more than friends.
The third odd case that came through was for a blonde who had been admitted to the emergency room by means of the paramedics summoned by concerned civilians. They had discovered the victim who, with his arms bound behind his back, had stumbled into a heavily populated park in an obviously desperate struggle to seek out assistance. Bystanders who had given their statements to the police shared that the man’s mouth had been stitched shut with surgical precision, a row of blanket continuous stitches keeping his lips firmly sealed as he tried to scream for help with only moderate success.
Kane Morita, thankfully, survived the ordeal, but he had been unable to give any useful information regarding his attacker. He had given a statement saying that his attacker, a middle-aged female, bore a crazed smile and stood far away from him during the entire time he had been subjected to torment. To his knowledge, Morita had no reason that he knew of to be targeted for such an attack. Research into his personal life showed that the man lived a humble life through even humbler means. No one who knew him had even hinted that he might lead a double life of sorts, so that suspicion had quickly been taken off the table for the investigation.
Morita’s quirk was the most troubling detail of the entire case—at least to Shōta. While it was nowhere nearly as powerful as Hizashi’s own Voice, Morita was frequently recruited to announce details to large crowds because his quirk allowed him to raise his volume enough to be heard clearly during heavily populated gatherings. He had been on his way to some charity event when he had been drugged and spirited away to an area of town he claimed to have had no reason to visit.
Throat, eyes, and mouth—as a general principle, Shōta was not fond of criminals who attacked those areas of human anatomy, given that they were the prime targets of any villains fighting both Hizashi and himself. He had not been back on active duty long enough for the cases to specifically resonate with him, much less to be a target for whomever was committing the assaults, but the odd activity still made him uncomfortable with its implications, leaving him feeling heavy with uncertainty.
“These are suspicious,” he commented toward the end of the week, casting a sideways glance toward Tsukauchi who was sipping at a cup of tea and browsing through something that was displayed on his monitor. For the sole reason that he did not want to seem overly paranoid, Shouta hesitated to share that at any other time he would have connected these cases to himself.
But was it actually paranoia when a person knew that they were actively being targeted by several hostile groups that could be responsible for three highly suspicious attacks?
“Oh?”
Perhaps it would be better to share his thoughts on the matter, regardless.
“They’re targeting the eyes and sources of vocalizations of individuals along my patrol routes. I strongly doubt that is a coincidence.”
“Yes, the evidence is highly suspicious when you put it like that,” Tsukauchi hummed, meeting his stare for a moment before turning back to his screen.
Shōta offered an exasperated raise of his eyebrows, understanding that the detective had already made the connection, even before he continued talking.
“The surviving victim’s lips were sewn shut from afar. Not to mention that the crime scenes were completely devoid of anything usable for use in a conviction in a court of law, even if we had a suspect in our custody. Do you think this could have anything to do with that trio you ran into before all of—”
Tsukauchi turned to Shōta with a sigh and made a vague gesture at him.
Shōta leveled a flat, unimpressed look on the man.
“Okay. That’s an obvious answer. You can stop glaring anytime, Eraser,” the detective said with a light laugh, clearly accustomed to dealing with unimpressed heroes.
Shōta wanted to protest that he was not glaring, but instead, he sighed and turned back to his files.
“They clearly fear your involvement in their business. Can you think of anything in particular you’ve done to provoke them in the past?”
“I don’t even know which cartels they belong to,” Shōta replied simply. He had interfered in the completion of so many product exchanges in the past year that he had no doubt even more than three cartels were out for his blood. The current three had simply been the most successful.
Their persistence was completely illogical and their methods even moreso; they could have easily killed him several times over even before he began to regain his health.
“Well, I believe they’ve been leaving messages for you left and right. Those crimes are the most eye-grabbing, but pretty much every quirk crime case we’ve been involved in recently has had some foreboding message scrawled along bricks or sidewalk. Sometimes it’s with the victim’s blood, and other times, the message is pressed into the stone like it’s been there since the surface was initially crafted.”
That was a fairly solid hint that the earth manipulator was involved in whatever was happening.
Tsukauchi turned his monitor, angling it so that Shōta had a clear view of the screen as he scrolled through several images.
Stop.
Stay away.
Back off.
“All of these were found over the past few days at the sites of particularly violent muggings. The survivors mentioned their attacker had rough skin and a set of horns.”
Ah, the man with the mutation quirk was also involved.
Perhaps Shōta was not as paranoid as he thought.
Thallium-laced cocaine aside, it was growing more and more likely that far more dangerous substances were being distributed throughout the city. The atmosphere and details surrounding the entire ordeal outside of his own poisoning was similar to the Trigger fiasco that had happened early in his career as a pro hero. A product as volatile as that drug—or something even more potent—was the only logical explanation for why three villainous entities would be desperate to keep him from doing his job. For anything else, the gangs would have withdrawn and regrouped, waiting and biding their time until the area heroes were involved in another crisis and had less time to spend investigating their criminal activities.
“They think I’ve caught on to whatever they’re doing,” Shōta hummed nonchalantly, picking up the printouts of Keiko Suzuki’s case again and examining them for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day. Her life had been ended far too early in such a painful, prolonged way. His eyes strayed to her stitched eyelids, and he fought back a wince of sympathy. “But I haven’t even begun to dig deep. I’ll make it my top priority.”
“That’s what I wanted to confirm. We’re glad to have you on the case, Eraser.”
Shōta spent the rest of his time at the police station that day poring over CCTV footage from the businesses surrounding the crime scenes. It was limited and far from what he needed to form a clear understanding of the situation he had found himself in, even with the additional feeds he requested, but Shōta wanted to bring the attacks on himself to an end before someone close to himself was injured. The villains pursuing him had undoubtedly already been informed of his close contacts and friends when Alice had been watching him. She had likely been an informant for all three groups that were out for his blood.
A shiver climbed up his spine as he pushed down the inkling of genuine fear that curled low in his gut at the thought of someone targeting Hizashi, Nemuri, or his coworkers—or, heavens forbid, any of his students. He would not let that happen.
The gangs had declared war, and Shōta would meet them on the battlefield.
Today was his last day of sitting on the sidelines.
Tomorrow, he would be ready to fight.