Chapter Text
It didn’t take long for Aizawa to defeat the villain with the chronostasis quirk. The man had made the mistake of using Aizawa’s own capture weapon as a makeshift blindfold. Aizawa was able to slip his scarf down enough to provide a crack to see out of. It was only a matter of several slow seconds to turn his head enough to get the distracted villain in his sight line and cancel out his quirk. After that, Aizawa flipped their positions, effectively knocking the man out and tying him —and his hair— up with a twisted wire cable he kept in his utility belt. Bringing him to a room with no backup around was the villain’s biggest mistake.
A faint rustle of movement caused Aizawa to shoot up from his crouched position over the downed villain, scanning the room for new threats. His eyes quickly landed on a bed in the darkest portion of the room. Tucked as far back as possible into the corner where the bed met the walls, a boy no older than his own students was curled up trying to make himself small and unnoticeable. He stared back at Aizawa, face carefully blank and eyes shining in the dim light through a curtain of messy black hair. He was clothed in only an open button-down that was many sizes too big and boxers. It was too dark to know for sure but Aizawa thought he could see bruises on the boy’s legs.
Another captive child? There had been no indication of the Shie Hassaikai experimenting on anyone other than Eri. What were they doing with this boy?
Aizawa moved slowly, telegraphing his movements and trying to come across as non-threatening as he approached. Although he supposed it was illogical to try, considering the boy had just watched him take down a villain without breaking a sweat. It seemed he was right because as he reached the edge of the bed, the boy tensed considerably. His eyes flickered around Aizawa looking for a way to escape as his right hand came up in a defensive position. Alarm flashed sharply through Aizawa’s mind as he felt the temperature of the air around him plummet drastically.
“Hey—“
Before Aizawa could get another word out or use his quirk, the boy suddenly let out a rasping shriek of pain. Aizawa stood frozen in shock as the boy convulsed weakly for a few moments, his eyes impossibly wide and mouth open without sound. Whatever it was that was hurting him seemed to pass quickly but it left him limp, any fight he’d had in him stripped away. Aizawa grimaced and waited for the teen’s dazed eyes to refocus, not wanting to startle him into hurting himself more. Now that he was closer his senses picked up on the state of the boy and his surroundings.
What he found made his blood curdle.
White sheets were soiled with various substances; bodily fluids, wine and cigarette ash from what Aizawa could identify. The air smelled distinctly of sweat and sex. The boy’s upper thighs were marred with hand shaped bruises and angry purple-red marks littered his neck and collar bone. He had a bruised chin and a split lip that was sluggishly leaking blood. Around his right ankle was a suspicious looking metal cuff with a tiny red light blinking in the center of the band. The cuff disappeared under the covers as the boy shifted to pull the soiled sheets up over himself in an attempt to escape Aizawa’s searching gaze.
“Please…don’t…”
The boy’s quiet pleading cut through the dull angry roar in Aizawa’s ears and his hero rescue training kicked into gear as he swallowed down his disgust, schooling his expression into one of calm neutrality.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m the hero Eraserhead. I’m sure you’ve heard the commotion from our battle with the Hassaikai, we’ve come to rescue a little girl named Eri.”
Aizawa wasn’t surprised to see the flash of recognition on the boy’s face when he mentioned Eri. The boy leaned forward a little as his eyes flicked down then back up, taking in Aizawa’s hero costume and looking more aware than he had previously in this whole exchange. The skin under his left eye wrinkled oddly for a moment before smoothing out as his eyebrows lifted slightly in what Aizawa thought might be a hopeful expression.
“Eri..? You’re here for Eri?”
‘And you’ve just been added to the list’ Aizawa thought as he nodded. The boy stared wordlessly at him and Aizawa was suddenly struck with the realization that his eyes were two different colors. An explosion rocked the room for a terrorizing second, breaking their eye contact as the boy once again curled in on himself. Time to move this along.
“Come with me.”
The boy’s head shot up, that almost hopeful expression back on his face. Aizawa moved forward to set a knee on the bed and gestured to the boy with an outstretched hand, heart twisting at the flinch his action caused.
“…what?”
The boy’s voice was barely above a whisper as he stared unblinkingly at the hand Aizawa had stretched out to him.
“You’re being held captive here too, right? I can help you.”
The boy had no time to answer as the door to the room burst open and Suneater rushed in with the police in tow.
Shouto stumbled down the long hallway behind the large group of law enforcers, the injured hero who had introduced himself as Suneater staggered along next to him lugging another downed hero with them. Shouto pulled Suneater’s cloak tighter around himself, thankful that he’d been given a means to cover his humiliating state. He’d felt incredibly exposed when the police had rushed in, letting in the light from the hallway. Light he hadn’t seen in at least three days. He knew that the man with the bloodshot eyes —‘Eraserhead’ his mind supplied— had seen the shameful way he had cowered under his disgusting bed sheet when they had barged in. Eraserhead had taken a moment to fill the other hero in about the situation before telling him to hand over his cloak. He had then coaxed Shouto into carefully wrapping himself in the cloak before lifting him from the bed and onto his feet in one smooth motion that made Shouto’s empty stomach twinge.
Now, as they made their way outside, Eraserhead leading the pack, Shouto could feel his body protesting every movement he made. He was fine, he could do this. His injuries were mostly just bruises and dizziness from not eating but what was most worrying to him was the piercing white-hot pain that shot through his lower abdomen with every step he took. He grit his teeth against the pain and resurfacing humiliation and kept moving. The heroes weren’t going to stop for him, they had more important things to do. Like stoping Chisaki from blowing up the whole block. His only saving grace was that Suneater was moving just a bit slower than the rest of the pack due to the blonde draped on his shoulders.
When Shouto finally made it outside, it was chaos. Chisaki was clashing with someone in midair, roaring out his usual spiel about destroying hero society. His opponent was just a green and white streak in the air as they fought the grotesquely transformed Yakuza boss. It seemed like only seconds before Chisaki was felled and Shouto stumbled backward in the shockwave of his crash to the ground. As the dust cleared, Shouto felt the air in his lungs rush out of him in shock as he caught sight of the victor. A boy who seemed around his age was standing several feet away from the downed villain. He held in his arms an unmistakable figure. Eri. Shouto felt relief flood through him at the sight of her as she clung to the green clad boy. His relief was short lived however as the boy suddenly doubled over in pain, lightening shooting out from both him and Eri in a terrifying display of power. Shouto felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as he watched the scene unfold before him. He already knew of Eri’s quirk, had even seen it take the lives of several of Chisaki’s men before, but he’d never seen someone take the full brunt of it and stay standing. The boy’s power was immense, crackling through the air like webs of electricity. The oppressive quirks surged as they clashed wildly even as Chisaki tried and failed to grab Eri in a last ditch attempt to take her back. Then, just as a wave of intense nausea hit Shouto in his effort to stay standing, it suddenly stopped. The only evidence of the boy and Eri’s quirks going out of control was the overwhelming smell of ozone. Shouto didn’t know how it was stopped, he had never seen one of Eri’s power bursts end without at least one death.
Shouto felt dazed as the heroes and policeman around him spurred into action. It was over, no more seemingly endless nights of pain and humiliation. He was free. He knew that he very well could be elated soon, he and Eri had suffered for so long at the hands of Chisaki and his men, but he could only think of one thing as he dizzily sunk to his knees on the asphalt.
What if he found him?
The Shie Hassaikai were terrible to Shouto, they treated him like a slave to be used and as leverage to keep Eri obedient. In his dark room deep in the maze of their underground lair, he’d had his dignity stripped away. And yet, for all the pain and humiliation he went through at the hands of Chisaki and his men, he was still given the ability to make choices, he was permitted to be around people and care for Eri. He’d been allowed things he’d never had under that man’s roof and no one expected ‘greatness’ out of him. In the logical part of his brain, he knew he had only traded one place of bondage for another. And maybe that meant he was way more screwed up in the head than he wanted to admit but with the Hassaikai, he had never been afraid. But now, as he gazed dazedly at the scene around him, he felt the icy tendrils of fear spread through his mind.