Chapter Text
Authors note:
Thank you all for the wait, I have a habit of writing long chapters. Please enjoy this updated chapter.
Shouta Aizawa had just crossed off year number 32 on his calendar. Birthdays were not a big affair. He debated getting something small at the store as he stopped for more jelly pouches after a noc shift. His mood was bitter for the time of year. Maybe it was the old injuries on his left knee as he adjusted the drug store brace wrapping the joint. Lack of sleep, inconsistent schedules, or it was him. He had no idea.
There is no point in doing much. There never was. Not really. Shouta was the second choice at best. Being an underground pro hero made a person the second choice. If that. That was not new. There were drug deals every week, kidnappings, and murder. It was beginning to blur. He worked on a current case, apprehended the criminal, did his paperwork, and went on patrol. It was different shades of the same hue. Same shit, every day. Three hours of sleep at the most, and then back to school. There he worked on training another round of potential pro heroes. They would most likely die their first year out of school. If not, then permanent injury if they were lucky. They were children.
He was going to fuck up sooner than later at the rate he was going. He lost more weight in this month alone than in the past three years. The commission would then most likely find him in a dumpster if he is lucky.
He was only 3 hours into his 8-hour shift. Five hours left to go. He was not even halfway through, and he was dreading it. He tilted his head slowly to one shoulder and then the other. The cracks and pops ran down his spine, and from one twist, he felt the jolt of it from the top of his spine, down his left elbow, and then to the corresponding fingertips. The slight panic at that feeling was an old friend. Maybe one day, he would twist his neck too far. He rolled his shoulders back, shook out his arms, and located his prescription eye drops. It was feeling light as he relieved his burning dry eyes. He wondered if he looked high with the irritated whites of his eyes. The bottle was almost out. His Agency's doctor was going to rip him a new one for this. The bottle was empty too soon.
He wished that he could finish his early lunch break by sleeping. He, unfortunately, knew his habits, and would not wake with a timer for a short fifteen-minute nap. You can not get away with sleeping on a night shift. You honestly will end up more tired than you were, to begin with, on top of the paranoia and the ringing in your ears from the lack of activity. Caffeine made all of the above worse. He could feel the ringing creeping in, and the feeling of wanting to stare off into space was the most tempting urge of the night. Shouta rubbed his eyes again and cracked open the canned coffee in his side bag. It was a small travel pack hidden in his costume. He enjoyed the rest of the ringing silence while he chugged the rest of the iced coffee to finish his shift. 4.5 hours left to go.
He stood up as the timer rang in his pocket and cracked his back, pelvis, and knees. Tonight should be a stretching night after patrol, but he usually did not make it to his bed on a good night. He completed the short sequence by rolling each ankle and checked into the app on his phone, therefore throwing himself back into his shift. He hoped the cooler air would wake him up instead of just giving him dry eyes. The app reported a higher amount of traffic for this time of night on the outer edge of the red light district. With minimal thought, he took off sprinting towards the roof's edge. Launching himself to the next roof, and then caught himself on the edge as he headed northeast.
The cool air felt more comfortable whipping past his ears as he all but flew building to building. It at least cut down on the amount of ringing in his ears. He grabbed onto a fire escape with his capture weapon, letting himself momentarily free fall for the momentum to fling himself upwards onto a higher roof. He grabbed the edge with both hands to throw himself upwards, higher, landed on the toes of his feet, and rolled across the graveled rooftop. The extra dose of adrenaline was a plus as he threw himself off the higher room, and rolled onto another one. He flowed with the motion and pattern of moving high-velocity roof to roof. He would be to the red light district in a maximum of 5 minutes.
He knew that there was the possibility of coming across human trafficking in these parts. The locals knew him by sight and would occasionally hint towards a lead. They worked from a level of trust. Sex workers could not technically be arrested if he never saw anything. Everyone has to make a living to survive by whatever means that they can. He wouldn’t judge. His early teenage years were no better with an erasure quirk. He fought tooth and nail to get out, the effort was lackluster.
Rolling onto his feet on ground level brought him into a wall of sound. That mixed with the brighter lights added to the pounding behind his eyes that equaled his poor life choices. It was louder today as civilians rushed past him streetwalkers and patrons alike ran in mass from the piercing scream not too far from his location. He threw his capture weapon onto the nearest street lamp as another wave of condensed sound followed the running masses down the street. He couldn’t help but raise his shoulders to his ears as a poor attempt to block the sound. A heavy dose of migraine meds was on his itinerary after this.
The villain Present Mic stood at the center of it all demanding a certain amount of control over his brand of chaos. His hair was longer than it once was, still in that dumb style from high school. Shouta shook his head avoiding old thoughts. Activating his quirk. His hair floated around him as the pressure increased in his eyes. There was now a moment of silence. The silence was almost as much of a wall as Mic’s quirk. He could feel the heat rising in his eye as they forced him to blink. A second was all Mic needed to reactivate his quirk leading with the sound of an orchestra in a wind tunnel. Shouta reoriented himself, reactivated his quirk, and let go of the light as he threw his entire body towards Mic while smashing his steel boot into his face. The silence was Deafening as Mic cradled his bloody nose.
“ WHAT THE FUCK". Each syllable is punctuated individually in the ringing silence. Maybe the ringing was his ears.
“Hello to you too.” Shouta’s voice was rough from running as he tried to control his breathing from sprinting.
“HELLO TO YOU TOO?? WHAT THE FUCK? IS THAT HOW YOU GREET AN OLD FRIEND ERASURE"?
Shouta was feeling twitchy Mic would lash out. He needed his eye drops but that was a no-go, there was no time in battle. Whoever struck first.
“LET GET READY FOR THE SHOW!” Mic removed his hand from his face and screamed.
Shouta was ready, his quirk flared to life as they clashed in the middle. Shouta went to sweep Mic’s legs as Mic feigned towards the left. He managed to clip Shouta in the ribs with an elbow as they both slid away. Shouta kept activating his quirk at random intervals. He didn’t trust Mic to not use his quirk.
Shouta threw out his capture weapon, grabbing Mic’s arm, and threw him. Mic rolled out of it and ran. Shouta cured and followed.
“Would you stop running?!” He wheezed out while dodging trash being knocked over in his path. Mic was running zigzagged using everything and anything to trip him up down the alleys. At least there weren't people.
“What is the point of this, it's not logical!”
Surprisingly Mic paused for half a second. Just long enough for Shouta to try and tackle him.
“THAT WAS A LOW BLOW AND YOU KNOW IT” Mic dodged but was tripped by the capture weapon. In retaliation, he pulled Shouta closer as he fell and struck at his knee. Shouta hissed and rolled out of the fall, moving with the momentum. At least they were doing damage to each other. Shouta spun, gathered his weapon, activated his quirk-
The pain burned across his eye, they were scratching the more he blinked. He could hardly see anything with his eyes trying to produce tears.
Loud laughter followed him as he stumbled back trying to get his composure. The resounding scream that followed should have been expected, the dizziness was not. He hit the ground hard. It jostled his knee for the second time tonight. He could hardly think past the feeling of his pre-existing migraine, the dizziness, and the increasing level of nausea making his stomach churn. That scream was new. The effects made him scrub at his eyes in a frenzy. This was a major disadvantage.
“WWWWOOOOWWWW, NOT UNCONSCIOUS YET ERASURE? I SHOULD DRY HARDER NEXT TIME.”
Next time, he was planning on the next time.
Shouta just managed to scrub the majority of the particles from his eye while a hand latched around his ankle and started to drag him. He had a full-body flinch and lashed his other leg out, the pain radiated up as he missed and hissed, more laughter followed.
“YOU FIGHT LIKE A KITTEN WHEN YOU ARE LIKE THIS, NOT LOGICAL.”
The loud voice was not helping.
His leg fell with a thud, he scrambled to get up anything, the alley spun and he fell.
“WELL THIS REUNION HAS BEEN FUN, BUT LET’S DANCE ANOTHER TIME, YEAH?” The statement was followed by a thumbs-up as Shouta tried to focus. Mic spun around heading to the mouth of the alley.
“Really, you're leaving here?”
“WHY NOT? I'LL SEE YOU ANOTHER TIME. GOT TO GO MEET UP AT THE RONDEVU POINT. SEE YA.”
“Fuck.”
With that, Mic left the alley.
Shouta started the process of attempting to stand, his knee put him out of commission for a few days to a week, there would be no jumping if Recovery Girl had anything to say. Physical therapy was a bitch. Maybe she would get him more eye drops. He worked on drenching his eyes while leaning against the wall, waiting for the world to be still. If he was smart he would get food to settle his nausea when he got home.
The flashing lights of the police cars were approaching in the distance. The red and blue lights bounced off the walls making his eyes and head hurt. He was not excited about this report. At least the police were here. He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and headed towards the mouth of the alley. Hopefully, his report will be short. His steps were becoming more steady as he walked it off.
It was louder outside of the alley, people were being questioned, there was an ambulance on standby, and there were officers around the perimeter spanning several blocks. The department was small in this prefecture, but they were a good group, efficient. Shouta spotted a familiar detective among the officers. They made eye contact across the way and nodded to each other.
made his way over to the erasure hero. He was favoring his left knee again. Erasure was in his usual jumpsuit with smudges of dirt. Looks like he fought. There was minimized damage to the surrounding area and minute civilian injuries. The reports were of the Sound villain, noise complaints, public quirk usage, and minor property damage. The damage was mainly in the areas of a high number of windows on buildings and cars. The usual MO for their fights.
“Rough night erasure”? He stated it like a comment while flipping out a notepad.
“It's not your jurisdiction Detective,” Eraserhead tilted his head in greeting. His eyes were redder than usual with traces of dirt on his face. Dirty tactics were used today.
“I was following up with a lead, it shares a common loudmouth activating as a decoy.” Naomasa leaned against the wall next to Erasure.
Shouta heaved a full-body sigh and leaned against the wall. “He was always one for dramatics. Who was he covering for?"
He rubbed his temples in a poor attempt at relief. His jumpsuit was starting to get to be too much with the hypersensitivity from the migraine.
“There was a gang fight that a 3rd party took control of the situation. Our source says that they were moving cases of the drug Trigger.” Naomasa flipped through his notes to a clean page. He wrote the date and approximate time before turning to his now slouching companion.
"You need to file a report."
Shouta hit his head against that wall.