Chapter Text
Todoroki’s disappearance shakes the world, especially with the piles of crystals left behind in his room. The people are all theorizing to hell about Todoroki’s disappearance. Some are neck deep into the urban legend theories. Some said that Shouto is spirited away, and some theorized that Shouto died and became the crystals in his room. Some follow the story of Medusa and point fingers at one of the Todoroki couple for cheating. It’s unhinged how people can come out with so many wild theories without any base, and one with a base (mentioning the crystals) is totally mad. A fairy? A folklore story of a woman with snake hair that has no relevancy in the story they’re putting her on? An emperor? Come on. but they have one thing in common. They are unearthing dirt that the Todoroki’s had silently swept away and was barely at the corner of everyone’s eyes.
Well, they’re looking at the Todorokis now, and they’re looking at them with no kind eyes.
They’re looking at Endeavor’s child abuse accusation with more merit and held with clawed contempt. It doesn’t matter anymore that it came from an ‘untrustworthy source of a villain.’ Somewhere on earth, Dabi must’ve cackled to hell.
Aizawa hadn’t given up yet, not when he had one last weapon that he had been reluctant to use.
“I had Chiyo put a Nano-chip in Shouto’s wrist when she gave him a flu shot,” Aizawa says to Tsukauchi, as soon as he made known of Todoroki’s disappearance.
The detective went wide-eyed, “That’s a crime.”
“If I have to choose between committing a crime and saving my student’s life then the choice is fucking obvious, isn’t it?”
“Boys,” Toshinori scolds evenly, and a room full of heroes goes silent. “No time to question justice, not when we have a child that robbed of his currently missing.”
The tracker, small that it is, couldn’t pinpoint exactly where Todoroki is, only showing an area within a 500m radius. The search party found themselves in the woods of Tokushima. The whole class of 1-A went down to look, all the Yuuei teachers, and all the Todorokis went to look.
Aizawa has a bad feeling about this. The forest is shallow and sparse, there are barely any trees, how does no one find him?
His bad feeling is then shown by the ground that gave up on his footfall. He almost falls, but as he takes down the shallow dirt, it reveals a hole on the ground. Aizawa looks around and finds that he’s not near anyone. Aizawa decides to see where the hole goes by himself before getting anyone involved. The tunnel of dirt grows larger, and Aizawa went from crawling on his knees to going downhill by foot.
Aizawa can easily navigate in the tunnel because of the bright light coming from the end of it.
The tunnel ends in daylight. It’s almost impossible how everything is as bright as if the sun is above head when they are completely underground. Aizawa sees then, in the air that seems to glitter prettily, a tall old Oak tree that grows on top of a knoll of corpses. The corpses are all laying down around the tree’s roots. The corpses vary in stages of aging, some of them are skeletal, some are in a severe stage of rotting, and some seem as if they’re still alive yesterday. Despite the mountain of corpses, there are no signs of decomposition. No bugs, flies, no smell, they just aged into a skeleton.
The trees have dangling fruits that are tinted orange and glow brightly fluorescent. Aizawa can’t feel any heat, but he can feel the intensity of the light as he steps closer. His one eye has difficulty at first, but he manages to spot a speck of white and red hair amid corpses mid-way up the knoll.
As Aizawa approaches closer, he spots a small person sleeping on Todoroki’s chest. They have a blue puff as hair, small as a palm, and when they open their eyes, their body glows just as bright as the fruits.
They smile at him after a yawn and flutter their wings, “Hello, friend.”
Aizawa is struck. He hasn’t come down to the shock of finding this place, the light, the corpses, and Todoroki laying on the mountain of corpses. Aizawa abandons all of that and focuses on the little person that talks to him.
“You… did you do all of this?”
“Of course not! I’m here for Shouto and only for Shouto. I’m his guardian fairy, you see?” They said, fluttering their wings.
Aizawa blinks, “What?” he shakes his head, why is he talking to them? “I’m taking Todoroki with me.”
“Um!”
Aizawa pulls Todoroki’s body from the roots, but he couldn’t, there’s something that latches him to the roots.
As he steps back and watches closer, he’s horrified to see the ‘fairy’ had merged into Todoroki’s chest. Their limbs are in a texture of roots. Aizawa watches the other corpses and true to his horrifying conclusion, all of them have person-shaped roots in their chest.
“What are you doing to him?”
The fairy is unfazed by Aizawa’s threatening voice, “I’m taking him to the Tree of Eden,” They said as they gazed at the bright tree.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want him, right?” The fairy says plainly, “That’s why I’m here, that’s why Mother Nature gave birth to me, to guide him to her.”
“What?” Aizawa is getting light-headed, perhaps he hit his head as he descended to the hole on the ground, and perhaps currently hallucinating as he loose blood from his head.
The fairy only tilted their head, “You know, you humans are children of Mother too. She loves you all, and it makes her sad that you humans treat each other this way. Unwanted children of animals naturally return to Mother, quickly and painlessly. But you humans are the only kind of her children that keeps unwanted kids without any intention to cherish them other than just to have them, just to make them suffer, just to make them someone you hurt.”
Aizawa is struck. He doesn’t know why that statement made him feel shame.
“That’s why Mother birthed me, because she loves Shouto,” The fairy smiles fondly at Todoroki. “She loves all of them, all of you.”
“His friends love him too,” Aizawa says, finally finding his voice. “His family isn’t the best, but they cherish him. I… I cherish him too. None of us want him to leave us. All of his family and his friends are looking for him, worried about him.”
“Oh…” they say, “I wonder why he’s so sad then…and so hurt.”
A knife dug and twist inside his ribcage, “That’s our flaw as a human sometimes, we don’t know how to cherish what we have until they’re gone, doesn’t mean he’s unloved.”
“I see…” They take a deep breath, dizzying Aizawa who hadn’t seen them as something living. They close their eyes and when those small eyes open, a small hand unroots from Todoroki and extends to Aizawa, “I think you need to get him yourself.”
Bemused, Aizawa touched their small palm with his finger. He didn’t even blink, the scene changes in less than a second right in front of his open eyes.
Disorientingly, Aizawa is by the street of his house. He peeks inside the window of his own home, the knife that was in his heart dug deeper when he sees himself, his husband, their adopted daughter Eri and Todoroki, or Shouto.
Shouto has his hair a bit longer and shorter bangs. Gone the stoicism and the sunken eyes, he looks happier, smiling more, hugging Eri, hugging Hizashi, hugging him, saying good morning as he has breakfast. His cats are here too, all three of them, Soymilk, Soysauce, and Soybean, Shouto looks as if he’s in heaven when he pets them all, giving their heads little kisses. It was too domestic it’s painful, knowing that this is the form of Shouto’s happiness, just a simple family. To think that Todoroki has to dream to have such a simple thing because he didn’t even have this in real life.
Another person came and Aizawa hid. He recognizes the tall teen as Yoarashi Inasa.
He knocks on the door, and soon enough, Shouto opens the door and cheers, “Hi, Inasa.”
“Babe! I miss you!” Yoarashi cheers, wrapping his arms around Shouto’s torso and spinning him around. Shouto has a wide smile on his face, giggling.
“We met yesterday,” Shouto says exasperatedly but his smile doesn’t let. He’s peppered with kisses on his face from Yoarashi. It’s an incredibly cheesy and yet, incredibly innocent depiction of romance. “Alright alright, settle down, we need to go to school.”
Shouto went inside, “Dad, pops, Eri! I’m going to school!” Shouto says, hugging Aizawa, receiving a peck on the head from Hizashi, and another hug from Eri. Saying to each of them he loves them.
“Stay safe, kiddo,” Hizashi says. And it was such a small gesture, but Shouto’s eyes twinkle.
Only as Shouto goes out to walk with his imagined boyfriend that Aizawa notices the difference, really notice. Shouto doesn’t have a burn mark. His eyes are brighter and more expressive. He’s smiling as default instead of that stoic expression.
Aizawa tailed them, but he finds that he can’t call Shouto. He can’t put a stop to this happy Shouto that seems so happy and unburdened, chatting happily about sweet little unimportant things with his boyfriend.
Then Shouto finally stops and he turns, “Aizawa-sensei,” he says with the severity of his old tense stoic expression on his new brighter face of his.
“Todoroki,” Aizawa shows himself from behind the neighbor’s wall, stepping in the middle of the residential road.
“Babe?”
Shouto doesn’t heed him with his attention.
“I guess you came here to get me,” he says characteristically solemn.
“Todoroki, none of this is real.”
“I know,” Shouto says with chilling sobriety. “But it feels real enough. I’m not always happy here, you know? I still struggle with my class, I fight with my boyfriend, I fought with my parents… but I’m always loved, Aizawa-sensei. This love feels real enough.”
“Just because it felt real enough, doesn’t make it real.”
“What’s real love felt like then?”
Aizawa opens his mouth and then stopped before any words came out. He couldn’t describe the feeling, because it truly felt like how Shouto just looked. All argument died on his lips when he realizes that Shouto doesn’t know what being loved felt like to ask.
“The thing about being loved is that you have to let yourself be loved,” Aizawa says. “You friends are worried sick about you, have been for months. They tried their hardest to keep you safe.”
Shouto slumped, rubbing his arm. Inasa is on his side, focusing on Shouto and rubbing his back. “Just because they’re my friends? That’s enough for them to… go that far?”
“Friends can be anything, but yours cherish you, Shouto. Momo is hiring wildlife experts and geologists to track the terrain. Koda is calling all animals in the 500m radius and asking them one by one if they see you. Ochaco is threatening to lift all the trees. Half of them hadn’t slept.”
“But, why?” Shouto asks even more desperately.
“Because they love you. They want their friend back.”
Shouto flinched, closing his eyes and holding onto himself. Inasa is chillingly still a statue.
“Sometimes love doesn’t come from the people it should come from, but it’s there Shouto. There are people who loves you, cherishes you, let them.”
It takes a long while for Todoroki to sink that information in. Then the mirage starts to peel away. The blue sky, the boyfriend, his long hair, his glowing skin. Todoroki stands in the middle of white nothingness in his casual wear with tears that turned into crystals halfway down his face.
Like before, Aizawa doesn’t blink when he returns to reality, to the tree, pulling his finger away from the small person’s palm.
They unroot themselves from Todoroki’s chest and fly. Todoroki opens his eyes lazily as if not yet wanting to deal with reality. Aizawa offers his hand, with a pause and a look that pierces through his soul, Todoroki takes it. They stood there silently for a few seconds. For Aizawa, he’s stunned silence and dumbfounded at the turn of events, looking around at the mountain of smiling corpses and noticing that there are a few breathing ones.
“Are some of them alive?” Aizawa asks.
“Of course, the humans here grow until their ripe old age, so they’ll be in their dreams,” the little person said.
“This is more than an annual decade worth of people,” Aizawa narrows his eyes at them.
The fairy tilt their head, “Decade?”
“How many times do you lure kids here?”
“Whenever a child comes to here and the bond is connected, another fairy will be born. It has nothing to do with time”
“Bond? What bond?” Aizawa narrows his eyes.
“The bond between mother and children. She doesn’t take life, so I will be the connection between the Tree and Shouto.
By then Todoroki also noticed the fairy-shaped roots on the corpses’ chests. “You mean… you’re meant to die with me?” Todoroki says silently, his flat expression shatters heartbreakingly.
“No, my dear friend, I meant to merge with you. I am your connection to the tree,” The fairy points to the fruits. “I will be your root, and you will be the fruit, as mother nature is the tree.”
“But-”
“It’s my life purpose. I’m your guardian fairy! I’ll do anything to make you happy.”
Todoroki frowns, “Now that I’m leaving, what will happen to you?”
“I’ll wilt, and another fairy will be born.”
“But… But I saw you when I was five. I didn’t stay with you then… That was you, right?”
The fairy tilts their head, “No, Shouto, I don’t think so. I never meet you when you were that little.”
“…I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, friend.” The fairy hugs Todoroki’s right cheekbone, “As long as you’re happy, I’ll be happy for you. I think that fairy must’ve been very happy for you too.”
Todoroki cries, and this is the first time Aizawa sees it for real and not in a tree-induced dream. His tears don’t turn into crystals, the fairy only wiped them away. They finally part with a strangely adorable little peck on his browbone. Todoroki looks back until the tree is long gone from view, the fairy waving at Todoroki with their gentle smile.
Once they’re out of the hole, they fell into another silence. Aizawa wants to pinch himself, maybe he had been dreaming all of that.
“Please don’t tell anyone of that place,” Todoroki says, close to begging that his flat voice lets him.
He hasn’t even thought of what to do about that. The professional working pro-hero Eraser Head knows he has an obligation to report dead bodies and as a potential threat of the death of so many children.
“I don’t know if I believe anything they said,” Aizawa says, “At the base of it, that little person is killing children.”
“Those children are alive!” Todoroki insists, “Those children are happy. Don’t take their chance of happiness just because I’m here.”
“Then why didn’t you stay?”
“I don’t know…” Todoroki says numbly, “I don’t know anymore. I wanted to think what you said is true. I wanted to see if I’m a person able to be missed.”
So yes, pro-hero Eraserhead is a professional hero that even though he often skirts the line, had always pulled through with protocols. But Aizawa Shouta thinks differently.
Aizawa sighs, “You are missed. I’m glad you came with me kid.”
Todoroki looks at him with sad eyes he tried to hide by looking down immediately, “Is it bad that I already regret leaving with you?”
It hurts a little, but not in a way that it’s offensive. “It’s not bad, it’s just a little sad, but I can imagine to understand. You just felt what being loved felt like… what might have been your first or first in a long time. You just felt what peace and happiness felt like. It had felt easy in that dream, and your reality is way harsher than that. It must’ve been hard to choose the hard thing. But life changes, you’re not gonna spend the rest of your life unloved, I promise you that.” Todoroki doesn’t seem to be responsive to his words, only looking away aloofly to the forest line.
“You don’t have to believe me now,” Aizawa continues. “Just… remember to never stop trying to live. It’ll be hard at first, but you’ll be saving yourself a lot of pain.”
“I’ll try,” Todoroki says off-handedly, and Aizawa sighs, guess that’s all he can get from Todoroki, for now.
Aizawa has no intention of leaving his eyes off Todoroki.
His walkie-talkie crackles, Hizashi’s voice came through, “Sho? Where the hell you’ve been? We tried to contact you but none of us could reach your channel.”
Todoroki is looking at him intensely.
“That’s weird, maybe the old thing is expiring on me.”
Todoroki sighs relievedly.
“By the way, it’s getting dark. Night shift is coming. I suggest you go home after already pulling an all-nighter yesterday to look… but you’re not gonna take my advice huh?”
Aizawa look at Todoroki who nods slightly, looking a bit defeated.
“I found Todoroki.”
There’s only a second pause before the other line exploded with noise. Hizashi, though dear to his heart, Aizawa can only tolerate so much of his quirked high-pitched voice, and it’s on max. There are other ramblings of others too, it seems that he’s not alone.
“I’m going to the rendezvous point,” Aizawa says quickly before taking off his line. He turns to Todoroki. “You’re ready?”
“Don’t really have a choice.”
Aizawa swallows a sigh. To be truthful, Aizawa is nervous about Todoroki. Aizawa can only do so much, but Todoroki will have to push through halfway himself. There’s therapy, and then there are his friends, but will that be enough?
After 30 minutes of hike, they finally reached a clearing near the road. Two dozen people are waiting there, half of them are class 1-A who charge at them as soon as Todoroki is into view. There’s screaming, crying, and a blur of rap-like speeches. Midoriya and Kaminari are hugging each of Todoroki’s sides latching like an octopus, then they’re wrapped by Shouji who’s even closer to having an octopus hug, Others cry, then there’s Kirishima who’s bawling, and Sero who cries quieter. Bakugo is screaming at the other to shut the fuck up and check if Todoroki is injured. Momo is the one who does, but with the three previous octopuses, she just sighs and chuckles tearfully. There are a few more ‘where have you been?’, ‘What did you dream of?’ ‘Do you remember anything?’ who came from kids that are still worried it’ll happen again.
Todoroki seems rightfully overwhelmed. His eyes try to find the source of which voice is talking to him. When he does, he seems softer and softer, in the end. Aizawa can see the tears welling up in his eyes and he closes them, hugging back the people around him.
“EVERYONE SHUT UP! Todoroki, are you okay?” Sero asks, which makes the class shut up.
“Thank you for looking for me,” Todoroki says aloofly, making half his friends blush and the other groaning in embarrassment.
In the end, they all have a group hug after Mina exclaims so. It’s endearing to see, if not for Sero that cello-taped them all into a big hug and now they all got stuck.
The adults sigh a breath of relief and chuckle at the kids.
“Hey,” Hizashi bumps his shoulder, “Where did you find him?”
“East from here, the trees were dense there, almost didn’t see him on the forest floor with my one eye.”
“I’m just glad both of you are safe. Do you think it’ll happen again?”
“I don’t know.”
Aizawa takes his husband’s hand in his, remembering Todoroki’s fantasy of having them as his parents. It could never happen, of course. Todoroki’s parents are alive and well, the proof of child abuse isn’t enough to make Endeavor and Rei lose custody. It’s pitiable that Todoroki never thought of his parents as his. He wonders if the fairy will come back to him when he’s hurt again because undoubtedly, he will.
The students finally got themselves unstuck with the help of Toshinori and Joke. It’s small, but Todoroki is chuckling.
Aizawa continues, “I don’t know what’ll happen to him from now on, but I think everything will be alright.”
Epilog
It isn’t easy at first. When the Todoroki family finally arrives at the clearing after Shouto is declared found, they manage to thicken the open air. Todoroki is reluctant to go with them, but it seems that his family is genuinely worried about him. Just in case, Aizawa gives Todoroki his card to call and come see him if he feels unsafe or just wants to get away.
Todoroki came over to Aizawa’s house that night after he was found. He said he fought with his family, it was a big one, and there seem to be tear tracks on his face. He looks expressively upset but doesn’t seem to be harmed. After an in-depth talk, Todoroki ensures that he isn’t harmed physically and Aizawa lets him stay over. Hizashi brings him the soycats to cuddle with. Todoroki blushes when Soybean and Soymilk sleep on Shouto’s left side for warmth and Soysauce kept wanting to be hugged. No one knew what the Todorokis truly fought about, but Aizawa gladly offers his home when Todoroki doesn’t want to go home for the holidays or just when he wants to see the cats. His relationship with his family had gone so sour that he blocked all of their numbers except for his mother, who he never calls until she called.
Todoroki become more withdrawn after that, snappish when pushed, but eventually, he calmed down. Aizawa notices him abruptly leaving at times and having breathing exercises in the corner, then found out that Todoroki is still attending therapy.
Not only his family is problematic, but the following few weeks after Todoroki came back, he’s been hunted by reporters and paparazzi alike, trying to gauge what really happened. Who put those crystals there? What did he remember? Who kidnaps him? Shouto answers all of it in silence and with a glare.
By the time he’s 18, Todoroki moved out with Bakugo and Midoriya. From what Aizawa heard from Todoroki when he visits, they’re kind of a mess, but there’s never a boring day. Aizawa also got freshly sourced gossip from the budding relationship between Bakugo and Midoriya. They are dreadfully pinning that Aizawa cringed into oblivion, Hizashi likes it though, so the pair often gossips on the sofa. Hence, even as Todoroki became a pro-hero and moved out, he still often dropped by Aizawa’s home just to talk, spend time with Eri and the cats, and gossip with Hizashi.
By the time he’s 25, Todoroki got married to Hanta, taking Sero as his family name. No one sees it coming, but apparently, they were getting closer when they worked together in the same agency. His whole family is invited. They’re not close, but no longer tense.
As the new couple walks out together, Shouto catches Aizawa’s eye, smiling brilliantly at him. Shouto mouthed a thank you.
It’s been ten years since Shouto chooses this life and Aizawa knows it hasn’t been easy for the kid. But he’s here now, and through it all, he’s finally happy.
****It’s been shy of 10 years since the most famous case of The Medusa happens to the most high-profile victim, the son of the now retired pro-Hero Endeavor, Todoroki Shouto – Now Sero Shouto. The Medusa turns children into clear crystal stones, rumored to be a vengeful spirit of a mistress that lashes out at their lover’s family. It’s still unknown to this day whether the Medusa is a perpetrator with a quirk or just an urban legend. The Medusa’s last victim is a failed one. Fifteen-Year old Sero Shouto had a history of sleepwalking before he went missing with crystals in his room, an M.O. of the Medusa. The twist to Sero Shouto’s case is that he’s found safely in the woods of Tokushima. Sero Shouto claimed to have no recollection of being kidnapped and said that he was simply sleepwalking.
A few days ago another case of The Medusa strikes a middle-class family of the Harunos. The victim is 12-year-old Kitsune who went missing just yesterday at around 4 AM, leaving 5 nail-sized crystals in her room. Her disappearance was realized when a neighbor came to check the loud noises in the Harunos household. The police are looking into the same spot where they found Sero Shouto but so far, they have found no trace of Haruno Kitsune.
After the commercial, our reporter interview the neighbor who came over to the Harunos household. Stay tuned.
Aizawa and Shouto return to the tree once or twice whenever a missing children case goes cold. Sometimes the kids wouldn’t leave a trace because not all children cry. Sometimes no one notices them gone because they’re homeless. Aizawa and Shouto will request the fairy to meet the child they just brought to talk the children into waking. It took a few tries sometimes to get their names, see their situation, and see if they can do something about it.
Sometimes they return with those children and find them a home.
Sometimes they don’t, and for those kids, they found home by Mother’s side, under the Tree of Eden.