Chapter Text
Almost 4 months had gone by since Aizawa ran into the green boy last. He didn’t get a name or any information from the kid, all he got was a robber tied to a bike rack on the sidewalk. The kid was obviously a vigilante, it wasn’t surprising in that side of town, but he couldn’t have been more than 15 and had some high-quality weapons with him. Aizawa didn’t get a good look at them but could tell they were bombs of some sort.
Vigilantism plus possessions of weapons of that sort would surely get the kid up to 3 years at least. If Aizawa could find him beforehand and give him a few warnings then the kid might get to avoid getting arrested, maybe even settle for community service. Sadly, he hasn’t seen the boy in months. He doesn’t know if he’s stopped patrolling near the Pro Hero on purpose or decided to stop patrolling all together.
“Eraserhead?” Aizawa’s earpiece sounded. “There are reports of suspicious activity outside of an apartment building a few blocks from you, Tsukauchi wants you to check it out.”
Aizawa sighed at the order. Since his last run-in with the vigilante, he’d been working with Detective Tsukuachi who was already working the case. Apparently, the boy had been active for 6 months before Aizawa even heard of him.
Now, he was checking out every “suspicious activity” report in 10 blocks of where he rested on the top of an old industrial building.
“What’s the address?” He asked as he lifted his goggles to his eyes and set off.
He got there in under 3 minutes, eyes looking for whatever would have been seen as suspicious. It took longer than he would have liked, but then he saw it. Lights flashing on the upper floors three buildings away from where he stood.
Could just be an electrical problem or something, he thought as he made his way over. Once he was on top of the building, he looked down to the street below, seeing a van surrounded by 6 people 15 stories down. Drug movement.
There had been word of a new stimulant around this side of town going by the name Torippu, said to increase the strength of emitter quirks. There wasn’t any proof that it even exists, though, Aizawa couldn’t pull his mind away from the rumors about it.
If there was drug-dealing going on here then maybe the boy would be there as well. It was only a block or two outside of the areas where Aizawa frequently saw him, surely he wouldn’t mind the extra traveling.
Either way, the Pro Hero needed to better grip what was going down there before interfering. There were probably more people inside the building and Aizawa didn’t have a good estimate on the numbers. He would need to call back up either way, according to law.
“This is Eraserhead reporting on-” Aizawa began to speak into his earpiece before a loud crashing noise sounded down below the buildings. He ignored the woman responding in favor of looking down towards the ruckus where there was now a body laying on the roof of the van below and a broken window 2 stories from where he stood on the roof.
“I’m going to need back up at my current location, immediately,” he informed before dropping down from the roof and slipping into the newly broken window.
The room he entered was empty, but various bodies laid sprawled across the floor with a few discarded boxes around them. Judging by the coughing and dry heaving, all of them were alive.
Aizawa leaned down to the box closest to him to read the label. Amazon, printed in bold letters on the front. Well, judging by the smell of this place there was definitely some precious cargo. The room reeked of smoke, though there was known to be seen, there were also a few burns on a few of the bodies lying around.
Carefully, he stepped across the bodies to the open door and looked out into a long hallway. It was empty, but the hero could hear noises coming from the left end. He tried his best to not make any noise but the floorboards were creaky and old, it seemed every step he took echoed off the walls.
He had to speed up his pace when the sound of another window breaking met his ears.
When he reached the end of the hall, 4 men turned to him and immediately started to throw attacks at him. He dodged the first few that seemed to be from some electric quirk before activating his own and wrapping his capture weapon around them. They were already weakened it seemed.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Aizawa muttered under his breath, making sure his weapon was secured before walked over to the broken window. There wasn’t anything below, other than broken glass. He assumed some attack of sorts broke it before one of the men called out.
“He went up there!” He grunted while struggling.
He? Aizawa thought. The boy? There was a possibility that he could have climbed up to the roof, but it would be tricky. A few bricks were sticking out farther than most, probably far enough to get a good grip on. The hero took a look at the men tied up. He’d need his capture weapon to make sure the boy stayed there to hear him out so he’d need to release them.
He quickly brought out the knock-out powder he kept in his utility belt. It was originally a support student’s modification of Midnight’s quirk but quickly became a popular tool among the U.A faculty. He covered his nose and poured the power down over the 4, watching as it dissolved into a mist around their faces before unwrapping them and heading out the window.
“He’s ready to go?” Aizawa heard a voice once he was hanging off the ledge of the roof. It was a boy, sounded young, but not the boy. Someone else, another kid was there.
“How should I know?” That voice was familiar, the green boy’s. He must be with a partner of sorts, but Tsukauchi had never mentioned him working with anyone.
“She should be here by now,” the other boy spoke again. Aizawa’s arms started to cramp up from the position he held, so he decided it was time to confront the two. He hoisted himself over the ledge and onto the roof.
In the past, every time he confronted the boy to talk he’d always get away before Aizawa could even try to use his capture weapon, so the hero immediately shot it out and wrapped it around both of the boys.
“Oh, shit,” the green boy groaned while the other one struggled in the binds.
“Long time no see,” he approached the two slowly but used his capture weapon to turn them around to get a better look. They both had hoods on and cloth hanging over their noses but Aizawa could recognize the green eyes and freckles of the vigilante he’d been trying to track down. The other boy had purple eyes and looked strangely tired from the eye bags he sported.
“Yeah,” the boy sighed. “I guess it’s been a while.”
“Want to introduce your friend?” Every other time Aizawa had tried to erase the boy’s quirk he would be unfazed so he didn’t even try to activate it, not with them already wrapped up.
“Well, Eraserhead this douchebag,” he gestured his head to the boy next to him before going back to the hero, “douchebag, this is Eraserhead.”
“Oh my god,” the other boy groaned, Aizawa assumed ‘douchebag’ wasn’t his real name. “Is now really the time?”
“Yes, I believe now is a perfect time actually,” he nodded. “Eraserhead, please settle this for us,” the other boy groaned again. “When someone gets a new item through their own hard work and lets another someone use said item, the item should be returned to said someone within a convenient timeline-”
“I told you! I could get it back from-”
“Said timeline, would include a few days, maybe a week, 2 weeks tops-”
“He said it was for the-”
“Excuse me!” The boy tried his best to turn toward the one beside him, putting him in an always position. “I’m talking here! 2 months is unacceptable! I had to hound you for 2 months before you finally gave it back to me! And it wasn’t even in good condition, douchebag!”
“Quit it with the ‘douchebag’ shit!” They went back and forth with empty insults and Aizawa could already feel a headache coming on. He tugged at his capture weapon, drawing the two boys’ attention back to him.
“I don’t care about whatever petty drama you have going on right now,” he grumbled. “What are you two doing up here?” The boys looked at each other before shrugging.
“Fresh air?” The purple-eyed one suggested, almost making Aizawa crack a smile. Almost.
“We already know how this is going to go,” he looked towards the green boy. He’d sort of known him so it would be easier to talk to him, then again he knew how uncooperative the boy could be so maybe taking his chances with the new one would work out better. “You have two options here, either-”
He wasn’t able to finish his sentence, being cut off by a searing pain in the back of his head, causing him to fall to his knees. His vision went black for a minute before coming back blurred. When he looked up, there was a figure standing above him and bringing down something on the back of his head. Then it all went dark.
---
It had been about 3 months since Kei had met Izuku and the others and things were going relatively well.
She had gotten pretty close with Izuku and Dabi, even got Hitoshi to warm up to her after the first month. The three boys had grown to be like family Kei, more of a family than she ever had in Hosu.
That city was filled with people she grew up around, ones she loved and thought loved her, but now every time she hears the name mentioned she’s taken back to that night with her brother. Him kneeling down in front of her with a small smile on his face and watery eyes, pretending that he cared, telling her that he’d be back for her soon. God, she hated that city.
Kei had taken up Izuku’s offer to train with Tanaka the second week she was with them. Hitoshi wasn’t too happy about it but the grown man was ecstatic to have another student. For the next months, all of her movements felt like her muscles were burning and her body was littered with bruises, but this time it wasn’t from Shizumi or Bouder, it was from something she accomplished herself. She welcomed the feeling over her knuckles being rubbed dry from the punching bag or the cuts she got of her fingers when Tanaka first suggested she started working with knives.
It all worked out in the end though. She began going out with Hitoshi and Izuku on their patrols once she felt confident enough to and hadn’t had any problems with Pro Heroes or police officers. Well, maybe she had to climb a few buildings to avoid being seen every once in a while, but she didn’t mind. Kei liked the feeling of the wind on her face and the burning in her arms after a good 10 stories.
16 stories however might be pushing it. At least, that was the conclusion she came to while hanging onto a window seal that was 170 feet off of the ground, questioning what the hell she was doing and why.
A few days ago Dabi had come to the three with a potential “job offer,” as he called it. He said that it would be simple, they would just have to get into a building down south, up to the 14 floors, and take a few samples of whatever was kept up there.
Whatever was kept up there, meaning Dabi had no idea what the hell was going on in the building.
Hitoshi had advised against it, saying that it was too risky without knowing what was going on and who was behind it. Izuku had said that it would be fun, going for an actual goal. They had done a few similar things before, but they were small. Like breaking into Ronnies warehouse, doing a small heist from a Hero Merch store, and even gathering information on one of Dabi’s more “upper side” clients by sneaking into his penthouse. All of them went pretty well, everything had gone to Izuku’s plan.
This was vastly different though, for many reasons.
Hero Merch stores had security cameras that they had to avoid, not armed guards that were ready to take someone’s head off.. Dabi’s client had his wife and kids asleep in the house that they had to be sure not to disturb, not armed guards that were ready to take someone’s head off. Ronnie’s warehouse had a drunk half asleep Ronnie inside, not armed guards that were ready to take someone’s head off.
Seeing the pattern? Apparently, Izuku didn’t, because not 10 minutes ago Hitoshi and Kei were stuck on the 14th floor having to fight grown-ass men to save their lives, all for 5 small baggies with some sort of powder in them.
Kei had left Hitoshi alone after they kicked one man out of a window and went down to the 10th floor that Dabi wanted them to scope out, For what? They didn’t know, nor did they want to.
Surprisingly, it was empty. Unsurprisingly, once she got a look out of the window, 2 of the men that Izuku said were supposed to stay by the van were gone, one of them being a man with a quirk that could multiply himself according to the boy’s information.
She assumed that he would be scoping out the building since the body of one of their men landed on their van. It probably meant that something was going wrong.
Izuku’s plan involved not alerting anybody, specifically the men they were unintentionally stealing from. They had meant to get a sample and leave the rest for whatever they wanted to do with it, but after the fight broke out, the boxes had gotten knocked over and the powder had dissolved into nothing. Dabi had been up there briefly with her and Hitoshi at first but quickly left after Hitoshi warned him about burning the place down.
Instead of using the stairs to get to the roof where the four of them were supposed to meet, Kei took the safer route and opened a window to climb out of. She had to stop her climb only a few feet away from her destination however when she heard Hitoshi and Izuku arguing, along with a third voice that definitely wasn’t Dabi.
Her first reaction was to just interrupt whatever conversation was happening by announcing herself, but she didn’t know if wherever was up there had the two boys with knives to their throats or in a life or death situation.
“I don’t care about whatever petty drama you two have going on right now,” Kei heard as she lifted herself up past the window and grasped the ledge of the building. From there, she was able to lift herself up enough to get a look at the scene, silently thanking Tanaka for making her do all of those pull-ups.
Sure enough, there was a man up there with the two boys, having them bound in a white cloth. Kei couldn’t see the man’s face, but the white cloth that was wrapped around her friends gave her a good enough idea about his identity. Eraserhead, the hero Izuku had a few run-ins with a while back, also the one that Hitoshi wouldn’t shut up about. The boy was a fan. Wonder how it feels to be captured by your ideal, Kei almost snorted at the thought. Not captured, not yet.
As quietly as she could, Kei lifted herself onto the roof, her feet landing silently on the cement. The man was a few steps ahead of her, if she could manage to knock him out somehow then she could get the boys undone and find Dabi, then get the hell out of here.
It seemed that she caught Izuku’s eye despite her dark clothing and scarf wrapped around her hair and lower face. He gestured to the man with his eyes but Kei wasn’t good at reading people, not like he was.
Dammnit, she silently cursed and slipped the small knife outside of her side pocket. The blade was fairly large, but Kei wouldn’t be needing that, what mattered was the hilt. She carefully gipped the blade, firm but not tight enough to cut.
Quietly but quickly, Kei made her way being behind the man, ignoring whatever words he was saying, and lifted the knife up before knocking him in the lower part of his head, hard.
He went down with a wince and the binding weapon around Hitoshi and Izuku loosened enough for the two to slip out. They walked over, Izuku wincing at the sight of the hero on the ground and Hitoshi looking remorseful. Though he didn’t seem to be remorseful when he grabbed a pipe a few feet away and knocked him over the head once more.
“Was that really necessary?” Kei winced, feeling a little bad.
“Yes,” the two boys answered.
“He’ll be okay,” Izuku tried to reassure with an awkward smile. “Maybe a few stitches and a killer headache, but he’ll live. I can’t say the same for us if we stay here though, so let’s get going.”
“Woah, what about Dabi?” Hitoshi stopped the boy from heading over to the ledge of the building. “He’s still not here.”
“He can take care of himself,” Kei shrugged and walked over to Izuku. Their escape route was a little bit iffy. The building next to them was a few stories smaller and a fairly long drop, but Izuku estimated that they could make it with little injury and scurry down from the fire escape.
“Come on,” Izuku tried to convince the boy. “The man’s a cockroach, he can survive anything. Besides, he’ll just burn his way out of any problems he comes by.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Hitoshi gestured to the unconscious hero. “What’s Eraserhead going to do when he burns the building down?”
“He’s a Pro, Hitoshi. He can handle himself.”
With that, Izuku and Kei backed up to get a running start before jumping onto the neighbor building and waited for Hitoshi to follow.
Later when they met up with Dabi at the duplex and the man was covered in ash and blood, the three didn’t ask any questions.