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Eri wakes to darkness, breath uneven and hot, much too hot.
She kicks at her blankets, sluggish, and makes a soft and miserable noise as they tangle on her legs. Dark. Is it night time? With a muffled whine she sits up, bandages itching something fierce up and down her arms, and rubs her face clean of sweat with the collar of her shirt. The stagnant air is familiar, and as her thoughts tumble to sorts, Eri frowns, stomach twisting uncomfortably. Ow.
“Onii-san…?” she calls to the gloom, but no one answers. Her ears feel stuffed with cotton, but she strains to hear something, anything. Onii-san? “I don't—”
Pretty lights, an almost not there pain, and crackling like lightning across the sky. Him, a monster with arms of rock and other people, grasping hands, and yelling, yelling at Eri if he dies, it's your fault, remember that.
Eri sucks down a startled breath, and red light buzzes for a brief moment. Oh. Oh. Tears bubble up and overflow, a sob catching in the back of her throat. Her fault. Her fault. Onii-san lost, and it's her fault. He'd smiled for her in the face of dying, both if them had, and now he's… he’s...
Stupid. Stupid. She knew better, but she'd wanted to hope, to dream—to be free. To have friends, and, and to have anything else but this.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! she screams, her own voice so large and loud in her head. I hate you!
Time trickles by, her tears running dry, and her hate shriveling up and flagging into a bone-deep nothingness and exhaustion, her throat rubbing sore with her coughs and gasps. Eri’s sprawled limp and sick across her bed, eyes squeezed shut to block out the bare walls and empty floor that makes up her room, when the door clicks with a lock sliding open. She doesn't move, sweaty and nauseous, as someone shuffles into the room.
“My, you must really be sick then, Eri,” comes a familiar voice, Chronostasis, and a half light turns on. “Here we thought you might have been faking…”
Footsteps, and a slight movement to her blankets. Breakfast. Hunger rears an ugly head, but the mere thought of eating makes the back of her throat burn. Eri turns her head away, trembling, and cross her arms over her stomach before curling up.
There's a quiet huff. “Well, Overhaul won't be pleased, but a check up wouldn't be uncalled for, I guess…”
His name sends a shiver of fear up her spine. When he's not happy, that just means longer tests, longer times in a fake sleep, and someone else getting hurt too. Onii-san. Eri licks her lips, mouth dry, and works up the words trapped behind her teeth. Onii-san, I'm—
“S-Sorry,” she whimpers, “I'm, I'm sorry…”
“Mm, nothing for it, but I'll tell him. He was not happy when he had to cut yesterday's session short. Let’s see—” Sharp fingers catch the side of her face, tilting it toward the light, and Eri squints, listless, and let's it happen— “Doesn't seem any shorter…”
Yesterday. How long has it been? Telling time is… hard, but she's heard mention of names of days, tomorrow, today, but it's not something that makes sense, and. Everything hurts, but she's never used her quirk like she did before. Eri barely knows anything at all about it, and unconsciously, she reaches for her horn as soon as Chronostasis pulls his hand back. Huh. She frowns weakly, hand running over the grooves. It's longer.
He leaves soon enough, and by the time Eri can no longer stand the bitter taste in her mouth, head beginning to pound, the food has gone cold and hard. It's toast, a small bowl of mushy stuff, and an over large glass of water; the later she sips at carefully, unwilling to sleep in a wet bed, and nibbles on the bread. Eri eyes the bowl, suspicious, but the toast and water isn't enough, and she chokes it down despite the shudder its feeling gives her.
The food settles weirdly in her belly, but Eri forgets all about it, eyes slipping shut right after she places the tray on the floor, curling back up on the bed. She's thinking about Onii-san—green Onii-san with his green eyes and green hair and green suit; yellow Onii-san’s arms wrapped around her, his promise—trying to commit their smiles to memory, when things go fuzzy, and then she's not thinking at all.
Eri doesn't think she dreams, and the next she opens her eyes, the tray is gone, and she's no longer in bed. The room is unfamiliar, but only in the way she's never seen it exactly like this. It reminds her of the glimpses she gets of the test room, more overly clean than anywhere else, and without the gleaming silver of his tools, but that's about it. There's not quite the same heaviness weighing her down here, the lights more yellow than white and blue, and it's just. Nicer, somehow, and with more table beds in a neat row.
With a muffled grunt, Eri turns her head, and wrinkles her nose at the tube taped to the crook of her arm. The bag it leads to is clear and dripping, and it looks like water so it must be okay because her head doesn't hurt anymore, even if her ears and stomach still feel funny, in an almost achy sort of way.
She lays there for a little while, still tired, and blinks in confusion at the person that comes walking into the room. Bald, but with round glasses and a bushy mustache, she's never seen him before. Though. Most of the people who work for him that she sees wear masks; this man could be any one of them, and she might never know.
“Ah,” he says, glasses glinting, “awake, my dear? Quite a nasty fever you have; I wasn't sure when you would wake up, though I had hopes the fever would break when you did…” The man presses a cold hand to her forehead, and Eri shivers. Something. Something about him feels off. “Hmm. Overhaul said nothing's changed or happened differently in a month; it may just be a new manifestation of your quirk, so try not to worry, alright?”
A month. How much is a month? Is that a lot? The questions nip at the back of her lips, but Eri folds them back, unwilling to speak, and manages a slight nod instead. He pats her on the head, and fiddles with the bag before leaving back the way he came. She thinks a month might be a lot, but. But. She thinks she remembers the the headache starting during. During. So, why would a… fever? That's why she's so hot? Why would a fever last a long time? Except, they think it started… yesterday?
Eri sighs, and thinks this is a new sort of tired she'd rather not be feeling. She pushes the blanket off of her, the cool air a relief, and closes her eyes once more. Onii-san—
This time, she dreams. It's the pretty lights of green Onii-san’s quirk, the rattle roar of Him as they leap around like a rabbit, so fast, and then of yellow Onii-san. The walls close in, and the dart hits him, instead of her, and then nothing. If he dies, it's your fault, remember that, comes screaming from the dark, and Eri has but a second of drowning terror before—
“Eri. ”
Her eyes fly open, a gasp bitten off, and red flickers at the edge of her swimming vision. She's still in that familiar unfamiliar room, and that voice. That voice—
“Interesting,” he says, and Eri’s eyes cut to the side. There he stands, long mask in place, and eyes pinned to her. “Perhaps you won't mess up the schedule too badly after all.”
The flinch is automatic, and Eri turns her face away. I hate you! echoes in her ears, and something blistering and painful swells in her chest. I hate you!
For a long moment, he says nothing more, and she wishes desperately that he'd leave.
Onii-san, Onii-san—
”Eri, look at me.”
She doesn't want to, and she squeezes her eyes shut, teeth catching hold of her bottom lip.
“Eri .”
Eri looks.
He stares at her, lingering on her eyes before they drift up to her horn. She hates the considering sound he makes, hates the stupid fluff to his coat, his stupid beak, and hates how he looks at her, but she doesn't actually think sees her.
“I hate you,” slips out, sounding far off and muffled, but almost immediately Eri knows she means it. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!
Surprise widens his eyes, just a little, before annoyance sets in. It steals her breath, regret, and then fear, stuttering the roar in her ears. He stands, as if to leave, and Eri doesn't know what comes over her; all she can hear is green Onii-san trusting her, yelling over the too loud world around them, and she'd kept that picture of him in her mind the entire time, that singular moment before he'd faded at the edges with such a pretty light, lightening crawling over him and her, red and bright and tingly.
She tries to remember how a day works, how long a month might be—tries to understand how long ago she might have been born, tries to place herself, green Onii-san, yellow Onii-san, and Him all in a line. More than Him, that's what she needs. More than.
Her hand catches his sleeve, the world going wobbly and dizzy, and he whirls on her, fury lighting up his eyes—
And then he's gone, suddenly not where he just was, and the world rights itself, just a little, in a bright flare of red.
Eri blinks dazed at her hand, grasping at empty air, and wiggles the fingers. It takes a moment before she drops her arm, and then many more before it suddenly sinks in. He’s gone. He’s gone. She sucks in a breath, thinks maybe she ought to be happy, but isn’t sure what she is except. Almost, almost free, and this. This is familiar, but a knot Eri hadn’t felt loosens in her chest, and she scrambles off the bed.
Pain burns at her elbow, and she stifles a squeak as she looks, having forgotten about the tube and drippy bag. A tiny metal rod sticks halfway out of her arm, and blood leaks up like a tiny ball. Eri tugs the rest of the tape off, the pointy rod too, mindful of the other color skin of her arm, and looks around, toes curling against the cool floor.
No windows, but two doors.
The bald man came through one, so. She goes through the other. The hallways all look the same here, but Eri knows the turns and corners even if she’s never been in that one room before, has made it to the streets above more often than not.
There’s usually just no point, the end to a long and frustrating week or month or day or whatever, but she runs, and. She always gets caught, never begs for help after that one person and first time, but. He’s gone, the one she really only feared. So… who’s going to catch her? Who’s he going to hurt? Who does she fear?
“No one,” she breathes, shutting the door behind her, out of breath, but her ears no longer throb, feel stuffed and muffled. “No one .”
Except, maybe, herself.
She shakes the thought away, frowning, and curls her hands. The alley is dirty, wet and rough on her feet, but it’s daytime, and Eri pushes forward and through a few alleyways. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that this is the same place, the place where she first met both green, and yellow, Onii-san, and she falters at change into an actual street. A shudder works over her, and tears well free, but, maybe, just maybe, they’re okay.
It’s a blank, between now and then. One moment she was there, arms around green Onii-san’s neck, and the next, in bed, sick. Maybe they ran; maybe they had to leave her behind again. Which. Which is okay because.
Because Eri doesn’t want them to be dead.
“Oh? Are you okay, ko-chan?” asks a voice, and she whips her head up, startled into a stumble backwards. Tall. This person is tall. “Ah. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
Eri blinks up and up at him, shook from her fear, and doesn't know what to do with the narrow eyed look he gives her. His hair is green, like green Onii-san almost but with bits of yellow, and. Wait. He… He came with yellow Onii-san. Right? He was there, before green Onii-san showed up.
Right?
“Sir? Is something—” starts another voice, and a woman, older than yellow Onii-san but with a clear mask that makes Eri uneasy and blue skin, bounces over, clearly nervous. She takes one look at Eri though, and it fades into something happier, but concerned—”Oh! Aren’t you cute, are you lost?”
Lost. Is she lost? Or, that she lost someone? “I, I lost green Onii-san and yellow Onii-san,” she whimpers, hands folding into the cloth of her overly long shirt. It’s not the one she went to sleep in. “I... don’t know where they a-are.”
The woman crouches, smiling, and offers her hand to Eri. “Oh, that’s no good, but don’t worry! We’ll help you find them, okay? We’re Heroes.”
Heroes. Heroes. “They’re, they’re Heroes, too,” she says, and darts a look between her hand and the man, who has yet to say another word. So many words—Eri’s never talked so much before; it’s so hard . “I think… I think you, you know them, Sir?”
There’s a pause, like what she’s saying is strange. The two share a look, and Eri can feel her heart begin to race. Does… he not remember her? Or Onii-san? Something’s wrong. Something’s off, but not like that bald man.
“I do?” he says, yellow eyes looking at Eri hard. “What do they look like?”
Oh. Oh.
“Oh my god, Sir. ”
Everything bubbles over, and Eri can’t stop the tears or the painful sob that slips free. She cries, gross and wet, and hiccups so hard her knees decide to stop working. The arms that catch her are hard and muscled, boney in places and barely like yellow Onii-san at all, and it just makes her cry harder. The man, Sir, bounces her, a jerky movement, and her head is beginning to hurt again, her ears filling up. He doesn’t know her, and doesn’t know yellow Onii-san, so then not green Onii-san either.
Why doesn’t he know?
Movement, they’re moving, and Eri doesn’t know where to, but it can’t be worse than where she came from. Her face ends up in the crook of his neck, snot and horn and all, and sometime before they get anywhere at all, her tears run out, her nose clogged and the air too hot and stuffy to keep hiding. It’s only then Eri really feels the hand rubbing circles on her back, and she flops her head around with a deep and shaky sigh.
People drift by, so, so many, and the blue woman’s keeping pace with a pinched face. She smooths it into a squibbly smile when she sees Eri looking, but the, the mask . It’s nothing like His but. Why does she need it? Could she take it off? Does she have to wear it?
Eri whines, deep in her chest, and closes her eyes, and.
Again, she doesn’t dream, or, at least she doesn’t think she does. Eri rises from nothingness to another room, much different than any she’s ever seen. A flower spins on the ceiling, and the walls aren’t bare, covered in all sorts of paper in lots of colors and scribbles. She shifts, and realizes it’s a coat that covers her, nothing like His or theirs, but it may as well be a blanket, and she fists her hands into it, the feeling softer than anything she’s had before.
A noise off to the side draws her eyes, and she stiffens, fear swallowing her up. A bug. A really, really, big bug sits on a person at a table. She can’t see the body’s head, just a bug wrapped up on itself and sipping from a cup and reading, and—
It turns toward her, bug sticks twitching like super long eyebrows. “Hello, little miss,” it says, like a person, and Eri screams.
The bug jolts, drink splashing, and there’s a thud somewhere. She can just hear the rush of feet over her own tapering scream, and she falls off the couch just as someone skids into the doorway.
“What’s wrong? Who’s dying?” yelps a familiar voice, and Eri scrambles upright, eyes falling on a familiar face and hair and eyes and— ”Is everything—”
He cuts himself off when Eri slams into his leg with a cry of, “Onii-san! ” and scoops her up without pause. He’s here. He’s here, he’s here, he’s here! Eri’s crying again, and she clings as hard as she can, fingers twisting tight into his shirt.
“Oof, watch the horn, okay? S’little sharp there,” he laughs, and he’s the same, he’s okay. “What happened—Oh. That’s rough; see, we told you about the scarf, Moashi-san.”
There’s a grumble, and Eri tries to pull back on the tears, to not poke so hard with her horn. The arms holding her shift, and she lets herself be leaned back.
He smiles at her, just like before. “I know Moashi-san looks kind scary, but he’s a, heh, softie on the inside; he wouldn’t hurt you, ever,” he says, and Eri sniffles, bites her lip before looking back at ‘Moashi-san.’ The bug sticks wiggle, and she tenses. “Aw, well, it’s okay, you’ll see, and hey, do you feel up to answering some questions? So we can find your missing Onii-san?”
Not really. Her words feel used up for the day, her throat too tight to manage anything, but. She’d really like to see green Onii-san, to see that he’s okay too. Eri gives a hesitant nod, and then a wary look at Moashi. The bug sighs, closing his book, and she watches him as he leaves, yellow Onii-san setting her back onto the couch.
“Sorry, I haven’t properly introduced myself: my name’s Togata Mirio, what’s yours?” he says, kneeling by the couch instead of sitting next to her.
Togata. Togata. “Eri,” she whispers, the words catching across her tongue, and licks her lips, swallows hard over her dry mouth. Shouldn’t… Shouldn’t he know that? “It’s Eri…”
“Just Eri?” Togata asks, and then pops upright. For a second, Eri thinks He’s leaving me when all he does is dig around in the cabinets above a sink. He comes back with a cool glass of water, and gives it to her, which she sips at gratefully. “No last name?”
Last name. People have more than one name? Eri wrinkles her nose in thought. He had multiple names, but she isn’t sure which ones were true. Overhaul. Chisaki. Kai. Father. Chronostasis would be a pretty weird name, to name someone, maybe, but. She shakes her head, and savors the water.
“Well, that’s alright, Eri’s a very cute name,” he continues, and it. It sounds odd, the way he says her name. Something’s off —“So, what about your Onii-san? What’s his, er, their names, huh, Eri-chan?”
Oh.
The glass slips from her hands. No. No, no, no —
Togata yelps, and just catches the glass, water spilling over the top anyway. “Oh, hey, close call, huh?” he says, grinning, but then it melts away into concern. “ Oh, um, I’m, I’m sorry, please don’t cry, it’s okay. We’ll find them, don’t worry, okay?”
“I, I don’t understand,” she whimpers, and stares at him. He looks the same, acts the same, but why doesn’t he know? “You, you fought him. But then y-you got hit and green Onii-san came and Sir-san got hurt and—”
They won. The knowledge hits Eri, and makes her gasp. They won. They won, so why —
Sir. Sir—that’s his name, right? Green hair, yellow bits—got hurt. Whispers, Eri remembers distant whispers over her head, and the beep and beep of a machine, and yellow Onii-san—Togata—was crying. If he dies, it’s your fault, remember that. She hadn’t wanted anyone to die, not because of her. She wasn’t worth it, not worth someone else who Togata would cry over when he smiled in the face of His wrath, for her.
Eri reaches for her horn, a tingle shock running up her hand, and brushes her fingers over the grooves. It’s almost as small as it usually is, but. It had been so, so long before the very end, she remembers, a painful throb right there as it crackled with red light and green Onii-san struggled under it. It hadn’t been half as long before, before she made Him gone, and now it’s. Smaller, but not as small as it should be.
“I… I don’t understand,” she repeats, and Togata’s watching her. The smile he gives her is maybe, just a little, unsure. “I think…”
Maybe I won’t ever, and.
Eri thinks she could live with that.