Chapter Text
Time passed like ticks on a clock: so slow, but speedy in the same regards. Just like those echoing noises, it was impossible to count the hours that emerald orbs had been open, shutting for no more than a second at a time. The frail body attached to those hopeless eyes wandered the halls without resolve; his feet were just moving without regards to anything around them. Perhaps it was the fear of being chained up once more that fueled him to walk for hours, sometimes days, at a time without rest. The halls were a maze, endless and numbing. Twists and turns led nowhere except to more twists and turns as if he were walking in one of MC Escher’s painting. Various doors passed by the boy, but they were all shut as if to tell him that he wasn't allowed anywhere but in the empty hallways of his own caging mind.
His pulse quickened all of a sudden, as if he was snapped back into reality and realized just how lost he was. Breaths became strained and uneven as the became more and more present in the moment. The sun was rising now, he noticed, and suddenly he became aware of the windows near him. Of course, the boy’s first response was to walk over and touch the glass, looking aimlessly at the sky. “Blue…” his voice left his lips like a breath as forest locks fell out of his face, allowing him to gape at the landscape in front of him. The open expanse was at his fingertips, teasing him from the other side of a see-through wall. “Pretty,” he spoke to no one other than the picturesque scene in front of him as he attempted to push past the glass.
Logically, yes, the young boy knew that slamming his fists against the glass wasn’t going to break it, but frustration rose like bile in his throat: he was trapped again. He didn't want to be trapped again; he wanted to go home, he wanted to gaze at the fluffy clouds with the grass between his toes, and he wanted to see his mom. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was running through the hallways, searching for something- anything! Despite all of his wishes, he fell to his knees, exhausted from running and lack of sleep. Now he was only deeper into the maze of endless, white hallways. It took all of his strength not to scream out in pain as the agony of being scared and alone settled underneath his skin. Curling up with his hands over his head, his body shook with fear and sorrow; plagued by the knowledge that someone was going to come get him. They always did- again and again
Over and over.
Every escape attempt
FAIL
When freedom was two steps away-
He could only take one.
In that moment, footsteps became louder and louder. Several people were walking towards him; there were too many to count- although that could have just been the echo in his ear. This was it: this was the end. Electricity cackled across his frail, freckled body as a last resort defense. Footsteps got louder and louder, as did the ringing in his empty ears. Torture was the only word to describe the pain of anxiety. What if it was them? What if it wasn’t? What if it was finally someone who was going to take him away from this hell? No, no. That wouldn’t be it; he was too used to being deceived. This time, he wouldn’t fall for it: he couldn’t fall for it. A blissful embrace wasn’t something meant for him, and no one was coming to take him away from this haunting lifestyle of agony. If he just kept his Electric Cloak up, he could claim that he wasn’t resisting, just scared. If he fought back, they would make his punishment worse, but protection- protecting himself was okay, right? Tears slipped down his cheeks as he tried to curl up even farther. His hands were pushing down on his head nearly hard enough to give himself a headache, but he didn’t notice. He didn’t care.
“Hey!” the voice wasn’t outwardly hostile; it was more confused than anything, but the clouded boy couldn’t tell something like that. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” his voice quickly devolved into sobs, barely able to repeat those two words anymore as he lay on the ground. All of a sudden, a wave of unexpected calm washed over him. It was forceful, like a sedative, but he still remained fully conscious. None of his limbs would respond to his attempts at movement, but maybe that was for the best. Forcing himself to relax, he simply decided that it was time to just go with whatever punishment they had for him.
Shinsou didn’t like using his quirk, especially with all of the comments on its nature, but this was the only way to calm down the mysterious boy in front of Class 1-C. None of the teachers were around yet, and, honestly, Shinsou was only here because he had left his textbook the other day when they were having a quiz on the material later that day. None of that, however, mattered as the young Gen-Ed student looked down at the broken boy in front of his classroom. “Can you get up? Can you stand?” who was this kid? Surely someone like that couldn’t have broken into Yuuei of all places, but why was he there in the first place. The boy stood up, facing Shinsou with the same dazed look that everyone had when they were under the effects of his quirk, but this kid looked significantly worse. His cheeks were hollow and sunken, the bags under his eyes could take all of the groceries in one trip, and everything about him looked like a walking corpse. Testing the boundaries again, Shinsou started to speak, “Do you know where you are?” he was looking for something to give him an idea as to why this kid was here.
The freckled boy shook his forest head of fluffy hair, unable to properly form the word ‘no.’ “Do you know your name?” the purple haired boy. Did he? Surely he knew something as simple as his own name, but there was too much static; he couldn’t think back far enough to recall what he was called, “Don’t ‘n’...” He attempted the sentence, “I don’t know,” but failed severely. His head hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt! Both hands moved to his head, gripping at the stabbing pain. “Hey, hey,” the calmness washed over him again. “It’s fine if you don’t know. My name is Shinsou, and, right now, you’re under my quirk. I’m going to let it go, okay?” he verified with the broken boy to make sure that the frazzled male didn’t lash out. A head of fluffy, forest hair nodded, allowing Shinsou to release the grip that he had on the boy.
No doubt, the young escapee was still scared; he didn’t know if he could truly trust this Shinsou boy, but the sheepish look on his face bore no ill intent. “I am Shinsou, Hitoshi Shinsou,” he restated, offering a hand out to the boy in front of him. The kid looked at his extended limb warily, “I promise I won’t hurt you,” everything about him made emerald orbs want to trust the lavender eyes looking into his own. “Shin-” he tried to repeat the boy’s name, “Shins-” but was only torn with frustration over his inability to speak properly. “That’s fine,” Shinsou reassured him, drawing back his hand to sheepishly scratch the back of his head, “Just say what you can, okay?” This kindness was something that the poor kid had never really received from anyone that wasn’t his mother. Fellow schoolkids always bullied him, and the League of Villains was so much worse than petty schoolkids could ever hope to be, but Shinsou was nice; he was gentle.
Once again, Shinsou extended his hand to the shaking male before him, “I won’t hurt you,” his voice was calm and steady. The frail boy knew that Shinsou wouldn’t hurt him, but the League wanted nothing more with him, “... will,” ‘they will.’ Of course, Shinsou would have naturally been confused; he just said that he wouldn’t hurt the boy. “I promise that I won’t,” he reassured, maintaining eye contact with the shaking emerald orbs in front of him. “Not Shin,” a raspy throat from mangled vocal cords managed out, trying to find the word that he was looking for somewhere in his muddled memory, “‘em.” Then it hit Shinsou: “Them.” That was what he was trying to say: “They will (hurt him),” but who were “they?” His first thought, admittedly, was that this boy was talking about Yuuei’s teachers. “The teachers?” he vocalized, wondering why they would target a boy, much less someone as small and broken as this one. Understanding the confusion on the freckled face before him, Shinsou reiterated in a way that someone who didn’t know that they were in ‘Yuuei: Hero High’ would understand, “The pros? The heroes?” To which, emerald eyes and forest brows looked confused, thankfully, shaking his head; at least, he didn’t think that the heroes were going to hurt him.
Letting out a sigh, Shinsou figured that was all he really needed to know, “Okay, that’s good.” He had to think: what was he going to do next? Surely he couldn’t leave the poor kid? Who would he even bring him to, though? “I’ll- I can help you get out of here,” he knew that the halls of Yuuei were similar to a maze, so this kid must have been lost, “Is that okay with you?” Anyone who had been through all of the torturous hells that he had wouldn’t trust Shinsou, and, speaking honestly, he wasn’t quite sure that he did, either. However, he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? With that in mind, he carefully grabbed Shinsou’s hand and walked forward.
The shaking hand in his own told Shinsou that the boy was scared, but who wouldn’t be in that situation? This kid didn’t know where he was; he didn’t know who Shinsou was; and, hell, he didn’t even know himself or his own name! All this poor kid knew was that there was someone out there who wanted to hurt him! Now, Shinsou wasn’t exactly the best at comfort, seeing as his own backstory wasn’t exactly rainbows and sunshine, but now he had to give it his best. It just hurt him to look back at the frail boy, who was lightly clinging to his arm, looking like he was walking through a haunted house after not sleeping for half a week. No matter how much he so badly wanted to cling to the hand outstretched to him, the forest haired boy was still scared of it, too. Trying the only thing that he could think to do, Shinsou gave the smaller hand within his a light, reassuring squeeze, turning his head backwards to give a small smile.
It was difficult for someone who hadn’t had a reason to smile in what felt like years, but the freckles along his rose lips scrunched up slightly. The boy continued to put one foot in front of the other, ignoring the lingering internal feelings and the echoing sounds down the hall. It seemed that the twists and turns of the terrifying maze were no longer as corporate nor cold as they were before his small hand had found someone to hold it in their own. Of course, he knew not to get to excited for various reasons, but this was a wonder for a boy who couldn’t remember his own name. Even if he had the ability to scream at the top of his lungs, the word uttered under his breath would have still been but a whisper, “Pretty.” This smile wasn’t the one that he remembered from whom he called “Mom,” and this lavender wasn’t the color of the sky that he adored so much; even without being those, this scene was something that he could only describe by the word “pretty.”
Shortly after their journey began, Shinsou and the young boy made it down to the principal’s office where the student knew that he could get some answers. It felt like time had stopped for them as they walked down, but the disheartened boy was once again reminded that time passed. Lingering pain of his past wounds threatened to make themselves prominent once again, but he pushed past that with gasping breaths as Shinsou opened the door before them.
Quite a few of the teachers were in the hall, centered around Nedzu who was on a call with the people who were watching the cameras. “Uh, I found this kid,” Shinsou announced amidst the silence that fell the moment he opened the door, “Care to tell me who he is?” Aizawa Shota; Pro hero: Eraserhead; one of Shinsou’s favorite pro heroes: he let out a sigh, looking even more bedraggled than he usually did, “Mic,” his voice was something of steel. Yamada Hizashi, another pro hero by the name Present Mic, let out a few sheepish words, “There he is.” The entire room fizzled out, but the lingering ill intent shook the small boy as he hid behind Shinsou. Aizawa was quite shocking when he was unfeeling and showing his resting bitch face, but, when he got even the slightest bit upset, you could tell. “Young Shinsou! Greetings!” Toshinori Yagi, known to most as All Might, was the first to actually address the student that accompanied the young boy down to the office.
It was no real surprise that the kid Shinsou brought with him was currently hiding behind the Gen-Ed student’s back, but it was sadly laughable. “Children, children, you’re scaring him,” Nedzu stepped up, breaking up the tension in the room, “Thank you for bringing him here, Shinsou. I assure you that he’s in good hands, and you can return to your classroom.” Even when being reassured by the principal, Shinsou wasn’t so sure that he could leave the kid in the pro heroes care. He twisted his back to look at the kid hiding behind it, “Will you be okay?” He didn’t want to make this boy trust him only to feed him to the wolves and abandon him in the cold. “Mic, go greet him. I left you in charge of his well being for a reason,” Nedzu “kindly nudged” Mic towards the boy while Shinsou was distracting him. The pro hero took off his glasses and leaned down to where he was face to face with the kid the moment emerald orbs turned from Shinsou’s gaze. In that moment, it clicked, “Ah! ‘Zashi!” the young boy wasn’t smiling like he did back in the hallway, but there was a hint of glee in his upturned lips as he gazed upon a familiar face. “Yo kiddo,” Mic grinned before putting his glasses back on and returning to a standing position. “That’s all and well,” Shinsou was glad that he wasn’t releasing the poor kid into a shark tank, “But who is he?” The pros had to have some knowledge, right.
“That’s cla(ssified),” Aizawa was the first to speak, straightforward and to the point, but Nedzu cut him off, “His name is Izuku Midoriya, and he is a human that would take hours to explain.”