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“How many of these fucking guys are there?” Hizashi shouts over the gun fire, hiding behind a dumpster in the narrow alleyway. He had his trusty pistol in gloved hand, peeking from his cover to the rival gang members shooting at them.
“About five more from what I can see.” Aizawa calls across the divide. He’s hiding behind his own cover - a parked car that was quickly losing its integrity - and ducking up and down to shoot at the opposing side. “Reinforcements have already been called.”
“Well they better hurry up! This is getting ridiculous.” Hizashi complains, pausing for a moment before he suddenly pops up from his hiding place to shoot right between the eyes of another enemy.
The two of them had been walking back from yet another meeting before they had been ambushed on the way back. Ambushes were far from uncommon in their line of work, but the amount of people, as well as how coordinated this group was, meant that they’ve been at this shoot out for nearly 20 minutes.
Hizashi and Aizawa were amazing shots, but even they were growing tired from the near endless amount of people out for their heads. They had finally managed to whittle the group down from 15 to 3 but they were running out to bullets, and time for that matter.
“Believe me I know.” Aizawa grumbles. He reloads his last cartridge into the barrel his gun with a click. “Nemuri said five more minutes at the most, so just hold on for a bit longer.”
Hizashi huffs, readying his gun and popping from his cover to shoot another opposing member. “Well, I’m holding them to tha-“
BANG!
Aizawa had refocused on the shooters ahead of them before he snapped his attention back to Hizashi, just in time to see the man’s whole body flinch.
Aizawa saw red.
It gushed from Hizashi’s eye, his right one, leaving a wide arc of scarlet as the mob boss’ head snapped back, like it had been struck.
Aizawa had almost expected the whole scene to play in slow motion, red rain falling in near suspended animation. But no. It was fast. It all happened much too fast.
He saw Hizashi hit the floor with a thud, not a sound leaving the loudest person he knew as he crumbled instantly. He wasn’t moving. Like a puppet with cut strings.
Aizawa saw red.
But this time it wasn’t blood. Wasn’t Hizashi’s blood. It was like a haze - a filter on reality that consumed his vision.
Another gunshot whizzes past his temple and breaks Aizawa’s focus on the one person that mattered to him. His boss, his charge - Hizashi.
Things were suddenly so simple.
Aizawa rushes forward, teeth bared and gun in hand.
The remaining rival gang members (Three) raise their guns at him in panic, startled by the change in tactics, but Aizawa is faster than they anticipate.
Coming up to the closest one, he tackles him down before he can pull the trigger, satisfied with the crack their head makes as it hits the concrete with a wet crack.
Aizawa shoves his gun in their mouth as they yell, pulls the trigger, and paints the floor with gore and blood.
(Two)
Dropping his gun and grabbing the corpse instead, he hauls it up to catch the bullets firing at him, and runs up to the other two and swings it at them by the shirt like a damn hammer throw.
One loses his grip on his gun and the other stumbles with the unexpected move. Aizawa kicks the fallen gun away and, reeling back, punches the armed one in the face with a vindictive blow. He doesn’t know if the crack he hears is from the person's nose or his own knuckles.
Letting the other fall, stunned, Aizawa drops to a crouch and spins his leg out to trip the other man.
Pouncing on him, Aizawa straddles his body and punches down and down and down and down and blood and spittle covers his fists and he can’t hear their yells past his heavy breathing and the blood pounding in his ears-
He feels the bullet connect with his side like it’s mosquito bite and he snarls as he sees Broken Nose with a gun.
(O n e)
Aizawa claws himself up and Broken Nose is trying to reload, but Aizawa gets to him first and knocks the gun right out of his hands with a vicious swipe. The gun fires prematurely and a bullet barely misses taking off Aizawa's ear, clipping it instead.
Before the man can even hope to recover, Aizawa knocks him down with a tackle and wraps his bloody hands around his neck.
“You took everything from me.” The words come out guttural and tastes like acid in his mouth.
And he squeezes until his bruised knuckles are white. Nails scratch at his wrists and leave deep gouges there, but his grip doesn’t falter for even a second until the body beneath him has stilled.
Aizawa stays there for a moment, his breathing still heavy and his side gushing blood, but he doesn’t bother to staunch the bleeding. The alley is quiet now.
He stumbles up, wobbly on his feet from more than just the pain and blood loss.
Turning, he limps to the fallen form of Hizashi; the body hadn’t moved. Not that he'd expected any different.
Falling to his knees, he pulls the body closer towards him. His body still felt warm to the touch, but Aizawa knew it wouldn’t be for long.
Clutching Hizashi’s body, Aizawa, covered in blood and sweat, looks down and chokes at the sight.
The whole right side of Hizashis face is covered in blood, the color making the pale pallor of his face that much starker. His glasses have somehow managed to stay on his slack face.
He hugs him close, but no tears come out. Aizawa is silent, but his body shakes like it’s a leaf in the autumn wind, barely holding on, and he dips his head. How was he suppose to-
Hearing a noise behind him, Aizawa grabs Hizashi’s gun beside him and aims before he can even think. His face is contorted in a snarl. Couldn’t they just let him mourn? Couldn’t they just stay dead? He was going to blow off the head of whoever had the nerve to stay a l i v e -
“Eraser!”
Aizawa pulls the trigger instinctively, but manages to divert its course at the last second as he hears his name, the bullet grazing the cheek of Nemuri, Hizashi’s most trusted advisor, second only to him, who was standing just a few feet away from him.
To her credit she hadn’t even flinched. She had her hands up, not bothering to pay attention to the bleeding gash on her face.
“Eraser, it’s me. Put the gun down so I can check on Hizashi’s condition.” Her voice was authoritative, but level. Like she was talking to something on the edge of pouncing.
Aizawa lowers his gun, but his muscles are still tense. His bangs cover half of his expression, but it was easy to see the pain (regret, anger, frustration, so much pain-) on his face. The body in his arms is heavy.
“Condition? Condition?! Nemuri, I saw him get shot in the head. What other fucking condition do you mean-“
“Have you checked his pulse yet?” Kayama rushes forward as the gun is lowered, kneeling down to the fallen pair and finds her fingers on Hizashi’s wrist.
“His pulse, I-“
He hadn’t. In the spur of things he hadn’t checked for a-
Nemuri has a phone to her ear a moment later, barking orders.
“We’re at the junction between Nikisei and Hakao. We need a car here now! The Boss is in critical condition.” She slips her gaze to Aizawa who seems to be clutching Hizashi's body even closer towards him, cupping his face with shaking hand. “But he’s alive.”
-
Hizashi wakes up and half of his vision is obscured.
He lifts a hand and feels the bandages that cover his right eye. The pain there is dulled, numb.
Gazing to his left, Hizashi can tell from the smell and the monitors hooked up around him, he was at a hospital. Most likely one of his families many hospitals, but which one exactly was still unclear.
"Took you long enough."
Turning to the other side, Hizashi finally notices Shouta. He must just woken up from his rustling, given from his tousled hair (well more tousled than usual) and the way he was pulling up from leaning back on his chair. From what he could see, he was clad in a few bandages of his own.
"How long have I been out." His voice comes out hoarse, but Aizawa already has a cup offered to him. The cool water soothes the sandpaper feeling in his mouth.
"Three days."
Hizashi's eye widens a fraction. "Wow. Longer than I had expected. Don't tell you've been here the entire time waiting for me to wake up."
Aizawa's silence is all he needs for confirmation. If he had the energy, Hizashi would tease Aizawa about he was taking his 'guard dog position' too literally, but quite frankly, he was still exhausted despite being out for so long.
He settles on shaking his head. "I shouldn't be surprised, but still, at least ask one of the boys to bring in a futon this time; that chair can't be comfortable." Aizawa only gives a noncommittal hum that makes Hizashi know he still definitely won't.
The two lapse into silence for a bit. The sun outside is starting to set; the day was coming to a close just when Hizashi had woken up to greet it.
"Are you okay by the way?" Hizashi asks, eyeing Aizawa's bandaged wounds. "You didn't have that much trouble with the goons left right?"
Aizawa looks down at his side before he glances up again. "This is nothing. And I took care of them."
Hizashi might have seen something flit across his face, but it's gone before he could pinpoint what it was.
"And I got hit, huh?" Hizashi scoffs. Aizawa stiffens at that, but he continues. He touched the bandaged side of his face.
"I must be losing my touch if I managed to get shot by those amateur shots, right?" Hizashi jokes with a playful smile on his face but Aizawa doesn’t react to it. He simply stares with an expression that is surprisingly vulnerable.
Hizashis smile falters.
“Shouta?"
"The doctor said if the bulet had grazed you by even an centimetre deeper, you would have died from a brain hemorrhage before a car could arrive." Aizawa's voice sounds rough, in a way that makes Hizashi silent. "You almost died Hizashi."
"I thought you had died." Aizawa confesses after a beat, with a soft voice so unlike Hizashi is used to hearing him. The way it's spoken sounds so, so wrong.
"I didn't see the bullet hit you. I just saw a spray of blood and you falling before I had the chance to catch you." Aizawa wasn't looking at him anymore. His gaze was elsewhere, somewhere further away. "You didn't move, or yell. You were just still. So still. And I couldn't do anything about it. Losing you nearly made me lose myself..."
The way Aizawa looked, the way he spoke - Hizashi couldn't stand it. He surges forward from his hospital bed, nearly knocking over the monitor he was hooked up to, gripping Aizawas's hands with his own; the sudden action startles Aizawa back to reality. Black eyes meet his and Hizashi sees fear.
"I'm alive, Shouta." He grips his hands harder. "I'm here. With you. And I'm not going anywhere."
"I..." Aizawa doesn't tremble, but its something close to it.
"I'm staying right here." Hizashi says, with a conviction that burns in his eyes and aims to shoot through Aizawa. "No matter what."
Aizawa opens his mouth and closes it. His face was furrowed and tense, like he wanted to say something, but as Hizashi stared at him with that utmost certainty, his expression softens. The fear Hizashi had seen in his eyes has vanished just a bit.
"I'll hold you to that, 'Boss'." Aizawa finally responds and a soft smile graces his lips.
"Of course." Hizashi smiles back.
The hospital room is quiet once more as the sun sets behind them.