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The job should have been like any other. Eraserhead had been patrolling before he was called to a location through his radio. That wasn't strange. Eraserhead was oftentimes called to high risk situations where they needed someone to enter the scene without alerting the villains. Eraserhead was called to robberies, hostage situations, raids, rampaging villains, anything and everything where the element of surprise could be invaluable.
That being said, the element of surprise was always invaluable, and while Eraserhead was proud of himself for having taught both the cops and other heroes that fact, Aizawa Shouta wished they had other underground heroes they could harass on the daily when they needed someone to use their brain and not their fists because Aizawa Shouta was tired and needed a God damn break.
Upon reaching the pinged location, the first sign he noticed of something being wrong, was the fact that seemingly nothing was wrong. There was no rubble or damaged infrastructure, there weren't numerous heroes or cop cars. It looked like a perfectly normal garbage dump, which in and of itself seemed strange, given the fact that Eraserhead, while not particularly familiar with this exact area, knew enough to know they were very big on recycling and being ecofriendly, and the fact that they'd have a garbage dump this big, filled with rubble and cars that had obviously seen their fair share of accidents. It seemed strange. Not because Eraserhead knew a lot about recycling or anything, but because he was sure the cars, at least, could have been stripped for parts, or had the metal melted down and repurposed.
The next big, red, glaring sign that something was wrong, was that, once Eraserhead had traversed his way around piles of rubble and unassumingly flipped vehicles, in the middle of everything sat a young adult, or perhaps they were an older teenager. It appeared that they had surpassed crying a long time ago, and had easily gone catatonic, hysterically sobbing into their hands.
Eraserhead couldn't blame them though. He imagines, that had he been lost in a place he didn't even know existed, and for some reason found himself surrounded by bones -and yup, that was the skull of either a human or a large monkey or ape of some sort- Aizawa Shouta wouldn't have been handling it well either.
Deciding that this was probably why he had been called here, Eraserhead did a quick once over of the situation. The situation seemed the same, no hidden threats, just the precariously piled trash waving in the wind, and making Aizawa wonder what gust would end up toppling it over.
Eraserhead came out from behind the pile of trash that had concealed him from the person's view, quietly, but loud enough to alert the guy of his presence.
This could easily someone having a panic attack after trespassing. It wouldn't be the first time Eraserhead had been called in to deal with it. Apparently sending a well known hero to those situations only served to convince the panicking individual that they were going to be arrested. Who would have thought.
But that didn't explain the man's reaction when he saw Eraserhead approaching. Because the man screeched, declaring that it was unsafe for Eraserhead to come any closer. And, had Eraserhead been a lesser hero, he might have taken that as a threat. It so obviously wasn't however, because the man was trying to curl into himself, and for half a second, Eraserhead thought it maybe looked more like he was trying to protect the hero rather than himself.
Which was strange. This entire situation was strange. There should be someone else here, not just Eraserhead, not when Eraserhead was called here by someone. There shouldn't be a garbage heap in the middle of a contemporary residential area that has community days to clean up the trash on their streets. And there should certainly not be a hysterical man crying while surrounded by human bones. As a student, Aizawa Shouta had taken, and passed biology. In no way was he a biologist, but he was fairly certain than the number of bones here -of which he kept seeing more as he observed-were too many for a single skeleton.
And so, having observed the situation, having deducted as much as he could about the particular scenario -Very similar to a quirk accidents but this man was too old to have just received a quirk, so it was probably a quirk mutation. Maybe he'd been under stress recently?- he moved slowly towards the man, calling out to him.
"Hello? My name's Eraserhead, I'm a Pro Hero and I'm here to help you."
"No! Don't come any closer! Please, please, please. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to it was an accident!"
Eraserhead stopped moving, if only to try to calm the man down.
"Can you tell me what happened here? Do you need help? I can help you!"
"No, no, no. I didn't- this wasn't- I'm sorry!"
It was clear to see that the man wasn't hearing Eraserhead properly.
"Can you breathe with me? In for 5 out for 5? In and Out. In and Out-"
For as lackadaisical as the efforts were, the guy was making an effort at least, which Eraserhead could appreciate.
"Good, you're doing good. Can we try this again? My name's Eraserhead. What's your name?"
"I-It's Jikan."
"Jikan? It's a good name, I like it. Can you tell me what happened here?"
"I-I don't know. I was just- I was getting ready for school and it was all falling and I fell asleep and when I woke up-" He stopped talking, crying too heavily and putting his effort into wiping the tears away. But Eraserhead's interest had been peaked.
"School? Oh. What school do you go to?" Just how old was this guy?
"I-I think it's called Mirai?" And that gave Eraserhead pause. Because he wasn't too familiar with this area, but he knew Mirai.
"Mirai Youchien?"
"Uh huh."
"Do you work there?"
The kid shook his head, because this was a kid and this was definitely a quirk accident.
"The kindergarten?"
The kid nodded his head again.
"Did you just get your quirk?"
Another nod.
"How old are you?"
"I'm five."
Eraserhead tried to hazard another step forward, adamant to get the kid out of here before something came crashing down and injured the kid, but the kid quickly backed away, screaming once more. Eraser jumped backwards quickly.
"It's okay. It's all going to be okay. Can you tell me what your quirk is? I know it just came in, but can you tell me what it did?"
"It- it made everything like this! And all those people are gone now and you're-" The kid was crying again, his hysterical sobs luring him back into hyperventilation. The kid was obviously scared of his quirk, which was fine. That was Aizawa's forte.
"Hey kid! My name's Eraserhead right? You know what my quirk does?" The kid shook his head. "I can stop your quirk. It won't be forever, but we can fix everything, okay? I just need you to trust me. Okay?" the kid was looking at him with still watery eyes, but after a moment of silent deliberation, he nods his head, it's only one movement, chin to chest and back, but it's decidedly surer than anything else Eraser had seen from this kid. With a smile, Eraserhead gives one last warning of "It might look a little scary, but it's still me. My hair is going to start floating, but that's just a sign that my quirk is working." Rather than warning the kid about his eyes glowing, he makes sure his goggles are on properly, hiding the glow from onlookers and, in this case, from a traumatised child.
Eraser activates his quirk, and in a span of seconds, numerous things happen.
- The kid no longer looks like a young 20 year old in shredded clothing from some apocalyptic video game, but rather like how Eraser suspects he always should have looked. Small and childish and in All Might pyjamas- because of course they're all Might pyjamas-.
- The piles of rubble have floated back into being the buildings they had apparently been before the quirk had activated.
- The cars have flipped back onto their wheels, reverting back into the apparent police cars they had been, probably around the time that Eraserhead had been called to the scene.
- The bones have collected themselves, pulling themselves together with strands of red and white and yellow, gruesomely recreating the people they had once been, prior to their... disappearances? deaths? Shouta still wasn't sure what this quirk was, but it was strong and dangerous.
- Eraserhead himself, somehow, felt less tired than he had on patrol, but rather more rejuvenated.
- The kid was watching this all with a morbid fascination.
- Present Mic appeared behind Eraserhead, talking a mile a minute about how glad he was that Eraserhead had finally shown up. Eraserhead absolutely did not think about how he'd stepped over his best friends bones to get here.
- Eraserhead realises that it was Present Mic that had called him, because of course it was. Hizashi was smart and good with people, he would have figured out it was a quirk, and probably a child, and immediately called for Shouta, knowing that Shouta could fix it, if only temporarily, but giving them the chance to fix it as permanently as they could.
- Eraserhead decided that Present Mic could take over the talking from this point onwards, because Eraserhead was still tired.
"Hey there little listener! So, I have some handcuffs here, -don't worry, we aren't arresting you!- they do something very similar to Eraserhead's quirk. They'll stop your quirk from going haywire again, this old grumpy guy can get some rest, and we can get you to someone who can help you learn to control your quirk! What do you think?"
Eraser tried not to focus on the burn in his eyes, tried not to blink despite the dust in the air drying his eyes out even faster than usual, and hoped to God that the kid would just say-
"Okay."
Once the kid was comfortably wearing the handcuffs, Eraserhead allowed his eyes to close. This was what he liked about hero work. He liked helping people, saving them, proving the people that had been cruel to him wrong. More than anything though...
He liked how at least one of the cops always seemed to have a thermos of "Thank You" coffee ready for him whenever he helped them with their job.