Chapter Text
Aizawa’s pov
Something was going to happen tonight, that’s what Shota’s gut was telling him and after close to 10 years as an underground pro he had learned to trust his gut, but as his patrol was coming to a close there still hadn't been anything to warrant that gut feeling that had his nerves threatening to act up. He had just turned in his second alley fight for the night and was running along the rooftops doing a final check before ending his shift for the night when he heard it, something crashing into what sounded like a couple of dumpsters and boxes in the alley below him followed by someone -a man? no, no that’s definitely a teenager- cursing. Mourning the fact that he’d have to give up some of the time he could have been home cuddling his husband and cats to check what was happening before dropping down into the alley.
Nico’s pov
Where in Hades was he? Just minutes ago he was fighting Gaea, he was forced to shadow travel to avoid a particularly nasty attack being thrown at him but instead of being enveloped by shadows for the split second he needed to dodge he was seemingly stuck there for what seemed like almost 10 minutes and then he landed in an alleyway, his momentum causing him to crash into a conveniently placed pile of trash. Groaning in pain as he stood up, sword in hand as he took in his surroundings. It was night, maybe early morning in the dark alley that he found himself in, judging by the size of the buildings surrounding him he was in a city. Which city he’d stumbled into he had no idea, maybe he was back in the US? It didn’t look like greek architecture, not that he was very familiar with it, that was more of Annabeth's forte. Taking inventory he cursed over having left his backpack in Argo II leaving him with his sword -that had returned to its form as a skull ring on his finger- and some bits of ambrosia that he quickly popped a piece of into his mouth relaxing a little as the wounds he’d earned during the battle started healing only to be interrupted by a hobo dropping down from one of the adjacent rooftops.
“Shouldn’t you be at home kid? Your parents must be worried” the rugged man asked something about what he said sounded odd to Nico, not wrong, just something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Look man, I get that being homeless sucks and shit but it doesn't give you a free pass on being a pedo” That made the man freeze for a moment before he huffed.
“Kid, I'm a pro hero. I’m not gonna hurt you” A pro hero? Was the poor man homeless and delusional? The man obviously noticed the young demigod's disbelief because he sighed loudly before pulling out a card from a pocket, stepping closer while showing the card. The card looked like a license of some kind, clearly printed in kanji, but after looking at the card for a second it seemed to almost translate itself for him and then he blue screened, he had just understood kanji, the odd feeling the man gave him was probably because he was speaking japanese, japanese that Nico understood. How in all of Hades did he suddenly understand japanese? Did this mean he was in Japan? But that shouldn't be possible, he couldn’t shadow travel such vast distances, to travel from Greece to Japan would take a lot of preparation and research of the location. His mind continued to spiral. Was he even still in the same year as before? Did the others know that he was alive? Did they-.
Aizawa’s pov
The kid was dressed in black ripped jeans, a black shirt with a skull print on it with an aviator jacket over it. Upon getting a closer look he started noticing how dirty the jacket was with small scuffs and a few failed attempts of what he guessed was cuts, the jeans and shirt was also covered in dirt in a way that gave the impression of having been thrown and rolled in grass. Was the boy a runaway? homeless? Whatever his situation was, it must have been recent as while his pale face was dirtied in similar fashion as the rest of him, it wasn’t enough to hide the bags under his eyes and his curly black hair was at least washed within this week.
Shota wasn't surprised when the kid didn’t seem to believe that he was a pro hero, after all he wasn’t the most hero looking guy even he would admit that. It wasn’t uncommon for him to have to show his hero license to most police that didn’t already know him. So he showed his license to the teen, he watched as the boy's face went from neutral, to thoughtful, to confused. That quickly turned into what looked like shock mixed with a hint of, was that fear? Something about his hero license caused the kid to spiral into what quickly was turning into panic. Shota was about to try to calm him down when he snapped out of it and locked eyes with him.
“I- I need you to tell me where we are right now” What? The kid didn’t know where he was? So that must mean he was lost or a runaway.
“We’re in the red light district of Mustafu” That didn’t seem to ease the boy’s confusion. Shota sighed, slowly coming to terms with the reality that this would be another sleepless night of overworking. “Look kid, how about I take you to the station so we can figure this out is a safer location” Upon receiving a untrusting look he quickly added “You’re not in any trouble, these kind of situations tend to be easier to figure out when you can search for info”
It was obvious that the kid didn’t trust him, which was understandable, but after a couple of minutes of twisting a chunky ring deep in an internal debate he seemed to have made up his mind, with a nod they started to walk, Shouta leading the way toward the station while sending away two quick text messages, one explaining to his probably half asleep husband that he’ll be home later than usual and one as a heads up to Tsukauchi as his quirk just being present often have an effect that deterred a lot of people from lying. They arrived at the station 10 minutes later, Tsukauchi greeting them outside.
Tsukauchi ’s pov
Tsukauchi was tired. He’d been stuck in his office for the last 2 hours going through incident reports and was currently half asleep when his personal phone pinged, sighing he picked it up the phone tapping on the message from Aizawa. Apparently the hero had found what he suspected was a runaway when he was rounding off his shift, describing the teen as guarded but compliant and seemed disoriented. He went and got another cup of coffee, took a sip and left it on his desk while he went outside to wait for their arrival.
When he first saw the boy walking beside Eraserhead in silence he couldn’t help but notice how worn out he looked, like he’d been fleeing from some really persistent villains but why would someone be after a teenager?
“Eraser, let's sort this out in my office” holding the door open for the other two before leading the way to his office and returning to his desk. Gesturing to the other chairs in the room.
“Please take a seat” A grunt from Eraser was the only response he got, both of them silently sitting down. “ I’m detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, you’ve already met Eraserhead. Would you mind telling us yours? And how old are you?”
“... Nico, I’m 14 ” The kids- no, Nicos answer was hesitant but his quirk pinged it as true nonetheless.
“Alright Nico, mind explaining why I found you in an alley in the middle of the night?” The kid in question just shook his head.
“No, look I get that you’re law enforcement or something like that but before I decide how much I can tell you I need to ask some questions” The boy didn’t wait for an answer and went straight to his questions. “Alright this will sound weird but what year is it?”
Wait, what? Naomasa had expected- well pretty much any other question, not seeing a reason to deny him such basic information he simply answered “231X”. At that the boy (now that they were in a lit room he could see how tired the boy looked, sporting eyebags that could rival even Aizawas) froze, wide brown eyes met his own.
“you’re joking?Please tell me you’re joking” He laughed in what seemed to be disbelief before continuing a bit quieter “Please tell me I wasn’t stuck for that long..please” The boy sounded desperate, on the verge of tears.
Nico’s pov
He didn’t want to believe the detective, but there was no reason to lie about something like the year. The year, fuck, everyone he knew were dead, he had lost more time then when he and Bianca was stuck in The Lotus Casino. His other sister, well half-sister Hazel who he’d just started to get to know was also dead, Percy, Annabeth, Frank, Jason, Piper, Leo they were all gone. He was alone, in an unfamiliar land, in a different time. Was the gods still alive or did his father and everyone else fade away like he’d heard Pan did. Maybe they were in a deep slumber like the one Gaea was in.
Right, Gaea, he forgot for a moment, he’d abandoned his friends, his family in the middle of that fight. Man, he hoped that they won and finally got to live their lives out peacefully.