Chapter Text
Eri was a high school graduate.
She withstood the closing ceremony the same way she withstood every opening ceremony before – with careful adherence to the motions, pretending her head was too full of complicated thoughts to notice her classmates giving her a wide berth or sliding looks her way when they thought she couldn’t see.
She was a high school graduate now, ready to move on to the next stage of her plan. She breathed in deep, standing just outside the school gate, waiting for Hitoshi to pick her up. He’d told her they’d get ice cream to celebrate.
The black car turned the corner and pulled up to the curb in front of her. Hitoshi emerged from the driver’s seat. And Aizawa emerged from the passenger’s.
Her lips quirked up a little into a smile.
Hitoshi leaned back against the car and lit a cigarette. Eri could hear clusters of girls around the entrance begin speaking in low tones to each other. Routine.
Aizawa rounded the car, in his customary black suit, and enveloped her in an easy hug. “Congrats, you did it,” he murmured with an affectionate note to his monotone.
“Thanks, Papa,” she whispered back. She gripped the strap of her book bag. “Um, are you joining us for ice cream?”
He opened the back door of the car and held up a plastic bag containing pints of ice cream. “I’m afraid something urgent came up,” he replied, an apologetic glimmer in his eye. “But we picked it up and we’ll celebrate tonight, alright?”
She only felt slightly dismayed that they couldn’t eat at their favorite picnic table in front of the ice cream shop. Urgent matters came up all the time, and if both Aizawa and Hitoshi needed to be there, it sounded serious.
She smiled reassuringly and nodded. “Sounds good.”
Hitoshi blew out smoke and said, “I got you cookie dough.”
”Then I’m happy.”
Aizawa indicated for her to slide into the car. When the door shut, she pulled the beanie off her head and finger-combed her hair. The windows of the car were tinted black. No one could see her, but she watched the clusters of students staring at the car and the two men who got back into it.
She knew what her classmates thought. Especially once she’d entered high school. Two grown men, much older than her, who often came to pick her up from school. Men who wore black, smoked, and drove expensive cars. Men who looked like gangsters. In the beginning she had quietly tried to explain that Hitoshi was her brother, but because he was twenty years older than her, people still thought what they thought. It was part of the reason why no one really talked to her.
The other part was due to her snowy white hair and the beanie she wore always and never took off.
“She should be homeschooled,” Aizawa had said casually once when she was ready to attend school, many years ago.
“Absolutely not,” her Aunt Mina had said, impassioned. “She needs to be a normal kid.”
Hitoshi scowled. “And what are we going to do when she gets bullied for her horn?”
Aunt Mina huffed. “There has to be a way.”
The way had been a beanie hat that hid the small horn protruding from her forehead. Aizawa had told the school that her health was somewhat fragile and she became chilled easily, and to help maintain her body temperature she needed to wear a hat, all during the year. The schools were able to accept that, and so her classmates did as well. The eccentricity hadn’t done her many favors for making friends, but she was able to get through school without much bother.
As they drove away from the school, Eri’s mood lightened. At school, she focused on her studies. Away from school, her life was the UA.
Her father – her adoptive father – ran the Unnaturals Alliance. An organization for people like her, people with extraordinary powers. The Alliance kept their own safe, and some members worked as top secret government agents, completing missions the normal governmental departments needed help with. Hitoshi sometimes went on missions, but not as often as her uncles, who were full-time agents.
They weren’t a gang. But they weren’t known to the public either. If the public knew who they were – what they were – all hell may break loose. Those with abilities were rare amongst the population.
Aizawa pulled into the underground garage of the building they operated from. It was her home. She, Aizawa, and Hitoshi lived in the penthouse apartments. Other Alliance members lived in the apartments on the main floors, but Aizawa’s quarters were private.
They rode the elevator up to the common floor, where a wide, open room served as the common lounge.
Eri entered, wondering why the lights were off, and then they flashed on, and she blinked in surprise as her gaze passed over dozens of people, grinning at her and shouting, “Congrats, Eri!”
Cake on the table. Streamers hanging from the ceiling. Poppers exploding with confetti.
“Eri-chan!” Her best friend, Mahoro, bounded to her and squeezed her in a hug.
One by one, as Mahoro dragged her into the room, Alliance members patted her and ruffled her hair. Her smile widened to a grin, and her aunts and uncles came forward to envelop her in warm embraces.
Aunt Mina squeezed her and hopped up and down. “No more school uniform! Now we can have fun , Eri-chan!”
Uncle Eijirou tucked her under his chin. He stage-whispered, “I’ll hold her back, you run.”
She laughed and Aunt Ochaco smoothed a hand down her hair. “We can really ramp up the internship now. In fact, a doctor is visiting next week that I think you should work with–”
Uncle Kacchan ruffled Eri’s hair. “Angel Face, slow down. She just escaped high school.” He aimed her a crooked smirk. “You survived, kid.”
Uncle Shoto and Uncle Deku opened their arms at the same time and she chuckled as they made a sandwich hug.
“Graduates get free soba at the restaurant,” Uncle Shoto said.
“I’m so jealous,” Uncle Deku said. “I wish I could have experienced university.”
Eri listened to them chatter, watched them all mingle and enjoy this surprise party they held for her.
A party, for her. For something as commonplace as high school graduation. But that was what they did. They celebrated every one of Eri’s accomplishments like it was a national holiday. At first, Eri hadn’t liked being in the spotlight like that. She grew up painfully shy – she still was shy, at least no longer painfully so – and so having that much attention on her made her nervous. But the Alliance stuck together. She became used to the attention, learned about others and how to help them, and found her own burgeoning place in the Alliance.
Eri watched her aunts and uncles, Mahoro, Hitoshi, and her father, and she swallowed the lump building in her throat.
This was her family.
.
.
Aunt Mina always told her she should relax a little, especially after a party. But when Eri woke the next day, she considered it business as usual.
It was an internship day.
Aunt Ochaco picked her up on the way to the hospital, telling her about the doctor she had mentioned the previous day. Ochaco was the smartest woman Eri knew, and she could get… excited about these topics, rambling without letting anyone get a word in edgewise. But Eri liked listening to her. She wouldn't have been able to secure these opportunities without her. Although Eri wanted to study child psychology, Ochaco made a point that it was beneficial to have a well-rounded education in many medical disciplines. Especially neurosciences, since Ochaco’s work for the Alliance revolved around studying the neural factors of their abilities.
After all, she had developed a drug that would help Aizawa’s price, after years of trial and error.
Eri technically didn’t need to do this much internship work. She had already aced the entrance exams for her chosen university and would start in a month. Because of her accelerated test scores, she was going to bypass general classes and start on her major’s classes. The process involved finding internships, but Eri would have a leg up, already being in one.
She looked at this month-long break as another break between school years, however the significance of starting university wasn’t lost on her. She was an adult now. Eighteen. She was going to be out in the real world now, studying, working. She wanted to use her achievements to help the Alliance in an area that was becoming a pointed issue – more children exhibiting abilities every year.
Aizawa’s leadership over the years meant that their network had expanded exponentially. And each year they were able to find more people with abilities. Children included. Given her own background, Eri knew her purpose was to help them.
The world could be a scary place for a child who didn’t know what was happening to them.
Eri ended her day at the hospital and waited outside for Hitoshi. The sun was starting to set behind the skyline, and Eri sat on a bench, shoulders rounded over her journal as she wrote her entry for the day. She didn’t usually write a beat-for-beat record of the day, but of how the day’s events influenced her feelings. It was something her therapist had encouraged her to do.
And Eri had learned that she could use her journal to ease the pain of using her ability. It wasn’t a physical pain she experienced, but a mental one. Anyone would say that Eri’s ability was invaluable. She was one of the very few in the Alliance who could heal people. They called it healing, in a sense. After years of research and testing, Eri learned the intricacies of what her ability really was. And the price she paid for it.
Alliance members were born with a superhuman ability, but they suffered a consequence for using it. They called it the price.
Hitoshi could control someone with a verbal command – they refused to call it mind control. Too cruel – but after using it, he became mute for a time.
Aizawa could stop someone from using their ability, nullifying it, but he would fall into a deep, unshakable sleep for hours.
Aunt Ochaco could make things have zero gravity, but she suffered what was akin to vertigo which caused her to faint.
Eri glanced back down at her journal, at the yellow sticky tabs interspersed throughout the book. Those tabs marked passages where she scribbled an entry before she used her ability.
Her phone pinged with a text. Hitoshi said, Running 20 minutes behind. Go get something to eat and I’ll meet you there.
He was referring to the convenience store down the block from the hospital they sometimes had a snack at before going home. Eri packed her journal away in her bag and walked to the store.
She sat at the counter inside, eating a packaged bread roll, watching people and cars go by. The sky darkened, and Eri began to open a game on her phone.
Outside, a crash and people shouting permeated the convenience store. She flinched and stared at a trio of young men stumbling out of the alley beside the store. They looked like troublemakers. Possibly gangsters. One of them threw down the butt of his cigarette, still sparking orange as it died in the huge puddle of water pouring out of the alley. She glanced at the sky. The stars were starting to twinkle. Not a cloud in sight.
Her father, her brother, and her uncles had repeatedly told her to avoid trouble. To not get involved in street scuffles, to not put herself in danger.
They had to tell her this repeatedly because Eri never managed to listen. She was sure someone was hurt in the alley.
Eri left the store and crept to the alley, peering around the corner. The entire street was wet, as if there had just been a spring shower. The dark ground glistened in the weak lamplight, and there was a figure hunched on the ground.
Eri swallowed and crept closer. It was a man – a boy? – and he tried to drag himself onto his hands and knees, make his way to the sidewalk. Was his leg broken?
Eri watched him groan loudly in pain, but did she also hear anger? She watched his hands shake as he pulled out a length of cloth from the backpack strewn on the ground. He haphazardly wrapped his knuckles like a boxer, and Eri’s hand flew up to cover her audible gasp as he made a fist and punched the ground. Her breath choked in her throat as each punch ripped an agonized cry from him.
It was too deliberate. Too automatic.
Eri swallowed and made her move.
.
.
He knew he shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with this gang. They were shoddy, unorganized, and trouble from the start. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Well , a part of his rational mind reasoned, time to start over .
But his rational mind was vastly eclipsed at that moment by the blind rage. He hated having to submit to his rage where there was nothing soft around to punch, especially a dirty alley drenched in water. Seeing as his leg was broken, kicking wouldn’t be an option this time.
The rage blinded him from most of the pain of punching asphalt over and over. Afterward would be a different story. Once the adrenaline faded, his knuckles would be swollen and bloody, despite the hand wraps he carried with him everywhere for this purpose, and he’d live on a cocktail of stolen pain medication for a while.
With each punch into the ground he begged his body to stop, to be satisfied. Finally, he was able to control his own fist again. His breath wrenched through his lungs and throat like sandpaper. He collapsed onto his back, staring up at the cloudless evening sky.
That’s when he registered her voice.
”Excuse me?”
It was soft, hesitant. He shut his eyes and grit his teeth. Great. Someone witnessed the whole show.
He turned his head to the side and watched a girl approach him. He blinked. The faint streetlight illuminated hair as white as angel wings, flowing down her back in waves. She wore a bandana over her hairline, and under that her eyes were impossibly bright.
Did I actually die this time?
”You’re injured,” she said.
Yeah, no shit.
”I can help you.”
He scoffed.
She was crouching beside him, and he heard a gasp escape her lips. He didn’t have time to process it before his chest compressed as if an elephant were sitting on him. The air left his lungs in a pained whoosh.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t dead – yet.
”Don’t be afraid,” she said next.
”Go away,” he ground out.
“Did all this water come from you?”
The pressure in his chest was letting up, but he stared at her in disbelief.
“Is that what you can do? Create water?”
Creating water sounded too good. Like a benevolent god. Benevolence wasn’t what he did.
“What is your price?”
He wet his mouth to ask, “What are you talking about?”
”When you make water, your body does something out of your control after, right? What is it that you do?”
“Why would I tell you?”
”Because I’m like you. I have a special power too. Have you heard of the Alliance? There’s more people like you, and we help each other.”
”You’re not like me.”
”You felt the pressure in your chest, right?”
His mouth clamped shut and he stared at her again. Maybe she wasn’t an angel. More like a pestering demon.
“I felt it too. It happens when we meet someone new like us. It’s our body’s way of acknowledging another person with an ability.”
Then, she rummaged in her bag and took out a well-worn journal. He watched, as if he were having an out of body experience, as she began scribbling.
For a moment he thought she forgot that he was laying there. And then she said, “Your leg is broken. I can see the bone protruding. Is your hand broken as well? Never mind, I’ll do your hand too.”
”Do- Do what to my hand?” He stuttered.
”Please tell me your name,” she said, her eyes going big and her pen poised over the paper. “I’d like to be able to find you after.”
His head was beginning to spin. He mumbled, “Kota.”
She wrote that down. And then she took out her phone, dialed, and put it to her ear.
“Nii-chan, listen to me a moment, please. I found a boy who has an ability. He’s injured and it was all very sudden. I’m going to heal him–”
Even he could hear the outraged shout that blasted from her phone.
“I’m going to heal him,” she repeated. “I’ll be okay. If I’m not at the convenience store, look in the alley beside it.”
He could vaguely make out the man on the other end of the line shout, “ Eri, godammit! Don’t you hang up–” before she did just that.
The girl touched his shoulder, the pressure of her fingers featherlight.
“Kota, I’m going to heal you now. I just have a favor to ask of you.”
If he was going to hallucinate, he might as well go along with it. “What?”
”After I heal you, I’m going to suffer short term memory loss. My brother is going to be here soon enough. Could you take me back to the convenience store? I would ask you to wait with me too, but I realize you don’t know me, and I won’t even remember asking you to do this for me. So, could you do at least that?”
He nodded dumbly.
She smiled, her eyes softening with it, and his pounding pulse calmed, so slightly.
”Alright. Thank you. I really hope we can meet again soon.” She touched his leg, just above the gash in his jeans and the bloody injury. His jaw dropped open as her skin beneath her headband glowed brightly, the light flowing down her arm and entering his body. She said, “By the way, my name is Eri.”
Bright pain – no… it wasn’t pain. It was a seizing sensation that wasn’t pain, but not a pleasurable sensation either. He held his breath, feeling something in his leg shift. His knuckles stopped throbbing, the skin knitting itself back together in front of his eyes.
His hand and his leg were no longer broken.
He scrambled back across the ground, watching the light fade from his limbs, fade from the girl until she was left kneeling on the ground, blinking with unfocused eyes.
She glanced around, her eyes landing on him. He saw vague fear, uncertainty. Nothing of the bright angel swooping down to heal him moments ago.
He watched her swallow, and she asked, “Where am I?”
Surely she had to be joking. She was pulling his leg.
But she gripped her bag strap tightly. “Did I… do something to you?”
She looked for all the world like a frightened child who’d lost her mommy at the store.
It was time to go. Kota got to his feet, snatching his backpack off the ground. He tested his leg, and was amazed to find that there was not an ounce of remaining pain. It was as if his leg never had been broken.
He turned his back on her, but his feet wouldn’t move.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed on a rough sigh.
Fine. He would do it.
He spun back around and stood next to her, holding out a hand. He muttered, “I’m supposed to take you back to the convenience store. Your brother is picking you up.”
She hesitated, but eventually put her hand in his. “Oh. That… that sounds like something I would ask.”
He grunted and towed her around the corner to the store. Her hand gripped his, small and delicate. His hand should have been busted, bloody and gnarled, but it wasn’t. He dragged a palm down his face, needing approximately fifteen hours of sleep after this.
“Sit inside,” he mumbled. “He should be here soon.”
He had no idea where this brother was, but Kota had to get out of there.
“Um,” she began timidly. “Thank you.”
He nodded and quickly about-faced, hightailing it to the other side of the street.
His timing was impeccable. A sleek black car nearly screeched to a stop in front of the store. A man burst from it, brows bent low over eyes that scanned the street and store as if ready to murder. He looked like a gangster. Kota gulped and slipped behind a tall advertising banner in front of a shop door. He prayed that he wasn’t about to become a target of the yakuza.
He peered around the banner and watched the man crush the girl in an embrace, hold her back by the shoulders to assess her. She still looked lost and confused. Had she really lost her memory?
The man packed her away in the car, and Kota took that moment while he was distracted to run in the opposite direction.
Whoever she was, Kota wasn’t interested in getting involved.
Eri.
She didn’t mean shit to him.
.
.
”Eri, that was irresponsible of you,” Uncle Shoto said gently, looking on her from across the table with sober concern in his eyes. “You could have gotten hurt.”
Shoto’s Michelin star restaurant, Niwa, was closed between the lunch and dinner service, so they sat together in the private dining room, overlooking the restaurant's garden.
Uncle Shoto was the kindest of her family when she’d done something she wasn’t supposed to. Aunt Ochaco was never angry with her, but she always tried to come up with a plan. Sometimes Eri didn’t need a plan. She just needed someone to understand.
So she usually went to Shoto and Deku.
Eri looked down at her journal, at the portrait she’d been sketching all afternoon.
“He was hurting,” she simply said. She turned the book and slid it toward Shoto and Deku. “Deku, can you find him?”
Deku leaned forward to study the entry.
Kota , she’d written the day before. Water ability? Street drenched. No clouds or pipes leaking. Knuckles wrapped in cloth, compulsive punching of surroundings. Price? Broken leg and hand. Beaten by gangsters - ran away before encountering. Calling Hitoshi to notify of healing.
Below that was a sketch of his face as she’d remembered it when he took her back to the convenience store. Disheveled black hair, angry brows that seemed like they’d been like that for years. Mouth set in a grim line. He’d worn a hat, and she was sure that he often ducked his head so the bill covered his eyes.
“Well,” Deku began, scrubbing the back of his head, “we have a name at least, if only his given name. I’ll be able to cross-reference the drawing with the public database. If he attended school, or was arrested at any point, we’ll find his photo. But Eri, if he’d been mixed up in a gang he could be dangerous.”
Eri frowned. “He was being beaten. They broke his leg. Even if he is in a gang, they must not like him very much. Wouldn’t he be better here?”
Deku sighed.
“This is what you do,” she told him as if he’d forgotten. “You find others like us and help them.”
”We usually have more time to do recon and discuss with Aizawa.”
”But he needs our help now .”
Shoto held up a steady hand. “Alright. Given that Shinsou knows about him as well, we’ll be able to get more hands on this.”
Eri pouted. “Hitoshi doesn’t want to find him.”
”Why?”
”Because he said he’ll finish the job and kill him once he does. Which is very unfair because Kota helped me. I think I asked him to take me somewhere safe before he left me, and he did. He didn’t do anything to me besides be injured in that alley. We have to help him.”
Deku and Shoto looked at each other, a wordless conversation flowing between them in that uncanny way they had. Deku absently rubbed his thumb over the back of Shoto’s hand. He said, “We can only help those that want to be helped. But alright, Eri. I’ll gather Kacchan and Kirishima tonight and we’ll discuss it.”
”I want to be th–”
Deku shook his head. “I’m sorry, but this is our job now. I promise you we’ll look for him, but you need to not worry about this for now. Let everything go back to normal and if we find him, you’ll know.”
.
.
Later that night
”Why is my house base camp for this conversation?” Katsuki greeted with his usual surliness as they walked in.
”Hush,” Ochaco told him. “It’s so the kids can play together in the other room.”
Shoto let down their son from his hip, only for him to cling to his pant leg. The boy was a timid four-years-old and still unsure of other people. They’d only had him for a year. But once he saw Katsuki’s five-year-old daughter he brightened and scampered off to play with her.
Izuku smiled after them, glad that they had each other.
It seemed they were the last to arrive. Mina and Kirishima, Shinsou and Aizawa, were already seated at their kitchen island.
Mina held up a wine bottle. “I’ve got wine and beer,” she announced. “Those who want wine raise your hand.”
Shinsou snarled his lip. “We won’t be here long enough to drink anything. Let’s get on with it.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “For someone who threatened to kill the kid, you’re sure eager.”
”I’m eager to tell you all to forget about finding him. I don’t want Eri involved in this one.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes. “None of us want her involved, but try telling her that.”
Izuku, trying to be the voice of reason between them, said, “She has a point, though. If he’s one of us, we ought to find him and see if he wants our help.”
”How do we know he wasn’t a plant?” Shinsou threw back. “I find it awfully convenient that he was right there in the alley next door.”
Izuku sighed. “You should know by now coincidences involving people like us are more common than we’d like to think.”
”Besides,” Kirishima added, “We haven’t heard a word from the Shie Hassaikai in over five years. I doubt they chose now to launch a scheme.”
”Now would be the best time,” Shinsou grumbled. “When we aren’t expecting it.”
Ochaco huffed. “Let’s just assume this young man is harmless and needs our help. Izuku, have you had a chance to find anything yet?”
Izuku rolled out his neck. “I have.” He slid a folder across the counter. Aizawa opened it and scanned the documents. “His name is Izumi Kota. Nineteen. No living family. He’s a middle school drop out. The last photo I could find of him was taken during that time.”
Aizawa, in his level voice, asked, “What about since then?”
”Records of his movements pretty much end there. He was born in the countryside, but since he was discovered here in Tokyo I bet this is where he currently lives. But his name isn’t on any rental contracts or hostel logs.”
”So not only is he a drop out, he’s homeless,” Katsuki muttered. Ochaco elbowed him.
Aizawa said, “Let’s move on to his ability.”
Izuku shook his head. “We only have Eri’s testimony to work off of. She said the street was flooded with water, and it wasn’t raining nor was there a pipe burst. I checked local ordinance records.”
”That could be anything,” Aizawa mused. “He can control water, or create it.”
”We don’t have a water ability yet, do we?” Mina asked no one in particular.
“Price?”
”According to Eri’s notes, he wrapped his fist in a cloth and was punching the ground. She wrote, compulsive punching . Ochaco?”
Ochaco’s brows were drawn together, thinking. She said, “He deliberately wrapped his fist before hitting the ground. If he was lashing out in anger he wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do that first. So a compulsion?”
Shoto asked, “What do you mean?”
That glint entered her eye – which meant her brain was whirring. “Compulsive prices have been rare. For example, all of our prices are neural responses. Except you, Izuku. A compulsion theoretically could be held back, but the person must perform the action in order to satisfy the price. This Kota’s price may involve the compulsion to punch something.”
Shinsou jolted. “An even bigger reason – if we do find him – Eri isn’t going to go anywhere near him.”
”You’re not her dad,” Katsuki antagonized.
“I raised her,” he snapped.
Aizawa cut him a glare. Shinsou sank back in his chair. “And I’m her legal guardian.”
Mina chirped, “Actually, she’s a legal adult now. She’s entitled to make her own decisions.”
”So you want her near a violent price?”
Her face hardened slightly. “Of course not. But she’s not a skittish six-year-old anymore. She’s already grown up with the Alliance. Keeping her away from another member is childish and untrusting.”
“I agree with Mina,” Ochaco said. “Ultimately, we shouldn’t decide anything until we can find Kota and speak with him, and learn about his ability.”
Shinsou pushed away from the counter. “I’m not involved.”
Kirishima said to Izuku, “I’ll help you find him.”
”I will, too,” Katsuki said, crossing his arms. “If the kid has a tendency to get violent, he’s going to need some sense smacked into him.”
Izuku smirked, unable to resist. “Like looking in a mirror?”
”Deku, I’d hate to make Todoroki a single parent.”
Ignoring that, Izuku said, “I told Eri to let us handle it, and to go back to her normal life. I wouldn’t suggest we mention this case to her and concern her needlessly, but I also suggest we not baby her either. We should all just act like it’s another job, until it produces results.”
”Fine,” Katsuki said. “Now if you lot don’t mind, it’s my daughter’s story time – and she will complain if we’re not upstairs in five minutes.”
.
.