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Eri messily stumbled into the kitchen like normal, she had been awoken from her nap by shinso saying it was time for dinner. She was having dinner with aizawa and yamada today and they were having lasagna, eventually shinso joined the table and the mini family she had were all sitting at the dinner table like normal, but she couldn't help but feel half asleep as they made conversation, even when she strained her ears all she could hear gibberish and random noise.
Then he appeared, like the floaties in her eyes when those glimpses of pure agony flashed through her mind like gunshots, before she even registered he was even in the doorway dad was gone, a puddle on the floor with nothing but a prosthetic leg left of him, his lasagna lay uneaten as his blood splattered across her face, a feeling of numbness fell to her entire body as her brain finally caught up to her eyes, she wanted to scream but nothing came out, all she could do was watch helplessly as he slaughtered yamada.
Her chair fell away to nothing as she tried to run, she continued to try to scream but nothing came out of her mouth, then he spoke, like a devil in a bird mask he spoke
"what are you trying to do now eri? you know you cant escape, I'll track you down no matter where you run, so go, try and get help, I'll wait for them all to come and fail anyway" his voice sent chills so hard down her spine she felt like she'd just been dropped in a tub of ice.
She ran through the halls of the apartment complex she lived in, it was supposed to be secure, but I guess nothings secure enough to stop him. She ran through the seemingly twisting halls and ended up on the roof, she didn't know what to do, she knew she just needed someone, anyone at all, until she felt something hit her in the side, off the roof.
She didn't look back as she fell, she could only imagine the lives of her loved ones running through her fingers like sand, aizawa, yamada, kota would probably get himself killed by messing with the wrong person in hero work, all those people she would fail because she couldn't get past the limitations of this damned quirk, she kept thinking on about how many people she failed until something turned her around, she supposed it was the air at first until she saw his face.
younger, kinder, with a face that instead of filling her stomach with dread seemed almost comforting, this was not him, it couldn't be, it looks too kind, maybe a little shy but with no ill intent. then the floating face spoke, almost seemingly constructing its body from the reddish black smoke from around the air.
"well who are you? I haven't seen you before, well I guess I should introduce myself, my name is kai chisaki."
Eri would never admit she was relieved when she finally hit the ground.
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Shinso was up way past his curfew, aizawa sensei *or should he call him dad now that he's kinda living with them? he'd need to look that up further* had given him pretty loose sleeping hours, as long as he had at least 5 hours of sleep aizawa was happy, yamada was a bit more adamant that he should get at least 8 but he's given up on that approach and just told him to have at least a semi healthy sleep schedule. He was currently scrolling through pre quirk era ao3 fanfiction because he was being given no hero work at the moment because all the cases he were working on were going cold, and since he wasn't allowed to pursue any of them until given further notice he was benched, so he started to make a hobby of finding lost media.
And a giant treasure trove was this site that's still running somehow called ao3, pre quirk era people would submit their writings onto it about really anything that interested them, some of them were better made or written then others but they still gave way to the plot of some unknown series that no one knew about until they were discovered.
He was mindlessly scrolling down the list trying to find more of the plot of this book named "twilight" that's still an ongoing mystery in the lost media community since all they knew was that it was a romance about a vampire and a girl, the entire plot of this supposedly one shot book about a vampire and a random girl was doing rounds in his little corner of the community since apparently someone had found a digital photo of the cover of the supposed second book in the series, and everyone was scrambling to find the plot of this book, so he was scrolling until he heard a thud from the other room, he usually called off these noises as the house settling but this one sounded different.
Like something living and writhing had fallen and was having trouble moving, and his thought was maybe one of the cats just fell until he heard quiet sobs from the other side of the wall, he could almost pinpoint the direction they were coming from, they were the type of sobs you hear in your day to day life, not those dramatic telenovela's kaminari made him watch not those loud ugly sobs, but quiet small crying that sounded like they were choking on their own throat, like if they were too loud they would fold in on themselves.
He placed down his computer from its position on his lap and followed the sounds of the tears until he reached a door, and he quietly knocked.
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When eri finally awoke she felt like she was on the ground again, her vision blurred and her mind just kept seeing her mangled body on the ground, but not from the third person view that people theorise you see when you die, she saw her own mangled corpse on the sidewalk in first person like it was any other day, she felt like she was suffocating, she looked down to her arm and saw bloody hand prints climbing up it, all the men, women and children she would never save, she wasn't a hero, she was never a hero, she was always just a useless little girl after all.
She heard a knock somewhere but ignored it, but the door opened anyway, she tried to back away but only fell further onto the floor, her vision came flooding back with surroundings, she was in her bedroom, exactly like she was before dinner, exactly like she was before everything went wrong.
She finally looked up to the door and saw shinso, looking at her like he was afraid she'd shatter into a million pieces, but she didn't care right now, she just wanted company in her suffering so she tried to move before realizing she's wrapped herself in her own duvet and it was tight enough to choke her, hitoshi moved fast and before she knew it she had a knife closer to her neck then she would've like but the *not severe but definitely worrying* lack of air in her lungs took priority, he slowly cut down on the duvet so she could breathe, she whispered him a quiet thanks before crawling out of that disaster and sitting down next to her bed.
He sat down next to her and gave her some tissues, she didn't even know what they were for until she noticed the tears that were staining her face and neck, she took the tissues and wiped her entire face clean, he softly spoke up as she cleared her face of tears
"do you need anything" she answered before her brain thought of an appropriate answer
"I don't know" she stayed silent for a few seconds that felt like an eternity
"I don't mind the company though"
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Shinso and eri sat still for a moment while shinso thought, what should he do now? what did his parents do when he had a nightmare or a panic attack, vivid memories of being muzzled or just being straight up ignored flashed through shinso's mind, oh yeah he didn't really have the best childhood did he....... fuck
Shinso looked at eri for a moment, before grabbing her blanket that was thrown off the bed, and covering her with it before speaking
"c'mon you little gremlin we're not gonna get anything done by just sitting and waiting, lets go make breakfast" eri looked up at him with confused eyes
"but isn't it late at night? is that even still considered breakfast?"
"anything this early in the morning is breakfast silly now get up, I'm making waffles!" shinso exclaimed with as much emotion he could muster, which wasn't much all things considered, but it seemed to lift eri's spirits even just a little
"didn't yamada ban you from the kitchen?" Shinso looked down at her
"well I mean if you don't want waffles you don't have to come-"
"ugh fine you purple haired bully I'll come help you make waffles, but I'm only doing this so you don't burn down the kitchen." eri said with a small smile.
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Aizawa was in bed, with his husband peacefully sleeping until he heard commotion in the kitchen outside their door, now normally he would let hizashi deal with this, but he was dead to the world right now, so he decided to sleepily stumble out of bed, grab his leg and his capture scarf and brace for whatever the hell he'd find in the kitchen.
He was not expecting to see his kids in the kitchen with the waffle iron plugged in, the counter full of random slightly waffle related ingredients, neither of them saw him approach "Do I even want to know what you two problem children are doing?" they both jumped a little when they heard his voice, he's still got it.
"Oh y'know, just making waffles" Shinso said with a guilty smirk
"at 4 in the morning?"
"better late then never." God he missed being asleep.
"get away from the waffle maker shinso I'll do this" He spoke with a slight tinge of regret in his voice, but shinso would burn the house down if he let him try to use the waffle iron.
"It'll be fine dad it's just waffles-"
"Hitoshi Shinso, last time I let you try to cook something in the kitchen you uncooked the pasta and burnt the water out."
"Yes sir"
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Eri was feeling better, shinso had tried and failed to cook waffles and now dad was making them, she helped ferry the ingredients to him while shinso found a simple recipe for chocolate waffles on his phone, things were going swimmingly, she learnt that word from uncle izuku.
Eventually yamada woke up from the smells of cooking and joined shinso in reading out the recipe, and also helping in the kitchen. before she knew it the waffles were done.
Shinso and yamada had dished out the waffles onto some plates, and eri took 3 waffles in total, after giving them a healthy drizzle of chocolate syrup and ome strawberries for topping, she had a few bites as the grown ups settled into conversation, she strained her ears to hear them but her mind was growing fuzzy, but she knew this time.
everything would be alright.