Chapter Text
The world is violently unsteady under Mina and she's not sure if she can attribute it to the concussion, the pain, or the blood loss. None of those options bode well for her.
A heavy booted foot crashes into her ribs again and Mina swears that she hears a slow wet crack, like a celery stick being broken clean in half, followed shortly by a tortured-sounding scream that she can't recognize as coming from her own raw throat.
"Not so tough now, are you?" The voice above her sneers. "Filthy hero brat."
The villain is probably around her dad's age, and something about that makes her sad in a way she can barely fathom. Her dark uniform is torn in places from the acid Mina had hurled- not corrosive enough to burn through skin, she'd been careful about that, but enough to burn through fabric, enough to scare her into backing off long enough that she'd be able to get back to her classmates.
Aizawa-Sensei had once told them that if beating a villain didn't seem feasible, sometimes a tactical retreat was the only acceptable course of action. He'd been especially insistent on that when the HPSC had told them they would be fighting alongside the adults- if they couldn’t win and had the opportunity to run, they needed to run.
Dead heroes, he'd said in his flat and even voice, were not any good to anyone.
Mina had held those words in mind as she planned to execute that sort of tactical retreat. It was stupid to let herself get separated in the first place.
But the villain had not backed off. In fact, the acid warning shots had only served to make her angry.
The villain's arms, visibly heavy and gleaming like metal, had swung at her. The way she'd moved them had seemed almost random at first, and Mina had been able to dodge. It reminded her a little of the dance lessons set to a metronome instead of music, the swinging of her arms accompanied by a steady, tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock.
Mina had always hated the metronome.
The first hit had connected with her arm, heavy enough that she could tell that if it had connected with even a little more force, it would have broken her arm. The second had clipped the side of her forehead- not hard enough to crack her skull, but enough to tear open the skin near her hairline and send the world exploding into a firework display of pain and confusion.
Mina had seen the ground rising to meet her like the tide coming in, slow and inevitable. She’d hit the ground in a heap that shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. And then the villain had brought her foot down in slow motion, Mina unable to move as her boot landed heavily on her injured arm. There should not have been enough force behind a kick that slow to break her arm, but the explosion of pain that had left her vision whiting out had told her otherwise.
The kicks hadn’t stopped coming. Each moving so slowly that she felt as though she was losing her mind. Stomach, ribs, chest. Mina had tried to curl around herself, but her body just wouldn’t seem to listen to her brain. Or at the very least, not fast enough.
"You poor, stupid little girl," The villain says, her voice moving at a molasses pace, like a broken record drawling at half speed. Mina isn't sure if this woman has some kind of time based quirk, or if the hit to her head really was just that hard "They should have never let a child do a grown-up's job."
Mina wants to argue that she's not a child. That she worked hard for years to stand where she is, to make it into UA, to hold that hero license in her hands.
But as she's lying on the ground, half curled in a fetal position, her tears mixing with the blood on her face, all she wants to do is cry out for her father the way she used to do after bad dreams.
The villain shrugs, a leisurely thing that’s almost at the right speed.
“Oh well.”
Mina shuts her eyes and prepares herself for a hit that doesn't come. Instead, she hears the soft clicking of dress shoes on the cement, a sound so utterly out of place that she's worried the hit to her head shook some of her brains loose.
"Kurogiri," The clock villain says, the faintest amount of surprise in her voice, "What are you doing here? I thought you would be with Shigaraki-"
"That is not your concern."
Mina would recognize that voice anywhere, even if the clock villain hadn’t announced him. She still sometimes hears it in nightmares where she's holding Thirteen's hand and watching the white of her suit slowly turning red under what seemed like more blood than anyone could afford to lose.
She'd known he was still out there, somewhere, that he and many others had escaped Tartarus. Mina, like the clock villain, had simply assumed he'd be orbiting near Shigaraki. She'd been sure that she'd see him again sooner or later, even if a part of her was dreading it. Ever since they'd received the news about Tartarus, Mina had felt it was going to be inevitable, like a car on a track and no way of stopping.
She just didn't think it would be so soon.
Mina peels an eye open just in time to see Kurogiri crouching low to the ground, his long legs folded beneath him and his face less than a foot from hers. Up close he smells like ozone and something chemical that she can’t quite identify, his glowing eyes narrowed slightly, like he’s assembling the pieces of a puzzle in his head.
Mina can’t fight the panicked-sounding squeak that falls from her lips, shrinking back from Kurogiri as much as she's able. She’d get up and run if she could, but the world still feels like a rocking boat beneath her, her entire body alight with pain.
Kurogiri’s head turns slightly, "Tell me, Oomura Sayoko, is this one of the hero students?"
The clock villain, Oomura, lets out a nervous, chargrined sort of chuckle, like a cat who just got caught reaching a paw into the canary cage. Not truly sorry for what she was going to do, but rather sorry that she'd been caught.
"Consider it pest control," Oomura states.
For what seems a small eternity, the only sound is Mina's labored breathing. Oomura and Kurogiri do not speak a single word to each other. And then Mina hears a sharp intake of breath, something like an abbreviated scream before the world has plunged back into the relative quiet.
When Mina opens her eyes again, Kurogiri hasn't moved, but Oomura is gone.
"...Where...?" Mina's voice comes out a pained rasp, her lungs fighting to make enough sound to be audible.
She's a little terrified that Kurogiri has sent Oomura to gather reinforcements, that as soon as she sees her again, it will be with more villains. She also doesn't truly expect an answer from Kurogiri.
But the man regards her with his flickering golden eyes, "Siberia."
His voice never changes cadence, deep and rumbling and calm in a way that's nearly disconcerting, and Mina can't tell if he's kidding. Somehow, she doesn’t think that’s something Kurogiri would do.
He reaches forward and brushes her blood-soaked bangs off of her forehead, Mina flinching with her entire body at the gesture, her eyes squeezing shut. His fingers are soft and cool, like the early morning fog on the ferry. He makes a disconcerted little hum and Mina forces her eyes open, shaking with pure and unadulterated terror. She can’t afford to look away from him. Not if he’s going to kill her.
No, she thinks, if he's going to end her life, he's going to do it looking into her eyes.
One of Kurogiri's hands vanishes into a portal, his arm disappearing up to the shoulder as he seems to reach and rummage for something unseen.
Mina is expecting something like a knife, the thought only slightly more comforting than the idea of Kuroigiri using his quirk to tear her to pieces, but instead his hand emerges with a first aid kit, and it just leaves her more confused than she already was.
“The cut is deep. You will need stitches.” Kurogiri informs her as he carefully dabs at her bloodsoaked forehead with an antiseptic soaked piece of gauze. “But your skull is not visibly fractured.”
Mina’s throat feels dry, her tears hot on her face as she stares up at him. He’s quiet as he carefully tapes a bandage over the cut, slowly winds the rest of the bandage around her head.
She desperately wants to ask him why he’s doing this. Why he sent away his teammate. Why he hasn’t murdered her. Why he’s kneeling on the ground beside her doing first aid.
There had been a time where Aizawa-sensei had told them plainly that there would be some villains who simply wouldn’t care if they were children- if they saw an opportunity, they would kill them. After the USJ, after watching Thirteen droop with blood loss, after seeing Aizawa-sensei ragdoll-limp on a stretcher and beaten beyond recognition, Mina had no trouble believing that. She doubts any of the other students had either. Especially when each encounter with villains had just hammered that point further and further home.
The problem was that Kurogiri had plenty of opportunity to kill her, he could probably do it with his bare hands at this point, and she just couldn’t understand why he hadn’t.
"I am going to splint your arm," Kurogiri states, holding two flat sticks and a roll of bandages in his hands. "I apologize. This will hurt."
He isn't kidding- her arm is alight with pain as Kurogiri carefully lays it out, bracing it with the sticks, wrapping the bandages as if he's done this sort of thing a thousand times before. And maybe he has. She can’t really picture Shigaraki or any of the other members of the League as being willing to risk a hospital.
Mina has never broken an arm before today. She’d sprained it during training and it’d been an easy enough fix. Shouto had set his cold hand on the arm, gently curled his fingers around the swollen skin, until Recovery Girl had been able to peck her cheek and fit her with a brace.
A broken arm feels different. The pain is sharper, radiating from her forearm all the way up to her shoulder and down to her fingertips. She thinks about Izuku- his arms bruised and flopping lifelessly at his side. She finds she has a new sort of reverence for his pain tolerance.
The splint seems to help just a little, though she’s sure there’s nothing he can do for her doubtlessly broken ribs.
"For what it is worth," Kurogiri says, voice soft, curiously tight in a way Mina didn't even think was possible, "I am sorry."
“...Why?” Mina can’t help but ask. She doesn’t mean to speak the words aloud, nor can she be sure if she means to ask why he’s bothering to help her or why he is sorry. She supposes, when she thinks of it, that the questions answers sort of bleed into each other
Kurogiri’s eyes narrow slightly, and for just a moment, they remind her of the nightlights strewn all around the dorms to keep Dark Shadow in check when the sun has set. The thought makes her heart twist in her chest.
She just wants to go home.
“I...” Kurogiri looks away from her, and then, in a very quiet voice, he confesses, “I do not know.”
Mina’s head and body hurts. She’s exhausted. She wants to fall asleep, but knows that she can’t- at least not now.
“Are...you...” Mina’s words are barely audible, a cracked lung sort of wheeze, “Going... to... to hurt... me...?”
Kurogiri blinks at the question, but his answer is immediate and unwavering,
“No.”
Mina doesn’t know why she does what she does next. She has no reason for it. She doubts that Kurogiri will even respond to the gesture. She slowly, painfully lifts the hand on her unbroken arm, Kurogiri’s eyes watching her warily the entire time, and she offers him her extended pinky.
Holding her arm even a few inches above the ground is a kind of torture, but she has to do this, she thinks.
“Pro... Promise...?”
After what seems a small, agonizing eternity, Kurogiri slowly extends his own pinky, cold and stiff, wrapping it around hers. “I promise,”
Aizawa is pacing, trying to keep his mind from spiraling into the worst case scenario. He does another headcount, praying that maybe he just made a mistake, but once again he only counts nineteen students.
He has no idea where Ashido is.
Aizawa's head drifts back to a humid September day a full lifetime ago, rivulets of rainwater being dyed red, his heart splintering like a broken bone in his chest.
He's been going back to that place a lot lately. Ever since he'd found out about Kurogiri, it'd torn that wound wide open again. Not that it'd ever healed right the first time.
And now, he thinks about that rain, but instead of a cracked pair of aviator goggles, he envisions Ashido's mask, and tries not to let himself feel that complete and utter despair.
He feels, rather than sees the presence behind him, and he prepares to fling his capture weapon out, but stops short, his breath hitching in his chest.
Kurogiri looks roughly the same as he has every time Shouta had seen him. Tall and polished, dark mist curling languidly, sharp golden eyes unblinking.
But Shouta is not looking at his eyes. Not really. Because Kurogiri is holding his student in his arms and she isn't moving.
"Ashido-!"
Shouta surges forward, preparing to fight her out of Kurogiri's arms if he has to, but Kurogiri offers no resistance. In fact, he all but hands her to Shouta.
Ashido is limp and still in his arms, one eye hidden beneath a blood-soaked bandage and the other half-lidded and far away. He doesn't need to check to be sure that she's got a concussion, but he hates to think what else could be wrong. Her arm is bandaged and splinted, tucked against her chest, and Shouta feels lightheaded with both relief and fear warring with each other in his head.
He's about to use erasure, demand Kurogiri answer his questions, but by the time he looks up from Ashido and her injuries, Kurogiri is long gone.
For a moment, it's touch and go, but when Aizawa hears word that Ashido is going to be fine, it's like a heavy weight off his chest and he's finally able to draw a full breath.
Her hospital room is piled with flowers and stuffed animals and all the color reminds him just how young she really is, makes him want to go up to the HPSC president and wring her neck with his bare hands.
Todoroki and Kirishima are constant presences in the room, Todoroki often half lying on the hospital bed beside her, like he wants to be close but is afraid of making it worse, Kirishima holding her hand. but the rest of the class makes a point to visit as much as they're able and they're never far.
Aizawa insists on being in the room with Tsukauchi when Mina is able to be questioned.
He's silent for most of the interview, listening to Mina softly recount the way that she'd been separated from her class, her trying to get away from the clock villain, Oomura, she thinks her name was, and then Kurogiri's arrival.
"You're doing great," Tsukauchi assures her, his voice gentle. He pours Mina a glass of water from the little pitcher at her bedside table and waits patiently as she drinks it. Then, he has to ask, "Did Kurogiri hurt you?"
"No." Mina's brows furrow as much as they're able with the swelling and the stitches. "He... He pinky promised,"
Shouta's stomach drops at those four simple words.
He pinky promised.
He thinks back to being Mina's age, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair and Oboro's head tipped toward the bright sunlight. Oboro's hands were always warm, rough with callouses, and Shouta had been a little bemused at the idea of a pinky swear, especially at that age, but had done it for Oboro's sake.
There was little he wouldn't have done for Oboro's sake.
The rest of the interview flows from there. Tsukauchi asking questions in a careful tone, Mina answering as best as she could around the static of a head injury, and Shouta forcing himself to stay rooted in the present day until Tsukauchi wishes Mina well and departs.
He has to remember, even when it hurts, that he is no longer sixteen. He has not been sixteen in a long time and Oboro is gone, forever frozen in amber as that grinning boy holding his hand out.
He's been trying to tell himself that Kurogiri is not Oboro. Not really.
But he thinks about that damned pinky swear and doubt creeps in yet again.
"Sensei?" Mina's soft voice draws him from the train of thought, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Aizawa states, shaking his head as though he's clearing an etch-a-sketch. He glances at Ashido, the bandages, the bright green cast on her arm signed by each and every one of his awful students, the IV line and the monitoring wires, "If you ask me that again, I'm giving you detention."
Ashido smiles a little.
"I'll be back later." He assures, almost idly tugging up the soft plushy leopard print blanket that Todoroki had brought from her dorm. "Get some rest."
"Yes, sensei."
Kurogiri’s involvement is troubling, so is the lingering and insidious sense of pure hope that had crept in while he wasn’t looking, but Aizawa figures he needs to deal with one problem at a time. Ashido is going to be okay. That’s the important part.