sorry for the delay in this chapter! i was met with a little bit of writers block, but i hope this chapter makes up for it!

again, thank you all for the followers, favourites and reviews! each one means a lot, and I'm glad you are all enjoying this story! hopefully it wont take me that long to get the next chapter out :)

Shouta felt the dread drop deep into his stomach as Midoriya's screams pierced the air, his body freezing as the hardened chains - once acting as hair for the villain - pierced the body of his students mother in several places. A gurgled sound escaped the woman's mouth, her mouth opened in a silent scream as her eyes widened in mute horror. Blood began to stain the front and back of her clothing from the newly-acquired wounds.

Rain began to fall in sheets as the body slumped forward, the chains retracting from Ms. Midoriya.

"Mum!"

The childs' pain-filled cry tore Shouta out of his thoughts, and the underground hero stared straight at where his student lay, the greenette trying to scramble to his feet and reach his downed mother. He didn't know if she was breathing.

Was she still alive?

The villains also seemed to be shaken out of their stupor, with the villain closest to the younger Midoriya - the wolf who was huge, likely more than twice Shouta's size - turning to glare down at the boy with something akin to a sneer on his face.

"You'll go quietly now, right?"

Shouta let an audible growl leave his throat, he wasn't about to let that villain do anything to his student. Erasure stung behind the mans eyes, but didn't activate his quirk considering the villain was a mutation-type, and thus wouldn't work. He flung out one end of his capture weapon, snagging it around the wrist of the villain who had begun raising his fist to no doubt pummel the kid.

The man gave a yelp as Shouta pulled with all his strength, pulling the larger figure away from his student and giving him an impromptu meeting with his foot, which had swung around in a kick to slam into the others face.

"Hey! Damn heroes-" the other villain snarled, vaguely surprised by the appearance of both the hero and his strength, before she allowed her hair to harden once more. She was preparing to allow the chains to snake out and pierce through him, much like they had with her first, still-warm victim. "-always messing with our plans!"

Having the wolf man lay unconscious at his feet, Shouta snapped his gaze to the other villain, finally allowing Erasure to surface as his eyes glowed a crimson red at the activation on his quirk. The woman gave a near-shout of surprise as her hair fell limp, slight horror taking over her features. Shouta, in muted amusement, wondered if she recognized who he was.

"What-"

Shouta swings out his capture weapon once more, running to the villain as the cloth wrapped around her midsection, effectively clamping her arms to her sides. The woman struggled at first, but looked up as Shouta lunged, opening her mouth to try and ward the man off. His fist collided with her face, emitting a rather satisfying crunch as the villains eyes rolled to the back of her head, and her body slumped to the ground, still wound up by his weapon.

The erasure hero scowled down at the two bodies, an unmistakable rage settling deep in his bones at the mere thought of some low-life scum targeting his students, children who had yet to know the true hero world. Children who had already experienced the horrors, no matter how hard he had tried to protect them. The raging thoughts that began to surface effectively managed to make him forget where he was, for a moment, as the rain that began to pour and roar faded into a silent static.

Children. They were only children.

When Shouta had first walked into his class only a few months ago, facing a class of wide-eyed kids who didn't know how grueling becoming a hero was...he wasn't so sure any of them were going to make it through the first day. Sure, there were a few promising students; Iida was typically a stick in the mud (a trait he thankfully didn't get from his brother), but he was hard working and followed the rules. There was also Todoroki...although, Shouta wondered why he didn't use his fire at the start of the year, why did it take Midoriya's meddling? And Bakugou. But the hot-headed blond had his own slew of irrational temperament, the fact he just got so mad for almost no reason was concerning.

But everyone else in the class...Shouta could see, smell their corpses. Corpses too small, corpses that would be buried six feet under.

It was all too familiar to the pro, only seasoned of twelve years. They weren't ready, and he knew this, it was irrational to keep on children who couldn't face the hero world, who wouldn't make it through their first year. Midoriya was a great example of this, the boy had practically no control over his quirk, as if he had only manifested it the day of the exams...but all the others, too, had their problems. They weren't ready.

Shouta's duty was to expel them, he'd expelled students for much, much less. But he didn't.

He didn't. Even though he'd expelled most of his students before...there was just something, something about this class...

Perhaps it had been Midoriya's unique thinking on the first day of school. Perhaps it was seeing (after the incident on the security cameras) about the stunt Iida pulled, with Uraraka's help with the media got inside the school. Perhaps it was seeing Kirishima - aloof and almost borderline dense - manage to work together with Bakugou.

Perhaps it was hearing about all of them fighting for their lives at the USJ. Fighting against real villains and escaping with their lives.

When Shouta had already seen too many heroes fall.

They'd crumbled the walls he had so desperately put up, to separate him from the kids, his students. He pushed them away, fear crawling through his foggy brain every day that they'd die. These children would die...and then what? He couldn't risk getting close to them...at first, he couldn't risk caring...

He feared that if he cared too much they'd die, and he'd lost them like he had lost so many others, children who still had lives-

But the USJ...the Sports Festival...hell, even when Midoriya, Iida and Todoroki went on a near-suicide mission and fought Stain...

They fought their way into his heart. Even if he didn't show it, even if he never admitted it out loud, those damn kids had turned him soft. This didn't mean he went any easier on them in class...but he began to care, in his own way. He was doing the one thing he had been so afraid of, allowing twenty students to find their places in his heart - and only in the first few months.

Shouta looked out for his kids, he fought for them - hell, he'd face ten Noumu and die if it meant his kids got out, got to live another day; even without him and his logical ruses. No matter how much he would deny it to their faces, the underground pro hero knew they would grow, they would win. They would impact society, become the heroes they needed to be.

But for now, he would be there...

And these damn villains better stay out of his way.

"M-mum!"

A choked sob sounded over the falling droplets, shaking Shouta out of his stupor as his quirk flared out, rain-trodden hair falling as he took in the scene in front of him. His tongue turned to lead.

Midoriya had dragged himself to where his mother lay, hands shaking as they flittered around the too-still body nervously, unsure. The greenette keened, scrunching his eyes shut as a grimace of pain passed through his body. But the boy then adjusted himself before reaching towards the wound that went right through Ms. Midoriya's chest, hurriedly pressing both his hands over the wound in hopes to stop the bleeding.

Was there still bleeding? Rivets of blood-coloured water rushed through the cracks of the ground and debris of the torn market, and Shouta knew he should be concerned by the darkness of it - even if...even if she was dead, her son-

"M-Mr. Aizawa?" the boy finally turned his head to look at his teacher, his face pale and ashen. Shouta could see a gash on the boys temple, the way his nose was slightly misshapen and out of place, and the way one eye was more closed than the other. His hair, almost dark from the rain, was mattered, and no matter how much rain fell the student was still covered in dirt.

The boy had whispered his teachers name, his big green eyes swirling with a storm of emotions. Despite how much the sky cried, Shouta could see tears fill those eyes he was so used to see filled with knowledge, the salty liquid overflowing and spilling, mixing with the rain and blood that ran down his face.

"Midoriya..." the hero took a step to his student, and the dam broke. Izuku's eyes cracked as sorrow took over, and he bowed his head, his forehead resting against his mothers side as a sharp, scratchy whine escaped his throat, his shoulders shaking as he tried to suppress himself.

Shouta withdrew his capture weapon from the villains, the last thing on his mind as he made it to his students side in two strides. He kneeled besides the boy, ignoring the puddles beneath as water soaked through his clothing. He only had eyes for the boy, that's all that mattered, his student.

The lump in his throat was impossible to swallow, and whilst doing his best not to look at the fallen body he failed he failed that was his students MOTHER, he reached for the too-small child. "Midoriya, we need to-"

But Midoriya flinched back, the hero-in-training snapping his head up with wide, panic-filled eyes. He stared at Shouta, and the hero swore he could feel the poor boys anxiety shoot through the roof, the shock of his injuries beginning to settle in.

"Mr. Aizawa, you have to help her!"

Shouta wouldn't admit that his heart broke a little at the boys tone, so small and young. "Midoriya-"

"No! N-nonono!" The greenette shook his head, Shouta's voice not filtering through as the student pulled his hands away from the wound in his mothers chest, going to press against the one in her abdomen.

"We have to get you medical help, Midoriya."

But he didn't listen. "I-it's going to be ok mum! You'll b-be fine!" he babbled as if the woman was awake, pressing on the wound in what Shouta figured was a futile attempt. "We'll get you fixed up and then w-we can g-go h-home and watch your favourite show! I can even make udon tonight-"

"...Midoriya..."

"And we can...j-j-just..."

Midoriya's voice tapered off into a weak moan as his body shuddered, the teenager grasping at his mothers waterlogged cardigan, knuckles turning white. Shouta could see as it finally dawned on him, and he was beginning to shut down mentally.

Everything seemed to slow to a halt, Shouta's brain freezing.

I can't...I can't give him hope...

But Shouta was moving before he could process what exactly his plan was. His arms gently wrapped around the child, bringing the injured boy close to him with a softness that he didn't even know he possessed. Midoriya looked at his teacher with glassy green eyes, panic swirling in its depths as he began to struggle.

"Don't worry, I'm just moving you." He soothed, and Shouta was sure he would be surprised at his own actions towards his student if his brain wasn't in overdrive; but he didn't have the time to sit and ponder. "Take deep breaths, alright?"

Midoriya's hands scrunched up the back of the heroes shirt in an iron-clad grip. Over the rain, which steadily began to fall harder, Shouta could hear the slight rattling in the boys chest with every inhale and exhale.

Most likely fractured ribs, maybe even broken. Dammit.

Midoriya couldn't walk in that condition, not unless he wanted to make it worse...not to mention his head injury. Shouta couldn't assess how truly bad it was in this weather...he'd just have to wait and hope that the child he had run into on the way to the scene had gotten to the police, informed them there was at least someone injured...

Midoriya's mother had managed to safe a small child, and he had promised the panicking boy that when he found her savior, he would thank her for him.

She couldn't die. He could still act...he HAD to.

Shouta moved the boy away from his mothers form, propping him up against a slab of wood from one of the destroyed booths, miraculously it hadn't fallen at all during the battle, or the explosions that rattled the ground. Before he moved away, his hand gently swept against the childs forehead, moving some of his soaked hair from his eyes.

His student gazed at his with those wide, innocent eyes, and Shouta had to prevent himself from crumbling.

"I'm going to try kid, alright. You need to stay awake, can you do that?"

It took a few moments for the boy to shakily nod his head, and the underground pro quickly tore some of the fabric from the sleeve of his costume, not wanting to rummage through his belt for medical supplies, not when he was running on precious time. He handed over the dripping black cloth, gesturing quickly to the boys head. "Hold that against your temple, you've got a bad gash there."

They needed to stall the bleeding.

Another slight incline of the students head, and Shouta watched as the boy pulled a heavy limb to his face, gently pressing the cloth over the gash and wincing underneath the pressure. Good...

The wind howled over as Shouta now turned his attention to the older Midoriya, hurrying back to her side and quickly checking for a pulse. Upon finding nothing, he kneeled back besides her and tilted his head to the side, hovering over the womans face to make absolutely sure she wasn't breathing.

Nothing.

The ravenette bit his lip, pulling back before he quickly went to work, doing his best to take off the victims cardigan for better access. He had to just hold on until the medical team got here. Hopefully, they weren't too far away...

Shouta wasn't the best when it came to exact medical procedures, even the ones that heroes had to know; at UA, students were usually given the basics during their second year. He'd himself been meaning to have Recovery Girl teach it to the first year heroics classes, given the situations they always seemed to end up in.

Situations like this.

It was never much; not many heroes carried enough medical supplies to take care of large, fatal wounds, missing blood or limbs that had been chopped off - but they knew how to apply bandages the proper way. They were taught how to help victims going into shock, how to deal with an array of things that might be of concern, like hypothermia.

But they were also taught CPR, to properly provide compression to the patients and hopefully have them breathing. Oxygen deprivation wasn't good for the brain at all, and if Shouta was going to try and save his student from his grief...

He was swift to place his hands on Ms. Midoriya's chest, away from the wound before he began his compression's, remembering his training from back at UA to make sure he was doing it correctly.

One...two...three...

He didn't even know where the chains had stabbed; if it had gotten her heart or ruptured a lung, anything he did now might not work. He knew, in the back of his brain, that it probably wouldn't. Someone could only go so long...

nine...ten...eleven...

Not to mention that he couldn't immerse himself in his task, not yet. Not with an injured child watching from where he was propped against the wood, not with two villains nearby. Sure, they were knocked out...but he didn't know for how long. He couldn't risk getting jumped. But he needed to concentrate...

fifteen...sixteen...seventeen...

His hands were firm as he pumped down on Ms. Midoriya's chest, willing for her heart to get the memo and start pumping again. Even a weak pulse was better than nothing. He'd seen CPR go wrong on multiple occasions, because people who weren't medical professionals didn't press hard enough; they were afraid of damaging their ribs.

It wasn't actually that uncommon, to injure somebody's ribs whilst performing CPR. Shouta hadn't performed it many times himself, but the ribs would always at the very least be sore, if not almost fractured.

twenty-two...twenty-three...twenty-four...

Once Shouta's mental counting of his compression's reached 30, he stopped, freeing his hands to now gently tilt Ms. Midoriya's head back to give her airway access. This was by far his least favourite part; but regardless, the man didn't hesitate to pinch her nose, tilting his own head down. He gave two breaths, being sure her chest rose with each.

She still wasn't breathing on her own, after that, and Shouta could hear the faint wailing of sirens in the distance.

"Come on-" Shouta borderline growled, once again re-starting his thirty compression presses, his eyes stingy due to the lack of eyedrops after the usage of his quirk. His scar itching as water rolled down his face. "-you need to breath."

It was rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat to get his students mother to breath once more. The boy watched on, deathly silent as the complications of the situation began to sunk in. The wailing of an ambulance only grew louder and louder.

Shouta felt as if years had past when he finally checked the womans wrist for a pulse after his fourth or fifth attempt. He would've nearly wept if he was more emotional, when he felt the weak thrum of a pulse underneath her skin.

It wasn't much, it wasn't much.

But it was something.

Eraserhead thanked any god that might be out there when he heard shouting voices over the rain, and turning his head, seeing several medical personnel rush over with a gurney. The wide-eyed but professional look on their faces told him that his job here was done, and the black-clad hero pulled back as they quickly came to the patients side.

"She wasn't breathing for five, maybe ten minutes. I kept compression's up until she had a pulse." Shouta quickly told them, not wanting to hold them back. "She was pierced twice by a villains chain-hair quirk in the chest and abdomen. Her pulse is weak...but its there."

"We weren't able to drive the ambulance into the area, police have started taping it off and the media is starting to swarm, so we have to hurry and get her on some oxygen," one of the paramedics said, not sparing a glance at the hero as they helped their partner load Ms. Midoriya onto the gurney. "Another ambulance was dispatched not too long ago; we can't take both the injured with us."

Shouta knew it was likely they wouldn't. After all, ambulances usually only had room for one patient and perhaps a family member in the back...but Midoriya needed treatment. Regardless, the heroes throat ran dry at the prospect of the boy waiting longer.

"ETA should be another three minutes," one of the paramedics finally faced him, and Shouta realized he had said that out loud. "By the time we get him to where we left the first ambulance, it should already be there. Can you carry him?"

He bit back his retort, that of course he could carry his own student, but he swallowed it back for now and went to where his student still sat, not moving from where his sensei had placed him. Upon his approach, Midoriya looked up at him, a hand still pressing the cloth to his temple.

The drenched teenager opened his mouth, frantic, but Shouta bet him to it. "The paramedics have your mum, Midoriya - she's breathing."

Midoriya seemed to stop, mouth gaping slightly as he took those words in, and Shouta mentally prepared himself for when the injured student began to wail, more tears spilling out of his eyes in what the hero assumed to be relief.

He was much too emotional for his own good.

"We're going to get you both help," is what the man said instead, crouching by his crying student. "And it'll all be fine. I need you to calm down."

Midoriya's free hand slowly moved to wipe at his eyes, willing the tears to stop as Shouta sighed, looking towards the paramedics as they hastily pulled Ms. Midoriya away on the gurney. There was nothing more he could do, nothing more he could try to calm the boy.

He also knew Midoriya's legs would give out if he tried to walk; and honestly, it wouldn't be surprising if the student passed out now that the danger had passed. The erasure hero said nothing as he moved closer before sliding one arm behind the boys back, one under his legs before lifting him- holy hell.

How much did this kid weigh?!

The man exhaled as he maneuvered the child in his arms, who squeaked in alarm and clung to his costume in surprise. "S-sensei, I can walk-"

"No, no you can't. The shock's going to start taking over." His homeroom teacher interrupts, making sure he had a firm, sure grip on the boy before he began to follow the way the paramedics had gone, careful not to slip in the puddles of rain. "Besides, even if you could, you'd probably break a leg somehow, you problem child."

A wheeze of laughter escaped the boy, and now that Shouta was carrying him, holding him close, he could see how beat-up the student was. His clothes were torn and shredded, what was left of an Edgeshot hoodie was in tatters. Along with the gash on the boys temple, there seemed to be more injuries hidden beneath, and his right ankle was not suppose to twist or bend like that. Even one of his shoulders seemed to be dislocated.

Not to mention the warmth seeping through Shouta's costume, the blood that came from a wound on his side, probably the most life-threatening his student had if it continued to bleed. Four deep, dark gashes...he assumed it came from the villain with the wolf mutation quirk. Even with his own quirk the student hadn't been able to dodge him quickly enough, it seemed.

He was surprised the student in his arms could endure so much. Then again, this was Midoriya they were talking about - the boy had broken far too many bones to count since the beginning of the UA school year. His pain tolerance must be a saint.

"What about the villains...?" a hint of apprehension in Midoriya's quiet tone, and the hero allowed himself to answer, idle chatter to keep the student occupied.

"Now that the ambulances are arriving, they should start sending officers or heroes to apprehend them. They wont be getting up and they'll be locked away...you wont have to worry about them again."

At his teachers reassurances, Midoriya's eyes start to droop as his body finally starts to give up, and Shouta hurries along, speaking in a low voice. "You can't sleep yet, Midoriya. We have to get your head wound checked first.

"...'m tired," the boys words slurred, and Shouta ignores the rain pelting down, doing his best not to jostle the student too much as he steps over immense amounts of destroyed debris. He was lucky there were no other injured civilians down this way, and the ravenette felt relief finally sink its fangs into his shoulders when he saw the flashing blue and red lights ahead, the other ambulance finally pulling up as its wailing sirens pierced his ears.

It didn't sooth the worry the hero felt as the body began to relax in his grip, hoping the student just to hang on a little longer.

"I know you are, Midoriya, but you need to stay awake. Stay awake just a little longer."