47
Aizawa hung out around the corner, enclosing himself behind a wall in one of the main student towers, rushing out of his own class to make it.
The bell had rung and it was time for students to start filtering out soon. He got lucky because only every once in awhile did Sekijiro actually let his class go on-the-bell. Usually he kept them a bit late by a few minutes, somtimes five, to wrap things up before they could head off to other more accelerated classes, and Eraser was banking on that fact for today, and he'd been right.
He was certain that Kasaya had to come to class, and since he advanced published turn-in assignment work online through the teaching portal, and those were almost over (he usually did it two weeks at a time), soon Bakugo would have to start coming to class as well (as he was supposed to anyway).
Eraser could still taste his cigarette on his tongue. 'The nerve, that brat.' He meant that in a loving, irritated, but sad kind of way.
He'd never had a student defy him and not show up to his homeroom even with online turn-in assignments being posted only.
He understood why his son was testing his patience like this though.
This was a horrible situation. Satoko got a terrible eye-opening look at who and what he really was, all that burden on his shoulders now, and the fact that he knew what it was meant to be used for, aside from helping the world? To help defeat All For One?
Heavy. It was heavy to the boys, and Aiwaza knew it. What it meant would shape their lives from here on out both separately and together.
Reasonable. Aizawa just wanted them to be reasonable about the power. Bakugo and Satoko. He just wanted them come to terms somehow, to do the adult thing and speak to him about it, about what they were feeling.
Yes, it was expected that Satoko help fight All For One, but how they responded? Running out like that leaving Midoriya frozen on the couch?
Out of respect he felt Satoko didn't control him or Toshi, freeze them too, and in return, they didn't run after them, just let them be, knowing full well the 'why' behind the running: They were still just kids yet in some instances, deeply in love, selfishly wanting their lives together to get better (just as Bakugo had said in the car on the way back from the station), who leaned on each other, who'd helped solve each other's problems and made each other stronger, together.
And the prospect that any one or all of those things might end up being ripped from them with this new knowledge?
They'd fled from it. Scared. Hearts pounding.
And also, to take in the sudden knowledge that Kasaya was For One's All and in that instant, knowing how that might not only rip the progress they'd made together apart, but on another standpoint: just complicate things?
Not to mention Kasaya revealing himself as the dome 'villian' to Midoriya? And Deku becoming a detective too?
Sprinting out probably in fear of getting exposed to the student body, and the fear that Deku would have to know more about their pasts.
How long would it be now until Kasaya would have to fight in the fight against One For All?
'Probably soon.' Aizawa sighed against the wall. Villian activity was horrifyingly high.
That meant a collapse.
Soon it would start. They were investigating now, trying to find a way in, but Kasaya and Bakugo had been absent, the two of three newest detectives (and only detectives) they'd trusted to integrate.
It was ceasing things up... a lot. They were short staffed in their mission, Midoriya had helped some, but that was just one person.
All Might and Aizawa needed the other two.
They both knew that Satoko and Bakugo knew things about the underground that Midoriya just didn't know, but they just weren't entirely revealing. This, Aizawa assumed, was probably Satoko's past, and also probably things about the drugs that Bakugo might of heard. They were apprehensive even more when told Deku was asked to join.
Bakugo blew the fuck up.
Sure, Izuku was a think-tank, which was another reason he was asked to be a 'secret student detective' as well, but Midoriya was such an innocent that he had zero knowledge about the darker worlds that Katsuki and Kasaya had once been parts of separately.
And by running away, they were abandoning their duties as dectectives and leaving their files empty.
Midoriya vowed he wouldn't tell Iida, Ibara, Uraraka, Ashido, or Kirishima. None of his closest friends; nobody period about anything.
But it seemed that Izuku Midoriya knew a bit about Satoko already. So when Aizawa left the room, All Might got up the gumption to ask, because he'd found it strange.
Midoriya, he couldn't lie to him.
Izuku had admitted that him, Iida and Ibara earlier in the school year, were keeping tabs on Bakugo and Kasaya, because they were unsure of their room assignment and worried, and in their 'spying' they'd discovered that Kasaya was a drunkard, a party animal perhaps, but they'd decided to let it go, and to disband the group, seeing that Bakugo was socializing for once, and gaining a friend, even if it be one with maybe a few off-kilter habits.
He'd looked ashamed about it, and Izuku had got red in the cheeks, upset with himself because now that he understood what Kasaya had went through merge-wise, had went through not having much control of his quirk before it, and having a hard past which no one knew much about except Katsuki?
It made him feel like an asshole for 'following' like that and involving two of his close friends (one of which was a Student Advisor).
Midoriya accepted it all; all those things about Satoko, as long as All Might vowed to him that he wouldn't say a word to Bakugo or Satoko about the once 'I Club (Eye Club)', or tell Aiwaza, as he was so fucking upset he'd let himself do that.
Midoriya had even dropped his head, and almost cried, explaining that he was just happy that Bakugo had someone he could consider a pal.
All Might nodded his heads in agreement (not saying a word about the fact that the two were actually 'to be wed', or even 'together' in that sort of way). Instead, he spoke on how he understood the little group was formed for non-vicious reasons, but out of concern, and so, he said that he'd keep quiet about it, and let bygones be bygones.
It was the past, and what was more important was what was right in front of them: that UA was on a short string. That soon Japan would be a mad house.
Aizawa leaned on the wall, waiting. (He had no idea that short little conversation had taken place between Yagi and Deku), but what he did know was that One For All was not some low-level idiot walking into banks, sticking it up for money and blowing things up. He was a master puppetier who held all the strings in the LOA, the most powerful being on the planet aside Satoko and Izuku (if Izuku could just master his power more).
He was insane. And he was... winning.
The heroes and the world needed Satoko, just as much as they needed Izuku.
And Satoko knew this now; he understood the gravity, or he wouldn't of bolted with Suki.
Deku and Disaster were to save the school, to save the citizens, to save the country, to save the world.
But on a higher level.
It was a level that Midoriya had already accepted, because he knew what being the successor to All Might meant, what gaining the power One For All meant: complete, pure sacrifice.
Aizawa knew when Satoko was thinking of being a hero, his mind altering to accept the idea, that he'd been thinking of it from his and Bakugo's standpoint only: With Bakugo's arm wrapped in his arm, together they'd go storm in and snuff out the Connelys, then Disaster and Apollo would chose to fight the good fight, but by their terms.
Pure terms. But their terms.
But once they were told that Disaster was For One's All, that rug was swept quick out from under them.
Causing them to trip and stumble together in a landslide. Their choice together to be heroes was now unpredictable.
Aiwaza breathed unsteadily. He remembered when he used to think that way. He spread his fingers out on the wall waiting.
He recalled when he used to think that things would go how he wanted them to go as a hero, how he'd plan that he'd 'do this', then plan to 'do that'.
But things never went as you wanted in this line of work.
Friends perished. People passed onto the other realm right at your feet. The tears and the blood overflowed.
Alone in his apartment, the one he could barely visit now due to consistently being followed by the LOA; there Eraser had cried so much, behind locked doors not wanting anyone to see.
In the public eye, he was a strong Super Pro: ERASERHEAD; teacher at UA, educator.
But the public didn't feel what the heroes felt.
Sure, people died, and their families were in great despair, utter pain, but having to live daily knowing that those people passed due to the unpredictably of evil?
That you literally could not save them? Them choking out blood on your lap as you stiffled back cries over them? Throat burning?
So many nameless faces had stared up from Eraserhead's lap in this way.
And he did nothing but desperately hold back hot tears from falling, trying to be strong, as he put a warm hand on their cheek, watching that hot red liquid seep out of them, hoping to a higher power out there, if there was one at all, that in their dying breaths, that that power would see his gentle palm on their face, and that it would know he was trying to comfort them.
It was because he wanted that power to 'acknowledge'. He wanted it to know, if it was really real, that he'd fought his ass off, and he'd fought his ass off because he cared for the people... and that no matter how hard he'd tried, someone was still dying in his embrace.
That this human in his lap... was a victim.
And that by some twisted will above, if it even be the case that it did exist, that this life on his knees... it'd died.
Just as they'd all died.
How was it fair?
That was Aiwaza Shota's case to God, the gods or whatever floated around.
People were fucking dying down here.
Too many times he'd spoke in his head: 'There is no God... only justice.' To upset. To withered from the scenes. Agreeing with All Might, thinking that nobody in this world could stop the madness except the heroes.
But now, those heroes at UA, they were no longer being seen in a good light by the public due to the inefficiency of keeping the students safe. They were becoming a bane, even after all they did, the public was a mass that turned on a dime.
But even if so, Eraserhead, he remembered all the dead faces.
That is what caused such pain.
This is what it meant to be a hero.
The fact that nothing was certain, and that you had to accept that. And even though that you might be hated by the public at times, or spit on, that you must do due diligence, and protect, defend, to spread justice and uphold law.
Much like the police, the military.
He could say nothing more about it. This is what it was truly like. Nothing ever occurred on your terms, even with advanced planning.
Satoko hadn't thought that way, unlike Izuku, who was willing to take those risks, willing to see and feel those same horrible things, to have the public hate him, to be spit on. Hero Deku would go on; he would sacrifice everything.
But late to this concept, this reality, Satoko had come.
It wasn't as if Yagi's friend Stella at death chose Satoko Kasaya because of some specific rhyme or reason either like how Toshinori choose Izuku Midoriya.
Stella had ran into a hospital, villians trapped her in a corner, and she took what opportunity she had to not let the power die out, giving it away as she took her last, dying breaths, and that opportunity was a random guess, a random hope. She had no attachment to Satoko, she did not know him. He was only a few days old, mewling in a crib with other babies on that level of the hospital. Her running there, it was smart, purposeful it was that she died there, but he was probably sleeping behind that thick glass where all new the parents stand to view the hospital's nurses caring for their kids the first integral days. Just exhausted, a little, cute newborn.
Responsible. He wanted Kasaya to be responsible as well.
He now knows he is For One's All. What would he do now knowing that? Eraser hoped he'd take responsibility as before when he took on the label for the force 'Disaster' (in which he'd still probably name himself he figured, which was acceptable).
It's the quirk he'd had, the one he'd become, had already ingrained, the only thing that changed was the knowledge of the true, real name and the over-bearing importance.
Could Satoko not manage these things?
And if he couldn't?
Eraserhead was concerned.
He couldn't bare losing a student to the world who was so powerful, by choosing not to fight. Or worse: joining the villians.
But he knew somehow that Satoko would never do that. He had too much internalized pain that he'd worked through. For him to just turn right back around and let them eat him alive?
It wouldn't happen.
And there would be no way in hell Bakugo would allow that.
They kept each other accountable.
The blonde blow-up was something else.
Aizawa was certain on what to make of his kid's feelings right now, but most of all, he knew they must center around Kasaya and wanting to go along with what he thought was best for himself and for his partner.
He knew that to a point, Bakugo would bandwagon on whatever train Satoko rode; only rarely did they actually argue with eachother. Their arguments were play-fights, and when they fought it was to either train seriously in martial arts or to flirt in the process. He'd caught them plenty times picking on each other and smacking each other around like best friends do, but then of course he knew their relationship, so he knew what those things truly were.
He had never seen Bakugo this way with anyone. It was like with Satoko he'd grown communicative.
Katsuki was nothing last year except a fragile-ego'ed loud mouth, and the year before that the same. He stomped into class, slammed doors, shouted cuss words, misbehaved, puffed little explosions out of his hands to 'pump up' the fact that he was pissed off.
A huge man-child.
Always turned in his homework though, always in bed he heard from others at 10:00 PM at night on the dot. He collected people's trash in the dorms so neurotically, it was neat freakish.
It went along with his stuck up, 'I'm better than everyone else' attitude. Better grades, better quirk, better routine... better better better.
All of the habits hiding that fact that he had been a drug user (making himself out to be the perfect student), the attitude meant to push away Deku and others in fear of them finding out, the rage because sometimes his past usage would spark something in his head and he couldn't stay calm. All Might a trigger.
(Those things Eraser, Satoko and Yagi knew now.)
But since Katsuki met Kasaya and started loving him, things changed, his son's whole life altered and never before had Eraser saw such a strong ability to speak and communicate in anyone, even more so than others in Hero Class.
Katsuki shared his opinions, and rather than fighting over them high-headedly and heated, as he did with everyone else, he kept his cool and could talk through them with Kasaya.
Even his demeanor in class became more docile, until someone was up in his space. It used to be when Izuku spoke even a peep, Aizawa could see the blonde's pale face flame, eyes go redder, ears twitch and menance as if they'd suddenly sprout into a devilish shape.
But since the one whose color was navy washed over him, and infected his being, it mellowed Bakugo out, encouraged him to go to therapy, and also the same as Kasaya: to challenge and face his internal demons, make peace with them, and move on.
And in doing so, Satoko Kasaya became Disaster, and Bakugo Katsuki became Apollo.
So of course, Aizawa knew that wherever Satoko was, Bakugo would be, aside the fact they were engaged.
He shook his head, ran some fingers through his hair.
And he also had him. Bakugo had asked him to be his father. Katsuki had a dad now when he'd been losing the only family he left, his grandma, little by little. Aizawa didn't want to believe that Suki would just run away from that. He wanted to believe that he didn't want to be alone again in that sort of way.
Aiwaza really needed to speak to them for a number of reasons.
It wasn't a few minutes and he saw him: Satoko Kasaya.
He walked out of his B classroom and headed the direction Shota was hiding in. Well, it wasn't hiding as much as it was concealing himself from view. If the teen got a hint that he was here, he'd probably start walking the other direction, and Eraser was all about catching him off guard today.
He knew his bond with Bakugo would never be what it was with Kasaya, and this whole 'dad' status that he had was lesser than that relationship, but he was not about to let it go so easy.
For Eraser, this was a deep pain.
It enough feeling so distraught about Kasaya.
But Katsuki too?
This is what it felt like to be a heartbroken father.
He'd gotten attached too much to Katsuki. They'd shared so much together, cried together, and Bakugo's voice in his head, in that teenage tough-guy tone, calling him 'Dad'?
It echoed.
His son.
Of course he was worried and nervous.
He was no longer just a student to him. Bakugo had left permanent marks on his soul, and he wanted him back as much as he wanted Satoko back.
Even if exposing Satoko as For One's All had caused them to panic, caused Bakugo to flip out thinking that he had to protect Satoko, if working through that pain to get back to a similar grounds as they were before was possible, Aizawa Shota would do it.
"Satoko."
Kasaya turned his head.
Immeadiately Eraser noticed his long hair. It was cut different. A nice different.
It had long sweeping layers, to his shoulders blades (he'd lost some inches) but it actually framed his face rather than hanging completely straight like usual, and he had some swishy bangs feathered too. A smallish section on the right side of his head above his ear was shaved.
Kind of a punk rock cut, definitely more Visual Kei, but still long as shit though.
"Like your hair." Eraser started plain. He considered the new 'do' a lucky break, a foot into a conversation with him.
Satoko just blinked and turned, he knew full well that Aiwaza would just follow. "Suki did it. I asked him to. What d'you want?"
Eraser smirked. He couldn't help it.
Of course Bakugo did; leaving his mark all over his guy, and that very calculated portion that was buzzed on the right side, that was 100 percent Katsuki: wild. But, Bakugo also had done a really great job. The hair was layered well, and the navy really shined in the light. He'd got all the dead ends off. It was something artistic.
Eraser shook himself from the thought. He dug back in, he had to get serious. "You know what."
"Yeh." Satoko bit.
They walked together towards the staircase.
Satoko looked off to the right for some reason down a long hallway past the elevators where a bunch of mini lockers were, their doors all flung open from students in a hurry. He smiled then, looking away as if remembering something pleasant.
He was reminiscing, a very specific time when Bakugo had come and picked him up from class awhile back, helped fandangle him out of a fight with Monoma, and took him there for a few drinks... and some feelings unleashed.
Aizawa got that he caught him at a good time. He was in a decent mood. Very very lucky. "How is he?"
"Fine. Pissed."
"The usual." Eraser swallowed.
A few students left walking the halls turned their heads over their back as they walked by and back around murmuring low not to be heard: 'Is that Aiwaza Sensei? Eraserhead? Yes, Mmhm. I think so.'
Eraser ignored; yes, it was unusual that he was in this portion of the building, but sometimes he'd walk through here to go talk to Yamada, who was none other than that loud Present Mic.
"Where have you two been?" Eraser pushed a bit. He was honest in his concern. He just wanted to make sure they weren't living like hobos and had money.
Satoko seemed calm. "My brother's."
"Kasaya." Eraser stopped him at the entrance to the stairs. "You stepped off campus?" His voice was incredibly deep. His heart slammed into his throat and he felt his eyes water. He knew the seriousness in that. Kasaya never stepped foot off campus. He didn't really wholly understand why, but he knew it was something dealing with the past that he had.
"Don't." Kasaya shoved back a tad, shuffling his small touch off of him. "Don't use my name... like you know me." That last piece came out in a more squeaky timbre. It was a Katsuki phrase, one that Aizawa recognized.
He pushed the door open and began striding down the stairs quick, not as if he was running away again, but as if he was trying to somehow hide himself, his face from bursting open into a floodgate.
It'd hurt him to say that! Eraser felt that lurking pain off Satoko, and so he was after him, because that line had hurt him too. "Satoko." He chose to obey the teen. "Stepping off is... you never do that." He was descending the stairs right behind him quick.
"Don't tell me what choices to make!" The teen's hand slid fast on the rail, footsteps fast.
"I'm not. You've already made them!" He just wanted to understand them.
Suddenly Kasaya spun around and got into Eraser's face, grabbing onto his jacket and pushed him up against the wall, pinning him.
Eraserhead would of expected this of Bakugo! But of Kasaya who was usually fairly docile?
He swallowed. He wouldn't fight a student!
Satoko got a little rough and pushed him into the wall harder a few times. As Eraser struggled some, fighting back only a bit, Saya was battling with himself whether to punch him in the face or not, and Aizawa knew he was.
Shota began prepping for it. He closed his eyes. He'd take it, just like how he'd taken his son beating the shit out of him in the dean's lounge months back. He'd take the defensive role.
But then.
Kasaya got right in his face, down to a whisper, hands on both sides of the wall, letting go of the jacket, their noses so close it caused the hero professor to awkwardly gulp behind his lids.
Eraser smelled liquor.
"Do y'know how I feel right now?" It was sad, a growling low rumble. He hadn't expected to run into him today, but he was looking.
"You been drinkin'." Aiwaza spurt low. Satoko was having it rough still handling his newly awakened emotions, and exactly because of that, Eraser was on edge, not sure what the outcome of this conversation would be.
"Yeh." Satoko confessed, he knew he couldn't hide it. "It was tough enough becomin' this!" It came out a little angry.
He meant the merge. "I know." He recalled him yanking at his restraints in that bed, screaming out in pain. He could only imagine the shit he was seeing.
Suddenly a bark, those sharpened incisors showing in a feral type way. "An'now this shit? Me? I'm fuckin' For One's All?!" He shouted a little high, but then it got lowered as he instantly recalled where he was: at school, in a public stairwell, but even though breathy, it was still irate. His eyes were watery, stormy lakes. "I wanted t'put an end to my past. Mine!"
"You..."
"No." He cut Eraser off, but then corrected. "Yes, and no... because of this! I have to fight on a more elevated level now. Do y'fuckin' get it?" He swallowed. It got quiet... "Because... I do. I get it."
Just as the raven headed one suspected. He was scared, but all his previous thoughts were right. Satoko was feeling the truth: the true insecurity of being a hero. "You're... frightened." He spoke it.
He felt a head land on his shoulder, even though strong palms still pushed him into the wall. This made Eraser's dark eyes pop open; an unexpected turn. "Satoko." He was, the teen was... breaking apart.
"All For One? Really?" Satoko's throat started to pinch. "I want... wanted to solve my... my business... and go on and save people after."
"I know." Kasaya had cried in his lap. How could he forget that? He'd embraced him tight when he'd asked him to be his role model. He still wanted that status. He didn't want that to end either. "Y'understand why we didnt say anything?"
He shook his forehead left and right in a 'No' on his shoulder, the teen's body shivering.
"We didn't trust Diasuta... the Disaster before it was you. We weren't sure ourselves for sometime if it was the right thing because of how strongly you wanted to avenge yourself. We didn't want to tell you right after the merge either, we wanted you to be settled into feeling whole." He didn't have to mention the stuff with Deku, and Bakugo and his feelings towards that, that was a given as well.
"But you planned... planned on tellin' me th'whole time? An'Bakugo?" It was whimpers.
"Especially Bakugo." Aiwaza attempted, he brought a hand up on the right side of Satoko and gave him a gentle pat.
Kasaya moved into him and wrapped his arms from the wall to being around the 30-something's waist. It was an instant hard embrace, one in which his crying automatically worsened.
Aizawa swallowed and rolled his head still on the wall to the ceiling of the stairwell, his other hand went up behind Satoko's head and squeezed him into him tight, never wanting to let go.
"When I couldn't say shit t'anyone... about... what hap... happened t'me, except Suki... an'my mind was changin', I trusted him only. But then... I did end up tellin' y'stuff, jus' a few things, but y'said no... no matter what that you'd d... defend me."
"Mhm. I will." Eraser felt leaks of tears filtering down his face. This was going to get bad. He was anxious about what he was going to be hearing shortly.
He nodded. "Me bein' For One's All. It adds... weighs th', th'court case down." He sniffed into Aizawa's winter jacket's black faux-fur collar, which was about as long as his dark wool one, his face hidden in his ebony hair, holding onto the only person he thought would or could help. He was going to go to Aizawa today, if he could find him. But hadn't expected to run into him so suddenly like this. He'd said, 'Don't presume to know me', to try to push him away so he could get some air.
But... he couldn't hold it in, everything he was thinking, and he didn't mean that!
"What d'you mean?" Eraser was all ears. He'd told him he commonly was in the courts, in and out of them, and that was one of the big reasons (aside from hero work) why Eraser did a lot of turn-in-online work for his homeroom.
"I'm one of the three strongest super powers in... in th'world." He sniffled. Not used to saying that all. It was in a tone that was of unbelievability. "An' with what ha... happened... t'me..."
"The Connelys?" The small time crimers?
"It's more than... than that." He shivered, just as he's mentioned before.
His demeanor shocked Aiwaza. It was similar to when he was first revealing things to him, when he had this defeatist attitude in life. When he'd collapsed and cried on the floor in his arms in the class room when he was doing his study-work for the merge on psychological disorders.
Satoko again in the hall started to mourn into Eraser profusely, just much as that day, and Aizawa felt the wetness on his neck, the choking breath of the teen on his nape. The way they were holding each other was how he wished he could hold Suki again as well.
"T'tell me..." Aizawa met his tears. This was killing him! It was just him and Satoko, like they were in the bunker before the explosion hit, him calmly trying to ease him into it. He put his head on top of Satoko's, resting it there for comfort, he squeezed him in so hard.
"Th... this. Hisashi went... went through it all, the paperwork. An' there's no... no way..." He sobbed. "Once it ge'gets out there... th... that I'm F'One's All, an' that she... that it was..."
"What?" He reeled him back. He looked into those crystalline eyes, they were bloodshot.
Satoko stopped talking, bottom lips shivering. His lips dry. His shell's breath pumping, racing. He had no other option. "That she controlled me... an' she made me... do..." The sentence trailed down to a whisper. Then to nothing.
Eraser froze.
They stared.
'Shit.' Eraser's heart stopped. "She... ?" Why had he not said this before? He knew he was holding off, he knew Bakugo knew much much more than him, he figured someday he'd tell him as it got closer to his court case getting filed, he didn't want to pressure him into telling him. But...
"She made me... do all these awful things." Kasaya knew he sounded like a four year old saying it like that, but that semi-silly statement did not make the tears stop.
Aiwaza's head shot back to the night he was reading over Kasaya's juvenile record months back. He'd set a place on fire; that's arsen. He'd stolen; his mug shots in suits. Suits? It didn't make sense. Why would a middle schooler to early high schooler be in a suit?
Breath halted in Aizawa. "She has... a strong mental control quirk... stronger than...?" This conversation did not go where he had expected it to! He was all ears, and watching Satoko who was a wrecked river ripped at his heart strings, just as it did when he was stuck in an actual bloody river in his own head, his body acting busted, during the merge. "And..."
He nodded and cried into him. "An I'm fuckin' For One's All! An' she'd got me." He collapsed into him bawling. "An th'world? Knowin' that!? Knowin' I'd did those things? I have no chance!" His head sunk back into the older man's collar, intense choking in his left ear. He was de-railing.
Eraser got the gravity. "You're afraid you'll be... not just imprisoned..." He swallowed. "But for life? Th'... the death... penalty?" The scruffy faced man wheezed out, barely able to say it, not wanting to say it, Kasaya's grip was so tight. "It can't... can't be th'that... bad."
Satoko reeled back, loosening the grip. "Suki. Suki. Oh god, please. Pl..." He looked out of it.
"Hey. Answer me... okay?" He gripped the sides of Kasaya's face from his shoulder, and hauled it up to face him.
No response. The gray eyes were closed. Messy.
Aizawa grasped onto him, he was frail as a leaf in this moment. A choking, throaty, course sentence came from the professor. "D'you? D'you..." A whisper. "D'she make you..." He reworded. "kill someone?"
Kasaya burst into a horrible bout of sobs. "I..." He shook his head in a yes.
Shock. "Wh... else?"
He shook his head rapidly around and cried, slamming it into Aizawa. He'd faced it, and come through, but at the prospect that he'd be jailed for the rest of his life, possibly uthanized, broke him apart. And he knew that they'd find a way to contain him, even with his quirk!
"T... tor... tortured. An... sh..." Admitting this to a pro hero! "she made me... rape."
Okay that was enough.
Aizawa squeezed him into him. It was enough a confession, enough to get the point across. Eraser snatched him up in his arms once again, moulding him against him. "Okay... she did. Okay." His mind ran a million miles an hour trying to process.
"Hisashi... I ne... need y'to... t'meet him." Was the only words he could get out.
"Okay." He agreed.
This court case, if it happen, it would be the blow up of the century!
Everything exposed and open. Eraser was certain that if the Connely girl used her quirk to force him to kill a person, to torture, and to... he couldn't even say again in his head the last one... then she probably did more than that. It was probably more than just one person too he bet.
These Connelys.
Shota wanted as much information on them as he could get.
To hurt another in such a way!
The torture of a person knowing your not controlling yourself while you viciously murdered someone with your own hands! To sexually assault them, do God knows what!
No wonder Satoko was screaming in that damn merge bed! Tearing at his shackles!
Eraserhead vowed to himself, while he hugged the one in shamble against him, that he'd drag them into the fucking dust until they were blind! For Kasaya! For Bakugo! "Y'can rely on me." He squeezed Kasaya much tighter, he was crying heavily. "That hasn't changed." He could only imagine the shit Satoko had on his conscious from that girl. "I'll meet wit'him."
"Bakugo... dis... disagreed."
This shocked Shota once more. He went against what Bakugo said?
But of course Bakugo disagreed! He was probably mad! Mad at All Might, mad at him. He bet also he was puffed up about telling Izuku, much more than Satoko was, seeing as his past with him was so wrecked up.
"Midoriya was consoled." He swallowed, he had to get that straight, at least that part. Maybe it'd take some of the edge off. "He's kept th'you were the one in the dome quiet. He understands what was happening at th'time."
"I p... put everyone in... in danger."
"The first Disaster did." The power, he highly doubted now that it meant to extremely hurt them, maybe play around a bit until it could extract who it wanted to extract to talk, but nevertheless. "Bakugo needs t'face him."
"All Might too." Satoko agreed. He wiped tears. He felt a bit better.
Aizawa knew. Therapy was one thing, but facing the actual people another. Plus, the fact that your therapist turned out to be one of the people that made your life twisted up? He bet his son was in all sorts of hell right now. yagi he knew he was the best equipped help him though, and knowing the situation, and what it would mean if it got revealed he was All Might, he took that chance and did it anyway. "Is he..." He really wasn't sure what question to form.
"He's with me. So... he's fine, but... he's ignoring, more concerned 'bout me and 'us'."
That sounded about right. "It's not going... to go well when you tell him you ran into me today." He swallowed. "Is it?"
"I don't... kn'know."
"Hn?" That voice sounded so pretty unsure, insecure. Satoko was always sure, especially with things 'Bakugo' related.
"He said t'cut you... an' Toshinori out. Jus' me, him and my... my brother. Like how it was... before. Bu'... as things went along... an' I kept watching Hisashi. He, he has no idea!" He started to tear up again. "He has no idea what t'do! T' t' keep me out from behind..." He couldn't even finish. "alive."
"He's..." Aiwaza swallowed and sniffed, his cheeks wet and runny again. "Bak... he's lost all faith in me?" A depressive sigh, his hands dropped.
Kasaya responded by hugging into him hard knowing saying those things hurt, showing through action that he didn't feel that way, that'd he'd been the one that'd changed his mind.
This caused Eraser to waver. He actually felt weak in the knees. So much that he bent and launched an arm back against the wall to touch and skidded down the hard cement, his bottom slamming into the ground.
Kasaya, crying, slammed down with him. His chin went on Eraser's knee and his right arm wrapped around Aiwaza's left leg. "I had t'say it, so you know how far gone he feels."
It was a fair pain, that is what Eraser felt it was. Fair. But man, did it hurt to fucking hear it.
Aizawa's head went between his knees and he heard Satoko's breaths in his ear, and he wrapped a weak arm around the teen's neck for comfort.
Now the adult needed the other instead of the other way around.
The fairness in the pain.
Suki equally was causing him the agony that he was feeling by him and All Might telling them that Kasaya was in fact For One's All. And so, it left Bakugo drenched in so many mixed emotions that he decided the best way was to just cut them out.
And so, now, Eraser hearing that?
He felt just as broken.
Because his son decided that it was best to just 'throw him away'. He was a throw-away human to him now. Garbage.
Why'd this have to cut so deep?
They just sat there and cried. Both torn up in their own ways, about similar connected things.
"I'm not gunna let'you go t'prison." He spoke up again after nearly twenty minutes. "Or be... put...t' t'death."
Satoko grasped him tighter. "If I do, I'll be... gone, either way... y' y'know?"
Aizawa understood. He meant he would become just a person behind the glassif left alive. And like someone in a high max prison, he'd begin to lose contact with the outside world. People would begin to visit him less and less, and soon he would be alone.
His friends?
Only some of the criminals inside.
The Satoko Kasaya that Eraser, Bakugo, Hisashi and Toshinori knew today, would become less and less, and would eventually mould into a Satoko Kasaya that they didn't know anything about. One whose life only revolved around the internal comings and goings of that particular prison.
That is no life.
And if sentenced to teh death penalty? Then it really was... over.
Aizawa squeezed into the teen. "Not gunna happen."
He'll walk freely. He'll make sure of it, because a court case will have to happen, especially if there are crimes and Satoko and his brother want justice against them, and want desperately to jail The Connelys to prevent them from further infecting society. But in that, there in lies the risk of exposing Satoko for what he'd done under her control, and what he was: For One's All.
"I'll fight until it's right... Kasaya." Eraser squeezed him. The teen made no motion that he'd used his first name again, this made Eraser whimper. "I won't le' let anything happen t'you, f'you and my son's sake."
Saya rolled his head over to look up at the teacher. A small smile on his lips. "I knew... I c'could... trust you."
"Hn?" Eraser gawked down at him, feeling the most distraught he'd felt in a very long time.
"It's how you're actin'." He swallowed. "I knew y'really cared... about us." Kasaya choked. "So when Hisashi couldn't figure out a way, t'... t'keep me out from..." He swallowed again, trying to keep steady. He really just didn't want to say it again. "An'Bakugo was so opposed t'pairing back up with you, I knew I had t'go against it. I never believed you purposefully held information from me unless it was out of care an' worry."
Aizawa watched a few of his own salty tears streaming down his face hit the ground. "I actually... I was th'one beggin' Toshi. It was breakin' me apart not tellin' you an' Bakugo because it felt like lying; he wanted to wait until the time was right."
"Y'know somethin'?"
The older one remained silent.
"Katsuki hates liars."
Eraser looked at him, some of his hair in his face to shield his eyes. He was a mess, so was Satoko.
"But... Shota."
This made Eraserhead look at him directly then, this was first time that Kasaya had used his first name, even though he'd given him permission previously. It meant he was finally accepting that he knew him well enough to use it.
"Bakugo is a hypocrite."
Shota was all ears.
"He'll say that, but he'll change his mind. Help me win the case, if he doesn't come back around by then, after he sees what you did f'me..."
"No."
"What?"
Aiwaza shook his head. "I love him." He sucked in a deep breath of air. "I won't use y'your court case as a way to black mail him into feeling the same about me again. Love... it just. It doesn't work that way." He looked away, frowned.
Satoko raised his eyebrows and swiped some navy hair behind an ear.
Aiwaza Shota. He was a real man. Even with a proposed chance to win back his son's affection, it was not a game for him. Bakugo's feelings and emotions were not little toys to be played with. Satoko smiled earnest and deep. He needed to hear that. He needed just a little bit more to re-mortar that crack in his foundation with him.
And he had been right, Shota was not just this person telling him he was For One's All because he knew he should, because he knew he had to so he could fight with the League of Villians and All For One, but to Eraser it was more than that. He was person upset over it, he was a person who had cried over it, who was crying now at what it'd caused... what telling the truth had caused: Satoko to realize that stark unpredictable nature of in being a hero in this world, and him to lose his son's affection.
And now proclaiming that he would not win the case to get Bakugo's trust back, his son's love?
Selflessness.
Aizawa was tossing his hopes to the side so that he could wholesomely help Satoko. It was proclamation of his truth: That Eraserhead really was a hero.
So much that he'd take the pain.
All of it.
A sacrificer in body and in spirit.
A Super Pro.
"I promised you before I became his father that I'd fight f'you." Aiwaza sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "This case is about you, it may directly effect my son, but it's about your well being." He couldn't selfishly take away the court case's importance by using it as a means to get what he wanted. "I promise you Kasaya." Eraserhead looked at him seriously. Those deep brown eyes penetrating. "My focus is you an'... an' not him." He'd... he'd let his son... 'No.' He would let 'Bakugo'... go.
Bakugo... who was not his.
Those times.
For as short as they were...
Over.
A peice of Aizawa was empty inside, broken and lonely, but the weight of this court case meant more. Shota had to be a hero here, and he cannot and will not back down when someone was in need. He will not turn his back, he will not step away.
Suddenly, he noticed that Satoko was smiling, a very very light, but warm smile. Like he was taking in all the emotions around them, and thinking about something specific.
He pulled out his phone, pressed the call button and gave it. "Here."
Shota took it, confused.
It rang and Eraser put it to his ear hearing that click of connect.
"Hello?"
A woman? Eraser was confused. "Uh... I... Hello?"
"Shota! It's good to hear ya!" The voice was peppy.
Aiwaza instantly had tears flood down his face, his lips spurting word. "Ta... Tati?"
He heard laughter! "TATSUKO!" He yelled into the phone. He didn't know what was going on!
"Aww Shota! I never liked it when you yelled! Why you gotta be so like that! Come'on!"
He started uncontrollably babbling. "Tati... you, you s... sound... Tat... Tati? Is... is it?" His fingers wiped his stricken eyes. He touched a finger to his lip, he bit. He hoped.
"I'm well Shota! Much better!"
"H... how?"
"You're on his phone after all." Tati chuckled through the line. "Caller ID ya know!"
Eraser turned and looked pale.
Those gray storm colored eyes. They spoke without word.
He'd cleansed her.
Satoko went to the hospital and he'd dissolved himself inside his sister. Into her lungs. Her blood.
Bakugo had told him what that liquid was that'd been expelled, that had came out of his mouth... Cancer.
Kasaya done the same... to his sister; to Tati.
Aizawa launched himself at Satoko, the phone sliding across the cement from the force. He was a mess, holding the teen down on the floor, crying into his jacket.
Satoko reached for his phone, having to grunt a little to drag it closer with a few fingertips before getting a good grip, and put it to his ear.
Tati could be heard talking but it was semi-unintelligible to the Super Pro hero, who just laid there, squeezing and hugging Satoko to death, rubbing his face into his jacketed chest, whimpering.
"Yeh. I'll make sure he comes and picks you up later." Satoko was saying.
Tati mumbled a quick. "Okay!" And said her goodbyes and cut the line; faintly Shota and Saya could hear her daughter screaming in the background, squealing for pure joy.
The girl, Satoko and Suki's age had just got there, opened the door. And what she saw?
Her mom: bright faced, chipper and joking.
"When..." Shota coughed into him.
"This morning. Be... before school."
"Sh... she was... she only had..."
"A few weeks. I, I know. I found out... I asked a nurse."
"Why?" Shota cried into him.
"Because." Saya tugged him up off of him and they sat back in their original position against the wall, holding onto one another. "I know... I know you... y'know?" He wiped his eye and launched a hand to hold Shota's right.
Eraser squeezed it tight, but he was still numbed from shock.
"It's not... t'make you want t'do this court case f'me..." He took on a term that he used to say with Bakugo, still did sometimes. "You don't owe me."
"Bu...?" A loss for words.
"You're a hero I admire. Did y'forget?" Saya squeezed. "Y'my role model. You're Eraserhead."
Shota's lids felt so heavy. He was puffy in the face.
"You sayin' what y'jus said. I already knew it. I've had t'face what it means... really means, t'be who I am." He swallowed. "A... real hero. So, when Hisashi was... stumped, and crying..." He swallowed. "And Suki with how he's being right now." He sighed, he ran fingers through his haircut, feeling it's softness and remembering his words to him. Getting married sooner. Sooner. "We'll... we'll be fine... I hope. But, I've defied him rather than talking it through, because on my own... before him, I've come to grasp what it means t'be For One's All, and I knew once I seen Hisashi crying, I had to come to you, even if it meant going against my... my fiancée."
Eraser knew Satoko was speaking about sacrifice.
"You give up so much t'help people, even your own wants, your own desires. Jus'so you can try, t'save people. But... I saved her because..."
Shota was breathless.
"Because it's okay t'be selfish, every once in... in awhile, to want her well again, to plead f'that, and to have a want to do anything to have her back. An'..." Kasaya was licking his lips. "People. I can... save them." He looked at his free hand, turning it over. "As long as this shell's alive... I'm th'one that needs to be more selfless with this power." He looked at Shota. "We need to switch roles some."
"Wha about th 'th court case?" That was a selfish thing, one that had exploded out in this conversation.
"It'll happen... but..."
Eraser waited.
"I'll do 'it' first." He swallowed. "I'll help get him."
"All F'... One?"
He nodded. "I'm... I'm scared... But as a hero... we give up our lives... don't we?" He looked at Shota with wet grays, lip quivering.
"You... can't... have this conversation with Katsuki... right now?"
Satoko shook his head no. "I told him, I'd keep myself in my shell's form f'him. Since I've became Disaster it feels like it... it doesn't matter anymore." He moved his arm around just looking at the veins. At the skin. "I stay this way... so... so I can feel pain, pleasure, and everything in between with him... until we die. But knowing that that physical death might come sooner than expected if I fight... if I get put in prison... if I give up some of my selfish wants to be more... a hero... like you, Bakugo wouldn't have that. Th'risk is too... too great f'him."
Shota was honored, saddened and feeling hopeful all at the same time.
"Th' price t'help me with court isn't... isn't your sister's life. It's rather me... telling... I'm giving up my w'wants so I can give all of myself... t'to fight th'League an' All For One."
He got down on his knees and bowed to Aizawa Shota. It suddenly got very serious, head to the floor, a formal declaration, finger and palms facing the hero professor.
"I wanted to start with your sister... so... so that the world can see th'that I do good! So that I can prove my worth as a hero! So that I can give all of myself to the cause and dedicate my life! Even my breath if I have to! To see this through! I know it's coming soon, and even if I die in it, I want the people to say I did well, that I'd righted the Satoko name! But if I come out alive, I pray my actions against One For All and the League will prove me innocent!" A deep suck of air, mourning into the cement. "So I'll give all of my breath to this! All I have, life or death! But before the court case come, if I die..."
Shota suddenly grasped his face and forced it up to look at him. "Open your eyes!"
Kasaya shook his head, he would not!
"Break tradition! Open them! Now!"
Kasaya cracked them.
Eraser's forehead was on his, both were leaning into one another. "I'll follow your every step. I'll be right fuckin' behind you!"
Kasaya nodded, tears pouring over his fingers.
"You will make it to the court case... alive! I will help prove your innocence, and I WILL present the fact that YOU and IZUKU beat All For One and it will set you FREE! DO YOU HEAR ME?! Everyone will be there, and they will see the mountains you've climbed inside yourself to become who you are now! The pinnacle of strength and justice you've become with Deku! I will make sure that everyone in the WHOLE WORLD knows what you've done and what you've accomplished!" Shota breathed. "I'll make sure you are rewarded for you selflessness, and your purity and your scarifice, by getting what you really desire!"
"Suki."
"Yeh." Aizawa bobbed his head up and down. "I'll make sure you're alive and out of prison, so that you can marry Bakugo and have an actual life with him! And I'll remain true to my word too, I won't use the court case to get him back. I believe in you Kasaya!"
"I believe in you too." Kasaya whispered.
"Because now... it's... it's up to you... an' Midoriya." He whimpered.
Satoko bawled shaking his head up in down. Knowing.
"Save me. Please... save... everyone." Eraser and everyone in the whole world, even the Super Pros were below them. They were the ones mouning in the shadows, the people breaking and dying.
Satoko couldn't stop his floodgates. The last line that Aiwaza shared broke him:
"You're now... my hero... Kasaya."
Their hug lasted too long.
But they didn't care.
It was late afternoon and Aiwaza was driving to the hospital, with Toshinori and Satoko in tow.
Inside the (new) rental car, seeing as he was just in a public mishap a few days before, which he'd explain more about later, Satoko explained he didn't want to hide behind UA anymore, and Aiwaza and Yagi understood.
Toshinori was happy for the reunion and Kasaya accepted to start training with Midoriya, and getting to know him better.
Those things were all great.
But when Aiwaza stepped into that hospital room (dressed in one of Present Mic's horrible jumpsuits for undercover purposes) and seen his sister's healthful face bust up in an instant and start laughing at his choice of apparel, saying he looked stupid, he rushed to her bedside crying, and in that moment he knew...
Satoko was already the hero he pledged he'd be.
He turned to look back at Saya standing by the wall just to observe, who smiled at him as Yagi placed a hand on Kasaya's shoulder. Kasaya equally watching Tati's daughter, Aizawa's niece, jump over and land on top of the bed.
The family laughing and crying at the same time.
What Satoko hadn't told them was that he'd walked through the rest of the hospital that day.
He'd visited every single person with an illness so serious it'd kill them, or make their lives a living hell if it went on wrecking their bodies if left alive... And he'd cured them, leaving before they were awake.
But Tati. She had been his first, aside Bakugo, and he'd stayed until she woke. So he could explain what happened, so he could talk with her about Shota.
"Ah." She sat up in bed. Her tears were finally dry from the explanation she recieved about what he's just done ten minutes before. "You helped me because of who my brother is."
"There were twelve others here too." He put a finger to his lip, meaning he hoped she wouldn't say a word. Keep it secretive. "But it was also because I can, because I am capable."
She made a zip motion across her lips and Kasaya Satoko smirked. She was funny! "Shota yeh, he's something else."
"What'd'you mean?"
"Always giving himself up f'people ya know? I always thought he'd be one in the hospital dyin'! Not me!" She chuckled.
Man this woman had an upbeat personality! It wa contagious.
"He's the most selfless person I know. No person can stand a fake hero."
"A fake hero?" Satoko asked.
"Yeh! You see 'em all the time!" She kind of coughed a little... mumbled under her breath how Stain wasn't too bad in theory aside the killing people part. "Just wanting fame and money."
Satoko was silent.
"A true hero. That's Shota! He lives in a constant state of unpredictability, knowing that at any turn someone could die, at any turn he could die. But he still does it."
"Why?" He crossed his leg in the chiar wanting a smoke.
"Because silly." She motioned for him to come over and pour her a glass of water, and of course Satoko did. She took a few gulps and wiped her mouth. He helped her with a wet cloth, as a little bit of gunk was still stuck to her face. She laughed about it and made an 'eww' type expression. Then she continued on. "It takes a certain type of person to be a real hero, someone to take in all that pain."
"And what is that?" He wanted to make sure he was right. He was certain he was.
"One who gives and loves... and doesn't know when to stop. One who can't stop." The woman breathed, as if taking air in for the first time. "One who is so truthful it hurts when he can't tell it. One who is so brave that it'll kill him someday. One who is so pure hearted that he'd rather die in my place."
"So that's what it takes to be a hero... a real one, to you?"
"The difference is in the sacrifice." She got teacher-y, then mellowed out into a laugh. "That's how I can tell 'th'fakers' from 'th'reals' kiddo!"
He almost corrected her and told her not to call him a 'kid', but stopped it and smiled.
'Sacrifice.'
Eraserhead and All Might; they were true heroes.
He twiddled the black cross necklace around under his shirt.
He hoped Bakugo eventually would understand.
To be a true, pure hero.
It meant to give up your needs. Your wants. Your everything.
"Stain wouldn't of killed Shota, had he crossed his path, I've got faith in that."
This broke Satoko from thought. "You think?"
"I know."
Her smile was the most confident smile he'd ever seen on a person's face.
And in that moment, that was the last little push he needed.
