Chapter 18 Eri Aizawa

"Eri."

Eri winced and turned to look over her shoulder, up at the source of the last voice she wanted to hear. There, soaked just as much as she was by nonstop rain, was her father. His eyes were dim, swollen along the usual bags, but within the irises, pleading. Pleading. Fear coursed through her small frame, dulling the aches of hunger and exhaustion, amplifying the dreariness caused by the streets. Beneath the weight of her emotions, she knew she would be in huge trouble if her father found her. She knew he would be beyond angry, that he would ask her why she ran. But she knew better that he would be happier, calmer, and well-rested without her. She tried to force herself to stand, to run farther away from him, and not stop until her legs gave.

But she could not—her fever had just spiked. She looked up at the sound of footsteps.

There.

Her father arrived. The melancholy in Shota's eyes, how it brought about a sullen, dejected gloom in the usually caramel brown, tore into her feverish, vulnerable body. It was as if he would never find a smile again. So, she pulled herself into a tighter ball, wrapping her body in Shota's soaked plaid shirt.

It was a worn-out thing—the red had faded to a near-white-near-pink hue, as if it were acid-washed or stolen from a grunge singer. It was the first flannel Shota's mother had bought him, back in sixth grade. Yoko had pulled pennies and saved up for months before she surprised him with it on the first day. Rationally, he should have tossed it after the first hole appeared on the bottom. Instead, he sewed it with pastel yellow string. It was a piece of his heart. But within the fabric, for Shota, were stories. His stories.

Now, seeing his runaway daughter in it—remembering himself as a lost boy all bundled up in it—he knew he had to act. For her, his entire heart. He had to make up for the repeated sins he must have learned from his mother. He had to make things right. He had to fight karma, and he would, even if his fists broke off. He would use his head, then.

Shota kneeled down, his expression unreadable. "Eri." His voice was strict and direct, but… heartbroken. "Eri, why did you run away? Do you have any idea h—" His voice caught, and he breathed slowly. "I've been looking everywh— all over town for you."

Eri chanced only a small wincing noise and hid her face in her arms, burying her face behind patterns of red and gray symmetry.

"Answer me," Shota insisted, his tone softening. He blinked quickly to compose himself, but to little avail. Remembering his mother's reaction when they found him on the street, he knew what it was his mother had done, what he needed in that moment. But he had to also show his daughter that she was deeply missed, deeply wanted, and belonging. He had to fill in the gaps where his mother had missed. He had to get her to talk. Push her. "Eri, please, I-I… I don't understand. What did I do wrong?"

"Go away," Eri said, weakly.

"Go away?" Shota repeated, more so for his own comprehension. His expression remained the same, but his voice grew a tad tighter. "That's what you have to say to me? Go away?"

Eri peeked at him, at how the grayness of the rainfall dulled his features, illuminated the fatigue-induced creases under his eyes.

Biting back the bitter taste to his tone, Shota asked, "Eri, what's going on? Please. I'm so confused. I don't know what's going on." After an achy pause, he asked, "You don't trust me, do you? Is that it? Is it because I yelled at you about school? I don't under—" Shota looked away for a moment, regaining his composure in fragments at a time. "Please, talk to me. Let me help you." He approached her.

"No!" Eri screamed.

But he grabbed her hand gently. And he plummeted to the floor, blood slipping out of his body. A certain crack nearly echoed the park's area, and Shota cried out, holding his face. When he pulled his hand back from his eyes, there was blood. Plenty of it. He coughed hard, suddenly unable to breathe properly through his nose. When he gingerly touched around his face, he recognized the dents, the protruding bones of his orbital region.

U.S.J. Nomu. His blood-stained hands shook in memory. The memory he had just stopped having nightmares about.

By the terrified expression on his face, Eri knew whatever caused her father those wounds scared him straight. He has to leave, she thought. "See? I hurt you," Eri said as her father steadied himself where he sat. "Of everyone, I really didn't want to hurt you. But I did." She scrubbed her wet face, putting the collar of the shirt to her nose. It smelled like her father's hair and the apple fritters he made especially for her one cold afternoon. "You have to go, Dad— Mister."

Shota coughed, agony-induced vomit threatening his throat. Only a clump came up, the rest he swallowed, and he spat it out. "Mister?" he asked in a hoarse voice. The pain swirled his head, but he had to reach his daughter. "Is that…any way to talk to your dad?"

"You're…!" Eri's eyes spilled more remorse-filled tears, but she had to say it. "You're…not…!" But he was. But she had to say it. She had to. Clenching her fists, she willed it out in a biting tone, "You're not my dad!" It struck the heart without mercy, like shock therapy, like a broken will. "You're not my dad! I don't love you! I—" She broke down in crippling tears, but she forced it out. She had to make sure he would never suffer because of her again. "I hate you…!"

In a warning tone, a familiarly warning tone often saved for long evenings after a post-nap tantrum, Shota said, "Eri—"

"I hate you!"

Shota ran toward her, "No, you don't!" and grabbed her in a tight embrace, against his own rational mind. But to hell with it all. The golden aura blasted him a good few feet from her. He landed on his side, a trail of blood smearing the grass.

"Will you stop it?!" Eri begged, horn now at its sharpest. Her cheeks flushed to an even deeper pink. Shota slowly, forced himself to his hands and knees, breathing through the agony. He coughed harder this time. "You're getting hurt…" He threw up, wincing at the nerve-tingling contractions it caused his facial muscles. "You're going to die!"

"No, I'm not," Shota replied, breathlessly. He coughed again, then again. Blood escaped from the corner of his mouth, dribbling down his chin. He spat. "I'm taking you home…" He coughed. "With me."

"Go home!" Eri ordered. "Go home, and just stay away forever—"

"No!" Shota yelled over her. Eri fell silent. Her father moved his bloody hand from his bleeding face. Red snaked down the right side of his face. "No… Eri." The pain was as unbearable as he remembered. His vision blurred between consciousness and blackout. But he looked at his terrified daughter with love in his fear-struck eyes. Fear-struck, but devoted. Stubborn. "I can't." His voice caught with water. "I won't leave you. I won't leave you ever again. You're my daughter."

"You're hurt, and you'd be happier without me!"

"That's—" Shota spat out more of his stomach. He stood, wobbling a little. "That's n-not true. You know that's not true—"

"Liar!"

"I'm not lying! I love you!"

"Don't! Just don't love me!" Eri jerked away when her father grabbed her arm. "Don't say that!" The force of her Quirk caused him to stumble, as if the force had swiped under his feet. He landed hard on his back after rolling back ten feet.

Shota winced, his wounded face in the mud. It was as if the Nomu had just smashed his head through cement. "Eri, you're hurting me." Eri gasped quietly, then held her hands close to her body. "You hear me? I'm in pain and I'm… I'm scared." Eri watched him force his body to rise on all fours. She could not see his afflicted face under the screens of drenched hair. "But I'm not gonna leave here without you. And I'm not going to cancel you. Not this time. I'm scared, but I'm not scared of you."

Eri glanced at her sharp horn. "You have to—"

"You are the only one who can stop this." Shota looked at her again. Under mats of hair, Eri could see the outline of broken bone underneath the blood blinding one of his eyes. "Make it s-stop, s-so we can go home. Don't be scared." Shota crawled ever-so-slowly toward her, painfully, but stubbornly. "Come on, baby. You can do it."

"B-b— N—"

"I miss you. I miss you so much that it physically hurts… more than this." The heat about Eri's horn spiked again and dizziness overtook her. But she kept listening, listening, intently. "I want to be your father again. Let me do that." He touched her hand, "Please—" And his elbows both snapped out of place. The gold aura sent him flying again, and he landed on one of his broken arms.

At his cry, Eri snatched her hands back, scrambling back a few feet from him. Tears ran down her face at the mutilated, bloodied state of the pro-hero before her. "No," she whimpered. He's…dying…! "No!"

Shota forced himself back to stand, but he collapsed back down on his knees. "I want…I want to cook for you…and read to you." He crawled again towards her. "I want us to laugh together…to play together…to cry together." Tears threatened his functioning eye. "And I want to hold you in my arms again, and tell you how much I love you. Every single day. I'll do better, and I won't give up this time."

Eri hitched a breath.

"If you're scared, I'll be there. When you're angry, you can tell me. If you need to yell at me, I swear I'll listen!" Shota confessed. "I want you to wake me up in the morning, so I can put you to bed at night. I miss hearing about your day and how your stories have no freakin' end!"

Eri swallowed a thick lump, her chin wobbling.

"Goddamn it, I want to nag you to finish your plate at dinner again." Eri listened, letting her tears fall, letting the rain bounce off her shoulders. Shota reached, "I don't want to be alone anymore—I'm sick of it! So, please, come home!" Eri froze at his words, at his face…at his love. "Yell at me all you want! I don't care!" The tears, a sight still unfamiliar to Eri, rushed down Shota's injured face as his voice cracked. "I won't hurt you. Just take my hand."

The echo faded after three rounds, and Eri heard each of them. She stared at him, watching him there, crying. Crying for her.

"Please don't go." Shota's voice broke—either from pain or his heart, or both. But Eri heard it. He heard it. "The best part of me is you."

How? Eri wondered. How is it that you…love me this much? How can you be so sure? You say it every day…and I did, too. But…why? How can you be so…kind…and warm to someone like me? After all I've done, all I said to you…and all I've brought with me? A curse you think you love! She shook her head.

"I love you."

She looked at him, desperation evident in the sparkle of her ruby eyes. I'm a curse! How could you still love me?!

"You're my heart," Shota, on the verge of unconsciousness, panted. "Don't you ever forget that. You understand?"

I…do. I can feel it. Warmth. Love.

You. It's…you, all along.

You…found me.

"Eri."

Daddy. She leaned closer to him, arms reached out, longingly. "I…love you." Her careful hands reached around his back. He did not flinch. "Daddy," she said, her arms closing around his body. More tears spilled from her eyes when she shoved her face into his chest, squeezing him tightly as if they were to be ripped apart at any moment. "I wanna come home! Please, please, take me home! I'm sorry! I'm so, so, sorry!" Any further sounds coming out of her came in water-distorted word salads.

And despite the absolute agony from his shoulders down, Shota calmly wrapped his broken arms around her. He pressed his broken face into her hair, taking in the little girl scent he had been without for too long. "Thank God." Eri clung to him, sobbing away as her hands pawed desperately at his clothes, at his hair. Though agony overtook him, emotions forced more tears upon him, Shota held her tighter… and smiled in relief. He closed his eyes just as another gold wave washed over him, spilling from Eri's fingertips. But this time it was soft. Warm. The pain lessened bit by careful bit.

But all he knew was how perfectly Eri fit in his arms.

Thank God…