Chapter 5

The Fall

Two months ago …

Eri was sobbing. It hadn't woken Shota immediately, because it was such a soft sound, filtering through the baby monitor. But he did stir awake, and he sat up, listening to make sure he'd heard correctly. She wasn't hysterical, so he didn't fly to her room the way he would have if she sounded panicked. He went slowly on quiet, slippered feet, and knocked. "Eri? May I come in?"

"Yes," she answered, her voice choked with tears.

He entered to find her sitting on her bed, her goldfish's bowl at her feet. She held something in her tiny hands, and he knew instantly what had happened. "I'm sorry, Eri," he said as he went to sit by her. As he did, he could make out in the dim light that the fish was just a little fry.

"It didn't work this time. Sometimes he stops swimming and floats upside down, but then I use my power on him and he starts swimming around again. But he turned into a little fish and he's still not swimming," she explained.

"You used your power on him, Eri?" Shota asked. She immediately hung her head. "I'm not upset, Eri, that's wonderful that you were able to save your fish."

"But I wasn't. It didn't work this time."

"He'd probably been dead too long for it to work when you found him. It wasn't your fault." He put a hand on her shoulder. There didn't need to be words right now, just quiet. This was the first death the little one could remember – assuming she didn't remember what happened to her father. Shota prayed she didn't remember her father.

They were quiet for a few minutes, the sun starting to rise. "Ms. Eri, is everything okay?" Aiko asked, tying off a bath robe as she stepped into the room, alerted by the fact her charge and Shota's doors were both open. She saw the fishbowl and the fact Eri had something in her hands, and knew too. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," she said softly, coming to sit on her other side.

Aiko gave the girl a moment more to just sit in grief with the comfort of her teachers, then she gently reached for Eri's hands. "We'd better return his body to the ocean, sweetheart," she said. Eri closed her hands protectively over the now tiny goldfish. "No!"

"Eri … you can't bring him back," Shota said gently.

"No! I don't want to flush him! It doesn't really go to the ocean! I want to bury him!"

"Oh, of course you can, sweetheart, we'll bury him," Aiko said quickly, but the exchange had already brought the girl's uncle.

"Uncle Kai! Don't make me flush Mr. Gold!" she said tearfully before he could say a word as she ran to his side, still clutching the fish and buried her face in his side. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"Eri! I'm not going to make you! Of course you can bury him," Aiko reiterated gently.

"We'll go do that now," Chisaki said, and it was the tenderest Shota had ever heard his voice. "But don't touch anything until you wash your hands." That sounded more like what he was used to.

Eri followed her uncle outside to find a final resting place for her fish, Aiko picked up the fishbowl to clean it out. "I wish he hadn't let her get the thing," she said bitterly when the uncle and niece pair were out of earshot. The fish was a prized pet of only three weeks – Eri had brought it home from a rare outing, in a very small plastic container with only one air hole, and explained she'd insisted her uncle buy it from a street vendor because it looked sad and she wanted to be its friend. It had looked very sickly even then. Shota had been amazed Aiko had managed to keep it alive this long, now he knew the unfortunate goldfish had had help. There was no telling how long Eri had been reviving it.

"It's better for her to experience loss this way than with a relative."

Aiko sighed. "I know that. But it's still so hard to see her so heartbroken."

"I don't disagree."

The goldfish was buried and prayed over, and once the girl was back inside (and her hands thoroughly washed), she asked Aiko, "Can he have a shrine?" None of them were sure how she knew to ask – she must have seen it on television.

"Of course, I'll help you," Aiko said tenderly, and helped the little girl put together a shrine on the bookshelf where the fish had resided, while Chisaki started breakfast.

"I'm so glad she's here," he noted in a quiet voice, motioning with his head towards Eri's room where the mourning was taking place. "I don't think I could be that patient." Shota knew that the man couldn't, and in fact was impressed he'd made it through the burial, so said nothing, hiding behind tiredness as a reason for unresponsiveness.

"You're a better dad than me, I'd have made her flush the thing and been done," one of the night bodyguards said with a laugh, shamelessly sucking up. Whoever had been on the night shift always took breakfast with the household, then left when the day guard arrived. Shota ignored the brown noser as well, determinedly focusing on the coffee he was brewing.

Eri and Aiko joined them a moment later, the former finally dry-eyed. "Thank you, Mr. Chisaki," Aiko said in response to the breakfast being plated.

"It's no trouble, thanks for handling that emergency."

The moments ticked by quietly, the adults tired and the child grieving. "Does my dad have a shrine?" Eri asked suddenly.

"I'm sure his family made one for him," Chisaki said, after a long moment of painful silence.

"That's good," the little girl said thoughtfully, and then said nothing else. All of the adults ached to know what was happening in her young brain, but prodding could only do harm. So, the silence continued.

Present day:

Kai fumbled for his ringing phone, profoundly annoyed. At least he hadn't been asleep for long. "Chisaki. This better be important."

"We've lost contact with the Boss." He was awake now – he sat straight up, pushing the covers back.

"Who is it, baby?" Aiko asked softly, he motioned for her to hush.

"What do you mean you've lost contact?" he demanded, groping in the dark for his clothes.

"He went to a late business meeting, but should have been back by now. None of his guard have checked in and phone calls have gone unanswered. The last contact was from Kurono, saying to expect a slight delay but call you if it was more than an hour because he suspected they were being followed."

Aiko turned on a lamp, watching with quiet apprehension.

"Who was he meeting with?" Kai demanded. With the lamp on, he immediately found his pants and slid into them.

"The heads of two other syndicates wanted to meet – we don't think it's their organizations to blame. Our reports back said the meeting went well, everything was ironed out."

Kai would have objected, but he thought of the week before with an increasingly sickening feeling. "Text me the last known location. I'll secure my household and be there as soon as I can. In the meantime, send a search party to retrace the route home from both ends. Teams of at least two, no one walks into whatever this is alone."

"Understood."

"Kai? That sounds bad." Aiko's voice was mostly stoic, but he heard the note of fear.

"Get dressed. Pack your things and Eri's things for a couple of days, if it's going to be longer than that I'll bring you more. I don't know what's going on, but I want you two safe." She nodded, and stood to do as asked.

He was barely dressed when there was a knock on the door. "Boss?" one of the night guards called in tentatively. Damn it, they must have already tried his room. Hopefully they'd tried his room first, hopefully it hadn't been that obvious. He shot Aiko a look – she didn't seem as embarrassed as he felt. She stood back from the line of sight of the door, and he stepped out, trying to seem unflustered.

"I take it you got a call too?" he asked.

"Yes. What are your orders for us?"

"Take Eri and Ms. Namura to the safehouse."

"Both of us?"

"Yes. I can take care of myself. Just see they get there safely. If anything happens to either of them, I'll kill you myself."

"Yes sir," the guard said shakily.

He knocked on Aizawa's door. "Come in."

He slid the door open to find Aizawa, looking as though he hadn't been to bed yet, doing something on a laptop, and as Kai entered he dropped a pair of earphones onto the keyboard. So, every adult in the household knew he and Aiko were sleeping together, or would know by morning then. Fine, he had bigger problems.

"Aizawa, clear out for a couple of days. Something's happening."

Aizawa nodded gravely, clearing the earphones and shutting the laptop. "I take it you have arrangements for Eri's protection?"

"Yes."

"I'll see you when it's safe then."

And that was it – he wanted to wait, wanted to take Eri and Aiko to the safehouse himself, but he didn't have time. He slid into his room and took his gun and a holster. If it was the shadows, Pops had sent him away that day for a reason – he still wasn't happy about it, but he'd do as asked and hide his power. He slipped out into the night, hoping it wasn't already too late.

There had been a lot of low points in Shota's life. Crashing on a dominatrix's couch just hours after putting on EDM to not hear his boss and his coworker's sexual congress was, at least, a unique one. "Are you lost? The boys are two streets down," Nemuri teased.

"Shut it. I need a place to stay for a couple of nights, do you mind if I crash here?"

"I mean … do you? We keep late hours in this business."

He pulled the earphones from his pocket and held them up as an answer. They were going to get a few more workouts before whatever it was that had spooked Chisaki was settled. "I'll be quiet in the morning."

"Come in. What's going on?"

The apartment was tastefully decorated, not exactly what one imagined when they thought of a dominatrix' residence and workplace. Of course, Shota had never been in the bedroom, and he was glad to leave it that way.

"I don't know. I'm staying with my student's family, there was a family emergency I'm not privy to. So I'm out of work and homeless for a couple of days."

"Do you still have just the one student? Will she be okay?"

"Yes, and yes. She's getting better, she'll be all right for a few days."

"I hope so. Get some rest, Shota, you look you haven't slept in days. Even more than usual."

"It's been a weird couple of weeks. And no, I'm not at liberty to discuss any of it." If nothing else, the tale of the romantic entanglement he'd been politely ignoring would have thrilled her.

He settled on the couch where he'd be sleeping for at least a couple of nights. "You've had an interesting week too, from the sound of things."

She smiled, seeming unaffected, but turned her head so she wasn't looking him in the eye. "I don't know what you could mean."

"Come on, Nemuri. I read the papers, I know exactly how that killer came to be unconscious and taped up under a lamplight."

"I assure you, Shota, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Whatever. Just be careful out there."

"I'm always careful. But someone has to protect the girls who have to work the streets."

There it was. "Let me know if you need backup."

"A dominatrix and a schoolteacher fighting crime? That sounds like a bad television show."

"I'd watch it. And I'm not a schoolteacher." Not in this reality, anyway.

Deku couldn't sleep. He rolled over, giving up on sleep for now and reached for his phone. He scrolled absently through his feed, which was mostly full of dry, professional posts from the metahuman friendly companies and community resources he'd followed.

It wouldn't do much for his sleep, but he checked the DMs.

Shimura had not been kidding about the vile messages. Deku scrolled through them, mostly numb to the aggression now. He deleted several without opening them because they started with phrases like, "You don't have to put it in everyone's face" "shut up" "leave the kids alone" and worse. But one caught his eye, the kind of thing that was the only reason he bothered to check.

"Can you post this for me? I need to find my friend …" There was an attachment. The person used an obviously fake name, but that might be because they didn't want to out themselves on their main account.

Deku, fully giving up on the idea of sleep, switched over to the laptop to check it was legitimate, as it was easier to check attachments on the browser and the laptop had better security. No signs of any malware or other shenanigans. So Deku opened it. "Can you please post this for me? I need to find my friend but I don't have many followers and my parents don't know I know any other meta kids." The sender had made a poster with his friend's picture, her name, a last seen date, and a plea for her to call her friends if she was okay. He swallowed hard – the girl in the picture was someone very familiar to him. "Himiko Toga," he said out loud, before reading her name on the poster. The picture was her posing with her tongue slightly out, flashing a peace sign, her other arm around someone else who was cropped out to put her front and center (and probably to protect the other person).

He wanted to post it right away. Whether this Toga was in trouble, or just as much the cause of trouble as his, getting the word out to be looking for her seemed like a good idea. But it had been made very clear to him what his duty was. The last thing he wanted was to make her situation worse if posting it was unwise. He screencapped the message and sent it to Suzu, the woman who ran the main account at night. He didn't expect an answer right away, so he tried to lay back down. But no, sleep wasn't happening tonight, at least not for the next hour or so.

He sat up on his elbow and looked at the painting Mr. Aizawa had gifted him and teared up. He needed some hope. This whole world needed some hope – Deku didn't know how much he'd miss coverage of everyday rescues until he saw a world without it. Not that this world was totally without it – apparently a suspected serial killer had been found bound and gagged at a would-be crime scene just a couple of nights before. But even that had been covered with more coolness than it would have been in his world – at home, everyone would have been abuzz, wondering if a new hero had just entered the stage or a pro had just been too busy to answer questions so dropped the villain off without a production, or if another villain had drawn a line in the sand and decided to take out their own side's trash. Here, the newscasters seemed more upset someone had taken the law in their own hands than anything else, which was ludicrous when the anonymous hero had saved who knew how many lives!

Deku had hoped that maybe what he was doing for the SDMR might involve spreading hope, but so far all he'd been asked to post were cute platitudes about normalizing different appearances and dry reminders about students' rights and how they applied to people with quirks.

He looked back to the painting, admiring Emi's artistry, and how well she'd captured that moment. Wait a minute … wait a minute! That was it.

Should he wait to text in the morning? Yeah, that would be the polite thing. But he was so glad Mr. Aizawa had given him Emi's number.

He had an E-mail from Suzu. "You're up late, Izuku. We don't have a missing report for her but that doesn't mean anything. We've confirmed she's a real person, she's not registered with a talent but again, that doesn't mean anything. Wait to post it at noon tomorrow, when students will be checking their phone at lunch, and edit his poster so it includes this number. That's our number for missing kids and kids in need of a place to crash – if she's just hiding out, she can call it and we'll get her a safe place to stay, if someone sees her we can follow up on the tip. Write up some text in first person from Himiko's point of view summarizing the information in the poster to use as the text of the post, that'll help it grab attention. We'll repost on the main page in the evening, when adults are most likely to see it."

"Will do. Thank you!"

He sent a response to the sender. "We'll post tomorrow so more people will see it. Thank you for contacting us about your friend, hopefully this will help."

A few minutes later, the sender responded. Apparently they couldn't sleep either. "Thank you! I know it won't help if it was the snatchers but I don't want to admit it was them yet." Deku's heart sank. He didn't know what to say to that.

Kai's phone pinged – he'd taken it off silent as soon as he'd left the house. "Got here safe. Eri went right back to sleep. Be careful, baby." That was one weight off his shoulders.

"It's not safe to check that while driving," Tengai said softly. He wasn't bothered – nothing bothered him. But he obviously still felt the need to note it. Kai had figured he'd better follow his own orders about no one walking in alone and picked up the devout recruit on his way.

"It's confirmation my niece and her caretaker are safe."

"They would still have been safe if you'd waited for a stop sign to check your phone."

Kai had picked up Tengai specifically because he thought he was the least likely to get on his already frayed nerves. That was proving to be a mistaken assumption.

There was no word from anyone, even though by now they'd covered most of the route to and from the meeting site. This stretch of road went through hills and it was potentially treacherous, but there was no sign of trouble. Not an overt sign, anyway. "Chisaki. Wait. Pull over, while there's still a shoulder."

"Why?"

"The road looks … odd. I want to look at it more closely"

Kai did as asked, pulling off to the side of the road. As soon as he got out of the car, he knew what Tengai meant. He knelt to get a closer look, turning on the flashlight on his phone. The road, and the ground to the side of it, looked strangely … disturbed. It almost looked like it had melted and then re-solidified. His heartrate quickened, his worst fears seemingly confirmed. "This was done by a powerful metahuman. Good catch."

"Do you think it was one of the shadow lord's men?" Kai nodded, though it could have been anyone that just happened to have someone with that capability.

They followed along the road onto the place where there wasn't a shoulder and the hill dropped off steeply after the road. "Keep a lookout for cars," Kai said, and shined his light down into the brush below as they walked along the edge. Just a few paces down, he saw the place where there was a disturbance in the brush, and his heart sank. "Down that way."

Kai sent out his location to the rest of the searchers and then they climbed down, slowly and carefully, not saying a word, the tension mounting with each step. Kai's heart sank when he saw the car, but he didn't let himself despair. Not until he knew.

The car had come to rest against a rock outcropping. It was badly damaged, and Kai's hands shook as he looked in.

The driver and Hari were in the frontseat. The driver was clearly dead, his body broken and bloodied. Hari might be alive, but he couldn't know for sure. Pops and another guard were in the backseat, also bloodied but he still didn't let it sink in. He tried to open the back door, but it was jammed by the damage sustained in the crash. He used his power to disintegrate the door and climbed in. "Sorry it took us time to get here, Pops, but we made it," he said with a shaking voice.

"Chisaki, I'm sorry …" Tengai said, but Kai didn't hear him.

"Wake up, Pops, we should go," he pleaded, and put his hand out. It was fine if he had to use his power, that's what it was for.

His hand touched his father's, and it was cold and stiff. Not only was he gone, he'd been gone far too long for his power to have any hope of working. His world dissolved.

He climbed into the backseat, heedless to the blood and filth, to embrace his father's body. He cradled his father's head against his shoulder, barely managing to keep a primal scream from escaping his throat and failing to stop his tears from falling.

Tengai gave him the courtesy of silence, making his way to the other side of the car to open the front passenger door. "Chisaki, Kurono's alive," he said softly. "We should get him to a hospital, or you should use your power." Under any other circumstance, it would have been joyful news. As it was, there was a gaping wound in his soul and knowing Hari was alive barely did anything to close it.

"Get him out."

Kai stumbled from the car, soaked in his father's blood, to where Tengai was holding a badly battered Hari across his lap. Kai put both hands on his body, aware of every nerve and blood vessel for one second as he broke him down and put him together again. Hari gasped. "Kai, I'm sorry, I wasn't smart enough to find a way …"

Kai didn't want to hear it. "Who did this?"

"No one I'd seen before, but I know who sent them. The shadow lord's flunky has been pushing for a bigger cut, based on what we heard tonight they're hitting everyone the same way, your dad's been standing up to him, he tried to get the others to stand up to him too. I know that's who sent these two. One of them melted the road and sent the car off the edge … the crash was bad, I could barely move. One of them came down after us. I couldn't fight so I … I played dead, Kai, I'm sorry. I used my power on myself, so he wouldn't pick up my heartrate. Fukuda was alive, moaning … the guy who was checking put his hand against his chest and a shock went off that shook the car and blood spattered everywhere. He did the same to the Boss, but I think he was already gone."

"You did the right thing, playing dead saved your life so you could bring us answers," Tengai said serenely. Kai knew he was right, but he'd never forgive Hari for living when his father died. If he was wrong, if Pops had been alive before that thug … "We should move, Chisaki. Let the police handle the crash."

"The police are in his pocket, they'll do nothing."

"Yes. They likely won't even categorize this attack as a murder. But they'll handle the scene. They'll retrieve the bodies and give us the records we need. We should get Kurono away from here and let someone else talk to the police to hide his power and yours."

He was right. Kai knew that what he instinctually wanted – to carry Pops up the hill himself, and let whatever happened happen to the other two – wasn't reasonable. They didn't live so much in the shadows they had to handle their own dead from something like a car crash, which is all the authorities would call it. "Let's go," he agreed.

Kai pushed his grief to the bottom of his chest, letting himself become numb as they climbed the hill. "Kai, I'm sorry," Hari said again, and reached for his arm. Kai jerked away and didn't look at him.

By now, some back-up had arrived. "What's going on down there?" someone called.

"The car's behind us." The man started to climb over the guard rail, ready to come down and help himself. That was the kind of man Pops was – if there'd been any hope at all, every man in his organization would have risked their neck running down that hill to get to him.

"No, stop. Stay. It's too late." His calm cracked a little and his voice shook, and a couple of tears escaped his eyes.

The guy at the top stayed on the correct side of the guardrail, but sank to the ground. They reached the top. "Who did this, Chisaki?" the man asked. His voice was hollow and shaky. Kai wished he knew his name.

"The shadow lord." The man sucked in a breath, and seemed more frustrated than anything else. No one touched the shadow lord, no one made him pay. Not until now. "Tell everyone to get to headquarters. Then call the police. Tell them you found the scene."

It was early, and Eri was still very tired from the night before. Uncle Kai was sitting at the foot of her bed, and she'd never seen him look like this before. His eyes were red from crying, but they weren't sad right now. "Eri, wake up," he said gently, but it wasn't a gentle expression on his face.

"Uncle Kai, what's wrong?" she asked, her stomach feeling sick with worry.

"Grandpa's gone, Eri."

"Gone? Gone where?" She already knew though – that was something grown-ups say when they didn't want to say "die." She'd seen that on TV. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"To his next life," Uncle Kai said, and brushed her hair with his hands. "I'm sorry, I know how much you loved him."

"What happened?" It wasn't fair. Grandpa wasn't sick, or so old he was frail. He wasn't supposed to leave them yet. It wasn't fair.

"Do you know why I only let you out sometimes, why Ms. Namura teaches you at home, why Mr. Aizawa works so hard to teach you to control your gift?"

Why was he asking questions, why did he look like that? And he'd never called it a gift. He wasn't just sad, she didn't understand. "Yes, because of the shadow lord." Because if anyone outside our family finds out about my power the shadow lord might take me, and take my power away from me to use it to hurt people, and make it so when I have children they might be sick, or never give me back. You've told me so many times, Uncle Kai.

"That's who took your grandfather away from us. Because Grandpa was brave, and he wouldn't give him his way. Do you understand?" Eri nodded, tears flowing freely now.

"Are you going to be safe, Uncle Kai? Will he hurt you too?" She couldn't lose her uncle, she couldn't!

"No, he won't hurt me. I'm going to pretend to go along with him, so I'll be safe for now. Everyone will be safe, for now." Eri nodded, and wiped her tears away, though she was still crying so that didn't help much.

"Eri, you're going to kill him."

"What?" She couldn't have understood what he said.

"You're going to kill the shadow lord, one day. That's why you have your gift, I know it. He's an old immortal bastard, but you'll turn time back on him, until he loses all the powers he's stolen, until he turns to dust." Uncle Kai hadn't said bad words in front of her for a long time. And now she thought she knew what he felt – he was sad, sadder than she'd ever seen him, but he was excited too. Excited for her to hurt someone … that felt very bad.

"But … you said I can't use it on anybody …" she protested. All her life he'd told her that.

"He's not anybody, he's a monster. You'll use it on him, and you'll avenge Grandpa, and everyone else he's hurt. That's why Heaven gave you to us, it has to be. I'll tell Aizawa to teach you to use it, not just how to stop it. He'll teach you as much as he can, then you'll learn on your own. You'll train and train, and when you're grown, we'll fight him together."

He sounded so sure, he must be right. But it didn't feel good, it didn't feel good at all. "Okay … okay Uncle Kai. I'll get strong, I'll help you fight the shadow lord."

"That's my girl," he said, and kissed her forehead. This all felt so wrong she felt sick, but he had to be right.

"I can't believe I won't see Grandpa again," she said, her tears starting to fall again.

"I know, I know, sweetheart," he said and pulled her close to him. That's what she'd been wanting, at least he gave her that now. Despite how scared he made her feel earlier, she still wanted him to hug her as close as he could. She buried her face in his chest, not even trying to stop crying. He didn't shush her, he didn't say anything, he just held her.

Next Up: The Missing

Shimura and Officer Iida get involved in the search for Toga, Deku makes progress on some of his goals for exploring this world.

Author's Note: So far this story has two "deleted" scenes, both involving Kai and Aiko, one in this chapter and one at the end of chapter 3. They were cut for pacing and because I try to keep my OCs on the periphery unless they have a good reason to be front and center. The first was them actually getting together, the one in this chapter was her comforting between finding his father and waking up Eri. If you're interested in those scenes let me know and I will post them at the end of this story or separately.