Chapter 12: On the Table
Now that he was finally here, Kai Chisaki froze, unable to move. His heart hammered wildly in his chest, and his breathing was heavy and erratic. Everyone except Aizawa Shota had filed out of the hospital room, at the behest of Toshinori, whom had seemed to have picked up on Chisaki's extreme nervousness.
This wasn't like when he had healed that dirtbag Dabi; Kai was clearly worried and anxious concerning the older man lying in a coma on the hospital bed before him. His hands trembled and his throat felt dry. He should be focusing on his mentor's vitals and calculating what would be needed to restore him to health, but his thoughts were entirely selfish.
All he could think of was that his old man was going to wake up wanting answers. Answers that would damn Chisaki to being hated by his father figure for the rest of his days.
The reason that fear coursed through his veins was that he couldn't think of what to say despite having thought on this very subject for countless days. So many possible scenarios for how this might play out had crashed through his mind ever since the gravity of what he had done had first sunk in. And that had been back when he had no quirk.
Ever since little Eri had reverted him to the very height of his power, those potential questions festered in his mind more than they ever had, as more than just tormented speculation. Now, his mentor's betrayed faith in him would have to be faced, and Chisaki would have little to say for himself. After all, he had never intended to hide what he did.
He had planned to admit that he had done such atrocious acts, because somehow at the time his paranoia of a ruined world had convinced him that the ends justified the means, and in a fanatical state, he had actually believed that his adoptive father would see his motives and understand that what he did was the 'right' thing.
But he had been wrong. Only when he was left helpless and friendless, sitting in that dirty cell back in Tartarus, only then did he truly understand that he would rather live in a diseased, dirty world than be alone. He had been forced to touch the unhygienic, to live in the filth, to bathe in the foul and sleep in the disgusting.
At first, he had broken out in hives every day, thrashing and screaming at his wardens, kicking at them until he earned himself a sedative that would dull his worries away. His ranting that first week had become the talk of the prison, as his voice could only be muted when he was alone behind the heavy metal door of his personal cell.
Any time they came to him, to feed him or bathe him, to clean his room or move him, he would shout at them, screaming his fury over their lazy ways. He decried their slovenly service, and refused to eat the food that was offered to him. But over time his mind had to change. Part of it was the crippling depression that came with knowing how much he had lost.
His guilt did much to quash his mysophobia. The rest was simply helplessness. No matter what he did he could not improve his conditions, and little by little, he adapted to them, as was human nature. His hives receded and he became calm despite the filth surrounding him, though he was still always aware of it. Hunger took its toll.
They kept spooning food at him, so that eventually his body's needs overcame his will at the smell of it, and he ate. The rest was done by the passage of time. Day after day passed where he was lost in his guilt, shame and powerlessness, and still the filth didn't destroy him. He had been wrong. The world was dirty, that much was true.
But his path to clean it had been the wrong one, and what he had chosen to sacrifice... it would be better to continue living with the disease than give up what he had actually cared for most. What he was doing it all for. How in the world had he convinced himself that hurting his boss would help him? Truly he had been arrogant.
So, if that was the ultimate answer of his reasonings, in the end, there was no defense whatsoever for his actions. He hesitated because his needed to fix what he had broken in his boss, while knowing that he could not repair the damage he had done to their relationship. Honestly, his mad plan was never going to work anyways.
What bitter irony to realize that now that he stood on the precipice, looking into the gulf that loomed between them due to their disparaging ideologies and the actions that Chisaki had taken, which he could not take back. He shuddered, as his practical mind told him again to rip the band-aid off, to just get it over with.
Still, he hesitated, though. It was like when he was a child and the boss had taken him to a spring to swim. He had stood next to the water, dipping his toes into it only to find that it was cold, so he had held back, afraid of the shock that the cold water would give his body if he jumped in. His mentor told him to get it over with, but still he paused, afraid of the unpleasantness that would come before his body could acclimate to the change in temperature.
Chisaki jumped a little as Aizawa Shota's voice interrupted his thoughts. The dark-haired man had been silent the entire time, as he often was, and Kai had practically forgotten his presence.
"It isn't going to get any easier by putting it off. You have been in a hurry all the way up until this moment, so what is the point of getting cold feet now? Are you going to leave him like that in order to avoid consequence?"
Kai snapped angrily at him, "Of course not! I was... just thinking of what I should say..."
When he glanced over at the dark-clad hero, Eraser was only passively watching him, his expression impossible to read, especially with that yellow visor he always wore ever since Chisaki's arms had been restored. The Erasure Hero's presence had been something he always had when he wasn't in his special room back at the 'rehab center', which to Chisaki still seemed a prison.
He had been moved to that fortified and insulated room ever since Eri had reverted him, a room that seemed a lot like his old one, but which was clearly designed to suppress quirks-wielders. He had to sleep each night with his hands bound to ensure he didn't try to rip an escape tunnel through the building, which was uncomfortable, but he supposed his captors didn't have a better option.
Shota gestured towards his boss on the lone hospital bed, "If it helps, maybe you can try remembering what it was like the last time you were here, when you couldn't help him. He couldn't hear you then, and you had so much to tell him. Try not to overthink this, it is only going to make it harder for you once he's awake."
"Tch." Chisaki growled in annoyance, wishing the hero would just butt out, but he couldn't necessarily refute what Aizawa was saying, either. Eraser was right; if he kept putting it off, becoming more anxious by the moment like this, he was going to lose his nerve and botch the apology.
His brow tightened as he moved closer to the bed. That's right; that's what this was, an apology. He had made one terrible mistake after the other, and the only way he could possibly hope that his mentor would ever forgive him would be to apologize as earnestly as he was capable.
Reaching a hand out, Chisaki rested his fingertips lightly on his adoptive father's arm, closing his eyes after taking a good look at him and letting his power surge out into the body below him, his visualization of the healthy version of his boss imprinting itself on reality as his quirk tore down pathways and used the debris to rebuild according to his design.
As usual, it happened instantly, though since the changes were all entirely internal, specifically concerning neural pathways in the older man's brain, there was no flashy change like there had been with Dabi.
Chisaki opened his eyes and waited nervously, his heart beating hard against his ribs, sweat standing out on his brow. He had waited so very long for this miracle.
Slowly, the boss opened his eyes, blinking blearily at the two guests to his hospital room. When he spoke, his voice was coarse and strained, likely even the muscles of his neck suffering from entropy after so much time spent lying in a coma, "What? Where am I... what happened? Chisaki? Did something happen to me?"
Elaborate. That had been what his carefully constructed apology had been within his mind. Chisaki had mulled over it so many times, and he had a lengthy apology that covered all of his sins and perfectly explained his feelings all mapped out to tell the man in the bed beneath him. But when his boss opened his eyes and looked at him, it all broke to pieces.
Seeing the confused look on the older man's face and imagining what that face might look like once he realized he had been betrayed destroyed Chisaki's ability to keep it together, and suddenly he couldn't think, paralyzed for a moment as his heart felt like it had stopped. He dropped down to both knees, taking his boss' hand in both of his own and bowed his head to the bed.
Tears surged from Chisaki's eyes as months of harbored feelings burst suddenly through him like raging waters that had finally escaped their dam. His voice cracked when he finally pushed words through his clenched throat, needing to say something before he lost his voice completely, "I'm sorry! I'm so very sorry, please forgive me!"
Kai's head was bowed, so he could not see the expression on the older man's face, but Aizawa watched as confusion gave way to realization. Slowly the addled yakuza boss put together why he might be laying in a hospital bed. He spoke dryly, "That's right. We were having an argument about Eri..."
The older man's eyes hardened, "Is my granddaughter safe?"
Chisaki nodded against the bed, now stained with his tears. "Y-yes... and she even forgave me despite how foolish I have been. I was wrong, boss... I understand if this means I'm finished, I just... I really thought I was right. I was so very stupid. I think I let it go to my head, your praise about how smart I am, but I've been such a fool!"
A tense moment passed in silence and then the yakuza boss slowly nodded. He surprised Kai by placing his other hand on the young man's grasping hands, "You look so young... at first, I was certain that I was dreaming of the past. I see you have a hero with you..."
Finally, Chisaki brought his teary-eyed gaze up to look at the older man, whom was in turn looking at Aizawa. The boss returned his eyes to Kai, and his piercing look was discerning, "Well, you are here now and while I'm at a loss to what is going on, if Eri forgives you and you are apologizing, then I suppose things could be worse. Now why don't you fill me in on what I have missed..."
Chisaki stared at his master with wide eyes. For one, he hadn't expected him to take everything so easily in stride. Typically, as the leader of a criminal syndicate, the boss had been rather harsh when dealing with treason, but Kai supposed he had been remembering people whom the lord of the Shie Hassaikai had no particular fondness for to begin with.
Were they close enough that the patriarch of their criminal family was going to actually let something as serious as betrayal slide? No, Kai thought, his boss had not necessarily excused him or said that he was forgiven; there were likely still consequences to face. He bowed his shamed face and answered solemnly, trying to decide where to start.
"W-well... during our argument over how we should handle your granddaughter's quirk, I used my powers to put you to sleep, so that I could do what I was suggesting despite your refusal. Over the months that passed afterwards I..." His throat grew tight and he wished something would happen to interrupt his recounting.
No one came into the room to break the silence, though, and Aizawa remained a quiet statue in the corner, his eyes unwavering from Chisaki. The boss said nothing, his steady gaze judging his adopted son just as Chisaki had feared he would, "...I experimented on her just as I said I would. I... I cut into her many times, fixing her again afterword, as I had outlined in my..."
He went quiet, gulping, because the boss was gritting his teeth so hard Chisaki could hear them grinding against each other, his mentor's face a mask of barely constrained rage. A few tense moments passed and the older man's hand practically crushed his in withheld anger, but despite his clear fury, the yakuza boss did not say or do anything more.
It hurt, but Chisaki did not attempt to escape his grip, instead struggling to find his voice again and resume telling the sordid tale of his many sins, "I... I locked her away in a room, and I told the others that you had fallen ill. I set you up in another room where I could monitor your health, but where you were out of the way..."
There were probably ways he could better word this. Ways he could reflect on his own misgivings concerning his actions back then, or how he tried to mitigate the damage he had been doing, like when he had tried to win Eri over with reasonable argument, bribe her with toys, or attempt to give her a playmate to make her suffering less severe.
However, he found himself avoiding such tactics. Maybe some part of him felt that the boss would appreciate brutal honesty in giving him just the parts where he had made his mistakes, or maybe he himself felt he needed to be punished, and so he held nothing back and embellished nothing to spare himself whatever was coming to him.
After everything he had done, maybe he needed to feel his boss' ire. Maybe it would make things feel more balanced. Perhaps it could restore harmony to how fucked everything had been ever since he had taken those drastic and foolish measures.
"After learning from her by using my quirk to disassemble her on a genetic level, to immerse myself in how her powers worked, I made crude representations of her ability focused entirely on the purpose of reverting a person's genetic material back to a state in which no quirk could manifest. Essentially, I made a solution that could erase quirks in the human body."
He licked his lips, glancing up at his patron and immediately looking away when he saw that his boss' eyes still burned with righteous indignation, likely from the bit about what he'd done to Eri. He worked hard to get his voice operative again, his words strained as he pushed along, "A-at first, the formula was limited..."
"It could only remove a quirk temporarily, and of course, I engineered a serum that did the same thing in reverse, boosting a quirk beyond its normal capacity for a short time. After a lot of experimentation and more... sessions with Eri as a live reference, I perfected it."
His boss frowned; he had not been expecting Kai to tell him that the effort had actually been a success, probably by the way that Chisaki had so immediately and uncharacteristically prostrated himself in apology from the start. He had likely been expecting the young man to report that he had caused harm in vain.
Still, the older man did not look happy about it, not the way that Chisaki had so stupidly thought he would before. After all, Kai had still harmed his granddaughter; it had never been about the serum to his boss, whatever pointless notions Chisaki might have had about changing his mind.
Chisaki gulped, clearing his throat to continue, "While I was in town with Eri some young heroes on patrol saw her, and I suspected that this might bring trouble to our door, so I took measures to defend our base. They were not enough, and a large gathering of heroes including the man behind me raided the place."
No surprise this time. His boss had clearly suspected something like this was coming, simply from Aizawa Shota's presence. The older man just watched him, his silence and stoic expression goading Chisaki to continue.
"They arrested me and I'm fairly certain they got almost everyone else, but I haven't had the chance to see whom all is free, as I have been in custody ever since. I... received some harsh persecution from a number of thugs I foolishly angered and then allied with. They betrayed me and injured me grievously, and some of them might still be operating."
A monotone voice from behind him cut in, "Careful not to say anything that might be considered a compromise to any ongoing police investigations, or I'll have to stop your confession prematurely. Try to stick to the apology side of this; we aren't here to help the Shie Hassaikai back onto its feet."
Nodding in quiet resignation at Aizawa's words, Chisaki continued, "Then I will say that I was healed by Eri, despite what I did to her. That is why I appear younger than before. Your granddaughter... has a very big heart."
The yakuza boss took all of this in, sitting back and relaxing his tight grip on Chisaki's hands. His brow furrowed in contemplation, and at last he let out a slow, steady breath. "She really is a good girl, and after everything she went through with the loss of her father and her mother's fear, she certainly did not deserve for you to do something so horrible to her, no matter what reasoning or justification you thought you had."
Kai's head was bowed again in shame, his body language stating that he agreed whole-heartedly with the statement and offered neither objection nor excuse for his behavior.
His dark eyes still locked onto Chisaki's prone form, his boss continued, "I can only assume that since you are here, you must have used your quirk to awaken me. It took guts to do that, knowing what I might do to you for your utter betrayal, and for the harm you have caused our family."
Chisaki started, his brow knitting at that comment. 'Our family'. While he would have expected his boss to use that term freely to describe the Shie Hassaikai as a whole, they were talking about his actual blood relative Eri. To say that to him while talking about her said a lot of what this man thought about his relationship to Kai.
The older man sighed again, his expression wistful as he gazed out at nothing in particular, "But from what I am hearing, and your presence here in and of itself, you are trying to set things right. I will not be so quick to forgive as my granddaughter was, as she is young, and naïve. However, I will withhold punishing you until I see what you are going to do to make this right."
Kai grated his teeth in frustration, "There is little that I can do, boss. I am imprisoned in a very secure..."
"That's enough." Chisaki jumped in surprise to see that Aizawa had quietly sidled up to his side, the black-haired hero glaring at him, "He doesn't need to know any details about your location currently." The darkly clad man spoke to Chisaki's boss, though his eyes never left Kai, "Also, he is wrong. Kai Chisaki has been sentenced to community service."
Chisaki frowned, but his boss chuckled, clearly amused by the situation. "Is he then? I would have thought that a boy like him would have been locked away in Tartarus forever. Not that I'm unhappy." The withered yakuza studied Aizawa, "I sense that we can't really take this conversation much further... take care of my boy."
Not expecting such a sentiment, Kai stared at his mentor in shock as Eraser nodded to the older man without actually turning towards him. Taking Chisaki by the arm, the hero guided him back towards the door. Kai resisted a little, feeling a bit panicked, "W-wait! You said I could talk to him!"
Aizawa nodded an affirmative, "And you did. I upheld my end of the bargain the moment you finished telling him you were sorry."
Only giving a half effort to pulling away from Aizawa failed to get him free from the hero's grip. Kai felt terribly conflicted on leaving the matter as it stood, "But I don't feel like the matter is resolved!"
Shota shook his head at him, "And you likely won't. You might work towards redemption, but you should also brace yourself to shoulder your guilt. One of the reasons we should try our best to avoid doing things we regret is because we often must live with it for the rest of our lives."
Chisaki stopped struggling against Aizawa as the hero pulled him out into the hospital hallway where Toshinori and the police waited. His expression was somber as he thought on what Shota had said. As a general rule, Kai had spent his whole life thinking that he could fix anything that needed to be fixed. When he was small, he used his quirk to repair machines.
As he got older, he studied medicine, and started using his powers to heal yakuza whom had gotten injured in fights to help his adoptive father. He had even used his abilities to patch up the underground railway that would later become the foundation for their secret headquarters. Looking forward, he had thought to fix everything that was wrong in the world.
He thought he would cure humanity of every disease, and even imagined he would remove the plague of quirks as he saw it. After everything had fallen apart, he had gone half-mad for having lost his powers, because he could no longer fix what he had broken. In all of his crazed ruminations, he had never imagined the things he could not fix.
Acceptance was something he was going to have to work hard to embrace. He was quiet as they led him back towards the hospital entrance, Aizawa ever shadowing his steps. In a world where he thought he could change everything he didn't like, it frightened him to imagine having to simply accept that there were things he could not.
That the weight he felt for what he had done would not be lifted. He felt some progress in telling his boss the truth, in mending some of what he had broken, but he could not rewind time. His adoptive father might never forgive him, and the choice of whether or not to do so was not in Chisaki's hands, no matter what he did.
He let out a morose sigh as he ducked into the car, Aizawa sitting right behind him. As Toshinori started the vehicle on its way back to U.A., he started to wonder what he was going to do from here. He had spent so much time and energy getting to the point where he could tell his old man what he felt, but what was he going to do now?