Serizawa was scared and when he was scared he ran away.
It had been this way for his entire life. When he ad been little and scared of the spirits that surrounded hum he ran away to his mom's room and hid under the covers until they went away. When he had been older and scared of the other kids sometimes he would spend entire school days hiding in janitor's closets until the bell rang. When he had gotten older and scared of himself he had run away to his room and had, in fact, been fully prepared to die in there.
But then she had come along.
Miss Suzuki had saved him. She had saved him in every way that a person could be saved. She had saved him from being scared of the world, from dying in his room, and she had saved him from being scared of himself. It was thanks to her that he knew, now, that she wasn't cursed. It was thanks to her that he had seen the world, more of it than most people had. It was thanks to her that he knew what friendship felt like, real friendship, and what love felt like. He loved her and she loved him, she was his best friend after all. She had saved him from the worst possible life that he could have made for himself.
But he was too scared to save her.
It hadn't been a big decision, or even a small one. He had simply been there beside her, holding her hand and trying to help keep her strength up, when a feeling of pure dread and fear had come over him. It had been just like…like that day. The day that he had lost control at school and hurt all of those other kids. The day that he had come home from school and accidentally sent his own mother, the only person at the time who loved him, flying into the wall. They day when he had locked himself away, alone, in the dark prepared to stay there for the rest of his life.
Maybe it had been better that way.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. These thoughts had come after the wave of fear. Thoughts of things like…like the fact that nobody really liked him. That he was more trouble to have around than he was worth. That Miss Suzuki only kept him around because she felt obligated to take care of him. Thoughts like…like they weren't even friends. That she just kept him around because she was lonely sometimes…that all she wanted was someone less powerful than her…someone to follow her along like a dog.
Scary thoughts like that.
Thoughts that he knew were not his own. He knew Miss Suzuki. She didn't keep people around just because she wanted people weaker than her to boss around, that was her dad even though it was mean to think thoughts like that. She loved him. She loved all of her friends. She was the one who had shown him the power of friendship. She was the one who had taken the time out of her life to not only save him but to also be there for him, to teach him how to be a friend, and how to be a person out in the world. He knew that he loved her back.
And he knew that those hadn't been his thoughts.
Which was what had scared him. Sure, he'd had thoughts before, ones that he hadn't meant to think. Thoughts about how mom would have been better off if he had never been born. Thoughts about how he was too dangerous to even exist. Thoughts about how even dad had seen it, back when he was a baby, and that was why he had broken Mom's heart and left her all alone. Those sorts of thoughts had gone away after he'd met Miss Suzuki…and the ones he had been thinking when he had been holding her hand hadn't felt like that. They hadn't even been in his voice, his thinking voice. That had been something else….something inhuman…
Something terrifying.
So he ran. He got up and ran away. Out of the room, down the hallway, and then outside. The sun was pretty much down. The stars were out. It was kind of like being in his room. Bigger but…but also small. He felt small under the sky. Small enough that he could have disappeared. Small enough that he should have disappeared. Small enough that…that maybe if he wished hard enough then he would disappear and then Miss Suzuki wouldn't have had to know that he let her down. That he left her all alone in that place with that terrible, inhuman, thing…
Maybe she was, in fact, better off without him.
"I'm sorry, Miss Suzuki." Said Serizawa softly, so softly that his words were taken away by the wind. A cold wind was whipping past him, hitting him in the back of the head and pushing his hair over his eyes. It didn't matter, it wasn't like there was anything, really, for him to see. Everyone had run away a long time ago. Even the crickets were quiet, if this was even the season for them. April…did they come out in April? Or was that later in the spring? He had no idea and he didn't feel like looking it up.
He didn't feel like doing much of anything.
Which was good because he wasn't entirely sure what it was that he was supposed to be doing right now. He could have gone back in, in fact he should have gone back in, but every time he turned around and stared into the black void that was the house he just…got stuck. Like he had been glued to the floor. It was so dark in there and, yes, he had usually been able to find comfort in the darkness this was different. It was like there was something in the darkness, something evil…
Well, there was, obviously. That was what had sent him running.
"Hurry up! I spent enough time trying to find you guys, I don't have time to wait for you to catch up! There's something evil in there!" Oh. Someone was shouting. He couldn't see them, their body, but he could see their aura…auras. Two of them, one blue and one yellow. They were coming out of the trees. Serizawa didn't know if he should have said 'hi' or hid…
He chose to hide.
"Yeah, I fucking know, it was inside my head!" Serizawa had a choice to make. He could either hide back in the house or stay and try and talk to new people…without Miss Suzuki around. New people or evil spirits…he was going to go with the second option, it was just less terrifying. He ran up the stairs and into the house, pressing himself between the wall and what was left of the door.
"Then hurry up! if we can catch it then-" Serizawa covered his ears. Whoever that little boy was he had a terrible idea. He felt like he should have said something…but he didn't know that kid. Either of those kids.
"Catch it! We need to KILL it! Double kill it before it can kill anyone else. That thing was inside of my head, not yours!" Another little kid. This wasn't the place for anyone let alone kids. He needed to do something. He knew what Miss Suzuki would have done…but he was no Miss Suzuki. She wouldn't have hidden, she would have done something, or at least introduced herself because she loved making new friends. All he could do was hide and listen to people fight about doing extremely dumb things that would probably get them all…all laying on the ground in a deathlike sleep…
Maybe the spirit had been right. Maybe he was worse than useless.
"Hey! No! I am the adult here and I am telling you both to turn around and get back on the path!" Someone his age…somehow that was more terrifying than anything he could have faced. He was grateful to have hidden. He knew how old he was, he knew how old he felt, and it was just a lot easier to talk to people who were as old as he felt. Like Miss Suzuki or Sho. Adults were just…different. There were different layers to the things they said, and they were at a different level than he was. It was like he was a new player who hadn't even been outside of the tutorial town and the adults around him were seasoned legacy players who hung out in the PVP zone for fun…but even worse than Hatori. At least he understood Hatori…
There was no way that he was coming out.
"But Reigen! We're so close-" said the boy with the blue aura. There was a burst of yellow, an aura, so bright that he had to cover his eyes even though he didn't even see auras with his eyes.
"Ritsu, no! I am not letting you be stupid! We can't catch it, neither of us has those kinds of powers, and anyway even if we could what could we do with it!" shouted the boy with the yellow aura.
"We could use it to take down Claw! You know what it can do. It took you down and it took their leader down-" said the boy with the blue aura
"So you think YOU have a shot? If it took me down then how in the hell are you going to manage to do ANYTHING to it!" shouted the boy with the yellow aura.
"I'll figure it out when I get there, now either come with me or get out of my way!" shouted the boy with the blue aura. There was a burst of blue, then of yellow, and then the world was actually caught in some kind of…of haze. Not green, and Serizawa had seen Mukai mix up enough paint to know that yellow and blue made green, but instead it was like the yellow and blue were…were trying to mix…sort of like tie-dye…it was kind of nice, in a way.
Not nice enough, though, to get him out of hiding.
"No, I'm not letting you kill yourself! God, why are you like this, Kageyama?! You never think things through!" Yellow, there, was brighter than blue. It hadn't been much of a win, though, since immediately afterwards blue and yellow were trapped in that same, tie-dye, stalemate.
"I don't think things through? I don't go sleeping with the enemy just because-" shouted the boy with the blue aura. He was louder than the other boy but his aura was somehow weaker. Yellow was overtaking blue now, kind of like looking into the sun, but with less pain and no warmth…so in some ways better.
"No, worse, you're in LOVE with the enemy! You're too stupid to see that he doesn't care about you aside from using-" yellow was winning. It looked like this was the boy who would win…but then suddenly it was over. There was what sounded like a slap, then another, and then two more…Serizawa stayed hidden. If it had turned into a real fight then he wasn't going to be of any help to them.
"Hey!" both of the boys shouted at once, sounding more annoyed then anything.
"Do you both want some more? Because I can stand here all night knocking sense into the two of you or we can get back on the path and follow it to civilization, you're call!" A man was shouting now. No aura…a normal person. Somehow a normal person was not only yelling at two espers but was hitting them, too. Maybe they were just really nice people, the ones getting hit. He couldn't imagine any of his friends, aside from Miss Suzuki, putting up with that kind of treatment from anyone.
"If you think that we're just going to run away-" shouted the boy with the blue aura before there was another slapping sound.
"You have to! Sometimes you have to run away just like sometimes you have to knock some sense into the people you love! I don't like doing this, I hate myself for doing this, but I will stand here all night doing this if it keeps you both alive. That thing has KILLED people, more powerful people than the two of you, and I for one am not sending you both to your deaths! Now turn around and get back on the path!" the man was yelling again, but worse now. Louder…but not angry loud. The kind of loud where it sounded like your words were ripping out pieces of your throat. The kind of loud that sounded like it hurt….like you were hurt…
Hurt but not scared.
"….whatever." He wasn't sure which of the boys said that. He wasn't sure if they had said anything else. He couldn't tell, all he could hear was the sound of gravel crunching under shoes. They were leaving. That man, that perfectly normal man, hadn't been scared. He had just….just walked right up to them and got them to listen…and those boys hadn't been afraid either…they had been ready to march right into danger to do what was right.
Well, to do what they thought was right.
Serizawa wasn't sure if killing this spirit would have been like killing a person. It could think and want things and stuff, it had been inside of his head too, and he wasn't sure what the boy with the blue aura had meant by using it against Claw. Why would anyone have wanted to act against Claw? The President was going to bring the whole world together, espers and normal people, so that way espers wouldn't have to hide or be afraid of themselves anymore just like Miss Suzuki had promised. Why anyone would have been against that was beyond him…but a lot of things were beyond him…
Like being brave.
He couldn't do it. Even though Miss Suzuki needed him. The person who loved him most of all. The person who took care of him. The person who saved him. The person who had said that she would always be there for him. The person who…who he owed his life too. He owed her his life and…and he couldn't just let her lose hers…even if he was scared…
This wasn't about him.
She needed him. She had been draining a lot of energy from him, enough that he wasn't even close to an explosion even though the storm inside of himself was getting near the breaking point. She had needed that energy to fight that thing…and he'd just left. He wasn't going to let her lose. If she ran out of energy then….then there was no hope. So he would have to be that hope, he would have to be her energy, he would have to keep her charged up.
If she needed a battery then he would be her battery.
So that was what he did. He pushed the door away and walked through the darkness back to the room where he had left her. The darkness wasn't scary this time, no, the darkness was comforting. If he couldn't see anything then nobody could see him and that…that was all that he wanted right now. He wanted to be alone, to be alone in a world with just him and Miss Suzuki, to have to worry about nothing more than being with her. There for her.
He got his wish.
He could feel her aura. He let it pull him step by step through the ruins of the house. The walk was short in distance but made longer by all the stuff on the floor. Torn up board, pieces of the walls, splintered pieces of wood from furniture, and even bits of glass that crunched underneath his shoes. All of it kept him from her. He could have turned back but he didn't. It wasn't an option.
Miss Suzuki needed him.
She was there, right where he had left her. Laying down on the ground, a beacon of pink and blue in the darkness. He ran to her, tripping over some wood, not caring that he wound up sprawled there on the floor beside her. He didn't take the time to stand up or even to sit up. He just laid there beside her and pressed her hand to his chest.
He felt her.
He felt the cold of her hand against his chest, so cold that he could feel I through her shirt. She was alive, he could feel her pulse underneath his fingertips, but she was just cold…so cold. He pulled her close, wrapped himself around her. He held her as tightly as he could and hoped, prayed, that it was working. That he was saving her, that she wasn't going to…
That he wasn't going to lose her.
"Please…please. I'm sorry, Miss Suzuki…Shigeko. I'm sorry that I left you. Please just…just come back. I need you. I love…I love you." said Serizawa as he held her tightly. He could see her aura, and his own, and that was…that was good. He stopped holding onto his power, stopped trying to keep it contained. He let himself feel everything that he was feeling, let his feelings take his powers and pull them from his body, and he let Miss Suzuki take that power from him and store it within herself. He had no idea if it was working but…but he had to try. He had to save her, save her just as he'd been saved, even though…even though…
Even though he was scared out of his mind, even though it felt like he had lost her, he knew that giving up wasn't an option. Giving up would have meant losing her and without her he was nothing, just like the spirit had said.