Paths Of A Hero
Summary: Hero or Vigilante? What is the difference? It used to be black and white, a boundary so sharp cut that many have found themselves in pieces just for approaching it. So why is it blurring now, as Eraserhead tries to keep his head low while unwittingly gaining 20+ kids, at least three Pro Hero friends and seems to have caught the eye of All Might himself, all the while his past is persistently trying to catch up to him?
Shouta had suspected Recovery Girl knew since the moment he realized she'd seen his whole face and not just the bits showing in between his hair, his capture weapon and his goggles.
He'd known she would call him out on it, so he hadn't minded that she was just outside, within hearing range, when he told Class 1-A his name. (He wasn't sure what it was about these kids that had made him say it. Perhaps it was the same thing that eventually warmed him up to Hizashi and Nemuri and the others. Surviving a near death experience together tends to create such bonds, alright. And they had seemed so genuinely happy to see him awake and to talk to him ... And, well, Shouta knew that, for a while at least, he will be their association with security. All Might might have done the final saving, but it had been Eraserhead that had made it so that all of them were even alive to be saved by their resident Number One Hero. So he knew he couldn't just ... cut them off, keep them out. Not now, when they were at their most vulnerable, right after the attack. Even the most confident - and aggressive - kid had reached out to touch him to make sure he was really here, that it wasn't a hallucination.)
He hadn't expected she would go straight to the heart of UA's first real tragedy.
It had happened right after the first year Sport's Festival, back when Shouta had tried his hand out at UA. By some stroke of luck, he'd won. He was the talk of the school, the talk of the country, even! The first Gen Ed kid to beat all the Hero Course students and climb to the top, to claim that gold medal. Shouta wasn't even in the Hero Course yet - not officially, as the appropriate papers were still going through - but he was already being sought after by fifty different Hero agencies for the first year internships. The young Aizawa Shouta of back then couldn't be happier.
The only way he could have been happier was if Kronos-sensei had just finished his capture weapon right after the Sports Festival so Shouta could start training with it. He'd wanted to be ready for his first classes in the Hero Course and for the internships.
He never got the chance, because it turned out his homeroom teacher was either a traitor from the start or became corrupted.
The crux of the story was that he had called Shouta after classes ended for a meeting and had managed to get a drop on him and knock him out. Next thing Shouta wakes up to is Kronos-sensei fighting against his kidnapper, only reinforcements came. Shouta, now bound, blindfolded and gagged, was handed over to a crony and rushed off while the rest continued fighting his enraged and desperate mentor.
Only Shouta had refused to be a damsel in distress. He'd lived through far more frightening and dangerous situations, with far more powerful villains, when he was younger to suddenly play at being helpless. He didn't win the Sports Festival by standing there and looking pretty!
So he'd started working on his restraints. He just needed to free his hands enough to uncover his eyes. Once he could see, shit will get real and he'll make these goons regret ever daring to lay a single hand on him.
It took longer than he thought it would and by the time he'd managed to free himself, they were already on a boat heading for only god knows where. Well, not with Shouta on board, that's for damned sure! He'd just gotten into the Hero Course! He will not let anyone get in the way of his dream. If he has to, he will fight his way out of here!
He ended up having to, but he hadn't won the Sports Festival for nothing. Leading up to enrolling into UA, Shouta had attended several martial arts classes. It wouldn't be enough for Pro Hero work by itself, but he had always thought it would be for the best to have some base to work on once he got into the Hero Course, one way or the other. It came in quite handy when he had to fight his way off of that goddamned boat. He figured he'd have to work a lot on his strength as he rowed himself back towards shore. That had taken longer than he had thought it would. He hadn't realized just how far out the ship had gotten before he'd detached a lifeboat and started rowing. Fighting the waves and sea currents wasn't easy and he hadn't been dressed for the cold winds wiping at him, but Shouta was nothing if not stubborn.
He'd had to use it for orientation. To see the lights flickering in the distance as a guiding star. It took him two whole days just to get back to shore. And another two to get back to UA, as he had no ID on himself, no money and no phone. Not that he'd have anyone to call, either way. Well, maybe Kronos-sensei. The man had taken a liking to Shouta on their first meeting when Shouta had hunted him down in the Support Course's work labs to give him specifications of what he needs for his capture weapon. Kronos-sensei had liked the challenge and had kept Shouta in the lab discussing it and various other topics - Sensei had even given him tips in his current fighting style and how to reach the final round of the Sports Festival - before finally letting him go home. They met up almost every day with Kronos-sensei telling him about his own short Hero career and why he preferred using his Quirk in creating support items instead of fighting overall. They got close.
Kronos-sensei was the only adult in his life Shouta trusted at that point and that was perfectly fine.
The man must be worried sick about him at this point. He'll probably fret when he sees him as he is now, all but dehydrated and very, very hungry. On his way towards his school, Aizawa had had to resort to old tricks since before he was eight, sleeping like a homeless person, stealing things from food stands - not very heroic, he's well aware, but he's learned early on in life that survival is what mattered most, and after all that he's survived, he wasn't about to let starvation be the thing that does him in - and taking coins from fountains when he absolutely needed money for something. He had ended up taking clothes from clothing lines in order to change out of his absolutely ruined uniform, figuring UA won't mind giving him a new one, not after the shit they just let him go through.
Not that it was traumatic to him, at this point. He's been through worse and when he was younger, too. At least this time he'd been able to fight back.
When he finally got back to UA and saw the big gates, he was ready to start crying from relief. His feet hurt, he hasn't had a decent meal in nearly five days and he was tired. A shower and a warm bed was all he wanted. Maybe to snuggle with a cat if someone could get him one. And he wanted to make sure Kronos-sensei was alright and didn't feel guilty for not managing to save Shouta that night.
However, before he could walk up to the gates themselves, Shouta saw something that made his blood turn to ice in his very veins: government agents. A black car had just rolled up and out stepped government agents. Shouta even recognized two of the five that marched right on into the school!
It was then that it occurred to Aizawa that a UA student has been missing for four days - he had to be all over the news by now.
He immediately left UA and found an Internet cafe. He spent what few hundred yen coins he had left on a beagle and took residence at one of the computers, immediately looking up the news feeds of the past few days and then, when he read that his mentor was injured, hacked both UA's files and the hospital records. What he saw there had him entering a near panic attack. When everything combined together, he knew going back to UA was not an option. Not if the government agencies were getting involved with his kidnapping case.
He refused to go back.
But he couldn't just ... not ever see Kronos-sensei again. No, he had to see the man one last time, at least. To absolve the man of whatever guilt he might be feeling. To tell him Shouta was alive. He couldn't not do it. Not after what the man has lost in his fight against Shouta's kidnappers in desperate attempts to get the Erasure-wielder back.
Shouta had honestly thought that that would be the end of his Hero dreams, that he'd have to forget the promise he'd made to the Heroes that had saved him that he would one day return the favor to the world by becoming like them. He'd thought: this is it, I can't do more than this. And then he'd walked into his Sensei's house after the man was released from the hospital, the old man's doors unlocked, only to find him having a nightmare, muttering Shouta's name and apologies. Only to find the Hero costume Shouta had requested, complete and just how he'd imagined it, capture weapon and all, within arm's reach of the Hero's bed.
That was the last time Shouta had allowed himself to cry.
And after all these years, after leaving the man's house with the only trace of his presence being a single salted licorice candy piece on his mentor's bedside table, he felt like he might actually cry again. Stupid medication.
Shouta had gone back to Kronos-sensei's house plenty of times over the years. He'd do things around the house that the now really old retired Hero no longer could. Repairing his roof, fixing the floorboards so they don't squeak anymore, installing a better door lock and even implanting a security system in his house that would alert Shouta of any funny business so he can come help his mentor immediately. Heroes make a lot of enemies over the years of their careers, after all.
He, at first, never spoke to the man, of course, but Kronos-sensei always knew it was Shouta that came to visit him, even without gazing into the timeline with his Quirk. Not that Kronos-sensei ever said anything, either, not until Shouta had been ready for it and/or started it first, but he would always leave out whatever new equipment he made in his home workshop for Shouta when he was around. It made Shouta want to gouge his own eyes out so he can give them to Kronos-sensei. It made him want to break into Tartarus - and it would be so easy to hack that place after all the training and lessons he's had with Hal, AKA A. Ashou - and tear his former homeroom teacher to bits and pieces, but he knew that would only bring Kronos-sensei more pain, to see what Shouta would have become.
It's why he took so long before he spoke to the man, why he never told him what the gear he was making was used for, though he might have suspected after some time. Shouta had never given up his dream of saving and helping people, but the path of heroism was closed to him forever. He'd known that since he'd picked up the capture weapon for the first time. He'd known the only way he can keep his dream slash promise alive was if he turned to vigilantism.
Kronos-sensei never outright learned his precious Aizawa Shouta was the infamous Vigilante Eraserhead that had half the Hero society hunting him and the other half (begrudgingly) befriending him.
And that's how Shouta wanted it to be.
Kronos-sensei knew he was alive and well and that will have to be enough. It has to be, for the both of them.
Looking at his tattered scarf-like support item now, Shouta had to be grateful that it's stayed that way all these years. His old Sensei would no doubt have a heart attack if he were to be informed just how badly Shouta had been hurt and what kind of fight Eraserhead had so carelessly thrown himself into. The capture weapon was made, by design of both creator and the one making the request, to keep Shouta safe in any fight he might find himself in. Kronos-sensei had taken as long as he had in perfecting the alloyed cloth just so it could survive even All Might's strength. Shouta's not sure if it really could, though it's unfair to the capture weapon for Shouta to start doubting it now, after all these years of use. It says a lot about its quality that it's only now started fraying and fatiguing at the edges. Aizawa knows he can't safely use this one anymore. The Nomu had seriously done a number on it.
Thankfully, he has plenty of spares, courtesy of Kronos-sensei himself.
"Will you tell the Heroes? The police?" He asks Recovery Girl, not bothering to look away from his most trusted companion of the past fifteen years. Which is a bit sad, truthfully, but Shouta doesn't give a fuck.
"Eraserhead's true identity or the fact that a missing, thought to be dead UA student is neither dead nor missing?" The old woman asks back with a sigh that suggested he's fighting a headache. "Because I might have no choice in the matter, Shouta-kun. You're in really bad shape and really shouldn't be awake yet. I still have a lot of damage to fix."
"I need to leave," he told her instead. "I refuse to be caught. I can't. There's something out there, Shuzenji-san. Something that the Heroes are blind to. I may be the only one who can find it, at this point. At least before something like this can happen again, or worse. We all barely got out alive from this. If the circumstances were just the tiniest bit different, you'd have been doing autopsies, not cleaning scraps and healing bruises."
"You have both your elbows shattered, one of your shoulders dislocated, severe head trauma and your right cheekbone and eye socket is shattered!" The little old nurse snapped with a ferociousness that would have made any other man but Aizawa Shouta flinch back and cover before all of her four foot glory. You just don't mess with a doctor. "You've lost enough blood that you nearly went into shock, your nose is broken and you wouldn't even be able to breathe if not for my intervention! How your skull hasn't shattered against the pavement, how your neck hasn't been snapped and how you're not blind is all due to some greater miracle at work! You shouldn't be alive, Shouta-kun! Not with the kind of punishment I've heard you've taken!"
"I've had worse." And he has. Last year, a giant of a ... man, maybe, whatever. It had looked like a walking mini mountain and it had been wandering the streets. Some kid had directed him in the completely wrong way from his destination and had instead sent him towards the police station. Good thinking on the kid's part, but the police simply weren't equipped to fight that guy. Shouta had managed to lead him far enough away so it doesn't kill the officers - enough were already going to be paralyzed for the rest of their lives as it was - but that had eventually angered the mountain of a man and he had literally stomped on Aizawa the first chance he got. How Aizawa's spine hadn't snapped like a twig, leaving him just as crushed and paralyzed as the police officers, was a bigger miracle than him surviving USJ. If it hadn't been for a kind ginger man and his kid, who both had some seriously powerful healing Quirks, Shouta probably would be dead right now.
Point was, Shouta can handle it.
And he definitely wasn't about to either sit around and do nothing while this so-called League of Villains roams the streets and endangers more kids nor let the police arrest him. Fuck that shit!
Shuzenji must have realized as much because she sighed heavily and jumped onto his bed. "At least let me heal you some more. Especially that eye of yours. How your goggles haven't gouged your own eyes out when your face was smashed in, I don't know."
Shouta dodged her incoming healing kiss expertly, making her frown. "Fix my arms. I can deal with my eyes."
"Shouta-kun-"
But Shouta beat her to it, activating it and feeling the uncomfortable sensation of things shifting, the bones going back into their own place and healing underneath the skin. It may have brought so much trouble to him over the years, but he could never hate it. It was a part of him. It was what made Shouta so unique that he'd pursued knowledge on Quirk Theory and found so much fun in all that research. It is what allowed him to, eventually, meet so many amazing people, to make friends, to be more than just a kid with a weird Quirk, if it can even be called that. It certainly defies all definitions of a Quirk.
Shuzenji all but lunges at him to stop him, but by the time she reaches him, his hair has already settled back into place as the deed was done. The woman was about to start lecturing him as she swiftly cut off the bandages to get a look at his eyes, only to recoil back as she no doubt found that area to be almost completely healed. "Wha-? You're eyes, they've just ...? But how? I know, for a fact, that your eyes are r-"
"Does it really matter?" He shrugged, trying to play it off as unimportant.
"It does when it mysteriously heals your injury!" Huffed Recovery Girl. "So you can heal yourself?"
"Only my eyes, unfortunately. I can't really explain. Not now, nor ever. It's my secret. Just that I showed you anything is already putting you in danger."
"Knowing dangerous secrets is what I do on a daily basis in the past decade or so, young man."
"My secret is much more dangerous than All Might's." He sees her stiffen and nearly wants to scoff. He doesn't. He doesn't elaborate, either. That's not a conversation for them to have. He won't tell anyone but All Might himself how he knows, why he knows. It's no one else's business but their own, though he's not actually sure if he wants to bring that up. That was an event and day he'd rather forget, but knows he can't. And not just because of trauma, either. "Can you just please heal my arms? I need to go."
"Will you tell Shikaku that you're alive? He's still mourning you, you know. He nearly had a breakdown when he couldn't see your face even in the timeline's past anymore."
Shouta looks away. He hates learning how much pain he'd caused the one man he might have viewed as a father figure if only they'd had more time. (He was aware of the irony of someone with the Quirk Timemaster not having enough time, but it's not like Sensei actually controls time; rather he could gaze into the timeline up to five days into the past and five days into the future, for objects, while for people he can only see five minutes into the future. Weird restriction, but who was Shouta to judge when he had virtually none. Or, at least, as far as he knows.) "He already does."
"Oh."
"He doesn't know about Eraserhead, though."
Recovery Girl hums. "Well, at least I know now that he's avoiding this place more out of practicality than out of grief."
But of course. There was never a news release that Shouta's been found or that he'd returned. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Aizawa Shouta was still missing, most probably dead by now. Kronos-sensei understood this meant Shouta didn't want to be found. So he never told anyone. Hence why he's avoiding UA. You can't really hide things from Principal Nezu and he and Recovery Girl were too close for her not to notice a change in his behavior. And she'd want to see Shoute herself, if she'd known he was back, to at least check up on him. What neither Shouta nor his mentor could nor would risk was Recovery Girl choosing to 'do the right thing' and report Shouta's return.
Yes, it would put him straight back on the track he'd been following, the path to becoming a Pro Hero, but the government had found out about him and he refused to go back.
"Will you heal my arms?"
"You still have head injuries, fool!" Chided the nurse but Shouta wasn't going to give ground, either.
"Please, Chiyo-san?"
The woman looked as though she was in pain. "No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to wear that wounded kitten expression and call me by name while acting all cute." Aizawa had absolutely no idea what the aged Heroine was talking about, because he knew for sure he was the farthest thing from cute, especially with whatever colorful bruises he was sporting right now. "I'm not Shikaku, damn it! I won't fall for it!"
Needless to say, Aizawa soon found his arms in only bandages instead of casts and was wrapping his capture weapon back around his neck and shoulders, healed enough to make the trip home. "I'll need to look into the League of Villains. Something is seriously not adding up here. That Shigaraki guy doesn't have the leadership skills to acquire an alliance with someone like Nomu, especially not to the point someone so much stronger than him would listen to every word he says."
"You need to rest until the rest of your injuries heal, not jump around town at night, chasing the very villains that nearly killed you!" Snapped Recovery Girl, but Shouta wasn't about to quit being Eraserhead just because his old school nurse found out about him. "If you go out sooner than at least a week has passed, I'll tell your students."
The black haired man turned towards her incredulously. "They're not my students-"
"Kids, then."
"No, not that, either. And why should I care if you tell them?"
"Because they'll be upset and worried about you, probably to the point where they can't concentrate at all, which they can't afford with the Sports Festival just around the corner." She looked smug as she delivered all of this and Shouta felt his eye tick. "You wouldn't want to sabotage their future by your own reckless behavior, now would you?"
"Damn you, woman," was all he said before he jumped out of the window, rolling a little on the ground to lessen the impact. He quickly made it towards the treeline separating the school from the gates, careful to scout out any cameras and stay out of their fields of vision. In the end, he opted to go by treetops and used his capture weapon to get over the wall. He swiftly makes it across town to his simple apartment, not particularly caring for 'taking it easy' as Chiyo had insisted.
He knows his limits. And he knows his situation. He can't risk Heroes going after him when he isn't yet fully healed. He'll probably have to visit a hospital or private clinic as a 'victim' and one of Eraserhead's 'rescuees' - oh, if only the Heroes knew how much he used that excuse all over the city, they'd eat their heart's out; best cover in the world for his various more serious injuries over the years that needed professional treatment, as between Eraserhead's less than legal activities, the money collecting dust most days in Shouta's bank account and his hacking skills to create new identities when he needs them, no one has figured out Eraserhead himself has been visiting various medical facilities. He's a little disappointed in them all for falling for it. It's not like Shouta works like other Vigilantes! He leaves them reports. Very detailed reports of every incident he's ever stopped. How they didn't figure out someone was slipping in through the cracks, he has no clue. He guesses it's because the police forces have truly come to rely on him and trust his word that they don't even question it or look into any 'Eraserhead sightings' anymore. Useful for him but dangerous for the police to be so negligent and trustful - for a follow up in the next couple of days, to at least get the bandages changed.
But he can't keep his promise to Chiyo-san to take it easy.
No, something was not right. Something, someone out there is bioengineering creatures like that 'Nomu' fellow. Or is it 'fellows', because the one that appeared with Shigaraki at USJ is certainly not the first one Shouta's met.
Something big is coming. Something big and bad and he doesn't like it. He'll have to keep his eye out for more 'Nomu' around the city.
He'll listen to Chiyo-san only tonight and tomorrow night. After that, he'll be returning to the streets. And it's not like he's going to laze around at home in the meantime, either!
Patrol isn't the only way to survey the streets when one can hack the CCTV cameras.