"I'd hate to be you right now."
Plumes of cigarette smoke left Aizawa's mouth as he spoke the words, watching the two men from the corner of his eye as they dragged themselves back to consciousness.
The skin around their mouths and noses was inflamed, splotchy red. He'd seen up close that they were raw with chemical burns from the chloroform. Right now, that was probably all they were aware of. Aizawa took another slow drag on his cigarette. Let the smoke burn in his lungs. Fucking nothing compared to what Junpei and Eito were feeling.
Junpei was coughing like he had lost a lung a couple hundred packs ago, and Eito wheezed beside him. Aizawa smoked patiently as they slowly became aware of their surroundings. The rushing of water and filters humming. The prevalent float of chlorine in the air. Junpei was the first who tried to move his feet, and felt the wet. His eyes squinted as he tried to look around, blinking fast to clear them.
"I'm going to give you another minute to clear your heads," Aizawa offered as he neared the end of his cigarette, and he watched as the men's heads swiveled in the direction of his voice.
Saw their panic.
Saw the moment they comprehended the situation they were in as they glanced around the barren water park and the platform they sat on, tied to chairs.
Aizawa liked the fear on their faces.
Something wicked heated through his chest. Expanded. The smoke burned hot in his lungs and his blood was beginning to rush with the anticipation. This right here, this is why he could never be just a Hero. The taste of copper was in the water and he was a shark scenting to it, killer instincts aroused. His men or not, this was a part he always enjoyed.
"I'm not going to drag this out," Aizawa said plainly. "I'm going to ask a question, and you're going to answer. You give me what I need and you'll get to walk instead instead of leaving in a bag."
Aizawa pointed a hand upward, and his kobun followed the gesture to look above them at the brightly colored, cheerful bucket above them. The sound of water running was loudest there as the bucket filled. Most days, when it filled it would tilt to splash down on the excited people playing beneath on hot days. With their heads tilted back, it was easy to shove his foot against the flimsy folding chairs the men were bound to, and each cried out as they dropped onto their backs, into water pooling around them. It wasn't deep — only a few inches. Deep enough for children to frolic in and enjoy. Deep enough to cover their ears.
Aizawa grabbed a hold of the back of Eito's chair and dragged him into position under the filling bucket and laid him on his back, bound, despite his protests. Then did the same with Junpei. At last Aizawa seated himself across from them, taking another breath of his cigarette, unbothered by the shallow pool of water he sat in.
"Alright. So whose idea was it," he asked, eyes narrow and sharp as he watched them.
"What idea?" Junpei asked, straining to turn to look at Aizawa. The tension in his voice could be cut like cords.
Aizawa's eyes went to Eito, patient, waiting. He saw Eito's fear.
"Whose idea was it, Eito?" Aizawa asked, leaning back to blow a smoke ring.
"I don't know what you mean," Eito answered, swallowing hard.
"You sure about that?"
Junpei began stuttering his innocence, and Eito was already bracing himself. Aizawa gestured, raising one arm in the air. The bucket tilted, slanting hard, and gravity pulled it down the rest of the way.
Both men shouted in panic as gallons upon gallons dropped on their faces. Force that was pleasant to play beneath was a hammer, and Aizawa inhaled as he pushed himself to his feet, listening to the sounds of their gagging and choking underneath the torrent. The water was still coming down as Aizawa bent into the fall, pressing his knee on the temple of Eito's head, unphased by the water crashing across his shoulders.
"How about it?" Aizawa shouted in Eito's exposed ear, to be heard above the water. Under him, Eito was straining hard against the binds restraining him to the folding chair, straining hard against the weight of Aizawa's leg on his face, keeping him down. The flow tapered off, but it pooped in the shallow basin around them now. The water frothed around Eito's mouth with air and spit. Aizawa leaned onto him a little more. Eito made a hideous noise beneath him.
"Whose idea was it," he demanded again, grabbing a fistful of Eito's hair and dragging his head out of the water. Up above, the bucket had righted itself and he could hear the hollow pounding as it began to refill.
"Tell him!" Junpei gargled. "Whatever you've done, you tell him!"
"I didn't do shit," Eito insisted, gasping for breath.
Aizawa wasn't put off. Eito's wrists were already zip tied at the hinge of the chair. He reached into his pocket and drew his knife. He didn't bother showing it off as he dug the tip into Eito's finger, at the base of his fingernail, and began to pry it up.
Eito screamed like a fucking bitch, and Aizawa paused to close his hand around the knife's hilt, pull back his arm and hit him with a short, powerful punch to the face. It cut Eito's ugly sounds off for a moment, and Aizawa shoved Eito's face back into the pooling water, holding him down with one hand as he resumed digging out his fingernail with the blade in the other.
"Whose idea was it, Junpei," Aizawa asked, his voice level though strained as he put his weight into keeping Eito down.
"I don't know, Danchou, I don't know," Junpei gargled, tripping over his own words. "I don't know what you mean."
Eito's fingernail dropped off, and Aizawa went to work on the next finger without hesitation. Eito was screaming again.
He'd let himself get comfortable when he believed Yaoyorozu was the only threat to his kingdom. He'd been caught unaware, hit with a cheap shot from behind, and Momo had been clipped by it, too. He wouldn't stand for it.
Another nail dropped off.
Aizawa slid a few inches over to Junpei, brandishing his blade openly in one hand as he raised his other arm high, and braced himself.
The water smashed down and Aizawa buckled slightly under its weight, but steadied himself as he pressed the blade into the crease of Junpei's knuckle. Junpei's feet flailed and twitched as he tried to recoil away. The man's mouth was open to scream, and he was drowning in the cascade of water instead. Aizawa could hear him choking.
"What's he told you?" Aizawa asked. He'd never taken Junpei for much of a doer — but he had good ears.
"Boss-Boss-Boss—" Junpei tried to cry, submerged under the dump instead, muffling him. Aizawa kept control of his blade, feeling his way halfway through the joint as Junpei let out a fresh scream while the water boarded him.
"What's he told you," Aizawa repeated, blinking fast to get the water drops off his own lashes.
"I didn't see her! I didn't see her, I won't say a word—"
"What'd you hear?" Incensed, knowing now that he was on their trail, Aizawa slammed Junpei's head against the tile when the man didn't answer fast enough. Water splashed and Junpei coughed. "Tell me."
"He—"
"Who?"
"Eito! But he heard it from Goro! He said—"
"Shut up," Eito shouted from nearby.
Aizawa's sense of mercy and grace had expired. He dropped his knife to grab the gun holstered at his waist. Safety was off. It saves time. His finger squeezed the trigger and the gunshot deafened him before the bucket of water tipped again.
The force of the water and his already wet grip knocked the gun out of his hand. The weapon went skidding across the ground, fuck, and Aizawa went to retrieve his knife. He found it — as Eito plunged the blade into his arm.
Aizawa swallowed the pain on his lips, compartmentalized it, as he drove his elbow back into Eito's face. He felt the crunch of cartilage and there was a flash of blood in the water, washed away fast as more water pounded down on them.
Eito still had a foot zip tied to the folding chair, and he struggled to grapple as he lugged it along, dragging across the ground. Aizawa lunged forward into him, tackling him and wrapping his arms around Eito's waist to pull him down into the water. His footing threatened to go out under him with every step. Eito managed to keep his hold on the knife, and Aizawa ground his teeth when he felt the blade slip into his hip.
The pain was white hot and blinding. He felt when Eito drew his arm back to stab again, and Aizawa punched him hard under his guard. Eito bent, still clutching the knife, but Aizawa let the adrenaline carry him past the pain as he grabbed Eito around his neck and moved to snap it. His feet slid in the water, and he inadvertently slammed Eito's face into the ground when he went down.
More blood in the water. He couldn't tell his and Eito's apart anymore. He couldn't hear footsteps running in his direction over the sound of the bucket slanting one more time, hammering them with water. Aizawa struggled to his feet under its weight and grabbed Eito up by the back of his shirt. He was only narrowly aware of Eito's hands on his wrist, trying to break his grasp, as he dragged his kobun through the water. There was a short step up and out of the ankle deep water, and Aizawa climbed it before shoving Eito's face to the concrete.
He was more animal than man now as he grabbed a fist of Eito's hair and shoved his face to the curb. When Eito wouldn't open his mouth, Aizawa pulled his head back and slammed it into the concrete until Eito's busted fucking face finally loosened his jaw. Blood poured from the man's nose, from his mouth, from the abrasions and cuts. Aizawa pushed himself back to his feet and put the sole of his shoe to the crown of Eito's skull.
There were no sharp words. No cunning or clever farewell. Aizawa gritted his teeth as he slammed his foot down on Eito's head, and the sound — the crunch. The bone and teeth on concrete. The muffled cry, a final plea — was all he heard against the backdrop of the water.
"Danchou."
Aizawa turned, breathing ragged, to look at Koboyashi as the man jogged over, feet splashing through the water.
"Took you fucking long enough," Aizawa snapped as Koboyashi handed him back his fallen gun. There was a moment where neither man spoke as Aizawa turned to look down at Eito, pathetic and limp on the concrete like wet pulp. His arm rose, and the thunderclap of the gunshot made his ears ring.
"I had to come down a slide," Koboyashi complained. "The other one's still down."
Aizawa grimaced, pressing a hand over the wound over his hip, and limped toward where Junpei laid. Any good humor Aizawa had left was gone. He snatched Junpei up by the front of his shirt and raised him up, shaking him.
"Fucking talk."
"Eito—Eito said Goro told him that he saw you finger fucking that teenager Jiro brought in," Junpei said hastily, closing his eyes and turning away. "In the club."
"Keep talking."
"He got pissed, Danchou. You know, you cut his finger off and then went and was fucking around with the same girl, he got pissed."
"So where's Goro?"
"Laying low, I don't know where. Eito said Goro had some plan to make some quick cash—"
"How."
"Eito just said the girl's father was loaded, he didn't tell me what they were gonna do."
Aizawa still had the gun in his hand, and he shoved the barrel, still warm, into the soft skin beneath Junpei's jaw.
"What else."
"That's it, Danchou, fuck, I fucking swear that's it, that's all I know. Eito wouldn't cut me in because he said they didn't want to split the pot."
Aizawa stared hard at Junpei, trembling and obedient where he lay, and slowly Aizawa rose to his feet. He tucked the gun into the waist is his pants.
"Cut him loose."
Koboyashi did as Aizawa said, using Aizawa's knife to free Junpei off the zip ties holding him to the folding chair. Junpei's eyes immediately went to where Eito laid.
"Shit—"
"You're going to clean this the fuck up," Aizawa commanded. "You're going to get him bagged up and then you're going to take him to Tokyo. When you come back, you come back alone. Eito got into a fucking fight with the wrong person and took one right between the eyes. Got it?"
"Got it, boss," Junpei said.
"Get fucking going."
Junpei went to Eito's body, carefully rolling him over before turning away with his mouth covered. Koboyashi was at Aizawa's shoulder.
"If you touched her…" Kobayashi began, letting his words trail off.
"I didn't," Aizawa said firmly, a muscle in his jaw flexing. "I'm not cleaning this up because of a guilty fucking conscience."
Koboyashi, who had come up the ranks not far behind Aizawa when they were young, had left when Yaoyorozu Asao had offered him a way to the straight and narrow. Or, at least, more straight and narrow than life in a syndicate. They'd known each other though, not so many years ago — but long enough that Koboyashi hadn't realized it was him who reigned as Danchou. He knew now.
He did not like this quid pro quo. He did not like approaching someone, within or outside of his syndicate, and laying his identity bare. But Aizawa liked the taste of the blackmailed accusation he was charged with even less.
"Don't let me find out you're lying," Koboyashi warned. "If you touched boss' daughter, I'll give you something real to worry about."
"I've got enough on my plate without you on my dick, too," Aizawa snarled, watching as Junpei worked to wash Eito's blood off the concrete.