Please note this was uploaded in addition to chapter 20 so read that first!
The last of the Tumblr snippets, that honestly fits best at the end. Thanks for sticking with me all this time.
It's not often Aizawa takes Eri out of the UA grounds, and she's not sure if she should be excited or terrified. So she has Aizawa's hand in a vice grip and a chunk of his scarf wedged in the other, while her eyes dart around, trying to soak in every new thing she sees.
"It's not far now" the man promises, and Eri nods, even though she doesn't know exactly where they're going. It's clearly not where she'd lived before she'd been with Aizawa though, so it's probably a nice place.
A few minutes later, Aizawa stops outside a small building with bright windows and knocks on the door. The man who unlocks the door is the same height as Aizawa and dressed all in white.
"Aizawa" he greets. "Yamada sent me your message, but it wasn't very specific. How can I help?"
"Something Hizashi once said has come back to haunt me" Aizawa admits, as Yamamoto opens the door and allows the two entry. "I was looking for some advice."
Yamamoto glances down at Eri, who shuffles behind Aizawa's leg.
"Ah, you must be Eri," he says. "I've heard a lot about you."
Eri braves stepping out just a smidgen.
"Really?"
"This is Yamamoto" Aizawa tells her, and Eri gives a small 'oh' in understanding.
She knows Yamamoto. Yamada talks about him, and Aizawa once brought sushi he made home.
"Hi Mr. Yamamoto" she offers, and the chef smiles at Eri.
"Hello Eri" He replies. "You know, my youngest, Fuuta, is probably only a few years older than you. He's upstairs if you want to say hello?"
Eri glances up at Aizawa, who smiles and nods in permission, and the girl cautiously steps past the kitchen and heads for the stairs. She vaguely hears Yamamoto asking Aizawa about something called 'fostering' and how it's treating him, before it tapers off from a distance.
The upper part of the building looks deceptively large, with 2 doors on each side and another small staircase at the end. It's easy to tell where Eri is supposed to go, because only one door is open, and she can hear someone talking.
Still, she inches the door open in caution. She doesn't want to upset whoever is inside.
"Um, hello?"
The room is really small, barely wide enough to shove the bed into one end while a desk and chest of drawers line the sides. At the desk, there's a young boy, engrossed in a giant book, who jerks up at her voice.
"Oh, hello?" he says. "Who are you?"
Eri bites her lip.
"E-Eri" she stutters out. "Yamamoto said I could come up?"
The boy grins, and her shoulders drop in relief.
"Oh, you stay with Aizawa right? He mentioned he had a little girl staying with him."
He slips off the chair and sits on the floor, patting the ground next to him, and Eri happily sits down.
"Do you like staying with him?" he asks, and Eri nods.
"Oh yes. Aizawa is very nice" she insists. He brushes my hair and he buys me nice clothes and he really likes cats."
It's true. She has five stuffed cat toys on her bed right now. The secret that she actually prefers dogs is one she'll never, ever tell, because it might make Aizawa sad and make him give her away and-
"Tsuna likes cats too," Fuuta tells her. "He and Gokudera used to have some. Yamamoto prefers dogs though."
"What about you?" Eri asks, and Fuuta shrugs.
"Well, dogs are rated number 1 on most popular animals for pets" he says. "But honestly?"
His eyes dart around the room in mock suspicion, and leans in.
"I like fish, '' he admits. "When I'm older, I'll have a great big aquarium and have dozens of tropical fish. It'll be its own little universe."
"That sounds amazing," Eri gasps. She's never seen an aquarium, but it sounds amazing.
"Really?" Fuuta asks. "Most people think fish are boring."
Eri immediately shakes her head. "No, no, no."
"So…what do you like to do?" Fuuta asks, and Eri frowns.
"Um…I like being with Aizawa, and Mirio, and Izuku," she starts. "I like…"
Not being hurt any more. That was her favourite thing. But that's probably not the right answer.
"I like stories" she decides upon. "Aizawa reads me stories at bedtime, and they're really fun."
They really were. Aizawa tells her all about new worlds, and princesses trapped in towers or by curses until their heroes come to save them. About magical schools and talking animals and all the different endings where the villains don't ever win. It's possibly her favourite part of the day.
Fuuta's eyes immediately light up.
"I could tell you one," he says. "There's a story I've been really wanting to tell people, and you can tell me if it's any good?"
Eri matches his grin as Fuuta stands to grab one of the books on the desk.
"I started writing it down. Tsuna says I can tell people so long as I'm careful. It's a little rough, but-"
"I don't mind," Eri promises. "How does it start?"
Fuuta smiles.
"So, once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a boy who lived in a village with his mother. The boy was no good at anything, but he didn't mind, even when people called him Dame."
"What was his quirk?" Eri asks, and Fuuta blinks in surprise before laughing.
"Oh, um. He didn't have one. But one day, a strange man came to his door, and told his mother he was a tutor sent by his father to help the boy become a successful leader. However, in secret, he told the boy he was actually a legendary warrior sent from a faraway kingdom, to groom the boy as the next king."
"Wow!" Eri gasps.
"He told the boy that his ancestor had once been king, but had left the kingdom to his cousin when he fled. But now, all the other princes were dead, and the boy was the next rightful heir. The boy refused."
Eri's face fell.
"What? But why?"
Fuuta smiled.
"Because it wasn't just any old kingdom he was to rule, but a very powerful one. The villain kingdom."
"There's a kingdom of villains?" Eri asks, face pale, and Fuuta laughs.
"Don't worry. Only in the story" he insisted. "The warrior told him he had no choice, and then unsealed the boy's quirk."
"Unsealed?" Eri repeats.
"It turns out that the villain kings all had this very powerful quirk, and since the boy was supposed to stay away from the kingdom, it was locked away when he was very young. But now they needed to train him in it very quickly.
And so the legendary warrior started to train him, sometimes with threats or blackmail, or even trickery. Along the way, the boy started to gather knights of his own. Friends with powerful, uh, quirks, that could help him rule.
They fought many battles, and fought many enemies. One in particular was a lord from a neighbouring kingdom, who had a quirk that let him talk and interact with every version of himself in every dimension. Using this ability, he was able to take over the entire world ten years into the future."
Eri gasps.
"The boy and his friends were transported to this time in order to beat him, and in doing so, saved the timeline and helped the lord abandon his quest, becoming a friend to the boy himself."
"Oh yay!" Eri says. "So the bad lord became a good lord."
"Well, as good as a villain lord could be," Fuuta admits.
"Then the legendary warrior needed help. You see, he and seven other legendary warriors were all under a curse, and were going to die unless it was broken. The boy had grown fond of the warrior, even though he was a villain, he had always helped the boy, and given him strength and friends. So he fought the curse, and found a way to break it."
"And then the warrior became a good guy?" Eri asks, and frowns when Fuuta shakes his head.
"Everyone was happy, but the boy still had to inherit the villain kingdom. In desperation, he turned to the warrior, asking him to stand with the boy in rejecting the role. But the warrior refused. To him, the kingdom of villains was too important to leave without a king, and he believed the boy would be the best person for the job."
"But the boy didn't want to be a villain" Eri summarised "Especially the king of them."
"Right" Fuuta agrees. "He was very sad, and didn't know what to do. The Villain Kingdom was so powerful, there was nowhere in the world he would be able to run. He could never escape."
"Couldn't he ask the heroes for help?" Eri asks, and Fuuta shakes his head.
"There were no heroes in his kingdom. The Villain Kingdom was so powerful, anyone with powerful quirks was abducted into their kingdom. It was so powerful, that most people didn't even realise just how powerful they were. The boy was on his own."
Eri's face fell, and Fuuta quickly pushed on.
"But-But then!" he continued. "The lord that could speak with his other versions came to the boy, and told him of a way to escape. In the future, he had tried to bring another version of himself into his world, but the other lord didn't survive properly, but then he realised the problem was you couldn't have two versions of a person in the same world. If the boy used the method the lord used – to go to a world where the Villain Kingdom never existed, and he had never existed, he would be just fine, and the Villain Kingdom would never find him."
"So he could live a happy life!" Eri squeals.
"The boy agrees, and many of his friends agree to join him. And so, they jumped into another world."
"And lived happily ever after?" Eri asked.
Fuuta smiles. "Hopefully. That part hasn't been finished yet."
Eri nods. "It's a sad story," she says. "Nobody came to help the boy, not even the people he thought he could trust. But I like the ending. It's a happy one. I like sad stories with happy endings."
Fuuta grins back. "So do I."
"Do you think the boy and his friends will get to be happy in the new world?" Eri asks.
At the question, Fuuta looks away, glancing back at his desk and at the heavy book he'd been reading before she came in.
"I don't know," he admits. "It's hard to rank happiness. But I want to believe so."
"Eri!" Aizawa's voice calls up from the lower floor. "Are you ready to head back?"
The girl's head jerks in the direction of the door, before looking over at Fuuta apologetically.
"Thank you for the story," she says. "Maybe I can come back and hear it again?"
"Sure" Fuuta promises. "And you can tell me your story too."
"My story isn't that interesting" Eri mumbles, and Fuuta shakes his head.
"Everyone's story is interesting," he insists. "And yours is ranked pretty high."
"Ranked?" Eri repeats, and Fuuta grins.
"I'll tell you next time."
END