Chapter 17 – Ren Kimura

"Ready?" Ren asked Aizawa. It was day three of the temporary Pain/Erasure protocol. They were standing three feet apart faced towards each other. She locked eyes with him. "Remember to try and sense any difference when Erasure is activated. I'll have it active for 30 seconds, then we assume "touch" for 30 seconds, then I release Erasure." Aizawa said plainly. Ren nodded. His irises suddenly flashed crimson and his long black hair moved swiftly up, floating eerily above him. His hair made it look like he was falling from a great height but his body was still, his face impassive. Ren closed her eyes and tried to sense any difference in her body. She couldn't. Using a process similar to guided meditation she concentrated on her breathing, then her core, then her arms. Suddenly she felt Aizawa's hand softly grab her forearm; the 30 seconds had gone by fast. She opened her eyes. She felt her face blush and hoped he didn't notice, it made her feel ridiculous but it was an awkward situation. She looked down at her arm. Even though they had done this many times over the last three days the shock was still there for Ren. Flesh on flesh. Human touch without boundaries. Something she never had the ability to experience before. It was thrilling and alien. She suddenly realized she wasn't concentrating on feeling any difference in her body. And also that Aizawa wasn't following protocol. "Fingertip, remember?" Ren said with concern. This was the third day and yet their first engagement of the day, he would always grab her whole forearm with his hand. His hands were very warm, too warm, she thought against the cool flesh of her forearm. The AC was on full blast due to it being an unusually warm spring day. She wondered if some people had warmer hands than others. Did Aizawa have abnormally warm hands? If so, how come? These thoughts raced through her mind. She had hoped he would grab her arm again with his whole hand today. It felt nice. And, again, she realized she wasn't thinking about listening to her body for any different cues. Concentrate, Ren. He slowly lifted his hand from her arm letting all his fingers drag lightly on her skin until just the tip of his forefinger touched her. She shivered and shook her head in embarrassment hoping he didn't notice her involuntary shaking. "You okay Kimura?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah." She looked back into his eyes. His face was the same. Still and passive, he almost looked bored. That would change rather shortly though she thought slightly sadistically. She waited. He took a deep breath through his nose and let it escape out of his mouth. His warm breath washed over her, the scents of mint and coffee filled her nose. Their eyes locked for a moment, then he lowered his gaze slowly to her arm and his finger. She shifted her eyes and now focused on his other-worldly black hair moving lightly in gentle waves. In the quiet of the room, Ren swore she could feel or sense a barely perceptible hum when Aizawa had his quirk activated here. Probably was just her senses playing tricks. She held her breath. She kept her eyes on a tendril of his hair that reached the highest point above the center of his head. Waving, waving, then suddenly the tip of the tendril ceased flight and fell limp and Aizawa gasped. He swayed backward about to fall. Ren grabbed him with her other gloved hand and steadied him. His forehead was wrinkled and pained, freshly sprung tears escaped the corner of his inner eyelids. He swallowed hard but was standing on his own. Improvement from the day before.

At this point the day previous, he had reacted much more negatively to his exposure to Pain. He had cried out and then needed much more time to compose himself to continue. After three more attempts, he had blacked out. She barely was able to catch him and lower him to the ground. He had awoken about 10 seconds later. Today she hoped he would stay on his feet the whole morning. He now shook his head and grimaced. He didn't look at her. "Better than yesterday." He muttered lowly. He walked over to his desk and grabbed his bottle of eye drops. After administering a couple of drops into each eye, he made several marks on a sheet of paper, the pain scale he would fill out after every interaction. Aizawa cleared his throat and said, "Let's try again," in his usual monotone. He walked up to her leaving about 3 feet of distance. His eyes flashed red and his hair floated like an ebony crown above him. Ren closed her eyes this time and tried to empty her mind. This time she started with concentrating on her core. That was where she felt a kind of energy disperse when she activated Restoration. She felt a slight pressure on her forearm and opened her eyes. This time like previous days for his second attempt, Aizawa now placed his fingertip cautiously on her arm instead of grabbing her arm with his whole hand. His body now remembered to be afraid of her she thought. After 30 seconds he cleared his throat and completed the exercise.

Five attempts later, he blacked out completely. For some reason, his body lurched to the side so Ren had a harder time keeping him steady to where she could guide him to the floor. He managed to bang the side of his head before she could grab him well enough. "Why you insist on doing this standing up…." Ren murmured. Aizawa looked almost green now. He was splayed out on the floor, sweating and panting. Ren sat crossed-legged beside him waiting for him to recover enough to either call it a day or make another attempt. She hoped for the former. Aizawa spoke out, his voice had an edge of frustration to it that Ren was surprised to hear. "It wasn't like this that day I was fighting with you against the Marauders ten years ago. That day at Cliffside. I held on to you for seconds and it was bearable."

"What?" Ren replied with shock as she stared at him. He moved his hands and ran them down his stubbled face and then draped his left forearm over his eyes.

Aizawa didn't say anything else. He lay there for a few minutes. Ren grew impatient.

She pulled the glove she tucked in her pant pocket out and started to put it on. Aizawa, sensing movement, peeked at her from under his forearm. "No, I want to try it again."

Ren sighed, "You already passed out. I think we call it a day. We need to rethink our approach." Ren couldn't stand it anymore, "Tell me more about Cliffside."

"I will if you let me try again."

"Fine," She answered annoyed.

Aizawa sat up and crossed his legs. He looked normal again, just pale with no tint of green. He gave a cryptic half-smile. Ren loathed this look. Over the last two weeks of working on the study with him, she had learned this smile usually preceded a sarcastic or condescending remark. With Aizawa, it was either this sarcastic smirk or his usual face of impassivity and if she had to choose, she'd pick the impassive one. "Ito to this day still thinks he knocked Laertes out cold all by himself. But I had canceled out Laertes' shield quirk. I couldn't have done that and also canceled out yours as well."

Ren remembered that day on Cliffside. Aizawa, Ito, and Ren were fighting Laertes and his villain group The Marauders. Laertes was a powerful villain who could produce an almost indestructible shield several feet in front of him at will. They were at the summit on Cliffside when the villain Inferno sent a fiery blast at them. Part of the cliff gave way and Ren had slipped. Her arms were bare because she had just wrestled another villain to the ground and incapacitated him with a quick headlock using her quirk. As she fell back off the precipice, Aizawa grabbed her bare arm with his hands but had activated Erasure on her so she couldn't hurt him. If he hadn't have done that she would have fallen to her death. Laertes saw them and decided to make the most of the precarious situation. He would take them both out in their compromised situation, but not before Ito punched him and knocked him out cold. "Maybe it was the adrenaline, you were looking towards Laertes and Ito, and I knew if he got to us, it was over. So I blinked, dropping Erasure from you, and locked onto Laertes. I tensed for the shock of the pain but it wasn't intense. It was just a slight, constant burn. It was at least 6 to 7 seconds, maybe more. It was bearable, not the…. Shocking, stabbing jabs you usually give. Once Ito punched him, I locked onto you, activated Erasure, and pulled you up."

"Why didn't you tell anybody?" Ren asked. Ito was absolutely unbearable after that fight. He thought he was overpowered having knocked out Laertes through his indestructible shield. He loved rubbing this accomplishment in everyone's face. But little did he know that Aizawa had canceled out Laertes' shield. Ito was a member of another Hero Agency, Crimson Tower, and they had received all the glory from that fight. All the news coverage and accolades. The hero agencies Crimson Tower and Golden Time were in neighboring cities and were quite competitive with each other. The renowned hero Crimson Riot had founded Crimson Tower but had retired decades previously. It was led now by the hero New Moon. The two agencies often worked together due to their proximity to each other. Sometimes planned and other times they would both show up to sudden outbreaks. Cliffside had been the latter. Crimson Tower had shown up first to the fight, followed by Ren and Aizawa later. That fight would have gone completely different if Aizawa hadn't have canceled Laertes' quirk.

"It wasn't a very logical decision keeping it a secret. I thought maybe I was just really adept at handling pain. At school, during my third year in combat training class, I broke several bones on different occasions, some through the skin. My aim using my binding cloths wasn't very precise then so I had fallen a few times from a great height, missing my target. I never passed out from the pain. Recovery Girl said I had an impressive pain threshold. I collaborated with Golden Time on enough occasions that I saw you use your quirk on many villains and even with Timeswapper by accident… I know it takes less than a second to bring people to their knees. I think I didn't share what had happened with anyone because…."

Ren waited. "Because?"

"I don't know. I was a stupid kid. I'm pretty stupid now, honestly. Probably going to end up dead at the end of this experiment we're failing grandly at."

Aizawa stood up and extended his hand to Ren to help lift her off the floor. She jokingly offered her ungloved hand. "Ha ha." Aizawa said in his usual monotone deadpan. She grabbed his hand with her gloved hand and he lifted her off the ground. Immediately after he let go of her gloved hand, he quickly grabbed her bare forearm with his hand which made her jump. She looked up at him, his hair swirling above him, his eyes glowing red. "Geez, Aizawa," she said. His grip was firm. He had grabbed her forearm further down near her elbow so when he pulled her towards him they were closer than they had been in their prior attempts. Along with coffee and mint, she now smelled a redolence of musk. Their faces were so close. She could see how really bloodshot his eyes were now, he had used eye drops many times today and his own tears of pain were probably keeping his eyes moist as well, but obviously not enough Ren thought. She waited for him to loosen his grip but he didn't. "It doesn't make sense," he whispered under his breath. He drew her in closer and she felt his breath on her face. His breathing quickened. She stared into his eyes unable to move. His grip tightened again, and he pulled her closer. He held her arm against his chest now and the tips of her pinky and ring finger were touching his face, the pressure from his grip was painful. "I can bypass this," he stated.

Ren shook her head, staring at his red eyes pleading, and breathed out a, "Please, no..." His irises went a dark brown.