Chapter 43
"Puppy Play time."
After school once again, Aizawa was heading over to the hospital. Mirio and Hizashi were very accepting that they were going to be spending time with Eri, so that Aizawa could help out the hospital staff with 12 different Hell-hound quirk-using children. He went to 1-E to let Hisato into his body, so he could take him to the hospital with him. Though, he did not let Hisato out around the puppies, leaving Hisato to just nap. He was just watching them so they didn't destroy the building after all.
He arrived at the hospital, and was greeted by the same doctor who had talked to him before. He looked relieved, visibly. "This way, Eraserhead. Thank you for helping us with them, I know its an unusual request."
"It's fine." he responded, dully. He'd pay a visit to his student later, to see if she was conscious, though he entirely doubted she would be. He could already hear the sound of children. "How has progress been on finding the families?"
"Some of them are found, but its taking a bit to get it all sorted properly. There's still quite a few who don't seem to have any, and one of them appears to have no record at all." He sad rather solemnly, the one with no record would likely go into foster care, with, what sounded like, a lot of them. With the stigma of hell-hound attached to them, too.
They came to a stop at the daycare door, he slid a key-card on the door opening, to the sight of a nurse desperately trying to get a small five-year-old back into their clothes. "Oh good, we can finally take them to get their blood drawn at the vet."
Aizawa stopped in the doorway and gave the woman and the doctor a hard look.
"Have you ever tried to draw blood on a five-year-old, who can turn into a dog that can breath fire, and doesn't want you to even touch them?" She gave him a deadpan, exhausted, judgmental look, as the child squirmed out of her arms, gave a hollar, turned into a hell-hound and bounded off into the room whining loudly. Aizawa had instinctively reached for the capture weapon, when the doctor blocked him.
"No! No, we just need you to watch them, let them have their.. puppy playtime, keep them from destroying their room, is all!" he explained. There was yipping and barking from the other room.
Aizawa looked at the doctor with pure exhaustion, then accepted that the variance of quirk made him still a good candidate, and one the hospital trusted. So he simply walked passed the doctor with a nod, and into the room with the nurse, where the recently escaped hell-hound puppy, charged back at him. Little teeth ready to go for him.
To which he picked her up by her ankles with the skill of a proper Pro.
The other puppies, who were currently, well, puppies, began barking and growling at him from wherever they had parked themselves. It appeared to be 6 in-total kids, who were puppies, including the one he was holding upside-down, by her hind legs. The three who were being good kids, were sitting down with toys. The youngest appeared to still be against his clothes for the most part, sitting there in his underwear, their little pink tail laid out behind them, as they twisted to look at him.
He recognized the dark haired, almost boring looking kid, as "Laser", whose eyes flickered with recognition.
"I'm going to put you down. If you try to bite me, again, I'm going to just hold you upside down, again. Got it?" he stated very clearly to the hell-puppy dangling upside-down, from his hands, who he then put down. They scurried-off in a hurry to hide behind the hut with the others, who weren't barking at him now, but they were all staring at him.
"Are you gonna bring Chargebolt?" Laser asked, finally deciding to talk to him, though the other kid, Anna, immediately started crying upon actually seeing him, and running off to hide behind the hell-puppies at the hut.
"No." He said simply, finding a plastic child's chair, and plopping down into it, while another little hound started yipping with high-pitched, chirping barks. "Perhaps tomorrow."
"Yeah!" Laser was clearly excited, and the puppy least afraid of him. Worse: coming closer to him, a big smile on his face. He got intrusively close, grabbing onto his pants even, shaking them just a little, as if barging into his personal space wasn't enough. "Hey, hey so... Can I be a Hero, too?"
"I don't know, can you stop drooling?" he returned, trying not to glare, for being grabbed.
There was a small glint of understanding in the little kid's eyes, before he got a serious face, for a six-year-old anyway. He wiped the spit from his face, before wandering-off, to play with the other kid, again. After, of course, trying to get him to put on his shift, because 'mr eraser' was there. The puppies were now coming out slowly, prowling-out like little cat-dog-skull things. Many of them looking like they were sizing him up, for a fight.
He let out a breath, and rested his head on his hand, Pro Hero and puppies, looking at each other, while the three 'well-behaved' kids went back to playing together. Anna having skirted around the edges of the room to get back to her friends. Occasionally, still glancing at him to see if he was still there.
Barely a few minutes had passed, when the door opened to the little daycare room. The 11-12 year-old, audibly referred to as 'Skillet', by the kid, currently wiggling furiously to get out of her arms, only to be carried, just a little further-in by Skillet, who was still giving him quite the stink-eye for rescuing them, of all things. The little one in her arms did not seem to care for the oldest's concerns. Eventually being put down on the ground, she had neat little bandage on her arm and the little tag on her wrist that gave the bare minimum of info available.
Which she immediately ripped-off, threw on the ground, then, hid herself. He noted that Skillet had one, still on of course, but that there were actually two others, thrown on the floor elsewhere.
"Anna" Skillet asked sweetly, while Aizawa just continued to quietly observe these kids. "You want a cookie?"
She looked over at Skillet, then over to him, then back to Skillet. She said something along the lines of 'maybe' but she was very quiet.
"I'll carry you, if you want." she offered, coming over to the small one, and picking her up before she could really protest. She seemed okay with it, clinging to Skillet, after a moment. She carried her out of the room, with one more 'glare' at Eraser, as if he was ever going to hurt a bunch of puppies.
He'd asked himself what he'd done to these children, to make them dislike him even more than the average child, except it wasn't that hard to figure out. He had come into their universe and lives as they knew it, looking as he always tended to, attacked someone who was, for all intents and purposes, their Acting Guardian and Parent.
Now, that person was gone from their lives, for the next foreseeable future, and there wasn't much he could about it. To some of them, Aizawa probably seemed like a big jerk.
He supposed some of his co-workers and students wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, either.
He looked over to the gang of hell-hound puppies, some of them had tiny pin-points for 'eyes', one had nothing at all, one of them had rounder, glowing eyes in their dark pits. All of them had their ears up, and focused on him as they got closer, to investigate.
Probably trying to decide if they were going to attack him, or not.
He moved, and they bounded for cover silently. The one he had held upside-down, darted quickly for her discarded shift, and ran with it. Whether she put it on, or not, was a mystery for now, as the door was opened, a nurse came in with a metal tub of water, apparently for Laser.
He let out a long, breath. "Well, if you kids want to be … puppies, you can."
That was what he was sort of there, to oversee, and from the looks of it they might as well start now.
For Laser, that was the only permission he needed, but to Aizawa's somewhat surprise, neatly put some of their toys safely away, grabbed the three-year-old's shift, and took-off his own.
Now, he really was just in a room of hell-hound puppies. Laser's literal bouncy self encouraged some of the others to come-out, but clearly his issue with drooling did not make him a comfortable playmate to his peers. Something he noticed, as he padded over and stuck his whole head in the water, causing it to steam.
Eventually, puppies began to play normally, for now, ignoring Aizawa, and he was fine with that. Skillet came back in, with Anna, who was already a puppy. Fluffy and blonde with spots of scale and feet too big for her little body. He noted that her tail looked segmented. Either way, she wasn't joining the others, who were rough-housing, instead considering one of the actual dog toys taken-out, before looking at him.
~I like purple puppy more.~ he couldn't stop himself from making the mental leap to Shinso, as soon as he heard this in his head. ~he's nicer than you.~
He couldn't make his mind blank, and thoughts just surfaced. ~I don't want to play with you, but I don't want to play with anyone else, either, so don't stare at me.~
Whatever thought he had afterward, he wasn't sure if the dejected-looking puppy even noticed. She padded over to hide behind some furniture. While this occurred, Skillet and a doctor had grabbed another puppy, while the rest were distracted. They continued to to do this for the rest. Drop a puppy off, and lure another one out, with a cookie. Admittedly it was hard to not find it a little cute, when they waddled out after a cookie.
000
Jonathan was settled in, next to his kid, an e-book in hand. The droning sound of the machines around her, were the only background noise. Without moving from his chair, or even looking up, he simply said; "Come in."
Which gave Hizashi considerable pause, as he had been just about to rap his knuckles on the door to let those inside, know he was coming in. "H-hey, Just.. Came in to see, since I was coming here anyway later, but.. got off work early."
Normally, he was a lot more energetic, and making hospital visits wasn't even that unusual, he'd done a few just as his Hero Persona for very sick kids. The entire situation around his 'favorite fan and student' was simply so awkward, he was caught between avoiding her room and paying her a visit.
"its only been a day." Jonathan said quietly, putting his book down. "but she's good enough they're going to check her leg, and do more work if they need to."
Hizashi just nodded slowly to him. "That's good."
Jonathan turned slightly to look at him, and in the fading daylight, his eyes were almost terrifying. Hizashi didn't know what to think about, being fixed with those eyes.
"What is my daughter to you?"
"Student!, Fan, too, I mean." Hizashi just shrugged nervously, he really was only in this area because he'd' be picking up Aizawa, when we he was done with the puppy-daycare. "I helped her out, earlier in the year, with Parasus being there and all... She seemed to be struggling with that, she seemed lost and needed support, so I was asked and I don't know, I guess I'm like her emotional-support-mentor?" He couldn't help the shrug in his shoulders or the nervous sweat, that he was being confronted by the father. He was starting to regret some of the things he'd said in private with Kayama. "Sunshine wasn't there for her, so I stepped in."
A silence filled-in before Jonathan smiled calmly, nodded his head. "Don't worry. I just wanted to know, from your mouth the situation. I didn't have any clear things to ask or say to you since I had just arrived, and you doing all that interpreting for me. She told me about UA and that she had someone to talk to, if she needed to. I figured it was probably you, from the way she spoke, but she's always been a little secretive about what she likes."
"Y-yeah I think the school kinda picked up on that." Hizashi responded with an anxious smile and a shake of his head.
Jonathan nodded, "yes, so far UA seems to have very attentive permanent staff."
"Thanks?" Hizashi looked back at Jonathan a little bit confused.
"I had an offer for you, if you'd be willing to hear me out." Jonathan's voice sounded grave. "In order to secure my daughter's future, and write her godmother, off and out completely."
"ah, uh you can't just... remove her from being her godmother?" Hizashi didn't quite understand but Jonathan shook his head no.
" 'fraid not, it was in my wife's will, and that's fairly binding. I can take Alarice back, but that is about all I can do to take Sunshine out of the picture." Jonathan didn't look too pleased, but it clearly wasn't something he needed to prod. So Hizashi didn't, though he wasn't sure he was prepared for where this was going.
" What I can do, is transfer my parental rights completely, to someone else. I just need to keep her safe, and out of the system till she's a legal adult." Their eyes met when he said that, and Hizashi let out a little noise, pointing to himself.
"m-me?" He hissed out as quietly as was likely possible while still being alarmed. "N-now hold on, surely you something can be figured out right?"
His cold eyes just stared into his green ones.
Before they could discuss Jonathan's proposal further, Aizawa walked in, looking even more exhausted and tired than usual. Aizawa scarcely acknowledged Hizashi's shocked state, far too used to the other's dramatics.
Though he barely reacted at Hisato's materialization, Jonathan nodded to the ghost, and said ghost went to do his thing. Leaving all three men in the room awkwardly, till Hizashi peaced-out to grab them some food, while they waited for Hisato to be done.