"You aren't normally nostalgic. You usually stick with the new tunes instead of the throwbacks." Mic brings his UA yearbooks to his coffee table. The guy had one for every year that they attended.
"It's research." He leans over and grabs the copy of the book that had started it all.
Hizashi grabs the book from their second year, "I told you you'd regret not buying them."
He ignores him.
Aizawa flips through the pages of the yearbook. Signatures and farewells were written throughout the pages. He even saw his own, Eraserhead. It was a hero course tradition to write your autograph in the book. You could write a message but your name was the bare minimum.
His friend was one of the few people who shoved a book in his face that he had actually complied with.
He comes to the first picture of the female and stops opening up the book a bit more flat.
Hizashi stops reminiscing with his book and looks to see the page his friend stops at on his lap.
He sees the similarities from her younger self and her older self. He can also see the similarities between her teenage self and her son.
"I knew she seemed familiar. That's the Babe that was in with Little Lock." Hizashi looked a bit closer at the caption, "Thornado. I'm pretty sure we had a work study with her."
Aizawa looked over at his friend. He didn't have any prominent memories that came to mind about the said woman.
"With Musha." Hizashi adds.
Aizawa's face was still blank.
"You actually did a rescue together. Pretty sure that when you started growing soft with kids." He remembers the moment.
Hizashi and himself had work study with Musha again. He was going up in the ranks and it looked good for them. Even if he was going more for the underground aspect of the hero field. He was learning a lot by working alongside the hero who was very dedicated to his work.
This year the elderly man had taken on another apprentice. Aizawa could have cared less to focus on what her name was as long as the underclassmen took the job at hand seriously.
His first impression of her was that her personality wasn't horrible. Always a smile on her face when she helped with small tasks when they were on patrols. She listened to instructions and followed through with what she was told. Hizashi and himself did more of the bigger work since they were third years. Chasing after criminals of the kind while she did more patrol related work.
It was late in the evening when he got the call. Aizawa had run from his home as fast as he could to get to the rendezvous point. There he was met with the girl. Musha was telling them about how the building was going to collapse any moment and they needed to work on getting as many of the people out as they possibly could.
He had communicated with the underclassmen on strategy to search and rescue. They'd worked together helping the residents of the building. Him with his capture cloth using it as a pull-y system and her using her wind as cushion and leverage.
There were other people on the rescue team that were assisting with debris removal and the injured.
He'd heard coughing from a small voice.
"Let me have a medic take a look at you first." The underclassmen calmly reassured, "Eraserhead, Could you stay?"
Aizawa nodded his head and crouched down next to the young girl that was pinned to the ground by a cement wall.
The girl didn't express pain across her face. She just looked scared.
"My p-plushie is under too." The girl's words cracked.
He looked at the wall that she was under.
"He's a cat and blue. Can you save him?" He heard the desperation in her voice and the water in her eyes about the separation between herself and her plush.
"Your safety and rescue come first." He deadpanned.
Did this little girl really expect him to save her stuffed cat? Those were her thoughts as she was getting crushed?
His answer didn't bring any peace to the little girl whose pained face sunk in further.
"Eraserhead, Let me check the location of impact." He was approached but a hero medic.
Stepping away, the medic examines the girl. His pink haired underclassmen positioned herself to the otherside of the girl.
"Can you save my plushie?" The child turns and pleads to her.
Aizawa denied the plea earlier but the child was persistent.
He watched the wind intern gently brush the hair away from the child's face, "Is it important to you?" A soft smile of the pinkettes face stood out against the dust from their rescues.
"My. My papa got it for me. I. I don't think he made it." The child's face broke and started to cry.
"She doesn't have any injuries that suggest damage from the obstruction removal." The medic directed toward them.
Aizawa nodded his head and leaned to speak to the kid.
"I'm going to wrap my scarf around your torso." He gestures to his classmates, "Thornado is going to push wind under the cement to lift it. Then I'm going to pull on my scarf to get you out."
The girl nods her head and tears continue to stream down her face.
He makes work with wrapping the girl while Thornado gets into position.
The little girl's hand latches onto the wind woman's ankle, "My plushie?" Her words were barely a whisper.
"And now." He instructs and in a motion he lightly pulls till he feels the full slack on the girl's body.
He drips hard and brings the girl out and has her out from the cement but Thornado didn't release the wall. Her wind was still blowing under the cement. Blowing dust and debris out and around.
The area around them starts to shake.
"IM TAKING THE GIRL!" The medic gets the girl, "We gotta get out of here. Eraser. Thornado."
"Plush-" The girl is cut off from the medic leaving with her.
Meanwhile, Thornado is struggling to strengthen the winds to lift the wall much higher than they had to throughout the entire rescue.
"We need to go. What are you doing?" Aizawa just about wraps her up to drag her out.
"THERE! We can get it."
"No. You're pushing yourself too hard." He watches as her body starts to crunch under the weight of the wall. Her strength and wind quirk only being able to take so much.
"Then hurry up and get the damn plush." She yells through gritted teeth.
Annoyed by the stubbornness he slings part of the cloth to the plush and another around his torso and whips both of them toward him.
Carrying her bridal style out of the building as it makes its way to fully collapsing.
A medic takes the now passed out pinkette in his arms. Only left with the damn cat plushie.
Aizawa locates the child it belongs to after about 30 minutes of looking through the crowd of speculators, medics, media, and heroes.
The child was sitting on the ledge of an emergency vehicle. Her head was down and her face was now empty of tears.
She was void of emotion.
He sits next to the girl and even still she doesn't look up but she does speak, "My parents didn't make it."
Handing her the toy, "Your cat." He speaks.
The little girl's hands shake as she takes it but she quickly recovers and squeezes the stuffed toy to her chest.
All the emptiness that filled her eyes were now filled with hope.
That day. That rescue was what showed Aizawa how vulnerable kids were. Even though he himself still was one. He saw how something as simple as getting the plushie made all the difference in the rescue for the little girl.
He wouldn't have gotten the toy. As a hero it was his priority to ensure the girls safety. But that was the bare minimum. He could take it a step further.
"Any relation to Jeremy Thorn?" Hizashi asks, still looking at the photo of the hero.
Aizawa also gazes at the photo again. Jeremy must have based his hero suit off of his mothers.
"It's his mother."
Hizashi pulls back, "So-"
"Yeah. That seems to be what's both Thorn's strength and weakness." Aizawa closes the book. Not feeling like he needs any more information, "The strength he learned from a single mother who faced teen pregnancy and the weakness of feeling guilty for it."
"Rock Lock spoke highly of her. I mistook her for being the Mrses and he clarified."
Aizawa hummed and thought about Principal Nezu and Mirio's proposal to her. She was completely right and wrong in her mindset on the situation. He saw both sides firmly. They had done great work with helping Eri through her trauma and development while she was in UA's care.
The family that had adopted her were currently struggling with consistent childcare for the evenings. Mirio often takes it upon himself but every so often the young Eri would return to his apartment for the evening. Making it feel like nothing had changed.
"I have to make a phone call."
Takashita was lingering again. He had been doing it more and more since Jeremy started at UA. She could see the subtle hints but there was never anything more than speculation. Her friend really could have just been trying to be nice. He could have really genuinely thought she'd want to company now that her son was away. Empty nest syndrome and all that.
But she also couldn't put the suspension aside that he wouldn't fight her if she invited him into her nest.
The house was empty of children aside from her friend's son sleeping in one of the extra rooms. Yuki had actually stayed home this weekend and Kokyu believed the girl when she said she missed her mom. But Kokyu believed more that she just didn't want to go through more training.
"Jeremy didn't come home this weekend?" Takashita asks while looking around.
They were sitting comfortably on the couch facing one another. She was in her evening sweats and he was in casual jeans and a shirt.
"He got into a fight at school and is on dorm duty. He would have come home but would have to be back really early. It kinda just made more sense for him to just stay there." She sipped her tea and watched Takashita, "So it was just Matt this evening."
Her childhood friend shifted in front of her, "Anyone coming in the morning?"
"Nope. I'm actually going to have my first day off in a long time. Unless I get any emergency call-ins. But even then I'm thinking about having Jewels come by. So that I can get some training done."
She said more than she needed too. But hoped that her wordy response would help move the conversation along. Maybe now would be the time to politely yawn and tell him to take his kid and go.
Just as she was about to proceed with her plan.
"Mind if I crash here?" His face was flushed and she noticed how his short blond hair was dissolved.
She let out a breath, "Taka." His old nickname that she hardly used anymore.
"Just on the couch." There were different emotions flashing across his face. Rejection being the top one.
"Okay. I will get you a blanket and pillow." She left and went to the hallway closet where she lingered.
Takashita was her friend and his feelings for her hadn't gone unnoticed. Even Jeremy had picked up on it a couple years ago.
She wasn't sure when she first noticed it. But it was after the war that the signs were there. He'd never dated, that she knew of, since his wife passed away.
But she had also never really dated since Jeremy either. Being a single working parent was something you got caught up in.
Kokyu heard his steps, and then there was a shade that cast over her and the closet.
She felt his presence against her back just before she saw both of the man's muscular arms in her peripheral vision. They trapped her in place.
"Taka." She felt her breath catch, "I. I haven't done that since before Jeremy." It was embarrassing to admit aloud. It was also even more humiliating when she felt the man tense behind her.
They were quiet for a bit longer before he pulled away. She felt so small with her back to him. Turning to face him.
"I'm sorry, Kokyu. I didn't mean to push." His face was flushed again and he was nervously rubbing the back of his head, "I also didn't realize."
Composing herself she then speaks, "I wouldn't expect you to know." She gestures to the closet, "Help yourself. I'm going to head to bed."
She didn't make eye contact once.
The next morning she woke up with the smoke alarm going off. She ran out of the room and on her way down the stairs she had her eyes open for the smoke.
She hears a commotion of voices in the kitchen.
"Matt-kun, go open the back door." Kokyu sees a smoke filled kitchen, her son uses the worst technique she's seen to get the smoke out the window, and Takashita was trying to salvage a hockey puck.
As Matt opens the back door and she does what she does best.
Fit the mess the children created.
She swirls her fingers around as she commands the air to uplift the heavy particles in the air. Commanding them to come together in a spout-like shape then exits the back door. Once all the smokes out she closes her hand into a fist. The wind gone and the dark particles falling to the patch of grass.
"You're going to have to show me how you did that." Her son's face lit.
Takashita shows the scorched pan, "I'll get you a new one."
Matt laughs as he shuts the back door, "Just give her ours since you never use them. Seriously Dad, What made you think you could cook breakfast?"
She chooses to ignore them and turn to her son, "I thought you had Dorm Duty."
He shrugs his shoulders, "I finished early enough to come visit."
She felt like there was more. Even Takashita was looking at the boy like there was more to it.
"It's the truth." He shrugs again, "I mean, My friends helped, which I'm not entirely sure was allowed but Aizawa Sensei didn't say they couldn't."
He was bending the rules. Since when did he bend the rules? Did she used to bend the rules?
She rubbed her temples and glanced at Takashita. Yes. She, Takashita, and Shino bent them frequently.
"Aizawa?" She heard Takashita speak aloud, "That sounds familiar."
"Okay." She claps her hands, "Matt, get changed. I'll get changed and we can go out for food."