The corpse on the table in front of him could have been anyone, and Aizawa felt that stark disconnect from them. Even though they were someone's son. Maybe someone's brother, or someone's father. Someone's lover. They were no one to him though.
They were someone to Momo. One of the bodies she had been afflicted by, locked in that freezer. Aizawa could see the evidence of when the man had begun to thaw. There were gouges in his shoulders, below the collar bones, where the great steel meat hooks had held him up. Without a name, without an identity, they had scarred Momo. Permanently. Deeply. She would never be the same.
The morgue attendant seemed to sense that Aizawa was done, and moved to put away the corpse. Aizawa let him. He breathed in and let it out. He could see it so much better now.
He'd awoken with the dawn and left Momo's bedside to go back to Kamino Ward. There had been a team of Heroes posted at the crime scene tape around where the warehouse had stood. Aizawa had shown them his credentials then passed them by, feeling the debris shift underfoot. The air was still dense with the lingering dirt and smoke in the air. It was unpleasant to breathe. Aizawa went on anyway to the hole they'd pulled Momo out of, and he lowered himself down in.
How wretched.
The freezer stunk of the warmed fluids that the corpses had leaked. It was congealed and dense across the floor. With no light down here, it did not gleam. Stagnant, foul odor clung to the air. Thickening it. If he reached out his hand, he would feel it. Instead, he sat.
Aizawa had lowered himself to sit on the floor and closed his eyes. His nightmares played inside his lids. He could hear Momo's screams in his ears, fresh, and it drew his breath short. The corners of his mouth twitched.
"Get me out! Get me out of here! Please, someone let me out!"
It was hard to breathe, and Aizawa's head fell back, mouth open and gasping. It was dark in here. Cold. The bodies piling around him, and Momo was screaming. She was breaking. In this crushed space of sharp edges and old blood was where she'd had something stolen from her that she could never get back. The pieces were here, surrounding him, and he was unable to gather them up to return to her.
He'd wanted to save her so badly.
There was a ripping weight inside his chest. A rag tightening and wringing out, twisting hard. Twisting hard. It was creeping up his throat. Hard to breathe. Aizawa's hands clenched into fists and he made himself focus. Four, seven, eight. His eyes were wet. Momo was screaming.
"You don't have to see this, Momo. You don't have to look," he'd told her, but she'd looked despite herself and the thing in this meat locker had looked back and eaten her alive.
Aizawa left the morgue, and he left something of himself there, too, the way he'd left a piece in the freezer hours earlier. He went back to his apartment to shower and change; he threw out the suit he'd worn the night before, there was no salvaging it. Back in his plain blacks, he returned to the hospital. He ignored All Might's room as he passed it en route to Momo's.
Her father looked up from the visitor's chair.
He had the kind of exhaustion on his face that Aizawa only ever saw parents in distress wear. Haggard dark circles beneath his eyes were puffy. There was slack in his jaw. The two men met eyes, and at last Aizawa bowed his head.
"Yaoyorozu-san."
"Eraser Head."
"How is she?"
Yaoyorozu Asao cast a glance over his daughter in the bed, her eyes still closed. This was probably the most at peace she would be for the rest of her life.
"The doctors allowed her to wake up about an hour ago, but…they had to sedate her again." There was heavy grief in Yaoyorozu's tone. "They will try to wake her again later today."
"I'm sorry that this happened."
"It isn't your fault. I'm sure she thought she was doing the right thing."
The reassurances Aizawa wanted to offer were none he could say. It was there, on the tip of his tongue, to tell Yaoyorozu his secret: that he was Danchou. Yaoyorozu would know who that was, and he would know the duplicity Aizawa lived under.
He could tell Yaoyorozu then, that he would take Momo under his wing. A witch and their familiar. Bonded by their shared twin trauma. Let her come under my tutelage, I will show her how to turn her scars into her place of power. I will teach her to kill God by example. Aizawa said none of it, and instead nodded.
Yaoyorozu's phone rang, and he held up a finger to Aizawa as he turned his back to take the call. Aizawa went to the broad hospital window sill, meant for baskets and flowers, and sat with arms crossed over his chest while he waited.
"Yaoyorozu. Yes, afternoon, Saito-san—"It took restraint to keep his eyes down, but Aizawa managed."—I did procure a ticket for the fundraiser for you. We can resolve that when we meet next week. Can you wire it? Good. Have a good afternoon."
Yaoyorozu put his phone into his breast pocket before turning back to Aizawa, and only then did he raise his head, expression blank.
"My apologies."
"Of course."
"Will you be staying here?"
Aizawa considered his next words. He hoped he had satisfactorily resolved the blackmail issue, but the accusation lingered on the periphery of his mind like the huntsman at the orange flagging tape.
"I had not intended to. I have a lot of paperwork that needs to be handled in the aftermath of the last few days," he said slowly.
"I would feel better if you were to stay here." Yaoyorozu's words were a statement, not a request. "I was told that she was…hunted by one of those Nomu creatures. I do not want her to be on her own."
"I was under the impression you employed a security detail?"
A muscle in Yaoyorozu's jaw flexed, and now Aizawa was deeply interested.
"Will you stay?" Yaoyorozu said instead of answering.
Aizawa nodded.