Sixth Sense Chapter 39- Blurred, a my hero academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア fanfic

Chapter 39

Blurred

Disclaimer: I do NOT own My Hero Academia, or its characters. I DO however, own my OCs and my story.

.:+:.

... I... I never wanted any of this...

.:+:.

"Take me!"

...

"What are we at now? A little over 100?"

147

"The last few fights seemed like they were gonna break that streak though, Kitten. Each one more than the last."

...

That tiny body curled up on the floor, a shaky sob jostling him as the the shock from slamming into the floor ebbed, but he didn't even attempt to pick himself again. He simply curled in on himself tighter, pale hands clutching his head and eyes shut so so tightly, though the tears still kept coming, rolling down flushed cheeks and spattering against the gore-cached cement.

It... It was a kid

...

"... T-This is you... Isn't it...?"

His voice and question was suddenly deafening as they hit the air, the inquiry a heavy beat in a world suddenly plunged into sheer silence that even his soft voice seemed thunderous upon. The question and rumble of it landing hard and heavy along with the ten-ton weight that seemed to slam down on top of her when her eyes scanned the headline at breakneck speed.

Missing UA Student Killed In Underground Fighting Ring

...

Her eyes moved slowly off the boy, landing behind him and the wisps of pitch black slowly bleeding into reality, reaching out with thin tendrils like fingers toward the edge of his figure, moving sluggishly as the world seemed to in just that moment... all the way until the bleeding black consumed all else, and what lay waiting in that reaching void would come.

Her eyes flashed, a shiver running down her spine and a thin, ice-cold hand slowly curling its fingers around her throat, her expression growing solemn, resigned, grim, and resolute as the echo of the thought came as a low, hissing whisper in her ear.

There is nothing you can do

...

The little bit of rationality fizzled away and ended in a dead-halt, her heart skipping a painful beat and the panic that had stalled for just a second getting instantly worse in the face of what came next;

Nothing

Her face must have given away something, maybe the panic, or the heavy sense of helplessness that rammed into her, or something else among all the tumultuous things raging inside her that she could not control. She didn't know, only that something about him in front of her seemed to shift, the teen looking all the more nervous and unsure as he took a tiny, nearly reflexive step toward her- only to draw up abruptly when she flinched back.

She didn't mean to, she'd been so frozen in place it was hard to imagine her body even being capable of it. But it did happen, and no sooner did it than did his face twist a little, the searching of his eyes growing a little more confused, more uncertain, and more worried now- her stomach knotted so tightly for it she wanted to retch.

She was doing it again- the same thing where she couldn't just... S-Shit... I... I...

...

But not as unbearable as the flash of panic and fear that ran straight through her when his lips curled upward, a twisted, deeply shadowed smirk making an appearance along with a spark of something even darker in those eyes that had been stripping her down to the very bone.

He knew it- had known it. Just like she did, even if she tried not to show it.

He knew

"You are on your last life Kitten."

...

So many people, and now a kid in this hellhole- and she couldn't do a damn thing.

She shut her eyes tight against it, her teeth gritting and her shoulders hunching as she felt her stomach knot so tightly she wanted to retch, the cold getting all the more icy and painful as the utter uselessness sank in. The guilt and the hurt, and the doubt now that she'd kept at bay for two years that that wasn't so. That even if she could do so little, it wasn't nothing. It wasn't useless, it meant something, even if only a little... Didn't it...?

She bit down on the insides of her cheeks hard enough to taste blood, her shoulders hunching further and her fingers curling into her palms so tightly they trembled.

... It has to mean something... What the hell is the point if...?

...

The deathly cold grip around her throat tightened, the deep void rippling behind her as it stretched out again, creeping over the floor and back towards the cell adjacent. Her heart sank as her eyes locked with those confused, searching, terrified, and tear-filled ones of the boy staring right at her and stuck there. Stuck to her and so unaware of the shadow getting closer, or how it was spurred forward a little faster by those words being hissed directly in her ear.

"You've saved no one."

...

Then that heavy weight began dragging downwards, tugging at her very center first before beginning a quick descent down into the depths of the earth when the glare on the photo flashed out of existence. Her grey eyes flitted over a face she couldn't hardly recognize, with pale blue eyes she hadn't seen staring back at her in the mirror in so, so long. The name underneath near foreign as she read it, because it didn't belong to the girl in the photo- the girl who hadn't existed in over ten years, who had died-

Aneko Izaru

...

"I... I don't know what to do..."

...

"... What an unfortunate turn of events."

Nezu sighed heavily after murmuring the words, the UA Principle perched at the window and looking out over the campus gripped tight in violet as the last bits of the sun and its light faded on the far horizon. His shoulders sank with the words and sigh both, hands (paws) hooked behind his back as he stood near motionless in a room filled with several others who were just as still. All of them having fallen nearly silent as the grave after everything had been laid bare, and after the initial rush of it slowed... Or at least, slowed for some of them anyway.

Nezu cast a quiet glance over his shoulder and toward the most silent one of them all, the usual calm and faint chipper of his expression nowhere to be found. His attention settled on the rigid figure of the woman where she sat on a couch, hunched over with her elbows on her knees, her head dropped low between her shoulders and gripped in her hands tightly, pale fingers stark white and trembling as they tangled up in her silvery-lavender locks of hair. She was on the edge of the couch, her knees locked together, and her nearly doubled over posture made all the more unpleasant so see given how much she seemed to have curled in on herself, and how badly all the rest of her was trembling along with her hands. Her head remained bent and never lifted even an inch, her face hidden from all view but surely it was as pale as her hands were, her dull grey eyes shut tight, and jaw clenched and rigid too.

She'd stopped shaking as violently as she had since first coming into the office- or rather, since she'd first been guided into it by Aizawa. She'd been led in by the Pro with a hand firmly under her elbow, her movements jarring and shaky the whole way out of the gym to here and with Izaru only keeping her feet and kept walking because of him. Without it he was sure she'd have probably tipped over, and he wasn't sure she would have had the capacity to find her way to the office, or even keep her own feet moving, had he not been there to tug her along. When they'd drawn up on the couch he'd had to coax her into it because she didn't really seem to register where they even were, let alone grasp the idea of actually taking a seat... though once she did her knees nearly gave out on her, Aizawa's hold under her arm tightening as he saved her crashing down, and his hand intent to stay exactly where it was even as she settled, tense.

But his intentions mattered little, as his hand eventually had no choice but to move when Izaru hunched over on herself and did not budge. He'd hesitated several moments after it, the emptiness in his palm heavy as he watched her fold, her head in her hands and trembling like a leaf, silent as the grave and every muscle so tense and taught a single movement was likely to make the tendons snap. He hovered, unsure of what to do and his hand stalled a few inches shy of her arm, lips a thin line and his stomach winding itself into a million knots as he watched her, shaking and so still all at once. Her breathing elevated and shallow but quiet at the same time. Her mind and soul whirling at a million miles an hour and her body wanting so badly to follow, but never getting all the way there.

She had every right to keel over, to cry, to be a mess, to crumble and break down. And she was, sort of... But it was muted, her reaction tightly wound and restricted so it became nothing but sheer silence paired with the tremors, and the paleness of her skin. All of what she was feeling and had racing through her was tangled up inside of her and locked up. Consciously or unconsciously, it was like every part of her was fighting with itself to either let her reach the apex of the turmoil, or to keep her from it at all costs. He didn't know if she was trying to keep herself calm and restraining herself of her own accord, or if it had become buried and hampered down like all other things had been under Simon's will and order to feel nothing.

He couldn't tell, he never could, and he found himself increasingly tightly wound as he sat there and could do nothing but watch her slip further and further into her own mind and storm of too many things. He could do nothing but watch her fall further in on herself, suffering silently as it all came crashing down on her head and she pulled further and further away from reality and all else in her struggle to handle it, feel it, and simply function.

And he could do nothing

He was useless, his mind completely unable to come up with anything that would help her right then, or save her from the roiling sea of the situation. He couldn't think of anything, because even though he wanted to help her, he just couldn't think.

He tried to, fought and cursed himself and his thoughts for failing to land on the shores of rationality for even a moment. But no matter how hard he tried, it didn't change the fact that he himself was adrift in a tumultuous sea of his own, struggling not to drown himself and only barely managing it. He tried focusing on her, he managed to for the time it took to head here, but now he was stuck, barely keeping his head above the water himself as she sank further from him and he had no strength nor will to stop her from sinking.

He just ended up standing there, stiff and entirely uncomfortable where he was leaning against the back of the couch. His own shoulders were just as hunched as hers were now, his fingers digging into the furniture white knuckled, and head bent so his face remained hidden beneath his tangled dark locks. He'd shuffled there after she'd bent over and remained there, the Erasure Hero losing grip of his own emotions and runaway thoughts despite a battle not to, and all he could even manage was to move there, and stay put.

This was a whirlwind, a storm, and a hurricane of insane and impossible and damn near incomprehensible to a degree that was even less fathomable. It kept coming, spinning around and around at breakneck speed, replaying it all in rapid-time and too fast a time to keep it from getting fragmented. Shattered sections kept overlapping and mashing together, jerking this way and that with one cruel memory and another, forcing themselves back up from being buried and refusing to be swept away so quickly, if ever again. In a million years this was never in the realm of possibility, it could not be real, it was not possible and there was no way….. But this was real and this was happening, and it was the harshest truth of reality near anyone could think of in that moment.

'Unfortunate turn of events' did not even begin to cover it. Not by leagues.

Hizashi swallowed hard, the blonde hovering near the arm of the couch and standing directly with the furniture as a midpoint between both of his friends, his hands wringing together in front of him anxiously as his red eyes darted back and forth between them without end. Each moment of watching them there, hunched, rigid, and haunted too- it was absolutely aching, and the Voice Hero's stomach was knotting incessantly, sowing worry and fear further and further into his core and making him want to throw up.

Neither Izaru nor Aizawa were handling this well. Understandably of course, but the sheer intensity with which Izaru had reacted, and how quickly Aizawa seemed to fold too, was terrifying.

Izaru's state of mind, body- everything- was already on shaky enough ground as it was, and really too shaky to have had this dropped on her head so suddenly. This was bad, in so many ways than just one, and she wasn't handling it well at all- how the hell could she? After learning this? Being confronted by this, having it slapped in her face, dredging up all those awful things all at once, and dumping even worse complications on top all in one fell swoop?

But Aizawa was doing no better, the usually stoic and controlled figure of the Erasure Hero had slipped so quickly into the figure of a man about to crumble in on himself just as heavily as Izaru already had. He'd never let himself wander back toward any thought of that dreaded place, not willingly. In years he'd kept it all locked up and left it there, because when it had happened, and all the terrible things since then that Aizawa had had to go through had broken him, far more than he would ever admit to, realize, or whatever else. And each time he'd been wrenched back into some place, situation, or someone and it all went badly- this had happened. Each time, without fail, and with each time he sank into that pit and that inability to do anything, it lingered for longer and longer. He fell in deeper, and it took more to claw himself back out again. He was trying now, fighting furiously not to fall all the way down that slippery slope and to the very bottom, but he was failing miserably in the endeavor, and Hizashi swallowed hard.

This is bad-

"... I… I'm sorry…."

Everyone in the room stiffened, jumping faintly and their attention snapping over toward the shaky and breathless apology, the words bordering on a whisper, faintly hoarse, and hitching for the rather uneven breaths that caught in her throat. But she got them out anyway, even despite all reason to not have managed it in a million years. Not right then.

Izaru swallowed, sucking in a shallow and shuddering breath of air as her voice and her apology died as quickly as it had appeared, her posture hunching just a little more as her trembling hands shift, untangling from her hair as she moved them forward and her forehead fell into her palms instead, the woman's lips pursing into a taut line as she scrunched her eyes shut all the harder. She did not notice the way they all tensed, she could barely grasp what had been said around her, let alone pick apart the prickle of their unease from the storm of ten thousand things hounding her incessantly. But she had heard them, their muddled and far-off voices remaining not so far away nor intelligible they didn't manage to drive through the storm and hit home, and they kept hammering away, pounding in the ugly reality of it relentlessly, and the truth of what she'd done.

She held her breath against the wrench in her center, the trembling in her hands and her shoulders growing faintly more fervent as she grit her teeth.

S..Shit…. I….

"... I didn't mean for this to happen…. I… I didn't mean to freeze… B-but…. Tch…" Izaru stammered, her voice awfully low and terribly shaky- but worse was the thick layer of guilt woven into her tone, and they all grimaced for it. She sucked in a sharp breath of air that broke her voice off for a moment, her figure hunching a millimeter further and a shudder running down through her hands, to her shoulders, and all through the rest of her.

"... I'm sorry… I d-didn't know… I... I s-should never have….. s-shit…." She hissed, her voice nearly breaking on her that time and the sound of it had everyone else's hearts doing the same as her voice (some more so than others).

Hizashi very nearly looked like he got shot, his expression twisting as his heart went with it as he took a minuscule and entirely unconscious step in Izaru's direction, while Aizawa behind her went about as rigid as was possible. The Erasure Hero now deathly still, and silent as the grave when he heard the sheer uncertainty and regret work its way into those few shaky words, and his soul wrenched when he understood what it meant, though the actual sentiment never made it to the air. The badly fractured statement that was more broken than whole and so shattered there was no real way to know what she meant to say- but this once he understood it immediately, he understood her- got her- where he always failed to, and this was not the moment he would have wished to have earned it. Not when he knew what she meant to say was that.

'I should never have said yes to coming to UA'

And with that one instance of getting her where he did not want to this time, it only hammered in harder that irrational fear that had wormed its way into his core when he thought about why she agreed at all….. And solidified no small amount of doubt in what she'd said, seeding in a kernel of something where he didn't know if he could believe her at all, when she said it.

"Did you mean it? When you said coming here would be better?"

"This isn't your fault."

The woman jumped faintly, another hitch her in low yet rushed breaths coming in tune with the quiet and incredibly steady assurance. There was no waver in the words, no fluctuation in his tone nor a hint of uncertainty or anything of the sort. It was a statement and an utterly calm one, and insanely so given the situation. But it was calm, and unwavering, and it was gentle and firm all at once too, steadiness all wrapped up in something softer and reassuring. A statement of a fact and an assurance all at once, and one that was most certainly aimed not only at the former 'Villain' in particular, but at the deadly quiet Pro behind her as well.

Principal Nezu stopped just short of the table separating him from the couch they were at, paws hooked behind his back and expression near unto unreadable beside the subtle bit of softness there that was mirrored in his words and voice when he said it. The whole room seemed to halt after he spoke up, the statement working its way in slightly to stop the swirling, violently whirling storm for a moment and somehow managing to put a wrench in it's tumultuous movement- enough so that Izaru's trembling stalled for a moment, and her attention managed to hone in and latch on to him, dragging her slightly away from the storm raging in her thoughts and head. She even shifted faintly, her head tilting up out of her hands and gray eyes glimmering as she blinked them open for the first time in too long, settling on her feet below her. She didn't look up, she didn't hardly move either, but what little she did was enough to indicate that at least she heard it, and for now she was listening.

Nezu let out a silent breath of air when he saw the subtle shift in her figure, his eyes moving slowly from Izaru toward Aizawa next, and his tail drooping half a inch to see the tautness of the Erasure Hero's fingers digging into the couch cushions- but the little upping in the hunched ridge of his shoulders was another subtle indication that Aizawa was listening too.

Nezu's eyes dropped closed as he shook his head once and took in another breath, less quiet this time, but no less steady than before either.

"Given how young Amajiki was at the time, any records in regards to his tenure at the Pit would have been kept sealed and confidential. There was no accessing those records for any reason, and given he has never made mention of the event, there was no way for anyone to realize the connection, or even think to consider there might be one." Principal Nezu started softly, the little tug of attention to him solidifying just a fraction more with each sentence uttered in so level and calm a way, and so rational a one too. Because he was not wrong, realistically there was no way of knowing, there was no mention of it from the teen, no records UA or anyone else had been privy to in regards to it, and really- there was no real way for even Aizawa or Izaru to have recanted it, or had any good reason to.

They both certainly thought they should have, though, given how central that one little boy had been to either of them even being there or in what circumstances.

Without that boy who'd been taken and dropped into the Pit, Aizawa might never have even been asked to infiltrate the operation, and certainly not in as rapid a fashion as it had been back then.

Without that kid who had been tossed in a cell and set on that path to an end Izaru knew with certainty, she might not have done as she did, and made certain those hands clamped down around her neck and not his.

Without that sudden and horrifying appearance of someone so young in a place he should never have been in, her resolve those last few days might not have solidified as it had, and she might not have chosen what she did.

Without that kid there would have been no Aizawa and Izaru, no finding her again, maybe no realizing she was ever still alive, and maybe no having her ripped away again.

Without the rush to go in and find that little boy snatched off the street and out of his life, and the need to protect somebody so young in a place he had no business being in, maybe-

Aizawa's grip on the couch tightened further, fingers aching slightly for it and knuckles stark white.

He should have known, should have seen it, recognized it- he'd been briefed on that little boy before ever going in. He'd seen his picture, been given his name, told to be on the lookout for him. He was the reason he'd been asked to go in and let himself get caught.

He was the entire reason Aizawa had ever even agreed to go, the reason he was there, the reason he let himself get thrown in that cell, the reason he'd set himself to whatever horrors might await in that place, and the reason that Izaru had set herself to fighting that monster that had beaten her until she-

"No one could have foreseen this." Nezu's words were soft but final all at once, breaking into Aizawa's thoughts and causing the man to grit his teeth, hard.

-Maybe not, but he should have.

He should have seen it, realized it, even just remembered the tiniest fraction of it- but he couldn't, because he blocked all of it out.

He'd buried it damn it, tying every memory of that place and what had happened and who he'd lost in it tightly into a chest with a dozen locks on it, and stuffed it away into a corner of himself he'd vowed never to touch again. The same corner of himself that he'd had ripped open and laid bare again after what happened at the USJ, forcing tiny segments of that awful place back up to the surface months ago already, and then shoved full frontal into his life when he looked through the glass in that interrogation room and saw someone who was dead and he had tried so hard to forget about.

He'd tried so hard to forget about her and nearly managed it for almost a decade. He tried to erase her, tuck her away and lock up the memory of those last days and he had kept it that way, fervently…. Too fervently, because in the tangled mess of what had happened, and whose lives had been forever changed by that infernal place, he'd actually managed to erase that little boy that had pulled them all together in that one instant in time and space, and never looked back.

He remembered it now though, he had no choice but to, and he recognized the last three years of Amajiki being in UA for what it was. The skittish behavior, the downcast eyes and the nervousness that spiked whenever the Erasure Hero came into the picture, the lingering looks when they'd first met and the hitch in the younger's throat- that glint in his eyes, haunted and hopeful and aching all at once.

He recognized it now, because it was the same thing Izaru had seen already in what brief time she'd been here. He recognized the off behavior for what it was, because Amajiki had done the same thing when he'd first come to UA and met Eraserhead for the 'first' time. But unlike him, Izaru had actually put the pieces together on what it all meant and who that boy actually was, where Aizawa had failed to for three years…. Or maybe where he hadn't wanted to.

He buried it, he tried to forget- he did forget, and he should never have. Not only for the sake of that young boy who probably needed the one person who was still alive and there that had any semblance of a clue what he had been through- those awful things he might have needed someone to share with and talk to who would get it- but also because now?

He'd forgotten it, missed it, and in doing so he'd dropped Izaru unwillingly into the line of fire for something she should not have had dumped into her lap, or could really- rationally- deal with. He'd dropped her here in this awful situation and lined it up for her to be bombarded by this, forced into this and having to face this and solidify every single fear and worry she'd held on to, and he should never have-

The breath caught in Aizawa's throat, stalling tightly in his windpipe by the lump that had formed there, and was unlikely to go away anytime soon.

If he hadn't forgotten it, he would have known. He would have known who Amajiki was, what that meant, and he could have prevented all of this. If he hadn't buried it, if he had seen it… he would never have brought her here.

It seemed cruel, that him realizing that was the only reason he got her, just this once. That he knew what she tried to say, even when the words wouldn't come. And that her sentiment was just the same as his, and whatever doubts he'd thought nonexistent on the matter were very real, and much more powerful than he could have imagined. Much more, and so gut-wrenching it felt like his soul was being ripped in two when it came. Because he knew why he'd done it in the first place, and he knew deep down that it had been anything but rational, despite efforts at convincing himself otherwise.

I should never have brought her here

…. And it was all the more cruel still just how much thinking that hurt him, perhaps more than anything.

"It is no one's fault. It was a difficult situation, then and now, and we can do nothing to change the past, or what has come of it." The Principal's voice faded back in again, continuing on with no pause despite what immeasurable span of it there seemed to be in the length of those thoughts crashing down all at once. "We cannot change the fact that Amajiki is aware of who you are, and who you are to one another. That cat has been let out of the bag, so to speak, and all we can do now is to do what we can to make the best of this delicate situation. It coming about is not the fault of any one, or anything anyone could have done differently. It is simply where we are now, and we must move forward."

Aizawa swallowed, his eyes shutting tight against the words and the assurances in them he wasn't in a place to hear or put any stock in, not when it came to himself. He knew the Principal wasn't talking only to Izaru when he said it, he was keenly aware of the look Nezu settled on his back for a moment at the start, and he did not want it. No more than he wanted to be so keenly aware of the pained look from Hizashi he could feel flitting between him and her without end, or what depth of knowing there was in the blonde for what all was going through Aizawa's head just then. Because Hizashi knew better than Nezu what the Erasure Hero was likely thinking, and he knew that Nezu carefully placing the blame on 'no one' was very pointed at Aizawa in a way the Erasure Hero just… couldn't handle, not right then.

Izaru remained rigid in her space, eyes stuck to her feet and lips a thin line still, the tiny pause in her trembling figure resuming again as she swallowed, and she did her best to try and… and just think. To think, put a pause on the storm, wade through it, comprehend what was being said more than muffled noise barely breaking through- to just function.

But even comprehending what layers of meaning and rational sense were buried in the Principal's words were beyond her grasp. She heard him, she understood what they meant, what he was saying about it being too late to change it, needing to move on- she was even aware of the sentiment and duality behind it in a way to know that when he spoke to her it was just her he was talking to…. But comprehending what else that meant made the frenzy of her mind worse, and the hounding on her senses a million times more so. The violent whirl of a million things hammering down on her, pounding on her head and body, sparking against her skin, worming its way through every vein and fiber of her being and winding tightly to the point she felt her lungs constricting under the pressure of it- s-shit…

She felt the knot tighten, jerking as it cinched, but never all the way- dragging her right up to some unknown edge and dangling her there, tortuously, but never letting her go all the way. She was getting pulled back and forth, a runaway train hurtling toward the cliff at one moment and then wrenched back the next, never reaching an apex, never letting the neurons fire completely, always tensed and ready to go but never with any return or finality… it… she felt suspended and adrift, unable to grasp anything and hold on to it- let alone actually get there. To land on the shores of reason and understanding and actually let something, anything, click.

Always I don't get it, and she fought hard. Every inch of her mind was struggling to get there, to make sense of it, fight for something to even latch on to for just a moment, but doing so was monumental. And when some tiny, minuscule thing managed a way to being grasped, it was nothing.

Nothing, at all. Nothing big, nothing reasonable, nothing rational nor appropriate, and nothing that was so much the same as that emptiness from earlier that had sent her spiraling away to this chasm with no end. Her hands struggled to find hold in the emptiness and landed on that nothing.

Nothing and nowhere near anything she wanted or needed to grab a hold of, but it was all she had, and all she could do…. All her fractured and destroyed mind, body and soul could let her do.

"... What are you going to do…?"

The question felt hollow, the importance of it hampered by the breathlessness of her own voice and the near monotonous way it sounded in her own ears- an trivial inquiry more, rather than the weighted subject it was. It sounded more like she asked it as if it were some sort of… of formality, but she couldn't manage anything else in her voice or her tone, even if she wanted to. Speaking at all was quickly becoming more like something she was doing not of her own accord, but more like… auto-drive.

Detached

Hizashi's eyes darted quickly off Aizawa and back toward Izaru when she asked it, a shiver running up his spine just as it did Shota's, and faintly too in Nezu's case as well, because they heard it too. Something in Izaru's voice that had shifted, suddenly and out of nowhere. The shakiness had dropped to nothing, the breathlessness still there not nearly as jolting nor hitching as it was just a heartbeat before, her voice quiet but almost even now, it was… it was almost hollow, and instantly unnerving.

She sounded nearly like she had when she'd been so far swallowed up in that persona of Seer when she'd been brought back to the police station all of a sudden. Like she was slipping back into that shell of a doll, hollow and… and lifeless.

Kesu's ears shoved straight back against his head, the cat that had previously been sitting stiff on the table directly in front of Izaru and watching in intent silence, was now suddenly bristling, his fur fluffing up slightly. Kesu pushed himself onto his feet and forward, his front paws landing squarely on Izaru's knees, bracing himself between her and the table with his hind legs, his head tilting up to push his nose against the back of her hands still half-tangled in her hair. He butted his gently against her hands, ears flicking as they tangled in some of the silvery-lavender strands in the midst, and then pressing flatter against his head when Izaru didn't react to the contact or the attempts to gain her attention, at all.

There was no indication she was even aware of Kesu's paws on her knees, let alone of the way he was pushing against her hands and trying to duck a bit to catch her eyes either. She simply sat there, motionless, quiet, and near on to all of the trembling from just a few heartbeats before faded to nothing… which was a million times more concerning than it actually being there, as impossible as it seemed.

Hizashi's eyes flashed, the Voice Hero stiffening in his space and eyes stuck on Izaru instead of returning to that anxious flitting between her and his other friend, a chill settling quickly in his core as he watched Kesu nudge Izaru's hands a few more times, fur still slightly fluffed up, and still met with no reaction. The cat faltered, pausing for a moment as his paws on her knees tensed, looking about as anxious as one could expect a cat ever could, and Hizashi felt his own anxiety ramp up in no time with it.

She went too quiet out of nowhere. She wasn't shaking anymore, her breathing had slowed to near nothing, her voice was so devoid of anything- she was so devoid of anything, and so quickly.

Hizashi swallowed hard, eyes stuck on the woman and his thoughts starting to race as they rushed to come to terms with the unexpected shift- and a terrifyingly familiar one, one he had seen more often than he liked, but never in Izaru, and never that quickly. It was almost unnatural, like a switch flipped, and it made him squirm. Squirm and fidget because he understood it, recognized the signs of it, even if they came on too fast and seemed nearly out of place, and this was way too abrupt a shift.

Hizashi's hands that had been wringing together stilled in front of him, tense and tight around one another as he grimaced faintly.

She shut down

He couldn't blame her for it, she wasn't in a place to deal with even a fraction of this- even after the last half an hour of shaking like a leaf, crumbling quietly, sitting there in strained, oddly muted panic and whatever else- he got it.

But that… that wasn't normal. She didn't wind down to it, she didn't hit the apex of whatever she was feeling and ride it out to that end. She went from an on high to nothing, and that made him shiver involuntarily.

People don't go from freaking out, barely holding themselves together and from being (justifiably) on the verge of a panic attack to almost nothing in the span of a second. They don't flip switches like that, not that fast, it wasn't- shit.

Is… Is this something still left over from Simon's Quirk?

She'd panicked, scared and caught entirely off guard, she'd been shaking and so still all at once. Her breathing elevated and shallow but quiet at the same time. Her mind and soul whirling at a million miles an hour and her body wanting so badly to follow, but never getting all the way there- the whole time.

Everything about her reaction was muted, tightly wound and restricted so it became nothing but sheer silence paired with only the faintest hints of all the normal reactions. She had been trembling but it was stiff, breaths fast-paced but so impossibly level and even all the same, posture liable to break but still held tightly to some semblance of not quite broken the entire time. Like all of what she was feeling and had racing through her, was tangled up and locked down, forced into some strangled sense of semi-composure she shouldn't have- but that she had no choice but to adhere to it. A still lingering echo buried deeply in her person that whispered still…. And one that just then, at some near snap of someone's fingers, that echo won out and became the decisive order it had once been.

Simon Says stop

And just like that, just like a switch had been flipped- she did. And she didn't have a choice.

Hizashi's jaw clenched, red eyes flashing as he remained fixed in his spot, his gaze darting briefly off Izaru toward Aizawa when he saw way the Erasure Hero stiffened, his head cantering just slightly, titling just enough to spare a glance back toward the woman for the first time since placing himself in his space and staying put. Even with Aizawa struggling to keep his head above the water of his own ocean of turmoil, he picked up on the shift too, and the ache in his face (for what little of it Hizashi could see past his hair and scarf both), was agonizing, in more ways than one.

Because what were they supposed to do? If they were right and this was some lingering consequence of Simon's Quirk more so than it was a normal response to the turmoil, and the trauma? A Quirk that had her so far and so long detached from any notion of feeling anything, that even on a normal day everything about her was muted and she couldn't get a grasp of her own thoughts and emotions? A Quirk that so easily had her slipping right back into some semblance of that hollow person of 'Seer' that she'd been forced into being for ten years? How were they supposed to do anything against a Quirk that could turn someone into something so lifeless, and keep them that way, for that long? And still do so, even now weeks and months apart from the source?

There was nothing they could do, not really. They were about as useless as they could be against something like that, and useless more so, because even if you took Simon out of the equation?

Neither of them would have known what to do in normal circumstances for her either, because neither of them had seen her shut down before, or even come close to it. And trying to navigate that unknown layered in a further unknown for what they definitely should not do in trying to help her, made it all the more impossible. Because they both knew she wasn't in a good place even when she was calm or it was a 'normal' day. There were things that had never bothered her before the Pit, Simon, and all else, that definitely did bother her now- and they weren't sure what they could do that might make it better, or just make things worse.

They could do nothing…. And in the quake of that uselessness it had Aizawa losing what little traction he was struggling to keep hold of on his own slippery slope, and Hizashi stiffened when he saw it. Saw the way the man grimaced and his eyes dropped off Izaru again, his head sinking so low now there was no way to see his face, and his shoulders went right along with it.

He wanted to do something, but he couldn't comprehend a damn thing to do. He couldn't think, could hardly breathe, barely keep himself sitting there, and certainly was quickly losing the battle to keep himself out of that chasm that so wanted to swallow him whole. A chasm perhaps not unlike the one Izaru had suddenly nosedived into, and there was no telling when or if she would come out of it again.…. And no telling if the Erasure Hero would claw his way back up again anytime soon either, and that made Hizashi's heart skip a panicked beat in his chest.

Shit, what was he supposed to do? He had to do something, right? He needed to try, he couldn't just stand there helpless- right…?

The Voice Hero looked quickly between both of them, teetering still, stuck in the middle, unsure of where to go, who to focus on, whether or not to try something- anything- or avoid doing so and making things worse…. He felt the need to try, urgently so, or risk losing hold of both of them entirely.

He swallowed hard, hands tightening where he had clasped them together, shaking.

He…. tch.

Hizashi stepped around the back of the couch stiffly, lips a thin line and center aching as he brought himself from the center and toward Aizawa wordlessly, red eyes glimmering as he stopped a pace short of the man, and placed himself there now with the furniture a decisive barrier between himself and Izaru still unmoving, even despite Kesu's gentle prodding. The Voice Hero cast her an anxious look, swallowing against the heavy lump in his throat.

He didn't know what… What to do for Izaru… Nothing that didn't hold that risk of making it worse, especially right now with her already having- damn it.

Hizashi let his attention move from her and toward Aizawa, shoulders sinking and silent as he lift a hand and settled it lightly on the Erasure Hero's sunken shoulder, light but firm enough- and Aizawa stiffened reflexively against the contact near immediately… before it tapered off again, and he simply let it be. He said nothing to the gesture, and Hizashi made no attempt to call further attention to it either, he just let it stay there, even when his stomach curled tightly to feel the faint and near imperceptible tremors running through his friend.

He knew Shota wasn't huge on personal contact at the best of times, but he also knew that even that tiny gesture was the only thing he could give at the moment. A gesture that he had long since learned was appreciated and helpful, even if Aizawa didn't want to agree or realize it, and a gesture he was all too aware that he couldn't reciprocate for Izaru too. Not when the memory of her hand shaking when she did the same thing to him a week ago invaded his thoughts, and all times before it where he'd noticed how stiff she got whenever anyone got close, or reached out.

He didn't know what to do for her, but he did have something he could do for his other friend, so he did what he could….. even when it felt he was failing one over the other.

Kesu's head turned from Izaru to cast a quick glance back at Nezu, the Principal's own ears falling just as the cat's had when their eyes met just for a millisecond, before the Principal seemed to force himself a steadying breath, cautious.

"... we will need to have a discussion about it with the rest of the staff, and with the police as well, before deciding on anything going forward." Nezu spoke up quietly after the tense pause that came in the quake of that shift in Izaru, replying to that question she'd asked with such a sudden lack of anything.

His answer didn't earn any more of a reaction than Kesu's attempts at nudging her seemed to, the cat's tail dropping slightly behind him as Nezu seemed to mull a moment to himself, dark eyes watching the motionless woman for a heartbeat, before he shook his head once and nearly to himself.

…. What were they going to do indeed…..

The Principal's attention moved slowly from Izaru ahead of him and then passed Aizawa and Hizashi too, landing on the figure of Kazuho where the older woman had taken up residence just beside the door to the office, arms crossed over her chest and watching in sheer silence. She had stepped inside the room a bit ago, quietly so and without drawing any attention to herself after having surely left a room adjacent to the office where she, Recovery Girl, and Hound Dog had been attempting to settle Amajiki and tread lightly on pressing what had happened, and garner further details of this 'unfortunate turn of events'.

Beside the neutral visage of Kazuho stood Nemuri, who had come in along with her and also settled into simply watching, rooted in her spot and her attempts at having her expression remain neutral failing when uncertainty and sympathy wormed their way through. She couldn't help it though, not when she saw what Hizashi did, and knew that this was bad… really bad.

But Nemuri had the right amount of caution that warned her not to intrude unless she was sure nothing worse would come of it, and though it made her fidget slightly to keep herself at the door and wait for some word or sign she should come in further- she stayed put. She had enough sense to realize she needed to follow someone else's lead on where to go from here, and that person was who Nezu looked to just then; Kazuho.

Nemuri lips pursed, eyes glittering behind her glasses as she watched the Principal and Kazuho share some silent word between them, the older woman aware of the attention from UA's Principal though she surely couldn't really see him look her way. But Kazuho knew Nezu was looking for a sign on the next step, some quiet plan of action on what to do and how he might proceed- if at all- and Kazuho seemed to force herself a heavy sigh under her breath, pale yellow eyes shifting slowly from the general area of the group at the couch, and to the floor. She was quiet for a tense moment, skin crawling and her attention muddied by what storm of things she could feel brewing and festering from across the room…. Much too potent to be normal, a sure sign of how delicate the situation was, and very aware of that shift in Izaru they all noted, but she felt something more than all the rest could.

Something heavy, cold, confining- controlling, and not at all natural…. Something she'd felt a fraction of before, and now she felt it with such intensity it was almost frightening, and it was certainly concerning, on many levels. This was quite a bit more complicated than she could have anticipated, and now?

Now they had no choice but to do damage control, and that in itself was coming much sooner than she would have liked.

The older woman tilted her head up, her eyes leaving the blurry emptiness of the floor and finding the bunched shadows across the way, honing in on the shortest of the lot and on Nezu as much as she could, and she shook her head once, stiffly.

Nezu's ears drooped a bit with the silent response, the Principal taking in a deep breath as he looked away from Kazuho and back toward the still unmoving Izaru, his shoulders sinking heavily.

"... That discussion will come later." Nezu started up again, quietly and the words directed for everyone in the room, though his eyes were still on the 'Villain' ahead of him. "For now I think it best we all take a moment, clear our heads, and reconvene when we've settled… There is no use in rushing for a solution. For now I believe we all need some time to think." He murmured, his eyes steady where they were even as Kazuho shifted on her feet and gestured silently for Nemuri to move toward the pair of Aizawa and Hizashi, a hushed whisper between them earning a stiff nod from the R-Rated Hero.

Nemuri finally moved from her space and approached both men, her hand coming up lightly against Hizashi's elbow as she tilted her head toward the door out of the office with a pointed glance between it and Aizawa, who didn't even glance up as she got near. The Voice Hero seemed hesitant at what the look meant, anxiousness written all over his face as he cast an uneasy look from her, to Shota, and then to Izaru- but Nemuri shook her head once, the R-Rated Hero almost insanely calm (calmer than him anyway) as she gestured a bit more firmly toward the door.

"Go get some air." She murmured, her eyes flicking from Hizashi and toward Aizawa next, the Erasure Hero stiffening at the words and titling his chin up enough to cast her sideways glance from behind his tangled bangs, and Nemuri held the stare steadily, her voice level and firm.

"Both of you."

Aizawa seemed to grimace at it, though with his chin buried in his capturing device there was no way of telling. But the immediate way his fingers dug more firmly into the couch was enough to make it clear he did not want to do that- he didn't want to move, let alone leave, but the look Nemuri gave him made it even more clear she was not going to budge, and he just… couldn't.

And once he forced himself away from the couch, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets, head down between his shoulders and took that first stiff step away- he couldn't stop then either, and he sure as hell couldn't look back.

And he hated it…. Hated himself for it.

Hizashi was right behind Eraserhead, eyes stuck to the dark haired man as he made his way stiffly from the room, bent and rigid the whole way through, and grim and silent as the grave despite what storm was raging inside. The Voice Hero cast the office and those left in it a glimmering look as they went, but he kept after Aizawa all the same- determined to do this, where it was the only thing available to do.

He couldn't do anything for one of his friends right now, and as painful as it was, he knew that. He could do nothing for her…. but hell if he was going to let his other friend- his best friend- go off by himself right now. Not with him slipping, not with him hurting, not with all of this pounding down on his head and his shoulders all at once (too much), and not alone.

Not again

The office door closed with a soft click, Nemuri's arms crossing over her chest as some of her calm seemed to deflate with the retreat of the two, and her attention shift slowly toward where Izaru sat. Where the former 'Villain' and woman dropped out of nowhere back into their lives had still not budged an inch, nor even twitched in the slightest when they went, or seemed to hear the words.

Nothing

Kazuho stepped quietly across the room, hands in her jacket pockets, pale yellow eyes flashing behind the glasses perched on the very edge of her nose, and stopped at the corner of the table to Izaru's left. Kesu pushed himself back off the woman's knees and onto the table entirely, sitting down again slowly and yellow eyes stuck to the woman, ears down and tail too as he gave up, though he didn't seem to want to. But no amount of him nudging her did a damn thing, it was useless and Kesu knew it…. So did Kazuho.

That couldn't stop them from trying, though. They had to try, for the sake of damage control, for the sake of those caught up in this mess and having to deal with the fallout that would come with it… for her sake, most of all.

Kazuho's hand lift from her coat pocket and toward her person as she pulled her glasses from her nose slowly, folding them up and setting them down on the coffee table as the woman lowered herself into sitting on the edge of it. She brought herself level with that woman still bent over, their knees barely a few inches shy of each other, and closer than a few days prior back in the staff dorms that had earned nothing but instant tension. But now… now nothing.

The heaviness was unbearable, constant, suffocating, and a void of absolutely everything and nothing all at once. So many things all twisted and tangled together they were overwhelming already at a distance, and ten times more so with the little bit there was between them now- if Kazuho had any mind to reach out, she would have been terrified to do so for the sheer intensity of what would come with the contact. But she wouldn't, she had set herself to avoid that at any cost since her misstep with her healing Izaru, and she would avoid it at all costs more so right now. She did not think she would earn a reaction from Izaru if she did it, not with her like this, but the consequences of it coming later were more than enough to avoid it at that all costs.

Because this… that haze Kazuho had felt, and theorized was perhaps a lingering effect of Simon's Quirk? This was that, she was sure of it now, but the power of it right in this instant was nothing like before.

She had shut down, in the most immutable and real sense- the most impossible sense, but Kazuho could not deny it, not with what she was feeling coming from that woman who was both unresponsive and so utterly whirling all at once.

She was feeling all of it, an ocean built up of decades of hurt, trauma, horror- all of that spinning and swirling and tearing her apart, things that had sent her spiraling in the quake of learning who Amajiki was, reliving what had gone on, realizing what it meant now and what complications it stirred. All of it was there, still raging, still lashing out, demanding for her to face it, feel it, live it- but she couldn't.

That something, that haze- that still persistent and lingering hold of some Quirk with a reach that was quickly becoming unfathomable- that was making it so she wasn't allowed to touch it, any of it. It put a block up, a wall and locked it down, forced compliance that was keeping her from being able to face that storm, or even just feel it at all. Forced her back into a role and form of a person who could not feel any of it, would not feel it, and allowed it to rage and tear her apart relentlessly without consciously knowing the damage it was doing, and without hindrance. It was tearing her to shreds from the inside out, and yet she wasn't allowed to feel it. Just like she hadn't felt it in ten years…. And now still it was carving away, festering, ripping, and there was no stopping it. There was no choice left to even try, not even if there was an unbearable want or need to.

Don't feel, strip it away, detach it, be numb, don't think. Nothing, not even when you decay and rot without ever knowing you're crumbling the whole time, without ever knowing the damage that's being left and allowed to settle, irreparable, and without ever knowing what for, or why. Nothing as you waste away and can do nothing but keep going, unaware that you are dead and walking-

Kazuho's lips pulled into a tight line, the woman winding her fingers together in her lap. She took a deep breath and let it out, her voice steady despite all rational sense not to be, despite her mind fighting to resist the whirling and remain fixed in that need to try… or else.

"Izaru, look at me please."

Kazuho had no hope there would be a response that time either, no hope the gentle words and what she asked would be followed or even heard. The hope more than anything as she said it, was that there would still remain nothing, no reply, no budge, no sign of hearing it and no ability to comprehend it…. The hope that was dashed when Izaru twitched, and the woman's head lift up to look at Kazuho, stiffly as her hands fell limply away from her face and into her lap, and her completely blank and barren expression settled on the woman- alert, at attention, but with absolutely no light left in blue eyes drained to grey as the rot kept growing for a decade and more, and never stopped.

Hope that died and got replaced in the wash of something icy cold falling heavy over top of everyone in the room when the request was registered as an order and Izaru obeyed with no thought or feeling to it, instantly. Just like she had been for ten years under the direction of a Quirk that they knew absolutely nothing about, how deep it went, what all it could do- or what it was still doing and might do, even weeks or months or years spent away from its source. What it was doing now, causing this, suddenly and without warning and so, so fast. Too fast.

This… this was horrifying.

.:+:.

I… what did I do…?

I… I s-screwed up…. I…. I can't….I…. don't…. Know what….?

This… e-everything is so… so far away….…. why….?

… why is everything…. So…. s-so blurry…? N-nothing is….

W…what…. what is w-wrong with me…?

.:+:.

"... Is Amajiki alright?" Principal Nezu asked quietly, his eyes landing on Recovery Girl as the Old Lady stepped inside the office and closed the door behind her softly, lips pursed and eyes down, her hand atop her can rigid, tense.

Recovery Girl gave the office a quick once over before attempting to answer, her eyes finding the figure of Kazuho sitting in one of the armchairs in the center of the space, elbows on her knees and hands folded together, her forehead resting against the back of them and red hair falling loosely about her face, hiding it further than her hands already did. The women's lab coat was abandoned on the back of the chair behind her, her bent posture exuding no small amount of tension and exhaustion both as she sat there in silence, seemingly deep in thought and not glancing up even once as Recovery Girl came in… she looked worn, and if the tension in her shoulders were any indication of how serious things were, she wasn't sure what else could be.

It was rare to see Kazuho looking tired at all, let alone tense- years of practice had her composed and careful about her outward perception, especially around patients. But now it was just her and Nezu in the room before Recovery Girl came in, and for the lack of eyes she'd let her composure slip, and all that had been mounting (and quickly) over the last two and half hours was now hanging over her shoulders like huge weights. Dragging her slightly down into that hunched position, fueling the slightly anxious bouncing of her heel against the floor, and garnering a faint tremble in the woman's fingers- all of which was so easy to see where it rarely ever was, and Recovery Girl felt her stomach drop slightly.

Recovery Girl looked from Kazuho and back toward the Principal, her cane tapping on the floor lightly as she headed in and toward the two.

"He's shaken, understandably. And confused." Recovery Girl replied lowly, "The poor boy's always been such an anxious personality, and none of this is helping with that. It's taken a lot to get him to settle what little he has, but he's not likely to work past it for awhile yet…. I doubt he'll work through it at all until he understands better what is going on." She murmured, coming to a pause at the end of the coffee table where Kazuho's glasses were still set atop, and had been for hours. The Old Lady gave the glasses a fleeting look before sighing, both hands settling on her cane and shaking her head faintly.

"He's gone back to the Dorms for now, Hound Dog will check in on him for the rest of the night. I told him to try and get some rest, but I really don't think he'll be able to sleep." Recovery Girl murmured and Nezu nodded once, his eyes falling closed while Kazuho let out a breath more like an exhausted huff, the woman shaking her head slightly against her hands.

"Nobody's sleeping tonight." Kazuho mumbled wearily, Recovery Girl's expression twisted faintly at the comment.

"What happened?" The Old Lady asked quietly, her voice dropping a decibel and Kazuho's shoulders hunched faintly for it, the woman forcing out a heavy sigh as she pushed herself up from leaning over and instead let her back hit the cushion, her head falling over the back of the chair and pale yellow eyes locking onto the roof.

"She's shut down." Kazuho replied lowly, Recovery Girl grimacing faintly for the response, but not altogether surprised by it.

"It was a shock, it's not an uncommon reaction in these sorts of situations." The Old Lady murmured, and Kazuho seemed to bite the insides of her cheeks at it, eyes narrowing and quiet a moment.

"... No, it makes sense as a response to trauma… As a way to cope with it where she couldn't handle it… but it wasn't that, not entirely." Kazuho murmured at length and Recovery Girl blinked, her eyes narrowing faintly in question.

"What do you mean?" She asked and Kazuho grimaced, her eyes shutting again and her head tilting further back over the top of the chair, her hands moving up to push her hair from her face.

"... I think Simon's Quirk is still affecting her…. Still influencing her… in more ways than I care to think about…" Kazuho murmured slowly and at length, Recovery Girl stiffened.

"... there is so much buried there… so much she feels all the time, so much that's so intense…. It's constant, it never ends, and I know some of that has to be her Quirk- but it's more than that, it has to be…. I have never once met someone whose emotions are so immense and palpable I can feel them from across a bloody room, always…..." Kazuho grumbled, the admission earning uneasy and slightly stunned looks from Nezu and Recovery Girl both, but she didn't pause.

"... she was feeling all of it, all at once, it's all there and building, compounding over and over and getting worse but she…. Izaru can't feel it, not really, because there's a block there. It's not a choice to suppress it, it's not a simple response to the trauma that's keeping it at arm's length or making her ignore it. That much is too much to not feel through willpower alone. There's something else that's shoved its way between her ability to feel it at all, something that's suppressing the emotion, the pain, the damage- forcing it away and out of sight and just…. Destroyed any connection to it where she'd have a chance to reach it, experience it in a normal way, get to a point of even just being able to recognize or process it… ever…"

Kazuho cut herself off with a small growl under her breath, her fingers linking together as she let her hands fall over her eyes and she seemed to sink further into the couch, weary and near defeated.

"... I told you I felt something like a haze hanging over her, when I used my Quirk to heal her." Kazuho murmured, "Something that dulled some of the things I could feel from her, slowed them down and muddied them enough they were a challenge to comprehend, but not impossible….. But this…. Shit." She grumbled, shoulders tensing. "This isn't just a fog, it's more deeply rooted than that. It's snaked its way through every inch of her person and affixed itself, built itself up over a decade and damaged and indoctrinated as it went…. She's been nowhere near Simon for who the hell knows how long, rationally it's been too long for anything to not have faded already, but it's still there… still there and dragging her back into the don't feel, don't think, do nothing unless you're… told to…"

Kazuho trailed off to nothing and Recovery Girl swallowed, quiet in her space as she watched the younger woman's posture tense a little more than it already had, and she grimaced to herself.

"... I don't know if it was entirely the Quirk making a resurgence, or if it was just something she's gotten so used to and fell back on unconsciously to try and cope with it all… Maybe it was a bit of both." Kazuho mumbled, nearly to herself, before shaking her head and tilting her head back off the top of the chair, sighing.

"She's not responsive, not really. I think she's half-aware right now, in something like that fugue state she seemed to be in when she was under Simon's control…. Aware but… Hollow, for lack of a better word." Kazuho mumbled quietly, "She was listening, she was tracking what was being said to her and it was landing in some way… Enough to function the bare minimum… But that was it. She listened, she did what I asked, even just suggestions, like they were orders…. or it was all she could do to follow some direction, whatever it was, otherwise she wouldn't do anything… Not on her own, not right now."

Kazuho bit the inside of her cheek, eyes closing as she lift a hand and rubbed at them, trying to alleviate some of the migraine coming on, and surely failing.

"... She was following orders…?" Recovery Girl echoed uneasily, her voice several decibels lower than just before, and grave too.

"Yes, though I imagine in this instance it was more like her following directions back when she was in custody." Nezu piped in quietly, paws hooking behind his back. "Nothing that was said was really meant as a directive, we were not looking to tell her what to do or take away any thought to doing something else… I do think it was simply easier for her to not have to make the decisions herself. It's all she's known for such a large portion of her life, it's familiar- if unpleasant- and people tend to latch on to the familiar things when the world seems to be spinning out of control." He murmured, Recovery Girl's expression twisting and softening all at once as her eyes fell to her hands on her cane.

"... But even still, it might not have been just a way to cope with it. It is likely the shock still did trigger some lingering effects of Simon's Quirk, and that led her back toward who she was as 'Seer' all the more quickly." Nezu added next, and lowly so. "We knew there would likely be side effects from a Quirk as powerful as this, I had just hoped it might take a bit longer before the time came where they reared their head so fervently. Izaru has been withdrawn thus far, and not without her challenges even in the short time being here, but she seemed to have been settling into the routine of the school year nicely. She was adjusting, slowly so perhaps, but certainly better than one could hope… this is quite the large wrench in that track forward." He sighed, ears drooping slightly, his voice soft and faintly disconcerted.

And it was disconcerting, along with distressing and no small amount of discouraging. No one expected this road to be easy, everyone who knew anything of this had anticipated there being bad days, and challenges, and having to tread lightly and mind their newest staff member with care and patience. They'd all known what they were signing up for when the vote to bring her to UA was put forth, but it had barely been a few weeks and already they'd slammed into this hurdle that seemed big enough to shatter what little hope there seemed to be on that question that lingered in all their minds…. And worse, it was a hurdle that was in the way of more than just Izaru.

This was perhaps a bigger and more complicated obstacle to get over than they were ready for, and so soon.

There was a heartbeat of silence where the reality of that seemed to sink in all the heavier, none of the three moving for a tense moment as they digested it and all the rest… And then Recovery Girl glanced up again, concern clear as day in her voice and over her features.

"Where is Izaru?" She asked softly, Kazuho let out a small breath.

"Midnight brought her back to the staff dorms." The woman replied, "She'll keep an eye on Izaru for the night. I gave her a few directions on what to look out for, and what to avoid, for the meantime."

"... The meantime?" Recovery Girl murmured, Kazuho's hand fell from her face slowly.

"I don't know how long she's going to be shut down for." The woman admitted quietly, "Looking at it outside the context of Simon's Quirk... It's almost like dissociation, and she's in deep right now." Kazuho explained quietly, shaking her head once. "... And I don't know how to pull her out of it. I tried, but it went nowhere. I don't have any gauge of how long it's going to last, and I haven't had the chance to determine best practice and avoidance when it comes to Izaru. I don't know what works with her, or what makes everything worse, not in any substantial way. Nobody does." Kazuho mumbled, pale yellow eyes flashing. "For right now all we have left to do is to try and minimize escalating any of what triggered this in the first place, and find some way to ease her back out of it again… If we can." Kazuho murmured, her elbow falling onto the arm rest and her cheek tilting into the palm of her hand.

"... And hope that when and if she does… that all of this hasn't set her back too far… or indefinitely."

.:+:.

My feet are… Moving on their own….

I… I can't hear anything… It's…. Static…. So… How does my body know to…?

…. I… I can hear it but… It's… It's so muffled, I don't…

…. Why… Is my body moving…. Without me knowing….?

It's…. Not possible…. I can't move and not know how or w-why I am… I….

…. Nothing…. Is making sense…. So how…?

No… I…. I've been here before…. The world…. It's been blurry… D-dark like this before…. And I still….

… I… Did… Those things… Even without…. S..shit…

….. I screwed up… I froze… I….

… What the hell did I do…?

… What the hell… Is… Happening….?

I… I don't….

.:+:.

"Here…. Please drink something, alright…?"

.:+:.

"... What are we going to do about Amajiki?"

Snipe's question was the most pressing, though it had been avoided since the start of the meeting- the very rushed and emergent meeting, where only a scattered fraction of UA's staff were present around the U-shaped table, and not the whole. The empty seats belonging to Midnight, Hound Dog, Mic, Eraserhead and Recovery Girl stood out among the assembled, grim-faced all and tense in their own spaces where they had gathered and settled to hear of the events that had befallen that evening, and were still very much in a rushed and delicate motion even as the sun sank and the sky turned violet and black outside.

They'd sat there, fixed and deadly quiet as the situation was recanted and the details laid bare. The realizations, and implications heavy over top them, and the seriousness and sheer uncertainty of what would come next layering the room like a fog. Each and every one of them recognized the severity of it, each and every single one of them knew this was bad- and each and every one of them knew immediately that whatever step was taken following this, could have dire consequences. Consequences a million times more dire than they'd ever dared to imagine would come when last they were in that room and the decision made to the immediate fate of the 'Villain' Seer was voted on.

This was in several ways the worst case scenario none of them had hoped to face, and never in the course of only a few weeks. A worst case scenario where Izaru being at UA had now done the very last thing any of them had wanted or prepared for- where they never anticipated her reappearance into the world would not only rip open old wounds in some of their colleagues (most of who were not at that table now), but would also rip open an old and terrible wound in one of those students they had all sworn to protect at all costs.

And it wasn't Izaru's fault, not a single person in that room moved to place blame for the worst case scenario on the woman, or ever would. They had known the likely risks she would bring, they knew what they were setting themselves up to potentially walking into- they knew this was not something any of them could have foreseen or prepared for, and really it wasn't so unlike whatever other surprises and hiccups they might have anticipated either.

It was a challenge, a wrench in the day-to-day and now something they needed to handle, and they were prepared for an eventuality of that, and had been from the start…. But none of that would stop tiny flickers of regret from working its way into their subconsciouses, or letting the unpleasant thought that their vote to bring her here might have been more of a mistake than they'd originally intended it might turn into.

Occupying a singular empty space near the entrance to the meeting room stood Detective Tsukauchi, near directly opposite Nezu perched at the far end, and the man looking just as grim as the Pros- and more so, when the question that weighed heavy on all their minds was finally asked so plainly.

"Even if Izaru didn't confirm who she was to him directly, it doesn't change the fact that he knows who she is." Snipe continued on quietly, voice slightly muffled by his mask. "Given what happened with them, I doubt that even confronting her about it was meant to confirm it- he was already sure of his answer before he asked, he's probably been sure of it since the first day."

"And he knows about the Pit, and what happened there, more than most." Ectoplasm mumbled, "This isn't the case of someone stumbling upon old news regarding what happened there, he lived it first hand and was directly in the center of it all. He knows Izaru isn't supposed to be alive, he was told she didn't survive and he had every reason to believe that. He's not going to be able to move past her sudden reappearance without asking questions, or looking for some explanation."

"And it wouldn't be fair to expect him to, even if it's been prohibited." Vlad grumbled lowly, his arms crossed over his chest and leaning back in his chair as he shot Tsukauchi a sideways glance. "Deciding to keep what happened with her under wraps from the school is easy enough if they don't already know some of the details. Even keeping Midoriya in the dark what amount he is, is only working because he doesn't know what happened for Izaru to even end up with Simon in the first place. What he does know is little enough he doesn't need the details, but Amajiki already knows too much for that to work."

"You're right." Tsukauchi mumbled quietly, his eyes dropping to the table in front of him for a moment. "It wouldn't be fair to expect Amajiki to drop the subject, it's too personal to him and his knowledge of the events puts him in the position where Midoriya's advantage of 'ignorance is bliss' is never going to work… We weren't anticipating any of the students ever having a clue of what happened before Simon became an issue, we whole-heartedly intended to never let that information be known or public to anyone in the school simply to avoid having to juggle those complicated questions with her being alive and how. And even apart from it being all tangled up in the investigation into Simon, letting any of the kids know even a little bit about what happened at the Pit and thereafter…. It's not something I would want to place on any of their consciences, it's too unpleasant to burden any of them with unnecessarily." He sighed, shaking his head a bit.

"... And that's to say nothing to how Izaru might even feel with having that information spread around too much….." Tsukauchi added softly, almost tensely so, and All Might sitting off to the Detective's left with his forehead leaning into the back of his hands seemed to stiffen for the mention of it.

"Ignoring for a moment that disclosing the information has been disallowed, and the fact that it might not be fair to keep that information from Amajiki at all- how do we know telling him anything won't just cause more harm than good?" Thirteen piped in quietly, "This is personal for him, he lived through what happened at the Pit and there's no way he walked away from it without some lasting effect. He's always been an anxious person, and knowing what we do now- that all makes sense… He's likely carried scars from what he experienced in that awful place for all these years, and will continue to carry them even if he's found a way to manage them thus far. But if we were to tell him more than he already knows? Explain what happened to Izaru in any way, or even just give him the bare minimum to understand how she's alive now and what she's doing here?" Thirteen murmured, breaking off a moment as they let out a heavy sigh.

"The last thing any of us would ever want is to reopen old wounds, but that's already being done by him simply seeing her here… But telling Amajiki anything else might cause him to blame himself in some way for what's happened, or escalate whatever feelings he has about what went on to the point it might be detrimental to his own mental well-being."

That earned wary and grim expressions all around, a little bout of silence falling in the quake of it over the room where all eyes dropped from their colleagues to the table, their own hands, the floor- about anywhere other than someone else. Because Thirteen was right, the likelihood any of the worst details being allowed to come to light was more than likely to hit Amajiki (and not just him, but all those who were tangled up in the middle of this mess) much too hard, and nobody wanted that.

Kazuho shifted slightly in her seat to All Might's left, moving finally after having remained motionless and simply listening the whole time. Her hands unlinked from in front of her and fell onto the table, the woman shifting forward to lean onto her elbows on the tabletop as she crossed her arms a bit, and she shook her head once, pale eyes closed and apt to stay that way.

"I think that train has already left the station." She announced quietly, the mention of it earning wary looks from everyone else in an instant. "The impression I earned from talking to Amajiki is that he's much more concerned with Izaru's reaction, than he seems bothered by whatever he may feel personally in regards to what happened, or what might have been brought back to the surface in all of this." Kazuho murmured, "From what I could tell, it was never his intention to cause any amount of distress….. The fact he kept the entire thing to himself the last week, and made sure to try and bring the topic up only when it minimized it being overhead by other students, by limiting it to just himself and Izaru, makes me think he was doing his best to be delicate about the whole thing. I don't think he was trying to corner her, or expected she might feel she was backed into one, but he had no real way of knowing what she would do if it was even brought up... And the way she did respond to it was less than ideal." Kazuho hummed, "It could have gone worse in the moment, it certainly could have gone better- Amajiki realizes that. He already apologized for the way he approached the topic, and for not going to one of the other staff members first before deciding to ask directly. He already suspected Izaru had no idea who he was, since he'd realized a long time ago that Eraserhead clearly didn't recognize him either, but in his own way…. I think he decided against trying to approach anyone else as a way to keep from possibly revealing things that neither of them would want the rest of the Staff to know about."

Kazuho let out another breath and leaned forward into her arms a bit more, her shoulders sinking.

"He had no idea if what happened at the Pit was something the rest of us were even aware of, and he didn't want to bring it up and risk letting any of that come to light if we did not…. He was trying to be considerate of their feelings, and he's trying to be even more so now." The woman said quietly, the words earning a mix of uneasy, sympathetic, and faintly curious looks from everyone else. All Might beside her lift his forehead up off the back of his hands, casting her a look from the side, sunken blue eyes glimmering.

"What do you mean by 'more so now'...?" The (former) No. 1 questioned slowly, Kazuho's head twitched faintly in his direction as a sign she heard it, though she didn't open her eyes.

"After seeing how it made them react…. Amajiki made it clear that he is willing to drop the entire subject, if that is what's best for everyone else involved." Kazuho replied softly, and everyone else in the room collectively went rigid, their eyes widening in shock and surprise.

"H-He can't just pretend it never happened-" All Might stammered quickly,

"-Ignoring it is likely to do just as much damage as talking through it might." Vlad huffed in the same instant, nearly overlaying the No. 1 (though not intentionally).

"But would him doing that be really any different than us having to ask him to leave it be, for the sake of the Investigation into Simon and all else?" Snipe pointed out lowly,

"We can't ask Amajiki to shoulder all of that himself, especially not if he's doing it for the benefit of everyone else instead of him…!" Thirteen piped in again, almost rushing now. "It's concerning he's so quick to even suggest it, or apologize- if he's already trying to shoulder the responsibility of all this because of guilt or regret, what is he going to do if we were to tell him more about what went on? We can't try and make him carry that...!"

"But he's already carrying it." Ectoplasm told Thirteen quietly, cutting them off slightly. "He's never not carried it, no matter what we do or what we tell him, this is already sitting on his shoulders and has been for much longer than him even being at UA. Is it really better to leave him in the dark not knowing, like he has for ten years already? To let him pretend it didn't happen and to be stuck not being able to properly confront it still?"

"Confront it? You don't know that he hasn't, or what progress he's made since it happened- he might have found some way to cope with it already, and this could set him back." Thirteen replied a bit sternly, and Ectoplasm sighed, but otherwise kept his mouth shut that time and didn't argue. Because Thirteen did have a point-

"-Hmm, what to do? How little do we tell him, what must we never tell him, if anything at all? Would it be easier to let Amajiki make the choice and move on without pressing this, or do we make that decision on his behalf? Or otherwise go the opposite route and do what might be more difficult for all parties involved, and which might also have the highest probability for complicating matters? Which way do we choose, and how to choose it? Which will do more good, versus more harm? But is that short-term or long-term? So few choices lie before us now, and all of them have such risks- how must we choose between them?"

The room went quiet again as Nezu suddenly spoke up after so long of simple nothing, the UA Principal still in his spot and with his back facing the rest of the staff, paws hooked behind his back. He didn't turn to look their way even as he inserted himself into the mix, and he certainly didn't seem to notice the rapid shifting of everyone's eyes onto his back either, he just kept on-

"-In all directions there is the probability for something more unpleasant to come about, there will be no avoiding some amount of difficulty no matter what it is we do or do not do… But are we to shy away and choose what seems the lesser of many evils now, because it seems the less destructive? Or could it perhaps be better to choose the more likely unreasonable and hard to swallow choice, if only to hope that doing so may lay the foundations for something different altogether? Do we dig our heels in and face it with a mind to protect those involved without putting them through any more strain than they already have, or do we make the leap of faith and dive in and hope there will be a way to wade through the tumultuous waters to the other side intact? Do we shelter them, avoid the worst case, or do we make a go at those choppy waters and trust in some strength there may be that will bring them to calmer shores? Is it too little faith, or not enough? Too much to carry or pass over, or is the caution gone too far?"

… And just like that, the voice of UA's Principal came and went. He said his piece, musing almost and nearly to himself, and then fell quiet again- which earned curious looks from the Staff, given the rather long and rather disjointed monologue… Monologues of which Nezu was prone to, as they were all aware. But this one had been hefty, and what road there was to navigating what the Principal meant and was musing to himself in saying all of that was a bit more muddied and blurred than usual. They didn't follow it, couldn't really in a lot of ways, and they expected a rebound; a clarification where Nezu redirected and made more sense of it all. But it didn't come.

UA's Principal fell eerily quiet again, lost in thought and leaving the room in that state of confusion and uncertainty for much longer than was normal. He might have done it indefinitely, if not for Cementoss hesitantly clearing his throat, and speaking up to try and redirect where Nezu seemed to fail to.

"Principal?" He murmured quietly, Nezu's ear twitched back a bit in a sign he was heard, and UA's Principal took in a big breath of air.

"We are attempting damage control, that much is clear. With that in mind it would be the rational choice to take the course of action that would minimize any further impact as much as possible…. In this case, that might be resigning ourselves to allowing Amajiki to drop the subject, and to move on however we can without ripping old wounds open even more than they have been tonight. It would be easier, and it would help in keeping mention of the investigation more securely under wraps." Nezu murmured, and the Staff seemed to grimace at it, quiet in their places and looking no small amount of discontented.

Naturally so, because there was no catch all resolution here. There was no clear cut and simple answer, and no way to avoid any further complications no matter what they did. But doing as the Principal said, even if it meant resigning themselves- it would be the best path toward minimizing the fallout of this, and it was the best option available for keeping in mind what need be done politically with the Investigation to Simon, his crimes, Izaru's probation, and all else. It would also allow them to avoid thrusting any of those most affected by this back into the center of the fire, and forcing them through things they did not want to face, or simply couldn't.

"Hmm… that would be the most reasonable course, and the easiest to swallow…. Certainly the more rational one." Nezu murmured next, and again it seemed nearly to himself- they would have taken it as such, and as a decision on the matter, if not for the fact that he had suddenly turned on his feet to face them.

He turned and stood at the head of the table, facing them directly now for the first time in what felt like years and not just an hour the meeting had held. And on the Principal's face they saw nothing but steadiness layered carefully on top of caution and something else none of them could quite place, but that they all felt themselves tense instinctively against.

"I have an alternative proposal, though it will surely not be the most popular." Nezu murmured, his voice even and steady and they all blinked in near tandem.

Alternative-?

"I suggest we tell Amajiki the truth."

Everyone in the room bristled, hearts leaping and pulses picking up in the matter of a millisecond, leaning forward in their chairs, tensed to spring out of them, and voices risen all in tandem, breathless and aghast.

"T-The truth..!?"

"You don't mean-?!"

"You cannot be serious, surely-?!"

Nezu did not blink, not even when a few people stood up suddenly, not at the wash of incredulous calls- none. He remained steady in his place, gaze unwavering, and his voice too.

"Yes." He murmured softly, nodding once, solemn.

"We tell him, all of it."

.:+:.

I… where… am I…?

I was…. I was at… UA and then…

…. The bars… the… cages and…. N-no… I wasn't….

…. I was in… in the office… t-the gym…. With….

…. He… he was there…. I-in both places….? R-Right…?

I…. I s-screwed up… now I'm…

… shit I… I don't know…. Nothing looks right… I…

I… don't… k-know….

I… I'm not….

.:+:.

"Come on… sit down for me, okay?"

"... there you go… thank you."

.:+:.

He was being ridiculous…. Damn it.

His shoulders, already in an achingly tense ridge, hunched even more and he grit his teeth hard enough they were wont to crack, but he didn't care.

He hated this. Hated the reaction, hated the inability to think clearly, or reason with himself to the point of putting a stall in the whirlwind of it quickly battering him into bits and threatening to send him crumbling... Or otherwise drag him down until he fell into some part of himself he'd spent near onto a lifetime trying, and failing, to stay out of. A place he was struggling now more than ever to stay away from, and this time around it came up more quickly than anytime before it. More rapid, more violent, more absolute- and he had no time for it, damn it.

He couldn't be doing this right now, he needed to get himself together, be rational, think it through and deal with it in some coherent manner. He had to.

He couldn't afford to let himself slip back into that place, not right now, not with everything going on, not when he needed to do- tch.

A shaky breath of air more like a hiss made it's way passed his gritted teeth, fingers tangling in his dark hair as he ran his hands through it, the action much too agitated and unbearably anxious- a trait he was all too aware of in the moment, immensely so, and he hated it. Hated it, and loathed it and himself because he knew he was trembling and it wouldn't stop, no matter how much he fought to try and gain back that rationality and reason he'd built as a lifeline away from exactly this.

He didn't have time for this, he couldn't be slipping right now, he did not want to be slipping…. but no amount of wanting or resisting it was doing him any damn good, and it never did. That wretched and familiar place that was cold and dark and dragged at him relentlessly, it's claws dug in at all hours of each day and always tugging, faintly usually- they were jerking now. Harsh and heavy on the back of everything crashing down all at once tonight, and he kept getting his head pulled under the surface in violent bursts broken by tiny fragments of managing to gasp for air, only to get pulled back once more. He wasn't under all the way, but he was floundering, and he hated how hard it seemed this time to do what he usually did, and resist it.

Resist it, keep his head up no matter what because he did not have time for this, and he couldn't let himself go under right now, not with everything going on. He needed to get a grip and drag himself up, for good, instead of this exhausting back and forth. He needed to stay away from that place that would make it even more impossible for him to think, right then when he really needed to. And he needed all the many things that were now agitated and back in the forefront of his mind after being carefully buried and blocked off to quit…. Or at least, for what tangled mess of unpleasant and unwanted emotions they were bringing back up from the depths to take a backseat to what of it he knew, in some struggling portion of his rational mind (and what was left of it), that he needed to actually remember now. Because the not remembering is what had landed him, them, her, in this mess in the first place.

And that was his fault

Burying it at all had been nothing more than some vain attempt at not having to deal with it- the part of himself that tried to be reasonable and understand it, knew that. He buried it and he knew doing so would not help, it would be a mistake and it did nothing but leave it to fester and do exactly this- but he'd not been able to do anything else. It was all he could do, then and now, and it was the same thing he'd kept doing all his life even when reasonable sense said not to.

But reason and this don't mix well, and even the most intelligent or rational of people will still fall into doing the things that will do them no good, over and over. Even when they know it's not how it should go, even when they know they need to do something else- the opposite of this- but they can't. He can't, he never could, and still he was doing it over and over again even when he knew. Still doing it even after all of this time, and all the times before it where this happened, and what he'd done, been through, faced, learned and tried to reason. And why was he still doing this, even knowing what he did and had been forced into learning- why did it still feel like he should do exactly what he knew was no good?

Because this…. This is not rational, and he knew it.

He growled, elbows digging into his knees where he sat bent over, and he pressed the palms of his hands harshly against his eyes to try and still the trembling, and the stinging lurking in the back of them. He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat making it painful to do so, and the faint but still so very present sensation of his lungs feeling like they had constricted making the growl much more rough and hoarse than he intended.

He needed to stop, he needed to get a handle on this so he could do what he needed. To try and do something to salvage this, to temper some of the fallout, to try and function in the capacity he needed that would allow him to try and fix some of this mess. This had dropped into their laps a slew of complications none of them had been prepared for, a million things that they needed to deal with and face, and do so in that necessary and rational way the insanity sorely needed. He needed to collect himself and stand up, get a hold of the situation and do what he could to make it less… devastating.

The next breath that escaped him was shakier, his entire body shuddering slightly with it as he forced it out as slowly as he could, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, subconsciously trying to take the edge off some headache and throbbing in his skull that seemed ten times worse in that moment.

…. He needed to get up and reconvene with the rest of the staff, figure out a plan for this, come up with what to do. Everyone else needed to be on the same page about what was going on, if they weren't already, and he needed to be a part of what inevitable discussion there came to the question of what to do now, and what to say. To say to Amajiki, what to tell him, how to explain any of this, ease some of the heartache and the haunting from the past that had now been dragged back up to the surface after a decade. He could scarcely imagine what all the kid had been forced into remembering now, how much of it might have been buried or guarded that was now festering again. How much that kid had been through all that time ago, all of it terribly unfair, and now he was back in the middle of it, and it had been made worse with the incomprehensible realization that the woman who had taken his place in a fight to the death was not dead.

He couldn't imagine what this was doing to the kid. He didn't want to imagine it, but he could, and he knew it was bad. Bad, awful, horrifying, and exactly the sort of thing he tried so hard to keep all of his students and those children much too young to experience the worst of the world from going through, ever. And if he was too late on that front, he did everything to keep them from living through those things again… but he'd failed on this one, and this kid was one of the ones who had needed that guarding the most.

He could not undo it, he couldn't erase this or rewind it and undo the mistake and the failure, but he could get himself up and deal with it, and he would. He had no choice, and no time for anything else ahead of it, and least of all any time spent wasted on him doing this.

Aizawa's hand fell from his face and the other went with it, settling limply between his knees as he cracked his eyes open to stare at the concrete underfoot.

He had no time to waste on reacting like this, and no time to let himself slip. Not with Amajiki thrown into this mess he should never have had to go through, not again, and not with all the issues that were now cropped up with what to say, or explain, or even what the hell they were supposed to do now. The mess that Amajiki being that kid that had brought them all together in the Pit all that time ago spelled for now, because he knew more about Izaru than anyone had hoped the students ever would, and what he did know had this gaping hole ripped into his reality that needed to be filled, somehow…. He didn't know what that somehow was, but there had to be something. Even if it was not for Amajaki's sake, they would have had no choice but to contend with this mess more so because of the complications it brought with Simon, the Investigation, Probation- all of it.

He had no time to be doing this right now, not with all of that to deal with. Not with what it was doing to that poor kid, and not with what it was doing to the woman who had risked her life for him… for both of them.

Aizawa's hands interlocked, fingers twining and tightly so at the thought, knuckles stark white and adding a bit of an up into the bits of trembling still plaguing him, and he grimaced.

No… he had no time for this, not when he'd already made the mistake of forgetting and allowed them to be forced into this. Not when he'd already failed on that end and further when it had all come crashing to a head, and he'd been unable to do anything at all underneath his own struggle to function even halfway.

His jaw clenched at the thought of it, hands loosening around themselves as he opened them up a bit and looked at his own palms, a cold weight dropping heavy into the pit of his stomach. One nearly as heavy a weight as the emptiness there had been when he could only stand there and watch her fold, and what hold he'd had on her elbow and intended to keep, was ultimately shattered by that awful reality that he could do nothing.

He swallowed hard, twisting his fingers back together again and holding his breath a moment, while his core twisted into a suffocating knot on tenfold all over again. He stayed still and held that breath for several moments that seemed to last much too long, willing the wrench in his center to unwind even just a little, and muscles tensing against the intermittent shaking to still it…. And finally it seemed to start working. Only a little, but enough.

Enough to put a pause on it all and tie it up again, collecting it and bundling it into some haphazard sense of control that was nowhere near the neat order he sorely needed, but it was enough….. Enough to think, or begin to, and enough to let him latch on to something else and focus on that instead of this.

Aizawa lift his head slowly and forced the breath he held out, his eyes glassy and beyond bloodshot as he glanced up toward the sky overhead, and he grimaced faintly to see the tiny specks of stars in a deepening indigo sky.

It'd already been hours…. Damn it.

"... Did Nezu already call a meeting?" Eraserhead asked quietly, his voice rough and uneven from a lack of use and the impact of everything else, and so much so that Hizashi sitting on the bench beside him seemed to flinch at it, red eyes gleaming.

That was the first thing Aizawa had said since they'd left the Principal's office behind, he'd been utterly quiet the whole time from leaving, to heading outside, and then wandering off until he'd sank onto this bench and didn't budge again. Hizashi had followed him the whole time, the Voice Hero nowhere near that bright and shiny persona of his as he followed after his friend and felt his insides twisting and tangling endlessly in anxiety, worry, fear, and all else. And when Aizawa nearly crashed onto the seat and didn't move, or hardly seem to be breathing- Hizashi could do little but settle himself into a seat there beside him and watch and wait. He hadn't prodded Aizawa, there was nothing he could say or ask that would make anything better right now, and he knew it. And he also knew there wasn't much he could realistically do to keep him from sinking away into that dark space he'd (unfortunately) seen Aizawa sink into several times before- nothing more than to just be there (even if it might have been unwanted), and to wait.

Shota would not talk about what he was feeling, not lightly. Few times in the years Hizashi had ever known the man, had Shota actually verbalized what was going through his head or let himself be open. He kept everything to himself and bundled it up, endlessly, even if it ended up tearing away at him from the inside out. And though Hizashi hated it, he knew that Aizawa couldn't do much else… because when things got like this, it was hard for him to do much at all.

It wasn't good for him, it didn't really help him just to suppress it as a way to keep marching on, and he knew eventually it would build up until it just overwhelmed him. This was going to overwhelm him, and it already had, if how quickly he seemed to fold was any indication.

Hours of watching him sit there and try to gain ahold of everything was… agonizing. He could not help fidgeting but he did his best not to, so it would not grate on Aizawa's nerves. He felt useless but certain in the fact that he wouldn't leave, because even if they didn't talk and Aizawa barely looked at him, or maybe even felt a little agitated at his silent hovering- at least he was there, and in some way Shota would know he wasn't alone. That would have been worse, Hizashi was sure of it, even if Shota might not have agreed. So he stayed, patient despite the knots he was all worked up in, and then more so now, because it was no small amount of worrisome when Hizashi saw the way Shota tensed just then. When he saw the forced calm and collectedness trickling back in as Shota bundled it all up again and did his best to move on and focus on something else, rather than keep being stuck in the middle of the storm.

Hizashi swallowed, hard, lips a thin line and hesitant for a moment at the question, and what was clearly an attempt at avoiding everything he'd just done his best to shove away, and not touch.

To bury it

Hizashi hesitated a heartbeat more, wavering in that precious second on whether or not he wanted to let it go or try and push back on it, or avoid the question and ask one of his own instead. But the debate whirled by at a million miles an hour and he decided, for now anyway, it might be okay to just answer it… and after that?

"... Yeah, Thirteen texted me a while ago about it. They're probably done now, or close to it." Hizashi replied quietly, and Aizawa seemed to grimace ever so faintly for it, before he nodded once, stiffly. There came a small pause of silence again and Hizashi bit the insides of his cheeks, fidgeting in his seat before his voice dropped a little, cautious and not at all concealed concern thick in the words.

"... Are you okay?" Hizashi asked tentatively, the question earning the smallest twitch downward at Aizawa's lips as the man kept his attention on the sky a moment longer, before his eyes dropped closed and a heavy sigh escaped him.

"I'm fine." Came the answer he expected, but the one that also had Hizashi wilting more than a tad, and some small flicker of agitation sparking in the base of his soul too.

He was most certainly not fine-

Hizashi jumped faintly, eyes widening when Aizawa suddenly adjusted, pushing himself up and onto his feet, shoulders still bent and posture no small amount of weary as he buried one of his hands in his pants pocket, and the other ran through his hair, surely tugging tangles but not really caring, and then ran it down his face. The Erasure Hero let out another breath, exhausted and tense as his hand came to a pause over his mouth, brow furrowing even when his eyes remained shut.

"... Did Thirteen mention anything else?" Aizawa asked next, the words slightly muffled behind his hand, and Hizashi paused, his eyes dropping from the dark-haired man and to his feet, hands wringing slightly in his lap.

"Yeah…. Uhm… Thirteen didn't mention anything about what they've been pitching in the meeting on what's gonna happen… But they said Hound Dog is gonna look in on Amajiki for the rest of the night, while everyone tries to figure out what to do, and…. " Hizashi replied slowly, his voice lowering despite himself and his shoulders tensing.

"... Nemuri is with… Izaru." The blonde murmured softly, his hands in his lap tightening faintly when he was instantly aware of the way Shota had tensed at the sound of the name, though he wasn't looking at him and didn't actually see it. "Thirteen said she's gonna stay with her for the night, and Kazuho and Recovery Girl are gonna check in too, until she's… ya know, doing better." Hizashi mumbled uneasily.

Hizashi waited a second, his eyes on his hands for a moment more as a bit of silence settled between them, and then he dared to spare a glance up toward Shota again. The man hadn't moved, his hand, his feet, nothing- he was still in his space and hardly seemed to be breathing, lost in his own head again or trudging through whatever surged at the words and what they meant… Or maybe he was doing his best not to get sucked back into all the awful as a whole, and not just the one thing.

Hizashi wilted a little, red eyes glittering in the dim as his heart twisted in tune with his stomach doing the same.

"... She's gonna be okay, yeah?" The blonde mumbled softly, wincing a bit to himself when it came out as more of a question than the assurance he had been trying to convey. But how could he help it? As much as he wanted to assure Shota of that, and believe that it was true, after what happened earlier and all of what he knew had happened…. Well, he couldn't help but have at least a few doubts, even as much as that made him want to throw up.

But after everything? After what happened with the Pit, and Simon, the last ten years to now- this was a worst case scenario and they had had no time to work up to a point where confronting something like this might have had even the slimmest chance of not… blowing up…. ah man.

Hizashi shook his head at himself and stood up from the bench slowly, red eyes flashing as he willed himself to quit that line of thought and shake off as much of that unwanted doubt as was possible. He couldn't think like that, even if the reality was truly as harsh as it was. He had to try and have some hope, and maybe have a little faith too- not just for the sake of his own mental well being, but Shota's especially, and Izaru's too.

She'd been through so much, and so had Shota- too much, in all ways, and none of it was fair… but they were both around, yeah?

They'd both survived things they had no right to or want to, and they had both managed to press on despite what amount of awful had befallen them in the last ten years (and longer, for Izaru especially), and they were still here, still picking themselves up and still going. He knew Aizawa had been trudging on for a long time, willing himself forward and managing to move on from a lot of things that should have torn him down all the way, but never had completely.

And Izaru? She was nothing if not the definition of willpower- with her Quirk alone having the ability to keep moving on and trying despite what her Quirk made her feel was a feat in itself, but she'd gone through a million more things than that alone and she was still… still trying. Still living.

She'd been here at UA and doing so much better than he or anyone had any right to hope. She'd been really and truly trying to settle in, and in some small ways had managed that, even if it was hard. Despite what had happened to her, in the last handful of weeks he'd never seen her and thought she'd given up where she had every right to…. And even when all those awful things kept coming to light, or getting drudged up again- for both her, Aizawa, everyone- it hurt, yeah. It sucked, it was awful, this was hard as hell for everyone involved, but still they'd both gotten up every morning, and set themselves to trying to make something of what things were now, and something that would hopefully be better, eventually.

They wouldn't have been trying at all if there was no hope or drive to get to that in the first place, and any amount of will to try and reach for it was a good sign, right….? Sign enough that despite the reality of all of this and what shaky footing they were on right now, that they should have some hope that what he said would be true…? And some small amount of faith that it wasn't just a vain hope…?

Hizashi chewed on the insides of his cheeks and shook his head again, forcing himself a (not so calming as he liked) breath of air as he inched a step closer to Aizawa, and his hand came up to land gently on the darker-haired man's shoulder. Aizawa stiffened faintly underneath it, the hand still covering his mouth jolting faintly, and he tilted his head down stiffly so his hair and scarf hid his face from further view. Hizashi's expression softened for the subtle, but altogether telling reaction, and he let out a silent sigh.

If Izaru could have been through the last ten years and more of all she had, and come to UA and genuinely seemed to be trying to move on and settle in and find some semblance of a place in the world again, it couldn't be just vain hope. Not with her trying, and not when Aizawa had too, in his own way by working to bring her here to UA, give her a better chance with a familiar place with people she knew. It couldn't be in vain, not when him doing so was allowing some attempt forward at finding some sense of normalcy between them again, even despite the past haunting him every step of the way and constantly pounding at him with reminders and guilt and all else. Trying to have a little hope was not unwarranted, or totally in vain. It couldn't be.

"This is all… It's hard… like hard as hell, and it ain't fair, and it's been a lot, especially all at once… But we'll get through it, yeah? She's gonna be ok, Amajiki will too, we'll figure something out. They've been through some bad stuff, but they both got through it in the end, ya know…?" Hizashi mumbled softly, Aizawa under his hand growing just a touch more stiff for the assurances, his head tilting down just a little more and Hizashi blinked, his hand on the man's shoulder squeezing just faintly.

"Look… I get you don't wanna talk about it, I know you don't like me talking your ear off or anything either, but…. But I mean it, yeah? This whole thing is crazy and it's…. It's bad, but it's been like that before and we got through it. It was hard, it hurt, and it took time…. But we did it, yeah? And they did too, in their own time. Even after what happened, neither Amajiki or Izaru ever… got stuck, or gave up... Right..? I mean the kid's been working hard here at school and totally rocking it, he's the top three…! And Izaru's been… she's been trying, really trying… you know that, and she's been doing really really good so far…." Hizashi murmured, red eyes glittering.

"... Sho, I… I know you're real worked up about all of this, and I know you're worried about everything, about them…. This is hard on them both, and everybody else too… but they can do it, they'll be okay, I mean it. We gotta believe that, we can believe that, even if it'll be hard and everybody's gonna need time to adjust and everything else…. But in the meantime, with you worrying about them, you… Don't think it's not hard on you too, cause it is. All of this is just as hard on you as it is on them, ya know… And it's fine if you're not 'fine'." Hizashi murmured, and was met with nothing but stiff silence.

But the way Aizawa stiffened that time was more than just faintly, his muscles locking and taught in an instant, and Hizashi heard him suck in a sharp breath of air only to cut it off near immediately…. But the trembling Aizawa had managed to force away just beforehand, picked up again. Faint, tense, and nearly imperceptible- but there.

Hizashi's eyes flashed when he felt it, his shoulders sinking while Aizawa's hunched just a tad more again, and when he continued on he made sure his voice remained as level as he could despite the way his stomach lurched.

"... I know it's hard to just… face it… but don't go burying it all, okay? You're not gonna help anything by doing that, or trying to put everybody else ahead of you… I know you wanna focus on them and not you, and do what you can for them, help them….. But ya gotta give yourself a break, okay…? Give it a minute, give yourself time to work through it too… you need it just as much as they do, okay Sho…?"

He didn't get an answer and he didn't expect one, and he knew well enough he hadn't made much of a dent yet…. He had more to say, but he hesitated on it, because it was something of a win already that Aizawa was even just standing there and listening without trying to walk off or deflect it. But he still didn't want to hear it, Hizashi knew it, and the next bit he had to say on the matter and trying to convince the Erasure Hero of what he really didn't want to hear, or could allow himself to listen to… well.

Hizashi took in a big, silent breath of air and stepped closer by just a pace more. His hand on Aizawa's shoulder shifted around and trailed to rest on his back, the blonde just beside the rigid and motionless man now, and with much less space between them than Aizawa usually allowed- and really only allowed a rare few people, on even rarer occasions.

"... Nezu was right too, ya know. None of this is on you, it's not your fault, and you don't have to deal with it by yourself. It's not on you to try and handle everything and put everybody else first all the time. Nobody expects you to do that and we don't want you to, even if you're good at it or just trying to help. We know your heart's in the right place Sho, but it's not always everyone else and never you…. I know you know that, just don't forget it okay…? Nobody's in this alone, and you don't have to take it all by yourself… you can't do it, not just because it's gonna hurt you, but because… we're worried about you too, ya know?" He murmured, and Aizawa went absolutely rigid at it.

"She's worried about you, Sho… She knows how hard this is on you too, and even if she's… In bad right now, or… or any of that… she's not gonna want to have you carry it all, or try and bury it, or put everybody else first, or for you to forget about you…. Even right now with her… With all of this…. When she comes out of it… she's not gonna want you to do that… okay…?"

.:+:.

… I… Have… I've…. Been here before… Haven't I…?

Nothing… Empty…. But… I still… It's still there but… I'm not…

All of these… Things… Floating….

…. I…. Can't think right….. I don't…

…. I don't understand…. But it's still….?

…. I…. I messed up…. That… That's sticking…. Why is that….?

… So much of it….. fractured and…

…. I'm… Fractured….

W-What am… I…?

.:+:.

Nothing is working

Nemuri bit the end of her thumbnail pensively, her eyes tired and glittering from behind her glasses, the deadly silence wearing on her nerves with each hour ticking by, and each one coming and going with no sign of an end. The R-Rated Hero hid it well, among her close circle of friends so deeply entrenched in this mess, she was the one who handled these situations the best. She always had been, but it would be a lie to say this wasn't testing her resolve in every possible way… Or scoring marks into her heart just as painful as it did on all the rest of them.

She wouldn't let herself give into it, she wasn't going to fall into disarray or lose that air of calm she was so practiced with, she both wouldn't and couldn't…. For everyone's sake.

Nemuri had handled things like this before, more often than she'd like, maybe, but she'd seen it. Her role as a Guidance Counselor wasn't really meant to entail her having to deal with overly delicate situations, but she'd done her best to be a safe space for the students to come to, so she'd navigated her way through her fair share of difficult things- be it anxiousness, a bad situation at home, fears for the future, what have you. She'd seen it, managed her way through it, learned and gotten better at handling each successive one as it came, and cultivated that talent at keeping her head and her cool too. She knew a lot of what to do and what not to do, she picked up on things from other people now she'd never have before stepping into her role as a Pro and her time at UA (both before and now), and she recognized what a lot of the subtle things meant, or the little things might be alluding to.

She'd seen things like this before, in many people- not just students- and she knew how to handle it, from experience, from learning, and now from a little bit of guidance from Kazuho too…. But she'd never seen it this bad.

Nemuri grumbled slightly to herself and ceased chewing on her fingernail, shaking her head at herself and forcing a breath of air at the thought and the way it made her heart clench.

This was bad in so many ways, so it wasn't a surprise. And it was made all the worse and all the more complicated given how little they knew about what Simon's Quirk could do, and what side effects it was going to have…. How terrifyingly little they knew about it and what it was still doing, and was certainly making an already bad situation a million times more so, and that million times more complicated.

Because this…. This was doing nothing if not pounding in the fact that this Quirk, it's complexity, and its power, was nothing like they could have imagined.

Nemuri bit the inside of her cheek, eyes shifting sideways across the room from where she was sitting with one knee crossed over the other in a seat perched near the door, and landing on the wall to her right where the one person most singularly affected by such a Quirk was sitting, silent and motionless- and had been for much too long.

Nemuri hadn't seen any of 'Seer' or what that persona under the Villain's Quirk was like for herself, all she knew of it came from the descriptions from other people scattered between recollection of the Training Camp, and thereafter at the Police Station. She knew what it must have been like, given the simple idea of Simon's Quirk being used to Brainwash others into doing his bidding, and she got a little clearer of a picture when she'd heard from others and how they described it.

Hollow, blank, empty, doll-like, unaware…. Lifeless.

She understood it now, as awful as it was, and she couldn't say she'd have ever liked the opportunity to see for herself what all those descriptions had meant. Because the truth of it was those words were about as accurate as anything could be, but they still fell woefully short of reality.

Nemuri's eyes glittered, her shoulders sinking heavily as her gaze flit over the other woman, tracing carefully the tense ridge of her shoulders even when the rest of her seemed to have taken on an air of indifference layered in sheer numbness and nothing. The subtleness of the tension of her hands folded in her lap, rooted there and unwilling to let up even as the stillness had ended in the seat being taken and the rest of her became fixed in the spot, with no attempt to change it…. there was no need, nor want, nor any will available to that end. No thought for anything else.

All there was now was the bare minimum, enough to hear some amount of what others said, to register requests and suggestions to the point of following them, obeying them, but it was monotonous. Nothing more than auto-drive and instinct with no shred of willpower or person behind it. Nothing but preprogrammed ability to do nothing but blindly follow and do what is told, and only deviate enough from instruction and suggestion to hold onto some tiny, minuscule shred of function that created an illusion of humanity…. And a shallow one at that.

It came so suddenly, the sudden breakneck speed of pulling down a shutter and a wall that blocked off the world in near all its entirety, but was slotted. There were tiny pinholes scattered in the surface that let it in just enough light to keep her from stumbling in the pitch black, but not near enough to have called it living. There was no real light, no legroom available to hardly breathe, let alone garner enough will to focus on anything in any substantial way. The light, the words- the world- all of it was hazy and muted behind that slotted wall, and all attempts at peering through the little holes only garnered the most blurred and fractured glimpses that were nowhere near enough.

Nemuri had tried all those things she knew from experience and others for this, and she'd tried others that Kazuho had suggested too- but it had been hours already and none of it had made a dent. Nothing so far had managed even a slight jerk upward on that shutter, not enough to get your fingers under the edge, or to let in even the tiniest sliver of light underneath it.

Nothing was working…. And despite herself, Nemuri couldn't help wondering if anything ever would. That maybe after all of it; the Pit, the last ten years, the wear and tear of Sixth Sense, and of Simon's Quirk especially- maybe no amount of doing anything was ever going to work in any substantial way. Maybe it would never work, because the damage done was just too great.

Nemuri shook her head at herself for the intrusive (and awful) thought, her expression softening a tad as her eyes trailed slowly from one scar on her hands to the next on her arms, upward and to that on her neck, and then settled on dull gray eyed staring straight down and ahead, and with absolutely no light or awareness left in them. Glossy and glazed over with her mind too far away from here and now, disconnected and with any semblance of the world and reality reduced to living in that same terrible haze of nothing under a truly terrifying Quirk, and the weight of years worth of too many awful things that were too much.

The R-Rated Hero averted her eyes and let them stop on the window on the far side of the room, the overhead light glaring on the glass from the sheer contrast between it, and the blackness of the night sky. A small sigh escaped her as she did, her attention leaving the window and finding a clock set on the nightstand near the bed, her shoulders sinking heavily for the time printed there.

Nemuri bit the inside of her lip, shifting slightly in her chair as she did it and switching from one knee crossed to the other with a silent sigh. She allowed her eyes to wander back toward where they had been originally, and the R-Rated Hero's expression softened and twisted more, and all at once.

… I am so sorry….

.:+:.

…. I…. I never wanted this… Never wanted to….

S…shit…. This… This is all….

…. I… I didn't mean to…. I n-never…

…. I… I screwed up… S-so bad…. And… And now I…

…. I don't….…. What…. Am I supposed to….?

…. What am I… supposed…. To…..

…. I….

.:+:.

There came a dead quiet, the entire room frozen in its space and not a single one of them able to find their voices, let alone know what to say in response to… To that.

They were reeling, the words fumbling as they tried to find some traction on that slippery slope they'd all been thrust onto unwittingly, and now seemed all the more slick in the quake of what the Principal proposed, and why.

That was ludicrous, insane- they couldn't do that, not when it might- not…. but… But what he said… It-

There were no shortage of uneasy glances, several pairs of eyes darting about quickly, making the contact and sharing incredulous looks meant to help in assuring each other that they hadn't heard it incorrectly. Searching in each other for some sign that what they heard was landing in the same way it was for them, that despite the explanation there was still no shortage of the very reasonable and necessary reaction that made it clear that no one was willing to go along with that so easily. How could they?

Even if… Even if the reasoning for it sounded reasonable, even some of the way, what he was suggesting was just out of the question. They couldn't do it, not with risks, the implications- they could not.

…. Right….?

No one said a word, partly from the shock, some of it from reeling and that instinctual denial of the notion- but the uncertain question of that that followed, had cold lumps falling into all their centers…. And when at last someone spoke up, their voice was low, cautious, and almost defeated.

"... They won't like that idea."

"No, I expect not…. But let me worry about explaining it to them. With luck, they'll come around to understanding why I'm suggesting it as the best option of any."

There were a wash of doubtful looks at that, uncertainty clear as day in each person's faces, save one in particular- her with her eyes closed, and the only one of all the rest who had remained utterly quiet and didn't seem to react to the idea with any amount of that reasonable and necessary reaction the rest had had. Which was all the more strange, and slightly disconcerting, considering she was the first person they would have expected to immediately deny the idea.

But she didn't, she sat there, quiet, seemingly mulling it over with no real amount of unease to the prospect of it, and instead an odd amount of calm instead. It didn't make sense, it seemed out of place in the situation… but this entire situation was entirely out of place, unique, complicated, unusual, and altogether atypical.

Kazuho let out a heavy, quiet sigh under her breath, shoulders sinking deeply and lips a thin line.

….. Then perhaps, it made sense to pitch an idea that would be considered abnormal. Because this was not usual, and that stood to reason the usual course of action might not be the right one.

Maybe this one… this one that feels like a wrong one- is actually right.

.:+:.

"... Ah, Aizawa. I know it's early, and things have been a bit hectic… but if you're feeling up to it now, could I have a word?"

.:+:.

Everything is…. Spinning…. Bits and pieces all scattered…. Some of it…. It's sticking but…..

…. I… don't understand…. All of it… n-none of what….

…. Shit…. I don't…. Get this…. Why is….?

I…. I can hear them…. I know… what they're…. What happened…. But….

…. It's so…. Hazy…. There but…. Blurred…. And I….

.:+:.

"... Are you sure that…. You're okay to…?" Hizashi mumbled uncertainly, the Voice Hero's voice broken by nervous pauses as his red eyes settled on the dark-haired man ahead of him. He wrung his hands together nervously, dark lines and shadows lingering under his eyes in a clear show of what amount of no sleep he'd gotten, he and pretty much everyone else…. Aizawa especially. What usual tiredness that seemed permanently etched to his friend had become all the more pronounced, and understandably so, but it didn't make it ache any less to see it.

Aizawa's shoulders sank a bit at the question, the Erasure Hero tilting his head just enough to cast the blonde a sideways glance from over his shoulder, bloodshot eyes steady on him for a second while the man paused with his hand on the doorknob, and he nodded stiffly.

"I'll be fine." Came the low and entirely expected reply- the tired one, and the one that Hizashi never quite believed….. but this time he believed it a little more, and instead of arguing the point, he just nodded in return, red eyes flashing.

He knew better than to think he was fine, or even halfway. Especially not after what had happened, what they'd had thrown in their faces, after the conversation and all others from before, and all else. Aizawa wasn't fine, not by leagues, and he was certainly not happy either- not about the situation, not about what it had done, not about what he was going to do… and certainly not about this.

The neutrality he'd forced into his expression in an attempt to shield himself was betrayed by the ghost of a frown that would not go away, and the light of uncertainty and even little bits of fear twinkling in his dark eyes despite all attempts at concealing it. He wasn't fine, he wasn't happy with this and he did not want it. But he'd resigned himself to it anyway, even when it made his stomach curl, or his mind and soul vehemently opposed the idea with every fiber of his being. Not when rationally this was the last thing any of them should ever consider doing, and it would have been rational for him to say no and stand firm in that.

He hated it, hated himself for being able to be talked into it at all, and hated the twisted sick feeling the prospect had settled firmly in the base of his core. He had no desire to do this, he hated the entire idea and he dreaded what would come next…. Utterly dreaded walking into that room and submitting himself to what conversation would follow, and terrified of what he would see or hear because of it. Terrified of having to face upfront any amount of what he would have rather have left alone, but knew he couldn't. Not even if in the end it might hurt worse, and went against everything he'd been fighting to do for ten years.

No burying it this time

.:+:.

"... Has there been any change?"

"No, she's…. She's listening, you can talk to her, she can hear you and she'll do what you ask, but other than that… I don't know. None of the grounding techniques have worked, no distractions, no attempt at a conversation- she's there, aware in some way but… not."

"I got her to eat, and to walk with me for a bit, but unless you prompt her for something I don't think she'll move from that spot unless she absolutely has to."

"She hasn't slept at all, then."

"No… I thought about using my Quirk, but I've no idea if it will even work, or if forcing her to go to sleep is just gonna make it worse."

"... no, I'd rather not resort to that unless we have no other option. I don't want to force anything and take all choices away from her, even one as simple as choosing to sleep…. I don't think it will do any good to take away the ability to decide that for herself, not now or in the long run. She needs to pull herself out of it, even if it's only part way… put a stop in the compliance, regardless if it's born from Simon's Quirk, or it's the only thing her mind could do to handle what happened."

"... What happens if she can't? Or it takes too long?"

"... we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

.:+:.

…This… this isn't… r-right…

….. I don't….

…. I don't know what to do…a…anymore….

.:+:.

"... still nothing..?" All Might asked softly, the (former) No. 1 coming to an uneasy halt in the hallway, sunken blue eyes settling on the stony figure of Kazuho where the woman was leaning wearily against the door frame with her shoulder, arms crossed over her chest and eyes closed. She didn't budge even as she was addressed, didn't look up or attempt at glancing that way (it was useless anyway), she just forced a slightly strained breath, shaking her head once and tangling strands of her red hair against the frame as she did.

"No." The woman replied softly, All Might swallowing at the less than comforting answer, and the borderline defeat layered in Kazuho's tone of voice. He grimaced for it, his eyes dropping to his feet for a moment while his fists balled faintly at his sides, his stomach (what little of it was left) churning. He hesitated, before forcing a small breath and glancing up again cautiously.

"... And Aizawa and Amajiki…?" He asked next, Kazuho paused.

"No, not yet." She murmured quietly and at length, All Might bit the inside of his cheek for it. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, quiet falling between them again and uncomfortably so- Kazuho's head twitched slightly in the direction of the blonde when she felt the anxiety and unease spark from him and make its way to her just then, though she didn't turn his way.

"... Rai… Is there anything I can do?" He asked slowly and at length, the question causing the woman to blink her eyes open slowly and her head to pull slightly away from resting on the door frame in faint surprise. "I realize there's not much I can do for them but… You were up all night, and been handling all of this without any sort of a break in between, so… Can I get you anything…? A coffee or… Or tea…?" He asked slightly nervously, which was very much unlike the Hero with the usually infallible smile and shine. But his nerves were fried from this just like everyone else's, and with her…. Well, he'd never had to worry much about the persona or anything around her, so it was easy for his guard to drop and let the anxiety show through as clearly as it did just then, but usually would rarely ever be seen in him.

Kazuho let out a small breath for it, the woman pushing herself tiredly off from leaning into the door frame and turning slightly to face him, pale yellow-orange eyes landing on him (or rather the tall lanky shadow of him), arms still crossed over her chest and some fleeting, tiny, and exhausted smile pulling at the corner of her lips.

"Look at you, fussing." Kazuho murmured quietly, All Might jumping slightly at the comment and the unease coming from him shifted to nervousness that she hummed at, shaking her head once. She stepped forward a pace, her arms uncrossing as she reached out and set a hand on his arm lightly, offering up a fleeting smile to reassure him a little more than the touch already did. "I have a while to go yet before I can call it a day, but a coffee would be nice, thank you." Kazuho told him softly, All Might faltered half a second at the reply before smiling faintly himself and nodding, one hand raising as he gave her a (reflexive) thumbs up.

"Coming right up then." He hummed, his head tilting slightly as the smile faded again and he blinked, "... But when are you calling it a day?" He asked softly, Kazuho sighed, her hand lingering on his for a moment more before she let it fall, and both her hands fell into her lab coat pockets.

"... I'm not sure." She replied quietly, "I've got one last idea before resigning to nothing but a waiting game…. I'm not quite sold on it though, not yet." She murmured and All Might's head tilted a touch more at it, brow furrowing faintly in question, but Kazuho shook her head a little, one hand coming up from her pockets again and rubbing at the back of her neck wearily. Her head cantered slightly back down the hallway and toward the door frame she had left behind, her shoulders sinking more than a touch while her voice dropped despite herself.

"... That said, I'll have no choice but to wait a little longer before that happens … and that's fine. Perhaps it warrants a little more mulling." She hummed, her head tilting back away from the door and nodding back the way behind the blonde in front of her, pale yellow eyes flashing.

"And mulling over some coffee wouldn't hurt anything… So congratulations Toshi, even if it's not quite calling it a day, you're gonna manage to pull me away for a small break after all."

.:+:.

"I…. I am r-really sorry…. I didn't mean to… make things s-so….. I…. I'm sorry…."

"... it's not your fault."

.:+:.

…. None of it… m-makes sense…. It's… there but… not…. I…..

….. All… these pieces just…. Scattered…. lost….

…. My mind…. Is so… broken….

…. I…. I am broken….

.:+:.

16 hours

It seemed such a small number, despite the way that in those hours the world had been tipped on its head not once, but several times over- and they'd several times more forced themselves through the chaos, fighting for some semblance of a firm foothold in that slope that was ever slipping out from under them at seemingly every turn.

In 16 hours their lives have been turned inside out, old wounds ripped open, new ones being scored into flesh, and all manner of terribly heavy and awful things getting slammed down on top of them in trying to contend with it, manage it, mend it… and just cope with it all.

It was, in all ways, the longest span of hours most of them had ever had, and certainly some of the hardest, even if they themselves were not directly in the middle of the mess. And for those nearest the center? And most heavily bombarded by it?

Exhausting was an understatement, and devastating really even felt like it fell short for describing this. He might have even have gone so far as to describe it as the worst span of several hours he'd ever had… but that would be a lie, under what memories still nagged and haunted him to this day from too many places, and of a few too many people that he'd had hurt and lost before now. A few and several too many times and places where the world caved in around him and they slipped through his fingers where he was powerless to stop it… and he still was, on this new repeat, in much too many ways. Still powerless and useless and hating himself for wasting time, or being unable to think and function, not when there were more pressing things.

But…. Hizashi had been right.

He knew it, even when he tried to resist the thought. To deny what he'd already known even before having it said so plainly, and laid so bare he had no choice but to face it, and listen. No choice but to take a moment, take a breath, give himself a little time to feel it instead of bury it, and some more to pick himself back up- and more properly this time around, than he'd allowed himself near all times before it.

Because Hizashi was right, and he'd known it even before it was uttered aloud…. He'd known it, somewhere in some neglected part of himself he tried not to give purchase to, and some part he might have been a little afraid to admit was there even…. Some part of him that had been there even before she'd said it herself just days ago when it was just the two of them alone.

"... I heard you, Shota, but... Doesn't it go both ways...?"

Aizawa blinked slowly, the fleeting darkness that came with the action a rapid and much too quickly gone respite on his tired eyes and aching skull. He was very aware of the uneasy looks he was earning from Hizashi and Nemuri alike, but at this point he had no energy to care about it, or what tangled emotions and ache were fueling them. He didn't want to think about it, he'd spent more time than he liked already trying to navigate that tangled web of everything all on his own and struggle his way to what tiny fraction of a lull he'd managed now. And though that lull was certainly needed (and hard won), he couldn't help himself the itch and the need to do something else that had less to do with the storm raging in his own head, and more to do with trying to manage something- anything- toward someone else's…. Toward hers, if he could.

He wasn't sure what good it was going to do, but it wouldn't stop him from trying. And the unpleasant weight of guilt that had settled in his core surely wouldn't let him even think about giving into the sleep he desperately needed until he'd made an attempt.

His shoulders sank heavily, hands in his pants pockets balling tensely as he swallowed at the lump in his throat and his center both.

…. Hell, trying probably wasn't even enough. He knew full well that he wasn't likely to get any sleep at all until he had some assurance that the question that had bothered him for weeks wasn't earning a definitive, and horribly unpleasant answer with all of this.

Because rationally… no.

Aizawa forced himself a heavy, slightly ragged breath, one hand unclenching as he pulled it from his pocket and instead came up to rub wearily at the bridge of his nose and his eyes for probably the millionth time in 16 hours.

…. Rationality had already been set aside more than once in all of this, there was no use allowing it to enforce that answer now. No use letting the thought finish and somehow cement what he… What he was too afraid to let come to fruition, even only in his thoughts.

His hand slid down his face slowly, bloodshot eyes moving toward the opposite end of the room directly ahead of him where he stood in the doorway, lips pulling into a pained line behind his fingers.

Damn it

Aizawa forced out another breath, his hand falling to his side as he cast a glance over his shoulder toward the two hovering there with their eyes on his back, anxious, wary, and fixed- and a third with her attention surely on him too, though the burn of her gaze on was nonexistent given Kazuho had elected to stay at the end of the hallway after a hushed conversation between them a few minutes beforehand, instead of following him up.

Aizawa's eyes caught those of Nemuri and Hizashi's briefly behind their glasses, the Erasure Hero tilting his head slightly toward the direction the aforementioned was waiting further down, and both his friends blinked in surprise for it (more so, and much more nervously in Hizashi's case, than Nemuri's).

"Go take a break and get some sleep." Aizawa ordered quietly, the words causing both of his fellow Pro's to stiffen, Nemuri's eyes narrowing to slits while the blonde beside her shifted forward nervously, frowning.

"You've been up just as long as us, what about you-?" Hizashi started quickly, voice low and hushed and very much unlike him, but he wouldn't dare be any louder.

"-Are you sure you don't want us to stay?" Nemuri asked in near the same instant Hizashi spoke up, though unlike him, her voice and expression were carefully guarded and hid near any amount of the unease she surely shared with the blonde. But her question was just as much an argument as Hizashi's was, and Aizawa grimaced faintly for them both, though he wasn't surprised.

"No, I'll be fine." He replied flatly in response to Nemuri, his eyes moving from her and toward Hizashi next, "And I'll sleep when I'm done…. Quit hovering and go already, before you make yourself sick." He mumbled lowly, his tone firm and clearly not looking to budge on it- which made Hizashi frown. But the blonde faltered on arguing back that time because when Aizawa said it…. He didn't sound annoyed like he usually would. He sounded faintly exasperated, sure, if not sincere in his own gruff way, and the Voice Hero swallowed against it.

He believed him less this time than he had earlier, when he said the same thing, because by now Aizawa was exhausted, more so than either he or Nemuri (or really anyone else) could be, and yeta still he wasn't giving into it. He was dead on his feet in more ways than one, and no real energy to argue back, but he did, and he put his foot down and stood firm in doing this without any of that same stubbornness born from ignoring what was biting at him, or trying to shove it all away. Hizashi could see it all clear as day, written all over Aizawa's face, in the tense and exhausted posture, swimming in his eyes- all of it. He wasn't burying it or stuffing it away, and he wasn't really ignoring it either. It was there, but he had bundled it up in his arms and was moving forward with it, carrying it and about as openly as Hizashi had ever seen him in…. Ever.

And the look Eraser gave him just now? That utterly tired, haunted, aching one that still seemed exasperated, and sincere, and firm?

It was… Pleading almost, and Hizashi felt his posture and his composure wilting.

He was asking for some time and some space, where for hours already he'd not been allowed it with Hizashi and everyone else 'hovering' like he'd put it… And in retrospect, Aizawa had tolerated it much more than he usually would already. And now he needed it, not just for his own sake, but for the sake of what he was going to attempt to do, and Hizashi could not argue with it. Not this time.

Of course that didn't stop him from making it clear that if Shota did need anything, at all, he would be just in the next room over, though.

Aizawa said nothing to it, he just blinked and Hizashi let it be at that, Nemuri's hand on his shoulder giving him a little extra of a push to step out of the room and head off like they'd been told to. Aizawa lingered in the now empty doorway for a heartbeat or two, the sound of their steps fading away for a few seconds that felt like hours in themselves, before he reached a hand forward and nudged the door closed about halfway…. And paused again, his eyes landing on his own shadow painted across the door from the deepening orange light filtering in from the window outside, and the second shadow that stretched across the room to settle beside his own where she sat in front of it.

His hand fell slowly from the door and he turned, steps quiet and cautious as he brought himself across the room to the other side, and to the woman sitting stiff on the bed, her back pressed against the wall and the window both, knees brought halfway up to her chest and arms lying limply between them and her center- silent, unmoving, and not even twitching as he approached… She didn't look up, her eyes not lifting from where they had settled hazily on her knees in even a minuscule amount. She didn't seem to register him coming at all, and he didn't expect her to, but that didn't make his stomach churn any less.

Kesu's ears flicked in Aizawa's direction, the cat settled with his feet tucked under him on the bed, pressed against her hip and tail tip twitching in slow, deliberate rhythm to brush against her arm in small, constant bursts- and where he'd remained for hours on end. The cat stuck now and determined not to wander off as he usually seemed to, and had remained for 16 hours without fail. Kesu's yellow eyes followed him as he stepped across the room and drew up a few paces short of the bed, watching tiredly as the Erasure Hero came to a pause, his shoulders sinking heavily as he seemed to hesitate, and his dark eyes glimmered with a million emotions too many as he let his attention drift over her figure, and it hurt.

She was right back to being that person she had been back at the Training Camp; lifeless and non-combative, hollow and lost in the quake of Simon's Quirk faltering under his own, but still fighting for control all the same. Back to being torn between whatever person she was as Seer that knew nothing but what she was told to do, and that shaky foothold of a person she'd been since getting her mind back and trying to figure out what that meant, or could ever mean after everything else. What amount of life and living she'd managed in the last few weeks was a distant memory again, tightly folded up and pushed down underneath the shock and the Quirk all at once, leaving no room for anything but… but this.

Nothing

Nothing and numbness that persisted even 16 hours after the fact, and all attempts at bringing some gentle end to it- of snapping her out of it, where it was looking like that wasn't even in the realm of possibility anymore- had not worked. She'd fallen so far into herself, and so quickly, that any track up and out of it was perilously steep, and near onto impossible- tch.

Aizawa shook his head slightly at himself, scrunching his eyes closed for a minute and hating the nagging and unpleasant thoughts spinning in his mind, even when he tried to keep them at bay.

He didn't want to look at this rationally right now, not when the rational answer was the one he was afraid of the most… Not when he understood this, more than he liked, and completely understood just how hard it was to drag yourself out of those dark holes when you fell in like this. Because he had been there before and he knew firsthand how difficult that could be, and had been, all the times before where he'd sunk and struggled to come back up for air, breathe, and even just find the will to want to.

He'd been here before, in his own way and with his own issues- different than hers in many ways, but of the same ilk at their core- and he knew coming back from this was going to be a monumental feat…. And he knew how tired she had to have been already, how worn and stretched thin and broken already, which would not make it any easier. He knew this was not going to be easy, he knew it was near to impossible after everything, and he knew that realistically there wasn't much he could do that would help.

But he also knew he had to try, and in doing so he couldn't let himself be as fractured and stretched thin as he was in doing it, or shove all that aside and bury it like he wanted to. Because while he understood this, and knew what it felt like, and hated himself still for having to take a step back and stay away for hours before finally being here…. he knew Hizashi had been right, and what he'd said was true.

He had to try, but he'd also had to wait until he was actually fine enough, and had processed this on his own enough, before he could ever think of trying to tug her back. He had to take a break and feel it instead of burying it, because ignoring it and trying to focus on anyone else- on her- while there was still such a violent storm raging inside of him… It wouldn't help anything.

He'd not been able to keep her from drowning when it all happened, he couldn't stop her sinking without risking him going under too, and at the start he would have been more than willing to let it happen. But it wouldn't help for them both to drown, and there would be no chance left for him to bring her back up if he was already on the bottom. He hadn't wanted to work for it, but he had to get himself back onto some semblance of solid ground before he could do anything else. And while he had found some traction now, barely, it was mind-numbingly exhausting to do so and he felt spent.

He didn't know what he could do, or how much he could really manage now after everything, and he had no real energy to keep those unpleasant thoughts at bay either. He was trying, he was going to try despite the protest of his body, nerves, heart, everything…. Because it was something, and he wasn't going to add not trying to a list of regrets to let haunt him later. Not even if trying and letting himself be here, and seeing this, hurt more than he could imagine.

And maybe… maybe despite all those awful thoughts that spoke to rationality, and his own reservations on everything that had happened, and that was being decided and proposed… Maybe some part of him had the tiniest sliver of hope that he was wrong- that he could be proven wrong- and that what hope everyone else had that this was the right thing, actually turned out to be true.

Because he sure as hell didn't feel like this was the right thing, he'd denied the plan and what amount of reason had been backing it as fervently as he denied letting the outside world see how much he cared about anything and everything. That care that was the primary reason he hated this plan, and everything to do with it. The primary reason he'd immediately snapped no and refused to let it go forward, even when eventually he'd resigned himself to doing it anyway, and still didn't want to do to it now- but would, based on that tiny little hope somewhere deep inside of him, and one he wanted to hold to, as much as he felt doing so was ridiculous or maybe even a mistake.

Aizawa grumbled silently under his breath, shaking himself out slightly and running a hand through his bangs wearily, before letting his hand fall limp at his side.

Damn it…. There were those nagging thoughts again.

He took in a big breath of air and forced his eyes back up from the floor where his attention had fallen without him meaning for it to. He hesitated a moment more, stiff on his feet and lips pulling to a thin line as he let his eyes settle on her again, still silent, still lost in some dark corner of her mind and too far from him or anything else.

And there was that again too; that tiny little hope that wormed its way around his mind and soul, cinching tight and achingly so as it morphed itself into a wish, where he never allowed himself such things… but had already, more than once, for her.

Aizawa swallowed, eyes flashing as he finally shift in his place and stepped up to the bed as close as he would dare, enforcing some space between him and her by a foot or two where he ended up placing himself closer to the foot of the bed, while she was more toward the head of it. He let himself lean back against the edge, arms crossing over his chest and casting her a sideways glance, biting the inside of his cheek, brooding…. Before he cursed himself in his head, and forced his voice to function despite the dryness in his throat that seemed to amp up at the simple thought of invading on the heavy silence.

"Izaru." His voice came out much more hoarse than he liked, breathy and low and so quiet- but it still felt abrasive in the dead silence of the room, and he winced faintly for it. But he kept his eyes on her from the side even as he said it, intent and watchful for even the faintest sign of a reaction to it. Any sign at all she heard him, registered the sound of her own name, or if it bounced off whatever wall had slammed between her and the rest of the world and didn't even make a dent…. Or worse, she did hear it, but it only managed to spark some response aimed toward listening, because she was waiting for some order or instruction that she had no choice but to follow.

He watched her, the fleeting few moments that came and went where her name lingered on the air between them and he held his breath while waiting for whatever would come of it…. And his stomach curled when there was nothing at all, and somehow that seemed worse than the latter he'd been dreading just a second beforehand.

Aizawa's eyes dropped away and he let them fall to his feet, lips pulling into a tight line and his arms crossed over his chest tightening as his shoulders hunched, and he cursed himself again.

Of course that didn't work, he knew it wouldn't, everyone else had already tried that. He'd been told exactly what they'd tried in 16 hours and what all of it did nothing, and he still did exactly what he knew would not work. He was being stupid- dancing around again, not getting to the point, avoiding doing what still didn't feel like what he should do, what he didn't want to- not when… not if…. Damn me.

Rationality…. be damned.

Aizawa grumbled silently to himself for a heartbeat more, core knotting, jaw clenching and his hands on his arms tightening, the sting of pain from his fingernails digging in through his shirt so far from his mind- and absolutely nowhere near it when he forced himself to quit it.

The dark-haired man shift on his feet for the second time in much too short an interval, silently pushing himself up into sitting on the bed instead of leaning against it, and backward across it until his back hit the wall. Doing so brought him up to be level with the still motionless woman to his right, who did not so much as blink when he did it, or the bed dipped with his added weight. There was no hint of a reaction to what he did, nor any notice of the slightly less space between them now- barely more than foot of the bed top, enough to keep apart, but not so forcefully disconnected in the space he'd originally set himself in just before.

He went slowly, cautiously so and with his eyes watching her carefully from the side just in case there was some reaction he didn't anticipate, and it took him a few heartbeats more than he liked once he was adjusted all the way before some of the rigidness in his posture was allowed to melt, and he leaned back into the wall behind him more wholly. The Erasure Hero crossed his ankles over each other, feet dangling slightly off the edge of the bed as he let some of the stiffness melt more in weariness aided along by the support of the wall, but not all of it would fade. And it was all the more clear that was the case when his hand on his thigh twitched, shaky and unsure before it raised, and when he lift his hand it went agonizingly slow.

He wasn't sure why he was doing it, wasn't sure why it was so hard to even lift his hand, let alone keep it going, or even why he didn't quit. There were plenty of reasonable sections of his mind that said it was likely not the best idea at the moment, but some part of him that wasn't his mind had him doing it anyway…. Because irrationally-

His fingers tapped against the top of Izaru's knee, just twice, featherlight and so faint the contact was fleeting and nearly inconsequential- barely there at all, and most likely to be lost behind the haze of that wall that had fallen between them. But he still tried it, for the sake of trying, and for the sake of that irrational part of himself that reasoned he should. That he should at least attempt it, based in part on the fact that doing this had managed to bring her out of her own head at least once before, and the other part that pushed for it… well he didn't know what that other half was, really.

The warmth of her beneath his fingertips was minuscule and vivid all at once, there and gone and not enough to have lingered as much as it seemed to once his hand paused to hover just above her, and his eyes glimmered as he searched her face and those achingly dull gray eyes for some sign of light. Some recognition or awareness of his hand and the contact that stirred… something.

And he didn't see it, the tiny and imperceptible twitch of her fingers in her lap- blind and unconscious reaction, surely- but Kesu noticed it right in front of his nose, and the cat's ears pricked as his yellow eyes moved from there to Aizawa, blinking slowly, intent. Fixed as Aizawa seemed to wilt a little and his hand pulled back, linking with his other one in his lap and looking from the woman and straight ahead toward the half open door, shoulders sinking in weariness and slight defeat despite himself.

His plan didn't work… so now there was nothing but the plan he didn't like, and he hesitated for a few more heartbeats, before his eyes dropped closed.

"... I talked to Amajiki." Aizawa started slowly, tensely, eyes shut still and apt to remain that way. He couldn't bring himself to look back and keep searching for something that wasn't there, so he would resign himself to just getting the words out…. And in doing so, he'd just have to hope what Kazuho said was true, and that in some way, she was listening even if he couldn't tell or see it. And hope that saying any of this was going to do what UA's newest edition hoped it might, even when it seemed unlikely, and irrational, and the very last thing he should be doing.

"Tell her the truth. Be honest, don't sugar coat it, explain what is going on and let her have a say in what we do about all of this…. Give her a choice."

Aizawa sighed heavily, his head tilting back against the wall and arms crossing uneasily over his chest.

"... He's a little shaken up by the whole thing… Unsurprisingly…. But he's more worried about… About you and I, then he is himself." The Erasure Hero went on softly, "I can't tell you how many times he apologized. For bringing it up, for asking you about it, for making things complicated or worse…. He regrets it, much more than he should, because this… It's not his fault."

Aizawa paused for a moment, grimacing to himself as he grit his teeth slightly, before going on.

"... It's not anybody's fault." He mumbled, relented, though parts of him still couldn't help but argue the point for himself, even if realistically he knew better…. That wouldn't stop the guilt, though.

"... I'm sorry I didn't realize who he was before." Aizawa murmured softly, his tone dropping despite himself. "I should have seen it a long time ago, if I had known who he was I would have… I would have made sure you didn't end up in the situation without being prepared for it. I wasn't intending for you to be dropped into this without warning, or to be blindsided like this. I never wanted all of this to be brought back up again, for either of you, and…. I'm sorry, Aneko."

His voice wavered a bit on the last and he swallowed, fingers digging into his arms.

Shit

"... I realize you never wanted that either…. To have Amajiki have to remember it all, or get dragged into this mess…. But we're all here now, and we have to decide what we do. There's no easy answer to what that is, we have to consider the Investigation that's still ongoing, how much or little we should disclose when trying to explain you being here and why…. Nobody could really come to a consensus, but the Principal had a suggestion, and as irrational as it is, all the rest of the staff have come around to the idea that it might be the best choice." He continued on, a bit more tensely now, though he forced some modicum of steadiness back into his voice rather than allowing another unwanted waver to push itself in.

"The Principal is suggesting we tell Amajiki the truth. About what happened, at the Pit, and after… How you're alive, how you came to UA- all of it."

Kesu's ears pricked in surprise, the methodical twitching back and forth of his tail stalling as the cat settled slightly wide eyes on the Erasure Hero who did not see it, since his own eyes were still closed and his head was lent back against the window.

"He's not suggesting we go into every detail, there's no point in that. But he doesn't think it will do any good to try and make up a cover, or just avoid it all either…. Amajiki is willing to let it be and not question it or ask anything further, even though he wants… needs some answers…. And I… I don't want him to settle for no explanation, or stay in the dark without any sort of clarity and continue on as if nothing ever happened. That wouldn't be fair on him, given what he already knows and has been through… But the idea of explaining anything else about what happened is… unpleasant."

.:+:.

"... I'm proposing that instead of attempting to muddle the situation any further, we take the perhaps more unwise, and certainly the harder path, and tell Amajiki what happened after that last day at the Pit. How Izaru was taken, what situation she's been in for the last ten years, how she came to be at UA- the whole of it." Nezu murmured lowly, steadily, but Aizawa's head had never snapped up so quickly as just then, and rarely had such an edge worked its way into the Pro's voice when speaking to UA's Principal.

"What?" The word was more a growl, Aizawa's jaw hard set and lips curling at the edges as he uttered it, shaking his head once and harshly so as his fingers dug into the edge of the table. "We cannot tell Amajiki any of that, we can't force that on a student, no matter what-" Aizawa hissed lowly, only to be cut off when Nezu raised a paw calmly in a sign for silence.

"-I understand your reservations, Eraser. They are the same as many of the rest of the Staff, and myself included… I realize what we're talking about doing will put no small burden on Amajiki's shoulders." Nezu told him quietly, his paw lowering after a moment and hooking behind his back as he continued on. "Amajiki has already carried the weight of what he experienced at the Pit these last ten years, and I would normally never wish to add to it. What happened was traumatizing in its own right, and learning about the awful details of what came after will surely hit him hard. There is no chance he will not be affected by it, especially considering that at this moment he's regretting ever bringing the topic up- not because it put him under any extra duress in remembering it, or being faced with the impossibility that Izaru is here and alive…. He regrets it already because of what harm it has caused both you and Izaru in having to face it again."

Aizawa stiffened, the agitation on his face nearly wiped clean in a sudden wash of shock and sheer unease.

"He's already carrying some of this burden without even knowing the full extent of the situation, and he's already blaming himself for making this harder on either of you, and the rest of the staff. I would not wish to add on any of the unpleasantness that comes with knowing more, and I would hate to think he might blame himself further for what happened with Izaru if he were to learn that her taking his place in that last battle not only ended her life, but also lead to her being taken and kept under control of a Villain for the last decade." Nezu murmured, his eyes dropping from Aizawa and closed as he let out a quiet sigh. "As teachers, it is our duty to care for and protect all our students as best we are able. If we can shield them from the worst parts of this world and of humanity, we take it. We do not willingly lead them into situations that would harm them without taking every precaution to avert the damage, or to at least minimize it as much as we can." Nezu said, "For us and in raising the next generation of Heroes, we can never protect them from danger indefinitely. They will get hurt no matter what we do, we accept this as the reality of what it means to be a Pro Hero… but we still try and shield them regardless, we always will. They are young, they are growing and they still have seen so little of the most awful parts of the world, and if we could, we would sacrifice ourselves happily for the chance that they never have to."

Aizawa's jaw clenched, his eyes dropping quickly from the Principal and his fingers curling tightly around the edge of the couch, icy cold rushing painfully through his core and his heart.

"I do not want to burden Amajiki, or cause him any further hurt by telling him the truth. I want to spare him all of it, he is young, he is our student and shielding him where I can is all I wish to do…. But I do know that we can't protect them from everything, and we shouldn't try to." Nezu murmured quietly, Aizawa's shoulders hunching despite himself as he shot the Principal a low look, dark eyes glittering, pained.

"The reality is that Amajiki cannot be spared this, even if we were to tell him nothing and he resigned himself to never knowing the truth- the lack of answers is likely to do more harm than good. He's lived his life already carrying the knowledge that Izaru taking his place in the Pit cost her her life, and even if she is alive now, him being unallowed to know how that came to be is not going to alleviate any of that weight for him. If he's not given the chance to understand what happened to her, he won't be able to process any of this in any beneficial way, and by trying to shield him from the truth; we might actually end up doing more harm than good." Nezu explained softly, "And even though telling him the truth will also surely add to the hurt he's carried all this time- hurt a child should never have had to bear in the first place, though we cannot change that- and might not wish to add to…. We do need to remember that though Amajiki may be our student, and he may be young; he is well on his way to being a Pro Hero, and will be in a shorter time than we might like to think."

Nezu blinked his eyes open and tilted his head back up, meeting Aizawa's eyes steadily.

"He's been working hard toward being a Pro Hero, strengthening himself and his Quirk for what dangers await him in this line of work, and preparing himself for what unpleasantness he is surely to face while being a Pro- things he has already faced long before setting himself on this track, and proven excellent at it." Nezu told him, "Amajiki is one of the Big Three, he is on par with many Pro Heroes out on the circuit, and he's even a cut above some of our own Staff. His standing as such is as much a testament to his strength and resolve, as it is a reminder to us as his Teachers that he has already stepped beyond the borders of our protection, and faced difficult situations that fall in line with this one. Amajiki has already been in the middle of strife, faced against Villains, dealt with the aftermath of destruction and crises. He's carried the burden of many awful things he's experienced in his Internships and his time at UA, and he's carried them well. And many times, especially so now, he's done so by exceeding all expectations and against all odds."

Nexu took a breath, dark eyes glinting in the light from overhead, shoulders setting back and squared, steady.

"By all rights, Amajiki is already no longer a child by which we need to protect from all things. He has worked hard to become what he is right now; a fully capable Pro Hero. And in being such, he is more than capable of shouldering some more of this burden. He's proven he can several times already in his training, and he's proven it tenfold by the simple fact that despite what happened ten years ago, and what scars that experience at the Pit landed him with- despite all of that, he is here."

Aizawa swallowed hard, lips a thin line and shoulders sinking slightly as his eyes flashed, and he felt his grip on the couch cushion falter.

"That little boy who lived through what no child ever should- he grew up and he worked hard to come to UA, and to be a Pro Hero. Despite everything, he has grown into this wonderful young man who is already surpassing other Heroes even now, and is going to be a spectacular Pro Hero when he graduates. One who has handled difficult situations before, carried the weight of the past and other people's burdens for years, worked hard through what challenges he has faced since, and looked ahead to the future and prospered….. And I think we need to remember that, especially right now."

"They are young, they are our students and we will guard them fervently, always…. But they are also our future Heroes, and we need to trust in the strength that comes with aspiring to be that. To trust that this is not a hurdle that will break him, or that he cannot shoulder, but instead have faith that this is something he is capable of handling. Something he is ready and willing to carry, and not necessarily as a burden…. Instead perhaps it may be something he might learn from, and grow from too."

Aizawa's eyes fell to the floor, teeth gritting and fingers trembling faintly, his head bowing slightly so that his tangled locks fell haphazardly in front of his face and blocked his view. He heard the Principal's feet tap lightly across the floor as he paced closer, saw the top of his shoes in his eye line for but a brief second, before he scrunched his eyes closed hard against the feel of Nezu's paw landing gently on his knee, and the unwanted wrenching sensation in Aizawa's core that followed.

"This has been a raw wound for a very long time, and it's been agitated in every possible way during the last few weeks, and last night especially. I am sorry that this came about and what strain it's imposing, but this is where we are now and we have no way of going back. And though it may not feel like it, I do think it could be good for all of you, if we were to follow through on my proposal." Nezu's voice was softer that time, and just as gentle as the contact. "What happened at the Pit has been a hole ripped in each of your lives that has refused closing. There has been no opportunity to really process what happened, no way to talk through or face it with what distance and circumstance have kept the three of you disconnected for ten years. You all might have found a way to keep on in spite of that empty space, but it is still empty, there are things that haven't been said, questions that have not been answered. That place, as awful as it was, has kept you all tethered to one another and you've not had the chance to try and work on that line, and make something else of the knots that have continued to accumulate in it…. As unpleasant as this is, it might be a chance to untangle some of that hurt, and to fill in a bit of that hole- for all of you."

Nezu's paw lift slightly off the Pro's knee, patting it twice and lightly so, before drawing away entirely and the Principal let out a small breath.

"... I am not asking you to force yourself into anything you aren't willing to do. I'm suggesting this as a possible plan, but it does not have to be the final one. We will not go forward with it without yours, and Izaru's, go-ahead." Nezu murmured, Aizawa stiffened, his eyes snapping open despite himself as he glanced up slowly. Nezu dipped his head slightly as their eyes matched, arms hooking behind his back and head tilting faintly in the direction of the office door.

"I won't force either of you to go forward on this unless you wish to… I understand Izaru isn't in a place to make that decision right now, but that is alright. We will wait until you are both ready, however long that may be."

.:+:.

Aizawa trailed off again for a little longer that time, the recant of the conversation coming quietly on his own lips even as it flared so vividly in his mind. He didn't need to retell the whole thing and he didn't, not every detail at least, but he did make sure that what he said reflected the sentiment that Nezu was trying to appeal to and get across…. At least as much as he could in that moment, without his voice failing him like it felt it wanted to.

"... I can see the sense in it. I understand why Nezu or anyone else would think this might be the better choice, regardless of what… explaining anything, might bring up. I said no immediately, and after he explained his reasoning, I still wanted to say no, but I agreed to at least talk to Amajiki first and see where things currently stand…. And now that I have… I….." Aizawa grit his teeth, one hand coming up from being crossed over his chest and pinching at the bridge of his nose, a heavy, slightly shaky, and slightly agitated breath escaping him.

"... damn it…. I don't know." He mumbled, and admitted, so so quietly. It was barely a whisper, something some part of him didn't want to say aloud, but the still barely rational part of himself insisted on being put out in the open for the sake of this, and talking, and being honest, and all else.

"... It feels wrong, but that might just be my own reservations against it that have nothing to do with looking at it in a reasonable sense…. And what I want and what's best are not necessarily the same thing. I don't want to shoulder anything else onto Amajiki unnecessarily, but the Principal is right that he's already carrying all of this, and has been, the entire time…. Maybe telling him the truth will do some good, maybe he can handle it- he has learned to deal with difficult situations and worked through them being at UA, during his training, and his Internships…. but what if him learning about all of this is too much, even with the experience, and what he's been taught, and everything else?"

The Erasure Hero grit his teeth at the uncertainty he could hear in his own voice, a huge step away from the usual neutrality and steadiness he could generally muster, or at least stay stubbornly adhered to on the regular…. But not right now, not after hours worth of unpleasant and straining things, not after all the doubts, and the shock, and the memories, and the hurt- tch.

He couldn't force himself that right now, not even if he wanted to or had even a modicum of the energy that would require. He was exhausted, pulled thin in too many directions and only just now reached some shaky stability after hours of barely keeping himself from falling into the depths of a pitch black hole filled with endless water. He had no energy nor will to keep his voice, tone, or words from betraying him- from leaving him more open than he would ever usually allow. And there was even less a will to do so, given the suggestion he be honest, not sugarcoat it, and Hizashi's own plea still nagging at him even hours later.

He had no want to let himself slip enough that any of that turmoil that had wrapped tightly about him was on clear view, but he had no will to fight it, and no choice but to let himself avoid trying to. There was no burying it this time…. And not just for his sake, but hers too. Because if he tried to ignore it, and tried to bury it instead of deal with it- she would see it. She was too perceptive, he'd always known that, and he knew it all the more so when she herself said it plainly, and Hizashi did too. She would know if he was letting it tear him apart and not trying to handle it, if he tried to focus on everything else and not him. And if he did that she would worry about him, more than she already was, as she'd said, and that would not help anything.

So he had no choice now…. Not that it made it any easier.

His hand dropped back down from his face and he tucked it back into the crook of his elbow, shoulders hunching slightly as he felt his back slide an inch further down the wall, and he swallowed.

"... I realize you've been having trouble understanding all you're feeling, I know a lot of things don't 'click' for you. I know this is hard… I don't want to add on anything else that would make that worse, but I won't decide this by myself. You are in the middle of this just as much as I am, and Amajiki, and nobody wants to go forward on any sort of plan without giving you a say." He murmured softly, "I'm not asking for the rational answer, and I'm not asking you to have a good answer, or any at all…. You don't have to have an answer, and if you do you don't have to rush to decide one right now either, but I'm not going to blindly go forward on dealing with this without… letting you have the chance to try and decide if you do have one, or don't, or whatever else." Aizawa murmured quietly. "... We can wait as long as you need, Aneko… I'm just telling you now so you understand what's going on, and in the meantime you have a chance to start trying to… muddle through it." He hummed, gently almost, though it wasn't a conscious choice to make his voice sound so at that moment.

He spared a look her way, barely so and without turning his head much, if at all, his lips pulling at the edges and his stomach lurching awfully when he looked back and there was no change or subtle, minuscule hint of… anything.

He grimaced at it, swallowing hard and letting his eyes fall shut again, his arms crossing a little more tightly over his chest as his posture melted, and he sank just an inch or two further down the wall and the window at his back, his chin falling forward onto his chest in defeat. He made no move to get up or to leave, even if he had nothing else left he could say that he thought would help with that (rather last ditch-effort) idea that Kazuho had proposed. He'd said as much as he needed in line with being honest, and explaining what was going on…. And everything else he could have said, more that wouldn't be 'sugar-coating' it- he wasn't sure he could do it right now. To convince himself to say what several things were whirling around in his own mind and soul, things that ached, more than he was comfortable with, or had the strength to juggle right now on top of everything.

He was tapped out on the talking but he would wait, and as long as he had to- settling himself to a similar line of thought that had Hizashi glued to his side for the last 16 hours on end. He wasn't going to leave her alone, even if him being there was barely anything at all, or she might not have even registered his presence in any significant way. He wouldn't leave her alone, not when he knew and remembered clearly what she'd said about coming to UA at all, and why she did… and he wouldn't leave her alone, because she'd been that way for too long.

She'd been alone for ten years, stuck in her own mind and body with no way out and nobody there to try and bring her back. He hadn't been able to be there, not in ten years, and not even when this had all crashed down on their heads the previous evening.

He hadn't been there…. so hell if he was going to go anywhere now.

Sitting there in the silence- silence he usually craved- was unsettling, though. In fact it was near onto deafening, the constant and heavy blanket of it making his ears ring slightly and more so when he tried to find something to hone in on in a vain attempt to lessen it…. But even with that making the ache and throb in his head and in his heart all the worse, he didn't leave or even think of doing so. Not even with the unsettling sensation of the silence, not with the insistent ringing his ears adopted, or the ache in his head and his back eventually. Both ushered on all the faster as time ticked by, minutes blurring into a few more hours on top of 16, and the simple sitting there had the exhaustion dragging at his heels gaining more and more traction.

He needed sleep, but sleep was far from his friend on a normal day, and especially far from it right now. And he knew better than to think even the sheer exhaustion would manage a way of granting him any sort of sleep. Not anytime soon, not soon enough to alleviate the strain that had him barely holding onto the shaky bit of solid ground he'd fought to earn for himself, and certainly not before he had some tiny bit of assurance that whatever bottomless pit she'd fallen into now, was not actually endless….. It couldn't be.

Aizawa swallowed hard, his fingers digging into his arms tightly where they had long since fallen slack, and the tension that had melted in the quake of exhaustion flared all anew in no time at all.

It… He needed it not to be-

Aizawa's eyes snapped open, the thought breaking off and his heart skipping a startled beat for the sudden, barely there, entirely imperceptible, but absolutely vivid sensation of someone's fingertips tapping against the top of his knee.

Just twice, jerkingly so and fleeting, but he felt it. Felt the sudden burst of warmth from even the so short-lived and near negligible millisecond or two of contact, the faint tremble in the touch and the uncertainty too. But he felt it, it was there, it wasn't a mistake or a graze- it was intentional.

His eyes flashed in the dim of the room, landing first on her left hand hovering for a second over his knee, shaking faintly as she seemed to hesitate after struggling to tap his leg the little she had, before she pulled her hand back in toward herself and his gaze went with it. He saw her shift, the shaking in her hand mirrored faintly in the rest of her as she pulled her knees in further toward her center, shoulders jumping slightly as her breath hitched, short and shallow and unbelievably loud despite how faint it actually was, and he felt his heart jolt painfully out of the startled skip to hear it.

She snaked her right arm around her knees, hugging them to her and her left doing the same, but only about half of the way as she hooked her elbow around one and her left hand lift up toward herself, her forehead falling against the back of her hand and burying her face between it, her knees, and silvery-lavender strands of her hair tumbling loosely about her shoulders. She moved, curling in on herself all the more than she had even back at the Principal's Office the first time, and ache settled onto Aizawa's expression when he saw the numbness that had crept into her figure suddenly start morphing into the same tense rigidness, and the trembling started up again too. It was faint for now, inconsistent and jerky, and her breathing hitched again as she swallowed hard and held it, before letting it come back out, quivering.

Her sudden adjustment jostled Kesu loose where the he had had himself tucked against her side, the cat moving across the bed to being directly in front of her without a sound even as she curled in on herself. The cat lift a paw and set it gently on top of her foot and left it there, ears shoved forward and yellow eyes fixed to her in silence, watchful and intent. And for a moment neither Aizawa nor Kesu moved even an inch after that, both of them watching her with unease and quiet uncertainty all molded into one, while she seemed to be doing her best to settle into what newfound sense of awareness and reality she'd managed to grab hold of for the first time in…. Forever, it felt like.

Her breathing hitched again, quiet as the first time as she held it and Aizawa saw her lips curl from what little he could see of her expression with her current position, and he swallowed. Instinct had his hands unfolding from across his chest and moving to lean in, but better sense and caution had him halting that plan near immediately, and he kept himself in his place. What little he did move was reserved to his head tilting faintly, dropping just an inch or two in an attempt at trying to catch her eyes, but that was fruitless and he bit the inside of his cheek, before letting out a silent breath.

"... Aneko."

Her name came softly, his voice low and in more delicate and gentle a tenor than it had ever been before. More so even than when he'd said it that night they'd come back to the dorms, rain-soaked, and she'd told him she did not regret what she'd done in the Pit and in saving him. It was gentler than that, less husky, and certainly more cautious this time- it was careful, tender even, and it seemed to make her stiffen faintly to hear it… but not in the way Aizawa assumed at that moment.

She did stiffen, but it wasn't blind reaction or unease toward being addressed, or even anything bordering on her unconsciously flinching away from him either. No, she stiffened because the sound of his voice and her name had suddenly cut through the static and the ringing in her ears in more clear a way than even the near-electric sensation on her knee who the hell knows how long before. That single double-tap sensation that tore a hole in the unending bleakness and nothing where no else had, even tiny as it was, and some of the noise started to leak through.

Hours, days- years of what felt like fighting relentlessly with no return against the whirling emptiness and the inability to make sense of anything. Formless and trapped in dark, fractured, empty corners mixed with disjoined and strewn about emotions and sensations she didn't have the information, memory, not understanding to pin to- all of them heavy and so disjointed and impossible to reach, leaving her adrift in some chasm and unending depth of a void that she… She was both drowning inside of, detached from, bombarded by and left in an endless blurred haze of. Where all at once it all pound against her with a fierceness but she could not feel the heavy impact, where it was tearing her apart at the seams but the coldness and the fog kept her from experiencing it in any way, and instead left it more like a drug-fettered nightmare.

One where she was floating, abstract, formless, bodiless almost, and the world was nothing. There was nothing, not the ground, not the cold, not the surroundings, and not even sound. There was not a hint of her own breathing, or her own heartbeat anymore. Suddenly she was just empty and nothing... Nobody.

A nightmare that was reality and felt like anything but, but also came with a sharp edge of altered awareness that allowed just enough of the world to come in so she… she knew what was going on. She heard their voices far off and muffled, but insistent all at once. Knew she had moved and followed and done what they asked, but there was nothing left in her that could grasp to that action and that awareness that felt entirely not her. Nothing she could grip to as her body and her mind seemed to process and do things without her consent, and no steady space to place herself even as that semi-functional state of herself battled with the torrent of whirling, indistinguishable, prodding things she did not get. A lifetime worth of her mind dodging back and forth on a repeat of fractured memories that were much too vivid but much too separate from herself, even when she knew they were hers. Thoughts and things spinning relentlessly, rational thought overlaying those she could not understand and fusing together like some tangled, monstrous rendition of the life and story of something that is both no longer alive and yet not quite dead- s… shit…..

Izaru stiffened a little more, the breath she was holding coming out shaky and rushed as she grit her teeth, and she shook her head, tangling her hair against her hand, knees, and forehead both.

"... H… How long have I…?" Her voice came out breathlessly, and tip-toeing dangerously on the edge of being raspy. Aizawa felt his muscles lock anxiously in reaction to it, and the fact that she didn't even know.

He faltered for a heartbeat before shaking it off as best he could, his head tilting just a fraction of an inch more and eyes glimmering as he cautiously replied;

"... It's been about a day." She stiffened even more than she already had, the words earning an icy shard driving into her core, and she grit her teeth hard against it.

"D….Damn it…" She hissed through her teeth, before she pulled in on herself further, burying her face more into her knees than her hand now and Aizawa wilted at it. His hands moved slightly in his lap, lips pulling into a hard line as he debated with himself for a moment, before slowly adjusting a little in his place.

He leaned forward away from the wall and window at his back, pulling his legs up and shifting into sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her instead, and turning part of the way to face her more directly too. His hands fell on his knees, stationing them there and curling his fingers around them to keep him from accidentally reaching out where he wasn't sure he should- lest it spook her, or send her spiraling further away again. She was back and out of her head and whatever lingering hold Simon's Quirk had now, but she wasn't calm or anywhere close to it. She was fragile, and he knew he needed to tread carefully, and do his best to stick to some sort of calm himself or risk making everything worse. So when he spoke up again, his voice was no less gentle or cautious than before, but it was a bit steadier now, and he faintly surprised himself for managing it despite the way his core was knotting and twisting.

"... Do you remember what happened?" Aizawa asked softly, Izaru's fingers tightened around her knees, her head bobbing in a tiny, shaky nod against her knees.

"... Y… Yes…. I.." She stammered, her voice breaking off harshly as she sucked in a sharp breath of air and growled, quiet for a heartbeat before her voice dropped, tense and small.

"... I am so sorry…"

Aizawa blinked, his eyes widening in surprise for the sudden apology before his expression softened. He shook his head, lips parting and about to tell her she didn't need to say it- but she wasn't done.

"I didn't…. I didn't mean to fall in so far… I wasn't trying to…. I… I've been trying to pull myself back but… n…nothing's been working… I couldn't….. Think…. Or….. shit." She hissed, her voice wavering badly, uncertain and tense and… frustrated, too.

"... I can hear all of you… everything anybody says… I…. I've been there but not… I couldn't do anything…. E-even though some part of my mind could make sense of what's going on, let me listen and… and do things… a different part of me… I couldn't…. I'm there but… it's all blurred and fractured…. Thinking and not being able to think, the information getting through and sinking in and I get it but…. But it's not me…. I'm not there, but my body is… my mind is… torn between different places… too many places and things and…. Processing, knowing…. remembering…. Some parts click but they aren't…. They aren't right, I get them and I don't at the same time, how could tha…. That doesn't make sense, damn it…." She cut herself off sharply, fingers digging into her knees and probably painfully too- but she didn't notice, or otherwise couldn't care.

Aizawa couldn't help himself the pained look that swept over his face right then, or the way he shifted faintly in his place, fidgeting and anxious despite the quiet voice of caution that told him he needed to keep himself from getting worked up too much…. But how was he supposed to not? Especially when she said the next, and she sounded so defeated…?

"... I fell in again, I didn't want to but I got dragged back… It took a whole fucking day to even… shit….. I'm so sorry, my….. My mind is so broken….."

Aizawa's hands on his knees tightened, his eyes dropping from her and holding his breath for a moment against the violent wrench that came in his center following the words.

Someone else might have tried to tell her that wasn't true, rush to assure her that she only felt that way because of what all had gone on, and that it was going to pass and the word broken didn't qualify. But he couldn't do it, because hollow platitudes and assurances had never been like him to hand out- and it would be hollow, because trying to tell her that what she said was untrue, or that it wasn't founded and would pass once she'd found her way through this rough patch…. Doing that and telling her that would be a lie, and they both knew it.

After all of this, ten years of being treated as nothing but a pawn, two years in hell and fighting to stay alive while watching countless others lose theirs, and a lifetime on top of that living with a Quirk that made every moment of her day a hell all it's own built up of constant sensations of danger, unrest, and all likelihood of bad that ever could happen…. There had never been a moment in her life where it was 'going to pass', or she hadn't been buried underneath a million things that would break the strongest people in seconds, tenfold. After everything she had been beaten, shattered, and stretched to the limit on a constant loop with no end in sight- not with what had happened lurking at her heels and haunting her, not with her Quirk never going to allow her to rest for even a moment, and not with Simon's doing, and what amount his Quirk had torn her apart from her mind outward for ten years and longer now. After all of that she was broken, had been broken in too many ways to count, too many times over- she was right.

Nobody, not even her, went through all of that and didn't break.

Aizawa grit his teeth against the awful, heavy, and terribly familiar truth, his eyes shutting tight.

She was right, she was broken, she knew it, and he did… They'd all known it, but this was a prime example as to why the answer to that awful question that had been on everyone's minds in this, was likely the worst one.

In what version of all of this…. Can Aneko Izaru ever live? Knowing that she is broken, and has been, for much too long..? And that rationally, any path that would allow her even a modicum of what 'living' meant, would always be overshadowed by things no one could free her from entirely….? That there was so little and near nothing they could, or knew how to do, that would even be useful…?

The Erasure Hero's jaw clenched hard enough his teeth ached for it, and he forced a low, slightly shaky, and slightly heated breath.

He looked up again, eyes glittering in the darkness that kept strengthening as the sun set all the way beyond the horizon outside the window and the sky started to bleed more violet than orange. His attention traced over her figure, all the tension, the ache, the unease and the uncertainty written into every rigid muscle and exhausted shake, every slightly hitching breath and white-knuckled grip on her knees, the sinking of her shoulders and the dampening of the energy in her voice as she said it- frustrated, defeated, aching and lost.

Crumbling slowly, where she'd been rendered nothing but a million shattered pieces, and hadn't started to realize how fractured she really was until right then, and having spent hours fighting desperately to make sense of her mind, body, and emotions that could not, and would not come together even a fraction of the way.

She wasn't reacting as badly as she had at the start, she was trembling but it was considerably less than it had been right after Amajiki had talked to her. And though her breathing had picked up and kept hitching, it wasn't as shallow nor as fast (while also still being forcibly muted) as before- but it was getting a bit more so as the moments dragged on. He didn't know if this lessened reaction was because she'd managed to take the edge off the shock from the start, or if maybe she just hadn't yet shaken off whatever numbness that had kept her silent and barely functional for the last day…. He wasn't sure which it was, but he suspected it was likely the latter, and he knew that even if that haze was still clinging to her now, she'd still pulled herself out of it and in doing so ripped holes in what barrier it had been. That action that was now letting in all manner of things, and likely mostly all of the things that had driven her sinking into that chasm inside of herself, and letting the barrier fall so decisively in the first place.

He needed to put some kind of pause in the rush of it, so it didn't bombard her all at once again. Because it wasn't just the situation or whatever turmoil and memories it brought up that would hit her, but her Quirk was going to as well. Sixth Sense had to have been buried and muddied under all the rest of it just as much as she had, which meant it was going to gear itself back up and start coming back into focus. And at this rate it was going to hit her with a vengeance, because it was mixing with all the rest of it, and all of this was exactly the sort of thing that made Sixth Sense a million times worse than it already normally was. And that, right now?

It was too much, it needed to slow up, to come to a pause, to stop…. And this time when it stopped it couldn't be the same halt that had come before. It couldn't just spin back around to where it had gone before, lest it end in a never ending loop that would wear her down just as much as it had the first time, and the next time around she might not have it left in her to pull back.

Aizawa forced himself as steadying a breath as he could, his hands on his knees letting up and he let himself close a little more of the distance between them that caution (and perhaps better-sense) had instilled. He reached a hand forward, slowly so and bringing it up to hover over her left knee, just like he had before. But when he tapped the top of it this time he wasn't quick about it, he didn't keep the contact fleeting. Instead he let his fingertips linger one, two, three seconds longer on her knee for the first one, and when he tapped her lightly the second time around he didn't lift his fingers back up and end the contact. He left his hand there, hovering still mostly but still connecting himself to her in what tiny way his fingertips would allow, and he blinked when the way he anticipated she would tense up in reaction to it- didn't come.

Kesu's ears pricked, the cat's yellow eyes locking on to the Erasure Hero's hand, fixed, intent and awed, even... Then Kesu's ears drooped slightly along with his whiskers, and he blinked once and slowly as he let his attention move off the woman and land on the Pro instead- though it was never noticed.

Aizawa didn't look away, he ended up hesitating a moment in surprise after his fingers stalled, eyes narrowing faintly and wondering (or rather fearing) that she might not have even registered him touching her at all…. But that idea was quickly dashed when he saw her head twitch faintly, her breathing picking up a tad as she seemed to force herself a big gulp of air, before holding it for a moment and letting it out a little more slowly than those that had come just before (though it seemed a struggle to do so). And then he found himself slightly reeling and all the more unsure when she tilted her head up enough from the back of her hand and her legs to let her eyes land quietly on where his hand was just in front of her nose, glassy and utterly exhausted dull gray gaze settling on his fingers blearily. Not quite focused all the way for what haze there still seemed to be, and had stripped away all remnants of that pale blue there used to be- but lifted enough right then that there was some amount of light there, some life.

Life and light buried underneath a storm and sea of too many emotions and painful things he could see swimming so clearly in her eyes when she let her attention drift off his hand, and she glanced sideways to meet his own eyes. A thousand things, a thousand and a million times more than had been there and so easy to see in the entirety of what few weeks she'd been back in his life. The hurt and the ache raw and open and on clear display, no guessing, no uncertainty in the depth that it went or the crippling weight it brought with it. It was there and burning, potent, and so, so much.

His fingers twitched slightly on her knee in tandem with the agonizing wrench that tugged at his center with such a fierceness it felt hard to breathe, before he let his still hovering palm lower until it rest lightly against her along with his fingertips. His eyes flashed as he took in a short breath, and his shoulders sank heavily, the steadiness he'd worked hard to put on his face morphing unwillingly into something tired, uneasy, and so uncertain. A bit of himself on clear view he rarely ever let be… and Izaru's eyes glittered ever so faintly when she saw it, though he never caught her doing so, and he never would- not for the shock that replaced it when Aizawa said the next;

"What can I do?" He asked quietly, his voice bordering on husky and so… So sincere, despite the uncertainty in the ask.

Izaru sucked in a shallow breath of air, eyes widening slightly and her expression falling and twisting all at once (minutely so) as her violently spinning mind rushed to make sense of what she was seeing, what the sincerity was for, the unease and the near hesitation in what he-

Her eyes flashed, a tiny hitch coming in the whirl of it all, nor more than a millisecond, and so tiny a thing it was barely even a pause or any sort of relief. It was a hiccup in a rhythm already erratic and uncoordinated, another jolt in the utter chaos, and jolt felt appropriate for what rather indelicate sensation it brought. It wasn't kind, not the easy snap together that barely jostled the whole, this was a chain pulling taught on a body and jerking both ends roughly. Connected now and for once, but nowhere near a smooth action, and the sensation of this synapse firing where so many of the right ones had refused, where something now finally clicked- it was jarring, and painful in a way even as it connected so harshly, rattling in both her mind, body, and soul.

He… He didn't know what to do. He was as much admitting it as he was trying to deny the thought and do something, anything…. Anything at all, because he needed to try even if he couldn't deny what she'd said, or the harsh reality of it all. He had to do something, even when he had nothing, and he was doing it now; the only thing left, the very thing he had already set himself to and told her too, but not in so few words as he had just now.

"I already told you, do what you think is better for you, even if it may not be the 'rational' response. I'll help you, if I can, and if you need it. And I won't say I have a better plan on how to handle it than you do, because I don't….. I know it might be hard to come up with an answer at the moment, but you're the only one who can really know what will help you and what won't, and what you can handle right now."

Izaru swallowed, her eyes stuck on him and the memory of it rushing quick as can be through her mind, directly through the storm and straight to the front on the back of that synapse firing, and she felt her heart skip a beat.

Because back then he'd said it, and she knew he'd meant it. It wasn't like him to throw around words and offer to help without meaning them, he wouldn't offer himself up like that without fully planning to back it up…. But back then and now were vastly different, because right when he said that he was putting it back on her, even when he didn't want to. He was admitting he had no foothold, no way of fixing this and that he could do nothing, and he had to defer to her even when it seemed the irrational course of action. He was resigning himself to stepping back from that rationality he held so tightly to and dropping any attempt at denying he was useless, accepting the fact of it even when it was hard to do so, and letting himself try and do something- this thing- in some last chance at managing even the tiniest fraction of help. Helping by admitting he didn't know, abandoning the reason and asking her to make a choice and decide what's best, even in a moment where he would have rather done anything but. Anything but to let himself accept the uselessness, to let it be seen and on show like that, and ask her for an answer he didn't have.

And the… The hurt she could see and sense that he felt in doing it, in letting himself lean into her even the little when he felt he should have done anything else, and in admitting he didn't know how to help her was… W…was…

She held her breath, eyes flashing as she held his and there came another jolt, another fire, a spark in the form of thought and reason and understanding backed by something powerful and potent.

It clicked and what it brought with it was heart wrenching

Izaru's gray eyes left him for half a second, her lips pulling into a thin line where they were hidden behind the back of her hands still, and she felt it all whirl even more violently than a millisecond beforehand.

Everything spun away faster, ramping up and on a fast-track up a steep cliff side to nowhere and destined to derail, violent and crushing in the aftermath of what would come with the millions things chasing her up the incline, and would pound down over her head as gravity pulled her down and slammed her mercilessly into the bottom, burying her. There came a sudden uptick in a million sensations, but most of all of the flashes of incomprehensible things that hissed a warning of something terrible coming should that path be allowed to unfurl entirely. Danger, and of a like that was decidedly more world-shattering than what alternative track reared its head, set on a collision course for that runaway train with some chance at stopping the pitch off the cliff. Years of rushed decision making and rational thought geared toward that one end of averting the worst, and bringing a chance- Risky in its own right, but not the Perilous that was surging from the depths waiting at the bottom of the cliff and trying to claim her.

She swallowed hard, her eyes moving to move back up and locking with his, a fraction of steadiness, unease, and even apology working its way into the sea of too many things swirling in that gray gaze of hers. Urgency too, along with an ache that he wished he could unsee.

"... Ca…. Cancel my Quirk." Came the breathless words, shaky as they slipped past her lips, but no less firm in the request even despite that. Aizawa couldn't help himself the way his expression fell for the altogether unsurprising, but entirely unpleasant answer.

His hand on her knee twitched the slightest bit, halfway to drawing back before he seemed to catch himself, and then rather unconsciously his fingers tightened around the top of it, giving her a squeeze that wasn't really intentional nor reassuring, so much as it was blind reaction on his part. He held her eyes and swallowed, searching, trying to pick apart the thousand and one things so clear in her eyes and to determine if what amount of firmness in the ask was real, or if it was nothing but a rushed idea with no thought or planning, and only brought into existence through panic and uncertainty alone. To see if she asked it and knew what she was asking, rather than running toward something that was only a way to escape the whirl with no thought to the consequences.

But she knew what she asked, there was a strange hint of light like clarity there that hadn't been before, a moment where there was no haze and no drowning in it it all. This was some minuscule purchase of solid ground where she was otherwise adrift in a roiling sea, and the ache she was feeling for even asking it was too real for it to have been a whim, or a rushed decision. He knew it, but he still had to be certain, his voice awfully low and edged with apprehension he could not will nor force away;

"... Are you sure?" Aizawa asked quietly, and there was no pause to be had before she nodded stiffly, and once.

"Please." She whispered, her eyes falling from him again, glossy. She shook her head next, a few times as she sucked in a shaky breath of air and let her attention land on his hand for but a moment, before her lips pulled into a thin line and she shut them tight. Her shoulders hunched as her head bent forward again, her bangs tickling the top of his knuckles as her forehead touched the edge of her knee rather than hide behind her hand again, and that hand moved to hook around the back of her neck, shaky and pale fingers thin and stark white in the orange rays of the setting sun spilling from the window behind her.

"I… I'm sorry….. It… It's too much."

Heyo! :D

Long time no see, but I'm here and alive and this chappy is suuuuper long!

Hopefully that makes up for the long stretch with no update this last time? XD

Anyway, there was lots to digest here, lots of jumping around- but I wanted to make things seem a little disjointed and hard to keep track of, in line with something like what my poor bb Izaru was going through QwQ

I do hope you enjoyed this chapter tho! And look forward to the next, we've got ppl to talk to and things to work through!

Thank you all so much for your incredible patience, and your continued support! I love you all so very much!

Please follow, fav, and Review if ya can! Thank you!