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"Nah, dude," says Sero, shaking his head. "You've got it all wrong."
"Hey, don't diss my guy like that! He's so manly," Eijirou protests, clenching his fist in the air. "Spider-Man isn't even real."
"You can still have admiration for someone fictional," Sero points out.
Eijirou shrugs. "Okay. You do you, dude, but Crimson Riot is definitely cooler."
"Eyes on point, you two," says Aizawa.
"Sorry, sensei!" says Sero cheerfully.
Eijirou grins wide, and throws him a mock-salute.
"We're not expecting anything to happen," Aizawa tells them, "but these patrol experiences are good for your development. The thing to remember is —"
A scream splits the air. Eijirou's head whips round to see a figure in a baggy jumpsuit tearing away from a teenage-looking girl, staring after him with wide eyes and an open mouth.
"Let's go!" Sero yells, and Eijirou breaks into a sprint.
"Leave me alone!" the mugger yells, throwing something behind him. It glows and flashes and Aizawa curses, scarf whipping out like a snake to grab it. He flings it upwards and it explodes with a crack of flame.
"Explosive quirk," Aizawa grits out, running beside them. "Bomb production. Watch out!"
"Yes, sensei!" yells Eijirou, feet pounding against the ground as he pushes himself faster.
The mugger throws back a trio of bombs. Aizawa snatches one from the air, Sero another, and Eijirou tracks the final one and leaps. He misses it by a finger-width. It goes soaring into the building next to them. Sound splits the air with an explosion, and people scream from inside.
"Sensei!" yells Sero. Eijirou's eyes go wide with horror.
"Evacuate the civilians!" Aizawa roars, sprinting past, goggles over his glowing eyes. "Both of you!"
Sero and Eijirou throw themselves at the building. Dust cascades down from the top. Stone creaks. Wood groans. Metal shrieks. People are flooding out, and Eijirou catches bright petals and green stems and shattered glass — it's a flower shop. Sero whips his elbows forward as tape comes shooting out of them, streaking towards the people left inside. Eijirou charges forward — there's a girl with a man who must be her father in the far corner, and he needs to get them out in time —
"Kirishima!" Sero hollers from behind him. "The building!"
Eijirou's head whips up. The building is crumbling, falling, and the little girl lets out a high-pitched scream of abject terror. He lunges forward, and the wide, terrified eyes of the kid in her father's arms are the last thing he sees before the world collapses with a ringing thud.
Pressure slams onto his spine. Eijirou throws up Unbreakable, wrangling his quirk into sharp spikes and ironclad skin. He throws his arms out as the debris falls, weight shoving downwards against them, and clamps his jaw together. Dust fills the space with a whoomph, suffocating, thrown up by the collapse, swirling thickly around the air. The debris above shifts, collides and tumbles down to a halt, and Eijirou balances the mass of the ceiling on his back. He gasps in a breath and immediately regrets it, coughing violently. Everything comes to a horrible, too-quiet silence.
In his mind, the forty-second timer starts ticking down, down, down.
"Everybody okay?" he calls, strained.
A man's voice echoes from behind him. "You saved us," he breathes. "Thank you!"
"We're trapped," wails the little girl.
Eijirou grits his teeth. "I'll keep you safe long enough to get out, okay? You can count on me!"
"Shit!" comes a voice from outside. Sero. "Kirishima! Dude!"
"Sero!" he yells back. "We're in here!"
"Oh my god," blurts Sero, audibly panicked. "How — how do I get you out?"
"Get Aizawa!" Eijirou shouts. A twinge of pain shoots through his muscles. He resists the urge to shift position, standing firm, the weight of the ceiling pressing down on him.
"Okay, okay, shit, dude — Aizawa-sensei! Sensei! Okay, fuck, he's — he's coming —"
"Where is he?" Eijirou calls out.
"He's — getting help, there are people coming to get the rubble off you —"
Eijirou's head pounds. His arms tremble. He's nearing the end of his limit for Unbreakable and he can feel it, feel the strain in his core —
"How long can you hang on, dude?"
Eijirou gasps in a breath. The dust scratches his lungs, fills his chest, swirls in his mouth, and he coughs. His quirk kicks and screams and burns in his chest, but he clings on to it. Behind him, the father and his daughter are doing the same. "Not long," he admits, voice dry and croaky. "Ten — ten seconds."
"Shit — he's coming!" Sero says back frantically, and that's when another voice cuts in.
"Sero, get back!"
"But —"
"Now!"
Eijirou drops Unbreakable for a second — a second, just a second — and the debris balanced between his shoulders tilts and plummets, its sharp corner stabbing into his unprotected back. Agony lances through his core like a strike of lightning, and Eijirou can't stop the cry of pain that rips its way from his throat. Rubble shifts. Dust shakes itself free and swirls toward the ground, suffocating in its density. The girl screams, high-pitched and terrified. Eijirou forces Unbreakable back up, clutching at his quirk, pulling and pushing and tensing as much as he can to keep going. His head spins, and his breath comes quick, the dust in his lungs itching and scratching and —
"Kirishima!"
He knows that voice, though he doesn't recognize the sheer panic in it. "Aizawa-sensei!" he yells hoarsely. His voice cracks as the dust stirs awake inside his chest.
"Kirishima!" Aizawa repeats, suddenly closer. "Kirishima, talk to me. What's happening?"
"I —" He breaks off, coughing. The ceiling above them shifts and jostles, and the girl bursts into loud sobs. Eijirou clenches his jaw tight, trembling, and locks his arms in place. "Stuck," he forces out, voice rough. "Un — Unbreakable."
He hears a sharp intake of air. "How long?"
"Already —" A bolt of pain shoots through him from head to toe, nerve endings burning, and Eijirou bites back a sob. "Forty —"
Forty seconds, sensei, I'm past my limit, I can't —
"Fuck," swears Aizawa viciously. "We're getting you out, Kirishima, you hear me?"
There are other voices outside now, loud and barking. Eijirou's muscles are shaking uncontrollably, tremoring. His quirk slips away, and Eijirou snatches at it with desperate fingers. Unbreakable flickers in his slipping grip. Agony sparks through his back. Eijirou lets out another sob. The girl is so loud, the frantic reassurance from her father doing nothing to help. He pushes up and up with no strength left, his body howling, his bones throbbing. Above them, the rubble moves. A crack of light pierces through the darkness.
"There!" someone yells. It sounds like Aizawa, but he can't tell through the howling roar in his ears.
Eijirou tries to breathe through his seizing lungs and his shaking fingers. Unbreakable flickers again. This time, it's the father who screams. The pain makes him nauseous, the world spinning around him. He squeezes his eyes shut, gasping for air, trying not to vomit, and holds his arms in place with muscles that are on the brink of tearing in two.
The light behind his eyelids intensifies. They're removing the rubble.
"Give me the girl!" shouts an unfamiliar voice.
Something brushes against Eijirou's arm. He grits his teeth so hard that, if there were less important things on his mind, he'd be worried about them breaking. Like surround sound, the girl's sobs move forward and past his ear, and then they're fading to a lower volume. They're getting her out. He just has to hold on, hold on for a few more seconds. Unbreakable slips away again and Eijirou gasps as he rips it back, insides burning as he hardens his skin beyond its limit with his own sheer willpower.
"Now the others —"
Dazzling pain spikes through his core. Eijirou cries out. He loses his grip and his body softens, spikes retracting, and the rubble above him piles down and crushes him with weight. His legs crumple to the ground, knees slamming against the floor. He lets out a scream of exertion and wrenches his quirk back under control, arms shaking like leaves in strong wind now. Any moment now, they're going to blow away completely.
The man lets out a teary sob, and Eijirou barely registers hurried voices and loud commands flying around him. The light gets brighter. Eijirou forces his eyes open, gasping in tremoring agony, head spinning and whirling and throbbing, but his vision is blurring and the world is slipping away from him. He snatches it back with both hands, clawing desperately at consciousness.
Aizawa's voice cuts loud and clear through the mess, through the screaming, fracturing pain in his body. "Kirishima!"
"Are — are they out?" gasps Eijirou, voice broken and shattered even to his own ears. He coughs, pain wracking his body as it seizes, as he struggles to keep his arms and his back level.
"They're out," Aizawa says. He sounds terrified. The emotion amplifies Eijirou's own fear tenfold. "It's just you, Kirishima, you hear me?"
"I can't — hold it —"
"You can," Aizawa urges him. "You can. I promise. Just a few more seconds, alright, Kirishima? We need to I need you to hold on."
"Sensei —" Eijirou sobs. "I can't —"
Aizawa's voice is frantic. "You can. You can, Red Riot. You're unbreakable, aren't you? So hold it. Hold it there."
Eijirou's arms spasm. He lets out an aborted, half-mangled cry. "Please —"
"We got it," says an unfamiliar voice. "Get him out —"
Eijirou's grip on his quirk falters, flickers, and sputters weakly into death. He lunges for the pieces, but he's too slow and they're too fragmented, anyway. The rubble moves with a deafening groan. Eijirou collapses forwards like a puppet with its strings cut, straight down to the ground, and dimly he registers soft cloth pulling him through the air. There's a distant crash all around him, and then he's impacting into something firm yet soft. Eijirou feels his head loll loosely against his back. There's someone above him, and through the wild pounding in his head he squints to see limp, dark hair hanging above him, wide, bloodshot eyes above a ragged scar.
"Huh," mumbles Eijirou vaguely. The air is cold around him, suddenly.
"Fuck," Aizawa says, uncharacteristically unsteady. "You're fine, Kirishima. You're alright. It's going to be fine. I need help here!" he turns to yell, the noise reverberating through Eijirou's skull. "Fuck!"
"Sensei," Eijirou croaks, and Aizawa's head whips back down to him. It's all he can see, in his dazed state. Aizawa, and, behind him, the blue, blue sky.
Eijirou squints upwards at the sky. It's so bright. He imagines the sun, burning, scorching hot, razing the earth just like the sensation tearing through his muscles without mercy. Distantly, he can feel himself shaking — or is he being shaken? — from the aftershocks of the rubble. From far away, he can hear someone screaming at him.
"— shima! Kirishima! Stay with me!"
"Sorry," slurs Eijirou. The words aren't forming like they do in his head, anymore. "Awake."
"You have to stay with me," Aizawa tells him, voice hard. "Do you understand, Red Riot?"
Eijirou grins at him. His cheek muscles wobble and twitch with the strain. Aizawa makes an aborted noise. eyes flaring. "Got it," he forces out, through his wildfire throat. "Eraserhead."
Aizawa heaves a breath. "Fuck. Fuck, not — not again, I —"
"Medic!" someone else shouts. Eijirou breathes in and out shallowly. His lungs don't seem to want to be cooperating right now, as dizzy as his air intake is making him. "Hand him over!"
"Stay with me, Red Riot!" Aizawa shouts, something spiking in his tone.
"Gonna be fine," Eijirou tells him. What comes out is slurred, dizzy, the words running together. Aizawa curses.
Hands touch his shoulders and press on his back, and he lets out a cry as the sword of pain through its center sparks and surges and rips through his core. Somebody shouts something. Eijirou tries to duck away from the hands, twisting and writhing, but they chase and seek and follow his movement. His body thrashes beyond his command. His lungs burn. He sucks in a desperate breath.
Something sharp hits his skin, and instinctively he tenses. His quirk flares to life, and pain rips through him. Another shout. Aizawa's voice, so distant, is yelling. A heavy, cold feeling settles over Eijirou like a smothering blanket and he grabs at his quirk, but he's reaching and grasping for something that's gone. The sharpness at his bicep gives way to smoothness. Liquid ice seeps through his veins. The pain intensifies for a second, and then it's slipping away like water and so is the light above him.
Eijirou succumbs to the nothingness.
- - -
When he wakes, the first thing he hears is a beep.
Beep. Beep.
He knows this sound, the noise of a steady heart monitor. Eijirou listens for a few seconds before he pries his weary eyes open to see a foggy overlay of the world. He blinks. It resolves into pale color, a strip light off to the left flickering gently. There's a dull stain above his head, ringed and layered across the corner of the ceiling tile. Eventually, recognition crosses his mind. He's in the UA infirmary. Momentarily, Eijirou feels a flicker of shame that he recognizes the room from the ceiling alone, though he knows he's still lagging far behind the likes of Midoriya in terms of visits. The other boy practically lives in the medical wing.
Eijirou looks down to see clean, straight sheets, and thick bandaging around his torso. There's a pulse oximeter attached to the end of his finger, and an IV line snaking into his arm. Eijirou grimaces at the sight, but doesn't go to remove it. He can accept when that sort of care is necessary. Beside him, there's an assortment of monitors beeping happily and steadily. The graphs they're displaying pulse and flash. There's a chair next to the screens, and Eijirou stares at Aizawa's crumpled, unconscious form for a second. His teacher is slumped low in the chair. His eyes are shut. Eijirou winces at the idea of Aizawa staying with him since he was admitted. He hopes it hasn't been too long.
He takes in a breath then, and winces at the soreness that rises throughout his ribs. His arms flex by his sides, fists opening and closing. His muscles strain, so he stops soon after, and tries to push himself more upright. He manages to maneuver himself, shaking arms and all, to a half-sitting position against his pillows before there's a hand pressing gently against his bandaged chest.
He looks up to see Aizawa, very much awake, leaning forward and looking straight at him.
"Kirishima," he says, by way of greeting. "Don't push yourself."
"Hey, Aizawa-sensei," Eijirou says, grinning at him. His voice is rough. "How long have you been here?"
Aizawa looks at him for a second, and then retracts his hand when he seems satisfied Eijirou's not going to bolt out of bed. "You've been here for thirteen hours."
"How long have you been here, though?" Eijirou asks again.
Aizawa pauses. "Thirteen hours."
"Aw, sensei," Eijirou says. "You didn't have to stay."
"I did," says Aizawa, sounding slightly agitated. "I wanted to — make sure you were alright. You were severely injured."
Eijirou makes a face, grimacing. "Yeah. I remember."
"That's good," Aizawa tells him. "Recovery Girl will be pleased to hear it."
"Did she fix me up?" asks Eijirou. Aizawa shakes his head. "Huh."
"We brought you to Musutafu General as soon as we extracted you," his teacher says. "It was closer. They stabilized you quickly, and we brought you back here for Recovery Girl to keep an eye on your condition and try to heal you a little more."
"Oh," says Eijirou.
"How are you feeling?" asks Aizawa.
Eijirou thinks for a second, taking stock of his soreness and mentally working through the pain he feels. "I'm sore," he says, honestly, "but I think I'm okay."
Aizawa lets out a breath. "Good. That's good."
"Is Sero okay?"
"He's fine. He's shaken up, but he didn't get caught in the debris. He's in the dorms with the others."
Eijirou smiles. "Good. Thanks, Aizawa-sensei. For — staying with me. And for talking to me in the building. It helped."
Aizawa nods at him. "It's alright, Kirishima," he says. "I'm glad you're safe."
They lapse into silence. Eijirou hesitates, and looks over to him.
"Aizawa-sensei," he says, and pauses for a second. "You seemed…" He winces. Aizawa had been terrified. Eijirou barely remembers being under the building past the point he pushed his quirk to its breaking point, but he remembers the emotion on his teacher's face. It was pure, unadulterated fear. "Scared."
Aizawa drags a hand down his face, and lets out a sigh. "Situations like that are… particularly stressful for me. I'm sorry I lost my cool."
"It's okay, Aizawa-sensei," Eijirou tells him. "You're allowed to be scared, you know? It's healthy to let yourself feel your emotions freely!"
A half-laugh escapes his teacher, short and quiet. "You're right. That's a good mindset. I'm still going to apologize for letting you see me get so… irrational."
Eijirou shrugs, and then hisses at the momentary stab of pain that flickers in his chest. "I think I would be stressed out too if I saw someone get as hurt as I did."
Aizawa swallows. "Yeah."
"Were the, uh…" Eijirou leafs through his memory, past the terror and the agony and the fire in his core. "Were the others okay? The guy, and the little girl?"
"They got extracted quickly. You kept the building up long enough for us to be able to save them. You saved two lives today," Aizawa says, though he sounds oddly unhappy about it. "You should be proud of yourself, Red Riot."
Eijirou beams. "Thanks, sensei."
The corner of Aizawa's mouth lifts in a small smile. Silence passes between them like a noiseless game of back-and-forth for a few seconds.
"Do you know how long I'm going to be in here?" Eijirou asks then, taking advantage of the lull in conversation.
Aizawa raises an eyebrow. "I do, actually. Recovery Girl is out for a few hours, but she gave me a list to recite back to you once you woke up," he tells Eijirou. "She's expecting to keep you in here for another day or so while she makes sure you're healing right, and then discharge you to finish recovering in the dorms. Firstly, you were injured badly from the debris. Your back, especially, has some severe bruising, and three of your ribs are cracked. The bruising will fade quickly if you leave it alone. Your ribs are relatively easy to treat, but they'll require a lot of rest and regular anti-inflammatory medication. You're going to be on bed rest for a couple of weeks, even with Recovery Girl's healing, since you were so exhausted when she got to you. No exercise or strenuous activity."
"Aw," says Eijirou. "How am I going to train my quirk without exercising?"
Aizawa hesitates. "That's… the other thing. Pushing your quirk without doubt saved those people's lives, but it had a compounded effect on you. Have you heard of quirk burnout?"
"That's what Kaminari gets, isn't it?"
Aizawa nods at him. "The symptoms and effects are different for everyone. Kaminari's particular brand of burnout manifests in a brief state of dissociation, as you've seen, but yours is a little different. From what we've been able to see, your quirk is on a timeout of sorts. It'll come back by the time you're healed, but for now we don't know when you'll be able to use it again."
Eijirou stares at him. "So…it's shut down?"
"Essentially," says Aizawa. "It's turned off to keep itself safe in the future. This won't be permanent." He reaches up, then, and taps his own temple. "My quirk burnout is a similar thing. It's become a lot worse since the USJ, but when I overuse it it goes on cooldown for a small amount of time."
"Oh," Eijirou says. He tips his head. "That sounds okay, then."
"That," Aizawa continues, "brings us to the other thing we need to discuss. Your use of Unbreakable."
"Am I in trouble?" asks Eijirou, wincing.
Aizawa shakes his head. "Of course not. You used your quirk in exactly the correct way, and you saved those civilians. That was a truly heroic act. No," he continues, seemingly not noticing the warm crimson-colored flame that ignites in Eijirou's chest at the words, "I want to talk about how far you pushed yourself."
"Okay," says Eijirou.
"That kind of strain is incredibly dangerous, Kirishima. I want to spell it out for you properly. Your body develops natural resistances to its own quirk usage, but those can falter or even fail if you push too hard. In this situation you had no choice, and I commend you for your willpower in keeping that form up so long, but I also want to caution you against doing that in the future. Unless it is a life or death situation," Aizawa says, stressing the words, "you must not push yourself that far. It's far too risky to do for an insignificant reason. Am I clear?"
Eijirou nods firmly. "Clear, sensei."
Aizawa sighs. "Good. You did well, Kirishima. Focus on getting better now, alright?"
Eijirou grins at him, and goes to move his arm up in a salute. The shake in his muscles dissuades him, though, so he wiggles his fingers instead and hopes the message gets across. Aizawa smirks at the sight, settling back into his chair.
A few moments pass. Neither of them talk, instead thinking through their own processes and keeping to themselves. After a while, though, Eijirou opens his mouth.
"Aizawa-sensei?" he asks. "Have you… been in a building collapse before?"
His teacher's face goes slack for a moment, and then he sees Aizawa's eyes harden like he's somehow got his hands on Eijirou's quirk. "Not me, no," he says curtly.
"Someone else?"
Aizawa works his jaw. "Kirishima -"
"I want to help, sensei," says Eijirou. "That's what heroes do, right?"
His teacher sighs again, having done so countless times already throughout this conversation. "A friend of mine. He died in a situation that was… similar to yours.
Eijirou freezes. He'd — he hadn't expected that. He'd been expecting a story about Aizawa saving a kid from a burning home, or helping evacuate a crumbling office.
"I'm sorry," he says. He keeps his voice toned low, quiet.
Aizawa is silent. "Thank you, Kirishima," he says eventually.
"Are you okay?"
Aizawa contemplates his question for a second, looking at him with lidded eyes. "I'm working on it."
Eijirou nods. "That's good. We're here if you need us, sensei."
"That's not your responsibility," Aizawa scolds, though his voice has a gentle edge to it.
Eijirou shrugs as best he can manage. "Still here."
Aizawa huffs. "I'm going to have to add you to my problem child list, aren't I?"
Eijirou laughs. "I'm honored!" he says.
Aizawa rolls his eyes. "Go on," he chastises, gesturing vaguely to the bed. "Go back to sleep. You need the rest."
"Aw, but I don't feel tired."
Aizawa raises an eyebrow, and checks his watch. "Give it a few seconds."
A few seconds pass. The IV line in Eijirou's arm goes cold and then warm, and then liquid seeps into his veins. Tiredness settles over him like a shroud. Eijirou yawns.
"There we go," he hears Aizawa say. "Goodnight, Kirishima."
Eijirou opens his mouth to reply, but before he's thought through a reply he's already drifting away. He falls into sleep with his teacher watching over him.