Chapter 10
Mirio didn't expect his teacher to tell him to leave his exam on the desk.
He felt the eyes of his classmates on him, just moving forward and put down his pencil before getting up and heading towards him, did he think he was cheating?
When he put down his exam he heard his teacher whisper.
“Put on your suit and wait for Midnight at the east exit,” he said before giving him a nod.
“What happened?” He stiffened and looked at him intently.
“I don't have the details, but they need you in the city G” Mirio bowed before him and left the room.
It took him less than two minutes to change, and he headed as fast as he could to the east exit, it didn't matter if he had to go through several walls on the way.
City G was 12 minutes away by bus, but when he left the building he could see the heroine on the horizon approaching on a motorcycle (he doesn't know where it came from, as far as he knows, she doesn't have one), he didn't wait long until She arrived and as soon as she stopped he jumped to the back; They skidded before taking off at full speed.
If it weren't an emergency and the fact that they were still inside the campus, Mirio would be very worried that they were violating several traffic laws.
When they reached the entrance of the city, he saw class 1-A, Midoriya seemed to be about to use his quirk against his classmates and teachers to let him enter.
They didn't stop there, Midnight took him through the city to an area where he saw the rest of the teachers; When the motorcycle stopped, he jumped off it and ran to them, in front of the collapsed building.
One of the students was trapped below after a bomb exploded during the exam; He was underground, and they needed to know his exact location and if the structure seemed stable enough to proceed.
Mirio slowly climbed up and when he was over what they believe was where Harry is, he activated his quirk and fell through the rubble. When a few meters below he deactivated it on his face and hands, he had to activate it again several times before seeing a small glow between the cracks.
With his hands he crawled as best he could across the concrete and went there. He saw a brown boy curled up on himself, covering his ears and crying softly; Only once he was next to the barrier he heard it, he wasn't just crying, he was apologizing to someone.
“I found him,” he said over the communications, he doesn't know how they managed to make one with his DNA, just like his suit, but he doesn't complain.
“Harry?” He said softly, the barrier flickered a little and a piece of concrete bounced off it, the boy groaned and sobbed.
Mirio took advantage of the next blink to go to the other side, he slowly deactivated his quirk again so as not to be thrown away, crash into the barrier and scare the boy.
“Hey, I'm here to help” Harry shuddered “I'm going to touch you now, okay?” the boy jumped and crashed into his own barrier, he looked at Mirio with rapid breathing and tried to get away “don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you, let's get you out of here.”
“Who are you?” He said with a broken voice.
“I'm Lemillion, I don't want to hurt you, I'm just here to help get you out” he moved away a little to give him space.
“Is he okay?” he hear Present Mic ask.
“He has no visible injuries, he is distressed, but fine,” he responded.
“Is it safe enough?”
“No, the barrier that formed flickered and one of the rubbles fell on it” he heard a couple of curses.
The boy never looked away from him, wherever he had been inside his mind, it seemed, had completely left there.
“Do you think the barrier can withstand some hard hits?” Harry nod, “How much longer can you keep it up?”
“It has no limit,” he said simply.
“Good,” he said before speaking over the communications, “he says that the barrier is strong enough to withstand more hits, you can proceed, we are approximately 3 meters south of where I go down.”
“Don't they know where we are?”
“Not exactly, but they already have the general area” he reassured him.
Harry looked at him doubtfully, saw the stick in the boy's hand and frowned; he pointed it up and whisper something.
“Expecto Patronum” a light came out of the stick that quickly took the shape of a deer “we’re here” he said and the light “trotted” through the rubble until it disappeared.
Shouta really doesn't expect to see a damn animal made of light come out of the rubble and head towards him.
“We're here” was Harry's voice, it sounded so ethereal and seemed to echoed between the buildings and through the city.
All the heroes saw the light, return to the rubble and jump a little, his snout pointing downwards and tapping his hooves.
Mirio told them that the barrier would hold on and Harry was showing them the way.
The heroes looked at each other before moving forward, and slowly, but safely, made their way towards the boys; they couldn't stop some from falling deeper and when that happened, they looked at the deer, the animal never hesitated and every time they stop, Harry's voice was heard again.
It took almost an hour until they reached them, as soon as they saw the barrier, the animal vanished into the air.
“13-sensei!” He heard Mirio shout as the heroine absorbed one of the pieces that were directly above them.
He looked for Harry, saw him with his knees pressed against his body, trying to be as far away from the other as possible.
Clearing the rest of the surrounding rubble to prevent it from collapsing once Harry dismantled the barrier, he resisted the urge to jump up to the boy, hug him, and wrap them both in his warp scarf to make sure he wouldn't disappear at any moment.
He waited until Hound Dog and Cementoss took him to Recovery Girl, and she checked him before approaching him.
“How are you?”
“It wasn't that bad, I'm not even hurt,” he said, rubbing his arm.
“Harry” she crouched a little to be at his height “you left the communications on, I…” he hesitated for a moment “I could hear you while you were down there.”
“What?” His eyes widened.
“Harry, no matter what happened to you, or how bad it was,” he approached and took one of his hands, “me, Hizashi, Hound Dog, whoever, we are here for you, we are here to help you, you don't have to talk to us if you don't want to, we can get someone else.”
“It really wasn't as bad as it seems,” he said uncomfortably.
“Do you know what PTSD is?” he asks softly.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder,” he frowned, Shouta looked him directly in the eyes. “Do you think I have it?”
“You have gone through things that no one, no child should go through, maybe talking won't make everything better, but if we know how to help you, we will know how to cope with it” he felt the boy's hands shake.
“Everything is better now, I already told you that you don't have to worry about that” he let go of his hands and brought them closer to his body.
“Okay, but I'm serious, if you need to talk, we're here, you're safe with us,” with that said, he walks away, insisting would be of no use, it would only make Harry shut down.
He left the infirmary in silence, he could feel a lump in his throat and his chest tight.
When he was heading to the classroom to pick up the boy's things, he ran into Hizashi, he already had his bag; He approached and hugged him tightly, a soft sob came out of the blonde, he had always been the more sensitive of the two, he let him cry on his shoulder for several minutes, he himself removed the tears from his eyes with furious blinks before he couldn't contain them more.
He felt Hizashi's knees buckle, and he didn't have the strength to stand; He hugged his husband so hard that he feared breaking his ribs, but he couldn't help but feel so useless and devastated.
He had heard him cry and ask for help, he heard him beg to be taken out of that place where they had him locked up in his mind and he was not able to do anything, he could not do anything to get him out of there, he only saw the others do their thing. They worked while he stood there; his quirk was not for rescues, he was not prepared for disasters and removing victims.
He had done nothing but watch as the boy, Harry, his son, begged for help, and it filled him with rage, he was angry with himself for not being able to help him before, for not being able to help him now; He knew it was ridiculous, when Harry was younger he was on the other side of the world, but he wouldn't have minded at all, crossing all that distance to get him out of his misery, to get him somewhere truly safe.
Right now they only had partial custody of Harry while they found his family, but once this is all over, he will make sure to get full custody.
They will give him a safe home to return to, no matter what it costs.
When they finally stopped crying, they went to one of the bathrooms and washed their faces, his eyes were red and swollen, his throat hurt from all the spasms from holding back his own sobs; School hours had ended a long time ago, so they didn't worry about any student seeing them in the hallways.
Once they seemed more… Calm, they went to the infirmary for Harry, they took a deep breath before opening the door, Recovery Girl looked at them and gave them a nod before returning her gaze to the boy; he was sitting on the edge of the gurney, staring blankly at the window, her eyes seemed cloudy and his cheeks a little pink, she could feel another lump forming in her throat, she swallowed it before approaching.
“Hey,” he said softly, “it's time to go home.”
“Okay,” he said before blinking and getting off the gurney.
The three said goodbye to the old heroine and left, the hallways were too quiet, their footsteps echoed along the walls; You would think the evening light would look beautiful streaming through the large windows and reflecting off the white walls, but it didn't.
The light formed shadows on his face that terrified him, it was too gloomy, for whatever reason, instead of the golden light, it felt like an ugly dull gray light, it was not warm and did not transmit peace.
The light felt cold and like a bad omen about a lousy night, he doesn't think any of them will sleep tonight, too many things on their minds, too much to take in and consider, too much to change; neither of them were in the right headspace to start a conversation again about what happened today, not now, and he doesn't think they will be anytime soon, but they should try, after all, it's only time that heals.
Hizashi was the first one to hear it.
They had gone to bed almost two hours ago, but neither of them had been able to fall asleep; He was snuggled in Shouta's arms when he heard a noise from the next room.
It wasn't loud, he barely heard it, he thought it was his imagination before he heard it again, this time a little louder, like something falling to the floor, he turned his head and saw Shouta looking at the wall that separated the rooms; There were a few seconds of silence before they heard a small gasp followed by grunts.
They got up so quickly that they almost tripped over the sheets, they knocked on the door a couple of times without getting an answer.
Finally, he decided to enter, the boy was in the middle of the bed, his body was spasming while he brought his arms closer to his body and squeezed his hands tightly; The sheets were hanging from one end of the bed, almost completely on the floor, the pillows had also fallen off the bed, the bottle of water that was on the nightstand was on the floor, as was his wand.
They approached quickly, when they opened the curtains to have a little more light, they saw that he was completely soaked in sweat, as if a bucket of water had been thrown at him, the mattress was equally wet with sweat, his jaw was clenched, he could swear that They heard the grinding of their teeth.
“Harry, wake up” Shouta stroked his wet hair, only getting another grunt “open your eyes, you're fine, you just have to open your eyes” there was no response either.
Hizashi grabbed his arm, but let go of him immediately, he was burning, he frowned before holding him again and shaking him gently.
“No…” the boy said with a growl, “I won't… I won't let…”
He shook him a little harder and Harry shook before opening his eyes, they were glassy and seemed disoriented, as soon as he saw them, he shot out of the bed, threw himself on the floor and grabbed his wand, pointing it at them, before he could do anything, Shouta activated his quirk, but quickly realized that it had no effect on him when he heard him shout something and flew away to crash into the wall.
Quickly, they stood up and followed Harry, who had left the room, Shouta took his warp scarf from their room and threw one end to try to restrain him; try was the key word because as soon as the boy saw that it was approaching him, they heard "incendio" and the scarf had exploded in flames, the man dropped it before being seriously burned, they saw how in just a matter of seconds, the fire consumed it completely, leaving only a black mark on the ground.
Hizashi didn't want to hurt the boy with his quirk, but he at least needs to stun him; When he took a deep breath to scream, he saw a small flash on the wand and the next moment his lips closed, he touched his face only to feel that his mouth had disappeared; Panic disoriented him for a second before he heard the front door open, and he saw Harry running out.
He may panic later, now they have to catch up with him.
They both chased the boy through the hallways and down the emergency stairs to the street. Luckily, Shouta had picked up his phone before going to Harry's room and could hear him calling someone.
They ran a few streets, Harry continued throwing things at them, but they were barely able to avoid them when they ran into a police patrol and 3 other underground heroes.
“Just restrain him, don't hurt him, he's hallucinating!” Shouta shouted once he was closer.
Harry defended himself tooth and nail against the heroes, it was like watching a cornered animal fight for his life; couldn't get close to him, one of the heroes was literally sent flying through the air.
It was just luck that Harry had thoughtless Tsukauchi at one point in the fight, the second he dropped one of the barriers, the detective grabbed his gun and shot the boy's hand holding the wand, from the expression on his face He noted that he wasn't happy about doing it either, but it was the only effective course of action they had so far.
The wand flew out of his hand and he ran forward, practically tackling the boy, wrapping his arms and legs around him, preventing him from getting back up; he struggled to break free, but he only tightened his grip on him even more.
One of the heroes approached and held his legs, he kept trying to kick him and anyone who approached.
“It's okay, Harry, you're safe,” Tsukauchi said as he held his head, he was moving it from side to side trying to hit him, he almost bit the detective's hand.
“Harry, honey, I need you to concentrate” this was one of the few times he heard that nickname and that tone from his husband that wasn't directed at him “look at me, I need you to look at me.”
The boy continued to struggle, but he still looked at him.
“That's it, eyes on me, don't take them away” he came a little closer to hold the injured hand gently “you're doing great, can you breathe for me?”
Harry groaned before obeying, his breathing was rapid and there were moments where he seemed to choke on air.
“Breathe slowly, that will make you feel better” he gave small touches on his shoulder to set a rhythm that the boy unconsciously followed, “that's right, honey, you're doing great.”
Harry's body relaxed in his arms, he blinked a couple of times, clearing that feverish haze from his brain, he looked at the sky with his eyes wide open.
“Harry?” Tsukauchi said when his gaze fell on him.
He didn't say anything, he just looked at him for a few seconds before looking from him to Shouta, they heard him whisper the name of his godfather before his body went limp on Hizashi.
Harry hadn't woken up until the next day, almost in the afternoon, luckily it was Saturday, so they didn't have any exams, the practical had been the last one.
His hand had been healed, and they managed to bring down his fever, but that didn't relieve them of his concern, whatever he had been seeing in his feverish state was obviously brutal to make him react that way.
He was worried about Hizashi, when he saw his mouth disappear he was stunned, they thought that the effect would disappear in a couple of minutes or hours at most, but almost 10 hours had passed, and he had not returned to normal.
God bless them for knowing sign language, they had no problems communicating so far, but they hoped the effect would not be permanent.
Harry opened his eyes slowly, looking confused and scared for a second before looking at them and relaxing, that was… good.
“What happened? I feel like I was hit by a truck” he rubbed his eyes.
“It's okay if you don't remember, you had…” he was cut off by the boy, who opened his eyes and jumped out of gurney.
“SHIT, oh shit, oh shit, I'm sorry, okay? Did I hurt you?” He checked them quickly for injuries, when he saw the blonde's face he turned pale. “Oh Merlin, sorry, I didn't mean to do it.”
He took his wand, which was on the table next to the gurney, and quickly made a motion that returned Hizashi's mouth.
He continued apologizing all the way to the apartment, his face regained its natural tone, and he walked back and forth, they both smiled softly.
They'll be fine.
The figure stopped when a large stone structure appeared in its sight.
He looked at it for several seconds with a frown.
He doubt for many more.
Finally, he gained momentum again and ran across the field until he passed through the large door.