Phantom Pains

Chapter 1

Everything was dark. Danny felt warm, something he hadn't felt in a long time. He tried to open his eyes which he found surprisingly difficult. They were so heavy, almost as if they had been glued shut. After he finally managed to pry them open, his fuzzy surroundings came into sharp focus. The first thing he saw was a large window encompassing the majority of the wall to his left, emitting a warm orange light. From his perspective, all he could make out were the tops of distant, unfamiliar skyscrapers. The sight could have brought tears to his eyes. Emboldened by the sight, he roughly pushed himself upon his bed.

"Ngh!"

What he wasn't expecting was the pain that followed.

There was a faint rustling to his right. Danny sharply turned his head towards the noise, body tense.

"Hey, hey. Calm down. You're alright," said the man in the upholstered chair beside his bed. The shaggy-looking man had long, unkempt black hair with dark bags under his eyes. He also had a blanket around his shoulders. Had he been sleeping there?

"You're in Musutafu hospital, you're safe here." The man reached toward him apprehensively, he placed his hand gently on his shoulder, "Lay down." Danny released a shaky breath after hearing this. He finally did it. He escaped. His mind was racing, how long had he been in there?

"Wha-... Who-" His voice was rough with disuse.

"I'm the pro-hero Eraserhead." The hero's black eyes examined Danny's own, "What's your name?" There was a long pause as he awaited his response.

"Danny..." he said, barely a whisper.

"I'm going to get a nurse. I'll be right back, okay?" He got up and quickly left the room.

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In his many years of being a pro-hero, Shota Aizawa had never seen something like this. He's rescued many civilians from plenty of disturbing situations, but none of them had left him with this many questions. First were the men in white suits, a very conspicuous choice of clothing. They were highly organized. He found each of them with earpieces, assumingly used to communicate with either each other or a third party, very likely a third party. Not to mention their strange energy weapons. A group of highly organized villans with enough resources to have technology that wasn't even close to being on the market yet. This was very bad.

The state he found the boy in was even worse. The raven-haired boy, no older than 14, was wearing something resembling a ragged t-shirt and sweatpants. He couldn't tell definitively as it was covered in blood and grime, as well as an oddly neon green substance. Aizawa can barely contain his fury when reflecting on the collar around his neck. Surrounding it were nasty scars from constant clawing. He lost a lot of blood from the cut on his abdomen, but these were just the injuries he could see.

"Aizawa, Shota?" His thoughts were interrupted by a nurse in pale pink scrubs and a light blue undershirt calling his name. Finally.

Aizawa sluggishly hoisted himself out of his seat in the waiting room.

"I'm sorry you had to wait out there, sir. I wish we had better accommodations for attending pro-heroes," she said as she led him through the busy hospital hallways.

"It's fine. How is he?"

"He's stable, that's for sure. He gave us quite a scare. His current resting heart rate is 20bpm. For now, we're attributing that to his quirk, but I'll let the doctor fill you in on the rest."

Interesting.

He was led to a patient room where a tall, red-haired, and freckled doctor was waiting for them.

"You must be Aizawa-san, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Dr. Enomoto." The doctor ushers him into the patient room where, presumably, the victim is residing. "We have a lot to discuss," Aizawa enters as Dr. Enomoto swiftly shuts the door behind him. There lay the boy, looking far cleaner than when he last saw him three hours ago. He was attached to fewer machines than he was expecting. His neck was covered in bandages, but the collar was nowhere in sight. "You're assigned to his case, yes?"

"I am also currently on duty and keeping guard during his stay."

"I see, well, have a seat. This is gonna take a while."

"Well... How is he?"

"For starters, I believe he's going to make a full recovery. Our only immediate concerns are his weight. He's severely underweight, but we have him on fluids and such and as long as we start him on a healthy diet, everything should clear right up. He lost quite a bit of blood, but all of or tests were inconclusive. We ultimately decided not to risk a blood transfusion, which worked out better than expected. He needed multiple stitches and the cut along his abdomen has already begun healing. We believe this could be related to his quirk." There was a small pause as he opened his file to check some notes.

"And that's where it starts to get more complicated. His heart rate was exceedingly low, as well as his body temperature. It could be written off as a part of his quirk, but that's something we're just going to have to ask him about when he wakes up, or find his medical records. He appears foreign. Can he speak Japanese?"

"From the 9-1-1 call, it didn't seem like he understood any, but he can speak English."

"Whelp, it's going to be a pain in the ass to find his records then," the doctor adjusts his glasses. "Another thing is his blood. As I said, tests were inconclusive and that has to do with this foreign substance we found in it. We've never seen anything like it. It's nothing close to any documented quirks in our databases. I'm gonna be frank with you here, I don't think it's even on the periodic table. It glows and it's green so we tested him for radiation and radiation poisoning, but they all came back negative, though it does appear to emit some sort of energy."

Could this be related to the green energy guns somehow? Aizawa put a pin in this thought as he put his hand to his chin in contemplation.

"It appears to be the result of experimentation. There's a lot of evidence indicative of extremely invasive surgeries and his x-rays show extensive remodeling to his ribs and chest cavity."

"What the actual-"

"I can spare you the details, of course. It really is a lot."

Aizawa took a deep breath, readying himself. "No, I've been assigned to this case. I need to know everything I can."

"It would be easier just to show you. We've documented everything for the investigation so..." He hands Aizawa a short stack of photos revealing absolutely horrific scars. While there were more photos, he decided he only needed to see the one. The boy had a large Y-shaped scar directly in the middle of his chest, starting from his shoulders to his sternum and then all the way across his abdomen.

What the fuck did they do to you kid...