Era

17

Era slammed her forehead into the ground in a vain attempt to dislodge these useless thoughts, ignoring the way Noumu's fingers dug deeper into her skin and the faint sting of fresh scrapes on her face.

No, no, no, she needed to watch. Keep her eyes on the fight, don't look away little bird, I can make it worse, I can make you regret it—

Era sucked a breath between her teeth when Shigaraki blocked Eraserhead's strike. Her hands curled into trembling fists when Eraserhead's quirk fell and the skin at his elbow began to flake and scatter, blood flying from the exposed gore in scattered droplets as he jumped away once more. That must have hurt, even without the influence of an invasive healing quirk. Still Eraserhead stood, fought, won against the few thugs who were still conscious despite his ceaseless onslaught.

There wasn't a name for the emotion that swelled uncomfortably in her chest when she saw him stand, shaken but unbroken, against the villains who threatened him and his students. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was dangerous. She knew she couldn't afford it.

Era gave another pitiful wheeze when the Noumu pressed down on her back suddenly, shoving her into the ground as it burst forward in a blur of black and a gust of lashing wind. Blood splattered against the ground with every one of her heaving coughs, her limbs quaked with the effort of pushing her up onto her knees, a pounding ache threatened at her temples as she forced her head up and focused her gaze on wherever that beast had gone. She wished it wasn't so easy to find again.

She was slipping. She was slipping away and she couldn't afford to. Fuck, spiraling deep into thoughts and memories and half-baked dreams that could have been real or fake or both at the same time because—

Don't look away, little bird. You're hurting him right now, do you want to hurt him more? She knew that, she knew that, she knew that it was her fault, it was your fault that he's hurting, your failure, are you going to fail again? She wasn't, she couldn't, she'd be good, she'd be better, they didn't have to do this they needed to fix her, why did they have to hurt him, she was the broken one, it was her, her fault her fault my fault my fault my fault my—

Breathe. In through the nose with the acrid tang of blood and dirt and sweat. Out through the mouth with the sharp taste of knives in her throat and molten metal on her tongue.

There were moments that stood out with painful clarity. Colors and sounds all tangling together in an incomprehensible mass of threads, loom creaking and groaning under the strain except for the brief stretches where the strands wove to images that burned themselves into her mind.

The broken, yellow goggles cast aside in a swelling pool of blood. The sharp snap of bones, the stifled groan of pain that accompanied it. The flash of Eraserhead's eyes before his head was smashed into the ground once more.

Era stood, feeling bones shift and mend beneath her skin. She felt along her arm without looking, roving fingers dancing over an exposed bit of pale white bone before slowly pushing it back beneath her flesh, holding it in place for her quirk to set and make whole once more. Swinging her arm experimentally, Era noted how the tug at her wounds felt distant and unsure, how sounds grew faint and muffled against her ears like she'd been hooded by thick fabric, how colors were muted and smells were dampened and her jaw ached as if she had just been released from the tight confines of a muzzle.

The black smoke villain, Kurogiri, returned. Whatever news he bore only sent Shigaraki spiraling into a more unpredictable rage.

She needed to focus. She needed to breathe.