The cold rain on his skin felt oddly soothing. He could feel every rain drop landing, trickling slowly down across his abdomen, before harshly getting dyed and turning into an intense red when reaching his widely open wound.
At first, every little droplet sent immense pain rushing through his body. But now, the appealing cold numbness was all he could sense.
Lying down on his side, with his back pressed to the wall behind, he closed his eyes in defeat. Maybe this was not bad after all.
Not the bleeding out alone in an alleyway part, but the calming nothingness that came after it.
He listened to the calming sound of the falling rain, acting as his last personal symphony, sending him away in peace. He never imagined his ending to be relaxing, he always thought he would die in the most painful way imaginable.
That's if he would ever be able to, to begin with.
The sounds began gradually to fade into the background. Soon, silence would be his only friend, and he welcomed the stillness with open arms.
What he didn't expect though, was the soft hand on his cheek.
He wondered if that was a near death hallucination, but the warmth felt too real to his freezing face.
He cracked one eye half open, too tired to make out what he was exactly seeing.
What he could make out though, was a woman with green hair on her knees beside him. The umbrella she was using as a shield from the heavy rain was dropped to the ground next to her in panic, her expression displaying concern and genuine affection, one that he thought would never, ever, be directed towards him.
A foreign feeling he had never experienced swept away the numbness in his limbs, making his senses wake up to life and hit him with an unimaginably painful load of stimulations. The stopped world was suddenly back in motion. But the emotion itself was everything he could focus on. How could a stranger make him feel this.... warm?
The woman cuddled his head in her slender arms, gently stroking his messy mop of wet sticky hair.
She was saying something, but he couldn't comprehend it as anything other than faint, drowned noises.
When she realised how unresponsive he was, she rested her hand on top of his blooded one. Not an ounce of hesitation or repellency could be detected in those emerald orbs.
That tender touch, he was sure he would never forget it.
And right at this moment, he could swear....
He was feeling it again...
*****
Aizawa was really starting to give up at that point. He didn't believe himself to be this precarious, but it turned out he was weaker than he expected.
He was still conflicted about how to tell Eri, and he felt so, so lost and impotent.
He practically dragged his legs through the corridor, making his way to the only place he could think of needing his presence.
He stood at the door frame aimlessly, too frightened to look in.
But when he did, he didn't expect his student, along with little Eri, to be kneeling right next to the problem child's bed.
He felt a pang of guilt hit him like a train. It took all will power in him to not turn on his heels and disappear.
And for not running away, he was surely grateful.
Because what he did see changed the fate of many people, including his.
*****
Aizawa's eyes were firmly glued to the screen he hunched over, restlessly waiting for an explanation of the complex numbers and images he couldn't make sense of.
Dr. Matsuda didn't hesitate a minute when Shouta told him of what he saw, running several tests that were to either confirm or deny the plausibility of Aizawa's doubt.
"My God..." Came the wavering voice of the doctor.
"What is it?" The hero couldn't help concern dripping from his words.
Dr. Matsuda spun around his chair, to face away from the monitor he was so eagerly studying.
"These MRI and EEG scans...." He pointed at the screen. Aizawa followed his finger to see several images of a brain, some areas colored darker than others. "...show that there is brain activity..!"
Aizawa was no doctor, but he knew what Matsuda was implying.
"Is he waking up?" Something in Shouta's chest felt lighter, but he knew better than to celebrate too early, so he tried to force his facial expression into an indifferent one.
"I wouldn't call it waking up..." Matsuda didn't want to raise their hopes up too much "..but it is a good sign nonetheless," but he couldn't conceal his own new-found determination.
Yet he couldn't help himself from worrying about a single detail. He frowned slightly, turning back to the monitor to double check.
"What's the matter?" Aizawa, of course, caught wind of the sudden shift of mood and feared the worse.
"The thing is, most activity is located in the amygdala..." he pointed at two almond shaped parts of the brain showed on the screen. "It's this part that's placed within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum" Aizawa ignored the medical gibberish that he just didn't understand.
"The amygdala is responsible for processing and storing up memories, especially when it comes to more emotional remembrances," the doctor said before falling into an unpredicted silence.
Aizawa eyed him cautiously, waiting for him to continue, still not seeing the problem.
"It's clearly hyperactive, those are definitely not normal numbers. I've never seen anything like this before," he leaned closer. Too close, his nose did almost touch the screen before him.
"I would almost say that it's swollen..." his face scrunch up, unknown if it's caused by the harsh light to his eyes or the realization of what this could mean.
"This must be putting enormous strain on his brain and body. It could even be the reason behind the organ failure," he let the thought sink in for a moment.
Dr. Matsuda sighed and leaned back in his chair, combing a hand through his hair.
"I'm just confused. I've never handled anything like this, so I'm not expecting an explanation I'm familiar with either." They fell into a tense silence, the only sound being the fiddling of folders the doctor was making.
"I'll go see the boy," Aizawa broke the silence, probably restless to go see any improvements....
Or to force out some.
That's a dangerous series of thoughts, Matsuda noted.
"Eraserhead," The young doctor's voice made the hero's hasty movements come to a halt, as he turned his head around with a short, impatient 'hmm?'
"You should know that the amygdala is also responsible for emotional responses, especially the primary ones including aggression, anxiety, stress and..."
He met the hero's eyes directly, knowing that concern and sympathy is what would be seen in his own.
"...fear."
Aizawa narrowed his eyes a tad, wondering where the doctor was going with this.
"Excessive amygdala activity is connected to post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorders, because it causes extreme reactions to emotional events, memories, emotional stimuli, and visual stimuli."
"What are you trying to say?"
Matsuda was only speculating from that point on, but he really felt the urge to tell the uneasy hero, before he did something he would regret.
"He must be trapped in an endless swarm of memories, with a sole feeling rushing through him."
It would certainly explain the catatonia too. Regardless, the whole phenomena remained a mystery as to why only the amygdala was hyperactive. What could be the cause?
"I know a nurse who can help us, her quirk is quite literally brain activity control."
Aizawa's stance shifted as he turned his whole body to face the doctor instead of the door he was just about to reach to.
"Are you suggesting we activate his brain forcefully?"
"The opposite actually. I'm suggesting we dampen the amygdala's activity, thus lessen the strain. I'm not sure it would work, but my hypothesis is that the rest of the brain will start working once we do that."