WE'VE OFFICIALLY STARTED PART TWO OF THE BOOK.
Take this as an intro to part two, the prologue or however you wish. It is canon.
WORD COUNT: 3,172
WARNING AHEAD:
I think Symbiote will get more mature from now on.
UNEDITED
· · ─────── · · ─────── · ·
The guttural screams that pierced Aizawa's ears made his heart drop each time. Each time she screamed, each time she cried, each time her body shook uncontrollably, he wanted to cry with her as well. He dreaded which one would come next, not knowing which was worse than the other.
This was a pain he'd never experienced before, the pain of seeing your child hurting and not being able to ease that pain away from them, no matter how much you tried.
"What did they do to her!" Akira snapped while drenching another towel in cold water. He'd been changing the water's temperature for heaven only knows how much already. It's been a raging hell.
"We still don't know," Aizawa's voice slipped through (y/n)'s screams. Wiping her tears, he carefully placed another cold towel over her head, hoping it'll quench the fever down. She was moving frantically over the bed, screaming and blurting incoherent words only to stop and cry, and then repeat. Not only that, but Venom's screams filtered through occasionally.
"She started feeling strange after the last interviewer, the one who completely discarded the questions and said triggering things to her. Jeanist told us she went to the restroom and spent quite some time back there— possibly calming herself. She didn't come out, and that's when Jeanist called for me. When I got there I found her passed out. She's been like this since—"
"It's been days, Aizawa, days!" Akira snapped, running to her opposite side, only to try to focus on controlling the high fever on her body. "No matter how much I manage to break the fever down, it won't settle— how long have we been doing this now?"
Aizawa shook his head. "I don't know what else to do. I cannot bring her near any hospital, nor let any staff evaluate her— they can't know about this." Frustrated, he threw the hot burning towel away before looking at Akira. "That's why I called you, that's why you're the only one allowed here to help me get her through this."
Akira glanced towards Aizawa, then towards his child.
"My class is on I-Island and once they come back we'll have a camping trip... We need to work this out for the time they come. She deserves to be part of that trip."
"What if she doesn't go? Maybe time off will do her good."
"She loves forests," Aizawa admitted, looking at her kid as he dampened her face with the cold towel. "She's told me about how she'd love to go on a forest trip, she adores them... the camp is in the middle of a forest, so I think it will do her good, to ease her mind in a spot she loves so much."
Akira sighed, placing his hands on the sides of her head.
"I cannot break through as you think, you know that, right?"
"Yes, I know... and I wouldn't ask you that either, that would betray her trust."
Akira felt a pang pierce his heart at the sound of those words. He couldn't help but feel glad, even if it hurt, that at least this kid had found home in someone who truly cared for her. Not all of the kids like her were this lucky, he would know.
He was part of the unlucky batch. Glancing at them, he frowned.
"Aizawa, you know the Agency's following her movements, right?" He murmured, and Aizawa closed his eyes.
"After what happened in Hosu, it'd be strange for them not to... I just need to keep her away from them."
Akira sighed.
Why can't they let children be?
"Don't worry about that, I'm handling it." Akira confessed, before closing his eyes and letting the energy change in himself flow. He felt the way it left his fingertips and traced (y/n)'s all over the place. She kept on moving a little, but eventually, she calmed down, which made Aizawa finally take a breath of relief. He let his forehead down against the mattress. Kikyo meowed resting over (y/n)'s head, over her pillow. The cat ensemble was at her feet, joining to sleep around her.
Akira let her go slowly, grabbing the sides of his head. His quirk may be cool as fuck, but it came with shitty drawbacks. Resting his back against the bed frame, Akira glanced over at Aizawa, who was hugging one orange cat that licked his jaw.
"Hey, Aizawa, wanna date?" He said with a grin.
Aizawa shook his head, giving him a deadpan look.
"You're like a kid to me."
Akira rolled his eyes, smiling. "You're not that older than me. It's just like five years."
Aizawa shrugged, leaning back into the chair he's been on for the last few days, by (y/n)'s side. Riasing a brow, he snapped back.
"What about your chicken?"
Akira tsked, petting a greyish fluffy cat instead.
"Don't ask me about that damned chicken."
· · ─────── · · ─────── · ·
Everything was blurry.
Everything ached and felt heavy.
The confusing images jumped one after the other, viciously attacking her mind. Different scenarios, different people, and images overlapping each other. She was extremely dizzy, unable to decipher what was going on, everything around her was spinning, twisting, fading.
Suddenly, everything stopped, and she found herself in a familiar set room.
(y/n) felt a sense of Déjà vu. Had she not done the three interviews already?
"Welcome, Abyss!" The gentle interviewer said. (y/n) smiled. This one had been the one that treated her the most gently out of them all.
The second interviewer had been rude as hell, making all the questions about her looks and appearance and how she should look more feminine and do stuff to her hair, so it would look more appealing. He also pointed out her scars, which honestly made her lose it and get the fuck away from that interviewer. The other interviewer had been good until she started going off script and started asking weird questions that triggered some shit. Jeanist interrupted the interview immediately after hearing the things she was being asked. Everything became blurry afterward, but she remembers walking away completely stressed out of it, and then nothing.
She couldn't remember anything... but she did remember this was in fact not happening again. This had to be a dream or a repetition of a memory.
Nonetheless, she walked forwards and sat down on the chair. The lady did the same and started asking questions she'd already given answers to, and she repeated them. She remembers being nervous, anxious, and all over the place when she arrived, but the lady interviewer had been kind and patient. She used her calming ability on her (with permission, of course) so she could ease her mind for a few minutes, at least.
(y/n) for the first time in her life wished, sincerely, to have an ability like hers. Using that tranquilizing thing on herself would've been such a useful tool at the Sports Festival— and other places where she'd had a breakdown. It was like a calming drug, but with no side effects.
"So, (Y/N)", the lady continued, smiling. (Y/N) nodded, shifting onto the comfortable couch. it was a generic T.V. set, though the amenities here were actually cozy, so she kept wandering her eyes around the set. She'd never been to one before, so everything was equally exciting and scary as fuck.
"Yes?" (Y/N) said automatically. That's how it's been the whole memory, she's been replying without thinking as if she'd been a robot controlled by the memory bank, and everything just was a movie rolling on.
The gentle lady froze, and (y/n) felt something was off. Frozen for a few seconds, her smile went stiff and the lights of the set flickered.
On and Off, the tingle of electricity was the only thing heard.
(y/n) stood up from her seat, frowning.
The lady's smile disappeared.
For fuck's sake-- this was not a dream, this was a damned nightmare.
Not again.
The lady rose from her seat, glancing down at her. With a tilt in her head and a sad smile on her face, her voice echoed throughout the set.
"Why are you rejecting me?" she spoke, and (y/n) wanted to cry.
"Just stop already," (y/n) pleaded, her voice shaking. "Please just let me rest, just go away."
The lady's face was distorted, just as the scenario. Soon, the blurry sensation came back as everything shifted once again. (y/n) was no longer in that set, but in their apartment, and the thing which once was the lady now shifted to the face of Zawa.
(y/n) despised it, to use the faces that give her comfort to torment her.
"I cannot go away," He spoke, and with each step forward he gave, she gave two steps back.
"Why can't you leave me alone?" She snapped back. Her limbs ached, her mind ached. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep away. "I want to go home."
He stopped and stared at her, confused and sad.
"Because I am within you, and we both are one." He admitted, confused. "
"You keep on saying that, but I don't understand your point." She said, desperately. "The only one I'm one with is Venom—"
He shook his head. "You've awoken me little by little as you've stepped into this era, and thus I have nowhere else to go since I've awoken within you."
The thing stopped and shifted again.
(y/n) gripped the sides of her head, screaming again. Everything hurt. The shadows and the lights, the colors too bright, the blurred images shifting away. Each time this thing shifted, it hurt like hell for her. Everything swirled around, over her, inside her. She was exhausted, yet this thing wouldn't let her go.
When everything finally stopped, there was peace and quiet, the pain was no more. She was tired, too tired to keep on standing, so she lay over what felt fresh, moist, and familiar. Her eyes shut wide open, and she couldn't believe what she saw.
The brightest forest she's ever seen, filled with pines and trees, with a lake across the land.
She inhaled the fresh scent of wood and damp land, and as she turned around, there was something that made her freeze.
She was looking at herself.
She was wearing her hero suit, but it was made into a sleeveless top and a short, which let her scars show. (y/n) was disturbed, seeing her scars in full display.
The thing had taken up her appearance.
"What now!" She screamed, her voice raspy and her throat hurting. She's screamed so much already. "What the fuck will you ruin now!"
The thing walked her to the lake, and (y/n) followed. If she ran away, the landscape would simply change, and she can't endure more changes now.
Doing as the thing asked for, she glanced over the crystalline water of the lake.
Her reflection was different.
There were scars on her face.
Her (h/c) was silver.
"I'll let you go home," The thing with no reflection in the water whispered, kneeling to her side as it observed her. "Though, in return, I get to go home as well."
(y/n) turned around to face herself.
"What do you mean by that?"
The thing tilted its head.
"You are my home. I get to go home."
· · ─────── · · ─────── · ·
Aizawa and Akira had gone through another round of screaming, crying, high fever, incoherent phrases, and so on. Again, using his quirk, Akira tried to control as much as he could of her by moving different types of energies within her. He was tired, but surprisingly he hasn't had a quirk overuse by now.
He was unsure if it was something to feel happy about, after all getting to new limits meant The Hero Commission would have new limits to demand from him.
He'd keep it hidden from them for a while.
Aizawa came back into the room with a big plate of sandwiches. Akira sighed, sitting on the couch across the bed with Aizawa on the opposite end of it, the plate in between them.
"There are marmalade ones, peanut butter ones, and these are regular ham sandwiches. Grab as much as you want, I can make more." He said, munching a blueberry marmalade sandwich. Akira went for the strawberry one, closing his eyes for a bit.
Aizawa sighed.
"Akira," He said tiredly, and the brunette turned to face him. His silver eyes focused on the sandwiches. "You should go home."
"Am I that annoying?" smiling, Akira brought a hand to his chest. "I thought we were friends."
Aizawa rolled his eyes. "You've helped us a lot. Way too much, I meant it as in you should go and rest. Of course, you can stay and rest here in one of the spare bedrooms, whatever you wish."
Akira sighed, glancing at his black nail polish. Maybe he should paint his nails purple? His phone suddenly rang. Grabbing the device, he checked whose name was onscreen before rolling his eyes.
'Fucking Chicken' was on display.
Not today, yellow bird. Shrugging his shoulders, Akira hung up, then kept on eating more sandwiches.
"I will go home when she wakes up. What will you do if her fever gets so high you can't do a thing about it? You both need me, and I'm staying."
Aizawa Shrugged, before taking his yellow sleeping bag and walking to the side of her bed, where he lay on the floor. Akira excitedly jumped on his seat.
"Man, you've gotta teach me how you do that! How do you magically appear that thing at your wish?"
Aizawa made an eerie smile.
"You'll never know."
"You fucker." Akira snapped, walking away to the kitchen. "I'll grab whatever I want for that."
"Whatever you want, don't wake me up unless it's about my daughter."
"Yeah yeah," Akira said dismissively, licking the red marmalade from his finger as he glanced over the apartment, walking towards the window. The lights of the night city looked so peaceful from up here.
His phone rang again. Placing a hand over his hip, he picked up.
"The fuck you want, I'm busy."
"Ah, here I thought my favorite fan would be glad this one called." Hawks flirting made Akira's brow twitch.
"Drop the cocky act chicken, I'm not in the mood."
"Not in the mood for my flirting, or not in the mood to see me?" He replied, and by the fucking tone, Akira could see the dumb smile on his idiotic face. It made his skin feel hot, and he cursed out loud. He was wearing a fucking crop top for fuck's sake, he knew this was not of the room's temperature we were speaking of.
"Say it again won't you?" Hawks snapped him out of it. Akira bit his tongue.
"I dunno what you're talking about."
"The way you say fuck," Hawks mentioned cockily. "You said it just like when we're—"
"If you finish that sentence, I'll make fried chicken out of you."
"That's okay if you eat me up—"
"Keigo—shut up. I'm being serious now."
There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line.
"Alright, what's going on?"
Akira rested his back against the window, glancing at his fingernails.
"That's none of your business," He simply declared. "We're not dating."
"That hurts," Hawks said playfully. "Alright, alright. I'll let you be, just know whatever you need you can let me know."
Akira said nothing to that, but Hawks was already used to it. Every time Hawks reassured him that he could lean on him, it made Akira feel strange. He wasn't sure if Hawks was serious about it or not, given his chatty self he's sometimes ended up saying things he doesn't truly means... but usually that's only his facade with fans and the Hero Commission director.
"Go to sleep, chicken."
"Sweet dreams to you as well, Akira."
Rolling his eyes, Akira hung up on him and sighed, walking to the kitchen for a glass of water. "This fucking chicken," he murmured, "He makes me insane, such a pain in the ass."
Holding the glass of water with one hand, he massaged his forehead with the other. "I'll have to put him in his damned place next time, that b—"
"What chicken" (y/n)'s voice rang in his ears.
"Shit!" Akira cursed, dropping the glass of water, his head snapping violently around. Was he hearing things now?
"Akira?" She said, and Akira blinked.
No way he was hallucinating, she had to be real, or else this was it. Running towards her, he extended his arm and touched her forehead.
(y/n) frowned, tiredly. "What are you doing?"
"You still have some fever, ah," he murmured, grabbing a random towel and drenching it in water. Closing his eyes, he quickly changed the temperature to freezing cold. "Hey, you should be in bed now."
"I'm thirsty." Akira grabbed another glass of water, filling it up and making it freezing cold before handing it up to her.
"You've been sick for days— wait, didn't you wake Aizawa up?" (y/n) shook her head.
"He seemed tired." She admitted, making Akira smile.
Sighing, he walked her back to her bed.
"He would kill me if I don't wake him up for this though," Akira admitted, and (y/n) smiled a little. Crouching on the floor, Akira snapped his fingers by Aizawa's ears. "Hey, worm," Akira waited a few seconds, before yelling. "Wake the fuck up!"
Aizawa's tired, red eyes shut open, yet his face had no change in his expression.
Akira grinned. "Missed you."
"Akira."
"Oh, also, (y/n)'s up." At that, Aizawa immediately jumped out of the yellow sleeping bag, facing a tired, puffy-eyed (y/n) smiling at him.
"Hi dad," was the only thing she managed before he jumped to her side, bringing her towards his embrace.
"I'm so glad you're back," he murmured. (y/n) let out a heavy sigh, resting her head on his shoulder.
"I missed home," she said.
"Well, now that you're up, I suggest a cold shower and tons of sleep," Akira leaned on the doorframe. "Also, Aizawa, about the interviewer—"
Aizawa's stare turned cold, and (y/n) was barely conscious enough to pay mind to their chat. She was so tired, she needed to sleep. "I'll get him fired." He snapped, his eyes locked with Akira's silver ones. Akira smirked at him.
"I handle it," he said, his silver eyes shining in the deadly night. Aizawa slit his eyes at him.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked, but the other simply shrugged his shoulders.
As he walked through the door, Akira simply stated, "You don't wanna know, that's why I'm doing it."
Too tired for having an argument with him, Aizawa said nothing, simply aiding (y/n) to get her to sleep. He didn't understand what had caused such behavior and symptoms. However, his mind finally let the tiredness show, given that the only thing keeping him up was being worried for (y/n). Since she finally got up, his body could finally rest.
He could find out what Akira did later. Right now, they should rest... it's only a few days before class 1-A comes back from the I-Island trip, and they get to the training camp in the woods.
Petting her sleepy head, he smiled.
She would love the surprise.
· · ─────── · · ─────── · ·
RANDOM FACT OF TODAY:
Akira definitely vibes to Area Codes. Also, he's a switch.
Part two of Symbiote will cover the aftermath of the exams + interview, all the way to the Pro Hero & Joint training, unless I change my mind depending on the story's flow we could, possibly, run until the Meta Liberation Army on part two, but I won't promise anything.
See you guys soon in next chapter.
Also, did you know reading Symbiote is like reading a trilogy? you've read like 180k words so far, and a book manuscript is around 100k words, so yea.
PS: All the parts of Symbiote will be in this same book.