Oh. my. fucking. god. I got FAN ARTTTT!! *Unholy squeal of happiness* Thank you SO much for this! It's beautiful! I love how you drew Sora in her cloak! Her eyes are beautifully drawn too! You have made my day so much better I am so happy!
Credit goes out to @HottleTottleAxoltol
This is their username! They are SO cool!
The fan art is shown above!
Anyway, enjoy the chapter!~
(Mentions of Self Harm)
Nezu's POV
Kuro was rushed to the ER before I could even get out of the back of the ambulance. There were doctors and nurses everywhere. Orders were being shouted as Tsukauchi and I struggled to keep up with the crowd of doctors around the stretcher.
A nurse swabbed some of the blood from Kuro's wounds and rushed away. Most likely to the lab to test her blood type.
Then Tsukauchi and I were stopped outside of a door. A nurse was telling us that we couldn't go farther and we should go to the waiting area.
The nurse told us they'd keep us updated once Kuro was out of surgery.
We reluctantly went the waiting area and sat down, Tsukauchi told me how he'd found her. Something that he had noticed but hadn't really paid attention to was that there had been ash all over the floor as if someone had burned different items. That's when I realized that all Kuro had been wearing was her long sleeved white undershirt and black leggings and a necklace.
Her blue tunic, black cloak, mask, weapons, and boots were all gone.
Tsukauchi relayed to me the condition of the room her found her in with horror and pity.
If only we had been quicker with the rescue, then maybe we might've gotten there before this all that torture happened.
Suddenly, I remembered I had a phone call to make. I excused myself from Tsukauchi and walked to a private area where I pulled out my phone and typed in the digits on the post it note it was written and pressed call, nervously waiting.
I didn't have to wait long, as the person being called picked up the phone before the first ring ended.
"Hello?" I heard a shaky hoarse female voice from the other line. It sounded like she had been stressed out recently.
"Droplet? This is Nezu. We found Kuro and she's in Kamino ward hospital now. I figured you would want to come by once she's out of surgery," I said.
There was a moment of silence. As if she was debating something. Then the reply was short and straight forward.
"I'll be there soon," She said before I heard her hang up.
I guess her reaction had been reasonable.
After I pocketed my phone, I went back to the waiting area where Tsukauchi was.
"Who did you just call?" He asked.
"Kuro's partner, Droplet. She'll be here soon," I said as I hopped up onto the chair next to him.
"Are you gonna talk about the deal with her once she gets here? You did say we're going to do that," He asked.
"That can wait till her partner is stable and conscious, they need to make the decision together if they want to go to UA or not," I explained.
He nodded in understanding.
I could see he was tense with worry as much as I was. Kuro may have been a vigilante, but at her core she was still just a girl, a young girl at that.
There must have been a few minutes that passed before the doors of the hospital swung open and a tall girl in an oversized blue hoodie and ripped up jeans came rushing at the reception desk.
"Where is she?!" The girl asked.
The receptionist looked scared and baffled, "Miss, please calm down. We're in a hospit-"
"I don't care! Tell me where she is," The girl said.
"Droplet?" I said carefully.
The girl whipped around to face me. She had on a black face mask and through her hood was short messy white hair. Her eyes were an aqua blue that matched All Might, and she had bags under her eyes.
They showed the many sleepless nights.
"Nezu?" She said roughly. Her voice scratched up.
"Come over here and sit, were waiting for her to get out of surgery," I said carefully. Tsukauchi was staring in wonder.
Eyeing me and the detective closely, she cautiously made her way over to us and sat in the chair next to me.
Droplet looked down at her lap as she hugged her sides.I noticed she wore fingerless gloves like Kuro. She was also tense and slightly shaking. Her breaths were shaking as she tried to control it.
"Don't worry, Kuro will be okay. She's tough and will make it through," I reassured her.
"I should've gone with her.... or at least done something... we made a promise," She said painfully.
"But then there would've been a chance you would've been caught too. The last thing we would have needed was another child in danger," I said.
Droplet didn't reply after that.
(Time skip)
We had all spent the night in the waiting room at the hospital, not wanting to miss when the doctor came out and gave us news.
Tsukauchi had fallen asleep but I could tell that Droplet wouldn't sleep at all. She kept her eyes trained on the floor.
The sun had come up and she was still awake. I noticed she was even more tense than before.
Finally, a doctor came out with a clipboard and walked towards us. He ushered for us to follow and I climbed up on Tsukauchi's shoulder and we walked through the eerie white walls of the hospital before stopping in a hallway with fewer nurses and people.
"Do you want the good news, bad news, or disturbing news first?" He said while looking at the clipboard.
I answered before I could think, "Good news."
He looked at me and then the others before looking back at the clipboard, "Alright, well, the surgery was a success. We found her blood type in time to give her a blood transfusion and save her from blood loss.
All her wounds are healable and she'll make a full recovery."
Droplet let out a breath she had been holding and asked quietly, "And the bad news?"
The doctor looked at her before sighing, "Well, she had a lot of major injuries. Multiple stab wounds to her arms, legs, and two at her side. Thankfully her white blood cells were able to clot before she bled out to death. Though, she was very close," He looked at Tsukauchi, "I'd say If you found her even a minute too late she would've died.
"Other than the stab wounds and major blood loss, there was an infection in the wounds. Her shoulder looked like the skin had somehow disintegrated. Her leg had a similar condition. We treated them but she still has a fever. Her left wrist was sprained, most likely from the handcuffs. She was bruised up pretty bad too around her neck. Minor damage to her vocal cords but it will heal with rest. She does have a moderate concussion, she must've been hit in the head a few times. Thankfully, there wasn't any brain damage and that'll heal with rest as well.
He looked up with a gentle smile of reassurance, "She's still asleep and will probably be like that for a while but she will recover."
I looked at him and hesitantly said, "And what about the disturbing news."
His smile dimmed a bit as his brows furrowed, as if the news was difficult to share.
"Well, I'm sure your aware of how heroes take a blood test when they get their license. And how hospitals keep the blood in case of future visits," We nodded. Droplet's breath hitched. "Well, when we ran a test to see if she matched anyone in our system, we got a match. Two matches."
"What do you mean," Tsukauchi asked.
"Kali and Seiza Ripurī, otherwise known as the late underground pro heroes Rōzu and Yoru, who were both killed eight years ago, along with seven year old Sora Ripurī, in their home before help could arrive."
My blood ran cold.
Kali had been a good friend of mine, just like Aizawa and the other staff. She and her daughter had both been students that went to UA and had become underground heroes. Seiza has followed her mother's footsteps and Kali had been so proud. I remember Kali, she used to be really good friends with Kayama when they were students.
Kali had worked as one of the teachers a few years before Aizawa agreed to work at UA and had always told me about her family and how proud she was. She talked about her husband, Sorin, and how she wished she could be home more in the meadows with the flowers. How much she loved the quiet away from the city, but her work as a hero would keep her and her daughter, Seiza, away at work. She told me about her baby daughter, Sora, and how much she looked like her mother. That she was shy but curious and loved music with an undying passion. Apparently, Seiza was the one teaching her.
When I had gotten a call one day, I remembered it vividly, it was April 16, and little Sora has just turned seven. Kali called me in a panic and shouted for me to send help to her home. Everything else was gibberish.
And when help came it was already too late.
The house had been set ablaze and blood covered the grass. The car was gone and when heroes went to investigate, they found Kali's body in the wreckage and Seiza's body was found a ways off from the house. Both had been shot dead. Little Sora's body was nowhere to be found but they believed she died in the fire and was nothing but ash.
Kayama had been heart broken. Aizawa and Yamada were upset as well. Kali would always hang out with them too as students.
We had buried the two heroes in a private owned park where it was quiet. Just like how Kali liked it. They had buried an empty casket for little Sora.
I snapped myself out of my daze and looked at the doctor once more.
"What does that mean," I asked carefully.
"There's a hospital nearby that had left over samples of blood from the scene, which is blood believed to have belonged to Sora Ripurī. We contacted them for the sample and plan to see if it matches," He explained.
"Are you telling me that little girl might not have died?" Tsukauchi asked.
The doctor simply nodded and gave us a minute to digest the information before he continued, "Theres... more news. Would you like to hear it."
Reluctantly, I nodded.
"Well to start off, she's malnourished and dehydrated. Looks like she has been for a while. Very light and thin, so we have her on an IV for nutrition and hydration. Then there's the scars all over her body. Some ranging from burns, minor electric scars, bullet scars, knife scars, and whip scars. There's hardly any part of her that hasn't been wounded."
"Didn't she get them from the League?" Tsukauchi asked him.
"Some of those wounds are older than eight years old. Some are more recent, like the wound on her calve that looks like a knife wound that she had treated herself," I remembered the night I met with her and helped her stitch her leg, "There are wounds from vigilantism, but some of those abuse scars."
I knew Kali would never hurt her children. She loved them more than her own life. And Seiza was so compassionate that I doubted she would hurt anyone innocent.
I remembered meeting Sorin, though. The man had given me a hard deathly glare. I hadn't brought it up with Kali because I hadn't wanted to get in the way of her marriage, she was a grown adult. Now I wish I had. I'll regret it forever.
The doctor continued, "There are also what seem to be... self harming scars along her arms. Some are recent too. Only a few weeks old. I mean, she did cut her wrists slightly on the handcuffs, but the others are obviously from cutting."
I looked over at Droplet and was surprised to see a tear rolling down her cheek, getting the face mask she had on wet, "No, she promised me she would stop. You're wrong." Her voice was shaken and pained.
The doctor looked at her and then looked like he remembered something, "Right, I almost forgot. When we tested her blood, we found traces of blood that isn't hers. Did she swap blood with someone else?" He asked her.
She remained silent for a minute before responding, "Yeah, we made a promise," Droplet slipped off the glove on her left hand to reveal a scar that stretched horizontally across her palm.
The doctor sighed and said, "Theres a similar scar like that on her right hand," He put a hand up to his temple, "That's very dangerous. You should never swap blood with someone else. You could get sick."
"Yeah, but we didn't," She said simply.
I thought I heard the doctor mumble something about teenagers but decided to ignore it.
The doctor went into his pocket and pulled something out. It was a black stringed necklace with two charms on it. The charms looked slightly rusted with age.
He gave it to Droplet, "We found this on her neck. We had to take it off to see the bruises better but it looks sentimental."
She muttered a small thank you before going quiet again after putting the necklace in her pocket.
"When will she wake up?" Tsukauchi asked.
"We don't know, but hopefully soon. We'll keep you updated the moment we get more news. She's still in the ICU so she can't have visitors yet but hopefully soon," He said.
"When she is better, I would like to transfer her to UA where I can look over her more carefully myself," I said.
"Why?" The doctor asked.
"If Kuro really is Rōzu's daughter, then that means I want to make sure she's safe in UA walls where she can be protected," I explained.
"Well I can't really stop you, but she has to stay here until she's completely stable," He said.
I nodded and we walked back to the waiting room.
We debated on what would happen from there until we decided that the best course of action would to be to go home and rest.
I asked Droplet if she wanted to come back to UA with me and we could wait for Kuro to get better there and if we needed to get to the hospital, it would be easier.
She didn't speak and kept her eyes on the ground, but nodded and reluctantly got into the car I had called to take us back to the school.
Once we got there, I walked Droplet to my office and she sat down on the couch while I sat in the chair with my computer and tried to do some of the work that had piled up.
Droplet passed out on the couch. I was somewhat glad. At least she was sleeping, she looked exhausted, judging from the heavy bags under her eyes.
Out of curiosity, I decided to do a google search.
"Sorin Ripurī"
The results I got surprised me.
Yo yo.
So Nowane and Nezu finally meet face to face. She still doesn't trust him, unsurprisingly.
After all, trust is earned not given.
So we have some major oofs in the next chapter. There were a lot of oofs in this one.
It's gets better, believe me.
So ya, Kali and Kayama were friends and since Kayama was always around Aizawa and Yamada, so was she. Kali is(was) shy so she never really talked much.
Like I said before, if you don't like my story then leave.
Anyway, beautiful people, Thanks for reading!
Bye!
~Care-chan
(2728 words)