The wind rushed around her ears with a ferocity that would have made her reach to cover them — if she weren't clinging for dear life.

The feeling of vertigo ached through her core as she was flung haphazardly around midair.

The surge of her quirk's power pricked across her skin as she desperately tried to help, tried to do something, tried to make everything better.

Eri was terrified. She didn't know what was happening. It was all too much.

She tried to let everything fade into the background, shutting her eyes like she always did to try to make the world go away. She focused on him — his back, his comfort, his warmth. She ran the words through her mind over and over again to drown out the crashes and the shouts — that her power was kind, gentle, things she wanted so much but were alien to her.

Eri could feel the massive spikes of injury coming from the boy, which fought against the pulsing energy of her quirk. Those spikes continued to escalate against the edges of her mind. In her terror, she pushed to keep her quirk going.

He had asked for it. He needed it. She shouldn't stop, not that she could. But maybe that was okay this time?

There was a massive jolt and a burst of air that flowed through her, shaking her in the cloth that kept her secured to his back. She whimpered but stayed on, feeling the wetness of her own tears as she muffled her face into him.

The wind finally stopped. Distantly, she could hear his voice — gentle, caring, a tone she could only recall hearing in the distant echoes of her memory.

"Eri, are you injured? I'm sorry...because of my carelessness, you…"

But just as she opened her eyes, hoping to get more reassurance, he was cut off by his own cry of agony. She felt her quirk flaring up around them, no longer impeded by the spikes of pain from this hero.

She tried to cry out wordlessly but her throat felt too raw. Everything was white. It was all happening again. He was going to disappear, like the others. She couldn't stop it.

Eri's senses were overloaded. Her horn pulsed with pain that stretched its tendrils down into the rest of her mind. Throbbing, pulsing. She couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't think. Everything faded into the abyss of her power.

…

…

…

In the blink of an eye, it stopped.

She gulped in a lungful of air and her fingers felt the solid muscle of his back once more. She could see the top of his messy green hair again. He wasn't gone.

Eri felt the sensation of falling, but she wasn't hurt. The boy twisted and caught her with those familiar, gentle hands.

She felt so tired. He was warm. He was safe. Her head hurt. Her lungs ached as her breath sped up. But it was okay. He was there.

The heat kept pulsing through her head. The world went dark.

She could not tell what was happening around her. Her mind wandered in the darkness, lost to its own aching. Splashes of colour and random images flashing through her thoughts. She saw the heroes, the blonde boy and the green boy, leaping into action. She saw rubble, the chaos and the familiar horror of the man with the beak. She saw herself, alone, exploding with a power that reduced everything around her into nothing.

The warmth left her. It was cold. She felt something slimy, then a painful prick. Something wet was on her forehead now. She didn't like any of it but she was powerless to move.

Was she back in the dark place? Was it all a dream?

Those were her first thoughts when she finally opened her eyes to be met with a familiar white, sterile ceiling. She whimpered as she scanned the room around her. It was all the same — blank, plain, a machine plugged into her. The blanket felt cold. The pink teddy bear, fuzzy and leaning on her arm, was the same as the others.

She sobbed as she realized it had all been a dream. How could it not have been? There was no way someone like her would ever be saved. Nobody would actually care about her. She was bad, cursed. She dreamed up something impossible.

She tried to rip out the things attached to her, desperate to escape. She wanted to leave. Be anywhere else. This feeling — of being so close to freedom only to have it crushed — it was too much bear. Anything would be better than this.

Some people in white coats stormed into the room, their fleet clacking against the floor in a way that rang painfully in her ears. They started trying to calm her down with repeating reassurances. It was little use; she had heard this all before. She couldn't trust these people. They always lied.

"You were rescued, Eri," a voice called from the back of the room, standing out from the others. Her eyes widened as she turned to see a police officer. His face was plain looking but his black suit stood out amidst all the sickly white.

He stepped forward, flashing her with a friendly smile. She kept her guard up. She didn't know where she was or who was this man. She couldn't get her hopes up again.

"Hi there. My name is Tsukauchi. It's nice to meet you, Eri," the man said, leaning down to face her at eye level. It was a bizarre gesture; she could not recall any adult doing that for her, not since...since before she was trapped. Her sobs halted while she focused on him. The white coats stepped slightly back.

"I know this is a lot to take in. But you are out of that place. You are safe," Tsukauchi explained. His voice was calm and reassuring. But...there were people like that in the underground, too.

"If you like, try taking a deep breath," Tsukauchi said, demonstrating that himself. "And look around again. Maybe it's similar, but I think you'll see some differences too."

Eri looked into his kind eyes and face. She was unsure; she did not know whether he could trust him. But the man seemed nice. And regardless of who it was, she had long since learned how disobeying adults meant people got hurt.

She took the breath, relishing in a lungful of air. When she focused on it, it felt...different than the underground. Cleaner. Startled, she took another breath.

She looked around. Tsukauchi maintained a small smile to her right. A singular man in a white coat stood behind him, and a kind-looking lady to his right. That was odd. She hardly saw any women down in the underground.

She noticed the space seemed a lot more open than the medical room she was familiar with. The space was far less cluttered by machinery. As she swung her eyes left, she noticed a window open, with a yellow curtain swaying slightly in the wind. Sunlight poured in from the glass.

Eri gasped. A couple of slow tears ran their way down her face. There were no windows in the lab. There were no windows anywhere that she ever saw down there. But that would mean...

"You're out of that place now, Eri," the man confirmed. "Lemillion and Deku came and saved you. Them and a whole lot of other heroes that were really worried about you."

It sounded so, so good. But she didn't know if she could believe it. She could not have her hopes crushed again.

The fresh tears in her eyes betrayed the hope starting to rise within her.

"These doctors want to help you feel better. I want to help you. We're all here to help, Eri. If you'll let us," Tsukauchi's eyes bore into hers. She wanted to trust them. She really did.

"I…" she squeaked, struggling to catch her fleeting voice. "I don't know."

"You have all the time in the world. Is there anything you want that we could do for you?"

The question disarmed her and she flopped down on the bed under the weight of her thoughts. She couldn't recall ever being asked what she wanted.

Eri quickly decided what she wanted to ask for. The one thing that might make her certain that this wasn't a cruel dream.

"I want to see him," she spoke with a strength that surprised herself. "Deku."

Tsukauchi's smile was unwavering. "He's a little busy right now, but I'm sure he'd like to see you too. I'll work to have him visit soon."

Disappointment ran itself through her body and settled into her gut, weighing down heavy. She frowned and tried to hold the urge to release a fresh round of tears.

"I promise, I'll have him here as soon as I can," the man assured as he leaned a little forward. "But in the meantime, we'd like to help you feel better. The doctors here want to help with that. Would you let them? I'm sure that's what Deku would want."

The girl gulped under the pressure of the question. She glanced back up to said doctors, who also wore kind smiles, so unlike the ones with the yakuza.

Those doctors also never asked her first.

She took another breath and looked around again. They looked nice. She was scared, but maybe she could try to trust him. Be courageous, like Deku.

Unable to summon her voice again, she nodded, to the man, before closing her eyes and bracing herself for the pain.

"That is very brave of you, Eri-chan. Thank you," she heard the man say, followed by the shuffling of shoes against the floor. "I'll go get in touch with Deku and his teachers now. Just hang in there."

Eri lost track of time after that. The doctors were very nice and gentle with her, trying to coax her to respond. They did prick her once, which was terrifying, but it only hurt a little bit. They fed her and even let her have a choice of more moments passed, the surer she felt that she really was safe now.

But a part of her in the back of her mind remained uncertain. She didn't know what these people would ultimately do with her. She didn't know what might happen if her quirk went off again and she...she cursed someone. She didn't know if they might send her back to that place, to Overhaul. He was the only one that could control her quirk, after all.

But Deku had made it through her curse, somehow. He had called it kind and gentle. Somehow, he had turned it off when things were at their worst. If she saw him, she could know that she might not have to worry about hurting someone again.

As the lights in her room faded away and she closed her eyes, she clutched to that slim sliver of hope. The hope that he really could save her.

But her head swam with images that made her tremble. Overhaul, hanging over her, glaring with a fierce anger over his mask. Needles and tubes and the whir of machines that haunted her every day. Lemillion, broken, like everyone else became around her. Deku, battered bloody, over and over again as he punched through the debris that Overhaul threw at him.

The bird-faced man finally grabbed onto her hero. She cried out but was ignored. The boy was ripped apart.

She gasped and her heart thumped rapidly as she saw him disappear, blood splattering on the ground around him. She shook and sobbed as her hope crumbled with him. She was a fool for ever thinking she could be free. It was her fault. He was gone because of her, like everyone else she ever cared for.

"Eri, Eri, it's okay, I'm here."

From beyond the grave, Deku's voice sounded in her ears. Her cries stopped as she focused on listening to the voice.

Eri opened her eyes, shaking violently from her nightmare. It was still dark in the room but she could make out Deku's face hanging above her, looking concerned.

She gasped as she instinctively reached up to him and grabbed onto his shirt, wanting to make sure he was real. He moved the rest of the way between them, leaning down and pulling her into a hug. She let her tears freely go into his shoulder.

Just like always, his hands were gentle and warm on her back. She let it seep into her. He was here and he was alive. It must have really happened. He beat Overhaul. He saved her.

"I'm here," he whispered to her. "And I'm never letting anyone hurt you like that again."

They stayed like that for a few minutes, her hands tensely clawing into him. She clung to him with all she had, to the safety he offered. He didn't seem to mind.

But eventually, he gently disentangled her and laid her back on the bed. She whimpered lightly but felt too drained to protest further. In comfort, he kept holding her hand as he scooted a chair closer to her bedside and sat down. She wrapped a hand around two of his fingers.

"You're alive." Just saying it was comforting, despite how impossible it should be. "You're here."

"I am," the boy confirmed, beaming down at her. "Because of your quirk. I wanted to say thank you for saving me, Eri."

She stared at him in disbelief and shook her head. How could her curse ever help anyone? What he said didn't make any sense.

"It's true," Deku continued, reading her expression. "I couldn't have beat Overhaul if your quirk hadn't kept healing me. You did great, Eri."

The praise caused her to sob as her memories sprung up to war against his kind words. She had almost killed him, she knew. She had hurt others. She made her parents disappear. She was a monster.

"But...but…" she struggled to speak through her hiccups. "But I almost...you hurt because of me."

"It's okay, it's okay," Deku repeated, squeezing her hand tightly and leaning over to look into her more directly. "Eri, look at me."

She did. As she stared up, she saw his green eyes, sparkling, shining. There was such kindness there, like in the rest of him. But there was also a strange intensity, a fire that gave her pause.

"I promise, your quirk is good," Deku spoke with conviction. "Your quirk saved my life. You saved yourself because you were brave and willing to use it. We're going to help you with it and make sure it's safe. It's not your fault that this power hurt people."

He paused briefly, stroking her hand and smiling. "You are wanted Eri. Me, Lemillion, Tsukauchi and so many other heroes care about you. And I promise I'm going to be here to protect you."

Eri felt her breath go short as her heart slammed into her chest. She felt a surge of affection toward her newfound hero as she leapt up to hug him again. Those words...she could hardly believe them. But they were coming from her hero. After everything, she knew now that she could trust him. She was sure she would be crying more if she weren't already so tired.

"You should get some sleep. It's late, Eri," Deku whispered as he laid her back on the bed and tucked the blanket around her. He gently brushed the hair hanging in front of her face.

"Stay…?" she whispered as her eyes started to droop. She clutched at his fingers again; his hand had never left hers.

"Of course," he replied calmly. "You're fine now, Eri. I am here."

With that assurance, Eri sighed happily. Her mouth started to move before she realized it. She did something she could not remember ever doing before; she smiled.

As she closed her eyes, a word rose upward from the deepest parts of her memory. She remembered something...her mother?..had said to her long ago. It was a happy memory, one lost to her in the darkness of the underworld. But in this moment, safe and clutching the warm hand of her hero, it came forward.

It was something her mother said to her that made her feel good. Every night, those words warded off any terror that could be found in the dark. Back then, she wasn't afraid of it.

As her consciousness faded and the memory with it, her lips moved to bring that happy thought into reality:

"Love...you."

AN: I had to write this after the latest manga chapters because Eri deserves nice things.

Hope you enjoyed it. =)