Eri swears, hitting the ground with a terrifyingly loud thump. Her whole body shakes, her limbs are trembling and, by god, Eri aches. Aches like she hasn't done since her time with Overhaul. Even though she knows the bastard is behind bars even though she knows there are stubs where hands had once lived... it still sends a shiver down her spine.

"Where the fuck did you come from?!" The words are hissed, low and even to Eri's left. She blinks, squints, then tilts her head to a side to peer at the source. It's a man... well, boy. Almost a man. Teenager, probably. Somewhere around her own age and with flesh that's almost melting off his bones. Well, that's sort of a stretch. It's clinging to his face by hooks, hoops, staples... whatever that glint of metal is. It's familiar somehow. The shade of that wild red hair even more so. She can't remember. She can't remember where she's seen that colour before, only the certainty she has once looked upon that shade stops her from outright dismissing it.

"Fucked up with my quirk," Eri explains, stretching out her back. It doesn't give a satisfying crack, not like Dad's back does when he gets up from the sofa and stretches like one of his many cats. God, Dad's gonna be furious when he realises she's been pushing her quirk's boundaries without him around. Maybe to the point that he'll call in reinforcements. Eri does not want another lecture from Izuku-nii and Mirio-nii. Not so soon after the first one. She needs to get back home. Pushing herself up and off the ground is harder than it should be; it's bloody exhausting. The heavy-weight of the stranger's eyes doesn't help.

"Tch, know what that's like," the stranger mutters, low and bitter. One hand lifts and Eri tenses, but he only rubs the pad of his thumb across the charred skin beneath his eye. It's horrendous to look at, it has Eri wincing in sympathy (it has flashbacks to needles, syringes, a hand descending on her head, leaping behind her eyelids).

"I'm, I'm Eri, but the way." she grunts out, pushing herself up onto her palms with a grimace. The blue-eyed teen watched her slowly clamber to her feet, expression dead.

"Touya."

"It's nice to meet you, Touya." Holding out her arm towards the stranger (and ignoring how it trembles, how her horn aches) Eri smiles. A warm hand (too warm, warmer than is normal) brushes up against hers, palm callous and fingertips burnt. The colour of his forearms, the purple tinge to the wrinkling skin is worrying. She's glad it doesn't stretch down the rest of his arm, glad his palms and fingers and left untouched. What good would hands that're nerve-dead be?

"Nice to meet you too, I guess."

.

He helps her out the alley. Eri would like to say it's heroic and a scene right out of a fairy-tale, but that'd be a lie. She stumbles three times before he gets up. Even then, it's only because she went down hard after the third, legs crumbling out from beneath her. She's never been this exhausted before, not since those dark days of her childhood. Back before Lemillion and Deku found her. Back before we had Dad.

"Where do you need to be?" The stranger, Touya, grunts, one of her arms slung over his shoulder. Eri takes a moment to asses her surrounds, but none of it is familiar. She's even struggling with the skyline. It doesn't make sense, half these buildings she doesn't recognise, but she'd been only 10 minutes away from U.A. and her quirk... her quirk is rewind. Breath lodged in her throat, Eri whips her head around to stare at Touya, eyes wide.

"What day is it?" she demands, snatching up the collar of the teen's thin jacket, exhaustion forgotten.

"It's Saturday."

"No! The exact date, the year included!" The look she gets is frosty yet Eri couldn't care less.

It's supposed to be a Thursday. It's supposed to be Thursday.

Touya tells her the date and, for the second time in her life, the ground is pulled out from under Eri's feet.

.

She's fifteen years in the past. Fifteen years. She should be there years old right now. Three years old. She's fifteen years in the past and eighteen years old. She should be preparing for her finals at U.A., not slouched over in an alley with Touya the melting-skin stranger for company. Her chest hurts. It aches. The horn both feels like a phantom limb and the most painful blister she's ever experienced.

(Deku won't have even met All Might yet.)

"What's wrong with you," Touya grunts, pinching her chin between forefinger and thumb, forcing her head to tilt up and out from her chest. The next breath comes easier so Eri doesn't fight him. A quick fumble and she finds the horn is nothing more than a stub now, her powers all but spent. Besides, her quirk is Rewind, not Fast-forwards. It isn't like she can use it to get back. A hysterical laugh threatens to bubble up and out of her lips but Eri beats it back. She can't afford to distance the only face she knows, even if that is only a stranger unwilling to give more than his first name.

"I can rewind time. I've never used it on myself this much and now I've gone too far." The laugh escapes from between her lips, slipping out right after the words. Touya's hand clamps down hard on her own, his other one still cradling her jawline.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means I had a shitty life with an asshole that used me for my quirk before I got out. But now..." Gods, what about Dad? She's fifteen years in the past. Fifteen. That means Dad is still in his twenties. It means Dad isn't her dad anymore. The thought stings, burns and chars at the edges of her brain, forms a lump in her throat. Dad isn't her dad anymore. Dad, the man who raised her and loved her and taught her how to be human again (with a little help from Mirio-nii and Izuku-nii) won't know who she is. The startled sob that escapes Eri's lips deafeningly loud. She doesn't remember much more about what happens after that.

.

.

Todoroki Touya sets the girl down on the only bed within the crappy motel he's renting. She's a thin thing, even if she's all lithe muscle and long limbs. The swirling mess of long white hair slams him with memories but, when he focuses on the curls, he can distinguish the difference. Can tell the difference between the here and now, and the past that haunts him. The eyes were enough of a distinction, not the soft grey but a startling poppy red. But they're closed now and the only difference is that little stub of what could be a half-formed horn and the tumbling curls. Hunching over his drawn-up knees until his folded arms can cradle his head, Touya stares that little bit more at the girl, running their past, and only interaction, through his head. An asshole that used her for her quirk, huh?

Reclining back against the wall, Touya stares down at the exposed skin of his shins, the trousers that are too short for him riding up with his position. Even after all these years, the surgical staples remain a constant pain, foreign intrusions on his body that pull tight at nerve-dead skin. It fucking hurts, hurts each time he has to reapply them to ensure the muscle beneath doesn't get exposed. He goes through more antiseptic than he does toothpaste. Speaking of which... Touya reaches for the latest bottle (he's already running low, he'll have to budget for that soon enough) and uncorks it, applying an ample amount to the cleanest rag he's got to hand. Eri, the girl with a rewinding time quirk (the sheer power she may have at her fingertips is almost mind boggling) is covered in little scrapes and bruises gained from her sudden appearance in that alley. Hopefully, the sting might wake her up and he can get answers/get her out of his life now. Swiping the cloth across her cheek, Touya inspects the thick smear of blood that comes away from her face with a frown. She doesn't seem to register the bite of the antiseptic (though a hero in training would obviously have a fairly high pain tolerance) despite his hopes. Regardless, Touya moves on to her arms, taking a gentle hold of one and steadily peeling the bandages from where she wears them around her wrist. It's only after the third loop is freed from her forearm that he registers it's not bandages at all, but instead capture tape. Curious, but he still needs to tend to the scrape on her elbow, the wetness of her black top the only evidence of the wound. When he peels up the sleeve, however, all thoughts of that little injury vanishes. Her arms are littered with cuts. Cuts and needle-punctured and they're old. Old scars that've puckered the skin as she's grown.

'I had a shitty life with an asshole that used me for my quirk.' He knows it in his bones that the previously mentioned asshole is behind these scars. Just like his own arise from his own life-ruining-asshole. Scowling, Touya runs a hand through the wild spikes of his hair, inspecting the girl once more. She's got the muscle for hero work; he's not too sure about the outfit though. Capture tape around the forearms and a secondary supply she wears in an almost scarf-like formation. The outfit sort of tickles at the back of his mind but Touya pushes it away. He tries not to think too much when the topic of heroes come up. It's always an assured route to a black mood and that's the last thing he needs right now. The black skin-tight top and trousers are split apart by a white utility belt, loaded with all sorts of miniature gizmos and gadgets. He does not understand the significance of the 'M' with a horizontal bar across the top of it; there's two of them, residing on her hips in a muted orange. The red combat boots with dulled green laces are a sensible option, secure and supportive. They'd be a great aid for a solid kick. Not like the flimsy slippers Touya'd had to source for himself once his own feet had outgrown his boots. Life sucks but he's out from under that bastard's thumb, so it sucks a little less than it did before. His only regret is that he couldn't take the rest of them (couldn't take Shouto) with him. One faked death is far easier to believe than four. Besides, Shouto's the darling child. He won't be pushed to the point Touya was. That bastard has to learn from his mistakes like everyone else. Right?

Grimacing, Touya takes hold of the girl's arm and attends to the freshly exposed scrape on her elbow. When she wakes up he'll get more answers from her, send the girl on her way and he can go back to... piecing a life together for himself.

.

She wakes up three hours later. The sun has long since buried itself beneath the horizon, only a thin slit of moon offering any light to the night's sky. The city's light pollution ensures little to no stars are visible, stripping back an otherwise cosmic glory to expose a boring blackness. Touya sits beneath the window and it's grime covered panels, head tilted back to peer up at the stretch of nothingness.

As such, he's not looking at her when she mutters a low, "Mirio-nii?" A brother then?

"Not quite." Eri startles into alertness, leaping up and swinging around to stare at him. The horn on her head is no longer a little unformed stub; instead it now has a clear point to the tip. A tip that is currently glowing. Interesting. Blurry red eyes blink once, twice, thrice. Then, Eri melts into herself, shoulders slouching and lips drooping at the edges.

"It wasn't a bad dream then."

"'Fraid not. Any caregivers you can contact?" She sniffles, wiping the back of one forearm across her eyes. The capture tape comes away wet; she hasn't noticed that it's been rewound around her arms. Good, Touya had been unsure if he'd done it too tightly or too light.

"None I'd be willing to be anywhere near," Eri mutters beneath her breath, hand coming up to paw at the horn protruding from her skull. Touya watches the motion, watches how her fingers work around the adornment, nails catching on the tip. From the unfamiliarity of her motions, he can take a good guess that the horn is often changing in size. With how it'd glowed when she'd been startled, he's probably not wrong in guessing it's the source of her power. That, or somehow connected to it. "Dad- No, Aizawa-san won't even know who I am right now." An absentee father? Or adoption after she got out from under her previous 'caregivers'? Touya cannot say for certain, nor does he want to. Her circumstances are her own. So, what if it's cutting closer and closer to resembling his own? He doesn't care, not really. He's got his own shit to deal with and he's only helping her out now because she needs it. Because it'd be more than what that bastard would do. It'd be what a real hero would do, not the fake ones that march about out there, proclaiming their doing good while chasing fame and glory. There's only All Might that can claim himself beyond all the others. It's why he's been untouchable at the Number One spot for so long. His bastard of a father has no hope of getting that mantle. Touya's sure of it. He's just not good enough; sometimes, it's the only comfort he has to cling to.

"Well, that sucks for you. What are you gonna do now?" It's a not-so-subtle hint; he offers her no place to stay, offers her no help. But those big crimson eyes, wet with tears she stubbornly not allowing to fall, still turn on him anyway.

"Why are you on your own? You're not that much older than me."

"I'm twenty, short-ass." She's not short, perhaps even a little taller than the average woman. But she's shorter than him and that's all that matters. (He doesn't have flashbacks to a pair of white-haired siblings calling him the same thing. He doesn't.)

"That's only two years older than me," she huffs, arms folding and matched with a pertinacious pout.

"Newsflash, hero-girl. Not everybody makes something of their life. Sometimes the world screws you over and you can't climb out."

"I agree. Sometimes you get screwed over even if you don't deserve it." It's a soft whisper, passing through the air between them on a butterfly's wings. It still resonates between Touya's ears, not the words but the personal experience that weighs them down. "Sometimes you can't climb out of it alone." Tch, he knows exactly where she's going with this.

"Not everybody holds out a hand to help you up. Half the heroes in the world are utter fakes chasing fame and glory. The true ideals of a hero reside on one man's shoulders and he's only got one life to live. At the core, nobody really offers a hand nowadays." As he says it, Touya flinches back at the sudden movement, head colliding with the wall behind him. The surface groans, plaster snapping and cracking, some tumbling free to rumble down his back and land on the bare floorboards. Wincing, Touya peels his eyes open to find a hand open wide before his face. There's even needle-pricks on the ends of her pale fingers.

"A hero once told me the reason heroes wear capes is so they can take people who are in pain and cloak them in its comfort. He told me this the day he saved me from the bastard who destroyed my childhood. I don't have a cape, but I can go get one to wrap you up in, if needs be." Touya laughs. It's bitter and tinged with a decade's worth of fury, of acidulous anger that burns and bubbles far more than fire ever did.

"Is this you seriously stating you'll be the one to save me? Listen up, Short-ass. I don't need a hero." He'd had one hero taking charge of his life for the first decade and a half. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Not in the slightest.

"Heroes poke their noses in wherever there's a person that may need help," Eri snaps. She says it like one would a testimony for the bible, says like one would repeat a well-known life fact. The sky is blue, the grass is green, heroes are nosy buggers who cannot leave well enough alone.

"Newsflash, you're not a hero here. Hell, have you even been born yet?" At that she grimaces. One hand rubs at her arm and Touya almost feels a little bad. If she is alive then it's likely her younger self is suffering whatever and whoever the fuck put those scars on her body.

"Well, if you don't need it, I'll buy a cape anyway and go save my younger self. In fact-" she cuts herself up, having tried standing to quickly and too sharply. The girl stumbles again (it's all Touya's seen her do since they met), one arm shooting out to grab a hold of the windowsill. He ignores how close she is, ignores the further scars he can see on her neck, pale and blossoming across the jugular vein as if the ones on her arm weren't enough. The sick fuck. Who the fuck can do that to a child. (He does his best to ignore the memories of fists to the stomach, of bile edging his teeth, of icing bruises and hiding a hurting heart that just couldn't heal from being a 'failure'.)

"You'll get nowhere like that. Rest up before you go racing to the rescue." The words bolt from his mouth before he can stop them, running free like wild-horses. There's no point in closing the barn door now, they've already escaped so he might as well continue. "You'll be no good to yourself like that." Gesturing with one hand (and ignoring the pull of surgical staples against skin), Touya waves in her general direction. She's like a baby deer or something, all long limbs and trembling legs. The girl needs rest; she'll be no use to anyone before then, nevermind her younger self. Which is weird enough to think about. What would he do if given the chance to go back in time? It's disheartening to realise he'd try to put that bastard out of commission rather than save his younger self. Just another bit of proof that the life of heroics was never for him. As if he didn't already know that with the body-quirk incompatibility he suffers from.

"I thought you wanted rid of me," Eri muses, a smile to her face and it's not a happy one. Those red eyes are sharp, a bitterness to them he knows all too well.

"So, you got the hints then?"

"I ignored them. Heroics one-oh-one; don't be dissuaded by an unfriendly disposition." Yeah, his father certainly took that lesson to heart. Probably a bit too much. "Thank you."

"Tch, don't thank me. It's not like I can dump you outside now." Not when he'd already carried her in, sleeping soundly against his chest with the receptionist making the most ridiculous cooing noises over them. As if they were a couple to be commented on or some shit like that.

"Are you sure it's not you that needs the cape to wear?" Touya stiffens, glaring at the young woman that now settles herself back down on the only bed in the room. "Good Night, Touya-san. Thank you for bringing me here."

He hasn't got a clue what to make of the time-traveller, other than accept the fact heroes will still prevail in the future. That's a shame. If she's lucky, All Might would still have been around then. Along with whatever guy had rescued her as a child… Well, that makes up a grand total of two decent human beings. Both of whom wear capes. Well, he has his answer on why Endeavor has never worn a cape. He'd never care to comfort a person and protect them for pain, would he? No, he's all about solving the case, defeating the villain. It's why he'll forever be number two. Why he'll never take over All Might.

It doesn't surprise him in the slightest that All Might wears a cape. He could see the Number One saying those kinds of words. Heh. Typical that the only person he can respect as a hero would never notice Touya, would never be capable of helping him. That's okay though. If he can't climb out of his own hole, he can at least make himself at home within it.