Chapter 67: A Mothers Worry

"SUIJIN!!!!"

With a dazed mind, Suijin, who had just regained consciousness, was instantly engulfed in a pair of warm flesh.

The boy sat there, processing the unusual feeling while trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

He was participating in the sports festival, having used a loophole planted by the UA staff to pass the first round before receiving Ojirou's help in the second.

Then, in the third, he faced Shinso, who gave up, and then...

'Todorok—!!!!'

As if that were his cue, pain invaded his mind as vivid memories of their battle flooded his mind.

Their talks, the look of anger and disgust, the feeling of his insides being pricked by microscopic icicles, the sensation of frostbite slowly taking control of his limbs, his lungs hurting with every breath he took.

And the feeling of victory when he fired that final shot.

Did he win?

Memories of when he woke up confirmed that Todoroki was indeed being protected by All Might, meaning his chances of winning were forfeited.

But just as quickly as those memories came, others did as well, ones of how his hands were holding something—a familiar hard material he'd been living with for years.

One he used to hate due to its restriction and stranglehold over his life, and one he's grown to love due to the infinite possibilities it's given him.

His—

'My Nozel!'

Quickly grabbing his mother's shoulders, stopping her tears, he asked with an equally frantic voice,

"MOM, WHERE'S MY NOZZLE."

Hearing his delirious voice, hearing the desperate tone he spoke with, seeing the feverous face he had on, looking at the trace of vain hope he held, what was she supposed to do?

Tell her son that his dreams were over?

For a moment, Erena stood there, holding an equally blank face, before she focused in.

She tried to keep her face hardened, just as her husband always seemed to be doing.

But, second after second, she cracked until…she burst.

Large drops of water fell down her face and onto the boy's shoulder, staining his hospital gown as she kept muttering,

"Sw-... sweetheart... I... I'm so sorry... Your nozzle... it's... it's... because of... the... sports festival... I... I love you... so much... I'm here... with you... always... I'll... I'll make it better... I promise..."

'Is it ringing?'

Suijin's mind swirled with confusion and disbelief as his mother's words echoed faintly in his ears, drowned out by a relentless ringing inside his head.

He tried to block out her apologies and her promises, desperately clinging to the hope that this was all some nightmarish illusion.

"No... No... It can't be... She's wrong..." he muttered to himself, shaking his head in denial.

His fingers dug into the fabric of his hospital gown, searching for something that wasn't there.

He needed to feel the familiar shape of his nozzle, the solid reassurance that everything was okay.

But as his trembling hand reached up to touch where 'it' would be,...his heart sank.

There was nothing there.

No nozzle, no familiar object to grasp onto, Just empty space.

Reality crashed down on him like a tidal wave, and he felt the weight of his mother's words bear down on him.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he finally accepted the truth, his voice barely a whisper.

"It's gone... My dreams... It's all gone..."

Erena's trembling hand pressed gently against Suijin's quivering lips, her own breaths ragged with sorrow and guilt.

She struggled to find the right words, and her voice choked with emotion as she attempted to offer comfort in the midst of her own anguish.

"Shh... shh..." she whispered brokenly, her touch shaky against his trembling form. "I'm here, sweetheart... I'm here..."

Her heart ached with the weight of her son's pain, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she held him close, her sobs mingling with his in the stifling air of the hospital room.

With each stroke of her trembling hand against his back, she sought to convey the depth of her love and the fierceness of her determination to ease his suffering.

"Everything's... going to be okay," she choked out between sobs, her voice barely above a whisper. "I promise... We'll... we'll find a way... through this..."

In that moment of shared grief and despair, Erena clung to her son with all the strength she had left, praying that her touch and her words would somehow bring him solace in the darkness.

Erena never wanted to be a hero.

Of course, that was more acceptable back when she was younger.

She'd never say that female heroes were rare or anything, and that's why her thoughts were 'normal,' but… When you're in an old village and everybody is content with keeping their lives the way they are, you don't see heroes.

There was a dedicated village police officer who the young boys looked up to, and the girls had do-it-all aunties.

During her childhood, Erena didn't know what she wanted to do.

She had her book smarts going for her, and so, with a little encouragement from her family, she went to the city.

From middle school on, she grew up in Tokyo, staying with one of her mom's friends until she got a job to support herself.

She passed her classes and ended up getting a bunch of odd jobs, like washing clothes, cleaning out people's gutters, and doing all the things people didn't want to do.

But eventually, as Tokyo boomed more than ever, with All Might reaching that historic record of dropping crime to less than 6%, she was forced out of the industry due to people with quirks better suited to the task.

She never resented anyone for it; that was just life.

Erena ended up getting a job at a 7-Eleven less than a block from her new apartment, and it was on one of those days that she met him.

She was thinking, why she didn't go back; her parents made sure to remind her that if she couldn't achieve her big dreams in the city, she was always welcome at home.

She vividly remembers slamming her head against the counter in the empty store, thinking,

'That's just the issue, I don't know what my, 'Big Dream,' is.

She stayed in the city because she figured that here, with new things happening every day, she'd get more inspiration.

But maybe it wasn't meant to b—

Chime

Interrupting her thoughts was a frantic man bursting into her store.

Three in the afternoon on a random Tuesday, he barged into her life, his desperate voice pleading, begging if she had water, of any kind.

The atmosphere took her over, leading her to hand him a case of water bottles she had been meaning to put up.

And when she cursed herself for not even getting his name, she was going to follow his retreating figure outside the store.

But his next actions shocked her.

Not the increased heat that randomly touched her skin, not the sweat that quickly started to drip from her forehead to her cheek.

No, it was his precision.

She looked up to see him squatting over the water bottles, and with practiced movement, he cut open the package.

He then proceeded to stabilize each of the 30 bottles before sticking his 10 fingers into the bottles, allowing them to suck the contents dry.

Repeating this three times, he turned around and aimed his 'head' towards the burning building in front of her.

'Wait. Fire.'

She hadn't even noticed anything wrong before.

And in the time it took for her panic, he sprung into action, providing wide bursts of water on the weaker parts of the flame, not to completely get rid of it but instead to control it.

He guided away its flames from the residential street area where a crowd had begun to form and instead forced it back into the original empty building it sprung out of.

A few minutes later, another hero, Erena, would later get to know as Backdraft, appeared, and using their similar quirks, they stopped the fire.

Erena then had to correct herself.

She never wanted to be a hero.

But at that moment, watching him receive praise from the public in a similar manner to the other heroes she had seen before.

She wanted a hero.

What ensued was a game of cat and mouse.

He piqued her interest, something she'd never had happen before.

Who was he?

What's his name?

What does he do?

Where does he live?

Questions about him rang in her mind. And luckily for her, his neighborhood patrol area encapsulated her job.

Due to the older nature of the buildings around here, there was a tendency for fires to outbreak more often, and with the Safety Committee postponing repairs, it means that she saw him more often.

She invited him to lunch when she saw him on a break, giving him the extra sandwich she packed in case she met him.

They talked, having a surprising amount in common and, even more, a great personality combination.

One thing led to another, and the conversation turned to friendship, which turned to relationships, which turned to moving in together.

She no longer thought of a lofty thing like her grand dream; she was content being by his side, having somebody she loved with all of her heart by her side.

But…his job.

'At least he's not a combat hero.'

'At least he's not on the front lines.'

She tried to indulge in those thoughts, trying not to take away what he so clearly loved so much from him.

But even while suppressing her selfish desire, she watched him come home every day, bruised from falling, rubble, and more injured than before due to the temperature of some fire.

Her worries stacked up; over and over, she tried to deal with these issues but with no success, and as they grew more serious, so did her anxiety.

That was the first time her quirk had ever activated.

"And now it's happening to you."

With watery eyes, she reached out to comfort her son, her heart heavy with the memories of him following in his father's footsteps.

She recalled his hands needing ice packs after sparring too fiercely with the sandbag, determined to perfect his close combat skills.

His legs were often sprained from intense training sessions, yet he never wavered in his dedication.

But it was his nozzle, the very symbol of his aspirations and hard work, that weighed heaviest on her mind.

She had silently harbored a thought, one she dared not voice aloud: that perhaps, if Suijin couldn't use his nozzle, it would spare him from the same trials and dangers his father faced.

Yet, as reality sank in, relief turned to worry, and worry turned to sorrow.

"Suijin... I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice trembling with emotion.