For a child, of any age or size, a hero is a reality, a grandiose reality. They live amongst them, they are on TV, you can hear interviews on the radio, there are figurines, comics and posters. To be a child in this world is to constantly look up at the sky and know that out there there is someone to save you, that watches over you.
To live in a world with heroes is a world where you feel protected. But to live in a world with heroes is to admit that there also are villains.
Aizawa ran through the streets at a rapid pace, he could hear the sole of his boots hitting the pavement, and feel the way his scarf flamed with the wind, leaving a trail after him. When he arrived he saw, in between the dust moved by the rubble, a villain. Tall and without form, like a big mass of something he had never seen before.
And way down he saw him, the hero. He was small, in size and frame, but his power shone brightly, like a big star, blinding everyone. The star towered meters and meters up, caging and restraining the villain, wrapping him in ice.
The screams turned triumphant, calling the hero over, congratulating him and cleaning his face off the dust. The hero turned to the rubble and helped people up, leading them to safety and then, in between the bright star and the happy yells, sirens could be heard, the red and blue lights reflecting on the ice, and suddenly the hero was no longer a hero, but a child.
When Aizawa saw his face it was like seeing one of his students, small and inexperienced. Filled with a desire bigger than them to help. The child ran through the same street Aizawa had come from. Aizawa followed, the kid’s step was light, like the wind was carrying him. It was hard to hear him, and harder to see him. The night was dark, and compared to the star shining as a reflection of something else, here it was as if the night had made a home out of this alley.
But the kid was a kid, his legs were shorter, and his stamina wasn’t the same as a hero’s. Aizawa’s hand landed on the kid’s shoulder, and in a second his hand was frozen to that shoulder, encased, and so they stopped all together. Aizawa, instinctively, tried to pull away, but it was of no use.
His hand hurt from how cold it was, though Aizawa paid no mind to that. From under his hand he could feel bone, sharp and distinguishably no muscle. He could feel the ups and downs of his fragile frame, and Aizawa wondered, not for the first time in the night, where he had come from, and how he had ended up here.
“Kid” Aizawa said, trying to make his voice kind. But the kid slumped, and Aizawa wished to see his face, clean off dust and dirt. Aizawa imagined, tried hard, to imagine the triumphant look on the kid’s face, he had defeated a villain all by himself, he tried to imagine him as one of his kids from UA. But the slow breaths coming from the kid, the ice melting faster than it should, and his slumped frame told Aizawa that life is not always as imagined.
When the ice melted, Aizawa called to him again. And this time the kid did turn around. His face was dirty, his eyes were turned to somewhere else, but there was no glint to them. He was not happy, Aizawa said to himself stupidly. But was it that stupid to believe that a kid beating a villain wouldn’t be something to be happy about?
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” The kid asked, his voice defiant but with his eyes downcasted there seemed to be no fight in him.
“Who?” Aizawa asked. He was a lot of things though Aizawa didn’t want to assume.
“You’re working for him” His tone seemed accusatory, but to Aizawa, it only seemed more frightful than anything else. Aizawa repeated his question. “You don’t have to do this, you know?” the kid said.
“Do what?”
“I get it, I failed, again. Just take me and get this over with”
“Kid, I’m a hero” Aizawa said. Late at night, later in this life, he would ask himself how conceited he was, and so stupid to assume that would explain anything.
“I don’t care what you are,” the kid said, his eyes finally landing on Aizawa, and for a second Aizawa believed that this would make everything better, but the kid’s eyes were as empty and sad as they were before. “Just-”
“I don’t work for anyone,” Aizawa said after a moment of silence, “I am a teacher, and I don’t plan to take you anywhere” Aizawa could feel the kid’s eyes boring into his face, like little drills making a hole in his brain, seeing everything that needed to be seen, trying really hard to discern the truth.
“Then what do you want from me, teacher?” Aizawa almost smiled, there was a moment in which there was no sadness but a fight, a fire igniting inside the kid, a will.
“To help,” Aizawa said, he looked into the eyes of the kid. “I just want to help”
“It’s stupid to believe that,” the kid answered. Aizawa tilted his head.
“Let me try”
A somber look passed through the kid’s eyes, a moment of something he did not share. For a second Aizawa understood that look, the eyes of someone trying to find something to hold onto.
“You dont understand do you?” The kid said, his voice laced with something Aizawa could not pinpoint. “If you help you’ll just fall with me”
“Then I’ll fall”
The kid looked at Aizawa for a moment, his tiny frame shook with something akin to anger, but his eyes were as empty as before.
“The fall is not easy,” The kid warned, taking his hand to his own shoulder and melting the rest of the ice.
Okay but like love marks where someone who genuinely loves you leaves a colored mark on your skin the first time they touch you with that emotion and for the longest time Sanji's only had a stroke the same color of his eyes on his left cheek and he's had as long as he remembers. He's got a hand print on each shoulder from Zeff after the Baratie's first day. The back of his neck is a deep green from Patty scruffing him and hauling him out of the dining room. Carne put an orange flick of orange across his forearm during prep. Sanji has put a tranquil ocean blue on them, Zeff's hand is blue from Sanji holding it, Patty has blue on his ribs from a punch. Carne has his own blue streak on his forearm from Sanji.
Now imagine this in ASLxS or AllSan.
AllSan: Sanji is covered in color already from Nakama and Vivi and the Baratie. Zoro and Luffy are working double time to make sure people do not leave marks on the cook otherwise. It's a whole thing they're working on. Law manages to leave one on the cook but Sanji gives him one back, . They were in an alliance for a while and the whole North Blue trauma/Germa thing. Ace is probably the one who left an embery orange/red next to the surgical scar on his back and Luffy and Zoro cannot remember for the life of them if Ace left with blue on him. Luffy's sunflower yellow covers the palm of Sanji's right hand, Zoro's steady and tough steel grey is on Sanji's stomach.
ASLxS: ASL laid their claim on Sanji a long time ago and now Sanji has marks from them, the mountain bandits, Garp, Makino, some others from his time on Dawn Island and he is splattered in color. Also you know the White Beard fleet already loves him before they meet him so Marco leaves an orangey hand print from a check over on the blond, Izou patted his shoulder at one point and left a gorgeous purple, Garp a deep red on the top of his head. Makino an orchid pink and Dadan gave him lovely earthy green. Sabo left a blood red mark on his neck that sometimes freaks people out because it kinda looks like a gunshot on his windpipe. It's fine.
Charles is a better man than me because if my team had me out there racing at 200+ km/h with questionable brakes, I'd stop the car on track and start biting people like a rabid dog
I love watching F2 kids make the jump to F1 because they drive with that "I don't care about this car. I will commit to that corner and i don't care if it kills us both" mentality