The Origin of something new (mha ff)

Chapter 62

"What's going on?" Aizawa looked at the rubble, then at the panicking students. "Eijiro, Kaede, they..." Frozen, he looked at the rubble. Eijiro and Kaede... There was no time to lose. Hectically he jumped through the stones. "Where?!" "Kaede was standing against the wall, she was going to... Eijiro was right next to her." "What is she doing at the battlefield! Someone get Ochako, get someone!" The students watched their teacher kick the stones in panic. Aizawa wanted to think rationally, but he couldn't. In the rubble, knowing that Kaede and Eijiro were somewhere among them, he felt like a student himself again. He saw Oboro in front of him, the life flowing out of his body and the light disappearing from his eyes. In the panic of shaking off his memories, he could not form a clear thought and his body did nothing but shake powerlessly against the rocks. He had not been here. He wasn't there to protect his students and now he just couldn't muster the strength to do so. Katsuki's group came out of the building. "What are you all doing here? We won, the others were eliminated." He looked into Denki's pale face. "What's going on chargebolt?" "Kaede and Eijiro. They're... under there." Katsuki stared at the rubble as if the words had yet to reach him. "What the hell are they doing on the battlefield! How fucking stupid can you be?" He was pale, very pale. "We have to get them out of there! Where are they?!" Denki pointed to a spot. "Mina is getting help." "I won't wait!" Katsuki stalked towards the rocks as Kyoka shouted, "Wait!" Out of breath, she felt around on the ground with her earphones. "I've got the spot. Ochako, the rocks here. The rest of you, we'll pick up the rocks." Ochako made the rocks weightless and handed them to the students around her. Aizawa watched the students with bleary eyes. He himself could not act, but it brought him peace to see his fosterlings act immediately and save.

Eijiro shook the last stones from himself and pulled Kaede up, who was conscious again. "Thanks, guys. That was really uncomfortable." Mina sprinted forward and fell around Eijiro's neck, tears in her eyes. "I thought you guys had been crushed. I thought..." "It's all right." Mina broke away from Eijiro and hurried to Kaede. "I'd hug you too, but you look worse than Aizawa. Are you all right?" "That was amazing! She gave me her strength because I couldn't have held the stones otherwise!" "Really? How cool!" Slowly the shock faded from the students. "Where did you get the stupid idea to stand directly under the building? It was obvious that we would knock you down!" Katsuki interrupted, but Aizawa intervened. His hands were on Kaede's shoulders. "Where did you get that stupid idea? What were you thinking just walking into a dangerous zone like that?" He shook her body as if he were shaking himself awake. As if he were shaking himself out of his helpless rigidity. As if he were shaking himself until he could push all the remnants of the memories of that time far away again. "I-" "I don't want to hear any excuses! It's dangerous!" She was confused by the look on his face. He had never looked at her like that before. "I didn't mean to make excuses-" "You don't care at all, do you? No matter the danger, you jump in? You're not just putting yourself in danger with your actions. You're putting everyone else around you in danger. Eijiro. What if he hadn't held it? What if someone else had run to you? You could have been dead Kaede, dead. Someone else could have died because of you. Someone from your classmates, your friends. You don't want them to die. This isn't a game. This isn't something you're in if you don't want to be. This is-" He faltered. He knew he had gone too far when he saw her tears. He felt her trembling through his hands. "I didn't want to be saved. I would have saved myself." "Kaede-" "No, now I'm talking." Her tears were still there, but she spoke with more emphasis, with determination. "Just because your friend died then, doesn't mean my friends will die. I am strong, I will save them no matter what." "I feel the same Kaede, I wanted to save you too." Eijiro did not speak his thoughts aloud. Like the other students present, more of whom had now arrived, he observed the situation. He felt as if he should not stand by and listen to this conversation, because although the conversation concerned him too, it had something private between Kaede and Aizawa. "You can't save them until you save yourself." She ignored Aizawa's words. "You are right. I shouldn't be here." Without another word, she turned and left. The stares were on her back. It was hard to walk with her back straight under those sad stares. "You are dismissed. I will supervise the rest of the fights." Aizawa was back in his role as teacher. Mina had tears in her eyes again. Denki held out his arm encouragingly and made her laugh. She didn't even know why she was crying. Probably because of Kaede. Because she wanted to help, but didn't know how. "She doesn't understand that I wanted to save her." Katsuki replied just as quietly to Eijiro's whisper, "She doesn't understand that she deserves to be saved, so she always does it herself."

...

The others were looking for Kaede. She was not in her room, not in the living quarters and nowhere else to be found. "She's probably sneaking around somewhere in the school or is with the other people she knows." "But we have to find her, didn't you see how beat up she looked?" "You have to understand that if she wants to be alone, she won't let us find her." "I'm not going to give her up just because she wants to." "Let Aizawa handle it, it's not our business." Mina shouted at Bakugo: "Can you be quiet for a moment?! Can you promise me that she won't get worse if we don't do anything? You don't want to do anything? Leave her like this? Let her fix herself like Aizawa said? She wasn't meant to be broken, she was broken but she thinks it's okay like that, but it's not okay!" "Mina-" "No Denki, shut up." "But he's right. The situation isn't that bad, you're overthinking it right now. Sit down for a moment, okay?"