A Life Worth Living (Aizawa x OC)

51 - The Truth about Gravitas (2)

A quiet noise echoed through the hallway of the U.A., superseding the silence filling the empty school. Recovery Girl's foot padded on the floor, almost as if it was following the rhythm of an invisible metronome, and her eyes repeatedly wandered between her watch and the two endings of the hallway.

The aura of nervous and taut impatience radiating from the elderly woman was almost tangible at this point. Right now, even a blind person could tell that she was waiting for something - or in her case rather someone.

Although the young woman she basically considered as a daughter by now often managed to break her nerves with her childish, stubborn, and reckless behaviour, Chiyo couldn't help but feel elated at the former heroine's progress as if it was her own.

Thinking back at Himari's state, mental and physical, when she first met her at the hospital almost made her shiver. The heroine had been a mere shadow of her former self, a worn-out, nervous wreck that only seemed to be kept alive by pain and unthinkable desperation.

There was no point in denying. At first, Chiyo hadn't been entirely sure if Himari would be able to fully recover.

The woman's spirit had been broken. Even though she'd tried her best to sustain her façade in front of everyone else by laughing and participating in meaningless smalltalk, it had taken her a while to leave her shell and warm up to her new environment.

In the beginning, the progress had been so nominal that baby steps would have been an exaggerated description for it. But with the weeks passing, these teeny tiny baby steps had gradually gotten bigger and the progress slightly more remarkable, the minor setbacks excluded.

During the last few months, Chiyo had witnessed how Himari slowly came back to life again, her previously blank eyes becoming more vibrant with each day that passed.

She turned from a woman who barely managed to bear the thought of saying out loud what happened in that alleyway into a woman who willingly ordered a conference to reveal her story in front of the entire U.A. staff at once. Chiyo couldn't be prouder.

Naturally, there was no doubt that her protégé still had a long way to go.

But still, she'd managed to work through everything that was weighing on her mind. She'd managed to find new friends – to start a new life. And from what Chiyo had noticed, maybe she was also on her way to put trust in love again. She was on her best way to fully accept that her husband was gone but her life not over yet, that it isn't wrong to move on.

Yet, Chiyo wasn't entirely satisfied with the situation. She was aware that she was not in the position to behave like an overprotective mother, but she couldn't help it.

Obviously, Himari harboured feelings for Aizawa, and on top of that, it seemed to be mutual. Chiyo only knew the Erasure Hero from work and he'd never seemed to be someone interested in matters of the heart. After hearing how willingly Himari had thrown herself in and basically welcomed death at the USJ only to save him, caused her worries to skyrocket. Another loss would probably break her entirely.

Of course, Chiyo knew that it wasn't fair to Aizawa to think like that. She knew that he cared a lot. She'd personally witnessed how he'd suffered in the hospital, visiting her every day and waiting for her to wake up, after he had been forced to watch that creature beating her to a pulp without being able to intervene. There was no doubt that she was important to him.

However, he didn't know about her past and this was unsettling for Chiyo. Deep down she knew that the most important aspect of this conference for Himari would be how Aizawa reacts, and it bothered her that she couldn't tell with certainty how his reaction would turn out.