Era

17

Era knew that she should move.

It would only be worse if she didn't, she needed to get up, get up now or her trainer would drag her up by the hair and they'd just have to start all over again because she couldn't get it right the first time, again and again, and again until she can just get it fucking right if she could just get better do better be better then they wouldn't have to do this. this was because of her this was her fault and if she wasn't such a failure then she wouldn't have fallen down in the first place but now she has to get up get up get up because failure is suffering, little bird, never forget that and how could she? How could she forget? They never let her forget it again and again and agai—

Breathe. She did, deep and rattling against the sharp edges of her broken ribs. Era winced at her wheezing gasps, listening for pierced lungs as she felt bone shards rip through her insides.

Beneath her fingers was yielding soil, not the unforgiving concrete of the training room. The dust and dirt swelled within her lungs and flooded her nose with its earthy scent, a far cry from the sharp chemical scent of blood barely scrubbed away by copious amounts of bleach. Her ribs writhed like eels wriggling through her flesh, knitting themselves back together with burning ferocity that left her trembling in barely concealed agony; when she was being trained, they hadn't been able to do that. She'd simply had to fight through her broken bones until Sensei decided that she had had enough. Your enemies won't stand back and wait for you to recover from your weakness. Let us start again.

Hot breath fled from her in shuddering bursts of burning pain crawling up from deep inside her chest, and Era found herself inhaling bits of dirt and dust, her face pressed up against the hard-packed earth as she struggled to turn her head and open her fucking eyes.

Eraserhead. Fucking... Eraserhead. That stupid, stubborn, self-sacrificing hero who couldn't mind his own goddamn business, who wouldn't fucking listen even when she told him that she'd be fine, she was going to be fine and she knew that and he wouldn't fucking listen and she needed to save him, she needed to or he was going to die, he was going to die she needed to save him he was going to die and it was going to be her fault, it was always her fault she needed to—

Era couldn't move.

She wasn't stayed by broken bones or battered flesh. Era would not allow herself to be stopped by something like pain, would not allow herself that weakness. Something dug into her sides, pressed against her back, pinned her to the ground within the cracks and splinters of a faint crater where she had landed.

Ignoring the scream of her muscles Era forced herself to twist around and look straight into the lifeless eyes of the hulking monstrosity that had slammed her into the ground hard enough to splinter her bones. Against her better judgement she struggled in its unyielding grasp, wheezing in pain as its grip only tightened around her abused ribs, digging splintered shards more painfully into her skin while her quirk struggled to keep up with the damage.

Era's head fell back to the ground with a dull thud and a plume of dust, her eyes dazedly finding the flurry of movement a few yards beyond. Two figures ran towards each other, and her focus sharpened once more when she saw it was Shigaraki and Eraserhead. Fuck. He still hadn't run away? Was he an idiot?

Another, more subtle flash of motion a little ways beyond, and Era's eyes widened as she made out the distinct hair of Midoriya and Shinsou, along with a girl she didn't know who must have been from the Hero Course. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Were all heroes so fucking stupid? Did none of them know how to fucking run away run away run far away—