"What are you doing?"
Shinsou looked back at her incredulously. "Uh, trying to pick up our unconscious teacher? What does it look like I'm doing?"
"No." Era was already kneeling down, feeling her head shake before she reined her movements in to something more respectable, less obviously read. A lake, a lake, she was a lake. Still waters, and she could let no wind rippled across her surface. Slatestone and amber, or perhaps something tougher, even, something that couldn't be scratched...
This was a strange sort of spiral. Her mind felt clouded by loose thoughts as they tumbled from their overturned boxes, but she didn't feel the panic she'd normally associate with that image. Instead concern was tossed about with everything else until it was a vague concept swirling at the edge of her mind, slipping through her fingers every time she tried to grasp it.
The world was attempting to spin beneath her feet, but she pressed down hard to keep it steady. Era felt as if she were the axis of a great catastrophe, the eye of a rippling hurricane that threatened to close in with every step she took. There was nothing left of her but instinct. Training. Flitting bits knowledge that she snatched from the swirling wind and pressed together into something useful.
"We can't just pick him up like that. He hit the ground pretty hard, he might have a spinal injury." Era grabbed the unconscious man at his shoulders, digging her fingers into his loose clothing and steadying his head by keeping it locked between her forearms. From this position, she could see the dry blood that flaked and cracked along her skin, pushed to the side by the sluggish weeping of her wounds. Shit. She'd almost forgotten about those.
Shinsou snorted, hovering with what Era recognized as a restless near-hysteria as she started to drag him across the ground. "You look ridiculous. What... I don't know what to do."
"Just make sure I'm not going to run over a rock or something. We can figure something out once we get away from the fight." As if to emphasize her point an explosion rocked across the USJ, accompanied by a huge plume of dust rising up from where All Might was no doubt fighting those villains. "There must be a medical kit in here somewhere, right? This place is too far away from main campus not to have something like that. Can you keep an eye out for it? It should be somewhere easy to see."
"Yeah, yeah I can do that."
"Great."
"Hey." A hand rested gently on Era's shoulder, and she stiffened before forcing herself to relax once more. A quick glance to the side revealed it was just frog-girl staring at her nervously. "You look kind of beat up, do you want me to take him?"
"Do you have any medical training?" Frog-girl shook her head and Era sighed, continuing to drag Eraserhead along. "I think it's best if I do this, then. Besides, it looks worse than it is, trust me. Just a few scrapes and bruises."
She looked doubtful, but didn't press it. Instead frog-girl turned to look up towards the grand entrance of the USJ with a finger thoughtfully tapping her cheek. "Any idea how we're going to get him up those stairs? You said that we shouldn't pick him up."
Era craned her neck behind her to follow frog-girl's gaze and cursed beneath her breath. "I... it'd be better if we had a stretcher or a flat piece of wood, something to secure him to, but..."
"Maybe Yaoyorozu?" muttered Shinsou as he also stared pensively up towards the entrance. Frog-girl nodded.
"I could go find her, kero, but I don't know where she might be. If she got caught up by that warp villain she could be anywhere."
"Who is this?" asked Era, ignoring the way her arms were starting to shake with the strain of breaking, healing, breaking again, and now dragging a fully grown man across the dirt.
YOU ARE READING
Era
FanfictionEra doesn't have high hopes for her future. Truthfully, up until a few months ago there hasn't been a future; just the blurry promise of suffering to come. The journey from villain to ex-villain to vigilante has been... rough, to put it mildly. But...