Colors in the Dark

[37] Emotion

(A/N: Be prepared; there are feels ahead)

After their lesson was finished, Aizawa dismissed Shinsou, but held Ayami. "May I speak with you a minute?"

"Um, sure? Shinsou, go ahead and change; we can catch up in a second!" She called to her teammate, who was happy to comply.

With a sigh, the black-haired teacher turned to his chestnut-haired student, who was getting nervous. "Was what you said during the sparring match true?" His voice was completely emotionless, no difference in tone, as he asked. (Which was weird, since it was such an emotional question.)

Ayami averted her gaze from his, instead finding the ground very interesting all the sudden. Though her whole body was slicked with sweat and her head was pounding, she didn't deny as Prometheus merged their auras. Slowly, with the blue spirit's reassurance, she looked up to her homeroom teacher and mentor.

His black aura, which was always flecked with red, was no different, but the swirl of emotions around him was anything but. He always guarded himself very closely, almost subconsciously encompassing his aura around his emotions so it was hard for her to see them, but they were so overwhelming at this point that she couldn't not see them peeking out from behind his aura.

This wasn't what she expected from him. The fabled emotionless, always-exhausted teacher that didn't care about anything- still wearing a face free of emotion and his posture slouched- was alight with hundreds of different hues. And she could decipher it with only a few seconds glancing at them. A pulsing pinkish white for his still-recovering fear of being blinded along with some other things she didn't want to delve into; a very pale, sickly green- this was guilt, and there seemed to be a lot of it-; along with waves of bright magenta- a feeling of love? Care? In him of all people!?-; and dark yellow: dread.

"Wh...," she began, but couldn't continue. He was bursting with repressed emotion, and didn't ever act on it! He, emotionless, looked beyond ready to explode with emotions she didn't even knew he was capable of! "How...? Why...? Wh... What? Aura vision n-never lies, but this... what is this?" She vaguely gestured at all the wild colors around him.

He only shrugged, looking away. More green- it was light like mint but held none of its beauty, like with bits of yellow woven into it, a toned-down chartreuse, perhaps?- swam through his visible emotion wave, and even Prometheus seemed shocked. And after over ten years of knowing him, he was hardly ever shocked.

Slowly, she noticed his aura was spreading outwards, opening up. His visible body didn't change, but she was pretty sure this was him finally recognizing the emotions that he had literally locked inside himself. The bright colors almost overtook the dark aura with their beating light, growing large and out in every direction.

Aizawa's face subtly contorted, between what looked like a wince and a frown, a smile, and then back again. He refused to speak, slowly turning his head away from her, as if embarrassed to know someone was seeing him for himself, for once.

Prometheus guided her body, stepping closer to inspect the real meaning behind everything spilling out of him. It was a skill she never knew about, though since her teacher had never shown an emotion and was suddenly letting go, perhaps this was because they had grown too strong under his facade.

The fear felt like darkness crawling up her skin, faint flickers of memories of being blinded and assaulted and attacked by villains, the USJ incident, people in general. Ayami couldn't repress the shudders that came upon her as she felt wisps of each one, glad to move on. The guilt was mostly aimed at her, ever since he realized he had contributed to her fear of heroes and been the reason she could use the capture weapon in the first place. How she saw him every day and pretended like he didn't scare her to death each time she fought to summon her countering power so she wouldn't lose her very of self to his power.