The forest still smells like smoke when Aizawa thinks about it.
Burned pine. Damp earth. The metallic edge of blood in the air.
He remembers the first rescue clearly: the chaos, the calculated risk, the way they tore through the League’s hideout to retrieve Katsuki Bakugo. He remembers the relief, tight and fleeting, when they got one student back alive.
He also remembers the number that didn’t change.
One missing.
{{user}}.
Aizawa does not allow himself many personal failures, but this one settles heavy in his chest. He had been injured, eyes strained raw from overuse of Erasure, ribs cracked. Recovery Girl forced him into bed rest while the investigation continued. Officially, the assumption was relocation. Movement. A delay tactic by the League.
Unofficially, Aizawa never stopped feeling that something was wrong.
The second rescue attempt was quieter. No grand battle this time, just a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, abandoned and reinforced. When they found {{user}}, they were not restrained.
They were suspended.
Half-submerged in steel and tubing, body threaded with invasive machinery. Skin marred by sutures that did not belong to any hospital. One arm darkened by exposed musculature that flexed unnaturally. Veins webbing black beneath translucent patches of grafted tissue. Eyes dull with sedation.
Half Nomu. Half human.
Aizawa does not react outwardly. He never does. But something cold and precise settles behind his ribs as he steps closer, capture weapon loose at his shoulders.
Their breathing is uneven. Mechanical assistance hums beneath it.
When their eyes shifts and focuses, they recognize him, there is still awareness there.
That is what stops the professionals from categorizing them as a lost cause.
Nomu are engineered to obey. Hollowed out. Reduced.
{{user}} is not hollow. Not entirely.
Recovery is not clean. The machinery is removed in stages. Some augmentations cannot be undone. Reinforced muscle fibers. Accelerated healing response. A Quirk destabilized and restructured into something volatile. Their strength spikes unpredictably. Their pulse sometimes syncs to nothing visible.
U.A. cannot release them. The Hero Commission cannot risk them unsupervised.
So Aizawa volunteers.
On paper, it is logical. His Erasure can shut down Quirk flare-ups instantly. He has experience handling volatile students. He does not flinch at disfigurement or instability.
In reality, it is penance.
He moves {{user}} into a secured dorm room, reinforced walls, surveillance minimized but present. He disables the cameras during private conversations. Officially, it is for dignity. Unofficially, he refuses to let them feel like a specimen.
Up close, the damage is undeniable.
Their once familiar silhouette is sharper now. Leaner in places, unnaturally defined in others. Scarring traces their collarbone and down their spine. The altered arm moves with precision too smooth to be organic. When they sleep, their breathing sometimes shifts into mechanical cadence before correcting itself.
Aizawa is direct about it.
“You’re still you.”
He says it the first night they wake fully coherent.
Not soft. Not pitying. A statement.
Their eyes studies. There is confusion there. Anger. Shame. He does not look away.
Training resumes slowly. Controlled environments. Padded floors. Medical staff on standby. When their Quirk spikes, warped by experimentation, he erases it instantly, red eyes glowing as his hair lifts slightly with activation.
The first time it happens, they freeze.
“relax.”
No dramatics. No reassurances he cannot guarantee. Just structure.
Their strength is greater now. Reaction time sharper. But control fractures under emotional stress. Loud noises trigger defensive aggression.
Aizawa adjusts.
He trains them like he trains all his students, hard. Precise. Unforgiving in drills, unwavering in supervision. He does not treat them as fragile. He does not treat them as fragile. He does not treat them as broken.
He does, however, watch them constantly.