Chapter 17: Eri (II)

The trio saw this and became enraged. They had mastered their quirk over their twenty to thirty years of being a villain, and they were not going to let a brat destroy their pride without paying the price.

"You...You brat!" The lizard guy was enraged, and immediately rushed towards Shido. Being a lizard man allowed him to strengthen his natural defence and boosted his physical capabilities. He reached in front of Shido within a few seconds, but to Shido however, it seemed as though he was watching the whole thing in slow-motion.

Looking towards Eri who already covered her eyes and ears, he grinned. 'Time to replenish my time.'

His shadow expanded underneath him, and reached underneath the trio as well. The trio saw this scene and was slightly startled, but it wasn't anything they haven't seen before so they continued trying to move towards him when they realised they were stuck in their position.

"Huh?" They were confused until they looked down at their feet. What they saw scared the hell out of them. Countless white hand-like structures rose from the shadows and had grabbed their legs. What's worse, there were even more hands rising, and they pinned them to the wall.

As they reached the wall, more hands came out of the wall and grasped their neck, torso, arms, thighs, calves and heads. "Urgh! Why can't I move? What are these creepy things!?" The masked guy screamed in fear. The lizard guy was trying his best to struggle out of their grasp but to no avail. The gorilla man however, did not struggle at all. Shido noticed it, and became curious.

"Why are you not resisting?"

"Why bother resisting when you're going to die either way. I knew that being a villain would already pose a threat to my life. Plus, the boss has my family hostage. If I die here, at least they would be safe." The gorilla man answered. He had a peaceful smile on his face, as if he had been freed from a burden he was carrying for his entire life.

Hearing his answer, Shido did not show any expression. In the few months since he had woken up, he had met a lot of people, and understood human nature. Your loved ones always come first before anything else. It wasn't greed. It was just being a human.

Not wanting to waste any more time on them, Shido devoured them, gaining three people's worth of life span. He left no trace of battle, as if there wasn't anyone here to begin with.

"Eri, you can open your eyes now." Shido went close and removed her hands which were covering her ears.

She slowly opened her eyes, and within her sight, only Shido was present. She couldn't find any trace of the trio who were sent after her. "What did you do to them? Why did you save me?" She asked cautiously. It couldn't be helped, she had been betrayed before by her own family, sold and experimented on. If even her family members could do that, she thought that strangers could do even worse things.

"I sent them away already. And didn't you ask for help? So I helped you. What other reason do I need?" Shido smiled,"Anyway, how old are you? What is your quirk? Is it so powerful that those people want you this badly?"

Eri still looked at him with a bit of suspicion, but she still answered him," I'm seven this year. My quirk is called Rewind, and it allows me to reverse a living individual's body back to a previous state, allowing me to make my target physically younger, heal injuries, and undo bodily modifications."

Shido was a bit surprised. He had heard from his Uncle Toshinori that a time related quirk had almost never appeared before him, and on his way home he found another child with a time related quirk. What are the chances? "Wow! A time related quirk?"

Looking into his eyes and seeing no ill intent towards her, she relaxed more, and smiled. Finally, she found someone who didn't look at her like an experimental guinea pig. "Yep! It's awesome right?" She replied excitedly.

However, all of a sudden, she thought of a past incident, and shivered. 'Haha, who am I kidding? I had killed someone with this quirk of mine.' She teared up slightly but quickly covered her eyes with her bandaged arms, trying to prevent others from noticing.

However, Shido was very observant. He noticed her body trembling slightly, her smile being forced after mentioning about her quirk, her tears that were present in her eyes before she wiped them. 'She obviously has a trauma relating to her past' he thought.

'Sigh, girls are too troublesome...' Yoshinon thought to himself.

"What's wrong? If there is anything wrong, you can tell me." Shido asked gently while petting her head. He didn't want to force her to tell him anything, but he needed to try. Perhaps she would spill everything out?

Eri looked at Shido with a very confused look. He was obviously someone she had just met today, but why would he go so far for her? She had not felt this sort of care ever since her mother disowned her, and she missed it. She missed the warmth known as care. The warmth known as kindness. The warmth known as love (A/N not the girlfriend boyfriend type of love, just the type of love parents give).

She couldn't hold it in anymore and hugged him as she burst into tears. "WAAAAHHHH!!!!" Her tears streamed down her cheeks continuously. Once the dam was broken, she couldn't hold back her tears anymore.

Though he was surprised at her actions, he didn't push her away and just let her bury her head in his chest as she continued crying even harder once she felt that he wouldn't push her away. He didn't know how to comfort someone else, so he did what he could - he awkwardly caressed her back as he hugged her back. Shido was slightly taller than Eri, standing at 127 centimetre tall compared to Eri's slightly shorter stature of 124 centimetre.

"There, there, I'll always be here for you." He comforted her gently, careful not to agitate her any further. After a few more minutes of bawling, Eri finally calmed down, but she remained buried in his chest. She felt warm, and didn't want to let go.

"So, do you want to tell me anything?" Shido asked again.

Eri hesitated slightly, but decided to tell him everything. She had already cried in his arms, how much worse can his reaction be? So she told him everything about herself, how she made her father disappear with her quirk, how her mother decided to disown her after the incident, and how she became an experimental subject for villains to develop something known as 'Quirk-destroying drug'.

Hearing her story, he was also very angry at her mother and her captives, but he believed in Karma. Everything that they had done, it would come back to bite them in their ass. And if Karma didn't work, he would be the one to end them. After all, the higher their hopes, the greater the disappointment.

"There, there, you have suffered a lot." Shido continued caressing her back while she remained still in his arms, not wanting to lose the warmth present.

"Now that you're free, do you have anywhere else to go?"

Hearing his question, Eri thought about it and shook her head. She didn't have any parents now, and didn't know any relatives, if she even had some in the first place.

"I see that you don't have anywhere else to go. Why don't you come with me? I'll take care of you. Since both of us have a time-related quirk, we could be considered time buddies! What do you say Eri? Would you like to be part of my family? I can't offer much, but I can guarantee you food, shelter, clothes and protection from everyone who would ever want to harm you."

Shido offered her a choice and even gave her details about Zafkiel. She was the first person that fully knew everything about Zafkiel, no one else, including Toshinori knew what his quirk was. Although he didn't give all the information about his full quirk to her, in the future he would. But for now, information about Zafkiel was enough.

Surprised that this guy would ask that when they had just met, but she can't say that she wasn't attracted to him for some reason. Perhaps it was the warmth that he provided, or perhaps it was the similarity their quirk shared. She was surprised that he also had a time-related quirk and that it was even more versatile than hers, but it made her happy as she wouldn't have to worry about accidentally using her quirk on somebody else.

She nodded her head and burst to tears once more. "Thank you Shido! I'll be in your care from now on, and won't ever be a burden to you...so please don't ever abandon me!" She started crying because she finally had a family member for the first time. And the family member told her that he was going to protect her from every single danger that would ever come to her.

Eri was still in Shido's arms after the heart touching moment. Shido was very curious about her horn, but decided to ask later. He had a feeling that it wouldn't be nice to disrupt the current mood. As the two continued hugging each other in the alleyway, Yoshinon, who was still on his shoulder, felt as if he had just eaten dog food. 'I want a rabbit girlfriend as well...'

Suddenly remembering about Toshinori and dinner, he started walking out of the alleyway back to Toshinori's house with Eri walking beside him as she held onto his hand, not wanting to let it go. Neither of them spoke on the way home, but the silence wasn't awkward. It was peaceful and quiet, apart from the occasional sound of cars. They walked back towards where their future home would be hand-in-hand, with the sunset in the background.

'So this is what warmth feels like...I like it...' Eri thought to herself as a smile involuntarily appeared on her face.

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A/N: I wanted to post yesterday, but I figured that you might not like the pause in between, so I posted two chapters in one go. There will be no chapters tomorrow though.

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patr eon.com/spirits_everywhere