Shattered minds (My hero academia)

Just breathe

Arms, strong and tight hold onto him, squeezing against his stomach painfully.

He kicks and he screams, throwing all the power his seven-year old body can muster into his struggle.

Small, pathetic explosions erupt and pitter out against the men holding him back. All futile against their overwhelming strengths.

Shouts of "Let me go!" and "Deku" are ignored and disregarded, despite his shrieking voice and his aching throat.

The world morphs and twists and suddenly he's falling, twisting, and tumbling until he hits the ground. The force rattles his body down to the bone. A mirror falls right in front of him, cutting the air like a guillotine descending from above. Burrowing into the ground, cracking the crumbling asphalt below.

Before him stands his 14-year-old self. Shoulder sagging under an unseen weight. Dark circles, akin to bruises underline his eyes, making their crimson color stand out against the pallor of his skin.

His reflection has anger written into every line. Dripping off its figure in rivers as he knocks violently against the glass entrapping him in. The shouts of 'Pathetic' and 'Coward' are as futile as his last ones.

A sensation on his arm breaks his gaze from his raging reflection. His eyes lower to his hand with a start. A tiny, delicate hand clutches onto his fingers, touch tentative despite the desperation he can feel emanating from the action.

His eyes take forever to travel from the hand to its owner's face. What he sees almost brings him to his knees.

There, still as tiny and frail as he remembers is his best friend. The very one he failed to protect. His hair is a vibrant emerald green, but his face is blurred. As if his mind can't quite remember the boy's exact features.

Either that, or it was his own cowardly subconscious trying to protect itself from the imminent pain it would feel.

The hand clutching his own is ripped away as shadowed figures appear around them. Clutching onto the smaller body and dragging him away. His hand is outstretched fruitlessly, fingers reaching for the object of his nightmares, knowing that his endeavors were useless.

'Kacchan!' The voice echoes and bounces off the walls around them, resonating louder and louder with each reverberation. Soon the shouts turn to a different tone and suddenly 'Kacchan' turns to 'Katsuki'

He wakes up with a gasp, like a drowning man inhaling his first, desperate bid of oxygen. He heaves, neck damp with cold sweat as he clutches onto his shirt like a vice.

A hand rubs at his back soothingly and he doesn't have to look to his right to know who it belongs to.

"It's alright, Katsuki, it's okay, just breath sweetheart." Inko's voice is soft and low as she coos, as if talking to a child. It should irritate him. It should make him angry and indignant. However, he can't help but feel a deep, resonating gratefulness towards her. This woman who lost everything and yet still took the time to take care of him. Treat him like he was her own son.

He wants her to be angry, to shout at him for being there and doing nothing. They've had the conversation thousands of times before. Countless nights full of regrets, accusations, and wonder.

The anger, the regrets, the grief, he could take. He's done it so many times, that it feels like a simple part of his life now. An old scar that never healed. It's the wondering, however, that makes his body tremble and his insides scream.

It's the not knowing that slowly cuts away at his mind.

"Just breathe" She whispers and it feels like she's not just talking to him. "It's going to be okay."