Hidden Away(In a Cafe)

0.1 A Prologue

Oboro blinked his eyes open slowly. He was laying on something soft - too soft in his opinion - in the dark. He didn't know where he was, nor did he really care because all he could really think about was escaping.

Okay, what was it that Shouta was always talking about? If you don't know where you are, assess damage. Okay, he could do this, he could do this. He took a deep breath, only to begin coughing on dust. Okay, shallow breaths, shallow breaths, and ow. His chest was on fire, and not because of the dust.

He turned his head to the side, just slightly, and immediately moved his head back at the twinge of pain. Okay, so no moving his neck, his chest was on fire, and he couldn't feel his left shoulder or right hip. Both his ankles were also on fire, and his right forearm felt wet.

Now what would he do? Try to call for help? Eyeing the blackness around him made him suspect that wouldn't work, and if it did it wouldn't for long. Just taking a deep breath had him coughing, and oh... there was something wet on his lips. Was something punctured?

Okay, he needed to calm down. Calm down. Trying to figure everything out exactly was only causing him to spiral into a panic attack, and he did not need that right now. He closed his eyes and tried to relax his body as much as he could. Damn, his ribs were hurting too.

Oboro let his eyes look around and slowly - too slowly in his opinion - they cleared and adjusted to his surroundings. He was under rubble? What the fuck happened?

"Ok-" He coughed harshly and cussed himself out in his head as he worked on calming down. "Okay, voice works... now... run through what I remember before waking up... I can do that." He swallowed lightly, ignoring the urge to cough to try and minimize the pain he was in.

"I woke up, joked around with 'Zashi and Shouta, had breakfast at school since I forgot to eat at home..." Oboro closed his eyes as his temples began to throb. "I went to class, only to get called out for my Work Study... I got in my costume," His hands twinged with the effort it took not to reach for some kind of support gear. "I was tasked with getting people out of the building, and everyone was out when the building started collapsing."

Everything was coming back to him now, the building had started collapsing and there had been a little girl in his arms. He remembered throwing an arm up, activating his quirk and catching the building, but there had been a strain on him and his mind. Probably where the headache came from. He had set the girl down, telling her to run as he collapsed to his knees. She had done so, and he remembered there being no one else in the vicinity, and he heard 'Zashi and Shouta screaming out for him.

Had they been called out for their work studies too? He didn't remember, only that he had gone alone. He shook himself out of his thoughts about those two with a quiet, silent sigh.

He remembered the strain becoming too much, and he had looked up and mouthed that he was sorry. The building had fallen on top of him.

So how was he alive?

Unless this was his hell, purgatory whatever, for having died without becoming a full-fledged pro with his friends. He felt a couple of tears slip from the corners of his eyes, but pushed them aside and tried to figure out what else happened.

He had to be alive, or else he wouldn't be in pain... right? They always told people that when someone died they were no longer in pain, but what if they had been wrong? No. No, they had to have been right, there had been people who died and came back, and they never said anything about having continued pain... right?

"Okay, knock that off. No reason to scare yourself," Oboro muttered to himself, mainly so that he could just hear something that wasn't his own breathing. He took another breath as he searched for his quirk, luckily finding it almost ready to burst and he had to wonder how long he had been here, crushed under the rubble that was currently acting like a coffin. Gently, carefully, he pushed his quirk out, activating it and wrapping it around him, supporting him.