Sunshine Traitor (ENG)

Chapter 23: Hitoshi Shinso

Again, please read the tags and triggerwarnings. The most important ones for this chapter are: Character death; torture; panick attack. 

prepare to cry, because I did while writing this. (sorry, not sorry)

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The floor felt extra cold after the hellish pain Hitoshi had just undergone. He had received a small electric shock before - with a friend like Kaminari, it could hardly be otherwise - but this was on a whole new level. The pain and the impossibility of getting away from it were almost unbearable. Now that he is finally released from the chair, he knows he must stay attentive and be ready for the league's next attack, yet he cannot help but fall to the ground like a sack of flour. His body still shakes as if he is still receiving electric shocks, his ears are ringing, and he tries desperately to catch his breath.

When he finally has a little more control over his body, he looks up cautiously and notices that the villains have once again left them alone. Hitoshi smiles bitterly; how could they even do anything in this state?

He looks further around the room and sees two motionless figures lying on the ground a few metres away from him: Denki and Sero! Panic surges and almost gives him enough energy to get up, but he collapses back down halfway.

No. No. No. No. He must get to them. He must be able to do something. He pulls himself across the ground towards them and tries to get back on his feet. He staggers and his arms and legs tremble like a newborn calf, but eventually he manages to reach Denki, who is closest to him. He lets himself fall again and searches his friend's wrist with shivering hands for a pulse. He finds it almost immediately, far too high, and now also notices that the blonde is making small noises, which he had not noticed before due to the ringing of his ears. Denki has a severe short circuit and would suffer a severe migraine attack from this. His previous injuries from the first part of his punishment are not nothing either, but nothing seems to be life-threatening now and Hitoshi breathes a sigh of relief.

With this reassurance, he turns to the second motionless figure on the ground: Sero. Still trembling, he crawls towards him and tries to look for a heartbeat in his wrist too. Nothing. Hitoshi takes a shuddering breath and takes his other wrist, hoping to have better luck there. Nothing. He feels his own heart rate shoot up in panic as he tries one last time by placing his fingers on his neck. Nothing. He feels his cheeks get wet as the realisation dawns on him.

No heartbeat. No breathing. No life.

In a last-ditch effort, he puts both his hands on Sero's chest to perform CPR, but his arms are still trembling too violently, and he collapses worthless on his friend. He cannot even try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because he still has a mouthpiece on. He cannot do anything. He can do nothing but look at the lifeless body of his classmate, of his friend. What a worthless hero he is.

A sob tears itself from his throat but is muffled by the bloody mouthpiece. His thoughts reel: 'You can't do this. You can't do this. Denki needs you.' He pounds his fist on Sero's chest, but there is no force behind the movement at all. 'Come on, you can't die, just when we have finally regained each other's trust. He needs you Sero, dammit.' His throat hurts terribly, but that doesn't seem to distract from the pain in his hard. 'You can't do this to him.'

Hitoshi had not come to UA to make friends, he no longer believed in that after everything he had been through in his life. But for some reason he had made friends anyway, despite his cold nature. He had had so much fun with Denki in his first weeks in the hero course, and when he saw that Sero really felt guilty and really wanted to be better, he opened up to him too. He had come to UA to become a hero and not to make friends; so, he was also not prepared for the loss of a friend and now he was lost over his lifeless body.