Inside Your Mind

64 - Shinsou

And it feels like yesterday was a year ago

Kaori Shinsou had no idea how she managed to pull through that night. It wasn't only that she was completely overworked and tired out from the lack of sleep and the amount of training during the last few days, but just... everything. Everything was too much and it never seemed to end.

She was in the back of Tsukauchi's car, together with Aizawa. They were almost back at the university, almost back in Musutafu. And it was almost bright outside again. The attack had already made it onto the news on the radio. Tsukauchi had turned it off, after he had realized what it was.

Now there was only the monotonous white noise of the police radio. Sometimes there would be an unintelligible announcement coming through the radio, but that was about it. They had been quiet the entire drive. When they had gotten into the car at first, Kaori had texted Hitoshi, telling him what was going on.

But no one had said a word. What were they going to talk about after all? What had happened, had happened. Everyone was tired. But of course, none of them could actually get any sleep during the drive. Aizawa pretended to be asleep, but Kaori knew he was awake this whole time. She could hear it from the way he was breathing. After she was done texting everyone that was important, she tried to get some sleep, but there was no way she could.

Every time she closed her eyes, she could see someone's panicked face, asking her what was going on and what they were supposed to do and she just stood there with no answers and no plan. The worst she had seen that night were probably Kirishima and Midoriya. Kirishima being inconsolable about not being able to help his friend and Midoriya with all his bones broken and in complete denial of the fact that Bakugou had really just narrowly escaped his grip.

Kaori was dying to be able to listen to some music right now. But Tsukauchi didn't seem to be in the mood for that and she didn't want to ask him. If she was in his position she probably would have been in a foul mood herself. Maybe this whole training camp was a dumb idea from the start...

Kaori leaned her head against the window and watched the city lights flashing by. If she really craned her neck, she could even see a few stars - as much as was possible with all the lights out there. She kinda wished they wouldn't drop them off at the school - that they'd just keep driving and driving and driving, until all of this mess was far, far behind them. But that wasn't going to happen.

Kaori already knew that the press would be waiting for them at the university. It seemed nearly impossible to get through to the school smoothly, because news vans were trying to get there and were blocking up all the streets. It made her never want to get out of this car ever again.

She didn't even know what to tell them. They had all the facts, what more could they possibly want? Tsuchikawa was in critical condition, Tomoko Shiretoko was missing. Katsuki Bakugou was missing. 15 students were unconscious and in serious condition due to whatever that gas was. 11 had some minor and major injuries. 13 weren't injured at all. Three of the attackers had been caught, the rest had managed to escape. What else did they need to know?

Kaori felt pretty bad for the 13 students that had to go back to the school and make their way through the masses of news reporters after just living through what was probably one of the most traumatizing experiences of their life. Kaori never liked the media too much, but she also never had a specific distaste for them. But that night that opinion changed. She really started hating them right now.

"Penny for your thoughts?" she heard a voice next to her say. She turned around and looked into Aizawa's face. The scar under his right eye looked a little darker in the dim morning light. So did the circles under his eyes. This man hadn't slept at all in the last 24 hours, that much was clear.