Chapter Text
Hitoshi head is resting on a wooden desk, when he comes to. He feels something hard pushing against his face, from the top of his cheek to the underside of his jaw. Hitoshi's body goes cold all at once, and his body starts trembling. Panic attack aren't an uncommon occurrence for Hitoshi, even before the start of the war. The muzzle that's currently on his face has grown unfamiliar, though. It's been over a year since he's had to wear a muzzle.
Hitoshi is muzzled, but not restrained in any other way. He would find that notable, if he wasn't muzzled, and thus distracted by the panic closing his throat. If this wasn't one of Hitoshi's biggest triggers, he'd notice that the room he's in is very familiar. Unfortunately, he is very much muzzled.
Hitoshi is hyperventilating, but the metal and plastic restraining his mouth isn't really conducive to getting good air flow. His vision dims and his hands are shaking so badly that when his fingers come up to claw at the edges of the muzzle, he immediately scratches his own face. He tries desperately to pry the muzzle off because he can't breathe. It's strapped on so tightly, he can't even fit his nails under the straps. Hitoshi takes a ragged breath in and attempts to hold it. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight, and repeat. His vision clears, slightly, once he repeats the breath a dozen times.
He looks around the room he's been put in. He's sat in a uncomfortable wooden chair that rocks every time he shifts in his seat. He runs his hand over the wooden desk in front of him, calloused hands catching on the wooden carvings of people's names and random shapes. He spins in his chair and runs his eyes over the worn blanket on the drooping twin size bed that would barely fit his tall frame, but it would've fit him perfectly before he hit his growth spurt a month or two before starting U.A.. The walls are a dull blue and peeling near the ceiling.
He brushes his fingers over his clothes, the t-shirt and sweatpants he's wearing are well worn and threadbare in some spots. Hitoshi hears a car passing by. He hears a feminine voice speaking downstairs before hearing a younger voice answer and the sound of pots and pans banging together, before quieting down again.
He smells something metallic, probably the metal of the muzzle strapped to his face. He takes another deep breath in and holds it, before exhaling slowly, trying to calm the panic boiling at his core.
He focuses on the taste in his mouth, it's tastes like iron and bile. He swallow hard, trying to get the flavor out of his mouth. That might be what he was smelling earlier.
The room he's in is identical to the last Family Home he lived in before getting accepted into U.A. and having to move to a Child Care Institution in Musutafu.
Hitoshi's memory of the past day or so is pretty fuzzy, so he doesn't really know how he got hit with an illusion quirk. He does trusts that whoever he was sent out patrolling with will do their best to break him out of it, though. It would be a lot easier, if they still had someone around who could... cancel quirks.
Hitoshi visions gets blurry again, when tears fill his eyes and start to fall rapidly. He takes a ragged breath in. Hitoshi wishes he had Aizawa-sensei's quirk, so that he could cancel whatever illusion quirk he was stuck in. He wishes Aizawa-sensei was still alive so he could cancel it for Hitoshi. He chokes, as he feels the sobs he wants to release getting stuck behind the muzzle.
Hitoshi feels slightly embarrassed, even though no one is here to witness this little... episode. He thought he had gotten past the worst of his grief. It's not like Aizawa-sensei was his family or anything.
Hiccuping sobs continue making their way out of his mouth, anyways. Thinking about Aizawa-sensei opened up the flood-gates, making Hitoshi think of everyone else he lost.
Hitoshi's head swings to look at the door with blurry vision when he hears the knob turn. It swings open to reveal the foster mother that he remembers being attached to this Family Home.
"Shinsou-kun, I have your letter from U.A. here," Hashiguchi-san starts the sentence excitedly, before faltering, she examines Hitoshi's face, before her eyes widen with panic. "Shinsou, why are you sad? Please stop crying, you know it upsets Tsukasa!" Hashiguchi-san frets, wringing her hands together and shifting on her feet. She looks behind herself uneasily before composing her face into something resembling calm.
"I'm gonna leave the letter here, OK," Hashiguchi-san sets the envelope gently on his desk, she pauses hands half stretched towards him like she wants to comfort him, she pulls them abruptly away before standing in the doorway. "Aiko-chan, Haruto-kun, and I are baking a cake, please come down if you want some." She trails off, smiling weakly before gently pulling the door shut behind her.
The attitude, the tone of her voice, and the appearance of Hashiguchi-san, it's exactly how Hitoshi remembers her, which tells Hitoshi that the illusion quirk pulls directly from his memory.
He's in an illusion of the past, it dawns on Hitoshi. He might be able to go see Aizawa-sensei and Deku and Hagakure again. Hitoshi wants, so badly. He wants to talk to let Deku ramble at him and he wants to watch more movies with Hagakure. He wants to train with Aizawa-sensei again. He wants...but it doesn't matter.
Its an illusion quirk, and they always end at some point, usually when the caster has achieved what they set out to do. Hitoshi needs to get back to the real world...people are waiting for him to come back, people who are important to Hitoshi. He has to try to escape, for them. He can't leave them to fight alone.
His first idea for getting out of the quirk is simply to sleep, if the illusion quirks focus is specifically on this memory, sleeping will most likely bring him back to the beginning of this memory, or it will tear him out of the illusion. Sleeping is a inevitably, so its better to get that option out of the way sooner rather than later.
Hitoshi's other idea is a bit... macabre. He thinks that receiving a severe injury would jolt him from the illusion, it would need to be somewhat lethal to insure he breaks the illusion. Hitoshi will keep that idea in his back pocket, while continuing to brainstorm less extreme methods.
Hitoshi yawns deeply, he feels exhausted after that little panic attack. He raises his hands above his head, stretching briefly, then he twist in his chair in order to crack his back. Hitoshi turns back to the desk and shifts the letter, picking it up and weighing it in his hand, before centering it on his desk, gently.
This had once been the worst day of Hitoshi's life. The pure disappointment and hopelessness he felt when he got rejected from the hero course was all encompassing, even getting a full scholarship for General Studies at U.A. wasn't enough to put a dent in his dejection. Aizawa-sensei, Midnight-sensei, and Deku all choosing to die on the same day really put things in perspective though, and it was only downhill from there.
Hitoshi had almost forgot about this day, just because he only has so much room in his brain for tragedy. This disappointment is just so small in comparison to everything else that has happened.
Hitoshi stands up with a sigh, turns on his heel and basically collapses on the bed. He lays his arm over his eyes and falls asleep within a minute.