Chapter Text
You crawl fowards on your bloodied hands and knees, barely scraping together the energy to stay conscious.
"Miyako-san.. Satoshi-san.."
Your tears obscure the view of your adoptive parents lifeless corpses. You can't do anything. You're weak and pathetic, and all you can do is cry.
There has to have been something you could've done to prevent this.
Maybe if you were a little faster, maybe if you were a little smarter. Maybe your parents wouldn't be smeared over asphalt.
A man covered in scars towers over you. "Just kill her already, whats the point in dragging it out?"
"Sorry, sorry." He sneers.
"Miyako-san.. Satoshi-san.." You sob, reaching out your arms to grip your mother's cold mangled arm with the the last of your strength. "Miyako-san, wake up..! Please..!"
Your adoptive mother, shes the brightest, smartest person you know.
If she died, what would happen to the cafe? Shes the one who manages all the business expenses. If it wasn't for her, it never would've existed in the first place.
And if Miyako died, then Satoshi wouldn't be able to keep the place running. The regulars would be so troubled to see that place go.
"Why are you calling out to her like she's still alive? You're about to die over here. Shouldn't you be using the last of your energy to run away?"
The villain places his hand over your back. "You should prioritize yourself over other people kid."
In a split second, burning hot flames engulf your entire lower body. It's a flashing hot, searing pain. You let out a blood curdling scream.
You were going to die.
You didn't want to die. For the first time in your life you didn't want to die. Did you really have to struggle everyday, just for it all to end like this?
You wanted to make your mark in this world.. you wanted to make something, to do something so amazing that when you died, maybe someone would mourn your death.
Just one person.. one person who loves you more than anything in this world, so much that when you die, it'll be as if you're still alive. But the only two people in the world who could've possibly ever loved you like that are dead.
Your hands dig into the ground, your fingers and nails raw, bloody.
Theres something you could've done to prevent this, just one action, just one word.. You wish you could've told your parents how grateful you were to them before this all happened.
The villain begins walking away, laughing with his friend about something stupid no doubt.
You hobble to your feet, stumbling towards the villain and pinning him to the ground.
"I'm going to kill you..!" Your hands weakly wrap around his neck.
"I swear I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do!"
You can't hear what the villain is saying anymore . All you can feel is the pain from being burnt alive.
You can see the villain's eyebrows raise in amusement, that shit eating grin never left his hideously disfigured face.
You will survive this, you will escape this, you will properly atone for your sins.
_________
My eyes feel like they're burning..
Surrounded by an endless pitch black void, a young girl covered in countless scars grabs your chin, inspecting your face disdainfully.
She clicks her tongue. "Looks like you've been having fun."
She leans down to look you in the eye, her irises are hauntingly bright.
"You know, I was watching. Frankly, it took you a long time to find that couple, what a waste of time, am I right?" She scoffs, sitting down next to you with her knees scrunched up against her chest.
.. I'm sorry.
You sob, wiping the cascading tears from your face.
"Oh fuck off, you don't mean that. You're just trying to make me feel bad, it won't work you know."
I'm sorry.. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I'm really not that smart or cunning , if I was, then..
"Shut up, you're not dumb or innocent either. I said it won't work on me so give it a rest. You're pretty much dead, and you're still trying to get a leg up on other people in the afterlife? Seriously, what a waste."
"What a waste." She sticks her thumbs into your eyes, scraping her nails around the sockets. You feel your eyeballs fall to your lap with a small thud.
You can't speak, you can't see, you can't feel a thing.
"I'll leave you with this one thing." Her hands go to cup your face and guide you towards her neck, her touch is ephemeral, gentle.
Your teeth sink into the girls neck, the taste is vile, bitter and salty. A flavor you should be used to at this point.
She let's out a deranged raspy cackle, she sounds exhausted. ".. You better not waste this."
_________
The next thing you see is the familiar sight of your bedroom ceiling. Did you die and.. get sent to purgatory or something?
That could be the only explanation since this doesn't seem like hell, and there was no way your soul was going up.
".. If this really is the spirit realm then I need to find a way to make it back to the real realm so I can shove my ghost foot up that guy's-"
Your plans for anal violence are interrupted by the feeling of your skin ripping apart and your heart getting squeezed.
Getting squeezed as if someone reached their hand into your chest and.. squeezed it really really hard.
It was like you sat in the scorching hot sun without applying sunscreen to your eczema prone skin, and then you pulled your skin taut until it ripped apart, but like all over your entire body.
It was a small improvement compared to getting literally set on fire, but suffice to say you were in a lot of pain.
You scream, clutching your head. Maybe you were wrong. This actually isn't purgatory, this is actually hell disguised as your bedroom.
You roll around your bed, writhing in pain as if someone just jammed a sword through your skull.
After maybe a minute that felt like an eternity, you can feel your wounds slowly begin to seal shut, your rapid heartbeat beginning to calm down.
You perk back up like nothing was ever wrong. Imagine two pngs, one where you're in a lot of pain, and one where you're standing up straight perfectly normally, first it was the picture where you were in a shit load of pain rolling around on the floor, then hard cut to you standing up looking normal.
You go back to heaving frantically, your whole body is sore and aching, this doesn't make a lick of sense.
How does your quirk still work if you're dead? Is this supposed to be a cool, state of the art feature in hell?
Torture you, then heal you continuously for the rest of eternity? Come on, it's like real life all over again.
Thats right, thats what you're comparing it to. Because you're 16 and that comparison is very funny.
Actually..speaking of your quirk, how'd you even die so fast anyway? You hadn't even felt your quirk try to start healing you when you were getting burnt alive.
Yeah it's not like you wanted to be a hero or anything, so you never trained your gross scary quirk, but you'd been in life and death situations before.
Usually you'd die slowly, but surely, since your healing couldn't keep up with the damage. Well..not that you had ever died before.
Suddenly two people burst into the room with such panic , it was as if a credible large scale bomb threat was just issued over Japan moments before.
"(Na)-san, whats wrong?!" Satoshi runs up to your bed and brushes your bed head out of your eyes. "What happened?! Whats wrong, are you ok?!"
"Satoshi, calm down-!" Miyako bonks her husband over his head, her other hand speed dialing an ambulance on her phone. Very hypocritical.
"(Na)-chan, are you in pain? Do I need to call you an ambulance, are you in pain?!
".. M-Miyako-san.. Satoshi-san..?" You blinked, rubbing your eyes like you couldn't believe what you were seeing.
What were they doing here? Does this mean they really died..? This isn't right, why would these two ever be condemned to eternal suffering? To be fair you're not religious, like at all. So chances are the afterlife doesn't exist and this is just a manic hallucination your brain conjured up nano seconds before completely shutting down.
"Whats wrong (Na)-chan? Did you have another nightmare?" Miyako fussed as her husband gently pried the phone out of her hands after seeing that you weren't actually in any imminent danger.
".. Um.. Sorry I.."
A nightmare, that sounded.. like it made sense. More than insane lucid hallucinations at least.
".. S-Sorry.. I must've woken you two up.."
Was such a vivid nightmare even possible?
You begin to quietly sob, grabbing onto the hem of Miyako's shirt. "I'm ok. Thank you for checking up on me."
_________
You turn on your phone, 9:56 am, Saturday, December 20th. A couple of months before you start highschool.
It took approximately 20 minutes to convince your parents that you were fine, and that you didn't need to see a doctor.
You pull off your shirt, revealing your body wrapped almost head to toe in bandages.
You used to leave them on for days at a time since it was such a pain in the ass having to change them out everyday, but your parents convinced you that buying gauze in bulk is actually not all that expensive, and that changing your bandages everyday was definitely worth it.
Also because it stinks like rotten eggs and tuna if you don't.
However, this time there was no need for them to have to try and convince you today, your bandages had soaked up a hefty amount of blood.
Which was weird, because you don't remember getting hit by a truck.
You carefully peel them off your body, revealing giant nasty burn marks and countless horizontal cuts you don't remember having.
The cuts look like a result of the ripping pain you felt earlier, the burns look like.. they're from the villain who killed you.
You bite down on your bottom lip, suppressing the urge to vomit. You can't just turn a blind eye, your experiences weren't a dream. As much as you'd like to convince yourself they were, you couldn't. Theres proof etched all over your body.
You glide your hands over the faint marks around your neck, they're so light most people wouldn't even notice, but still, you cover them up regardless.