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When she was little, Tooru had this one recurring nightmare.
In it, she would be lost, separated from her parents and unable to find them. Alone and afraid, she'd reach out to passing strangers, asking for help, but they didn't react to her words.
They couldn't see her, and so they would pass her by without a thought, leaving her alone again.
Being overlooked had terrified her so much when she was younger. Even now as a teenager, Tooru still sometimes struggled with the state of being invisible. She made a conscious effort to be "seen" in her own way, projecting her voice, exaggerating her movements, anything to make sure that people knew that she was there.
The fear that one day, she would need someone and no one would look her way had never fully left her.
Which made this, right now, Tooru's worst nightmare.
It was just a day out with friends, a day of wandering around the mall and getting lunch. No schoolwork and no work studies to worry about. There wasn't supposed to be any stress, any danger, but they always liked to joke that their class seemed to get into a disproportionate amount of trouble.
It always stopped being funny as soon as the trouble came.
Tooru and her friends were about to return to campus for the day when she noticed that she'd left her purse behind in the restaurant they'd just eaten at. She dashed away from the group to go and retrieve it. It would have taken just a few minutes to go there and come back.
It only took those few minutes away from the group for things to go wrong.
She entered the restaurant to find one of the patrons experiencing some sort of medical emergency. A man was on the ground convulsing, his chest glowing an ominous red. She thought she might have heard the man's companion say something about an allergic reaction and a frantic warning to clear out of the area, when there was a sudden, blinding light.
Tooru's next memory was waking up in the dark, in pain, and with an entire building on top of her.
That was hours ago.
There she stayed, pinned under debris, bleeding and broken. She couldn't see a foot in front of her face, could barely move in her prone position because of the rubble pinning her in place. Every breath had her choking out concrete dust and wondering if the air was getting thinner or if it was just her injuries that were making her light-headed.
She hadn't heard any hint of another soul since she woke up, and when she tried to call out for help, her voice came out in a weak rasp that she knew wouldn't reach anyone.
She was alone.
She worried she might die there, alone.
The longer she stayed there in that darkness, the more her old fears began to come to the surface. She knew that there had to be rescue heroes on site by now, but what if they missed her among the debris? What if she was just too well hidden, too invisible, and she was overlooked?
She wept quietly as these thoughts drove her mad. She knew she was a hero in training, that she was supposed to be strong and brave, but she was scared. She couldn't help but be scared.
"Hello? Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me!?"
Tooru thought she had imagined the voice at first, calling out from above, but then she heard it again.
"Can anyone hear me!? Hello!!"
It was real, and it sounded familiar.
"I'm-" she coughed wetly, "I'm here…"
Her voice was so quiet and she felt her fear spike again. What if they couldn't hear her?
But then…
"Tooru!! Is that you!?"
Yes, the voice was definitely familiar. It was Kyouka.
"K-Kyouka…"
"Guys! I found her! She's alive!"
There was the sounds of shifting rubble and more voices joining in until finally a single crack allowed light to come in. Tooru stared up at it, that small sliver of salvation, as it grew and grew until it eventually gave way to the sky above.
She blinked upwards, it was nighttime now, artificial lighting had been brought in to no doubt aid in the search effort. One by one, the faces of her classmates appeared, still in the clothes they'd been wearing earlier, now dirtied from digging through rubble.
From searching for her.
"Tooru!" Ochako called, peering into the ruins below. It was like she was looking right at her.
"You…you found me…" Tooru's eyes welled up in relief, tears spilling and cutting tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "You found me…"
You see me.
"We're going to get you out of there!"
"It's okay now!"
"Yeah, hang tight, Tooru!"
She wasn't alone. She wasn't overlooked.
It was going to be okay.