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Shinsou felt numb as she walked out of the arena, back through the tunnel she'd emerged from and into the winding halls of the stadium. She didn't have a direction in mind, just letting her feet take her far, far away from the scene of her defeat.
Eventually she found herself in a lone, empty hallway, slowing to a stop. She leaned heavily against the wall then slumped down, plopping onto the floor and pulling her knees to her chest.
Shinsou closed her eyes, her throat was tight, her eyes stung, and her head pounded from quirk overuse, but that all paled in comparison to the ache in her chest.
She lost. No, she failed.
In front of the school, the nation, and a shit ton of pro heroes. Hell, her favorite hero had seen it all, too.
She had worked so hard, had busted her ass as best as she could. She couldn't afford a trainer or a fancy gym membership. She had no one to guide her, no one to teach her martial arts. Her neighborhood was barely safe enough for her to be walking home by herself, and yet she still went out and jogged, enduring catcalls and being followed. She dealt with being watched by sketchy figures as she worked out in the local park that no good parent took their child to these days. She did her best to condition her body with the resources she had.
She had watched her competition, spoken to the hero course students just to get a small taste of their minds so she would have some sort of edge when it came time to face them. It had been so long since she used her quirk on someone else, but she let go of her hesitations today, pushing her quirk to its absolute limits until it felt like her head was about to split in half, until her vision blurred and her ears rang. She pushed and pushed and pushed herself because this was so important to her.
All of her hopes and dreams, her future, her one goal in life to be a hero. To make something of herself, to leave some positive impact on the world. Hoping that one day someone might think of her fondly, look at her and see something more than a villain in the making. All of that had been riding on doing well today, and she didn't.
She didn't even make it past the first round.
She couldn't understand it. She had him, Midoriya, in the clutches of her quirk. She had him. He was going to walk out of bounds, he was mere steps away from the line. She had won, she was going to win!
Then suddenly, for a brief moment, she felt the crushing, inexplicable pressure of multiple minds. More than she had ever held at once. And then he was free. He broke free.
Shinsou barely remembered the rest of the fight, too disoriented, too panicked and desperate. She had him, and then she didn't.
Then it was her out of bounds. Then it was her loss being announced.
She supposed it didn't matter what happened in the arena with Midoriya. She lost, and that was all that mattered.
Shinsou lost, and now nothing mattered.
This was her last chance to get into the hero course, her last shot at becoming a hero. Sure, she could try again next year, but by then she would be even further behind the hero students than she already was. Her chances at succeeding were even less then.
No, this goal, this dream of hers, it was over.
'Maybe it's better this way…' a part of her mind thought. 'No one wanted me to be a hero anyway…'
So, now what?
Shinsou pressed her face into her knees.
She didn't know. She didn't want to go back to school after this, back to her classmates that might have cheered her on today, but would soon go back to ignoring her and sneering at her. She didn't want to go back to her home where everything was cold and silent and lonely. She didn't want to look herself in the mirror and have to wonder just what she was going to do with her life, just what her future was going to look like.
No, she just wanted to stay here and never move again. Never breathe again. She wanted to rot. She wanted to disappear-
"Hey, kid."
Shinsou hadn't heard anyone approach. She would have been startled if she wasn't so numb.
She lifted her head and looked up at the heavily bandaged man standing over her.
"…what do you want?"
Little did she know that her life was about to change forever.