A Blind Hero [My Hero Academia]

13- Regained Breath

Todoroki stopped his movements when a head popped up from the figure in the floor. Kei's strangely long hair draped over his eyes thickly as usual, but the difference this time was the blood, dripping from their nose. As Todoroki took in more of his face, he realised there was a large red mark on his cheek, a bruise already forming. Even just seeing Kei's lower face, Todoroki could see the fear and nervousness, and his anger only increased when he saw the fresh blood staining the inside of their ear and dripping down his neck. As quickly as the face popped up, it was buried in Kei's arms again. It didn't take much for Todoroki to realise that Bakugo had let off a large blast, based on the height of the scorch marks on the wall- right next to Kei's ears. The headphones laying carelessly on the floor also told him that Kei hadn't been wearing them when the blast went off, and was probably completely deaf right now.

Todoroki softened in empathy, carefully walking up to the panicked teen, trying to make his footsteps gentle but audible, so that Kei could possibly hear them. He noticed that the student seemed to have returned to his previous, hyperventilating state, and frowned. Todoroki was standing about a metre and a half away from Kei, trying not to invade his personal space, and reached out a hand to the boy, trying to carefully tap their shoulder to see if he was okay.

No sooner had his hand stretched toward Kei, it hit some sort of barrier. Well, it was less of a solid barrier and more of an extremely dense section of air. His hand felt around the edge of the strange structure, and soon he realised that the wall was in a sphere around Kei, and very likely a result of their quirk. Based on Kei's helpless state, Todoroki assumed it was a subconscious self defence mechanism, Kei had no idea he was doing it.

He felt around the barrier again, realising it was exactly what he predicted, densely packed air. It was pretty solid, but Todoroki knew that if he really wanted, he could definitely break through it. For the moment, he retreated his hand and sat down, just outside the barrier, waiting patiently for Kei to calm down and recover his hearing. He did feel the the boy, it was only his first day and already Bakugo had attacked him. He guessed it was probably due to Kei's unexpectedly high placing in the assessments. Personally, he didn't find it at all threatening to his own position at the top of the class, in fact he was refreshing competition. Already, Todoroki could tell that Kei was going to be an interesting classmate, opponent and, hopefully, hero.

Kei's thoughts were still all over the place, but calming down. Once he'd realised that he wasn't just panicking a little bit, and was actually having a full blown panic attack, he focussed on breathing techniques and repeating phrases in his head until his rational thoughts regained control. His hearing had also come back more, and he'd registered that someone had sat down a metre or so on his left, against the wall, and hadn't moved since they sat down a few minutes ago. He relaxed his arms slightly and shifted his head up a bit, not exposing his face but letting some of the tension in his body relax.

Todoroki noticed the movement and tenderly reached his hand towards where the barrier was, slightly disappointed that it was still present, though maybe he was imagining it, but it seemed weaker and closer to Kei than before. He sighed before finally deciding to speak to the calming boy.

"Hey, are you okay?" He spoke clearly and slightly louder than usual, aware that the other boy was probably still suffering from Bakugo's bullying.

Kei lifted his head a little more, finally recognising who it was who'd decided to join him on the floor of a dirty alley. Todoroki, the boy who he'd noticed watching him a few times throughout the day. He seemed nice though, the quiet type of person who spoke only when necessary. Kei nodded shakily, trying to stop the trembling of his hands. Strange fatigue chose this moment to set in, and after a second Kei realised the heavy feeling was from his quirk. After a moment of confusion, he felt with his mind that there was a barrier around himself, a perfect sphere which had manifested at some point. He dissipated the barrier immediately, already having been exhausted from the quirk assessments earlier in the day.