Arduous

Chapter I

A shaky breath escaped his mouth. He remembered the last thing before he was sucked into a black hole.

.

He was on his internship with Endeavor along with Bakugou and Todoroki earlier that morning. They were chasing some villain in the city when he encountered an unfamiliar-looking man behind one of the buildings.

The man caught him off guard by suddenly attacking him with a creepy 'boo'. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Bakugou and Todoroki headed towards him, trying to help him when the man let out a black hole. It was most likely his quirk.

The black hole sucked him in and he was glad that the hole closed just after it sucked him in and him only. At least he died alone and not dragging anyone with him.

.

He thought he was dying.

When he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of an unfamiliar crowded city. A green-haired boy with beautiful freckles adorning his cheeks let his captivating emerald eyes look around him. The city looked far older than the city he was familiar with. The people also looked... normal. No one had a block as their head, no snake hair, no weird skin colour, no fish, no anything... abnormal.

It was suspicious. Where was this?

People around him looked at him weird and cautious. He saw how they were whispering among themselves and some of them even snickered at him. He looked at himself and saw that he still had his hero costume on.

He hated the attention he was getting, it overwhelmed him. He tried to activate his quirk to quickly ran away from there just to find that he couldn't. He couldn't activate his quirk. Not knowing what to do,

He panicked.

He ran to wherever his legs would bring him away from there, unaware of a pair of bright ocean-blue eyes looking at him in concern. The green-haired boy ran until he ended up in one of the empty alleyways with a dead end.

All of these strongly reminded him of his past so much. No quirk, people looking at him with their judgemental eyes, running from bullies, getting beat up in the alleyway. All of these were too familiar. Too familiar to his own liking.

'Deku, quirkless piece of shit, worthless, useless, you will fail, you will not save anyone, you're not worth it,

if you think you'll have a quirk in your next life, go take a swan dive off the roof!!'

He was so lost in his terrible thought that his lack of air didn't register in his mind. He was hyperventilating.

'The taunting, the burns, the red spider lilies, the red eyes following his every moves, cut, them pinning him down in a class, the knife, blood, blood, blood, blo-'

His already haggard breathing become worse. He unconsciously pressed himself far into the corner. He started digging his nails into his scalp but he could feel nothing, he felt incredibly numb.

Panic attack.

He thought he was over with his struggle with his mental health when he entered UA. He was wrong. Nothing could erase trauma and depression easily.

He was struggling to keep his breathe steady but failed miserably.

Much to his shock, warmth enveloped his trembling hands. he felt the warm hands grab and lead his hands onto something, away from his scalp gently. It moved up and down. Oh, his chest.

"Hey, c-can you hear me? I- I need you to coordinate your breathing with mine, can you do it?" The voice was soothing, he love the sound of them. "1..2..3..4..5, and reel back. you're doing a nice job, keep going. 1..2-"