NIKE -Blue Lock-

Oblivion

Her breathing quickened, and no matter how much air entered her mouth, the oxygen seemed never to be enough. In fact, it almost seemed as if it was beginning to lack more and more and more. Her lungs started to burn, and her rib cage widened and tightened so fast that she had to bring her hands to her chest to try futilely to stop it.

A panic attack.

"Nicole...Nicole!?"

But before Oliver could even caress her cheek with his own warm hand, the girl sprang to her feet and ran to one of the compartments with toilets, falling to her knees and vomiting up the last remnants of alcohol and more substances still circulating in her system. 

Oliver looked at her in shock. It was the first time he had ever seen her have a panic attack: she, the indestructible world champion, the cold victory that left losers in her wake, the cruel goddess who didn't give a damn about other people's feelings and claimed to be in control of everything and everyone.

The woman he had never seen suffer, not when he had found her covered in blood in her apartment nor when she had fainted in his arms with a battered back...at that moment she was losing herself in pain.

He sprang to his feet as well and ran after her to grab her hair and remove it from in front of her face. He stroked her forehead on which drops of cold sweat were dripping, whispering words of comfort and reassurance in her ear.

Her breath burned in her chest, almost as if with each inhalation she was sending down a wave of smoke. Her hands trembled, unable to grasp the toilet to support herself. Her pupils were wide and blind, and she couldn't see the space around her.

The possible scenario that that mad man had raised his hands to her made her feel sick. That his fingers had touched her not to leave an additional bruise but to wound her pride and soul. That his tongue, instead of hurling scornful insults, had poisoned her by coming into contact with hers.

And-

A new wave of vomit made her lean forward, her eyes burning with pain from the piquant tears within them.

If she could not even remember who it was who had touched her, she dared not even imagine what else she could not recall.

When exactly had she lost consciousness? To what extent was her memory reliable? And what told her that whoever had aggressively touched and kissed her had not continued even once she had passed out?

"Nicole stop..." Oliver begged, noting the uninterrupted and irregular breathing of his friend who friend could not be called, as he continued to stroke the sweat away from her face. 

He tried to give her warmth by holding her in his arms, rocking her back and forth in his body as he continued to say that it was okay, that nothing had happened, that everything would work just fine.

But it wasn't true.
Nothing was okay.
Something had happened.
And she wasn't going to be able to fix it.

Oliver did not know.
Oliver did not know anything.
Oliver did not know simply because nobody knew anything.

Not him, not Shidou, not Sae, not Ego, not Anri, not Raichi, not Kurona, not Noel, not Bachira, not anyone else.

And nobody knew anything simply because she didn't want them to.

People were suffering because of her.

Every choice she made was obligatorily someone else's defeat, torture and agony.

The only thing she could do was to keep quiet. Say nothing. Not intensify that pain she was already causing people by adding her own torment on their shoulders.