Chapter Text
Oboro Shirakumo opened his eyes, but the world that greeted him was wrong in ways he didn’t know how to name. The ceiling above was a stark white, the tiles perfect and endless, each one reflecting a buzzing light that pressed against his eyelids like an invisible weight. His head ached immediately, every pulse and thrum making his temples throb in rhythm with his racing heartbeat.
He tried to move his fingers first, but they trembled weakly. The sensation of his own body felt alien—soft, heavy, as if it belonged to someone else entirely. His chest rose and fell unevenly, the act of breathing somehow foreign. The blankets covering him smelled sharply of antiseptic, sterile and unfamiliar. The straps around his wrists were loose but firm enough to remind him he was trapped, confined. Panic rose like a tide, sudden and overwhelming, filling his throat with a dryness that made it impossible to speak.
His mind flickered, trying to grasp at memories—at something. Flashes arrived unbidden: purple mist curling in the air like smoke, cold metal pressing against skin, voices shouting commands he could not place, and his own voice, somehow wrong, echoing in his skull. Faces passed too quickly to recognize, shadows of people he did not know but somehow feared. His own hands moved, but the motion wasn’t his own. And then there was nothing.
The fear built and twisted inside him. He tried to sit up, but pain lanced through his ribs, making him gasp. The ceiling swayed like a poorly drawn painting. His vision doubled, blurry shapes folding into each other, and his pulse skyrocketed. Every muscle screamed for him to run, to hide, to escape, but he couldn’t. He was trapped.
The door clicked. A sound that should have been ordinary became a trigger, a knife slicing through the tense silence. Two figures entered. One was a doctor, older, with grey hair pulled back into a tight knot, eyes sharp but careful. The other, a nurse, clutched a clipboard, visibly tense. They both stepped in slowly, their movements cautious.
“Mr Shirakumo?” the doctor said, soft and deliberate. “Can you hear me?”
Oboro’s throat caught. His lips quivered. He tried to speak. “Wh…where—”
“You’re in the hospital,” the nurse said. Her voice was gentle, almost a whisper, meant to soothe. “You’ve been asleep for some time. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Safe. That word slammed against his panic like an insult. Nothing about the room felt safe. The walls were too white, the air too sharp. His own body felt foreign, wrong. Instinct took over. Fear became action. He needed to defend himself. He needed to hide. He needed something.
He focused on his quirk. A small cloud, something soft, something that could wrap around him, like it did in training. Something familiar. Something of his own. He imagined it, pushed with everything he had.
But it didn’t respond the way it used to.
Instead of soft white clouds, a dark shimmer opened beside the bed, twisting and pulsing in the air. A tiny warp gate, edges curling like smoke, impossible and wrong. The nurse screamed softly and dropped the clipboard. The doctor froze, eyes wide, lips parted.
Oboro’s chest heaved. “No! Don’t! Get away!” His voice cracked.
The doctor’s calm voice rang sharper than steel. “Sedative. Now.”
Cold burned in Oboro’s arm as the needle hit. His limbs went heavy. Panic collided with exhaustion, making his vision tilt and blur. He tried to fight it, tried to call his quirk again, but his body refused. His muscles trembled, useless.
The warp gate shimmered weakly, then flickered. It was small, almost insignificant, but it felt like a breach. A crack in reality. A reminder that he was still dangerous, still capable of things he didn’t understand anymore.
His mind wandered briefly, fragments of memories flashing more clearly than before. Class 2-A. Late nights at U.A., working on projects with Aizawa and Hizashi. Pizza in the common room, stupid jokes, clumsy laughter. The work-study where the building collapsed. The moment he thought he had died. A flash of his friends looking panicked, calling his name. Then darkness.
His vision blurred further, sounds melting into a dull roar. The doctor’s words filtered in, calm and deliberate. “Call Gran Torino. Notify Aizawa and Present Mic. We’ll need them here.”
Oboro’s body sagged. Every thought dissolved into exhaustion. Every muscle gave in. Every heartbeat was a drum of fear and pain. His last conscious thought was that he had tried to summon a cloud and instead opened a gate, and it had terrified him.
Darkness claimed him fully.
Time was unmeasured. Somewhere between consciousness and nothingness, Oboro floated. Faces and voices flickered in his mind—sometimes Aizawa’s calm, present Mic’s loud, teasing voice, moments of normalcy from his days at U.A. Pizza nights. Training runs. Quiet afternoons on the lawn. And then shards of darkness: the purple mist curling, cold metal pressing against his skin, a voice that whispered his name and told him to obey.
When he moved, it was slow and hesitant. Fingers twitched. He tried to lift his head and groaned as soreness shot through his neck. The room smelled sterile, a harsh odour that made his stomach twist. The blanket shifted across his skin. The straps felt restrictive, but not enough to hurt—just enough to remind him he was contained, restrained, watched.
The door clicked softly. Two familiar figures entered: the doctor and nurse. They moved carefully, avoiding sudden gestures, speaking softly.
“You’re awake,” the nurse said. Her voice was gentle, steady, almost a tether for him. “How are you feeling?”
Oboro tried to answer. His throat felt raw. “I… I don’t know,” he whispered.
“That’s fine,” the doctor said. He knelt to meet Oboro’s gaze, making himself less imposing. “No need to answer right now. Just breathe.”
Oboro shuddered. His chest rose and fell unevenly. Panic lingered in the spaces between breaths. The warp gate beside him pulsed faintly, a reminder of how fragile his control was.
“Easy now,” the doctor said, voice calm. “We’re not going to rush anything.”
Oboro blinked. The air smelled sterile, but not threatening. The voices were soft, careful. For a moment, he remembered something—U.A., Class 2-A, Aizawa, Hizashi. Friends who had been there for him. A flicker of trust sparked inside him. It was weak, nearly snuffed by fear, but it was there.
Exhaustion overtook him again. Every muscle ached. Every nerve screamed. He wanted to fight, to run, to be anywhere else—but the dark pull of sedation was stronger. He let himself go, sinking into oblivion once more, letting the world fade, letting the fear fade, hoping… hoping that someone familiar would be there when he woke.
And in the quiet of the Tartarus hospital wing, he drifted, alone yet tethered, unaware of the two friends who would arrive soon to hold him steady in the storm of his own mind.