Version A, Too | Boku No Hero Academia Reader Insert

XIII: Repentance

As my lungs expanded and deflated quickly again and again, working to make sure I stayed alive despite not feeling that way at all, my legs moved rapidly to carry me to someplace other than the hospital. With tears brimming my eyes and a blurred vision, I ran. Out the door, into the courtyard, past all the concerned nurses and curious doctors, past all the pedestrians getting out from work, past society.

The conception of liberation was a fleeting emotion -- there was no prominence or substance to it, at the moment. There was only fear. Fear of the future, of the unknown, of what would happen to the guilt that made a home for itself deep within my heart. Would it blossom into something bigger, brighter, more vicious and inescapable?

These thoughts plagued my mind I ran to the horizon with a shake in my step and a weight in my chest.

My arms pumped furiously as I dashed to keep up with the Sun, my eyes glued to the road ahead of me, unwilling to look anywhere else because of what they might see -- the disappointed stares of those around me, the judgmental sneers of the doubting? A certain heat boiled within my being as I considered the thought.

It seemed as if my soul had been set on fire.

This fire burned with remarkable splendor, sparks spewing from the red flames that roared and lapped against my skin from the inside, sending streaks of red across the surface of my body. The blaze caused the flesh of the metaphysical to shrivel up, to blacken, to change, with nothing new sprouting from the old, withered corpse. No abundant life replaced the deceased because I was lacking the resources. 

There was no hope that watered the seeds of willingness, nor the seeds that came from the fruit of desire -- a fruit that I'd so recklessly bit into without considering the repercussions that might've laid ahead if I had discovered a poisoned core. Alas, the venomous kerosene that flowed so freely from the core ignited the spark that had been building inside for so long.

And so here we were.

I was bound to be lit aflame one day or another.

The blazes clouded my vision, turning the evening sky red and yellow and black, sending my spirit into the uproar of flames, the journey towards the eye of the storm, where perhaps, everything would settle down and I could find safety.

I felt tired -- the first in a long time. The onslaught of emotion pounded incessantly at my head as I worked myself to the bone in order to just go, to get away from this mess, this torturous event that I prayed would cease soon.

And there were no coherent thoughts that came to mind when fleeing. All there was was the never-ending notion, the primal instinct, to get out. To run away and hide from my shame as a coward and a sinner.

As I did so, I questioned myself. 

When had things become this way? I never once imagined myself to be the person who would choose to live a life like this. Why have I restored to such violent and uncharacteristic means? Was it representative of myself, or of another, deviant personality? To be honest, I don't think I would ever know. 

And that terrified me.

When have I developed this sense of escapism, this cowardice? 

After all that I endured up to this point. After the endless days and the tear-filled nights that I suffered through, that I carried on my back like a pile of stones. After every injury, every burn, scrape, even deep lesions in my skin that left my parents worrying like there was no tomorrow --

-- I ran away.

For the first time, I ran away; with tears in my eyes and a pounding in my head, I progressed onwards towards somewhere other than where I was now.