𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 | 𝐊. 𝐁𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐆𝐎

008.

✩｡:*─'ROARING SPORTS FESTIVAL'─*:｡✩

WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF INJURIES (BURNS), MENTIONS OF DEATH.

RESCUE TEAMS SPENT APPROXIMATELY FIVE hours looking for what they presumed would be the corpse of the Fire Chief, Daichi Yoshioka. It was a near-impossible task, really; the inferno was of such a high intensity that the buildings on either side of the unit complex had caved in upon themselves.

It was 8:00 PM when a sniffer dog spotted a hand poking out from debris with its skin withered and scorched coal black. Rescuers yelled and hollered as they gathered around, the light of their flashlights bouncing off the shadows of smog and embers.

You could imagine their surprise when the limp and near incinerated body of Daichi Yoshioka was pulled from the wreckage they found he still had a pulse — a very weak one at that — but still, he was alive.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Mika and her mother had been painstakingly waiting, gripped in utter fear and worry as each hour passed. So when the news of Daichi still being alive reached them they nearly collapsed in joy. However, the reaction of joy soon transformed to one of absolute horror.

Mika could feel the bile rise in her throat when she saw her father's condition as he was wheeled into the emergency room on a gurney. He was nearly unrecognisable. The flames had claimed any identifying part of him: his hair had been singed from his scalp and brow bones whilst nearly every inch of his skin was wilted and mottled in shades of black and purple. She had overheard the doctors saying that if it weren't for his dermal armour quirk then her father would've likely been cremated in the explosion. It was a miracle in itself that they recovered his body, let only alone Daichi surviving.

She didn't get to take in the extent of his injuries for too long though as she was soon ushered out of the room so they could prepare her father for his emergency surgery. Her vision of her father was slowly blocked by white coats and blue scrubs. Mika wondered if this would be her final memory of him. After all, the surgery was not a survival guarantee; he could die at any moment throughout. She could feel her phone buzzing restlessly from inside her school blazer, most likely messages from her friends and outer family but she ignored them. Under the dim light outside the operation theatre, she locked her gaze upon her father as if she were to look away for just a moment he would perish before her.

She felt so conflicted. It was deduced by both the heroes and the police that the seven fires had been started intentionally but they had yet to identify any suspects or leads to who started it. She had no one to direct her anger and grief onto; no one to blame for why her father was currently laying on an operating table fighting for his life. It was tearing her apart. Was this how her father felt when was fighting against the villains in the USJ attack?

It took a while, but eventually, her mother coaxed her away from the glass screen of the operation theatre by saying that her staring wasn't going miraculously improve her father's condition. Over by the visitor's room, the mother and daughter leant against each other as a pillar of support but with eating passing minute they could feel themselves crumbling. Suki gripped her daughter's hand tightly and brought it to her chest, rubbing her thumb comfortingly over Mika's knuckles.

"Sweetie," Suki murmured gently, "Are you ready for the Sports Festival?"

Mika lolled her head against her mother's shoulder, "I don't know anymore..."

"What do you mean?" Suki's frown grew deeper.

"It's just..." Mika sighed, "I'd hate myself forever if I was out there, parading around in the arena and something happened to Dad here. What if he dies? I'll never see him again..."