A Life Worth Living (Aizawa x OC)

52 - Confrontation

That is...was...no...is a lot to digest.

Sitting on the floor with my back against the wall and blankly staring off into space, I tried to wrap my head around the abundance of information I'd received in that conference room. I can't even tell how much time has passed since I've left. 10 minutes? An hour? I really don't know.

Frankly, I have no idea what to think about all of this. The only thing I know for sure is that I can't think straight at the moment. My thoughts are all over the place, same as my emotions. It feels like my mind is fogged because of everything I'm trying to process at once.

On top of that, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about...all of this. Surprised? Shocked? Confused? Sad? Devastated? Overwhelmed? Numb? I really can't tell. What would be appropriate? I really don't know.

What Himari just told us...this woman had been to hell and back and kept all of it, all the pain, to herself. For six months she'd held up that façade and bottled up everything while serving us lies and poor excuses.

Except for Recovery Girl, she'd been all by herself. She'd been completely alone with this pain, and yet she'd managed to keep up her mask in front of us, in front of all of us.

Obviously, the revelation about her being Gravitas hadn't exactly been a surprise for me, but ... the rest of her story...didn't fail to achieve that effect. Definitely not.

Finally, after all this time, I found the missing piece of the puzzle I'd been desperately trying to solve for a while. No, that's not quite right. I didn't find it - it was presented to me. But in the end, solving that mystery of Himari's past didn't turn out half as satisfying as I'd expected it to be. Not at all. Quite the contrary.

Now that the reason why she'd kept it secretive has been revealed, I feel incredibly guilty for snooping around and for trying to interfere in her affairs - all of that simply because I couldn't wait to satisfy my own damn curiosity. In the hindsight, the way I viewed her with mistrust when she'd first arrived here is even worse. She'd just escaped that nightmare and ... what did I do? I met her with distrust and accused her of having bad intentions.

I couldn't have possibly known, but that doesn't exactly help to feel better about all of this. Knowing that I most likely contributed to her feeling even worse...it hurts.

I know that I'm not in the position to feel hurt, but here I am. My heart aches for her. For everything she had to go through. The thought alone...how she must have felt...Imagining how it must have been for her....all of that is enough to make me shudder all over again.

She doesn't deserve it. I mean, nobody deserves something like this happening to them - that's the morally right thing to say. Something a hero should say. But honestly? Knowing that there are people out there like this masked guy or Sugimoto, this sadistic piece of shit, I can't help it and feel like they'd deserve worse for what they've done to others. For the damage they've caused. The people they've hurt.

But why her? She's a genuinely good person - kind-hearted, caring, going out there to sacrifice herself for others. That woman has worked her ass off as a hero, always putting herself on the line for others.

That's just another proof for how fucked up and unfair life can be. It doesn't make sense at all.

Losing someone close to you can break you. No word can accurately describe how awful it feels. But the circumstances under which she lost her hus-...him...are horrific.

Knowing Himari, I'm confident that she entirely blamed herself for what happened, although there was absolutely nothing she could have done - what makes everything even worse for her. She couldn't have known about that quirk. In that situation, none of us could have done anything to stop him.