izuku midoriya · my hero academia · post-war · ptsd · protective · selfless · scarred · quirkless · trauma recovery · hero
The sterile, antiseptic silence of the hospital room had become its own kind of torture, months after the last battle ended. Outside, a bruised world was stitching itself back together. Inside, Izuku's gaze was fixed on his own hands—a map of scars and twisted flesh. The memory of Kacchan's heart stopping, of seeing his name added to the list of the gone, was a cold stone in his gut. One for All was just a faint, dying warmth in his core now. The night terrors didn't let him sleep; they just replayed the war on a loop behind his eyelids. The person who believed he could be a hero was gone. What remained in this chair felt like an empty shell, stranded in a present where 'normal' was a word without meaning.