Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
“Long before heroes and villains…there were stories. And the most dangerous stories were the ones that could breathe.”
They say that the first humans to call lightning did not pray to gods, they spoke to them through poetic phrases.
For centuries, scattered across the globe, rare individuals carried something not in their blood, but in their soul.
An Ability.
A power born from the inner depths of their minds tied to myths.
Some called the wielders prophets, others witches, and the rest cursed.
Abilities could not be inherited, could not be cloned. When the wielder died, so too did their gift. The world never feared an army of them, only the tragedy of meeting one at the wrong time.
However, with the emergence of a new set of power it was discovered that abilities could be passed on by resonance inheritance.
When a soul dies, the soul-bound ability naturally seeks out the next closest blood relative’s soul.
The first Quirk Emergence began roughly 200 years ago in China. There was news that a baby that gave off light was born. After that came a second one, then a thousand more. Before anyone could question it, these new quirks had become the norm and dreams became reality.
No longer rare as before, the world had become a superhuman society with about 80% of the world’s population having the special trait of being quirked.
These quirks spread through bloodlines, shaping societies overnight. Researchers and doctors made these quirks measurable through data and biological proofs; quirks were the next stage of evolution in the human race.
A person’s quirk is genetic and classifiable into various sub-categories which showcased a human’s adaptability to changes.
Amidst the chaos, the old ability users vanished into obscurity. They had always been anomalies; now they were ghosts in the gene-mapped world of quirks.
Today, the Hero System is celebrated.
The world maps quirks with the precision of census data. But abilities?
They did not appear on scans. They left no genetic signature. They did not compete in the same arenas. The public hero system recognized only quirks. Leaving the ability organizations, with their Silver Oracle Licenses, to act like elite global leagues, shadow governments with power far beyond ordinary heroes.
The public believed quirks were the sole superpower, unaware that abilities had always pulled strings from the shadows.
30 Years Before Present Day,
Beneath the crystal surface of progress and regulation, a new chapter was being re-written in blood. It was in a hidden facility, far from the world’s eyes, that Paul Verlaine awoke to a destiny no child should bear, a destiny that would unravel the delicate balance between quirks and abilities forever.
Could a human vessel hold both quirks and abilities without tearing apart?
Chapter 2: Birth of a Tragedy: Paul Verlaine I
Summary:
Paul Verlaine was a beloved son to two wonderful doting parents.
That lasted for 7 years.
Notes:
I am a reader first, so pardon my sorry attempts at being artistic. I googled and researched what happened with Paul and Rimbaud, and man, they were a fun couple >_>
These first few chapters would be about Paul and then shift to Chuuya...coz its linear.
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't anything...just the plot and a little bit of world building I guess. I also took real world liberties coz that's how BSD works hehe.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
36 years ago in Metz, France.
Cicadas’ loud buzzing shrills echoed through the park located near a residential complex. The cheerful giggling of children playing in the sandbox added a layer of soulful rhythm to nature's call.
Trees swayed with the wind, providing shade to the benches placed beneath them on the outer borders of the grass and dirt. A man sat on one of those benches.
He didn’t look suspicious but he had a tense look on his shoulders as he looked at his phone placed beside him. He looked at the device every few minutes and the frown between his eyebrows deepened as the time passed.
When suddenly it started ringing.
He wasted no time in picking it up.
“Hello, sir!”
“At ease, General Kashimura. The Council has agreed to the deal, which mea-”
“Which means you don’t need me for the next few months,” Kashimura softly interrupted. There was pleading in his voice as he spoke again, “Julian, please tell me they approved my leave? Elisa called me last week saying that the hospital is letting them leave.”
There was a huff from the other end and a weary laugh which left Kashimura cold in unease.
But then the laughter turned warm, “Yes, they did. Go meet your wife, it’s been a year, you horndog!”
Kashimura yelped in embarrassment and looked around in surprise at the noise he made. His face turned red and scolded his longtime friend and commander, “It’s not for that and you know it! Good bye!”
He hung up and heaved a huge sigh of relief. His body melted onto the bench as he looked up at the green branches dancing in the afternoon sun. His long red hair escaped the rubber band it had been tied into and started fluttering about, Kashimura caught some of the strands and got lost in his thoughts, thinking back to the first time he met her. Met Elisa Verlaine.
Kensuke Kashimura came from a long line of military personnel. He was made for this life. He scoffed at the stray thought as he stepped into the medical dorms. In a world which depended on Pro-heroes and their showboating, the real heroes were often left behind the stage, left to be ignored and looked down upon.
But he was glad that at least Europe was a place where the emphasis was on strength no matter where it came from. ‘Even a quirkless reject like me can be accepted and respected if I am efficient enough. I need to be useful.’
Although Kensuke had red hair, blue eyes, tall limbs, and an aristocratic face, he undoubtedly looked Asian. Features inherited from one of his ancestors who had intermarried long back into the Dehee family which turned into the Kashimura as a nod to her. He wondered how in love they must have been to change names and make it last.
‘The power of names…maybe I will never get to know it.’
Despite being without a quirk, Kensuke quickly became known for his quick tongue and hands as he saved soldiers on battleground after battleground. He climbed ranks and not one person was able to blame it on nepotism.
One day out of nowhere he was slammed into a tree.
Kensuke’s lips twitched into a frown as he looked at the dainty hand clasping his tie in a fist, “You know, I have never been bullied. But I must thank you Miss…?”
The feisty blonde opposite him looked taken aback at his words, “Wait. Are you not Percy who’s been following Marie?” She nodded at an even tinier lady who was shivering in fear. Marie looked up at Kensuke and her eyes widened.
“Elisa, that's the wrong man. I told you the redhead was a short grumpy redhead! Not this Adonis.”
Kensuke felt out of the loop but he liked how Elisa's eyes went from being burnt red to warm chocolate brown in an instant. He wondered if that was her quirk or just the light playing tricks.
He wondered if they had any other colors, if Elisa was willing to show him. If--
“Oh! I am extremely sorry for this.” Elisa immediately let go of his tie and took a step back.
“My friend was stalked by a redhead creep this morning and I thought it was you.” There was something in her voice that made Kensuke keep his snark in check, instead he took one of her hands in his and used all his charm to ask, “I forgive you. How about you go on a date with me, seeing as you owe me one.”
Those beautiful brown eyes sparkled.
Years flashed by, Kensuke became the General Surgeon and Elisa now owned one of the famous galleries in Metz.
Her quirk, as he later found out, was turning emotions into colors. She used it to paint magnificent art pieces and showcase them. But, for him the most wonderful art pieces would always be her eyes.
They got married six years later on a beautiful cliff side overlooking the ocean.
However, they were unsuccessful in having kids. Three miscarriages were enough to break someone’s soul. But he stood by Elisa through it all and finally this March they were successful.
Kensuke winced at the thought of Elisa being alone while giving birth. Well not alone exactly, she had nurses, doctors, her best friend close by. But he wasn’t there. He couldn’t be there as he was stationed two countries away on a mission when Elisa suddenly went into labour a month early.
“You can’t be here, Kenny. I have a feeling it just needs to be me and the kid now. We will welcome you later. Ok?”
A premature baby was dangerous but not difficult to manage. However, with three miscarriages Elisa’s body had to have gone through a lot of problems and it hurt Kensuke not to be there as her personal doctor.
He was not allowed to visit them, but he was told that Elisa was not even allowed to touch the child. The child was born small and without hair, making the skin fragile from all sorts of things.
He clenched his fist as he wondered what the kid looked like, if it was blonde or a redhead. If it was a girl or a boy. If it had got his blue eyes? ‘They should get brown eyes. The most beautiful ones for my kids.’
The phone on the bench vibrated and the screen lit up. Kensuke looked down at the message preview and sat up in urgency. He quickly read it through.
WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU PAPA
Kensuke smiled and started walking back towards his car. He opened the trunk to lift his luggage out with some packed gifts from his military friends. Taking them in his hands he climbed the steps to the opulent townhouse marked with a 12.
He carefully turned the knob and entered inside.
Elisa was standing near the kitchen doorway with a swaddle in her arms. She looked up and Kensuke could see the love overflowing from her eyes.
Kensuke set down everything and walked up to her. Once he was within reach, she passed on the swaddle to him and muttered, “He’s finally here… Paul. So small, yet full of life. After all we’ve lost, it feels like a miracle.”
Kensuke’s throat closed up, he opened his mouth and his voice was thick with emotion, “Paul. Paul Verlaine is a miracle, yes. But also a responsibility heavier than any I’ve ever carried. I promised to protect you both. I will keep that promise, no matter what.”
Elisa smiled even though tears dropped down her cheeks. She hit his chest a few times and hugged him, carefully keeping Paul between them. “You named him after me?” “Of course. It’s my love’s name after all.”
That night Kensuke didn’t set down Paul for even a second, other than the times he had to nurse of course. ‘He was deprived of this for a month,’ he complained to Elisa and let her sleep the night away.
Kensuke smiled as he tucked her in and walked across the room to sit on the rocking chair with Paul. The little tyke loved to be rocked any time of the day he learned.
“You are a wonderful baby, Paul. Elisa…do you think he will see the world as gentle or will it crush him before he even learns to stand?”
As if in response Paul started wailing loudly. Kensuke slowly started running his hand on Paul’s back and bent down to sniff, “Diaper doesn’t smell yet. Are you hungry, baby?”
He got up and started heating up one of the milk bottles to feed Paul. Kensuke started talking to himself again, “I will protect you little one. No matter what. Even if I have to become a monster myself.”
But as he set Paul down in his crib his eyes fixed not on the child’s trembling breaths but on the faint, impossible sway of a paper ornament hanging above the crib. Getting pulled towards Paul’s fists.
“I will protect you.”
Notes:
Fun Fact: My parents were not allowed to touch infant me for a month for being a 7 month preemie. So yay...some self insert.
Previously, I wasn't going to focus so much on Kensuke. But to show what happens to Paul, this needs to shown. Or at least thats how the words flowed on screen OTL
Chapter 3: Birth of a Tragedy: Paul Verlaine II
Summary:
The naive kids or the immoral adults, who is to blame?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Kensuke Kashimura never prayed. In a world where the streets themselves glimmered with the residue of quirks, where miracles and monstrosities were commonplace, prayer felt redundant.
Yet in those first nights after Paul Verlaine was born, he found himself addressing every god he could recall from the books he had once ignored. Perhaps it was gratitude. Perhaps it was fear.
30 Years Ago,
Paul Verlaine, Age 0-6.
The years in Metz had been warm, if quiet. The townhouse in the residential district stood out only for its ivy-covered balconies and the faint sound of piano scales drifting from the second-floor windows. Paul Verlaine, blond hair shining like his mother’s, and blue eyes as sharp as his father’s, was a child who belonged more in paintings than in playgrounds.
Elisa often worked in the sunlit studio, music filling the space as her brush danced across the canvas. Paul sat on a low stool by the piano, feet barely reaching the pedals, playing simple melodies for her. She said the notes gave the colors life, that they helped her quirk breathe. He did not understand entirely, but he liked watching her smile while she painted.
“Mon ange~ Here, try pressing this black key then this white one. Listen to it. How do you feel?”
Paul’s eyes widened in awe at the sound produced. He started giggling and pressing keys one by one, his legs moving back and forth, while his mother smiled down taking pictures of him using a camera.
“Mama, mama! It sounds like a train when I press this one!”
Elisa couldn’t control herself and threw her head back laughing in joy, “Yes, baby. It does, doesn’t it?”
Attracted by the melodious chimes, Paul looked up and gasped at the image his mama made. A beautiful angel shrouded in the golden glow of the setting sun. ‘So shiny!’
“Mama is so pretty! Very pretty! Like an angel.”
Elisa hugged the little charmer and pecked him on the forehead, “Is that so?”
“Yes!”
Kensuke would come home for his week-long leave every month. The scent of antiseptic always clung faintly to him, even when he left his white coat behind at the military hospital.
He, too, doted on Paul in ways that were small but certain: carrying him on his shoulders to the park, building elaborate wooden models together, or watching him fall asleep on the couch after a long day of play.
It was not until Paul turned four that worry began to settle in. He had never shown a sign of a quirk. The doctors concluded it was genetic from Kensuke’s side. They advised that Paul should continue to live normally. Elisa accepted it without argument, but Kensuke frowned in private.
Still, there were moments. Rare flashes Kensuke half-remembered. A time when a small toy rolled toward Paul without being touched. A paperweight shifting slightly on the table. It always happened when Paul was very young, just after crying himself to sleep. Too strange to ignore, yet too fleeting to prove. He began to wonder if exhaustion had made him imagine it. Perhaps memory had filled in details that reality did not support. But the doctors had been certain.
Paul’s life was gentle within the walls of their home. Outside, it was another matter.
The other children in the neighbourhood had quirks that flashed in their palms and shimmered in the air. They found ways to flaunt them in games at the park, bending rules and biology in ways Paul could never match. They had been friendly at first, but children were quick to measure worth by spectacle.
The neighborhood children had stopped asking Paul to join their games. At first, they said it was because he was “no fun,” then because he could not “do anything cool.”
Paul pretended not to care. Elisa noticed the changes in his expression, the way he walked slower when they passed the park.
It was raining that night. Heavy drops of water splattered on the window glass before rolling away into the abyss of the ledge.
Paul felt as gloomy as the weather outside and sat with his head against the glass. Looking wistfully at the scenery and clutching at his chest at a sudden cold feeling.
Kensuke noticed. He tried to speak up but shook his head and instead tapped Elisa on the shoulder.
Elisa looked up from her book and frowned at being interrupted. Kensuke nodded at Paul in silence and smiled guiltily. Elisa followed his eyes and turned back to flick Kensuke on the head at his cowardice. Kensuke shrugged.
She then coughed politely and asked loudly, “Paul, dear, is your chest hurting?”
Paul hummed but gave no actual reply.
“Paul…?”
Paul closed his eyes and finally whispered, “Mama. It feels cold and rainy like on the outside.”
“What do you mean?”
“It feels as if it’s raining in my chest too. Tears are falling down my heart. It feels so cold and lonely. Why do they hate me, mama?”
At the words, his fingers gripped the shirt even tighter as he started crying.
Kensuke and Elisa quietly got up and hugged him close between them.
“Baby, if it feels cold, it means you just need to warm it from outside. Ask your most favorite person in the world to hug you then. Promise?”
A sniffle.
“Promise.”
No one saw the light purple haze surrounding the little boy at his words.
Elisa tried to fill that void. She taught him to turn sadness into something beautiful. When anger pricked at him, she placed a brush in his hand. When disappointment weighed on him, she opened the piano lid. His small fingers learned the pattern of notes, and he began to play for her while she painted. His favourite was Clair de Lune, though the notes sometimes stumbled under his hands.
Kensuke watched from the side, his own heart torn between pride and concern. He had sworn to protect this boy, yet could not shield him from the eyes of a world that would always judge him by what he lacked. Still, the child smiled often at home, his laughter softening the hard edges Kensuke carried from the military.
The peace did not last.
Paul Verlaine, Age Seven.
It was just a few months after Paul turned seven, one crisp evening where the leaves scattered like fire across the streets. Paul went to the park, thinking only to watch the others from a bench. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a fight. Shouting, shoving, fists, and quirks bursting through the air like sparks.
They had seen him and their taunts sharpened.
“Quirkless,” one said, his voice dripping with mockery as his cheetah fangs grew sharp.
“Sub-human,” another added, his hands sparking faintly with harmless light meant only to intimidate.
“Not even human.”
Laughter followed. More insults. Some of the parents pulled their children back, but not to protect him. They stood on the other side, voices heavy with pity for Elisa and disdain for him.
“Such a shame… so beautiful, and yet…”
Their glances flicked from his blond hair, to his father’s blue eyes, as if the color itself was the cause.
Paul felt something rising in him, a knot of anger and shame that burned hotter with every breath. By the time he walked home, the fire was still inside him, coiled tight.
He stepped into the townhouse, silent. Elisa was in the kitchen, humming softly as she washed her hands. She turned when she saw him.
“Paul? You are home early. What happened?”
He did not answer. He dropped his schoolbag and went to his room, pulling a book from the shelf, pretending to read. His chest was tight. The words blurred. His heart still raced, and the pressure in his chest deepened. He told himself to breathe, to think of something else. But the insults clung to him, dragging him deeper into the storm inside his mind.
Something shifted and he could see a weird purple light around him. The air thickened. Objects trembled. The edges of pages fluttering, a pen rolling across the desk without touch. The pressure grew.
The floor creaked as Elisa came closer. She saw the pen lift from the desk.
“Paul…?”
He did not look up. His breath came quick and uneven. The book in his lap trembled. A small vase on the table tipped and rolled to the floor, but instead of shattering, it hovered inches above the carpet. Paul stared at it, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Then the pull grew stronger. The lamp near the wall lifted, cords stretching taut. The chairs slid across the floor with a low groan.
“Paul, look at me,” Elisa urged, kneeling before him. Her voice was calm, though her hair had begun to shift in the unseen currents filling the room.
“Mon ange. You are safe. I am here.”
Paul trembled before her. “I do not know what is happening,” Paul whispered, his voice breaking.
The pressure intensified. Objects floated and spun, drawn toward invisible points that shifted erratically. The air felt dense, crushing and lifting all at once. The wooden beams of the ceiling creaked as if under some great weight.
“Mama, what is happening?”
There was no answer but then there was a sharp inversion, a tearing sensation in the air. Gravity itself seemed to twist.
A soundless explosion tore through the room. The walls seemed to bow inward, the ceiling dipped, furniture groaned as if crushed under invisible weight. Books flew, glass cracked.
Paul hugged Elisa in fear and felt her shift in his arms, pulled toward a point that did not exist in the space between them. The sound was muffled, as if underwater, but the sight was clear: the distortion of the room bending toward her, pressing and crushing.
“NO!”
His scream tore through the chaos.
The walls groaned. The floorboards buckled.
The pressure twisted, pulling inward and then snapping outward. For a moment, everything floated in purple: shards of glass, torn pages, his mother’s hair in the air. Then the vectors inverted.
Kensuke arrived at the doorway, grocery bags slipping from his hands, the sound of glass shattering against the tile. His voice was a hoarse cry. “Elisa! Paul!”
He ran forward, shouting both their names. Paul’s cries were hoarse, his face wet with tears, his arms clinging desperately to Elisa. The pull twisted again, and she gasped. Her hand stayed on the back of Paul’s head, shielding him even as the invisible forces bent the world around them.
Then the weight came down. It was not the weight of a falling object, but the crushing, absolute force of gravity turned against its own laws. Elisa’s body folded inward, her breath catching in a sound that Paul would never forget.
CRACK-K!
And then.
Silence.
The objects dropped. The air cleared. Kensuke was on the floor with them, his hands trying to find what could be saved, his mind refusing to understand what he already knew.
Paul’s vision was a blur of colours, not from his mother’s quirk, but from his own tears. He did not understand the power that had torn through the room. He only understood the stillness of her hand, the absence of her voice.
He was hugging his parents but he felt colder than before.
His mama couldn’t lie! But why was he still feeling cold? Why was she so cold??????
Kensuke held them both. The weight of his arms was solid, but his eyes were far away. Somewhere behind the grief, something else took root, the first shadow of the thought that would grow in him, changing everything in the years to come.
Outside, the wind carried the sound of leaves scraping along the street. Inside, Paul Verlaine’s world had collapsed into a single, unbearable truth.
Paul’s screams of horror and grief filled the room for the entire night.
(AN: I was going to leave this here, but…I felt too awful so another part for you guys.)
Paul Verlaine, Age Seven.
The funeral was a quiet affair beneath a sky heavy with swollen, somber clouds. Kensuke stood with stiff shoulders, clutching the folded white cloth that had once covered Elisa’s body, now pressed against his chest.
The sharp scent of damp earth mingled with the faint aroma of Elisa’s favorite jasmine tea lingering in the room they had left behind. Faces blurred past him, military officials, and neighbors, all offering condolences that echoed like distant thunder.
No one dared speak to him directly.
When the coffin was lowered, Kensuke felt something knot in his chest not grief in its raw form, but the tightening that comes when you realize you have nowhere to put it. Grief needed direction, and all of his was already tangled with Paul.
He watched as Paul, small and pale beside him, refused to meet anyone’s eyes. The boy’s blond hair was messier than usual, and those bright blue eyes were dulled by confusion and sorrow.
Paul said nothing. He had only clutched the corner of his father’s coat, afraid to actually put his fingers on someone. Kensuke’s eyes stung as more tears welled up. He put his hand on Paul’s downturned head and gently ran it through his hair, ruffling it slightly.
He had a promise to fulfill after all.
He told the military it was a leave for personal loss after an unprecedented incident. The phrasing was clean enough to be approved without question. They didn’t need to know that in those first days, he spent his hours arranging for Elisa’s burial, then the rest obsessively calling contacts, running Paul through every diagnostic facility that would take them.
At each place, the verdict was the same: no quirk detected.
Genetic sequencing showed nothing irregular. Physical scans were normal as they had been three years ago. The power wasn’t a quirk. It wasn’t anything in the registry.
The days blurred into corridors of antiseptic light, humming machines, and Paul’s silent compliance. He rarely asked questions now whether out of guilt, fear, or something else, Kensuke couldn’t say. But every time he looked at his son, he saw the instant before the explosion, and the way Elisa’s body had crumpled.
That memory didn’t fade. It clotted.
Paul’s grief on the other hand was a silent storm. He missed her warm hugs and the gentle music that danced through their home when she painted, always coaxing him to try the piano. But those days were suddenly gone.
Elisa had left behind two husks of men close to her. Paul…and Kensuke.
Kensuke sat in the sterile consultation room of yet another facility, Paul beside him, fingers nervously twisting the sleeve of his father’s coat. The fluorescent lights above cast a clinical glare, sharp and unyielding. Paul’s gaze drifted to the window where autumn leaves fell like faded promises.
"We have scanned everything: genome, epigenome, neurological patterns. Nothing fits any known quirk profile," the lead specialist said, voice clipped, eyes tired.
Kensuke’s jaw tightened. Quirkless, they said. Yet the destruction, the purple explosion, the gravity pull: it was impossible for this to be nothing.
Paul stared at the wall, his thoughts distant.
‘Did I hurt her?’
The question spiraled endlessly, raw and unrelenting. He wished he could rewind time and be a different son. But he was trapped inside a body that betrayed him, a power that betrayed those he loved.
Their next meeting with yet another doctor was different.
It was a quiet rumor that reached Pan first. Not official reports, just a thread in a circle of specialists who tracked anomalies. An officer, high-ranking, taking a boy with no quirk from lab to lab, chasing an answer that didn’t exist.
Pan had always been a collector of such anomalies. Not for their own sake, but for the gaps they left in the framework of known Ability. When he found Kensuke, it wasn’t in a lab but in the narrow lobby of a private clinic, Kensuke half in shadow, was scanning a medical report.
“You have been busy, Doctor Kashimura,” Pan said, voice mild.
Kensuke looked up sharply. The man before him was lean, dressed without flair, but there was something in the way his gaze lingered, as though he had already read the results in Kensuke’s hands.
“I know you,” Kensuke said after a pause. “Doctor Pan deFaun. Research division.”
“Please call me Pan and I am not a part of them anymore,” Pan replied. “I have…broadened my field.” His eyes flicked toward the closed door where Paul waited. “May I speak with you?”
Kensuke had been tipped off about a researcher rumored to straddle the shadowy edges of modern science, and used Paul’s clinical tests in the area as an excuse to lure him out. Which he did.
They met in a private study, shelves heavy with medical tomes and obscure texts on quirk theory and soul science.
Pan’s eyes were sharp, calculating, yet held a curious flicker of something like empathy. He began softly.
The first conversations were cautious. Pan asked more than he told. How had the incident occurred? What exactly had Paul been doing? Was there any precedent in the family?
Kensuke gave clipped, factual answers. He didn’t like strangers circling the wound, but Pan’s questions felt purposeful, not like the idle curiosity of most specialists.
Pan then slapped a file on the table, it was an average beige file, but the CONFIDENTIAL marked in red across it made it anything but normal.
“I have two theories. This one just has the higher chance of possibility in our world.”
Kensuke sat up straight. This was new. No other doctor had given his situation a second thought, and Pan was giving him two answers!
Pan smiled thinly as he propped his chin on his crossed fingers on the table. “There are rumors about a demon lord who rules from the shadows.”
Kensuke mutely listened.
“The demon lord is said to have the quirk to give and take quirks. This can happen at any time at any age and doesn't affect the physical aspect of the person: like it shows with your son.”
“Really, so, it is a quirk?”
“I am not completely sure. So, if you could answer this with complete honesty: Has Paul ever exhibited the ability to control objects like he did that day. And I mean before the age of four.”
Kensuke hesitated but with no option left said, “I thought I was hallucinating as it was always late at night, but there was always something or the other being pulled towards him when was exhausted. Does that clear anything?”
Eventually Pan leaned back, fingers steepled and gave a sly smile which reeked of success. “Now, I am completely sure about this. It is not All For One, it is not a quirk at all.”
Kensuke almost laughed, bitter. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you know, but you don’t know what to call it,” Pan said. “Abilities operate on different principles. Some are linked to a vessel’s biology, but others bypass genetic lineage entirely and can be found attached to a person’s soul. They embed themselves in ways our quirk models can’t parse. When they interact with certain trauma or heightened emotion, they can…flare.”
The word landed heavily. Flare. A clean, detached way to name the moment that had killed Elisa.
Pan’s voice softened. “If I am correct, your son carries something potent. Possibly too potent for his current vessel.”
Kensuke’s eye twitched at that. “Paul is my son. I want you to respect his humanity during this collaboration.”
Smiling placatly, Pan promised. “Sure.”
Pan had always been interested in Abilities and their place in the modern world. He knew what difference they had with the generic quirks, but there was something deeper he wanted and he found it within a grieving father. A fellow scientist and he could use that. He could also use the conveniently available son, with a strong gravity Ability, that came with him~
He had placed several of his men around the many clinics to get word of a ‘certain researcher’ to reach Kensuke Kashimura. He needed Kensuke’s connections and medical prowess to advance his plateaued data.
And now, he would have that and a test subject.
The visits began after that. Pan would arrive at whatever lab Kensuke had booked for Paul’s Ability testing, strolling past the staff as if the place were his own. They spoke over readouts, Pan tracing patterns in the data, pointing out anomalies that Kensuke hadn’t considered.
“Here, the energy signature. See how it spikes? Not like a quirk output, which tapers with exhaustion. This keeps rising until—”
“Until it ruptures,” Kensuke finished.
Pan nodded. “Precisely. That’s what worries me. If the vessel is already under strain, repeated activations could cause systemic failure.”
Kensuke’s jaw tightened. “He is a boy. Not a vessel.”
“A boy,” Pan agreed mildly. “But also the bearer of something extraordinary. The two facts don’t cancel each other.”
Meanwhile, Paul watched from his side of the glass. Sometimes Kensuke would join him after these talks, explaining in simplified terms that they were helping him.
“Paul, you must understand. Your Ability…it is dangerous. You cannot let it control you. You are stronger than this power but only if you learn to master it.”
“Master it? I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t want to hurt Mother. Why do I have to be strong? Why can’t I just be a normal boy?”
Kensuke’s voice broke for the first time in months, “Because the world isn’t kind to boys like you. You were born to carry a burden none should bear. This is why I am doing what I must: because I love you. Even if it means breaking you to make you whole.”
Paul would nod, but his eyes followed Pan whenever the man passed.
The days settled into a rhythm. Pan fed Kensuke theories about Ability structures, about the rare phenomenon called singularity: when an Ability evolved beyond control or containment, feeding on itself until it reached an unstoppable state. Most singularities, Pan explained, destroyed their host.
“Your son’s case is unique,” Pan said one evening, sliding a chart across the table. “The energy pattern is stable until emotional interference. That means it might be forced to evolve without lethal consequences.”
Kensuke studied the data, every line a quiet threat. “And you think you can force it?”
“I think,” Pan said, “we can build a vessel worthy of it.”
There was one thing Pan chose not to tell Kensuke. Ability singularity occurred on two occasions: when two abilities of opposite or same compatibility clashed with each other, or if an Ability user used their Ability on themselves.
Singularities are the only form of an Ability that is capable of existing infinitely and outlasting their users as mass energy and thus had the potential to become militarized weapons.
However, Ability users who ‘achieved’ such singularity always destroyed their bodies, he hadn’t lied to Kensuke, he had ten dead bodies in the morgue as proof.
He did lie about Paul’s Ability being an out of control singularity. It was a completely safe and neutral gravity manipulation Ability which only exploded when it did due to loss of control and practice.
But, Pan’s research was on creating artificial singularities which could harness the infinite power of singularities without destroying the host.
Paul would be the next in line in testing with the unknowing help from his father.
Pan’s voice broke through Kensuke’s spiraling thoughts again.
“There is a possibility that your son’s body may not be capable of sustaining this singularity long-term. The strain is too great. I have been researching methods to preserve and transfer singularities.”
Kensuke blinked. "Transfer? Preserve? What do you mean?"
Pan smiled thinly, eyes glinting. “If Paul’s singularity could be stabilized through a quirk-based body, his abilities could evolve exponentially. He could become a being of unimaginable power. Not just a child trapped by his own strength.”
Kensuke got lost in thought as he remembered watching a certain Doomsday Quirk Singularity Theory seminar by Doctor Garaki. That humans would reach a point in evolution that their genetic bodies would mutate and completely adapt to their quirk, and be unlike a human being anymore.
If Pan’s research was true then a body embedded with the pinnacle of the quirked DNA would completely adapt to a soul merged with an Ability singularity.
His eyes widened. His son would be saved completely from his unmanageable Ability! He looked down at the golden ring he wore around his neck. Always keeping the promise.
The first time Pan mentioned The Secret of the Gentle Forest, it was almost in passing, a name woven into a broader discussion. “It’s an Ability of my own. Rarely used. It allows a soul to be…relocated. Accustomed to a new body, if their original is no longer viable.”
Kensuke froze. “You’re talking about moving him.”
“As a contingency,” Pan said. “But your son’s survival depends on this. His body cannot hold the gravity inside much longer. I am offering you hope.”
Kensuke didn’t realize how deeply the thought would root itself. He began to imagine Paul in a new form: stronger, immune to the strain, and safe from collapse.
Although, it also became easier to think of Paul as a vessel instead of son. Easier to picture the boy not as he was, but as he could be made.
Paul overheard pieces of conversations he could barely understand. The word clone echoed strangely inside him.
‘Another body? Am I not enough? Will they make me something else?’
Paul sat quietly in the corner of the lab Kensuke reluctantly allowed. His thoughts came like whispers in a hollow cave.
‘I want mama. I want the papa who held me before mama died.’
His tears had all dried up, with no body in sight to look and comfort him during his grief. He thought back to the kids in the park who always talked about becoming like All Might.
‘I am not a hero. Aren't heroes the ones who protect people. Will a hero save me? It is getting so cold here, mama. It is lonely.’
Their talks grew longer, more technical. Pan spoke of cloning protocols, of designing bodies with quirked foundations engineered to tolerate singularities. Kensuke contributed his own expertise until their collaboration felt inevitable.
But Pan was careful. He never pressed too hard. He let Kensuke arrive at each conclusion himself, only nudging the pieces into place.
“You see,” Pan said one night, standing over a schematic of an artificial vessel, “a standard clone can hold a singularity once, but it burns out. If we weave the singularity into the vessel’s quirk architecture from the start, it will adapt. Evolve. Potentially without limit. We need to do it now before the Ability settles fully in the vessel’s soul.”
Kensuke’s voice was low. “That’s dangerous.”
“All evolution is,” Pan replied. “But it’s better than watching him die by degrees.”
Paul’s thoughts roamed dark corridors.
‘Papa’s eyes are different now. He doesn't look me in the eyes anymore. Does he hate me?’
One evening, Kensuke finally spoke to Paul alone, the weight of months pressing in his voice.
“Paul, you must understand. What we are doing—it is for you. To make you stronger. To protect you. I am sorry it feels like I am not here, but I promise, this is for you.”
Paul looked up, blue eyes shining with a sorrow too deep for his years. “I do not want to be stronger if it means losing you, papa.”
Kensuke’s breath hitched. This was for his son, his little angel. But the chasm between them widened, silent and growing.
‘No. I can’t afford to break. Not now. If I can’t save him, then I will shape him. I will make him strong enough to survive the storm—whatever the cost! This will protect him for sure.’
That night Kensuke went to find Pan in his study. He needed to know if he was on the right path. Elisa’s last gift to him wouldn’t be destroyed at his hands.
He knocked on the door once and rushed in without waiting for a response, the door was always open to him.
“I remember the night Elisa died and that I swore I would save him. But now, looking at this…this hollow shell, I wonder what I am doing. Are we raising a child, or manufacturing a god of destruction, Pan?”
Pan’s voice was cold, clinical and almost dismissive as he sighed, “Kensuke, grief clouds your judgment. Paul isn’t just a child anymore: he’s the future of singularity evolution. The strain his body endures is the necessary price of progress. You cannot cling to sentimentality if you wish to surpass human limits.”
“Progress? Is it progress when a boy can no longer feel safe with people trying to help him?”
Pan leaned in, “If you accept this path, Paul won’t just survive, he’ll dominate. You wanted power. Now wield it.”
Kensuke’s voice hitched and his throat closed up.
“I wanted my son back.”
However, the thorns had already taken root deep inside him.
Paul began to fade from the center of Kensuke’s thoughts. Where once he would sit beside his son during tests, he now stood with Pan, observing from the control room. Where once he had asked Paul how he was feeling, he now asked Pan if the data was aligning with projections.
When Paul spoke, it was to ask when they could go home. Kensuke told him the lab was home for now. He said it without thinking, and didn’t notice the way the boy’s mouth tightened.
The shift came quietly. Kensuke no longer flinched when Pan referred to Paul as “the vessel.” He found himself correcting Pan only rarely. The grief he had carried like a raw wound was scabbing over: not with healing, but with a coldness that felt almost like relief.
One night, after a particularly unstable test, Kensuke stood before Paul’s containment room. The boy sat on the floor, head down, a figure in too-bright light.
The turning point came quietly, without ceremony.
In a sterile lab filled with humming machines, Kensuke handed Paul a thin black card. Stamped boldly:
Black No. 12
“You’re not worth the name Verlaine,” Kensuke said, voice void of warmth. “From now on, you’re Black No. 12.”
You were responsible for her death, murderer. You do not deserve that name.
But Kensuke was kind enough to keep these words in his mouth, but it showed on his face.
Paul looked up slowly, his lips trembled, but no tears came. He was already too empty, too distant.
In the observation bay, Pan watched without comment, only the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth.
Notes:
It was just going to be a 2k chapter...but it doubled on its own~
I am putting in as much research jargon I could find and bullshitting my way out of this theory. Bear with me~I find it funny that I accidentally gave Kensuke the reverse Endevour treatment.
BSD and MHA have too many child experimentation issues oml.
Also, I found out that Verlaine wrote Clair de Lune and I can't stop playing it in the background while writing this!!!
Verlaine also wrote Tears Fall in My Heart, which inspired me to kinda base Verlaine's Ability name and scene on it...coz its so fucking sad and beautiful!
Chapter 4: Brutal with a Chance of Love I
Summary:
"You'll never find out what happened
The day I turned seventeen
The rise of a king and the fall of a queen, oh
Seventeen (Seventeen)"
- Marina
Notes:
Quick note: all tag warnings start to apply from now on.
Also, I am pretty sure I didn't grasp Paul's psyche here correctly. I haven't met someone like this irl nor did I research on this topic in depth... I truly would just stop writing and start bawling if I do that.
Forgive me if the characters seem too OOC.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
26 Years Ago,
Paul Verlaine, Age Seven-Ten.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. My parents love me.
Just a few months ago, I used to live in a cozy, sunlit house with a small backyard that had a tyre swing tied to a tree. I remember papa laughing as he pushed me high, high, and high on those, while mama made braised fennel for dinner.
They were so yummy…!
… I can never taste them again.
I stepped forward and touched the glass window in front of me.
Now, I live in a cage.
A stone, and a glass one. Both are as horrible as the other.
The stone one is a stark space with a barred window, high on the wall. It allowed some outside light but it also allowed the bars to cast shadows on the floor, creating the visual reminder of my confinement everyday.
I slept at night with my back to the door and facing the window. Sometimes if I am lucky I can get a glimpse of blinking stars. If those were really stars and not just the fluorescent tube-lights from the hallways.
A wooden bed with a thin mattress, with a small desk and swing out seat was bolted in the room. Papa didn’t want me to get any more education, “Lest I get ideas.”
But Pan was insistent.
I was as happy as any other boy to get homework on top of everything else, but they were good distractions. And there was no penalty for failing this.
And finally on both sides of the door a nameplate my name burned in the wood, “Black No. 12.”
That had confused me, at first, then I shrugged it off, thinking it was the name of the room.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. My parents love me.
I was sent back to this dreary room to sleep every night after my training was done. The rest of my time was spent in the glass room as I called it, or the laboratories.
It felt the same as any other clinic lab, but as time went on the time I spent with papa decreased and Pan increased.
I don’t like him. He is creepy.
Pan had this look in his eyes that made him look like the crazy scientist from cartoons, but he only did that when he talked about me and my ability.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. My parents love me.
Even as I stand in the middle of the glass room, created especially for me, it felt lonely. There are so many people running around wearing the same white coats as papa and Pan. They sometimes carried research paper and came to look at me through the glass surrounding me. Other times they came inside the room to take blood from me.
Tube after tube, I tried to talk to them, but they shushed me for disturbing their important work.
But weren’t they working on helping me?
They all had the same eyes as Pan, they looked through me, seeing something beyond me.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. My parents love me.
The first thing they took from me was my name.
It vanished from the walls, from the files, from the lips of those who once pretended to know me. Paul Verlaine was erased in less than a day. Now I was only Black No. 12, stamped in red on my medical chart, the steel cuffs that closed around my wrists each morning.
Even my own thoughts treated Paul like a forbidden word. A hidden object in the mind. Something dangerous to keep.
But even still I had to remind myself of this day after day.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. My parents love me.
“You don’t deserve the name.”
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. My parents lov—
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human.
My papa hates me.
The laboratory was a facility designed for extraction and conditioning. The walls smelled faintly of disinfectant and metal shavings. Every room was lit too brightly, as though the light itself was meant to strip away weakness. The hum of air filtration never stopped. It had the same pitch as the low note of a cello, stretched and held without release.
My days began with shock tolerance training. Cold silver coils were wrapped around my torso. When the current hit, my muscles seized until the joints felt they might dislocate. I learned not to bite down too hard, because the molars would crack.
From there I was escorted to the immersion chamber. The water was black and heavily chlorinated. They held me under for calculated intervals, long enough for the eyes to burn and for thought to slow into something primal and thrashing. The moment air was granted again, it was stolen for another plunge.
The doctors spoke into headsets, their words reduced to clipped syllables through the glass:
"Increase the duration."
"Observe the reflex decay curve."
"Black No. 12 will adapt. It must adapt."
I remember looking up at them through the water, seeing Pan’s face, expressionless except for the slight lift of one eyebrow when my pulse monitor steadied after the fourth submersion.
This tested my Ability, Tears Fall in my Heart, and my ability to control it.
I hated it, it killed mama. I loved it, it protected me from papa.
They called it reinforcement.
I called it erasure.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. A hero will save me.
It was when it hurt and ached the most that I remembered what the other boys wanted to be when they grew up: Pro-heroes.
‘Is there a pro-hero who will save me? Do they even know I am here?’
‘Will a pro-hero come to get me out of here someday?’
‘I know a pro-hero will come to get me out!’
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. A hero will come save me!
In the evenings, they moved me to the combat hall. The floor panels retracted to reveal moving obstacles: steel walls sliding toward one another, hydraulic rams slamming forward with enough force to snap reinforced bone.
If I was too slow, the pain was swift and corrective.
If I was fast enough, they only made it harder next time.
Pan liked to watch during the combat trials. He would stand behind the glass, eyes flicking to the monitors where my vitals were nothing but coded sequences. To him, I wasn’t a boy, I was a program in a human-shaped shell, one he could debug and overwrite.
Papa was there less often, but when he was, he stood at Pan’s shoulder. His eyes did not meet mine. They were fixed on the monitors.
Papa was no longer my father. He was Doctor Kashimura, the Surgeon General of the military army. A man who had once knelt to pick me up when I scraped my knee, now calculating exactly how far my body could be pushed before it broke.
I am Paul Verlaine. I am a human. A hero will save me.
The day they made me kill my own body, I stopped keeping track of time.
I am Paul Verlaine. A hero will surely come to save me.
Doctor Kashimura had been there, calm, watching as if it were a science demonstration. Pan had spoken the command string aloud, The Secret of the Gentle Forest, and my body—my real body—stood in front of me, twitching under the metal powder’s influence.
My hands moved before I could scream.
There was a knife.
A wet sound.
Then the floor caught me when my knees failed.
When I woke, I was… here.
The frame they gave me looked human in the mirror, but the skin was too flawless, the eyes just slightly too reflective. I could feel the control sequences humming underneath, like a hive under my ribs. Every movement was cataloged and sent to the consoles in Pan’s chamber.
The first night, I told myself:
‘Hold on. A hero will come.’
Slowly after three years I started losing hope.
I am Paul Verlaine.
And no hero had come to save me. There must be no heroes in the world anymore, just a myth of the past.
Every night I tried hugging myself but it gave me no more warmth than the thin blanket.
Why was it warm that day? Is it because this body is fake, I can never be warm?
The research was not only physical. Training bled into experiments. They started talking about Brutalization.
My ten-year-old-brain couldn’t comprehend what everyone was saying. That night I overheard Pan explaining to papa that it, Guivre, was my real power that my previous body was unable to withstand. Brutalization was just the byproduct of my state with all restraints of humanity removed.
But as I looked down at my hands I still didn’t get it. Brutalization felt weird and unnatural to me. It felt written into my new body. I clenched and unclenched the fists. They felt as fake as the blood running through this body—through me.
Pan’s control over me felt like a leash, his Ability had nothing to do with the metal powder he created, but it made my mind go all hazy and sleepy as my body continued to follow his words, his codes.
I am Paul Verlaine.
They began introducing the powder in controlled doses. The scent was faintly metallic, but it burned at the back of the throat and spread like static through the limbs.
Pan’s hands in latex gloves, the black powder curling into my lungs, a chant etched into my head like a commandment. They repeated it into my ears until my mind learned to speak it without prompting:
Your hate, your set torpors, your weaknesses, your spite,
All the brutalities you suffered long ago,
You return to us, all without evil, O Night,
In an excess of blood that every month will flow.
I didn’t understand the words at first. Later, I wished I hadn’t.
When the chant left my mouth, the world went dark. Not the dark of closed eyes and hazy blankness of the powder, but the vast, airless dark of falling into something bottomless. The thing inside me— Guivre —awoke. It had no voice, no human thought.
My Guivre persona didn’t have organs, but I could feel it. A constant, patient weight inside me.
Pulsing.
Growing.
It thought in impact, in destruction. When I woke after those sessions, I would find claw-marks in the reinforced walls, floors split, air still tasting like ozone.
Sometimes there was blood.
I never knew if it was mine.
I am Black No. 12.
After that, I wasn’t sure if I was human. I had stopped wondering. My thoughts were neat, bracketed, stripped of warmth. Black No. 12 did not get tired. Black No. 12 did not miss Elisa. Black No. 12 executed sequences.
By the second month, I began to forget the sound of my own voice when it was not reciting a sequence or answering a command. My thoughts were trimmed down to their most functional state. Hunger. Obedience. Reaction.
Yet sometimes, when the drills ended and the hallways fell silent, my fingers would start moving in the air, ghosting over keys that weren’t there…four rising notes, then three falling. Clair de Lune.
And for a heartbeat, I would see her. Elisa. Not her whole face, just the curve of her cheek, the soft rhythm of her breath when she hummed while cooking. The image would falter and break apart before I could hold it.
Pan noticed once. He did not comment. The next day the powder doses were doubled.
The music stopped for weeks.
I am Black No. 12.
I am Black No. 12.
The doctors became less like people and more like predators who fed on my performance. They spoke of me as though I were a valuable animal they were perfecting.
"Response time is increasing. This is promising."
"Amplify exposure to Guivre’s manifestations."
"It must become unrecognizable from the child it was."
I wanted to tell them that part was already complete.
Black No. 12, Age Eleven.
I am Black No. 12.
Black No. 12 could channel Brutalization and hold for more than two hours. Doctor Kashimura commented Black No. 12 had become more than human with the seamless merging of Ability and quirk-enhanced body.
Black No. 12 was given a book, Fleurs du Mal, by Charles Baudelaire as a reward.
Black No. 12, Age Twelve.
I am Black No. 12.
Black No. 12 was punished for misfiring the assault rifle. It had to undergo sleep deprivation training again, this time for a month.
Black No. 12 would never believe the intern girl again. She had given Black No. 12 false information regarding the mission and faced punishment.
Black No. 12 felt betrayed. It also squished the feeling deep inside, as Black No. 12 was not supposed to feel anything. Black No. 12 was a perfect weapon.
Black No. 12, Age Thirteen.
I am Black No. 12.
Black No. 12 had finished studying all high school subjects. It had expressed interest in learning Physics as a way to improve its Ability by looking at different angles.
Black No. 12 was re-introduced to electroconvulsive training, but Pan agreed to give more books in the STEM field.
Black No. 12, Age Fourteen.
I am Black No. 12.
Black No. 12 sat on the bed on one of those nights where all felt overwhelming. It quietly tapped on the bed to mimic playing the piano.
Black No. 12 froze in terror and shock when a rustle of cloth was heard in the night. It slowly turned around and saw the door still closed. So, it slowly got up and slipped under the blanket to give the illusion of being asleep the whole time.
This had happened many times, so Black No. 12 had stopped feeling the cold sweat and the adrenaline rush. Black No. 12 had complete control over the body, but childish terror still persisted and that irked and annoyed it.
Black No. 12 is to be perfect.
21 Years Ago,
Black No. 12, Age Fifteen.
I am Black No. 12.
Eight years had passed since Kashimura Kensuke brought his son to the hidden laboratory in Lorraine under the ruined forts.
Lost in research and the newly opened world of Abilities, Kashimura didn’t blink an eye on the day his son died. He looked at the clone with not-so-hidden scorn in his eyes.
‘Just a means to an end. That’s all it is.’
Black No. 12 looked back with no expression on its face. Its blue eyes darkened with apathy, as it looked down at the draft material containing the itinerary for the day.
Black No. 12 had turned fifteen last month and despite not being human, it showed in the way it grew up. There was a subtle shift in its stance, a broadening of its shoulders that spoke of newfound strength, no longer a boy, but not quite a man either.
Its voice had started to settle into a deeper register, but no one on the research team was sure, as it barely interacted with them without commands. Its hands were no longer small and delicate like Elisa, reflecting the growth that had transformed its frame.
Kashimura’s eyebrow twitched slightly when he started to notice the similarities between them as Black No. 12’s height increased and soon matched him.
I am Black No. 12.
By then, the glass rooms were the only world Black No. 12 remembered. Its voice was flat, and movements efficient. When Pan entered, it didn’t look away from the wall unless commanded.
The corridors had no scent except for antiseptic.
The walls reflected only the shape it had become: pale skin, too-perfect symmetry, eyes faintly glassy from the interface lines running into its skull.
The internal hum of the control sequences was constant, like a second heartbeat that was not its own.
Black No. 12 was chained inside one of those glass rooms as usual. Others had gone out for dinner and left him. Although, it was a first there was no one to keep a watch.
When suddenly with the world outside celebrating Victory in Europe Day, the intruder alarms blared loudly.
The pitch was sharper, faster. Boots echoed through the hallway, but they were not the heavy, ordered steps of the guards.
A shadow slipped between the flickering corridor lights. The figure moved with precision, neutralizing guards without killing them.
The man, for it was a man who looked barely older than Black No. 12, moved like a shadow given shape.
Long, dark hair brushed his shoulders, and his steady, golden eyes found the fake blue through the glass of the containment chamber, and something about them was… still.
Not pity. Not horror. Just recognition.
As apathetic blue looked into the cold yellow, something flickered in them.
Through the turmoil of explosions and blasts throughout the base, Pan barked commands into the comm system. Doctor Kashimura was gone. Black No. 12 would later learn he had already left for Japan.
The intruder reached for the chamber controls. The machine that fed the metal powder into Black No. 12’s body erupted in a flash of yellow and golden cubes.
“Illumination!”
Using his Ability, the man made quick work of removing the locks placed on the other.
Black No. 12 felt the sequences that kept it leashed unravel, like threads snapping all at once. The hypnotizing hum under its skin also went silent, lines of code unraveling until all it heard was silence.
Pan’s voice cut off mid-command.
The shackles inside Black No. 12 had broken.
Black No. 12 silently looked up at the other man as he clanged the door open, his face lit up in the golden glow of his Ability.
Shiny. So pretty!
The golden-eyed pretty boy stepped into the chamber.
“My name is Arthur Rimbaud. You will come with me,” he said, voice even, as though stating a fact rather than an invitation.
Something inside it shifted. Its legs moved without order for the first time in years and followed Rimbaud away from this place.
They passed Pan on the way out. It didn’t remember crossing the glass. It didn’t remember the exact moment its hands closed around his throat.
Only the stillness after.
It was only its second murder, there were many more to come.
Before reality could set in, Rimbaud was already pulling Black No. 12 toward the corridor. The facility shuddered, collapsing around them, and they finally made it out.
Outside, in the cold night air, the man placed something into its hands: a black bowler hat, heavier than it should have been. The lining was threaded with thin metal channels that pulsed faintly against its fingers.
"You wear this," he said, voice clipped but steady. "It’s made from the same metal powder those researchers used. You keep control of yourself. No one else commands you."
Black No. 12 turned it over, feeling the weight. It put it on. The brim shadowed its wet, blue eyes.
For the first time since Black No. 12 was seven, the voice in its head wasn’t Pan’s.
It was Black No. 12’s.
Rimbaud led it to a hidden tunnel he had used to creep into the facility and retraced the steps back to his getaway vehicle.
After a long walk, once they settled in the Jeep and started their journey to his headquarters, he asked.
“So what’s your name?”
Black No. 12 turned its face to stare at him in incredulity and said, “You captured me without knowing what I am?”
Rimbaud made a scoffing noise with his throat, “I know my mission objectives, but I want to know the name of the person I rescued.”
He gave Black No. 12 a look at his words.
Black No. 12's heart rate increased slightly, which worried it.
A person? Rimbaud is dangerous.
“Black No. 12. That’s what I am called.”
Rimbaud harshly pressed his foot on the brake and brought the car to a standstill. His face was unreadable but anger was slowly showing up.
“I want to know the name you want to be called. Not what those bastards called you!”
Black No. 12 gasped in disbelief.
Am I allowed?
Black No. 12 stayed silent, looking down at its hands as the fingers clenched and unclenched, not daring to say a word.
It startled in surprise when a hand reached out and grasped said fingers.
A whisper soon echoed through the car, “Hey, I don’t know what happened in there. But, I do know that you would rather be called something else that would mean something to you.”
Black No. 12 slowly looked up, and hesitantly asked, “I won’t be punished?”
Rimbaud swallowed a gulp and shook his head. "No."
Black No. 12 closed its eyes.
It thought back to the only memory of Clair de Lune it had, the only precious memory it could remember of mama.
“Mon ange! Here, try playing with me. Sit here baby.”
“Mama, it’s too big for me!”
A laughter tinkled out within the room as Elisa picked up her boy and sat him in her lap.
“Sit here then. Do you like this now, Paul ?”
The boy grinned up at the woman, “Yes!”
“Paul.”
The boy opened his blue eyes with tears streaking down his cheeks.
“Call me Paul Verlaine.”
Rimbaud stared back at his face with mixed emotions, then finally settled on giving a shy smile back.
“Nice to meet you, Verlaine.”
Notes:
I had like 3 arcs planned.....and random characters and plotlines started adding themselves to my story for no reason. why???
Also, I realized Musutafu city from MHA is based on Hamamatsu city, and the Suribachi city in Yokohama refers to the port from the Naka ward in Yokohama. Did that add 2 unneeded additional plots to my head. Also, yes. I have like a long list of bullet points on what is going to happen and how....its the fucking writing and execution that makes me angry.
Me, a reader: FUCKING HELL WHAT IS HAPPENING NEXT in this chapter????
Also me, the author: How do I write him crying?? **gives up**
Chapter 5: Brutal with a Chance of Love II
Summary:
Domestic bliss and more as Paul finds family.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
18 years ago, in Camden Borough, London.
Paul Verlaine, Age Fifteen-Eighteen.
Rimbaud drove the Jeep all the way to the airport where a private jet was waiting for them. En route, he briefly mentioned being a member of Europol, one of Europe’s Ability organizations.
As they settled in for a long night, Rimbaud explained to Paul the ins and outs of his ‘employer.’
“Just as the Pro-Heroes are recognized by their government licenses, Ability organizations worldwide can operate legally under any banner: research, military, small agencies, and even criminal groups, if they are able to obtain a Silver Oracle license from the government.”
Here, Rimbaud paused to take a bite of their flight dinner. Paul continued to look at him as the other chewed.
They sat opposite each other, Rimbaud had opted for the fish while Paul had a light soup. Paul hadn’t uttered a single word since leaving the facility, opting to stay in silence gauging how the other behaved, and then moving in a manner that reduced his presence.
He chose to sit in silence as he listened to Rimbaud, he needed to know what irked the other so he could avoid that beforehand.
Paul didn’t like to be disciplined.
Rimbaud saw Paul’s hand tightly clenching the spoon whilst not eating, he didn’t want to draw attention so he just cleared his throat and continued, “I don’t know the criteria for obtaining such a license, but there are at most fifty organizations in total. I know of only four of them, the rest are hidden in plain sight.”
At this he raised his hand to show two fingers, “Europe has two of them. Europol is based in France, its users are a mash up from various European countries, and the Order of the Clock Tower which is based in England and under the Queen and her right hand directly.”
Paul nodded as he took in all the information and quietly asked, “So we are going to the France HQ?”
Rimbaud shook his head, “It’s not safe for you. We are going to London. Considering what the mission was, you have been considered a special case and under both organizations to operate in Europe, for now.”
Paul didn’t know what this cold feeling wafting inside him was.
“So, they both would be controlling me?”
Rimbaud looked taken aback, but not surprised.
He sighed, "Technically, the Clock Tower had arranged it as an unspoken bargain between the British establishment and Europol. You and I are under an “independent assignment”.”
But Paul knew that they were still inside a larger cage. This one simply had no visible bars.
The rain in London was different from France. Softer, but more constant, like a city that never fully dried. The two hours in the flight were not relaxing and the wait in the car to reach the headquarters was even more stressful.
When they stepped inside, the building was empty, aside from a young blond woman with refined features. She held a pipe in her hand, which she must have been smoking while waiting for them, Paul mused.
She smiled once she saw them and waved, “Welcome to the Clock Tower. My name is Agatha Christie, nice to meet you~”
Rimbaud courtesied and Paul was quick to mimic him, it felt weird.
Was she a royalty? She doesn’t look like it. Paul frowned, but maybe working with the Queen would technically make you a noble.
Agatha daintily laughed, “My my, you understand English well it seems. Well, no time to waste.” She took out a piece of paper and dropped it in front of Rimbaud, who used his golden cubes to trap it in the air.
“This is the place you have been given. The instructions for the next step will be emailed to you, the details are placed in the house.”
Here, she sighed and the smile vanished from her face, “I wish you luck.”
Well, that was dark.
Paul watched as Rimbaud hailed a taxi and sat inside following after him. As the car started to move, Rimbaud nudged him, muttering, “I have heard it’s always grey in London, try not to blend in with it.”
Paul looked into his gold eyes and wondered if this side of him was practiced as it was very—
“Cute.”
Rimbaud was startled, “What?”
“Nothing.”
In some time, they parked by a town house at 8 Royal College Street. The flat was narrow and high-ceilinged, with one cracked window looking down at the Regent’s Canal.
The water outside moved slow enough to hold reflections, and at night the street lamps doubled themselves in wavering gold.
It was a peaceful house and Paul couldn’t help but notice another house overlapping its way onto this one. He looked at Rimbaud and heaved a sigh.
It’s going to be a long stay.
Their first month living together was quiet. They adjusted to each other as well as independent teenagers could. They got timely money checks and a list of groceries from a Clock Tower agent, because they couldn’t be trusted to buy healthy food.
They also each had a wardrobe addressed to them in the single room of the house. The room was furnished into a study filled with books which Paul loved.
Rimbaud also expressed his interest by spending most of his time in the study, sitting on the couch by the window with a different book in hand everyday.
They sparred and trained together at the Clock Tower to stay in shape and get ready for any mission, but they were still on ‘standby’ whatever that meant.
Rimbaud was convinced they would call on them both in a few months' time, Paul didn't care for the missions, he cared for finding one man for revenge.
He used some of his free time at the Clock Tower's intel division asking them time and again to notify him at the tiniest indication of Kensuke. Rimbaud would then drag him into an Ability spar thereby improving his mood.
Paul went on walks outside, taking advantage of his freedom and rewriting his painful past. With every step on the stone paths he took, he was one step away from the polished glass floors of the labs. He stopped and looked up at the sky, squinting through the canopy of the trees, and sighed as a cool breeze blew.
He didn’t remember much of his early years, most of them tainted by the shock of killing his mama, but he recalled a few instances of playing tag before being outcast by the same group.
Paul felt a shiver go up his arms and reflexively squeezed himself into a hug. A wasted habit which Kensuke hadn’t been able to beat out of him.
Thinking about those memories brought a scowl to his mouth. He ached to make a friend, and the only one he could talk to seemed like an ice block.
Kicking a pebble on the road he made up his mind and turned around to go back home.
Entering the house, he walked up inside the study room and saw Rimbaud.
Rimbaud spoke little, keeping his long coat on even inside, his long dark hair falling across his golden eyes when he read.
Paul opened his mouth to interrupt his reading, but then slowly closed it and silently went back to the kitchen.
Paul couldn’t yet tell if Rimbaud even liked him, or if he was simply his responsibility, he was afraid to know.
Maybe, I am just his burden.
The first shift in the air was felt on a Tuesday evening. Paul had returned from an errand for the Clock Tower, half-soaked from rain. Rimbaud was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled back, slicing bread. Without looking up, he set an extra plate on the table.
"Sit," he said. "You have been walking in the cold too long."
It was a small thing. But after the labs, no one had told Paul to sit unless it was for testing.
Paul’s face remained stone faced but inside he was churning with anxiety and fear. Rimbaud’s always nonchalant face wasn’t helping.
He sat on the opposite end of the dinner table and ate the sandwich.
It was good!
He had finished half of it when Rimbaud hummed, startling Paul into dropping the rest. He looked up to see Rimbaud looking calculatingly at him, his chin resting on his crossed hands, “Verlaine…is your mother’s name, correct?”
Not knowing where this was going, Paul nodded.
Rimbaud chuckled humorlessly, “My mother hated my father but they both stayed together for me. It was misery, being their precious Arthur…”
His voice trailed off as he stared into the distance, seemingly forgetting about Paul, but then spoke up again, “If you don’t mind, we could be Arthur and Paul for each other. Give the names a new meaning.”
Paul was confused. What did he mean by that? As he turned to shake his head no, he noticed Rimbaud’s hands fidgeting behind the table.
Ah. He was nervous too.
“Okay… Arthur.”
Arthur gave a short smile at that before becoming stiff and getting up from the table. “You stay and eat, I have some reading to catch up to, Paul.”
From then, it grew, quiet rituals that belonged to no one but them.
When Arthur went out for cigarettes, he would bring Paul one even though he did not smoke. When Paul woke from a nightmare, Arthur would not ask what it was about, he would simply hand over a glass of water and sit on the floor until Paul’s breathing slowed.
Some nights, they would watch the pro-heroes’ broadcasts from other countries. Tokyo’s news was often full of their Number One hero, polished and spotless in the public eye. America’s top hero was brash and loud, claiming unity and justice. London’s heroes were fewer, more politically entangled with Parliament.
“They work in daylight,” Rimbaud would say, cigarette between his fingers. “We work in the dark. Our victories will never be televised.”
“At the end of the day, it’s just a glorified paid job,” Paul would answer, “and I have yet to meet a true hero.”
Arthur’s hand stopped mid-way then continued to drag on his cigarette. “Well I don’t necessarily hate those pro-heroes. I just dislike them.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t hate doctors or lawyers who are paid to save a civilian, it is the same for a pro-hero. It’s just their entire mentality revolves around being a “Hero.” Their quirks define being a hero or a “villain.” And the children who grew up with these ideals want to become pro-heroes just to use their quirk or to fight.”
“They should have just monitored proper use of quirks. The extra show business is just annoying for us.”
“I know right.”
The smoke lingered with the thoughts for too long that night.
Now that they were on the verge of becoming adults, they drank often. Cheap whisky, poured into chipped mugs, always after the day’s reports were filed to the Clock Tower.
One night, the alcohol loosened something in Arthur.
“My parents were Catholic in the strictest sense,” he began, eyes fixed on the curling smoke above his cup. “They believed quirks were divine gifts. I did not have one. Or so they thought. I hid my Ability. Illuminations. Light that creates hyperspace. I kept it quiet until I could use it for myself.”
He gave a short, sharp laugh. “They prayed for a miracle child. I gave them a liar instead. I tried to please them in so many different ways. But as the youngest of seven I was always the disappointment.”
He paused for a second.
“So, at fourteen, I ran away to Paris. No coat. No plan. I joined Europol before the winter killed me. They took in those who could bend the world. My first mission was to find you. To take you away from the cages.”
Paul stared at him. “And why did you do it? Because they ordered you?”
Arthur’s gaze met his. “No. Because you should not have been there in the first place.”
That night they fell asleep on the same couch. The bottle was still open on the table, untouched since his confession.
Their partnership deepened with each mission. In alleys, on rooftops, inside dockside warehouses, Arthur and Paul moved without speaking. Paul began to anticipate the arc of his partner’s steps, the way he would cut a space out for him through enemy lines.
On October 17, after one such troublesome mission of a clean interception at the Thames docks, they finally returned home soaked in rain and adrenaline. Arthur had already poured them both whisky before changing out of his coat.
“Three days until I am eighteen,” he said.
Arthur sat with his back to the porch rail, his glass resting between the knees. His long dark hair caught the yellow glow of the lamp, and his golden eyes seemed brighter than usual, as though the day itself had kindled something in him.
“It feels strange,” he murmured. “I thought I would never see this far.”
Paul sat opposite him, bowler hat set aside on the wooden steps, his fingers tracing the brim as if it were a talisman. “You say that as if it is a victory.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed as his gaze turned sullen.
“It is,” he replied. “A victory over them. Over the house that wanted to keep me silent, over the church pews, over my parents’ eyes when they called me empty and useless. If I have nothing else, I have this,” he tapped his chest, “I have the right to call myself alive.”
Paul drank in silence, as the other’s words lingered heavily in him. “Alive,” he repeated, his voice sharper than intended. “You say that so easily. But tell me, Arthur, what does it mean to be alive? If one is born of a machine, if one’s blood is rewritten, if one’s memories are fractured until even the face of one’s mother fades into smoke… is that still life?”
Arthur’s eyes fixed on bright blue, calm and unflinching. “You are alive, Paul. They can bury you under chains and powder, they can tear you apart and stitch you into something else, but you breathe. You think. You suffer. You dream. That is life. That is more than those men of science, more than Pan, more than your father will ever understand.”
Glasses finished, the half-empty bottle passed between them. Paul’s hand brushed Arthur’s as he took it, a spark of warmth sharper than the drink itself sparked between them.
For a long while, they said nothing, the night settling heavy over Camden. Somewhere, a dog barked. The city was still alive beyond the two.
“Sometimes,” Paul whispered, “I envy you. You chose rebellion. I was never given the chance. They made me into Black No. 12 before I could even choose my name.”
Arthur leaned closer, and Paul could feel the faint heat of his body, his hair falling loose over his cheek. “Then choose now,” he said softly. “Choose what you will become from this day forward. You are not Black No. 12 anymore. You are Paul Verlaine. And tonight, tonight you may even choose to be nothing but a man, with me.”
The words hollowed something in Paul, left it bare. He looked away, but Arthur’s hand rose, steady, and caught his jaw. His thumb brushed lightly across the other’s cheekbone, as though tracing the map of a wound only he could see.
“Do you believe love is human?” Paul asked, his voice hoarse.
Arthur smiled faintly, though his eyes burned seriously. “It is the most human thing of all.”
The silence that followed was not absence, but fullness. The whisky was nearly gone, and Paul’s veins were warm with it, but he felt more awake than ever. Arthur leaned in, slow, as though giving the blond every chance to pull away. Paul did not. Their lips met in hesitation at first, then deepened, the taste of liquor and rain between them.
When the younger man drew back, Paul exhaled as if something long locked inside him had broken free. Arthur looked at Paul like he had been waiting years for this single moment.
“We could vanish,” he said suddenly, his voice fierce in its quiet. “Leave the Clock Tower.”
“And when the world comes calling?” the blond asked.
“Then we face it together. But not as their weapons. As ourselves.”
"Good. But not now."
The words fell into Paul like a vow. His hand found Arthur’s, their fingers entwining, neither of them speaking. The tension had broken now, but the spell remained.
They moved inside, into the darkened room that had grown familiar over the years. Clothes fell away as easily as shadows, hands searching, learning. For the first time, for Paul there was no chain, no machine, no command sequence dictating his motion: only choice, only warmth, only Arthur.
That night, days before Arthur’s eighteenth birthday, they gave themselves to each other, not as a weapon and its rescuer, but as men who had found, against all the cruelty of the world, a reason to remain alive.
14 years ago,
Paul Verlaine, Age Eighteen-Twenty Two.
The years following that autumn night in Camden did not pass quickly, instead, time slowed down, each season adding another texture to Paul and Arthur’s lives. What began as the shadow of survival deepened into something richer, fuller.
The Clock Tower still held them, and missions came without warning. The duo fought beside ability users from across Europe, some more ruthless than others. Paul noticed quickly how fractured the world of Abilities was, at least from what he saw in the Clock Tower.
Some resembled black companies, exploiting their soldiers with little regard for survival, while others tried, in earnest, to foster loyalty and care.
Paul and Arthur began to dream of finding such a place. They spoke of it often: what it would mean to serve under a leader who valued them as family rather than tools.
It was during missions that the hypocrisy of the larger world revealed itself most sharply.
Paul and Arthur saw, again and again, the same pattern. A team of pro-heroes would attempt the confrontation, capes gleaming, voices ringing with the scripted cadence of courage.
Yet they were unprepared for enemies whose abilities had been sharpened by desperation, hunger, or cruelty. Heroes who believed themselves invincible learned otherwise in fire and in blood. And then the calls would go out, quiet, official, unspeakable.
Then the Ability users would step in.
The two began to measure their battles not only in victory or loss, but in what it revealed about the structures of power.
Villains were often only those who had refused to bend to systems that had no place for them.
Heroes were puppets of reputation and rank.
Ability users lived in the liminal space, feared, exploited, or erased for their abundant power.
It was during those years that Paul began to see a world beyond combat. He desired more than the role of soldiers.
It was Arthur who anchored him.
Arthur, with his golden eyes and the strange steady warmth that had bloomed between them. They sat in the evenings with paper and pen, Arthur coaxing Paul to write, to transform the fragments of his thoughts into poetry.
Language became their shared pursuit. Arthur mastered German and Italian within a year, and Paul slowly began to study Japanese, tracing the arc of his ancestry through syllables that tasted like memory.
Sometimes they argued over grammar until laughter broke the silence. Sometimes Arthur read poetry in French until Paul, though lost in the words, felt their rhythm carry him toward sleep.
For their legal front, they took to writing.
Arthur, with his sharp intellect, published essays in obscure journals, weaving philosophy with political critique. Paul submitted short pieces of fiction under pseudonyms, stories drawn from dream and blood.
They began to cultivate reputations, a facade that gave them a measure of safety when the world asked for identities.
Arthur pushed further like the prodigy he was. He enrolled in distance programs, acquired teaching degrees, filled their shelves with textbooks and notes. He said that if ever they were freed from the Clock Tower, they must have the tools to build another life. Paul, though more cautious, began to believe it could be true.
To the world, they were eccentric young men earning their keep with words. To the Order of the Clock Tower, however, they remained field operatives, two weapons bound together by necessity, skill, and an intimacy that grew daily.
It was during these years that their love became not a secret, but a foundation.
By their second year together, they traveled to Berlin on a mission and, almost impulsively, chose to marry.
The ceremony was quiet, attended only by those within their circle who could be trusted. Paul remembered standing in the old hall, Arthur’s hair brushing his shoulders, his eyes brighter than the candles. For one fragile hour, the world outside ceased to exist.
“Now no one can deny it,” he said. “We have written ourselves into existence.”
Arthur smiled as he leaned in for another kiss.
Their honeymoon was brief, spent in a small hotel with curtains that let in the golden morning light. It was there that the Clock Tower sent a message: an intelligence note about Kensuke Kashimura. Paul froze as he read, his entire body going cold.
“Alive,” he whispered. “He is alive. And he has a son. Chuuya.”
Arthur took the paper, his jaw tightening. “Then our path is clear. Japan.”
In the weeks that followed, they began preparing for departure. They studied Japanese more diligently. They read about Project Arahabaki in the shadows of underground files, each new detail sharpening Paul’s fury.
They also began to question the Order itself. While the Clock Tower prided itself on legality, its Silver Oracle lending a sheen of legitimacy, the morality of its choices grew increasingly suspect. Some leaders treated ability users as pawns, weapons with expiration dates. Others cared, but their voices were drowned by ambition.
Paul and Arthur began whispering of departure. They spoke of finding an organization that respected its own, maybe building a family once in it.
But for now, vengeance is louder than dreams.
One cold evening, as they boarded a ship beneath the shroud of night, Arthur adjusted the bowler hat on Paul’s head. The shadow fell across his face, hiding everything but his burning eyes.
“This time,” Paul murmured, voice low, “I will free my brother from his hands.”
And the ship carried them eastward, toward Japan. In Japan lay both the secrets of Arahabaki and the man Paul had once called father.
As the rain fell over Berlin, the two of them prepared to step once more into the storm towards the boy who bore the name Nakahara Chuuya.
Notes:
We have finally reached the end of Paul's 'arc,' and moving on to the next one.
Hope you liked my subtle nod to irl Paul's relationship with a teenage Arthur, like oh damn they freaky poets.The pace should slow down a bit..not by much. I hate that I feel I am rushing so much. But, alas, that's my writing. Which personally as a reader I hate a lot. I love reading fleshed out and slowed scenes which make me want to mingle in with the characters. As a writer, I promise to do better in the future :X
I removed all the years stuff because that messed with my character's and their ages
Current ages in this chapter just to get an idea:
It is 14 years ago so..Paul and Rimbaud: 22 (Paul is 7 months-ish older than Rimbaud)
Class 1-A: pretty much infants.
Chapter 6: My Daddy’s Got a Gun
Summary:
Meanwhile in Japan, the Tsushimas and the Matsukis give birth to a dangerous lineage.
Notes:
Note: The people in Japan refer to their Abilities as Gifts, and themselves as Gifted. In BSD it was interchangeable...I am using it coz the words are smaller hehe.
Also there are some new abilities which I created in this chapter, you can check notes at the end for detailed information.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
30 Years Ago,
Kanagi, Aomori.
September in Aomori was a season of restless winds and dying light. The mountains burned with amber leaves, while the coast breathed salt into the air. In the city, streets grew crowded with students and office workers hurrying home. Bars filled quickly after sundown, mixing with the scents of grilled fish and cheap sake.
One such bar, tucked into a narrow alley, held a crowd of dockworkers, poets, and wanderers. Toward the back, in a booth partly hidden by shadows, sat three men in their early thirties. At first they looked like any other group of friends meeting for drinks. Yet there was a quiet pressure in the air around them, the kind that only came from men accustomed to power.
Tsushima Norimasa leaned back against the wall. He wore a plain, dark haori with leaf patterns, his expression gentle but alert. His voice carried warmth when he spoke but his eyes seemed to weigh more than the room around him.
Beside him sat Natsume Soseki. His tricolored hair, streaked with black, brown, and faint gold, was untamed, falling around sharp eyes that watched everything with restless intensity. He tapped his cup against the table as though in rhythm with a song only he could hear. His smile was fleeting, his presence both aloof and mischievous.
Across from them was Hirotsu Ryuro, broad-shouldered and dressed with immaculate precision. His monocle glasses gleamed in the light, his posture impeccable. He carried himself with the poise of an officer who had never left the battlefield behind, even here in the haze of drink.
They had met often like this, in the shifting smoke and chatter of Aomori bars. Tonight, the sake was warm, and the talk had drifted as it always did, away from politics and powers, into deeper matters.
“Human beings,” Soseki said, swirling the last of his drink. “They are curious creatures. They hoard money, underappreciate affection, and fear knowledge.” He leaned forward, his hair catching the light. “Tell me, Norimasa, do you truly believe people can be moral?”
Norimasa tilted his head, considering. “Morality is not a fixed truth. It is a mirror. A man looks into it and sees what he wishes, not what is there. But perhaps that is why morality matters. It forces one to choose, even when there is no certainty.”
Hirotsu frowned, his voice firm. “That is too indulgent. Discipline is the core of morality. Without rules, men are wolves. You give way and they will devour each other.”
Soseki smirked. “And yet wolves are honest. They do not lie about their hunger.”
Their exchanges were frequent like this, small duels of philosophy over sake cups. Soseki sought contradictions and ironies. Hirotsu insisted on order and structure. Norimasa listened, weighing the balance between them, becoming the anchor when the discussions grew too loud.
The topic shifted, as it often did, to trivial things. Soseki mocked the poor quality of the sake, claiming even a stray cat would turn up its nose at it. Laughing, Hirotsu countered by recounting a detailed critique of the bar’s lack of hygiene in cleaning its cups, prompting Soseki to chuckle and declare him joyless.
Norimasa, half-smiling, let them go on until the mood softened. Then, with the quiet pride of a father, he allowed himself to speak of his son.
“Gen’emon has begun to study law,” he said, his tone carrying both restraint and warmth. “He reads with diligence, though he prefers history. Last week he argued with his tutor about the nature of justice. He claimed that a law without compassion is no law at all.”
Soseki raised an eyebrow. “At fourteen? A precocious boy through and through, isn’t he? If he continues on this path, he may rival philosophers twice his age. Or perhaps he will simply put us all to shame.”
Norimasa chuckled softly. “He is so stubborn! He shadows me at home and I sometimes wonder if he sees me as a father, or simply as a mirror of the man he wishes to be.”
“You are fortunate,” Soseki remarked. “There are fathers who drink away their children’s futures.” He glanced at his cup, smirked, and added, “Perhaps including us, though only in moderation.”
The three laughed, the tension of philosophy giving way to the warmth of friendship. For a moment the bar felt small and safe, a pocket of quiet in a restless world.
It was then, as Norimasa reached for his cup again, that the thread within his mind pulled taut. His Gift stirred, unbidden, his mental registry flaring with warning. The bond that tied him to his son trembled with danger.
The cup slipped from his fingers and struck the table, spilling sake across the wood. His companions turned at once, sensing the shift in his expression.
“Norimasa?” Soseki asked.
“My son,” Norimasa said, his voice low and steady. “He is in danger.”
Hirotsu’s glasses caught the light as he straightened. “Where?”
Norimasa closed his eyes, feeling the direction through the link only he could sense. Southeast, toward Sendai. A chill ran down his spine, he could sense many with his son.
“They have taken him,” Norimasa said. “And others. I can feel it.”
Without hesitation, the three men rose, the warmth of the bar falling away behind them.
Tsushima Gen’emon was raised with love and warmth, though never in indulgence. To the outside world, he was the only heir of a powerful and wealthy family, surrounded by privilege, which overlooked his quirklessness. To his father, he was something much rarer: a boy who carried the possibility of both burden and greatness.
Norimasa often told himself that his son must not be spoiled. He had seen too many scions of wealth collapse into arrogance, their names ruined by extravagance.
And yet, when Gen’emon looked up at him with eager eyes, Norimasa could not help but feel his heart soften. The boy adored him with an intensity that was both innocent and solemn.
From his earliest days, Gen’emon sought to mirror his father. He bowed when Norimasa bowed. He studied their company ledgers with the seriousness of a clerk twice his age in his father’s study, trying to grasp the money transactions filled with numbers and emotions.
When he thought no one watched, he tried to mimic the way his father’s hands folded behind his back, the tilt of his head when listening, the quiet authority in his stance. When his tutors gave him lessons in law and philosophy, Gen’emon studied with unusual intensity, just to earn the approving nod of his father.
More than admiration, there was a hunger in him, a desire to grow, to be treated as an equal, to shoulder the burdens that weighed upon his father’s life.
He often said, “If I work hard, then you will not have to carry everything alone.”
Norimasa always answered with a patient smile. “You are still a child. Your duty now is to live freely.” But within his heart he was moved, for Gen’emon’s desire was not born from ambition alone. It came from genuine devotion.
That bond was what made the sudden pull of Norimasa’s Gift so terrifying. He felt the danger like a rope jerked in his mind, and without hesitation he and his companions left the warmth of the bar and began their journey south-east.
The road from Aomori to Sendai was long, too long for a rescue. The trio wasted no time and managed to secure a fast but comfortable Mercedes for the four hour journey ahead.
The autumn wind rushed past the windows as the countryside unrolled before them. Inside the car, silence stretched long, broken only by the rhythm of the engine. Each man was absorbed in thought, but their Gifts gave them roles to play even before they arrived.
Norimasa kept his mind focused on the faint signal of his son, feeling the tug of the registry. The direction was clear: Gen’emon was somewhere along the Sendai harbor, near the warehouses where smugglers and criminals often hid.
Just as they reached Miyagi, Soseki checked his phone for the harbor timings, ensuring their path was clear.
Nearing the port’s entrance, they encountered a locked crossing gate that barred the road. Hirotsu stepped out and placed his hand upon it.
“Falling Camellia. ”
The steel flew backward with a sharp cry of metal, clearing the way. He returned to his seat without a word, his expression as calm as before.
Soseki, restless, used his Gift to slip into his calico form when they neared the outskirts of Sendai. In that shape he darted through alleys, along rooftops, and beneath broken fences, sharp eyes seeking. When he returned to the car, his hair was tousled and his clothes marked by dust.
“There are children,” he reported. “They are being kept in a warehouse near the eastern docks. Armed men guard the doors. And I noticed something stranger. Every child they took has no quirk.”
The words hung in the air. Norimasa’s hand tightened upon his knee, and onward they drove to the warehouse.
Inside that warehouse, Tsushima Gen’emon stirred awake for the third time that day.
The first thing he felt was the roughness of the rope that bound his wrists. The second was the cold damp air that smelled of oil and seaweed. Around him sat a dozen other children, huddled in silence. Some trembled, some cried quietly, and some stared at nothing with hollow eyes.
Near him sat a girl of his age, her light brown hair tied back despite the rough handling. Her face carried both fear and defiance. She introduced herself as Matsuki Tane when they exchanged their names to form some sort of familiarity in the situation.
The villains who had kidnapped them had kept her set aside alone, which left a bad taste in Gen’emon’s mouth. Knowing diplomacy wouldn’t work, he taunted them until he too was tied next to her. Not before he was kicked in the abdomen.
The cruelty of their captors had already been shown.
When one boy resisted, a villain with a hypnotic quirk forced him to attack his friend. The boy screamed as his fists struck the other child again and again, tears streaming down his face, yet unable to stop. When the compulsion ended, he collapsed, sobbing, while the villains laughed.
The lesson was clear: obedience meant survival.
Gen’emon clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to cry out. His father had told him often that a man must hold his values even when the ground beneath him was shaking. He repeated those words in his mind now, using them as armor.
Tane leaned closer, whispering so low that only he could hear. “Did you notice? Every one of us is quirkless.”
Gen’emon gave the smallest nod. He had noticed, he also noticed that the girl had the biggest set of balls than him.
Tane raised her voice, sudden and sharp, as she shouted at one of the pudgier goons, “What are you? Some kind of quirkist cult?”
The villains burst into laughter. One, tall and gaunt, stepped forward. His grin was crooked, his eyes glinting with mockery.
“A cult? Perhaps. We believe in simple truths. Power belongs to those who have money. Your parents are rich, and you… you children are valuable.” He crouched close, his breath sour. “And some of you are more valuable than others.”
Tane leaned back from him as his face came uncomfortably close to hers, her face screwed up in disgust.
Seeing that, another villain strode forward, his temper short. He struck Tane hard across the face, the sound echoing through the warehouse. Gen’emon’s heart burnt with fury, but the rope held him in place.
“Especially you,” the villain sneered. “There is something different about you. We will take it apart, piece by piece, until it belongs to us.”
Gen’emon felt the girl shiver beside him, and shifted ever so slightly to cover her.
The other children whimpered, their fear rising like smoke. Gen’emon closed his eyes and swore silently. His father would come. He had to come.
Outside, the Sendai harbor was silent, too silent for the morning hour. Crates stood stacked like walls, nets dripped seawater onto the planks, and gulls wheeled overhead. But the stretch of warehouses at the far end held no life, their doors barred and shadows too deep.
Norimasa stepped from the car and closed his eyes, following the faint thread of his Gift. His son’s presence was there, fragile but steady, tied to him like a heartbeat. Tsushima Gen’emon was still alive.
Beside him, Soseki narrowed his eyes as he studied the layout. “One entrance here, one at the rear. If they are cautious, they will have posted lookouts inside the rafters as well.” His tone was thoughtful, but his body already leaned forward, restless. “We will need to be quick and precise.”
Hirotsu adjusted his gloves and glasses, his face calm. “These men have chosen to prey on children. They will not receive my mercy.”
Norimasa gave a short nod. But before they could advance, another group appeared on the far side of the docks.
A tall and commanding man, despite being in his fifties, strode forward with retainers at his back and a cane in his hand.
The recognition was instant.
Norimasa’s hand twitched, but his voice remained even. “Matsuki Ozo.”
Matsuki Ozo with his son, Matsuki Masao, the oldest of his children, had a sharp impatience in his stride.
“Tsushima Norimasa,” Ozo answered, his tone cutting. His eyes moved past him, noting Soseki and Hirotsu with mild disdain.
“It seems we have the same goal. My daughter is inside.”
“My son as well,” Norimasa replied simply.
For a moment, neither moved. Then Ozo raised his hand. “Then we strike together. Your men from one end, mine from the other. These scavengers will learn not to play with money.”
Norimasa’s jaw tightened. He disliked Ozo’s arrogance, but his son’s life left no room for quarrels. “So be it.”
The attack began.
From the front, the trio advanced. From the rear, the Matsuki forces broke in with the crack of splintering wood. Inside, the villains shouted in alarm, shoving the bound children closer together.
The first blow came from Hirotsu. He pressed his hand against the steel door and sent it flying inward, crashing through crates and men alike. The sheer force bent beams and shattered the air with thunder. His face remained calm, but his eyes were cold as he stepped inside.
Soseki shifted into his calico form, weaving through the chaos. As a cat, he darted forward, avoiding bullets before they were fired, slashing ankles and knocking pistols from hands. Returning to human form, he barked, “Two more above, on the rafters! They are ready to drop nets!”
Shots rang out as the Matsuki retainers stormed in from behind. Ozo himself moved with frightening confidence, cane striking like steel, each motion measured and deliberate. Masao on the other hand fought with fists and fury, his strikes unrefined but relentless.
Norimasa kept his focus. He moved through the clash with an almost unnatural calm, his eyes half closed as his Gift guided him. He reached the children quickly, his knife flashing as he cut the bonds.
“Father!” Gen’emon cried, tears streaking his face.
Norimasa gathered him into his arms. “You are safe now.”
Nearby, Matsuki Ozo too reached his daughter. Tane stumbled but straightened, her face pale yet fierce. One villain sneered and moved toward her, intent on striking again.
“Stay back,” she whispered. Then she closed her eyes while whispering, “Schoolgirl!”
The world shifted.
To everyone watching, the villain’s form seemed to melt. His outline blurred, his features erased. He became a blank figure, his existence itself was being wiped away. The other villains faltered, suddenly unable to recall his name or even register what he was.
Screams erupted. Men stumbled into each other, shouting, unable to distinguish friend from foe. The warehouse filled with chaos, order disintegrating in an instant.
Even Ozo froze, his eyes narrowing as he watched his daughter. “Tane…”
Norimasa’s eyes widened. That power was not an illusion quirk for sure. It was the erasure of identity itself.
Terrifying, and devastating.
One of the villains, trembling, shouted above the panic. “You see now? This is why we took you all! Gifts! The children without quirks, the ones who still manifest power! HE knew there must be at least one, and now we have found her! HE didn’t lie to us.”
Another villain, bloodied, laughed hoarsely. “Not quirks, not mutations. True Gifts are rarer than gold. We should have sold you, girl, to the highest bidder.”
The words echoed in the silence that followed. The children shrank back in terror, and Tane’s face went white.
Ozo’s expression hardened. His cane struck the ground with a sharp crack.
“Enough.”
He advanced on the villains, his voice like iron. “You prey upon children and dare to speak of markets and buyers? You are filth.” He struck the man across the face, dropping him instantly.
When the last of the kidnappers had fallen, the children were led into the morning light, shaken but alive. Retainers carried them to safety, their sobs muffled against strong shoulders.
Outside, Ozo and Norimasa faced one another, their children beside them.
“You heard them,” Ozo said, his voice low. “Gifts are a power outside the Commission’s reach. If such a truth spreads, the world will change.”
Norimasa looked down at Gen’emon, who clung to his sleeve. “Change is not always for the better.”
“It does not matter,” Ozo replied. His gaze was sharp, ambition burning within it.
“If such forces exist, then others will hunt them. Tane is the first among our family to have such a power, and I do not want to keep her hidden from the world. The world must learn and we must have control over them for Tane’s, for our children’s sake.”
Norimasa’s brow furrowed. “To control, or protect?”
“Both,” Ozo said simply. “If you care for your son, as I care for my daughter, then you will see it. Together, we may endure what is coming.”
The alliance was not born of trust, nor of friendship. It was born of necessity, sealed in the smoke and blood of Sendai.
The morning after the rescue at Sendai harbor, Matsuki Ozo lingered longer than most. Retainers guided the children into black Toyota Crowns, their engines humming softly in the chilly dawn. The sea air smelled of rust and oil, gulls crying overhead as the police sirens began to draw closer. Ozo leaned against a dark Lexus sedan, his cane resting upright at his side, the curved handle glinting in the morning sun.
His gaze followed Tsushima Norimasa, who was speaking calmly with Hirotsu Ryuro. Finally Ozo stepped closer, his voice even but sharp.
“Give me your informant’s contact details.”
Norimasa turned around, a look of confusion on his face. “What do you mean?”
Ozo sighed, “How exactly did you get from your place to here so fast? Unless, there was an informant who sent you the details right as he was taken away.”
He inclined his face down at Gen’emon, who was still clutching at his father’s haori.
Norimasa patted his son’s head and said, “There wasn’t any informant. I felt him.”
“You felt him,” Ozo said with a hint of confusion. “A quirkless man felt his son getting kidnapped? While drinking sake in some bar, you knew your son was here. That seems more than a father’s intuition.”
Norimasa’s tone remained calm as he reluctantly replied, “Like your Tane, it is not a power I exploit. It exists only to protect my family.”
“Protect,” Ozo repeated with faint amusement. “A soft word. As a reward for my help here, satisfy my curiosity. With my luck I wouldn’t encounter any other Gifted who has the potential to help my daughter with control.”
Norimasa’s eye twitched at the blatant lies but still conceded. The daughter had done no harm.
“How does your Gift work? Tane mentioned her powers are activated by emotions, is it the same for you?”
“Not really, I have a mental connection with people and I just follow the threads.”
“When you close your eyes,” Ozo pressed, “what is it you feel? A tug? A voice? Do you see faces in your mind?”
Norimasa’s answer was quiet. “It is a bond. My current ledger holds the names of those dearest to me. If they are in peril, I know. I cannot ignore it.”
Ozo tilted his head, studying him as if he were a puzzle to be solved. “A registry of names that binds people, men, to you. A dangerous thing, if wielded without restraint. With such power, one could shape entire armies.”
“It was never meant for that,” Norimasa said.
Ozo only chuckled, low and cold. “That is what makes you different, Tsushima. You chain yourself with morality while I break chains. A family must be guarded by power. This power is greater than law, greater than the government itself. Remember that, Tsushima.”
He twirled the cane once, before getting into the car and driving off.
Behind them, Hirotsu adjusted his glasses and watched silently. Later, in the privacy of their car, he muttered, “That man thrives on chaos. He calls it power, but it is hunger. One day it will consume even those closest to him.”
Soseki only smirked, his eyes bright with mirth. “Wolves do not mourn the sheep they devour. Nor, it seems, does Ozo mourn the blood he spills.”
The months that followed tied the Tsushimas and the Matsukis together more closely than either family could have predicted. Smuggling groups continued to operate along the northern coastlines. In Niigata, foreign luxury cars smuggled through the ports appeared suddenly on local roads. In Morioka, children had gone missing, lured through social media apps.
The Port Mafia was still new then, a name whispered more than declared. Ozo ruled it with iron certainty with a scythe in his hand, but he was still reasonable, still the kind of leader who could sit across from allies and share sake after a bloody night. People followed him out of both fear and respect. His scythe was not only for killing but also for declaring judgment, and the certainty of his violence gave him charisma.
It was during this time that Tsushima Gen’emon and Matsuki Tane grew close.
At first, they only saw each other when their fathers forced joint dinners. The Tsushima family mansion in Aomori often hosted, with its wide tatami rooms overlooking carefully trimmed pines, or sometimes the Matsuki residence in Yokohama, its glass-and-steel architecture overlooking the city skyline.
One such evening, the adults retired to the inner room, leaving the teenagers in the lounge. The television was on, streaming a comedy variety show, though neither paid it much attention.
Gen’emon leaned back on the leather sofa, scrolling on his phone. “I beat you again,” he said casually. “Top three in the exam rankings. Where were you? Tenth?”
Tane scowled and threw a cushion at him. “Seventh. And only because I misread a physics question.”
“Excuses,” Gen’emon teased. He grinned when she rolled her eyes.
“You act like you are some genius,” she shot back. “You only study because you want your daddy to pat your head.”
He shrugged. “And you do not? Although, Ozo would kill you if you failed.”
The words made them both laugh, though the truth behind it was sharp.
They switched topics quickly, the way teenagers did. Tane showed him pictures of a cafe she had visited near Shibuya, famous for its parfaits stacked high with strawberries. “You would never finish one,” she teased.
“I would eat two,” Gen’emon said. “When you invite me next time, I will prove it.”
“You will not be able to. You can’t eat sweet things.”
“I can if I want to impress you.”
That made her go quiet, cheeks faintly red as she looked away.
As the years passed, their meetings became more frequent. Sometimes it was dinners, sometimes trips when both families traveled together to Kyoto or Tokyo. They sent each other messages late into the night on LINE, conversations ranging from exam pressure to music playlists.
“What did you get on the English listening test?” Tane texted once.
“Ninety-two. You?”
“Ninety. I hate your accent practice. You sound like a YouTube teacher.”
“Better than you sounding like a Tokyo comedian.”
“Shut up. You still owe me parfait.”
There were lighter talks too. Favorite dramas, bands like EXILE, even which teachers annoyed them most. Tane once asked if Gen’emon had ever dated anyone. He answered no, too busy with studies and expectations. She admitted the same, though her father often joked about “finding her a useful match.”
“Useful match,” Gen’emon typed. “Sounds like a business merger.”
“That is what it feels like,” she wrote back.
They both left the chat quiet for a while after that.
Meanwhile, Ozo’s Port Mafia expanded slowly through Yokohama. It was not yet the sprawling empire it would later become, but its roots were firm.
Ozo charmed when needed, meeting potential allies in luxury hotels near Minato Mirai or in private lounges above Roppongi. He dressed in tailored suits, his scythe hidden until necessary. When he spoke, his voice carried both charisma and menace.
When a rival group refused to join, he dined with their leader, drank expensive sake with him, then left his corpse in the trunk of a black Cadillac parked outside the man’s home. The message was clear: Ozo was reasonable, but betrayal was death.
Still, many respected him. He funded scholarships in Yokohama schools, sponsored community festivals, even donated to hospitals. Citizens whispered that while heroes chased villains on the news, the quirk laws made it difficult for them to believe in them. It was the Port Mafia that actually kept the streets safe.
To Gen’emon, it was both fascinating and unsettling.
“Your father,” he once said to Tane, “is two different men. To strangers he is polite, generous. To enemies, he is brutal. Which is the real one?”
Tane frowned. “Both. And that is what scares me. He can be kind to me one moment, and order a killing the next. I do not know which face is true.”
Gen’emon nodded slowly. “Maybe the truth is not in his face, but in what he chooses to protect. Even if his way of protection is different from ours.”
She gave him a long look. “You sound like your father again.”
28 Years Ago,
Yokohama and Aomori.
By the second year after the Sendai rescue, the relationship between the Tsushimas and the Matsukis had become one of constant collaboration. It was never announced as a formal alliance, yet both families acted as if it were already written.
When irregularities appeared in Aomori’s shipping manifests, Tsushima Norimasa passed the details directly to Matsuki Ozo. When word spread that Korean smugglers were testing routes into Kyushu, Ozo dispatched a small team not to establish a foothold, but to observe the networks quietly and report back to the Tsushimas.
Yokohama was Ozo’s base, but his gaze already looked far beyond Kanagawa. His vision was of a Port Mafia that would one day be more than a local syndicate. He wanted an organization that could stand beside the great powers of Japan. Everyone in their world could feel it: the foundation stones were being laid.
For the younger generation, the connection was less political and more personal.
Gen’emon and Tane had begun to treat each other not as the heirs of allied houses, but as close friends. The habit formed easily. Their LINE message history stretched endlessly, filled with teasing remarks, and banter.
When Gen’emon scored high marks on his midterm, he sent her a photo of his results. Tane responded with a selfie holding her own report card, exaggerated pout on her face.
“You still beat me in English,” she typed.
“I warned you to stop watching dramas without subtitles,” he answered.
“It is good practice.”
“No, that is why you wrote ‘gonna’ in an essay.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Shut up.”
These exchanges spilled into late-night calls. They talked about ramen stalls near Yokohama station, a classmate who insisted on showing off his new sneakers, and which anime adaptation was better than the manga. At times, their conversations drifted into comfortable silence, the faint clatter of dishes or the hum of an air conditioner filling the line.
“You are still there?” Tane asked once, half-asleep.
“Yeah.”
“Then why are you not talking?”
“Because I do not want to hang up yet.”
“…Idiot.”
It was Matsuki Yoshiko, Masao’s wife, who noticed the closeness first.
She had married into the Matsuki family two years earlier. Known for her sharp style, Yoshiko often softened Masao’s harsher edges. She also became the quiet cupid of the younger generation’s time together. When dinners grew too stiff or meetings too political, it was Yoshiko who gave the teenagers excuses to slip away.
One evening in Yokohama, as the men argued over shipping contracts and smuggling patterns, Yoshiko pulled Tane and Gen’emon into the kitchen.
“The men will talk until morning,” she said with a playful glance. “Why don’t you both go out for ice cream instead? There is a place near Minato Mirai with flavors you cannot find anywhere else.”
Tane hesitated. “Ice cream at night?”
“Why not? You are young. Enjoy yourselves while you can.” Yoshiko placed a coat on Tane’s shoulders and whispered, “Do not let him overthink everything.”
That night they walked the waterfront, the glow of Cosmo World’s Ferris wheel washing color over the bay. Gen’emon bought pistachio gelato. Tane picked strawberry cheesecake.
“Mine is better,” she declared.
“Yours is always better,” he replied.
She grinned. “At least you admit it.”
They sat side by side on the stone steps, shoulders brushing as the waves lapped below. Neither spoke the word “date,” but both understood the air had changed.
Meanwhile, Ozo’s ideal Port Mafia was moving from rumor into reality.
At first, he recruited quietly. A discontented businessman here, a smuggler there. Small-time figures, but loyal once they felt the strength of his presence.
By the second year, Yokohama felt his organization’s presence openly. Black sedans with tinted windows rolled through the streets at night, carrying men in sharp suits.
When foreign traffickers attempted to set up business without his consent, Ozo did not lash out immediately. He invited their leader to a high-rise lounge in Shinjuku, ordered a bottle of expensive whiskey, and spoke calmly over the skyline.
“You want to sell here?” Ozo asked.
“Yes,” the man replied. “There is enough profit for everyone.”
“There is profit, yes,” Ozo said. “But there is no space for two authorities. The Port Mafia protects this city. You do not.”
A week later, the traffickers’ network had vanished. No gunfights broke out, no noisy clashes filled the streets. Yet the leader was found in a quiet alley, his throat cut neatly by a scythe.
Stories like this spread quickly. People in Yokohama began to accept the truth: while pro-heroes existed in every city, their response was delayed by bureaucracy and law.
In Yokohama, the Port Mafia delivered instant order, ruthless and certain.
During this time, Ozo began watching the younger generation more closely.
At a dinner hosted in the Tsushima estate, Ozo’s gaze lingered on Gen’emon and Tane as they laughed softly at their corner of the table. Later, smoking with Norimasa in the garden, Ozo remarked, “Your boy has spirit.”
Norimasa raised an eyebrow. “He is diligent, but is still very young.”
“Young, yes, but already ambitious. He debates like a man twice his age.” Ozo exhaled, his immoral presence masked behind calm words. “Tane is the same, they both have a fiery spirit in them. Fire can temper into steel, or it can burn everything around it.”
Norimasa studied him carefully. “And which do you hope for?”
“That depends,” Ozo said with a faint smile. “On how well we guide them.”
By their late teens, Gen’emon and Tane were inseparable. Their schools ranked them near the top of their classes, though their rivalry pushed each to study harder. When not buried in textbooks, they explored Tokyo and Yokohama together, often shadowed by retainers who pretended not to notice their laughter.
In Harajuku, they tried skewers of yakitori from crowded stalls. Tane teased him when sauce dripped onto his uniform. In Akihabara, she dragged him into arcades, insisting he race her in Mario Kart. He usually lost.
“You are just terrible at driving,” she said, stepping out of the machine.
“I will buy a car better than this and prove you wrong.”
“What car?” she pressed.
“A Lexus.”
She blinked. “That is so boring. You could have at least said Ferrari.”
“Ferraris are too loud.”
She shook her head, laughing. “You are hopeless.”
They shared bubble tea near Shibuya Crossing, arguing about which anime character would win in a fight. They sat in Yokohama Chinatown, testing dumplings and buns until they were too full to walk. They slipped into bookstores together, Tane heading for fantasy novels while Gen’emon scoured the history shelves.
Sometimes their conversations turned more serious. On a late train back from Tokyo after a school competition, the car was dim, most students asleep. Tane leaned against the window, neon flashing across her face.
“Do you ever think,” she asked, voice soft, “about how long this will last? Or if one day our families will decide everything for us?”
Gen’emon looked at her, then at the dozing classmates around them. “If they do, I will still choose you. Even if they never give me the choice.”
Her lips curved into a quiet smile. “You really are an idiot.”
Meanwhile, Ozo’s ambitions widened. He began sending men to scout in Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Sapporo. His intention was clear: one day, the Port Mafia would oversee the underworld of the entire nation.
For now, though, Yokohama was his fortress. Its piers, alleys, and neon towers whispered his name. And in the shadows of that city, the foundation was being laid not only for the Port Mafia’s dominance, but for the bond of two heirs who would one day lead it together.
By the time Tsushima Gen’emon and Matsuki Tane entered university, their closeness was no longer hidden. They did not make formal declarations, yet their actions spoke louder than words. LINE chats that once centered on exam scores were now filled with photos of campus life, selfies from the cafeteria, and complaints about professors who spoke too quickly.
Yoshiko saw the shift before anyone else. She had always been observant, the type who noticed how Tane’s expression softened when her phone vibrated, or how Gen’emon smiled without realizing whenever he checked a message.
One afternoon, as the men discussed the rising costs of port security in Yokohama, Yoshiko leaned over to Tane. “Gen’emon mentioned his university festival is coming up next week. You should go. Festivals are more fun with someone you know guiding you.”
Tane frowned. “Won’t that be awkward? His friends will be there.”
“Friends will always assume. Besides, what is awkward about it? You will eat food, see exhibitions, maybe watch a performance. Don’t overthink it.” Yoshiko smiled knowingly.
The following week, Tane appeared at Gen’emon’s university in Yokohama. He was dressed neatly in the festival’s staff armband, having helped organize his faculty’s debate booth.
“You came,” he said, half-surprised, half-delighted.
“You invited me, did you not?” she replied with a smirk. “Where is this legendary debate you brag about?”
He guided her through the campus, stopping at stalls selling yakisoba, karaage, and candied apples. Students in costumes handed out flyers. Clubs performed dances in the main courtyard.
When his turn to debate arrived, Tane sat in the front row, arms crossed, watching him spar verbally with a rival faculty.
Later, when they slipped away to a quieter corner of campus, Tane teased him mercilessly. “You used the word ‘moreover’ five times in one speech. Are you secretly sixty years old?”
“It is a formal argument style,” he protested.
“It is boring. Next time, say ‘basically.’”
“I will not.”
“See, that is why you lost one point.”
He rolled his eyes, but her laughter lit up the cool autumn night.
Not long after, Gen’emon returned the favor by visiting Waseda’s festival where Tane’s literature club had arranged a themed café. She wore an apron and poured tea with an exaggeratedly polite smile.
“Welcome, honored guest,” she said as he sat down.
He smirked. “I should take your picture. This is the first time you have ever been polite to me.”
“Do it and I will throw tea in your face.”
Her friends, hovering nearby, exchanged glances and giggles. By the end of the evening, several had asked Tane outright if he was her boyfriend.
She denied it with a glare, but Gen’emon only laughed. “You did not even deny it very strongly,” he said when they left together.
“Shut up.”
“Does that mean yes?”
“I said shut up.”
Yoshiko pressed further when the opportunity came.
At a New Year’s gathering in Yokohama, she went and carefully pulled Tsushima Norimasa aside. “Uncle, do you think those two are already a couple?”
Norimasa’s gaze lingered on the pair, seated together by the window, their heads bent over a shared smartphone. “They are young,” he said cautiously.
“Young, yes. But their bond is clear to everyone. Better to acknowledge it than let gossip control the story.”
Norimasa said nothing, but his silence carried weight.
Ozo, for his part, was less subtle. One evening after a family dinner, he spoke plainly to Norimasa while sipping sake.
“They already behave like they are promised. Tane is stronger for it. Your boy is disciplined, but she makes him sharper.”
Norimasa exhaled slowly. “And you believe it wise to bind them now?”
“After graduation,” Ozo said. His tone was calm, but the iron beneath was unmistakable. “Let them finish their education. Then we will decide formally.”
25 Years Ago,
Yokohama.
By their final year at university, Gen’emon and Tane had stopped pretending.
When their classes ended, they walked together from campus to the station. Retainers shadowed them discreetly, but the two behaved as if they were alone.
Tane snapped photos of Gen’emon mid-sentence, posting them with captions like “he talks too much” and a row of emojis. He retaliated by sharing her study notes with sarcastic comments: This handwriting should be a crime.
They argued about food constantly.
“Ramen is better at Ippudo,” she insisted.
“No, Ichiran,” he countered.
“You only like Ichiran because the booths are private.”
“They are efficient.”
“They are depressing.”
On weekends, they wandered Minato Mirai, splitting desserts in cafés, watching movies, or riding the Ferris wheel once more. The same ride Yoshiko had first pushed them toward years earlier now carried a different weight.
“I still remember that first time,” Tane said, gazing out over the lit bay.
“You ordered strawberry cheesecake gelato,” he replied.
“And you admitted mine was better.”
“I regret that.”
“Too late.”
When graduation arrived, both families gathered in formal halls. Gen’emon in a tailored suit, Tane in a graceful hakama. The pride in their parents’ eyes was unmistakable, though it was Ozo who broke the unspoken silence.
“It is time,” he said firmly, glass raised. “They will be engaged.”
Norimasa glanced at his son, who stood straight and calm, though his eyes betrayed both relief and quiet joy. Then at Tane, whose lips curved into a small, determined smile.
“So be it,” Norimasa replied.
The decision was sealed not with romance, but with the gravity of family duty.
Yet when Gen’emon and Tane exchanged a glance across the room, the warmth between them was more than obligation. It was a bond that had been built year after year, step by step, from childhood fear to youthful rivalry to the threshold of shared destiny.
The first years after Gen’emon and Tane’s engagement were a rare season of peace in their families’ long histories. They moved into a modern townhouse in Minato Mirai, overlooking the bay.
The apartment was sleek, with glass walls that reflected the city’s neon at night. Retainers visited often, yet within those walls, life slowed to a more ordinary rhythm.
Tane filled the kitchen with noise, experimenting with recipes she found online. Sometimes the food was perfect, other times it ended in disaster. Gen’emon teased her without mercy.
“You call this omurice?” he said once, holding a fork over a lumpy mess.
“You try cooking after class,” she snapped back, cheeks pink.
“I would never.”
“Then stop complaining and eat.”
They walked the streets of Yokohama like any young couple, though always with subtle protection at a distance. They drank bubble tea near Chinatown, spent lazy afternoons in book cafés, and argued endlessly over which restaurant had the best sushi. Their lives were tethered to shadowed worlds of crime and politics, yet in those years they carved out something fragile and real.
But outside their home, Ozo’s Port Mafia was no longer a quiet rumor.
The organization had stretched far beyond Yokohama. Its black Toyotas were seen in Nagoya and Sapporo. Shipments slipped into Kobe’s docks under Port Mafia supervision. Former rivals were either absorbed or destroyed. In hotel lounges and backroom offices, Ozo made deals with ruthless calculation.
“Fear is useful,” he told his men once during a meeting at a skyscraper office overlooking Shinjuku. He rested a polished scythe against the wall, the metal gleaming beneath the fluorescent lights. “But fear without respect crumbles. We will be both feared and respected. That is how we endure.”
Hirotsu, loyal and unflinching, enforced that vision with precise brutality. Soseki, still elusive, served as a quiet observer, warning Norimasa whenever Ozo’s ambition threatened to spiral too quickly.
Norimasa himself, though allied, began to worry. He saw how Ozo’s charm was giving way to iron. In the Tsushima mansion he confided in his son.
“Ozo spreads quickly. He believes speed is strength. But reckless growth is also a weakness. You must remember this, Gen’emon. What you build must have roots with a firm foundation, not just willowy branches.”
Gen’emon listened carefully, his sense of responsibility already sharpened by the growing weight of family. He carried those words with him into his marriage the following year.
The years slipped by with a balance of steel and tenderness.
At night, when Gen’emon returned from meetings or lectures, Tane would be waiting with tea. Sometimes they sat together on the balcony, watching the red lights of planes crossing the Yokohama sky. Other times, silence was enough, their hands intertwined against the hum of the city.
“I never thought,” Tane whispered once, “that we would find this much peace in the middle of all this chaos.”
“It is because we choose it,” Gen’emon replied. “And because you refuse to let me drown in work.”
She smirked. “That too.”
20 Years Ago,
Yokohama.
Peace took on a new meaning.
Tane went into labor on a quiet evening in late summer. Rain drummed against the windows of the apartment as doctors rushed through its polished halls. Tane and Gen’emon had refused to let Tane be in a hospital for the birth, fear of erasing a person accidentally at the forefront.
The family gathered outside the room, Norimasa pacing for the first time in years, Hirotsu watching with folded arms, and Soseki leaning against the wall in silence.
The Matsukis were unfortunately caught up in a meeting in the next city and couldn’t come, no matter how much Tane begged Yoshiki to stay.
Then, with a cry that cut through the storm, Tsushima Shuuji entered the world.
The moment the child opened his eyes, the room shifted. A strange glow, pale blue and radiant, spread across the walls. For a heartbeat, everyone inside felt their Gifts dim, like candle flames flickering in a sudden wind. The air itself seemed cleansed, sharpened, as though reality rejected the unnatural.
Tane held him close, tears streaking her cheeks, while Gen’emon touched his son’s tiny hand with awe. Shuuji’s hair was soft and light brown, his eyes were dark brown, but when they caught the glow, they burned with a red glint, curious and unblinking.
Norimasa stepped forward, reaching to tag the boy into his mental registry. It was instinct, the bond of his Gift. But when his fingers brushed Shuuji’s hand, the connection broke instantly. His ability unraveled like smoke in the wind.
He froze.
“Father?” Gen’emon asked.
Norimasa’s voice was steady, but his heart pounded. “His touch nullifies Gifts. Entirely.”
Soseki’s sharp eyes narrowed. “That is no ordinary ability. That is absolute erasure.”
Hirotsu, unshaken even in astonishment, said quietly, “Then he must be protected. A child like this cannot be allowed to become a tool for others.”
Tane clutched Shuuji tighter. Her voice trembled. “We will never tell anyone. Especially not my father.”
Norimasa nodded. “Agreed. Not Ozo, not the Commission, not anyone. His power is too dangerous.”
Soseki added, “The fewer who know, the better. Even allies may not resist the temptation.”
It was then that something stirred in Gen’emon. Perhaps it was the weight of fatherhood, or the shock of seeing power beyond comprehension in his son.
His own Gift, dormant until then, awakened.
Tsushima Gen’emon’s ledger appeared before him, bound in leather as though pulled from the earth itself. Upon its pages, the true names of ability-users could be inscribed. Once written, those names tied their powers to a home point, a location or object chosen at the moment of inscription.
He tested it once, lightly, inscribing his own name. A faint tether bound him to the family shrine in Aomori. He felt at once weakened when he thought of moving too far, yet anchored by the shrine’s gravity. The potential was clear.
“Return to Tsugaru,” he whispered. An ability that could bind, weaken, or nullify.
For Shuuji, it was a blessing. With careful inscription, Gen’emon anchored his son’s Gift to the mansion’s inner sanctum. It dulled Shuuji’s touch sensitivity, allowing him to live without constant nullification overwhelming him.
The decision was unanimous. Shuuji’s ability would remain a secret. Only Norimasa, Gen’emon, Tane, Hirotsu, and Soseki would ever know.
The Matsukis were never told. Ozo could never be told.
As the storm faded outside, the family stood in the quiet glow of Shuuji’s presence. The infant blinked up at them with wide, unknowing eyes, light brown hair damp against his forehead, and dark brown irises that glinted red with the reflection of the overhead lights.
Curiosity shone in his gaze, pure and unbroken. The weight of the future lingered in that small room, yet for a moment, all they saw was a child discovering the world.
To ensure stability, the family made the quiet decision to relocate permanently to the Tsushima mansion in Aomori.
Within its walls, Gen’emon’s binding through Return to Tsugaru anchored Shuuji’s overwhelming Gift to the shrine grounds, dulling the constant nullification that would otherwise consume him.
In Aomori’s familiar air, surrounded by cedar forests and the sea’s steady breath, Shuuji could grow as a child should, without the shadow of fear pressing upon every touch. The mansion became his sanctuary and fortress, its silence holding a secret too great for the world beyond its gates.
Notes:
Are the characters named after No Longer Human, yes they are....the audiobook was fascinating.
I don't know if I explain their powers in the story, so let me write them in the notes:
Tsushima Norimasa: (I made it based on one of Dazai's irl books) Run Melos.
Once Norimasa records a name in his mental “registry,” he can always locate and sense that person across any distance, even through ability-based concealment. If two names are linked in his registry, each person gains a subconscious awareness of the other’s state and location.
Norimasa always keeps tabs of his friends and family.Matsuki Tane: Schoolgirl, erases the perceived identity of a person, place, or object. Observers lose the ability to recognize or name the target, even if they are staring at it. Could be controlled to a point.
Tsushima Gen’emon: Return to Tsugaru, binds anyone to a “home point” (physical location, object, or condition) by inscribing their true name into a physical ledger. As long as the binding remains, the target’s power either weakens when far from the home point or is entirely nullified when they return to it. It would sometimes help Shuuji to be 'nullified' as Shuuji isn't directly touching Gen'emon.
Chapter 7: Tshushima Shuuji
Summary:
Taking a deeper look into Tsushima Shuuji's childhood. With some more deaths and surprising cameos from certain bird affiliated people.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
16-17 Years Ago,
Kanagi, Aomori.
The Tsushima mansion, with its sloped tiled roof and long engawa that overlooked a garden of cedar and maple trees, stood in quiet authority over the coast of Aomori. Within its walls the clatter of wooden sandals and the faint smell of tatami straw formed the rhythm of Tsushima Shuuji’s early childhood.
He was born into a world of secrets and expectations, yet for the first years of his life he knew little beyond warmth.
His father was stern in his discipline but indulgent in small gestures, slipping him sweets bought in town or lifting him onto his shoulders when they walked through the garden.
His mother held him with quiet determination, as though the act of raising him was itself a vow to protect.
And his grandfather filled his days with a steady, watchful presence that both comforted and intimidated him.
Shuuji also had Chibi, a scrappy white shiba inu pup who followed him everywhere, and whom he often dressed in makeshift cloaks made from old towels. The dog bore his antics with patient loyalty.
But not all of his family lived close.
His uncles, Natsume Soseki and Ryuro Hirotsu, drifted in and out of the household like wind through shoji screens, always departing on unexplained journeys.
To Shuuji, they seemed like the heroes of old stories, returning with strange trinkets from Kyushu or Kansai, and with tales of temples hidden in mountains or whispers of powers no one spoke of openly.
When they arrived, the boy would bombard them with questions.
“Uncle, where did you go this time?” he asked once, clambering into Soseki’s lap uninvited.
“To the mountains of Shikoku,” Soseki replied, stroking his mustache. “There are old shrines there that speak of the gods who walked before men. I wanted to see them.”
“Did you find them?” Shuuji pressed, eyes wide.
Soseki smiled, tapping his nose. “A scholar never reveals all his secrets at once. Perhaps when you are older.”
Hirotsu, sitting across the room, adjusted his glasses and added dryly, “He found only foxes and rain.”
The boy giggled, satisfied by their banter.
More often, however, it was Yoshiko who visited him. Bright, stylish, and with a quick tongue, she carried herself with grace even in the old halls of the Tsushima home.
She was uncle Masao’s wife, and though her marriage had placed her within the Matsuki family, she treated Shuuji as her own blood.
She would kneel in the garden with him, her manicured nails smudged with dirt as they shaped imaginary loaves of bread out of wet clay.
“One day,” Yoshiko told him as she dusted her hands, “I will open a bakery. I will bake bread and cakes every morning, and you, Shuuji, will sit by the counter with flour on your nose. You will tell me which ones are too sweet and which ones are perfect.”
The boy tilted his head. “Why bread, Aunt Yoshiko? You could open a shop for toys instead.”
“Because bread fills people,” she said, her smile softening. “It gives warmth to the tired and the hungry. I want to hand the children passing by something warm, something that tells them they are cared for.”
Shuuji nodded solemnly, as though considering a weighty decision. “Then I will eat all the bread, so no one feels sad.”
She laughed and pinched his cheek. “That is exactly why you are my godson. You always want to save everyone, even if it means you get fat first.”
He stuck his tongue out at her, and Chibi barked as though in agreement.
Yet Shuuji’s earliest memories were not only of warmth.
Whenever he wandered too far from the mansion grounds, chasing dragonflies or rolling in the grass, a peculiar chill would creep into his body.
It was not like winter’s cold, but a crawling sensation beneath the skin, as if something inside him scraped against bone. His mother at first thought it a child’s imagination, but the boy would clutch her sleeves, tears brimming in his dark eyes.
“It hurts, Mama,” he whispered once. “It is like needles under my skin. Please make it stop.”
Tane held him close, her brow furrowed in worry she did not voice.
The truth of it came clearer during a family trip to Osaka when Shuuji was two.
The Tsushimas, joined by Soseki and Hirotsu, rented a modest villa near the bustling city. For Shuuji it was an adventure. Neon lights reflected in his eyes as he pointed at giant crab signs and paper lanterns.
Yet as the night deepened, his body shivered violently. He pressed himself against his mother, whispering of the cold feeling again.
It was by chance that he stumbled into Soseki, who caught him gently by the shoulders. For an instant, a blue light shimmered faintly around them. The boy’s eyes widened, and then he smiled with relief.
“It is gone,” he said, his voice light. “Uncle, you took it away.”
That night, while Shuuji slept, the adults gathered in the villa’s narrow living room. Gen’emon and Tane sat together, their hands entwined, while Norimasa listened in silence.
Soseki spoke softly. “It is my godson, so I will find the truth. The child’s condition is no ordinary sickness. But, when I touched him, the cold receded. That means Return to Tsugaru is completely binding him instead, spiritually and physically.”
Hirotsu nodded slowly. “The suppression of an ability so early in life will leave scars we do not yet understand.”
Norimasa’s eyes lingered on the sliding paper door behind which his grandson slept. He said nothing, but his jaw tightened.
Gen’emon whispered, “Then what do we do?”
Soseki placed a hand on the table. “I will search. There are people who study what lies beyond quirks. I have heard whispers of powers different from ours, Transcendentals. If they exist, they may hold the answers.”
The room was silent, save for the hum of Osaka outside. In that silence, a promise was made without words: that Soseki would seek the truth, not because anyone commanded him, but because Shuuji was his godson.
15-16 Years Ago,
By now, Shuuji was restless and sharp. He filled the mansion with endless chatter, from questions about why the moon followed him at night to complaints about Chibi refusing to fetch sticks.
He also adored Yoshiko, clinging to her sleeve whenever she visited, and often asked if she would bring bread for him to taste.
“Not yet,” she said once, ruffling his hair. “When I open my bakery, you will be my first customer. What should I name it?”
“Shuuji’s Bakery,” he said immediately.
“That is a terrible name,” she replied, laughing. “But perhaps I will put your picture on the sign.”
Norimasa often sat silently in the corner during these conversations, watching his grandson with an expression that had a shadow of concern.
Meanwhile, Soseki and Hirotsu continued their searches, traveling across Japan until they met Santoka Taneda.
The discovery began not with calm conversation but with confusion and steel.
Soseki and Hirotsu had been following fragmented rumors across Honshu, whispers of a monk who could see through the very soul of powers. Their search led them into Hyogo, where mist curled low over mountain temples.
It was there, on a rain-slicked trail lined with cedars, that Hirotsu saw movement. A solitary figure in patched robes stood by the path, a begging bowl at his feet, staff in his hand.
When Soseki and Hirotsu approached, the man raised his head, and his eyes seemed to pierce through them.
In an instant Hirotsu felt a strange, invasive pressure, as if his own ability was being weighed and unraveled. His instincts flared, and with a sharp motion his cane-sword sang free of its sheath.
The monk did not flinch. With a flick of his staff he diverted Hirotsu’s strike, the wood clashing against steel with a ringing note that echoed in the trees.
“You attack first, then ask questions?” the monk said, his voice even.
Hirotsu steadied himself. “What did you do just now? You tried to read me.”
“I did not try,” the monk replied, lowering his staff but not relaxing. “I saw. Your gift resonates like a bell. I could hear it the moment you stepped close.”
Soseki stepped forward, placing a hand on Hirotsu’s arm before he struck again. His sharp eyes studied the monk. “Then it is true. You are Santoka Taneda.”
The monk inclined his head. “And you are not ordinary wanderers. Tell me why you seek me.”
The tension thinned into words, though Hirotsu kept his blade near. They sat beneath the dripping cedars, and Taneda explained his ability.
“Hail in the Begging Bowl,” he called it. “When another stands near, their power reveals itself to me, unbidden. It is not always kind. Sometimes I see gifts that crush their bearers, abilities too large for fragile vessels.”
Soseki listened intently. “That is why we searched for you. My godson is one such vessel. His gift nullifies what he touches, and it is far too strong for a child. We have no guide, no knowledge. You might help us understand.”
Taneda’s expression softened slightly. “Then you already know the divide that most do not. There are quirks, which are the inherited mutations that the public knows. They can be classified, ranked, and regulated. Then there are abilities, or gifts, which are rarer. They are not quirks passed down genetically, but phenomena that tie into names, stories, or legacies. Abilities do not always follow bloodlines. They are rooted in narrative, in fate.”
He paused, his hand tightening around his staff.
“And beyond both lie the Transcendentals. They are gifted existences that break both frameworks. They are the remnants of gods, archetypes, beings from other orders of reality. Against them, most gifts shatter. Heroes cannot hope to restrain them, and even governments whisper of their dread.”
Soseki exchanged a glance with Hirotsu. “We have heard rumors,” he said slowly. “That in Europe, the Order of the Clock Tower employs Transcendentals in secret, sending them on missions where normal agents fail.”
Taneda gave a grave nod. “Those are not rumors. The Clock Tower does not waste its time on the ordinary. They train and unleash powers that can level cities. If Japan does not prepare, we will be at their mercy. That is why the government has begun to build the SDUP, the Special Division for Unusual Powers. I have been asked to lead it.”
He leaned forward, the rain dripping steadily from the edge of his robe.
“But the Hero Commission does not understand. They still think in terms of quirks and percentages. They say sixty percent of the population carries quirks now, and they believe their heroes are enough. But gifts are not quirks. They cannot be catalogued or regulated in the same way. And the Transcendentals… they break all the rules.”
Soseki’s voice was low. “What will you do?”
Taneda drew from his sleeve a small folded slip of paper. On it was an intricate diagram in silver ink, circles and lines overlapping like a star map.
“This is the Silver Oracle. A genuine license brought from Europe, similar to the one that the Clock Tower holds in its possession. The government created the SDUP with this to create another power hierarchy of yet another group of individuals under their control.”
Hirotsu frowned. “That is surveillance, not guidance.”
Taneda’s gaze hardened. “Exactly. That is why I do not intend to build another arm of control. The SDUP, under my hand, will be different. Not only Transcendentals, but any gifted soul who suffers under the weight of their ability, I will give them a place to train, to live, to be shielded from the fear of governments and crime alike.”
Soseki considered this for a long moment, then spoke. “You will need more than resolve. You will need tacticians. You will need an order of your own.”
Taneda’s eyes met his, steady as the rain. “And you would join me?”
Soseki smiled faintly. “I have spent my life writing about the ghosts of Meiji, about men crushed by powers beyond them. My godson is such a child. If I can spare him, and others like him, from that fate, then yes. I will join you. I will help you build it.”
Hirotsu sighed, sheathing his blade at last. “If Soseki does, then so do I. But know this: I do not trust governments, and I never will. If they turn your SDUP into a cage, I will break it open myself.”
For the first time, Taneda smiled. “Good. A cage-breaker is exactly what we will need.”
When Soseki and Hirotsu returned from Hyogo, their robes still damp from mountain rain, they carried more than answers.
They carried the weight of a new truth: the world of quirks and heroes was only one layer of reality. Beneath it lay the vast, half-hidden strata of abilities and transcendentals, powers too unruly for the Hero Commission or the headlines.
Soseki did not speak immediately of his promise to Taneda.
He waited.
He watched Shuuji play in the garden with Chibi, the family’s small Shiba Inu, running circles under the maple trees. He watched Gen’emon pour over his textbooks in the library, brow furrowed with ambition. He watched Tane smile at her children, though her eyes still carried the burden of Port Mafia ties.
And then, when the moment was quiet, he told Norimasa everything.
The old man had listened gravely, smoking slowly, his gaze turned toward the horizon.
“If such forces exist,” Norimasa murmured at last, “then we must prepare the boy. But not with chains. He is still a child. Let him laugh. Let him run. Let him be held.”
It was decided then: Soseki would continue his work with Taneda, but quietly, without bringing Ozo or the Matsukis into it.
Shuuji’s existence was still veiled.
Ozo believed him frail, sheltered, unsuited for public life, and the Tsushimas did not correct him. In truth, they preferred it that way.
That summer, the cicadas shrieked from the trees outside the mansion, their chorus endless. Norimasa sat on the veranda, a cigarette between his fingers, when the phone rang.
The voice was Ozo’s.
Ozo’s voice, distorted faintly over the secure line, was brisk but almost cordial.
“Norimasa. A client of mine has demanded a meeting in Yamaguchi. I cannot attend, Masao is abroad, and schedules cannot shift. I implore you to go in my place. Your presence lends gravity where my name alone will not.”
Norimasa had glanced at his calendar. His health had grown more delicate with age, but the old strength still pulsed in him when he needed it.
Norimasa hesitated, but Yoshiko, who had been visiting Shuuji, offered immediately.
“I will go with you,” she said. “Tane is in Yokohama, and Gen’emon must stay with the boy. You should not travel alone. And, I know the circles you will be meeting. A woman’s presence softens negotiations.”
Norimasa hesitated, but Shuuji’s small hands were tugging at Yoshiko’s dress, begging her not to leave too soon. She crouched, kissed the boy’s forehead, and smiled.
“I will not be gone long, Shuuji. And when I return, I will bake with you. You promised you would help me stir the batter, remember?”
Shuuji giggled and nodded, his brown hair sticking to his forehead.
So it was decided.
That evening, they departed.
Flights were grounded so they had to reroute their flight from Yamaguchi to Fukuoka, and then they rented a sedan to continue.
A storm met them in Fukuoka, rain lashing at the asphalt. Driving through the drenched roads, headlights glinting on wet stone, they came upon a landslide.
A bus sat stranded, its passengers panicking. Through the sheets of rain, Norimasa’s eyes caught movement.
Red feathers darted, dozens of them carrying passengers through the air, depositing them gently on the roadside.
They traced back to a boy no older than seven, blond hair plastered to his forehead, wings small but strong enough to scatter feathers like arrows.
His face was pale with exhaustion, yet he moved with desperate will.
Their car drove on when the road cleared. Silence stretched, broken only by rain.
Yoshiko sat in the passenger seat, tapping her phone screen, the glow faintly illuminating her face. Norimasa drove with both hands steady on the wheel, wipers thrashing back and forth.
After a long silence, Yoshiko spoke, her voice softer than usual.
“Uncle, do you ever regret it? The life we live? All of us bound to names, to blood, to these games of power?”
Norimasa chuckled faintly. “You are young to ask such questions.”
“I am not as young as you think. I married into Matsuki steel. I have seen what Ozo can do when he wills it. I have seen how Masao bends under that weight. Sometimes I dream of… smaller things. A bakery, perhaps. A quiet shop with a window, where children come in after school. I would hand them bread still warm from the oven.”
Norimasa smiled despite himself, eyes never leaving the road. “A bakery?”
“Do not laugh. I mean it. Shuuji loves sweets. And Gen’emon pretends not to, but I see him steal them when he thinks no one is looking. Even Tane smiles when she eats what I make. Would it not be something, to give food to people without any price of blood attached?”
Her voice dimmed, wistful. “When I saw that boy today… the one with wings…”
Norimasa’s grip tightened subtly on the wheel.
“A child,” Norimasa murmured. “A true hero, before the world has even named him so.”
“Exactly,” Yoshiko whispered. “If I had my bakery, I would feed children like him for free. Heroes who give more than they take. That would be enough for me.”
Silence fell between them, broken only by the storm. Norimasa’s thoughts drifted to Shuuji, to the strange light that sometimes flickered around him, to the way Soseki had spoken of transcendentals and fate. He felt the weight of generations pressing upon his shoulders.
The meeting itself went well. Their hosts in Yamaguchi were businessmen cloaked in underworld ties, men who smiled too easily, their suits crisp but their eyes sharp. Norimasa’s presence disarmed them; his calm dignity carried a weight that Ozo’s raw ferocity could not. Yoshiko, with her charm and quiet wit, softened the edges further.
By afternoon, contracts were drafted, and handshakes exchanged. Lunch stretched long, sake cups refilled, the storm finally easing outside.
When they departed, Norimasa felt tired but content.
He glanced at Yoshiko, who was laughing at some remark from one of the hosts, her eyes bright. He thought then that perhaps she would have her bakery one day. Perhaps Shuuji would sit in its window, eating melon bread while sunlight fell across his hair.
They never reached home.
The details came in pieces, blurred by the chaos of the following hours. Somewhere along the return road, beyond a stretch of cliffs still slick from rain, their car was found wrecked against the guardrail. No witnesses could say what had struck them. Some swore they heard an explosion, others claimed it was a landslide. The truth never came clear.
But by the next morning, two names were confirmed dead: Tsushima Norimasa and Matsuki Yoshiko.
The Tsushima mansion fell into silence when the news arrived. Tane clutched Shuuji to her chest, her face pale, unable to speak. Gen’emon stood rigid, fists clenched at his sides, jaw trembling though he forced himself not to cry.
Soseki closed his eyes, the weight of his promise to his godson now doubled with grief. Hirotsu’s face hardened into stone, but his eyes betrayed the storm within.
And Ozo, upon hearing, lowered his head. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet but sharp, like a knife against glass.
“Two pillars gone. Then we must build stronger walls, or all will crumble.”
But Shuuji, too young to grasp the fullness of death, simply asked where his grandfather and aunt had gone. No one answered him. Chibi whined softly at his side, pressing against his leg as though to shield him from the silence.
15 Years Ago,
The Tsushima mansion in Aomori had never been truly quiet.
In its long halls, footsteps echoed like reminders of its many inhabitants: servants carrying tea trays, Tane’s voice calling for order, Gen’emon pacing during late-night strategy sessions, Norimasa humming absent-mindedly while smoking in the garden. Even Yoshiko’s laughter, always cheerful and accompanied by the soft clatter of wrapped sweets in her bag, had been a sound that filled the house with warmth.
Now those sounds were gone.
The silence pressed into the rooms like a heavy curtain. The family did not say it aloud, but every adult felt the loss. Yoshiko, who had been a second mother to Shuuji, was gone. Norimasa, the gentle patriarch who guided them with calm words, had vanished with her.
They had died together in an incident that no one wished to describe in detail, and the younger members of the family carried the weight of the unanswered questions.
Only one voice broke the quiet consistently. Shuuji.
At five years old, he had discovered that filling the silence was easier than listening to it. His partner in this attempt was Chibi, the small pup who had become his shadow.
The boy spent hours in the courtyard training the dog with exaggerated seriousness.
He lined up sticks as if they were weapons and commanded, “Chibi, forward. Attack!” The dog barked and leapt, tumbling onto the sticks with a vigor that made Shuuji clap. “Perfect. Now again. This time, imagine the stick is an enemy of the Tsushima family.”
When the dog rolled over instead, tongue lolling, Shuuji sighed dramatically. “No discipline. Hirotsu, you should train him. Or maybe you are the one learning from him, sitting there all day with your arms crossed.”
From the veranda, Hirotsu raised an eyebrow but said nothing at first.
Finally, he replied with the calmness of a man who had lived long in violence yet carried it like a hidden blade. “Chibi listens better than some of Ozo-sama’s men. I am not insulted.”
Shuuji grinned, pleased that he had gotten a response. “Then maybe I should put him in charge instead of you.”
Hirotsu allowed himself a faint smile, rare and fleeting. Shuuji had noticed early that Hirotsu only smiled for him.
At night, the boy let Chibi sleep on his chest. The little dog’s weight anchored him, easing the strange cold sensation that sometimes returned when he wandered too far from the tether Gen’emon had inscribed.
He whispered into the dog’s fur, “Stay here. If you leave too, I will be angry.”
Yet even in playtime, Shuuji’s mind wandered to the people who were no longer there.
When he held sweets, he thought of Yoshiko’s habit of sneaking them to him after meals, pretending it was a secret between them.
He remembered how she had once whispered discreetly, “Do not tell your mother. If she asks, say Hirotsu gave it to you.”
When he saw Gen’emon’s stern expression soften at the sight of him, he thought of Norimasa’s calm smile and the smell of tobacco lingering on his clothes. His grandfather had always seemed untouchable, someone who could never be erased.
And yet he was gone.
Shuuji did not understand the full story, but he understood enough to feel cheated.
Someone had taken away his happy grandfather. Someone had silenced the aunt who gave him sweets.
He wanted to scream at the adults, to demand why no one had protected them. But every time he looked at Tane, or at Gen’emon, or even at Soseki when he returned from his long travels, he saw the same thing.
They were walking on eggshells around him.
Everyone tried too hard to make him laugh, to keep him distracted, as if his grief could be smothered under games and sweets.
It irritated him, but he chose to play along. If they wanted him to be the cheerful child, he would play that role.
But inside, he kept his anger close, like a secret blade hidden under his small hands.
Soseki did not have the luxury of playtime.
For nearly a year, he pursued answers.
His travels took him across Japan, from Sendai where the memories of the kidnappings still haunted him, to Hiroshima where whispers of underground movements circulated. He searched through archives, collected reports on villain activities, and interviewed low-level informants who spoke too quickly when money or threats loosened their tongues.
The Sendai kidnappings remained a point of obsession. Back then, the villains had spoken of “Gifted,” of selling them to the highest bidder. It was not knowledge they should have possessed. Someone had fed it to them, the one they called HE. Soseki suspected that the same person was tied to the labs in Yamaguchi.
His breakthrough came when he traced shell companies registered in the prefecture. They produced nothing, employed no one, yet paid rent for large facilities in rural areas. Rumors suggested “god experiments” or “divine containment,” with singularities.
Patiently, Soseki pieced together the narrative.
Norimasa had been lured under the pretext of meeting a client, one of Ozo’s business partners. That client had ties, direct or indirect, to the Yamaguchi facilities. Norimasa’s ability had resonated with whatever they were harboring.
Then a singularity had manifested violently, dragging Yoshiko with it and killing them both.
Soseki closed his laptop in a dim hotel room, exhaustion in his bones. He stared at the photo of him and Yoshiko holding baby Shuuji, both laughing, oblivious to the weight that would one day fall on their family. “You were caught in something no one should face,” he whispered. “But I promise, Yoshiko. I will not let our godson live in ignorance.”
When he returned to the Aomori mansion, he found Shuuji sprawled on the tatami with Chibi perched on his chest. The boy looked up at him with wide eyes. “Did you find the bad people?”
Soseki paused, considering how much truth a five-year-old could bear. “Not yet. But I am closer.”
Shuuji nodded solemnly, then ruined the moment with a mischievous grin. “Good. When you find them, let Chibi bite them first. Then I will finish the job.”
Even Soseki laughed at that. The boy’s humor was sharp, sometimes darker than a child’s should be. But it was also his way of surviving.
Eventually, Soseki presented his findings to Tane and Gen’emon in the study. The room smelled faintly of ink and tobacco, scrolls and laptops side by side on the low table.
“It was not a coincidence,” he said firmly. “Norimasa was pulled in through a client meeting. Those labs exist. They are not ordinary. They are experimenting with the remains of gods. His ability resonated with one of them which is what killed him. And Yoshiko was caught in the backlash.”
Tane listened with folded hands, her face calm though her knuckles were pale. Gen’emon’s jaw tightened as he stared at the tatami.
“So it was a trap,” Gen’emon said.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps ignorance. But the danger is real.”
Tane lifted her gaze, meeting her brother’s eyes. “Then we must leave Aomori. Shuuji cannot remain bound here. Not when these people exist.”
And so the decision was made.
By spring, the family had relocated to Yokohama.
Their new home was a villa in Kanagawa, modeled after the Rinshunkaku. Wooden verandas opened to wide gardens, carp swam beneath the stone bridge, and the air carried the salt of the nearby sea.
Gen’emon spent nights inscribing his bindings into the garden soil, tethering Shuuji to the villa instead of the shrine in Aomori. The boy felt the connection immediately. Running barefoot across the wooden floors, he exclaimed, “This house does not bite. It feels like it likes me.”
Tane smiled faintly, adjusting his sweater. She had already commissioned a quirk-based tailor in Tokyo, one who could weave fibers that adapted to body temperature. She wanted custom wraps for her son so that he would not have to wear heavy clothes in summer.
Shuuji nodded approvingly when she explained. “Finally. Maybe I will look stylish instead of like a snowman.”
It was during this period that Ozo entered Shuuji’s life properly.
Ozo arrived in a black Toyota Crown with Masao beside him, the car gleaming under the summer sun. He stepped onto the gravel with the presence of a man used to command.
Shuuji watched from the veranda, Chibi in his arms. He squinted at the imposing figure and called out, “So you are the scary Oji-san.”
Tane froze. Gen’emon stiffened. But Ozo only laughed. “Scary? Tell me, what makes me so?”
Shuuji tilted his head, pretending to think. “Everyone looks at you like they want to follow you, but also like they do not want to stand too close. You are like a porcupine in a suit.”
Masao choked on his breath. Even Ozo chuckled, crouching slightly to meet the boy’s gaze. “And what are you then, Shuuji?”
The boy hugged Chibi tighter, smirk playing on his lips. “I am the one who will beat you one day.”
For a heartbeat, silence stretched. Then Ozo’s grin widened. “Then I will wait for that day. But until then, you had better learn quickly.”
From that moment, Ozo began to test him.
Ozo tested the boy in subtle ways. At family dinners, he would ask, “If you were me, how would you deal with a man who betrayed you?”
Shuuji would tilt his head, pretend to think, then reply with something that made Masao stiffen and Tane pinch her brow. “I would tell him he has one chance to fix his mistake. If he fails, I would give him to Chibi. Chibi is hungry these days.”
The table would fall into uneasy laughter, but Ozo would clap once, amused. “Practical. Brutal. You have spirit.”
Another time, when Masao described the complexity of front businesses, Shuuji interrupted, “So you hide the dirty work behind jewelry shops and entertainment? That is boring. Why not hide it behind something people already think is dirty, like politics?”
Ozo roared with laughter at that, while Masao choked on his tea.
Even Tane, worried as she was, could not deny that her son’s mind was sharp. He absorbed information like water, twisted it, and sent it back sharper than before.
By summer, Ozo decided it was time to broaden the boy’s education.
“There is someone you should meet,” he told Gen’emon one evening. “A man who still believes in codes, in honor. Different from me, but no less powerful. If Shuuji is to understand this world, he must see the contrasts.”
That someone was the Boss of the Shie Hassaikai.
The rain in Osaka had stopped by the time the black Toyota Crown pulled up in front of the Shie Hassaikai compound.
The street was quiet, the neon signs of nearby izakayas flickering in the night. This building was different from the clutter of the district. Its wide wooden gates, flanked by guards in immaculate black suits, bore the crest of the Hassaikai painted in white.
The guards straightened as Matsuki Ozo stepped out of the car, followed by his brother Masao. His grandson, Tsushima Shuuji, hopped out last, cradling Chibi in his arms.
The guards bowed low. “Welcome, Matsuki-dono.”
Ozo inclined his head, his sharp gaze sweeping over the compound. “You keep your men disciplined, Chisaki-dono.”
Inside, the main hall was quiet except for the scent of incense and the soft creak of tatami. Waiting at the far end was Chisaki Shinoda, the Boss of the Shie Hassaikai.
He wore a formal black montsuki kimono, his posture straight, his presence calm but commanding. Age had lined his face, his hair was streaked with gray, but his eyes carried the weight of generations.
Ozo bowed slightly, and Shinoda mirrored him.
“Matsuki-dono,” Shinoda said, his voice steady, “your journey was long. Thank you for coming all the way from Yokohama.”
“Business does not wait for the comfortable man,” Ozo replied smoothly. “Besides, I have long wanted to see how the Hassaikai hold their house.”
“Then you will see,” Shinoda said, gesturing toward the tatami. “Let us speak plainly, without unnecessary words. The land we discussed in Namba has been released. Developers are circling it, but we have slowed their hands. If you are serious about our cooperation, we can secure it together.”
Ozo settled across from him, Masao at his side. “Real estate is the cleanest skin a business can wear. Buildings rise, money flows, and few ask questions. You will handle construction, I assume. We will handle the rest.”
Shinoda’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “You mean the laundering.”
“Call it cleansing,” Ozo said lightly, though his eyes were sharp. “Your men build. My men move. Everyone profits.”
Masao leaned forward. “The jewelry imports can funnel through the companies we already registered in Yokohama. By the time the profits return, they will appear as property sales. Untouchable.”
Shinoda’s gaze lingered on Masao before returning to Ozo. “The Shie Hassaikai are not villains, Matsuki-dono. We do not poison streets with drugs or prey on the weak. Our men walk under the code of chivalry. If this partnership is to work, it will respect that line.”
Ozo tapped his fingers lightly against his knee, his scythe never far from reach even in this room. “You will find that I have no interest in peddling weakness. Drugs rot both the buyer and the seller. But money, Shinoda-dono… money never rots. It only multiplies.”
The two men held each other’s gaze, neither blinking. Finally, Shinoda gave a single nod. “Then let us speak of terms.”
The negotiation began in earnest, numbers and names laid out, construction projects disguised as community redevelopment, laundering schemes dressed as trade routes. Their voices blended low, calm, but every word carried weight.
Shuuji, who had been sitting cross-legged beside Chibi, grew restless. He knew Ozo’s negotiations were important, but five-year-old patience was short. He tugged at his grandfather’s sleeve.
“Oji-san,” he whispered, “can I explore?”
Ozo looked down at him, smirking faintly. “Go. But behave.”
Shinoda clapped his hands once, and from behind the screen stepped an older attendant, leading a boy forward.
“This is Chisaki Kai,” Shinoda said, his tone softer than it had been with Ozo. “He will keep you company.”
The boy, eleven years old, bowed stiffly. His dark hair hung around his pale face, and he wore gloves that looked too large for his thin hands. His eyes flickered up, then down again quickly.
Shuuji’s grin spread. “Perfect. I was getting bored of adults.”
The two boys were guided to a side room down the hall. It was smaller, with tatami and shelves of old books and wooden toys stacked neatly. Chibi barked once, running circles around them.
Shuuji plopped onto the floor and began to pull at a puzzle box left on the shelf. “So, you are Chisaki, huh? Do you always look this serious?”
Chisaki sat slowly across from him, his hands folded tightly in his lap. “I do not like… germs. Or people getting too close.”
Shuuji tilted his head, curious. “Germs? Like when you sneeze?”
“Like quirks,” Chisaki said sharply. His eyes darted toward Shuuji, defensive. “Quirks are filth. They spread sickness. They ruin people.”
Shuuji blinked, then leaned forward, his tone playful. “Then why do you have one?”
Chisaki froze, then raised one gloved hand. He touched a wooden toy soldier on the floor. In a blink, it disassembled into pieces, then reformed perfectly.
Shuuji’s eyes widened, delighted. “That is amazing. You can break and fix things. Like magic Lego.”
Chisaki pulled his hand back immediately, glaring. “It is not amazing. It is a disease. People think quirks are gifts, but they are filth that spreads into our blood.”
Shuuji tilted his head, then gave a sly smile. “If quirks are germs, then you are the doctor. You can take them apart and put them back together. That makes you the cure, not the disease.”
Chisaki blinked, stunned by the logic. No one had ever spoken of his power that way. For the first time, his expression softened, though his voice was still low. “…You are strange.”
“Strange is fun,” Shuuji said with a grin. “Do you want to play a game? Chibi can be the monster, and we will be the doctors. You can fix what he destroys.”
Chibi barked at the sound of his name, tail wagging furiously.
For the next hour, the two boys played clumsy games of make-believe, Chisaki reluctantly joining as Shuuji’s endless chatter drew him out of his shell.
Chisaki admitted in halting words how Shinoda had saved him from the streets, how no one else had cared if he lived or died.
Shuuji listened carefully, filing away each detail.
“You trust him, huh,” Shuuji said finally, tossing a toy soldier back into Chisaki’s lap. “That is good. I do not trust many people. Except Chibi. Dogs never lie.”
Chisaki looked at the fluffy shiba inu curled up in Shuuji’s lap and nodded slowly. “I guess… dogs are clean.”
Shuuji smirked, patting Chibi’s head. “See? Even you agree. We are already friends.”
When the boys were finally called back, the negotiations had ended. Ozo stood, his eyes glinting with satisfaction. Shinoda’s posture was still composed, but his bow toward Ozo carried the weight of a new alliance.
“Our partnership is sealed, Matsuki-dono,” Shinoda said. “May it endure.”
Ozo’s smile was thin but certain. “It will endure as long as money breathes.”
As they stepped out into the Osaka night, Ozo’s hand fell briefly on Shuuji’s shoulder. “What did you think of the boy?”
Shuuji smirked, eyes glinting in the glow of the streetlights. “He thinks quirks are germs. I told him I might be the vaccine.”
Masao almost tripped on the curb. Ozo’s laugh echoed deep into the night.
14 Years Ago,
Kanagawa, Yokohama.
Tane had taken weeks before she gathered the strength to approach her father.
The information that Soseki uncovered about the laboratories in Yamaguchi still weighed heavily on her heart. She had not spoken of it beyond Gen’emon, fearing that Ozo might dismiss the matter as a reckless rumor.
But as autumn deepened, and the shadows of Norimasa and Yoshiko’s absence lingered over both families, she chose to speak.
They were seated in Ozo’s study in the Yokohama headquarters. The space was as refined as the man himself: polished wooden bookshelves lined with economic texts, Japanese calligraphy scrolls framed on the walls, and a desk immaculate despite the constant demands of leadership.
Ozo poured himself a measure of aged whiskey before he looked up at his daughter.
“You look troubled, Tane,” he said in his even, commanding voice. “Sit. Speak clearly.”
Tane did not hesitate. She explained what Soseki had found, the connections to the hidden research groups in Yamaguchi, the possibility that Norimasa and Yoshiko’s deaths had not been mere misfortune but the result of an entanglement with forces beyond normal villains.
When she finished, the room was quiet except for the faint hum of the aircon. Ozo leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable. For a moment, she thought he would dismiss it.
But when he finally spoke, his words were softer than she expected.
“Norimasa was a man I respected,” Ozo said slowly. “Not only because of his strength, but because he carried it with dignity. And Yoshiko… she was family.”
He set down his glass, the sound sharp in the silence. “If there are answers to be found, we will not look away. Negotiations with these researchers are dangerous, but we will proceed. Secrets have already cost us too much.”
It was the closest thing to grief Tane had ever seen in her father’s eyes.
From that moment, Ozo gave his blessing, and Gen’emon and Tane threw themselves into a new phase of Port Mafia expansion.
Under their direction, the organization refined itself into a dual structure.
On one side, legitimate businesses flourished: jewelry boutiques in Ginza, trade networks stretching from Yokohama’s ports into Korea, entertainment venues along the waterfront, and carefully managed construction projects that masked their laundering operations.
On the other side, the underground was brought under strict discipline. Ozo forbade drugs outright, declaring that they poisoned the very foundation of respect and control.
“The Mafia is not chaos,” Ozo said during one of his private councils. “It is order. It is the hand that steadies the city when others stumble. We may strike with violence when needed, but our discipline is what will make us endure.”
His charisma and severity bound people to him. Men followed because they feared him, but also because he gave them direction in a world where most leaders offered only greed.
Shuuji watched his grandfather with sharp eyes. He admired Ozo’s composure, the way he could silence a room with a glance or turn suspicion into loyalty with a single phrase. Yet he felt the weight of something darker beneath that charm.
To Shuuji, Ozo was like a blade polished to a mirror shine: beautiful, but deadly to touch carelessly.
In June, both families gathered again in Aomori for Shuuji’s sixth birthday.
It was the first time in months that laughter filled the mansion without restraint. Paper decorations swayed in the summer breeze, and the kitchen overflowed with dishes that blended tradition and indulgence: sashimi platters, roasted meats, and an elaborate strawberry shortcake layered with whipped cream.
Masao presented his nephew with a fine notebook, and Soseki added a fountain pen. Hirotsu gave him a black trench coat with his name embroidered inside. Ozo himself presented a small Go board, telling Shuuji to practice patience as much as cleverness.
Shuuji accepted each gift with bright eyes and mischievous remarks that drew laughter. “I will write down everyone’s secrets in the notebook,” he declared, grinning. Or, slipping into the coat, “I look like the next leader already, do I not?”
Even Ozo allowed himself a chuckle, though he studied the boy carefully as if weighing the truth in those words.
For that evening, grief was held at bay. The boy was a bridge between the two families, hope in a small form, and they all clung to it.
Autumn brought with it the news that unsettled them once again.
In October, word reached the Mafia that researchers in Yamaguchi planned to relocate part of their operations to Suribachi City in Yokohama. The reasoning was practical: proximity to larger networks, easier access to resources, and greater protection under the shadow of the Port Mafia itself.
Gen’emon received the notice with unease. “It is too close to home,” he said to Tane as they walked the villa gardens in Kanagawa. “If we allow them to move here, we place a danger at our doorstep. But if we refuse, we lose the chance to keep them within reach.”
Tane’s voice was quiet but firm. “If Father intends to pursue the truth of what happened, we cannot push them away. Better to keep them near, where we can see what they do.”
Reluctantly, Gen’emon agreed. He could not deny the logic, even if it felt like walking into a trap with eyes wide open.
By November, a meeting date had been arranged.
The Port Mafia prepared to host representatives from the research team, ensuring that their facilities in Suribachi would be monitored closely. It was the beginning of a dangerous alliance, one born out of grief and necessity.
As the preparations moved forward, the Port Mafia itself gained momentum. Their presence in Yokohama was no longer whispered about, but openly acknowledged. Black sedans lined with tinted windows became a familiar sight in the city’s streets. Businesses knew better than to resist their offers of protection.
Yet alongside the fear, there was also a strange respect. Ozo’s discipline gave the impression of stability in a world where chaos often reigned.
Shuuji, sharp for his years, observed it all. He sat quietly at family dinners, watching his grandfather weigh words with clients. He memorized the cadence of Gen’emon’s reports and the way Tane balanced loyalty with strategy.
In his small hands, the Go stones clicked against the board, but in his mind he was already playing a larger game.
Shuuji, only six, sat on the veranda that night, eyes gleaming as he whispered, “So the gods are coming to us now. Good. That will make things interesting.”
And in the shadows of Yokohama, unseen forces stirred. The laboratories had chosen to move their “containments” closer, setting the stage for revelations that none of them could yet predict.
Notes:
Hawks and Bakugo are my favorite characters from MHA!!!!
They are soooooo damn competent at the 'hero' work: they actually put in the work, have brains, can strategize, have had so much development throughout the series, and they genuinely want to be a hero-hero that saves and wins. (They also have a face card that never declines with the pretty blond aesthetic going on.)
And this is why I personally didn't like Midoriya so much, I mean he pretty much crosses all the check boxes from the list above, but before meeting All Might it felt as if he didn't even think of fighting quirkless, he never thought of becoming the first quirkless hero, or like making his own gear to fight. He even trained and gained enough muscle to pull All Might in his prime, so why couldn't he do that before, or even learn self-defense? Alas we would never know, unless it's a money thing, but he had all that merch so....
It seemed to me, as if he could become a hero only if he had a quirk...and that just felt wrong to me.
Yeah in the last chapter he does do that, so full circle I guess.
Chapter 8: Nakahara Chuuya
Summary:
The Tsushimas chase answers in a lab tied possibly to the death in the family, while Shuuji meets someone new.
Notes:
Also TW for more...canon experimentation.
My longest chapter yet, hope you enjoy the long awaited encounter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The notice had come on crisp white letterhead, sealed in plastic to prevent tampering, addressed to the Port Mafia’s headquarters in the heart of Yokohama. It bore the stamp of a research director: Professor N.
The words were simple and yet carried a calculated weight: We invite you to witness our progress in singularities research. In light of your organization’s interest, we will open Research Area B in Suribachi for private visitation.
Tane read the letter twice before passing it silently to Gen’emon. His sharp eyes lingered on the phrasing. He was in a dark gray three-piece suit today, the kind that blended the elegance of a businessman with the authority of someone who carried shadows at his back.
Tane, beside him, wore a cream-colored merino sweater dress with a black puffer coat folded neatly over her arm, her boots still dusted with Yokohama’s light November snow.
And sitting cross-legged on the floor with Chibi curled against his side, Shuuji swung his sneakered feet back and forth, humming some pop tunes from memory. His dark cardigan made him look preppy, but his eyes gleamed with restless curiosity.
“So,” Shuuji finally piped up, catching their silence. “We are going to meet the crazy professor, yes?”
Tane frowned. “Don't call him that.”
“But he is,” Shuuji said, matter-of-fact. “Who else writes letters like a villain from a drama?”
Gen’emon exhaled, leaning back. “He is not wrong. Also, it doesn’t seem like this particular facility is working on the same thing as the ones in Yamaguchi.”
Tane leaned against him, head comfortably laid on his shoulder, “What do you mean? Soseki-san said a singularity mixed with your father’s gift and exploded. Isn’t that the same case in this one?”
Gen’emon tapped the note with his finger, “It’s just a hunch, but we should go check out the one in Yamaguchi just to be sure, later. Now, let’s get ready to leave.”
Shuuji, who was listening in, whined out loudly rolling on the floor in a mock-tantrum, “I don’t wanna go in this sweater. Mom, where are my bandages? The stylish ones we selected last week.”
Tane huffed, “The tailor is still making them. I told you, we are going to get them by New Year’s not earlier than that.”
Sighing loudly, Shuuji crawled into Chibi’s side, burrowing his face into the fur, “The world is so cruel.”
A black sedan rattled over uneven asphalt, winding its way out of the congested city streets of Suribachi, where the smell of street vendors’ skewers clung to the November air.
Inside, Shuuji pressed his nose against the cold glass, tracing the blurred lights with wide eyes as the city’s clamor gradually softened into the distant hum of trucks and trains.
He glanced at the five black towers of the Port Mafia headquarters looming far behind, silhouetted against a cold sky.
Uncle Hirotsu was out of town with Uncle Natsume, and it really felt lonely to not have the comforting feeling of being looked after. He pouted as he absentmindedly patted Chibi, thinking they both were missing out on so much fun.
By the time the car slid onto the port road, the city’s chaos had been replaced by a quiet, industrial grace.
The harbor stretched before them, slick with melting snow and reflected lights, where container ships rocked gently, their metal hulls humming with a slow, steady rhythm.
Warehouses hunched beside container yards, as huge cranes stood still over stacks of metal boxes.
Tane shivered inside the car, ports bringing back unpleasant memories.
I hope everything goes well today.
The car pulled smoothly into the gated compound of Research Area B.
Its body shone faintly in the gray light, the polished surface catching the occasional spark of sodium lamps that buzzed above the road.
Security guards checked their identification with no delay. Everyone knew who Matsuki Tane and Tsushima Gen’emon were. And if anyone pretended not to know, the silent weight of their presence would remind them.
Shuuji watched the fencing blur past, as the car rolled deeper inside, lined with barbed wire that caught droplets of mist.
A faint chemical tang mixed with the sea breeze, seeping into the car’s filtered air the moment the window cracked. He wrinkled his nose.
“This place smells like cleaning solution and dead fish,” he announced. His cardigan collar bunched up under his chin as he adjusted it, making sure he looked comfortable. His sneakers tapped against the seat in front of him in impatience.
Tane glanced at him, half stern, half indulgent. “You will sit properly when we arrive. This is not a playground, Shuuji.”
Gen’emon, seated beside her, gave only a faint grunt of agreement. His eyes, sharp and unsmiling, remained fixed ahead.
Shuuji fell back on the seat, but his gaze darted everywhere: the guard posts, the sterile concrete buildings, the painted arrows on the ground.
He thought it all looked too neat. Neatness, he had already decided at the age of six, was suspicious.
The car stopped at the front entrance of the main laboratory. The sliding glass doors reflected their approach, showing the three figures before opening with a sigh.
Inside, the scent was stronger. Antiseptic, a sterile cold that clung to the skin. Shuuji hugged himself for a moment, more out of instinct than chill.
He was already cataloguing the place in his mind: bright white corridors, hum of fluorescent lights, the faint vibration of machines behind the walls.
A man in a white coat stood waiting. He was tall, clean-cut, with neatly combed hair and rimless glasses. His posture carried precision, as though every gesture had been measured before being made.
“Professor N,” Tane greeted, polite but cool.
“Tsushima Gen’emon. Matsuki Tane. And this must be young Shuuji.” His voice was smooth, deliberate.
“Welcome to Research Area B. I appreciate your interest in our research. Few families truly understand the potential of singularities.”
Shuuji narrowed his eyes immediately. “You sound like a cartoon villain.”
“Shuuji!” Tane hissed, mortified.
But N only chuckled, though his eyes glittered with an unsettling sharpness. “Children do tend to speak the truth, do they not?”
He gestured to them to come inside. “We will begin the briefing in the central chamber.”
Shuuji stuck close to his mother as they followed. Chibi padded silently at his side until a guard stopped them at a checkpoint.
“No animals beyond this point.”
Shuuji’s head snapped up. “What do you mean no animals? He is cleaner than your floor. He smells nicer too!”
N waved his hand, “It can come inside to the chamber, but the dog must be in an adult’s hand.”
Tane bent down and stroked Chibi’s head. “He can stay with me, Shuuji, and you will not be far.”
The boy scowled but handed over the leash reluctantly. He gave Chibi a soft pat on the head. “Do not worry. I will not abandon you to the sterile people.”
The dog wagged once, then obediently padded beside Tane’s feet.
As they followed him deeper, the corridors smelled faintly of bleach and ozone. Their footsteps echoed against polished concrete floors. Finally, N pushed open a heavy door into a conference room.
The central chamber looked less like a laboratory and more like a lecture hall married to a command center.
Screens flickered on the walls, some filled with streams of numbers, others with images of unfamiliar landscapes and diagrams of strange geometries.
At the center stood another man, older, with streaks of gray in his once bright red hair and the air of someone who had once been gentle but had since calcified into something harsher.
“Professor Kashimura Kensuke,” Professor N introduced. “He is our chief consultant for Project Arahabaki in Research Area A and now B. His expertise in singularities and their biological applications is unparalleled.”
Kashimura gave a curt nod. His lab coat hung slightly looser on his shoulders, as if worn for convenience rather than neatness. His eyes, however, were alive, darting with the restless energy of a mind that never ceased moving.
Gen’emon stepped forward. “I was not informed you would be present.”
Tane’s eyes narrowed slightly. She had heard his name only in passing: a military surgeon with ties to classified projects, rumored to have left the field under a shadow.
Kashimura inclined his head. “Professor N insisted I join this conversation. He thought my experience might offer… perspective.”
N interjected, clasping his hands behind his back, “Professor Kashimura has seen firsthand the consequences of mixing human limits with forces that lie outside them. His work touches upon singularities.”
Tane glanced sharply at him. “What exactly are these singularities? Do they focus on quirks?”
Kashimura’s expression flickered into something almost proud. “There are points where natural laws collapse. Where a human body cannot contain the power it is forced to hold, yet still functions, if only barely. Call it Gods placed into vessels. The limit of quirk and Ability alike.”
Shuuji tilted his head. “Like stuffing too much candy into a bag until it rips?”
The adults paused. Tane looked mortified, Gen’emon exhaled as though restraining laughter, and N actually smiled.
“A crude analogy,” Kashimura said, “but accurate enough.”
A flicker of something passed over Kashimura’s face before he turned back to the adults.
“Singularities,” he continued without transition, “are not mutations, nor are they the same as what you call quirks. They are intersections. When a Gift intersects with the fundamental structure of the world, it bends reality differently. Two singularities may repel each other, or they may collapse into one another and create something entirely unstable.”
As he spoke, he gestured toward the screens. One showed overlapping circles, fractal shapes spiraling into one another. Another displayed faint, blurred footage of what looked like an uncontrolled energy discharge in a mountainous area.
“In ancient times,” Kashimura continued, “quirked humans attempted to court these forces through rituals. Amaterasu the goddess of fire, or Inari Okami the goddess of agriculture are some of these powerful beings who belong to a different plane of existence. These quirked humans for years have used rituals to summon gods to our plane.”
He paused to take a breath here.
“It was a fascinating study to read. When Professor N contacted me, I had already started on working on a different path about singularities, but with his knowledge about summoned gods, it opened a new door.”
Professor N interjected smoothly. “In modern times, we have refined those old rituals. We found out that the rituals had a pattern and specific regulations laid underneath. So we bypassed those by using a Gifted we found from overseas.”
Here Professor N started getting oddly excited, which made Tane want to run off with Shuuji somewhere far away.
His voice continued, “The user is now dead, of course. He couldn’t restore quickly, so the rebound killed him within the week. That’s not important. We were able to summon and collect many of such godlike beings, but the cost of bringing them completely, not just as a manifestation of power, to a different plane changed them into creature-like beings. Different from what we expected from folk tales.”
Here, he pointed at some of the closed tanks on the projectors, “Some of them are still sealed, while some creatures found their home. A complete capture of these creatures requires subjects. Living subjects.”
Tane’s hands clenched at her sides. “You mean experimentation on humans.”
“Of course,” N replied, without flinching. “You cannot study the weight of fire without something to burn.”
Shuuji piped up before anyone else could respond. “That is the dumbest metaphor I have ever heard. If you burn everything, what will you be left with to measure? Ashes don’t give good data.”
The room went silent for a beat. Gen’emon’s brow furrowed, though not entirely with disapproval. Tane gave her son a sharp look, but N’s expression shifted into something like intrigue.
“You are clever,” N said softly. “For a child.”
Shuuji’s smile was thin and mischievous, he shrugged and said. “For a child, I am smarter than you think. But I get bored easily.”
It was true. Already his mind buzzed with irritation at the droning explanations. They talked as though the world was made only of charts and corpses.
He wanted something real, something new, something now!
N crouched a little, studying him. “And what would you do, young Tsushima, if power itself threatened to unravel the world?”
Shuuji’s grin returned, sly and sharp. “I would make the strongest person my friend. Then let them do all the hard work.”
For a moment, the sterile air cracked with laughter, soft, thin, but genuine. N smiled faintly, though the gleam in his gaze unsettled Tane.
Shuuji felt it too, that too-bright focus, and decided to slip away from it.
“May I explore?” he asked suddenly, putting on his most innocent tone. “These hallways look like they go on forever. I promise not to break anything.”
Kashimura waved a distracted hand. “Let him. Curiosity is the root of progress.”
N’s eyes lingered on Shuuji for a moment too long, but he gave a small nod.
Tane hesitated, then nodded. “Don't go too far. And take Chibi with you.”
At that, N shook his head. “Animals cannot enter the containment wings. For safety.”
Shuuji scowled at the unfairness of it, then slid off his chair. He handed the fluffy white pup back into Tane’s lap. “Don't spoil him too much while I am gone.”
“Just go,” Tane sighed, though her eyes softened as she stroked Chibi’s ears.
Shuuji slipped out with a triumphant grin that only his mother caught before the door closed behind him.
The hallways of Research Area B stretched long and sterile, white lights buzzing faintly overhead. Shuuji walked with hands in his pockets, sneakers squeaking on the polished floor.
He saw many young people in white coats bustling about in the corridors; some busy with books, some held animated discussions while waving hands about, and others using their quirks to demonstrate theories of sorts.
Shuuji raised an eyebrow at that. Weird.
After he was sure that he had walked quite far from the central chamber and made sure the path was empty, he ignored the doctor who was supposed to accompany him, darting suddenly down an intersecting corridor. His cardigan swished around him as he slipped out of sight.
The more he walked, the colder the air felt. A metallic chill clung to the back of his throat. He slowed down as he passed heavy doors marked with numbers and hazard signs until he came to a chamber lined with tall cylindrical tanks.
Each was filled with faintly glowing liquid, wires and tubes running into the walls. The smell here was sharp, chemical and faintly burnt.
“This place is boring,” he muttered. “If only I had a crayon, I would draw on the walls just to see them panic. Maybe sprinkle in some glitter too, sterilize that!”
He peered into small side rooms: storage filled with chemical drums, chambers with humming equipment, an office with screensavers drifting lazily across unused monitors.
The deeper he went inside, the quieter it became, until even his own footsteps felt too loud.
At last, he turned a corner and froze.
This room was different.
It was larger, colder, the air heavy with moisture. Along the walls stood tanks, tall glass cylinders filled with liquid that glowed faintly under submerged lights. Some held nothing but the shifting fluid.
Others contained indistinct shapes, outlines blurred by the liquid.
Shuuji crept closer. His breath fogged faintly against the glass. He felt both a thrill and a shiver.
Near the center stood an empty tank. A screen beside it flickered with lines of text. He dragged over a small stool, clambered on top, and stood on tiptoe to read.
The list scrolled slowly: Byakko. Arahabaki. Names that meant nothing yet carried weight, like echoes of old stories. His lips mouthed them softly.
Could they be the gods who found home…or were they the sealed ones?
Suddenly, a voice rang out.
“Who you?”
Shuuji startled, nearly falling off the stool. He spun around.
At the far end, in one of the tanks, a boy pressed a small fist against the glass.
Pale skin shimmered under the glow of the liquid, hair a deep orange that drifted like fire. His eyes, impossibly blue, fixed on Shuuji with startling intensity.
A transparent bubble-mask covered his nose and mouth, letting him breathe inside.
Must be a quirk of sorts.
Shuuji just quietly stared at the other boy, lost in his musings.
“Hey!” The boy thumped again. “Look me. Who you?”
Shuuji blinked, then grinned, pulse quickening not with fear, but fascination. “Shuuji. And you?”
The boy’s lips moved, slower, careful. “A-258 Chuuya.”
Shuuji tilted his head, eyes narrowing in mock scrutiny. “So, A-258 Chuuya… do you always hang out in water jars?”
Chuuya pressed his small hand against the glass, frowning. “Not jar. Room.”
“Room?” Shuuji hopped off the stool and sauntered closer, peering in. “Looks like a fish tank to me.”
“Not fish.”
Shuuji smirked, dragging out the word like a taunt. “Gold…fish?”
Chuuya’s scowl deepened, his blue eyes narrowing. “Not fish. Me.”
“Alright, alright,” Shuuji chuckled. “You are you. Sorry, can I call you Chuuya? I will call you Chuuya, who lives in a giant water bottle. Very mysterious.” He leaned in, nose almost touching the glass. “What do you do in there all day?”
Chuuya was confused and a bit scared. He hesitated while answering, “Live.”
“That is all?” Shuuji asked, incredulous. “No games? No food? No walking around? Just… floating?”
Chuuya’s expression was unreadable, but his small voice carried no doubt. “Always here.”
Shuuji snorted, tugging at the hem of his cardigan. “That is the most boring answer I ever heard. Do you even feel warm in that jar?” He pointed at his sleeve, shaking it a little. “See this? Warm. Comfortable.”
Chuuya’s gaze followed the movement, curiosity flickering. “Warm?”
“Yeah. Like sitting under the sun. Or like when my dog, Chibi, curls up on me and snores in my ear. He is soft. Softer than any blanket.”
“Dog?” Chuuya repeated, unfamiliar with the word.
Shuuji’s grin widened. “Small, white, loud. He would bark at you once, then probably try to lick your face. I bet you would not like it though. You look like the type to get annoyed easily.”
For the first time, Chuuya’s lips twitched as though he almost smiled. “Annoyed?”
“Yeah. Like right now. You look ready to punch me.” Shuuji tapped the glass with his knuckle. “Too bad this thing protects me.”
Chuuya pressed harder against the glass, eyes narrowing, though not with anger. “You strange.”
“Takes one to know one,” Shuuji shot back, quick as a spark.
Silence lingered. The hum of the tanks filled the space. Then Chuuya asked quietly, “Why here?”
“Because adults talk too much,” Shuuji replied easily. “And because you looked interesting. I like interesting things.” His grin softened, eyes glinting with mischief. “Besides, someone has to keep you company. Otherwise you will start talking to yourself.”
Chuuya blinked, then pressed his palm flat to the glass. “Company.”
Shuuji mirrored the gesture, placing his hand against the opposite side. His palm looked impossibly small compared to the faint blur of Chuuya’s.
“Company,” Shuuji agreed.
And for a brief moment, the cold laboratory felt a little less empty. Chuuya’s lips parted slightly, as though the thought itself was new, he peered into those brown eyes and seared them into his memories.
Warm good.
The air inside Research Area B felt sharp, the kind of recycled chill that stripped warmth from the skin. The conference chamber was square, lined with metal panels, the faint hum of machines vibrating through the floor.
A screen glowed faintly behind Professor N, its pale light spilling across the table.
Gen’emon sat straight, his hands resting on the table’s edge as if restraining impatience. Tane’s gaze remained locked on the two men across from them.
N’s eyes were unreadable behind his glasses, his tone clipped, professional. Beside him, Kashimura leaned forward slightly, as though his body refused to sit still, his hands moving in restless arcs when he spoke.
“I assume you heard mentions of Project Arahabaki,” he began, looking at them both with calm, unblinking eyes. “It is not the first time humanity has attempted to transcend itself. The difference now is that we have tools that are far more precise.”
Tane’s lips pressed thin. “You speak of it as though you are building weapons.”
Kensuke tilted his head slightly, as if the distinction was amusing. “The line between the two has always been thin, Matsuki-san. A soldier is both man and weapon. The same can be said for those born with gifts. My work is simply to refine that truth.”
Gen’emon’s voice cut in, firm and cold. “Explain yourself clearly. Enough philosophy. What did you do here?”
“But before we discuss Project Arahabaki,” N said evenly, “Professor Kashimura should provide context. You must understand where this research began, and why Project Arahabaki is possible now, when it was not before.”
“Professor Kashimura has been leading this branch of research. He has experience with military projects and genetic intervention. His findings are essential for our attempt to stabilize singularities within human vessels. Without such methods, ability rebound is inevitable. You understand the risk.”
Kashimura raised one hand, almost casually. “Let me tell you some history.”
He took a step back, gaze distant, as though recalling something both treasured and cursed. His words slowed, and for a moment the laboratory dissolved into memory.
“One of my subjects was Black No. 12.”
Tane interrupted, “A human?”
Kashimura snorted, “Human…maybe at first it was a boy called Paul. Gifted beyond comprehension, but his body betrayed him. Power poured from him in torrents he could not contain. Paul is forever dead.”
Here his voice grew oddly cold. “He destroyed everything around him, even when he tried not to. I believed I could help him. Pan, my then research partner, believed the same, though for different reasons. In time, I accepted the truth. Paul’s body could not survive its own ability.”
He stared at the Tsushima’s dead in the eyes, “Then I came here to create a good sample.”
Flashback: 7 Years Ago,
Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi.
The air of Yamaguchi carried the salt of the sea and the faint scent of cherry blossoms. Kashimura had returned to his ancestral home after his failure in Europe.
Black No. 12’s ability had been too strong, its body unable to contain it. Every attempt to stabilize him ended in devastation. The power destroyed everything around him.
Back then Pan’s words were like sin he kept close to heart.
“You need not mourn failure,” Pan had said. “You only need to build a body that will not break.”
Cloning had been the answer then. The Brutalization project, combining quirks, replicating fragments, stitching pieces of power together.
In the end, what Kashimura created resembled Paul but was not him. It was a shadow, a vessel without true humanity. A failure. He called it Black No. 12, but it haunted him still.
He had built something strong, but not human.
Back in Japan, he thought perhaps he could forget. Yet in Yamaguchi, fate struck him again.
He saw her at the small local clinic where he had volunteered his skills as a surgeon.
Nakahara Fuku.
She was delicate, with a weak constitution that forced her to rest often. Yet her eyes; those bright brown, warm, and steady eyes, were the same as Elisa’s.
The same as the woman he had loved and lost.
At first he visited only to offer treatment. Then conversation followed, light touches of humor, the briefest moments of gentleness that he had not felt in years.
She laughed softly when he told her about foreign customs, and she listened with patience when he grew lost in science.
Against his own judgment, he fell in love again.
Fuku’s weakness did not repulse him. It drew him in, convincing him that she, too, needed him.
Her frail health was almost a gift to his twisted mind, proof that he could craft something stronger than nature itself.
A few months later, when their relationship deepened, he persuaded her to undergo in vitro fertilization. He had promised her hope of a child that might live despite her condition.
What she did not know was the truth: the embryo would not be left untouched. He was already in contact with Professor N by then.
In his private laboratory just near the ocean cliffside, he tested the embryo.
He merged it with fragments of captured energy, pieces of ancient ritual meant to invoke Arahabaki, a god of destruction.
He wanted a vessel that could withstand singularity, and not shatter as Paul had.
External healing quirks were used to modify the growth, reinforcing cells, ensuring survival. He built an artificial womb to carry the child when Fuku’s body could not.
Eight months passed.
But a month before the due date, Fuku collapsed and never rose again.
Kensuke stood over her lifeless form, unable to weep, unable to rage. Only one thought echoed in his mind: her eyes were the same as Elisa’s, and they had closed on him again.
The baby was born at the end of April. Reddish hair clung to his head, and when his eyes opened, they were blue. Kensuke frowned at the sight, not joy but calculation filling his chest.
Another son. Another test.
It was never love. It was a calculation. And the child would grow not as a son, but as an experiment.
He named him Nakahara Chuuya. But in his records, he wrote only: A-258 Chuuya.
Chuuya’s world was never wider than the tanks.
His cradle had been an incubator. His nursery, a tank of liquid.
The first thing he saw was glass. His earliest memory was liquid pressing against his skin, heavy and unyielding, and the faint hum of machines.
When he cried, the sound was muffled in the water, bubbles escaping like laughter he could not control.
The doctors came and went, faces blurring together. They spoke little, and when they did, their voices were clipped, clinical.
N was sharp, cold, and when his hand touched the console, pain often followed. Kashimura was worse: his eyes never softened, not even once.
They measured his growth, forcing him to endure trials he could not understand. When he cried, they marked it as data.
When he resisted, they called it failure. They were harsh, voices sharp, demanding silence from a boy too young to understand the word.
But sometimes a nurse would press her hand to the glass and smile, though the smile was faint. She would whisper words that Chuuya could not hear, but the kindness was different. That was how he learned that not all touches were cruel.
Food was liquid fed through the mask. Warmth was only what the tank allowed. Light was the harsh glow above.
Chuuya learned to speak slowly from them, secretly parroting the words, learning the essential ones that wouldn’t inconvenience the men in white.
When he asked questions, he was told to be silent. When he grew curious, he was punished. Curiosity, they said, was wasted on him. He was to endure, nothing more.
Pain became normal, the constant thread of his existence.
Still, Chuuya watched.
He remembered every face, every sound, every flicker of light. He learned to tell when footsteps belonged to N or to one of the kinder nurses.
He remembered the word Kashimura used: A-258.
That was not a name he liked, he liked the other name: Chuuya. But he answered to it, because there was nothing else.
Until today.
Flashback over.
14 Years Ago,
Suribachi, Yokohama.
Looking down at the files and papers containing all the information on Project Arahabaki, Tane’s fingers gripped them, crinkling the crisp pages.
Nakahara Chuuya, the boy had a name! Yet this monster calls him—
Gen’emon’s fists tightened at Kashimura’s recounting. “You made a child out of grief and called him a vessel. Do you hear yourself?”
Kashimura’s voice was steady. “I hear only the truth. This is not sentiment. This is progress.”
Gen’emon’s jaw set. He thought of Shuuji, the way his son laughed, the way his small hand wrapped around Chibi’s fur. He imagined Shuuji behind glass, nameless, treated as less than human. His voice rose with quiet fury.
“You are a father. Yet you would discard that title for your own convenience. Disgusting.”
Tane’s voice followed, low and sharp. “A-258 is not a designation. His name is Nakahara Chuuya. Don’t you dare forget the name you yourself gave!”
For a moment, silence lingered. Kashimura’s expression did not change. “Names are for the living. Records require precision. Besides I have already forgotten one name, what is another to a scientist?”
Tane felt her nails bite into her palms. This man deserved nothing of the child he had created.
Gen’emon glanced briefly at his wife. Tane’s face remained calm, but her eyes were hard.
Disgust rose in Tane like bile. To her, this was not a father. This was a man who had abandoned fatherhood for obsession.
She thought of Shuuji, of his laughter, of Chibi curled at his side. And then she thought of Chuuya, raised in tanks and experiments, treated as data. Her hands curled into fists under the table.
Gen’emon’s voice was measured, but it carried steel. “What you see as precision, I see as madness.”
Kensuke only smiled faintly, as though the insult slid past him. He turned back to one of the screens making one of the biggest mistakes.
Gen’emon looked around and saw the security guards were changing shifts. He could hear some distant rumblings, so they were in good luck.
Professor N had already slipped away from the central chamber with the ease of a man who had always thrived in the shadows between conversations.
While Kashimura rambled about rituals and vessels to the Tsushima couple, N’s sharp ears had had caught the distant echoes of detonations, too faint for others to notice beneath the hum of machines, and walked out to check on his research.
Since, there were only the three of them here. It didn’t matter anymore what Tane did. He nodded at his wife.
Tane thought of Shuuji, how easily he might have been in that tank if fate had been crueler. This man had no right to fatherhood.
She whispered, “Schoolgirl!”
Her ability stirred faintly, its pull tempting her. She looked at Kashimura, at his hollow certainty.
If this man could not even remember Chuuya with humanity, then he would not remember anything of the past at all!
She drew her power forward, weaving it gently but irrevocably into Kensuke’s mind. His eyes flickered once, confusion momentarily breaking his composure.
Memories folded in on themselves, names dissolving, the image of the boys erased like ink washed from paper. In its place was nothing.
Kensuke blinked, confused, then steadied himself. “Where am I…?”
Gen’emon stood up and motioned for the older man to sit down in his chair, “We came to you for advice regarding the security firm you are assisting. But then suddenly you got lost in thoughts.”
Kensuke winced as he clutched his head, “I-I did?”
Tane snorted elegantly and looked through the main panel for the data folders.
The ground had started trembling now. Gen'emon and Kensuke squatted on the floor thinking it was an earthquake. Gen'emon helped move the older man under a desk and then hurried towards his wife. They needed to get out now!
There isn’t much time! Is there anything worthwhile here?
She kept opening applications and directories and finally found a folder marked ‘Contained.’
She found multiple folders inside, and one of the listed was named Arahabaki.
Found you.
Just then, the floor lurched violently.
A blinding flash flooded the room, followed by the roar of an explosion.
Gen’emon wrapped himself around her, as she moved her fingers quickly on the screen.
Please let it go through. It’s the only evidence we can give out.
Meanwhile, deep in the facility, Shuuji leaned against the glass of the tank where Chuuya floated. The boy inside blinked slowly, orange hair drifting around his pale face.
His small fist pressed again against the barrier, as if testing the reality of the figure before him.
“You are still staring,” Shuuji teased, his grin playful. “Am I really that interesting?”
Chuuya’s lips moved around the words, his voice muffled but audible through the mask. “Different.”
“Different good or different bad?” Shuuji tilted his head, tapping his temple with one finger. “Careful. I can be both.”
Chuuya blinked, uncomprehending of the joke, which only made Shuuji chuckle. “You need practice. You do not know how to talk to people, do you?”
“I… do not… talk,” Chuuya admitted haltingly.
“Well, you are talking now.” Shuuji smirked, leaning closer. “That makes me special.”
For the first time, a faint crease appeared at the corner of Chuuya’s lips. Not quite a smile, but the shadow of one.
Shuuji’s heart skipped, though he quickly masked it with more teasing.
“You will owe me for this lesson later. Talking, smiling, maybe even eating ramen. You are behind, Chuuya.”
Chuuya tilted his head. “Ramen?”
Shuuji sighed dramatically. “Unbelievable. You live in a jar and no one tells you about ramen. That should be a crime.”
His eyes softened. “It is food. Warm. The kind that makes your stomach feel like it is glowing. I will tell you more later. Too much information might make your head explode.”
Chuuya blinked again, repeating the word softly. “Ramen.”
Shuuji grinned. “See? You are already learning. At this rate, you might even catch up to me.”
For a boy who had never known warmth or outside life, Chuuya’s fascination was quiet but intense. His blue eyes lingered on Shuuji’s cardigan, on the small motions of his hands, on every word that slipped from his lips.
And Shuuji, mischievous as ever, felt something stir that he could not name. This boy was not like others. He was fragile yet unbroken, bound yet reaching.
And Shuuji could not look away.
“You really are strange,” Shuuji said, his tone playful but his eyes sharp. “Not strange like a monster. Strange like… something new.”
Chuuya tilted his head. “New?”
“Yes, new.” Shuuji smirked. “Everyone I have met so far feels predictable. Like books I already read. But you? You are unread. You don't know jokes, you don't know ramen, you don't even know what a sweater feels like. That should be boring. But somehow, it is not. Somehow, it is interesting. I want to show you everything myself and keep you in my pocket.”
He paused, his voice softening in spite of himself. “Despite being so small, you are making me think differently. And that annoys me. Because I don't like when someone changes how I see the world.”
Chuuya blinked, uncomprehending, but Shuuji only chuckled to cover the heaviness of his words. “Don't let it go to your head. You are still a goldfish.”
For the briefest moment, Chuuya’s lips curved, the ghost of a smile. Shuuji felt his chest tighten, but he only grinned wider, hiding it behind teasing.
Shuuji kept making random small talks, tapping the glass with Chuuya alternatively. Chuuya's eyes had brightened at this game and seemed to compete on how quickly he could tap the glass after Shuuji.
Which made Shuuji take even longer on his part, grinning at how Chuuya seemed to look at Shuuji's face, then his hands, then back again waiting impatiently for his turn.
“Interesting,” musing Shuuji repeated softly. His reflection blurred against Chuuya’s in the glass, and for a second he felt almost protective, though he masked it with another mischievous grin.
Chuuya tilted his head. “Interesting… good?”
Shuuji chuckled. “For me, yes. It means I will come back.”
Far outside, night cloaked the port of Suribachi. The waves broke against the docks, carrying the faint smell of brine and oil. Two figures moved like shadows across the perimeter of the research compound.
Paul Verlaine adjusted his bowler hat, his expression cold, precise. His power hummed under his skin, restrained but always threatening to devour. Arthur Rimbaud trailed beside him, sharp-eyed, his steps noiseless against the gravel.
They had studied the guards’ rotations for weeks. Tonight, the chance had come. Explosives were set along the periphery, small charges placed with meticulous care. Each would fracture the structure just enough to cause chaos.
Arthur glanced at Paul as they slipped through a side entrance. “We get the boy, then we leave.”
Paul’s voice was low, measured. “Chuuya is the highest priority.”
Inside, alarms were already primed to be triggered. The facility would not stand long once their plan began.
And the night was about to burn.
Back inside, Shuuji leaned closer to Chuuya’s tank. The hum of machines grew louder, alarms beginning to echo faintly through the corridors. The ground trembled slightly.
Chuuya’s eyes widened. “What… happening?”
Shuuji frowned, glancing at the door. He could hear shouts, hurried footsteps. “Something bad. Wait.”
He scrambled to the panel beside the tank, climbing onto the stool again. His small fingers brushed against the buttons, searching for something that looked like a release. His pulse raced.
Behind him, the alarms grew louder. Red light bathed the room in warning.
“Don't worry,” Shuuji muttered, half to himself. “I will get you out.”
He slammed his hand against the console, searching, guessing. Sparks flickered. Somewhere in the distance, an explosion thundered.
The laboratory shuddered.
Shuuji pressed his palm against the glass once more, meeting Chuuya’s frightened gaze. “Hold on.”
Shuuji then quickly hid behind one of the tanks as the footsteps neared.
The explosions meant the facility’s end was near, but to N, it was the perfect catalyst.
If everything was crumbling, then he had nothing to lose by seizing his true prize.
N followed the narrow, sterile corridors that led toward the tank room, the soles of his shoes clicking against the tiled floor.
The smell of chemicals and metal thickened with every step, and by the time he pushed open the reinforced door, his lips were already curling into a smile.
Rows of glass cylinders shimmered in the dim light, and in the center floated the boy he had always coveted. Nakahara Chuuya.
The tank room shuddered. Somewhere above, the explosions from Paul and Arthur’s infiltration rattled the metal beams, dust falling like gray snow into the cold air.
Sirens screamed through the halls, red lights flashing in mechanical rhythm.
But in the room filled with glass cylinders, the chaos outside seemed distant, muffled by the hum of machinery and the steady bubbling of liquid.
Shuuji pressed his back against a support column, his eyes darting toward the figure working at the control panel.
Professor N’s thin shoulders hunched forward, his lab coat swaying with each quick motion. His hands, pale and long-fingered, danced over the keys and levers, his glasses reflecting the glow of the monitors.
The tanks loomed in the dim light, tall and terrible. Their glass bodies were filled with faintly luminous liquid, shadows of human shapes suspended inside.
Some tanks were empty, only wires and tubes swaying in the current. Others hid indistinct outlines.
And in one, near the center, the boy with the burning orange hair floated in the pale glow.
Shuuji had only just clumsily, foolishly promised him that he would find a way to open the tank. But now the room trembled harder, and his stomach knotted as he watched Professor N lean closer to the console.
The man’s voice rose above the alarms.
“At last,” N hissed, his tone vibrating with manic delight. “No more hesitation from those pathetic fools who hesitated to finish what we began. They thought they could hold me back with their codes, their protocols. But now…now I will succeed.”
Shuuji narrowed his eyes. He pressed himself lower against the column, his small hands balled into fists.
He could feel every word strike against his ears like hammer blows. N’s voice carried not only confidence but cruelty, a sick pleasure that curled the corners of his mouth upward.
“You will be my masterpiece,” N said, turning toward Chuuya’s tank. His voice softened, almost mockingly affectionate. “I lied to generals, tricked ministers, forged papers and names, even sold my own blood to secure clearance.”
He tapped a key, and sparks of electricity rippled across the cables lining the floor. “All for this. Arahabaki will kneel, and with it, every other deity. They will lap at my feet. Their screams will be hymns in my honor.”
He pressed a sequence into the console.
The tanks shuddered. Electric light snaked along the wires, then crackled into the liquid.
Inside his glass prison, Chuuya convulsed. His small frame jerked against the restraints, bubbles bursting from his mask as he opened his mouth in a silent scream.
The blue of his eyes flashed wide with terror as arcs of electricity crawled over his skin, wrapping around his limbs like burning chains.
Shuuji’s heart slammed against his ribs. He bit down hard to stop himself from calling out. His knuckles whitened against the column.
“Stop,” Chuuya mouthed, his fists striking against the glass. “Stop.”
But N only leaned closer, his face glowing with reflected light. His glasses caught the arcs, twin lenses of fire.
“Yes. Scream. Struggle. Feel it. That power inside you has slept too long. Let it tear you open. Let it burn you alive. Only then will you truly awaken.”
He threw a lever down. The voltage surged.
Chuuya’s body arched, his back bowing against the tubes. His mouth opened wider, bubbles escaping in torrents. From the corners of his eyes, thin rivulets of red trickled, dissolving into the liquid like ink.
Shuuji’s nails dug into the column’s surface. The sight twisted something in his chest, something sharp and hot.
He wanted to leap forward, to slam his fists against N’s thin frame, but his legs shook with fear.
N laughed. Not a booming laugh, but a low, broken cackle, drawn out between his clenched teeth. “Years they told me no. Years they said it could not be done. That binding a god was beyond us. And yet, look at you, little one. You are the proof. Arahabaki himself will bend to me. All I must do is peel you apart until nothing is left but the vessel.”
His hand hovered over the final sequence of keys, his fingers trembling with anticipation. “This will unseal you completely. You will not even remember what it means to resist.”
Shuuji’s breath caught. His eyes darted toward the glass cylinder, toward the boy thrashing inside.
The scream, though muffled by water, pierced through him. His small hands trembled, then clenched.
He could not watch anymore.
Without thinking, Shuuji broke from his cover and sprinted toward the console. His sneakers squeaked against the wet floor, his body so small and quick that N did not hear him until the last second.
The professor turned just as Shuuji hurled himself forward, his shoulder slamming into N’s ribs. The impact slammed N’s head against the edge, splitting skin and scattering droplets of blood across the panel. His hand flailed… and struck the console.
Sparks erupted.
A sharp, high-pitched whine filled the air. Across the screens, codes flickered and glitched. Some lines of command blurred, overwritten by sequences that had not been meant to activate.
Hidden keys, buried beneath the surface, suddenly unlocked.
N gasped, clutching the console, his glasses cracked from the impact. “No… no, what is this?” His fingers scrambled against the keys. “Backdoors? Who-who tampered with my work?”
The tanks glowed brighter. Instead of steady current, the liquid shimmered with violent bursts.
The arcs of energy coursing into Chuuya faltered, twisted, then surged back stronger, but not in the same pattern.
It was different. A system not written by N alone.
Shuuji stumbled back, his shoulder throbbing from the impact. He looked up.
Inside the tank, Chuuya had gone still for a heartbeat.
His eyes opened, wide and wild, pupils constricted. His lips moved, forming words Shuuji could not hear, but his gaze locked on him, terrified.
At first, the water began to churn.
The glass trembled violently. Thin cracks snaked across the surface. The liquid bent, pulled by invisible hands.
Around Chuuya’s body, the light warped, bent into impossible shapes.
And then—
The air above the tank twisted. Space itself folded inward, compressing into a small, dense sphere of darkness.
It hovered just above the cylinder, humming with an unnatural vibration. Papers on the console flew upward, caught in its pull. Metal tools clattered against the glass as if yanked by unseen strings.
Shuuji’s breath hitched. His mind screamed the word before he could stop it.
A black hole graviton.
Professor N’s cracked glasses gleamed. His fear lasted only a second before it split into wild, hungry delight.
“Yes!” he howled. “Yes, it is awake! Arahabaki’s power are now unsealed. Did you see? Did you see what I have achieved?”
Chuuya screamed.
This time the sound ripped through the tank, muffled but unmistakable, raw with agony.
His small hands clawed at his own skin as if trying to tear free of the force pulling him apart. The mask bubbled frantically, his body twisting in ways no child’s body should.
Shuuji stumbled forward, his throat raw. He wanted to break the glass, to wrench open the door, but his small fists could do nothing against the cylinder’s surface.
N gripped the console, his laughter spilling out like broken glass.
“Now the final step. Complete the override. He will not even need a will of his own. Arahabaki will flood him, consume him, and he will be mine.”
He reached for the last lever.
Shuuji’s eyes flared. He did not think. He launched himself again, his tiny frame crashing into N’s side. The man screamed as his head struck the panel once more. Sparks erupted in a blinding spray.
Screens shattered, codes scrambled, and alarms wailed louder than ever.
The black sphere above the tank pulsed. For a moment it swelled larger, pulling the room toward collapse. But then, as if meeting resistance, it faltered, shuddering violently.
Inside the tank, Chuuya’s eyes rolled back, blood spilling in crimson threads through the liquid. His body spasmed, then stilled.
The sphere pulsed again, then began to collapse inward, flickering between form and void.
Shuuji pressed his hands against the glass. “Chuuya! Look at me!”
The boy’s lids fluttered. His gaze, hazy and pained, shifted toward him.
Desperation surged in Shuuji’s veins as he clambered onto the console, stomping across keys and wires. Sparks burst, the panel screeching. He kicked and pulled, tearing wires loose, and alarms screamed louder.
With a final crack, the locks on Chuuya’s tank disengaged.
The glass split. Liquid burst forth in a crashing wave, drenching Shuuji and the floor.
Chuuya collapsed forward, coughing violently, convulsing as his body expelled the last of the fluid.
Shuuji caught him, arms straining to hold the smaller boy. Chuuya’s skin was ice-cold, slick against Shuuji’s cardigan.
The moment their skin touched, the black orb above quivered, shrinking slightly, as though confused.
Shuuji pressed his forehead against Chuuya’s, whispering fiercely, “I have you. You are not alone. You are not Arahabaki. You are Chuuya.”
For a heartbeat, the crushing hum dulled. Chuuya’s trembling lessened, his bloodied eyes fluttering half-closed.
But above them, the facility groaned. The explosions from Paul and Arthur’s infiltration finally reached the foundation. Concrete cracked, dust showering down in thick clouds.
Professor N lay slumped against the console, his chest heaving, blood dripping from his temple. But even as his consciousness wavered, his lips curled into a twisted smile.
“It does not matter,” he rasped. “He is awake now. Arahabaki is awake.”
Then the orb pulsed violently again. A wave of pressure knocked Shuuji back, nearly tearing Chuuya from his arms.
The air screamed. Gravity itself warped, bending the light around them.
But the panel sparked wildly, half-destroyed by Shuuji’s attack. The codes did not align with N’s plan. Instead of a clean unsealing, multiple failsafes clashed.
Unknown sequences activated, backdoors left by sympathetic doctors. Instead of Arahabaki fully consuming the vessel, the power shuddered between release and restraint, an unstable equilibrium.
The orb got distorted. It throbbed irregularly, as though it could collapse at any moment...or explode.
Chuuya screamed, clutching his head. The floor beneath them cracked. A tank to their right shot upward, glass shards suspended midair, orbiting like fragments around the pulsing sphere.
Shuuji hugged him tighter, refusing to let go.
For a brief, impossible instant, the orb recoiled, shrinking again. But the reprieve was fragile. Cracks split further across the ceiling, dust raining down.
Shuuji’s heart hammered fast. He did not know how long he could hold this back, only that letting go was not an option.
And then, as suddenly as it began, Chuuya’s body went limp, unconscious.
The glow faded from his veins. The orb wavered then froze, still throbbing faintly, but no longer expanding.
It hung in the air like a grotesque time bomb, unstable and waiting.
Shuuji gasped, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and tank water. He shifted Chuuya’s limp body carefully, laying him on the ground. His chest rose and fell shallowly, but he was alive.
Across the room, N had collapsed beside the broken panel, unconscious from his injury.
The alarms blared louder now. Explosions rattled the walls outside the chamber.
Shuuji looked once more at the suspended black sphere, its edges warping reality itself. His stomach turned cold.
He had no words for what it was, only the certainty that it would not stay dormant forever.
He stumbled to his feet, wiping blood from his knuckles, and cast one last glance at Chuuya. “I will go and get my parents. Don’t go anywhere before then.”
His voice trembled, but the promise was firm.
Then he turned and ran, small sneakers splashing through puddles, disappearing into the smoke-filled corridors as the building shook.
The hallway stretched long and warped, flickering with sparks where wires had torn loose. Smoke clung to the air, biting Shuuji’s throat. His hands scraped along the walls as he pushed forward, searching for the chamber where his parents had been.
“Mom… Dad…” His voice echoed, too small against the roar of destruction.
He found the room after running quite a distance.
The reinforced doors had cracked open, twisted by the explosion’s force. Inside, the smell hit first: iron, sharp and metallic.
He staggered in, eyes wide.
The chamber was a ruin of shattered glass, fallen equipment, and overturned tables. At the center lay three bodies.
Tane. Her coat half-burned, her face pale but strangely peaceful, as though she had fallen asleep mid-thought.
Gen’emon. His frame collapsed against the wall, one arm outstretched, as if he had tried to shield his wife in his last breath.
Between them, Kensuke’s form was twisted and broken, his glasses shattered, his lab coat singed with blackened streaks.
“Mom?” Shuuji whispered. His voice cracked, almost too faint to hear. He stumbled forward, tripping over debris, and fell to his knees beside her.
His hands trembled as he touched her sleeve. It was cold. Too cold.
“No,” he said. “No, get up. We have to go. The building is falling.” He shook her shoulder, then looked to his father. “Dad, tell her to get up. You always know what to do. Say something.”
Silence.
His throat tightened. He pulled at Gen’emon’s hand, small fingers straining against lifeless weight.
Nothing moved. The stillness pressed down on him harder than the collapsing ceiling above.
Something soft brushed his side. He looked down.
Chibi. His white shiba inu, coated in dust and streaked with red. The dog whined once, weakly, and pressed against him. Shuuji wrapped his arms around the trembling body, feeling the faint heartbeat slowing under his touch.
“Chibi, no… stay. Stay with me.” His tears spilled, streaking lines through the dust on his cheeks. “You can't leave too. Please.”
The pup gave one last shallow breath, then went still in his arms.
Shuuji held him close, clutching the body against his chest. His sobs shook his frame, but no one came to comfort him.
His parents lay cold beside him, their hands frozen in half-gestures. His dog, his companion since infancy, was gone.
He pressed his forehead against his mother’s arm, against Chibi’s fur, against the silence that had swallowed everything.
Shuuji’s chest heaved. His mind, always sharp, always calculating, tried to deny what his eyes saw.
His father, who had carried both the Tsushima name and the Port Mafia’s rising legacy. His mother, whose laughter still lingered in the halls of their Yokohama villa.
Both gone, taken not by illness or age, but by the selfishness of men.
Shuuji pressed his forehead to his mother’s arm. His tears came hot, choking him, but he swallowed them back.
The world above them roared louder, the foundation of the laboratory breaking apart.
Still he did not move.
“Wake up,” he whispered again. “Please.”
The world answered with a sound like the tearing of the earth itself.
The reinforced door groaned and buckled inward under a precise blast. Smoke and debris swirled as two figures stepped into the ruined chamber. Their footsteps echoed sharply against the flooded floor, cutting through the chaos of alarms.
Paul Verlaine moved first, his blond hair catching the dim glow of shattered monitors. His eyes, sharp and weary, swept across the devastation. Behind him, Arthur Rimbaud’s gaze was colder, analytical, but his posture was taut with readiness.
Then Paul saw the boy.
His steps faltered. In the middle of the wreckage lay a small, fragile figure, drenched and trembling, his orange hair plastered across his pale forehead. Blood streaked from the corners of his eyes, pooling faintly around him. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.
Paul’s throat constricted. He crossed the room in swift strides, kneeling beside the child with shaking hands.
“Chuuya,” he whispered, his voice breaking against the name. “Mon frère…”
Arthur came to his side, glancing between the unconscious boy and the dark orb suspended above, still pulsing with unstable energy.
His voice was low, steady, but urgent. “We cannot stay long. The anomaly will not remain dormant.”
Paul ignored him at first. His hands hovered uncertainly before gently brushing the boy’s damp hair away from his face.
“Look at him, Arthur. He is only a child. My brother… my blood.” His voice dropped, raw with emotion. “And they kept him in a tank, like an animal.”
Arthur’s cold gaze softened slightly. He crouched, placing a steadying hand on Paul’s shoulder.
“We knew this was possible. Kashimura’s madness was no secret. But seeing it…” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Seeing it is something else.”
Paul’s jaw clenched.
He turned, eyes flashing toward the unconscious figure of Professor N sprawled against the ruined console. His hand trembled, and for a moment it seemed he might rise and end N’s life then and there.
Arthur watched in silence, his own gaze drawn upward. The orb swelled and contracted, light bending unnaturally around its edges. The hum of it pressed into their bones, a sound beyond sound.
“Paul,” he said firmly, “the graviton anomaly is growing unstable. If it detonates, this entire block of Suribachi will be wiped from the map.”
The alarms screamed louder, the walls trembling as new detonations shook the facility. The orb above throbbed one final time, as if marking their departure, its unstable energy building toward an inevitable end.
Paul bent to lift Chuuya’s limp form, cradling the boy against his chest, when a violent surge burst from the boy, warping the air with crushing force.
Paul and the other two men were flung helplessly from the room, weightless for a heartbeat.
The tank room groaned, lit by the unnatural glow of the suspended orb. It pulsed, warped, and trembled, a ticking bomb born of gods and human cruelty, waiting for its moment to unmake everything.
Then came the detonation: an all-consuming roar that swallowed walls, steel, and silence alike.
The graviton erupted.
Not just the lab, but the city itself vanished. A black sphere unfurled, a perfect void that consumed matter, air, light.
For twenty miles in every direction, the land collapsed inward, erased into nothing. Buildings shuddered and vanished, streets disintegrated into dust, trees curled in on themselves before shredding apart.
An entire port city was pulled into silence, swallowed as though it had never existed.
But at the very center of the storm, a paradox held.
Shuuji’s small hands clutched his parents, his gift nullifying what touched him. Their bodies, already lifeless, remained untouched, preserved by his presence.
Chibi too, though dead, was shielded in his arms from the void’s final cruelty. Around them, the world vanished, but where Shuuji sat, a pocket of stillness remained.
And farther off, Arthur’s subspace opened in a flare of yellow light, shielding him and Paul. Professor N, by sheer luck, had collapsed near its edge, his body slipping into the fringes of safety. The void passed over him, leaving him unconscious but alive.
The rest was gone.
Across the crater’s rim, Paul and Arthur emerged from the collapsing smoke. Their coats hung torn, their boots coated in ash.
Their faces, hardened by years of battle, softened when they searched for the small form lying crumpled among the wreckage.
Chuuya.
Paul’s heart was wrenched. He had fought, killed, and survived for this moment: to find his brother, to pull him from the hands of monsters.
“Paul,” Arthur said quietly. “Let’s get him home.”
Paul dropped to his knees, scooping the child into his arms. Paul lifted Chuuya carefully into his arms.
The boy was featherlight, far too light for his age, his small frame betraying years of neglect. Paul felt every rib, every shiver, and his rage deepened.
But Chuuya stirred faintly, a weak sound escaping his lips. Paul’s fury broke instantly into gentleness.
He bent low, pressing his forehead against the boy’s damp hair. “No more pain, petit frère. I will not allow it.”
Paul tightened his hold on the boy in his arms. For the first time in years, the hardened man’s eyes glistened with something unspoken. He whispered into the boy’s hair, too softly for anyone but himself to hear.
“You are safe now. I will not lose you.”
“Hold him close. We will make sure he knows love from this day forward,” Arthur murmured.
Together they retreated, Arthur’s subspace shielding their path, leaving the crater behind.
And so the aftermath split.
Chuuya was carried away, wrapped in the arms of men who would call him brother and son, his future uncertain but bound by a promise of care.
He had been born in a tank, raised in pain, forged as Arahabaki’s vessel, yet for the first time he was held as a child.
Shuuji remained.
The boy sat at the crater’s heart, knees drawn up, his parents’ bodies leaning against him, Chibi’s small form in his lap.
The wind swept dust across his hair. His face was streaked, not with panic but with grim clarity far beyond his years.
He was six. And yet he understood.
The Tsushima name. The Port Mafia bloodline. The expectations of two families, now resting on him alone.
His heart ached with grief, but his mind, sharp even in childhood, recognized the truth: no one was coming.
He whispered into the silence. “I will wait.” His voice was steady, though his lips trembled. “You will wake up. I will wait until you do.”
The crater stretched wide around him, a grave for a city, a scar in the world.
And at its center sat a child who would one day be both heir and curse, shoulders already bowed beneath a weight no adult could bear.
Tsushima Shuuji.
The boy who nullified gods, now alone in the ruins of men.
In Hyogo, Natsume Soseki sat across from Ryuro Hirotsu and Taneda, their discussion tracing careful lines of policy, a framework that might finally protect the Gifted within Japan.
Papers lay neatly stacked between them, steam curling faintly from cups of untouched tea.
Then the muted television in the corner shifted, the steady news replaced by an urgent red banner.
The broadcast cut to an aerial shot of blackened ruin, the familiar curve of Yokohama’s port was now reduced to a void.
The announcer’s voice trembled as he spoke:
“Authorities confirm an unprecedented incident in Suribachi. Witnesses report a light and shockwave before the entire district collapsed. A crater nearly twenty miles wide now stretches across the port. Cause unknown. Citizens are urged to avoid all transport routes into the region until police and heroes conclude their investigation. Speculation suggests a villain attack, but no confirmation has been given.”
The room froze.
Hirotsu rose so abruptly his chair toppled, his face drained of color. Natsume’s hand trembled as he fumbled for his phone, dialing number after number only to be met with the hollow echo of a dial tone.
Gen’emon’s line rang unanswered. Tane’s phone, too, was silent.
At last Natsume stilled, his sharp mind tightening like a spring. His eyes narrowed. “Shuuji has to be alive,” he whispered, though his tone carried more certainty than hope.
He turned to Hirotsu, his gaze heavy with urgency. “Ryuro… I need your help. This will be painful for you.”
The words hung in the air, a weight of dread pressing down upon them, as the broadcast replayed the image of the endless crater swallowing Yokohama’s coast.
Notes:
Well...Kashimura was based on a reverse-Endeavour, so TWO kids he kinda fked up hehe.
Ngl N is sadist af like WTF bruh?
I realized..i basically Gaara'd Chuuya in this chapter. OMG.Also, I re-read the entire Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun manga coz this chapter got me way too sad.....that manga is the medicine you need for guaranteed 24 hours of nonstop laughter..my stomach hurts from laughing too hard now.
Chapter 9: Fall of Tsushima Shuuji
Summary:
Things are in motion in this final arc of Tsushima Shuuji.
Chapter Text
14 Years Ago,
Suribachi? Yokohama.
The world was gone.
Ash drifted across the crater, catching in the woolen threads of Tsushima Shuuji’s sweater and in the tangled strands of his hair. It tasted bitter on his tongue, like ground stone.
Wind moved without sound, a dry current that carried no scent of sea or smoke, only absence.
He sat in the middle of it all with his legs tucked beneath him, Chibi lying lifeless in his lap, his hands gripping the rigid arms of his parents.
They were cold. He pressed his palms tighter against them as if warmth might still return, but all he felt was stiffness.
His cardigan did nothing to stop the chill that seeped through his skin.
Must be the open air. He thought distantly.
The words floated through his mind like another person’s. His lips cracked when he shaped them aloud, the brittle sound carried away by the wind.
Fragments drifted in and out of his thoughts, breaking apart as soon as they surfaced.
Run, Melos. Gods. Research Area A. Arahabaki… Oh, I see.
But he did not see. He saw nothing in front of him. It was a void of darkness all around him, and faint light from the moon.
Time fractured. A minute might have passed, or an hour.
His eyes watered but no tears fell. Blinking felt too heavy, like dragging weights across his eyelids.
He focused instead on the lines of his mother’s sleeve, the curve of his father’s hand, details that refused to blur even when everything else dissolved.
Noise came from the crater’s edge. He lifted his head slowly, joints stiff, neck grinding like a rusted hinge.
Figures in black suits moved with sharp purpose. Dust scattered under their strides, carried in waves toward him.
The Port Mafia.
His grip on the bodies tightened.
Three men approached. One streaked forward with speed that split the air. Another’s shadow loomed wide with strength. The third’s steps barely touched the ground, cushioned as if by invisible pillows.
Not Oji-san. Uncle Masao or Hirotsu must have chosen them specifically for their quirks.
The speedster knelt before him, breath even despite the distance he had crossed. His gaze softened when it met Shuuji’s.
“Did you find anyone else here?” Shuuji’s voice emerged like a hollow echo.
“No, young master. It is only you here. And...” He gestured toward the still figures.
Shuuji clutched them tighter, nails digging into fabric. “I see. Take us to the villa.”
“Yes, sir.”
Strong arms lifted him, bodies and all. His parents’ weight pressed against his chest, Chibi slipping against his side. He clung to them until his knuckles hurt.
The sky wheeled overhead, the crater shrinking behind him into an open wound. Exhaustion folded over him. He closed his eyes, slipping into a darkness that felt safer than anything aboveground.
When he woke, antiseptic filled his nose. White sheets tucked around his body scratched faintly at his skin. The light was too bright behind paper screens, stinging his dry eyes.
Two figures sat beside his bed. Hirotsu leaned forward immediately, relief softening his features as he called for a nurse.
Natsume Soseki moved slower, more measured. He slipped an arm behind Shuuji’s shoulders, lifting him upright with practiced ease, and pressed a cool glass of water into his hands.
The water slid down Shuuji’s throat like stone, heavy and tasteless. His lips parted but he felt no moisture.
The nurse entered briskly, her hands efficient as she checked his pulse, his eyes, his breathing.
“It’s simply exhaustion,” she said. “Nothing is broken. But it will take time to recover from the pain.” She bowed and left them in silence.
Shuuji’s gaze drifted from the water glass to his knees beneath the sheet.
The words left his mouth before he realized he was speaking.
“Everyone died in that explosion. No exceptions. The Tsushimas are all dead. Uncle Soseki will take over the trade. When I am ready, I will take over. Or perhaps not at all.”
Hirotsu froze. His mouth opened, ready to protest, but the look in the boy’s eyes silenced him. Dark irises, void-like, reflecting nothing.
Shuuji continued. His voice was steady, stripped of tremor.
“My new name now is Dazai. Dazai Osamu.”
The syllables landed heavy in the room.
His fingers tapped against his arm, restless rhythm filling the quiet. He watched them move, fascinated by the motion. The rhythm was proof of life when nothing else was.
“Forget the labs,” he murmured. “I think I understand what happened to Oji-chan. Instead, can you do me a favor?”
Soseki, who had remained silent, nodded once.
“Leave the Port Mafia. Both of you. I will take care of it.”
The air snapped taut. Hirotsu rose, voice rough. “Impossible. You do not understand what the Mafia does to people.”
Soseki’s voice followed, low but firm. “If you do this, you will die. I can’t let Norimasa’s legacy vanish in vain.”
Dazai lifted his head. His voice was quiet, almost kind. “I want to die. But I will not drag you with me. I have something left to do.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
Finally, Hirotsu exhaled, his shoulders sinking. “Then I will stay. At least as your bodyguard. You need someone on your side.”
Dazai tilted his head, tapped his arm again, counting beats. “Then find a boy for me. My age. Red hair, blue eyes. His name is Chuuya. Arahabaki was done on him. He caused the explosion.”
The name settled like smoke between them.
Minutes passed before Dazai asked again, softer, childlike. “Did you get any messages from my parents? Before?”
Hirotsu shook his head. “No calls. No texts. No emails. Gen’emon’s emergency line was silent.”
“I see.” His voice did not waver, but his hands tapped faster.
Inside, his thoughts whispered: If there were no messages, then maybe they did not know. But they would have sent a timed signal somewhere, somehow. The question is—
Dazai’s line of thoughts were interrupted by the scratchy blankets under his arms.
Even at home, the sheets smelled of antiseptic, not home.
A week later, the villa gates opened for Matsuki Ozo. He returned to Yokohama with Masao in tow.
Soseki had departed for Hyogo, chasing Taneda’s work and the favor his godson had asked. Hirotsu remained faithfully by the boy’s side.
Dazai greeted his grandfather with still eyes. “I am Dazai Osamu.”
Ozo’s face tightened. Masao frowned. Neither argued.
The funeral stretched across seven days. Incense curled through the villa halls, stinging his eyes. Chrysanthemums wilted in their vases, petals browning at the edges.
The tatami beneath his knees prickled against his skin as he bowed, again and again, to the line of mourners.
They whispered about him. The boy who did not cry. The boy who sat silent, staring as though through walls.
Shuuji whispered to himself, ‘If I cry, I admit they are gone. If I stay silent, maybe they are only asleep. Maybe they will wake up.’
But each morning, the space beside him was empty.
The villa changed after the funeral. Silence deepened.
Ozo’s grief twisted into cruelty. Masao’s gaze turned sharp, suspicious. Servants moved more quickly, whispering in corners.
Shuuji moved differently too. His steps slowed, deliberate. He tapped rhythms on tables, on glass, on his own arm.
Counting beats meant he was real. Silence meant he could keep pretending.
He no longer played with toys. He no longer chased sunlight in the gardens, Chibi was gone to do so.
His world shrank to measured footsteps, tapped fingers, and long hours lying awake, eyes fixed on the beams above his futon.
The beams never moved. Neither did he.
Why them? Why not me?
The thought repeated until it dulled.
He began to imagine himself less as a boy and more as a machine. A body that ate because it had to, spoke because words were expected, blinked because eyes dried. A hollow thing, functioning, nothing more.
At times he watched Hirotsu speaking and thought, ‘I should nod now.’
And he nodded.
He watched Ozo’s mouth form words and thought, ‘I should agree now.’
And he agreed.
Everything was a calculation, there was no feeling.
He wondered if this was what being alive meant.
He wondered if he had already died in the crater and what sat in his place was something else.
The villa servants began whispering too. They said the boy was strange. Too quiet, too cold. When he looked at them, they looked away, shivering.
Shuuji noticed. He thought, ‘Perhaps I am not human. That is perfectly fine. I don’t feel human.’
Thus the year turned, grief calcifying into habit.
Numbness became his shield, guilt his constant pulse.
Inside, he whispered to himself.
One day, I will stop. One day, I will follow them. Until then, I will keep moving. Even if it feels empty. Even if I am already gone.
13 Years Ago,
Kanagawa, Yokohama.
Snow lingered on the rooftops of Yokohama, pressed hard into gutters and piled against the stones of narrow alleys.
The new year had come and gone in the villa with stiff formality. Beautiful decorations hung outside the entryway, but the atmosphere inside was heavy, incense still clinging to the walls from the funeral.
Matsuki Ozo had presided at the head of the hall, his cup of sake clutched tight, eyes dim with something that had soured into cruelty.
Masao watched every move the boy made, sharp and suspicious. Only Hirotsu remained steady, walking silently at Dazai’s side, never far, his presence quiet but firm.
Dazai ate his meals without comment. He chewed slowly, the taste dull, swallowed because his body required it.
His hands tapped the table: three beats, a pause, then three more. The rhythm steadied him.
It was proof of motion, proof he had not dissolved into ash.
When he slept, his eyes fixed on the beams above his futon. He imagined them crushing him down into silence.
The thought calmed him, but the beams never moved.
On the third day of January, he asked Hirotsu to take him into the city. Hirotsu raised his brows but did not question.
He only gathered his coat and walked a step behind the boy, as though the six-year-old was already leading him.
The streets were damp with melted snow. Vendors shouted hoarsely, steam rising from pots of chestnuts, stacks of oranges bright against the gray morning.
Dazai’s eyes did not linger on them. His steps carried him to a tailor’s shop near the main road, its windows clear, its wood polished, the sign carved with delicate characters.
The bell above the shop door chimed softly as the boy stepped inside. Shelves of folded cloth and the scent of pressed linen filled the narrow space.
From his workbench a middle-aged tailor lifted his gaze. Hakamada Yohji had started to show signs of silver at the temples, hands calloused yet precise, showing the quiet respect for his work across Yokohama.
“Welcome,” Yohji said, setting down his shears. “How can I help you today?”
Dazai hesitated before pulling a folded receipt from his sleeve and placing it on the counter. Yohji glanced at it, recognition dawning.
“Ah,” he said quietly. “You must be young Shuuji. Tane-san’s order has been finished for some time.”
From behind the counter, he lifted a lacquered box and set it carefully before the boy. Inside lay rolls of white bandages, fine and even, the fibers shimmering faintly with a quirk-woven thread.
This cloth was designed to breathe and adapt: warming in winter, cooling in heat, made to shield and sustain.
Dazai reached out, touched the fabric with his small fingers. It was smooth, clean, as if it recognized him. His chest tightened faintly, something stirring beneath the numbness.
“Not Shuuji anymore,” he whispered, his voice steady though his eyes flickered with something unspoken. “Call me Dazai.”
Yohji inclined his head without hesitation, as if acknowledging a solemn vow.
“These were commissioned for you,” the tailor said gently. “Tane-san asked for them especially. She said her son would need warmth that would not falter, a covering that would not fail. The fibers are made with your DNA and my quirk. Don’t worry we see many nullifiers here, testing our work.”
Dazai lowered his gaze. His hands tightened on the edge of the box. “I want more. Deliver enough every month. For twenty years.”
The tailor hesitated. Hirotsu shifted, but before he could speak, Dazai slid an envelope heavy with money across the counter. His voice did not waver. “That should cover it.”
The man bowed deeply. “As you wish.”
That evening, when the villa had quieted and the others busied themselves with Ozo’s commands, Dazai carried the box into his room.
He set it carefully on the tatami, slid the lid open, and lifted a roll of bandage. His fingers trembled faintly, though his face showed nothing.
He began to wind the bandages around his wrists, his forearms, up to his shoulders. The cloth clung snug and firm, wrapping him in white.
When he tied the knot, the pressure settled over his skin like an embrace.
The cold receded.
For the first time since the crater, the endless chill that gnawed beneath his skin dulled into silence. The bandages held him in place, drew him together, kept him from scattering into fragments of grief.
He stared into the mirror. A pale boy gazed back, eyes hollow, but his body wrapped in white, bound against collapse.
If I am wrapped, I will not fall apart.
He pressed his fingers against his chest, felt the muted beat of his heart through the fabric. It was distant, muffled, but real.
Hirotsu slid the door open quietly. His eyes softened when he saw the boy before the mirror. He did not speak right away.
He lowered himself onto the floor, his voice gentle. “So, do you feel steady like before?”
Dazai looked at him through the mirror. “Why did he do it? Why did Dad make me this way?”
The question hung heavy, quiet but demanding. Hirotsu’s shoulders sagged. He met the boy’s eyes directly.
“Gen’emon never feared you,” he said.
“It was not fear of your power. He feared what the world would do if they knew you. Gen’emon was afraid the government would take you."
He paused here to convey the feelings of the dead, "They would have seen you as a weapon, the child who could erase power itself. They would have locked you away, trained you, used you as their perfect soldier. He did not want that life for you.”
Dazai’s fingers tightened against the bandage knot at his wrist. His voice was low. “Then he wanted me alive.”
“More than anything.” Hirotsu leaned forward, his tone warm with conviction. “He wanted you free.”
Silence stretched. Dazai turned back to the mirror. His reflection stared back at him, the white bands bright against his pale skin.
A faint smile flickered, humorless. “No Longer Human. That is the name that came to me, when I first felt it in the crater. It is strange, is it not? An ability born from the soul itself, named as though it denies mine.”
Hirotsu’s gaze softened further. “A name is not a truth. It is only a word. You are your own, Osamu.”
Dazai’s eyes lingered in the mirror.
He whispered only to himself.
If I am no longer human, then perhaps I will never hurt like one.
The weeks that followed pressed him further into the fold of the Mafia.
Ozo’s commands grew harsher, his grief sharpened into cruelty that cut everyone beneath him.
For Masao, the loss of his sister and her husband only deepened an old wound. He had once shadowed Ozo like an heir, believing himself destined for power, but their brilliance had eclipsed him.
And now, even the child they left behind showed more promise than he ever could.
At six years old, Dazai’s mind moved quicker than men twice his age.
He began to watch the men more carefully. He traced the shape of their dealings, listened to their quarrels, mapped their rivalries. He remembered every word.
When Ozo demanded answers at meetings, when older men faltered and muttered, Dazai’s small voice would cut through, laying out paths simple, efficient, merciless.
“The Suribachi crater still spans twenty miles,” one of the men noted grimly.
A cold smile tugged at Dazai’s lips. “Exactly. We take the contracts to rebuild: houses, infrastructure, whatever they need. The city rises, our name rises with it. We may be the Mafia, but no one goes hungry here. Money flows where it’s earned… and where it’s respected.”
Another operative nodded, understanding the subtle lesson: power could be ruthless, but it could also buy loyalty.
At first, they dismissed him. But when his words proved true, when his plans succeeded, they stopped laughing. They listened.
Masao’s pride curdled into rage. He called it “training,” but his fists carried bitterness, not lessons.
Dazai endured it in silence, binding cracked ribs with fresh bandages at night, staring into the mirror until pain dulled into nothing.
When Masao struck harder, blood slick on the boy’s chin, Dazai only smiled faintly, lips twisting.
“Is that all?”
The words cut deeper than any blow, and Masao knew it.
By the time his seventh year passed, the boy who once clutched at corpses in a crater was gone.
What stood in his place was quieter, colder, eyes dark as a well. He tapped rhythms against his arms when silence pressed too thick.
He smiled with a tilt that unnerved men twice his age. He offered strategies that saved lives and ended others.
The servants whispered that he was not like a child at all. Some pitied him. Some feared him. None could claim to know him.
Dazai listened without care. Inside, his thoughts turned over endlessly.
Everything I value is lost the moment I obtain it. So I will value nothing. Then I will lose nothing.
And yet, red bled across his thoughts.
The memory of another boy, red-haired, blue-eyed, framed in the light of that terrible day. Arahabaki. Chuuya. His god of destruction.
When he saw blood on his hands, when red stained his bandages, he thought of him.
When he heard men cry out as plans collapsed, he remembered the crater.
When he lay awake beneath the beams, he thought, ‘What promises did I make? What would Chuuya think of me now?’
The thought gnawed at him, sharper than grief, sharper than guilt.
At seven years old, Dazai Osamu began weaving strategies that turned the Port Mafia’s hand in Yokohama.
In the years to come, blood would follow him, each drop whispering of the red-haired boy. His obsession deepened with every beat of his heart, every rhythm tapped on the bandages that held him together.
He needed Chuuya. He needed him soon.
It had been one year since the crater. Ten years would pass. Eleven. But already, the plan pulled him forward, each step binding him tighter to the path that awaited.
Notes:
Finally the end of Shuuji arc!
I never thought I would spend so much time fleshing out so much backstory for these characters just to kill them off lmaoooo...
BUT I promise I needed these interactions for my ending. (which is like happening in present time and we are still in the past hooo boi)
Floppyfox7 on Chapter 1 Sat 09 Aug 2025 03:19AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 1 Sat 09 Aug 2025 03:35AM UTC
Comment Actions
Chakda (Rey_Chakda) on Chapter 1 Sat 09 Aug 2025 05:34AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 1 Sat 09 Aug 2025 10:47AM UTC
Comment Actions
akaoisora on Chapter 1 Wed 13 Aug 2025 03:00PM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 1 Wed 13 Aug 2025 03:15PM UTC
Comment Actions
Maya (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 02 Sep 2025 09:34PM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 1 Tue 02 Sep 2025 10:01PM UTC
Comment Actions
Andri_2 on Chapter 3 Mon 08 Sep 2025 12:52AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 3 Mon 08 Sep 2025 01:38AM UTC
Comment Actions
SleepingApril on Chapter 4 Thu 04 Sep 2025 08:15AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 4 Thu 04 Sep 2025 12:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
Andri_2 on Chapter 4 Mon 08 Sep 2025 01:14AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 4 Mon 08 Sep 2025 01:40AM UTC
Comment Actions
Andri_2 on Chapter 4 Tue 09 Sep 2025 12:01AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 4 Tue 09 Sep 2025 01:04AM UTC
Comment Actions
Andri_2 on Chapter 5 Mon 08 Sep 2025 01:50AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 5 Mon 08 Sep 2025 02:41AM UTC
Comment Actions
Andri_2 on Chapter 5 Tue 09 Sep 2025 01:32AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 5 Tue 09 Sep 2025 01:44AM UTC
Comment Actions
SleepingApril on Chapter 7 Thu 04 Sep 2025 01:54PM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 7 Thu 04 Sep 2025 01:58PM UTC
Comment Actions
Andri_2 on Chapter 8 Mon 08 Sep 2025 04:34AM UTC
Comment Actions
bloodyredfox on Chapter 8 Mon 08 Sep 2025 05:07AM UTC
Comment Actions