Chapter Text
Location: Mitaka Station, Tokyo
Shoto didn’t ball his fists. He didn’t call forth spires of ice or erupt the ground in searing flames. He simply stood with palms splayed, fingers relaxed, watching his own son launch himself forward once more.
Beneath the boy’s feet, shadows pooled like spilled ink, writhing with their own cursed hunger. The black-bladed sword in Megumi’s grip gleamed wetly—fresh blood leaking from edges that had never belonged to Shoto. Around them, the hounds tore through splintered beams and shattered stone, snarling at anything in their path. And still Megumi came, every footfall echoing against Shoto’s stillness, as though calm carried a more lethal promise than any inferno.
“You’re the decoy,” Megumi had snarled earlier. “You’re part of the domain.”
Shoto didn’t flinch. Not yet. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat—there was a chill in his chest, a frost that spread each time he realized Megumi no longer recognized him.
Every swing of the sword sent shards of energy rattling down Shoto’s spine. Wild arcs meant to cleave bone, deliberate jabs aimed at the heart, pin-point strikes born of focused precision.
But as the blade sliced through the air, Shoto saw what pulsed beneath each strike: a tremor of hesitation, the weight of exhaustion stomping at Megumi’s heels, arms trembling under the sword’s oppressive heft.
This wasn’t vengeance… it was desperation.
He had promised.
The world blurred for a moment, and Shoto was no longer on a blasted battlefield but in a sunlit nursery, carpet soft beneath tiny socks.
Three-year-old Megumi, black hair tousled in every direction, stared up at him with bright dark blue pupils, fat cheeks streaked with drool. Momo knelt beside the boy, coaxing a reluctant hand toward a plate of carrot sticks. He’d scrunched his nose, pushing them away until Shoto had called them ‘hero food’. Then, crumbs clinging to his lips, Megumi had lifted a single orange stick and asked, “Will you be there when I get strong?”
Shoto’s voice had been fierce with promise: “Even if you never become the strongest, I’ll be there. I’ll always be there.”
A fresh slash of steel across Shoto’s jacket sent a spray of sparks down his arm.
He leaned back, pivoted on one boot, ice crackling around his ankles—yet still he did not strike.
I swore I would never become what he feared.
He remembered the night Fuyumi wept herself to sleep, curled between them, and the bulletin came down that his father’s training had left scars on Natsuo and Shoto they’d never grow out of.
In the hush of that darkened room, Shoto had gripped Megumi’s small hand and whispered into his tear-soft hair, “You will never be afraid of me.”
Another windmilling arc of the sword, a low roar tearing from Megumi’s raw throat. “Stop standing there! Fight me!”
This time Shoto moved… not with rage, not with power, but with purpose.
Two walls of ice shot up from the shattered tiles, pinning the blade in a smooth cage of frost. The metal rang hollow and Megumi staggered back, his chest heaving, pupils pinpricks of wild light. Sweat and ash glossed his face as blood trickled from a fresh nick at his temple.
He blinked past the smoke, the Divine Dogs, the trembling silhouette of the man before him.
Shoto took a step forward, each footfall sure, sending the ice-locked layer underfoot to shatter in crystalline fragments. He crossed the distance in two strides—close enough to feel the heat racing off Megumi’s skin, close enough that the boy could read the lines of love carved into his father’s face.
Lightning split the sky overhead. A hero’s cry cut through the chaos in the background, but Shoto didn’t even hear it.
All he saw was his son gasping as Megumi battled fear itself.
He raised a hand—not to scorch, not to freeze, but to catch the next strike in open air.
“Megumi,” he said, voice thick as ice, bright as flame. “I’m still here.”
The sword came down.
Shoto didn’t flinch.
He remembered every promise, every scrap of lullaby, every crumb of carrot shared in trust. Because a father doesn’t waver when his child forgets his name. He remembers it for them.
Megumi's shoulders quaked, each tremor coursing through him like an electric current. Shoto noticed the way Megumi's spine bent, not like a predator poised to pounce, but like a young boy desperately trying to maintain his balance on a precipice. His breaths came in rapid, shallow bursts, and his eyes were glazed, darting from one shadow to another as if he were glimpsing ghosts invisible to others.
And then…
He raised his hands, not in aggression, but to form a hand seal.
It wasn't a technique Shoto had ever seen Megumi once used, or any pro-hero manual or martial arts kata. No support gear adorned Megumi's arms nor was there any external focus or elemental power channeling through him.
Instead, his fingers moved with a deliberate rhythm, curling and intertwining to create a shape that exuded an aura of ritualistic intent. It felt ancient, foreign, as though it belonged to a world beyond their own.
Shoto's heart skipped a beat.
The shadows beneath Megumi grew denser, spreading like ink soaking into the concrete floor. They slithered outward in sinuous arcs, winding around the stark white remains of Rabbit Escape. The Divine Dog, its fur bristling in anticipation, snarled beside him but hesitated, uncertain of the ominous force it was being called into.
But Shoto saw it clearly… the faint flicker in Megumi’s forearms. The slight tremor in his fingers as the intricate sign wavered for a heartbeat.
He’s reaching his breaking point.
Megumi's lips moved, shaping silent words that never found voice, that Shoto discerned as: “MAHO–”
His fingers pressed together one final time, forcing the seal to its completion. The air around them pulsed with energy, and the shadows responded, rippling in acknowledgment.
That was enough.
No more.
You’ve suffered enough.
Shoto sprang into action, moving with a speed that left Megumi unable to react. There was no blaze of fire, no shards of ice—just Shoto's body twisting forward, his weight shifting seamlessly, closing the distance between them with a single, fluid pivot on his heel.
Megumi didn't even have time to lift his gaze before—
THWACK.
Shoto's fist connected with Megumi's abdomen, the strike precise, centered, calculated to bruise but not to break. The sound was dull and thick, reminiscent of a hammer meeting soaked cloth.
Megumi's mouth gaped open in a shocked gasp, yet no air escaped. His knees buckled beneath him, and the shadows behind him quivered before collapsing, spilling into harmless darkness at his feet.
His sword slipped from his grasp and landed with a clang.
He crumpled to his knees, his body curling around the dull ache, his chest heaving with the abrupt loss of breath.
No words followed, no rage, no curses.
Just a small, strangled whimper escaped his lips as he slumped forward, and Shoto caught him, cradling him gently… Megumi was unconscious before his face ever touched the ground. His body felt impossibly light in Shoto’s arms like cradling a broken porcelain doll. Limbs once curled like a kitten nestled in warmth, now dangled loose, drained of every last sinew.
The shikigami—Toad’s slugging silhouette, Nue’s spindly wings, the Divine Dogs—had all evaporated the moment his master’s chest fell still as if the world’s darkness had simply pulled the plug. The inky puddles that coated the cement tiles retreated, shrinking back into the cracks.
He held him like that. One arm tucked beneath bent knees, the other looping around his back, fingertips digging into fabric for fear that if he loosened his grip even for a second, the boy would vanish.
Megumi’s head fell against Shoto’s collarbone, warm hair brushing across his throat. His soft, uneven breaths were the only sound, each one a painful reminder: this was a child, his son, fragile and terrified.
Shoto’s heart pounded as he pressed a fingertip to the dark bruise blooming along Megumi’s ribs. He could still taste the sting of flesh giving way under his knuckles… his own hands, the weapons he had vowed never to raise in fury. Endeavor’s rage had been his childhood and Shoto had promised himself he’d be different… gentler… the calm to cool the flames.
But he’d snapped.
Because Megumi wouldn’t stop.
Because each time the boy’s eyes had flickered with that wild fire, and Nue had hurled its jagged beak into a civilian crowd and shooting lightning, Shoto’s blood had boiled hotter than any quirk. He’d watched his son tear through hope like it was smoke.
And the cruelty of it? Megumi believed every twisted hallucination.
The station’s platform beyond them filled with the clamor of rescued civilians, medics bundling away the bloodied and broken, pro-heroes marching in to mop up the wreckage. Reporters’ lenses glimmered from behind barricades. Shoto tuned it all out. He didn’t want the scrutiny. Didn’t want every camera in the city trained on the boy sleeping in his arms, as though he were some ticking bomb.
He shimmied lower, pulling Megumi flush against his chest. His left hand rose to cradle the back of the boy’s skull… gentle, unyielding. His palm curved to fit every ridge of bone, keeping him tethered.
He felt a sob catch in his throat but forced it down.
“You may not remember me,” he whispered, voice thick as he lifted Megumi, “But I remember you.”
Shoto’s boots scuffed down the platform steps, each crunch of glass and scorched metal echoing through the smoky air. Sirens blared and drones above clattered their mechanical rhythms. Behind barricades, civilians huddled in low conversation, their faces lit by strobing red and blue lights.
He didn’t look back. He made a call with the earpiece in his collar.
“This is Todoroki Shoto.”
A crisp reply sounded immediately. “Sir. Receiving.”
His voice dropped to a controlled whisper. “I need a full medical team. Pro-Hero family division, specialist-level. Neurology, cognitive mutation, quirk-strain response.”
A brief pause. “Yes, sir. Civilian casualties reported. The child is the suspect—”
“He is not a suspect.” Shoto’s words came out as a blade… cold and lethal.
Silence fractured the line. He took a breath. In. Out.
“I want him treated under Category White: Pro-Hero Immediate Family. No handcuffs. No sedation unless medically necessary. He’s ten.”
“…Confirmed. Name?”
Shoto glanced down at the boy in his arms. Megumi’s cheek bore a crust of dried blood, tiny cracks spidering from his temple. Dust and soot caked his hair.
“Todoroki Megumi.”
At the name, memory flickered where rain streamed down the window glass as a younger Megumi pressed against it, eyes bright with wonder. Now those same eyes were shut, face pale under harsh light.
It had been three months since he said that name to a living body.
Three months since the light in Megumi’s eyes disappeared from their home.
And now the boy in his arms had returned not as the quiet, brilliant child but as a whirlwind of summoned monsters and violent delusions.
Four minutes later, a medical team arrived, bearing a silver stretcher and humming monitors. They set up quirk-stabilization harnesses and sticky sedative patches. Shoto knelt, sliding Megumi onto the stretcher himself.
A medic reached for restraints but Shoto’s glare held him frozen.
“I said no restraints. He’s done enough fighting.”
The medic nodded quickly and lowered his hand.
Inside the transport van, Shoto watched the monitors flicker displaying jagged brainwave irregularities that he cannot understand. Beside him are oxygen levels showing inconsistencies and temperature readings jumping like startled birds.
He recalled Megumi’s last stable summons: Divine Dogs that lasted mere minutes, migraines after Nue, Toad only a sketch in his notebook since Megumi never succeeded in summoning it fully. Now three shikigami active at once and then a swarm of rabbits.
He also used hand signs that Shoto had never seen… where shadows responded to emotional will, not just deliberate invocation. The dogs bit. The bird struck. The toad hunted.
‘That’s not how his quirk worked.’
Shoto’s pulse hammered. Quirks didn’t evolve that quickly… unless, something broke and led Megumi in a breaking point, or someone warped —twisted— Megumi’s quirk.
‘Did his mutation happen during the disappearance? Did someone force it? Push it? Did something… infect it?’
‘Was this new side of his quirk… protecting him?’
Was his quirk—the Shadow Menagerie —trying to shield him from something even worse than what they’d seen today?
The thought made bile rise in his throat.
He brushed damp hair from his forehead, stomach twisting as Shoto leaned over Megumi’s still form, voice hushed. “I’m here now. Whatever happened, I’ll fix it.”
Megumi’s chest rose and fell in slow, pale rhythm. The jagged distance between them began to close.
And this time, he wouldn’t let the silence grow wide between them as Shoto’s eyes glanced over the line in the monitors: Severe Quirk Exhaustion… Possible Cognitive Override
.
.
.
.
.
Location: U.A. Memorial Medical Pavilion – Ward H
The armored van slid beneath the private gate and, as if on cue, the sirens cut out mid-wail. No strobing lights painted the walls. No cameras snapped, no curious onlookers pressed against barricades. Just the muted hiss of tires on pavement and a suffocating hush that felt like lead in everyone’s lungs.
Ahead, the U.A. Memorial Medical Pavilion rose against the sky. A monolith of reflective glass panels and brushed silver alloy, each surface gleaming under the floodlights. Designed to shelter families of Pro-Hero casualties, it was one of Japan’s most heavily fortified hospitals. On the twelfth floor (Ward H), every door was a sealed airlock, every window bulletproof, reserved for quirks gone dangerously awry, minds fractured by psychic trauma, and powers twisted by mutation.
That was the destination Shoto had chosen for his son.
“He’s here,” Shoto said quietly, voice swallowed by the corridor’s fluorescent hum.
Inside the trauma bay, a nurse pressed sticky ECG leads across Megumi’s bare chest. Another nurse strapped a tourniquet for a blood draw and enumerating blood tests customary for new admission.
Megumi’s eyelids remained closed despite the sharp needle pricking his skin.
Shoto stood behind, arms locked at his sides and each knuckle a tiny mountain of tension. His right arm, the one he could freeze at will, had begun to frost over again where a bloom of ice crystals crawled from palm to elbow.
He didn’t notice.
In quick succession two specialists filed in:
Dr. Reigen Toshi, neural-cognition and trauma consultant, tie askew, pen tapping against a clipboard.
Dr. Hoshikawa Meiko, quirk analyst, hair pinned in a precise topknot, eyes sharp behind rimless glasses.
They bent over the stretcher as if it held a priceless artifact and their eyes flicking between the boy and streams of data: EEG readouts, cortical scans glowing on monitors, resonance charts that mapped every neural flicker. One specialist sucked in a sharp breath. Another muttered an oath.
Reigen straightened, pushed the doors aside, and stepped into the observation room. He offered the clipboard to Shoto and cleared his throat. “He’s stable,” Reigen said, voice low. “But there are complications.”
Shoto’s jaw locked. “Explain.”
Reigen met his gaze, appraising the hero in front of him not only as a colleague, but as a father. Then he tapped the clipboard.
“We believe Megumi has undergone a rare quirk mutation event… One compounded by severe mental strain.”
Shoto’s shoulders stiffened. “What kind of mutation?”
“His original ability, that is… summoning shadow-based constructs, was limited by both physical stamina, mental focus, and age. But these pathways—” Dr. Meiko glided forward, sliding a tablet across the table. A three-dimensional lattice of Megumi’s nervous system spun on the screen, bright blue nodes pulsing as dark veins of circuitry tangled around them. And in some places… the connection looks scarred.
“The pathways are entangled… but his body adapted and formed interconnections.”
“And this means?”
“Ordinarily he could muster one Divine Dog at a time. But eyewitness footage, CCTV records, and your report? He summoned four distinct constructs.”
Shoto’s lips parted, then closed in a thin line. “And they weren’t basic forms.”
Dr. Reigen stepped closer, fingers brushing his lips in thought. “Three months of total disappearance. And now sudden manifestation. Extreme aggression. Quirk output levels exceeding anything in his past record… His constructs showed independent movement. Tactical coordination. Decisions no ordinary quirk should make.”
He drew in a careful breath before continuing, “Your son’s constructs weren’t just extensions of his will anymore suggesting his quirk has evolved past its original framework. Something entirely new.”
Meiko added quietly, “We think his quirk was forcibly evolved, likely under the stress of survival.”
“Wherever he was missing in those 3 months… it demanded more from him than his body was ready to give. Think of it like scar tissue when the body suffers trauma, it reinforces the damage site. His quirk adapted. Not gradually. But violently.”
A hollow beat passed. Shoto looked back at Megumi, at the IV drip strung into a frail vein, the prongs of the oxygen tube just inside his nostrils, the pale lavender bruise blooming along his ribs. And then Dr. Meiko swiped the tablet screen, displaying another visual: Nue's lightning storms, Toad’s tongue smashing barricades, and swarm of rabbits made to distract and disorient.
“We’re exploring both scenarios. But given the timing of his vanishing three months ago, the sudden return, the delusional state he’s in… all seem to lead possible exposure to hostile environment. That kind of trauma changes how a quirk behaves. Sometimes forever. We’ll monitor him. But there’s more.”
Reigen pointed to another chart. There was a spiked EEG graph that jumped erratically.
“He’s showing non-linear reality stress patterns. His brain isn’t just reliving nightmares… it’s convinced it’s elsewhere. Every sound, every face here registers as part of a hostile simulation.”
Shoto’s breath caught so hard it rattled in his chest. “You mean… he thinks this is all fake?”
“Exactly,” Reigen said, voice soft. “To him, life here is the illusion, and the true world lies beyond a nightmare he can’t wake from. From what we’ve seen, he believed Mitaka Station was a domain, and everyone inside it was either a projection… or a threat.”
He doesn’t even believe I’m real.
No fire could burn that ache away and Shoto can only stand still, arms folded and mouth tight. One hand clenching his wrist to keep from punching something.
Three months.
Three months gone without a trace, and then he just appears!
In the middle of a train station.
Covered in shadows. Barely breathing. Summoning death like it was second nature.
He swallowed against the bile climbing up “Are there…treatments?” His voice was low, almost swallowed by the soft beep-beep of Megumi’s heart monitor. If he spoke any louder, the weight of that question might crack the air.
Dr. Meiko straightened and lowered her tablet slowly, as if sliding a blade back into its sheath. The projection of Megumi’s quirk-mapping grids pulsed in acid-green, jagged EEG tracings ran in and out of focus, and his heart rate line jerked like a wounded bird’s wing.
Beyond that, Megumi lay so still under crisp white sheets he might have been a statue.
“Yes,” she said, voice calm and firm, with no flicker of doubt. “There’s a path forward. But it’s neither fast nor clean.”
She folded her arms, the sleeves of her lab coat whispering against each other. Her eyes, clear behind thin-rimmed glasses, held a careful compassion. “Neural repair takes time especially when the brain acts like it’s under siege. Right now, he isn’t summoning his quirk. He’s channeling them each panic spike, each traumatic echo, feeding into their call.”
Reigen leaned in, his palm brushing the cool observation glass before he tapped it twice, soft as a sigh. “The upside,” he said, voice low, “is his core identity remains intact. We’re seeing clean emotional-memory responses. There’s still someone in there.”
Shoto watched Megumi’s shallow breaths lift the sheet over a bony shoulder. The blanket sagged under its own weight, draping him like a shroud. He looked so small, so fragile.
Still someone in there.
That thought pulsed in his chest louder than the monitor’s alarms.
“He’s ten,” Shoto murmured, hardly more than a breath.
Reigen nodded. “Exactly. This gives us advantages. There’s high neural plasticity at this age. It means Megumi can adapt and heal but only if the world he knows anchors him. Familiar voices. Familiar scents. Familiar faces.”
“... the people around him will make the greatest difference.”
Shoto looked at Dr. Meiko. His voice cracked. “And if he fights us? If he sees me as the enemy? As the decoy ?”
The doctor’s gaze didn’t waver. “Then you still stay. Show him the same face every day. The same calm voice. Consistency and familiarity are our best weapons.”
She tapped the tablet again, bringing up another overlay: pharmacological curves, dosage timelines.
“We’ll start an augmented stabilizer regimen. Meds calibrated for young patients with quirk-induced mutations. Nothing long-term. Just enough to dull the frenzy so his brain can rest.”
“Yes, we’ll let his mind recover naturally and in a safe, controlled environment.” Reigen folded his arms across his chest, leaning back to consider the plans flickering around them. “And we’ll work with Support Department at U.A. to design regulation support gear—lightweight, but effective.”
Shoto turned, chest tight. “You mean… something to lock down his quirk?”
“A partial lockout,” Reigen confirmed. “Think of it as a breaker switch. Under normal conditions, only the Divine Dogs can manifest. If he tries to summon anything else like Nue, Toad, the rabbit swarm then the construct will automatically destabilize. That protects him. And the staff. And you.”
Shoto absorbed that in silence.
He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing that suit, or a bracelet, or watch… something slim made from carbon-fiber woven to his son’s bio-signals.
He hated the idea of binding Megumi’s gifts.
Worse than that, though, were the bruises he’d found along his ribs, and the way Megumi flinched even unconscious when anyone entered his room.
“I’ll commission it tonight,” he said, voice steadying. “I want the best engineers on it.”
“We’ll connect you with U.A.’s HeroTech branch,” Meiko offered. “They’ll tailor it to Megumi’s physiology. But remember… this is a bridge, not a prison. Just until his mind learns to steer itself again.”
Just until he knew who he was .
Shoto’s gaze drifted back to his son, still as a sleepwalker. Three months of silence. Three months of nightmares no one spoke of. Now Megumi was home, but broken, furious, terrified of the world he once loved.
“I’ll be there every step,” he whispered, eyes glinting with determination. “Even if he despises me. Even if he never says, ‘Otousan’ again.”
Reigen’s lips curved into the ghost of a smile, and acceptance or respect, shone in his eyes. “Good,” he said quietly. “Because today, the boy we saw wasn’t fighting you. He was fighting to survive a war no child should ever know.”
“You’re just caught in the crossfire, Todoroki-san.” Dr. Meiko added.
Shoto nodded, gaze steady.
“I have to call his mother, Momo.”