Chapter Text
Many people had soulmarks, special tattoo-like drawings that were exceptionally precious to them.
There were two kinds.
There was one with the kanji for "protect" or "guard"; the parental mark. And there was one with the kanji for "child"; the aptly-named child mark.
Most didn't have both, plenty had neither, but often enough, a person had at least one of either kind. People with the child mark typically had theirs appear when they received their quirk, or didn't, in the cases of quirkless children. Those with the parental mark received theirs when their "child", and in the occasional case "children", were born.
It was called the parental mark, but it was always accompanied by a smaller mark for each child, referred to as a signifier. If someone's mark was a bird, they might have feathers; a tree might have scattered leaves on their body; a horse might have hoofprints.
But never before had Shouta heard of someone receiving their parental mark and twenty signifier marks over the course of about a year.
At the ripe age of fifteen going-on sixteen.
One morning, Shouta was getting ready to go to school, barely into his first week at U.A., when he saw it. The only reason he even noticed that morning rather than when he went to bed was because he'd decided to brush his teeth without a shirt on in his sleep-deprived haze.
He blinked a few times as his heart caught in his throat.
There on his chest, placed over his heart, was a sleeping black cat with the red kanji for "protect" placed in its center.
Shouta finally had a mark.
He never received one as a child and distantly thought that he wasn't parent or guardian material, so he would be doomed as someone without that kind of connection. It was the kind that bound people by fate and was even more powerful than blood relations in the eyes of the law when it came down to it.
But after staring at the cat for a few moments longer, he immediately disregarded his need to go to school and began to search his body for the signifier.
It took him a minute to find it as it was placed at the base of his spine, just above the hem of his pants. A pawprint.
A black pawprint with a white starburst in its center. Like a tiny firework.
Shouta damn near smiled at it but chastised himself as he took a photo in the mirror of the mark then the signifier.
Who knew when he would meet his kid, or if they would accept the bond given to them? There was always the possibility they rejected their fate-given connection.
He would treasure it either way.
As Shouta walked to school, he mulled over his plan once more.
He may have been placed in General Studies at U.A., but he'd always planned on getting to the Hero Course one way or the other.
Now that he knew he might have someone to protect in the future, it simply increased his determination twofold.
The Sports Festival was coming up and he'd be damned if he didn't make it.
Roughly two weeks before the Sports Festival, Shouta received another pawprint. It was slightly tilted and stacked above the other with a white line that curled into it.
Another picture.
Then two days later, another pawprint.
This one with a pair of white sparkles on the pad.
Another picture.
Each time, Shouta marked the date of each new print in a plain black journal denoted with a small white cat silhouette on the cover. He would also print the pictures and secure them inside.
(About ten months later, he would consider that it might have been better to get a photo album.)
Although, eventually, he began to wonder how many could fit along the length of his spine and if they would continue.
Then, one solid white pawprint with a thin black outline later, he stood on the podium while staring out at the crowd of people in the stands.
He was finally holding that gold medal in his hand, which was bloody and wrapped in bandages since he'd refused treatment until after the festival. Despite himself, he smiled ear-to-ear with a grin that made the audience shudder then continue cheering.
Part of him couldn't believe they were celebrating someone with a "villainous" or "useless" quirk, although the outlook depended on who you asked.
But he pushed those thoughts away.
Shouta would be a hero.
He would protect his kids.
Quickly, he'd been transferred to 1-A and never showed his excitement, which had dwindled significantly the moment he remembered he'd be playing catch-up. The Hero Course students had almost two months on him in terms of training and he would make up for it and then some.
Even with the loud blond class representative who sat beside him insisting upon their immediate friendship.
Even with the blue and white haired boy who joined in that insistence by the end of Shouta's first class with them.
Which, frankly, was the fastest he'd ever seen someone decide they would be his friend or decide they would be anyone's friend in general.
Though secretly, Shouta was glad to finally have people who stuck beside him. People who weren't afraid of his quirk. People who declared openly that they were friends.
Another pawprint, three days after the fourth and only the day after his first in class 1-A.
Another picture.
Once he'd reached his sixth pawprint, only ten days after the last, Shouta began writing in the journal.
It wasn't anything much, but he considered his own experiences.
What did he want from the adults around him now? What did he wish people would do for him? It would all be good to keep in mind: the anxiety over small things, the irrational fears that came even when it was obvious that they weren’t logical, the crippling doubt when your best effort wasn’t enough.
Whatever happened to him in the future, he needed to remember what it was like. But most of all, he needed to remember how it felt to feel alone. To wish you had someone by your side who would love and care for you unconditionally.
By the time summer break began, three months to the day after Shouta received his first pawprint, he'd racked up another two marks.
And when the next term started at the beginning of September?
He counted them up in the mirror over and over.
Twelve paws and still room for more.
But each time a new one appeared, he had taken a picture and written down each child's birthday dutifully. Then he would wonder how he might meet them.
He knew without question that he'd never turn them away.
But would they accept him?
Shouta hoped they would.
At the start of November, the pawprints seemed to have stopped, but Shouta always noted that there was still room when he checked every morning.
He had a line of fifteen little paws marching up his back and there was still space for more of them.
That thought usually had him paling even worse than his usual complexion.
Fifteen.
Quite literally unheard of. And he would know, he checked. Extensively.
The most signifiers a person was ever reported to have was seven. Of course that was reported and after they died because marks were so unbelievably precious that usually people wouldn't show them to anyone they didn’t trust, let alone the media.
But that was still less than Shouta and his age was now equal to the number of paws running along his spine, though he'd be over that number once more by the end of the week.
Finally, it was a new year.
And Shouta had gotten one more pawprint, patterned like a little grayscale nebula, before the year had finished up. That brought him to a grand total of sixteen paws and put his age equal to the number of signifiers once more.
It had gotten excessive several months ago, but Shouta still wrote in his journal and had taken pictures of each new mark.
Nothing would stop him from doing that.
It was Shouta's last day of his first year and he counted up the marks as he did every morning.
Twenty paws, one for each of his kids.