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The room was empty. A blank void of nothingness, calmed by the stillness of an area that many had not stumbled upon. No one came to these parts, not even the wanderers who never found their true course. They walked in circles, round and round, passing the void yet never stopping by to see. Even the wanderers knew there was nothing for them here. There was nothing here for anyone.
Then why was he here?
He had visited this place many times over the course of his life. So many times he had lost track. There were some markings atop the metal he sat upon, worn and faded, though certainly not updated. They had collected dust. He had not looked down for a long time now.
The first time had been when he was a child. Young, so young, that he had barely remembered looking up at the lack of sky in his tiny form. A fateful night, the first time he had ever met these rims. The first time he had ever touched the cold. Did he have something in his hands? He must have dropped it. The shadows must have swallowed it whole, just as they had latched onto him.
They had been eating him for a long time now. Longer than he could remember, or could he? He had been about 4, he recalled. 4 entire years old. He had been smart enough to count those years. He remembered the numbers in front of him, the countless nights spent practicing them. Numbers were important, just like words. Countless nights on the alphabet.
Then.
Most important.
The quirk. That was most essential to them. He remembered looking up. They did not smile as they looked down at him, as they told him to train. He remembered looking straight ahead, at the targets they had set up. As they told him to train. As they pushed him.
He remembered looking down. Consumed by darkness once more. Shadows floating past, yet refusing to whisper to him. Not even touching him, because he was not a wanderer. He hadn’t chosen to be here, he wanted to cry out. He had been placed here, by their will. Not the shadows, but the outsiders. The ones who would never touch this place. Their own paths were ones of wanderers.
They were lucky.
He was not, despite being told he was.
Those metal bars always greeted him when he came back. It seemed like every time they grew thicker. Unbreakable. Why was he training his quirk if it wasn’t even strong enough to break this cage? Why was he doing all this, then?
His power was extraordinary. That’s what they would tell him, stars in their eyes every time they spoke of it. Yet every other time their eyes were dead, glazed over by something he wasn’t sure he liked. Something he wasn’t sure he could trust.
As he grew older, into a teenager, it seemed like those bars were bearing down on him. Was it just that he was growing taller, or that the cage was growing smaller? He could stick his hand out past it on the good days, but his thick wrist caught if he turned his hand too much. Not enough freedom. Only expected to sit back and handle this himself. Alone in the shadows that wouldn’t speak to him. Did they speak to them? The outsiders? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure, but he was jealous of them all the same.
Them, with their freedom to move as they pleased. Why did they want to move like robots when they could do anything? Why did they live this life when they could have helped others? They told him he would help others, but they weren’t helping him. Why were they pushing him towards their own goals? Why did they think it was worth it?
Some nights it would hurt and he would come here. Back to the soulless void. No one had stepped foot in here and he was a teenager. Why was that? It had been years, years of being alone. Did he wish someone would come? He wasn’t sure… He didn’t want someone stuck in the cage with him.
Afraid it meant that they were stuck too.
Afraid it meant that changing fate was impossible.
Afraid of hurting the other, even. He held so many emotions inside himself. This was the place to scream them all out, where it was safe. Where no one would hear his terrible secrets, his tortured soul, where no one would see the scars littering his body.
Where no one could watch him dance inside the cage, moving as they did in the real world. Robotic at first, lifeless yet restless, the life sucked from his very bones. Yet when he sang he would move with grace, in a way they never would have suspected. He would dance like he was going insane. Maybe he was.
So he didn’t want company. He didn’t want someone to go insane with. He didn’t want someone to expose himself to.
Did he?
When he finally blossomed into an adult, they offered him more freedom. The chance to be someone great, to start his own agency, to be his own person.
Not really.
In the end they kept holding the strings. Every situation was controlled by them, by their voices in his head. His actions didn’t belong to them, but sometimes it felt like they did. Sometimes it felt like they continued to pull the strings, so enraptured by their idea for him that it had to be perfect. Even if others suffered along the way. Even if he suffered, not given the chance to come back and scream into the void.
When he did come back, the cage was smaller. It had to have been, or was he just that big? He felt like he towered over the tally marks that were etched down into cold metal, like he could touch the top of the cage now. He couldn’t stand anymore, wasn’t able to. The bars hung so close to his head even as he sat.
“Can I sit here?”
The little voice, nearly swallowed by the shadows, somehow didn’t take him by surprise. Enji turned his head, sharp blue eyes staring down at the child who had asked.
He was so small, just as small as Enji had been when he had first arrived here. No bigger than 4 or 5. His quirk was just as obvious as his had been, in the shape of bright red wings which hung from his back. They were almost the same color as Enji’s flames.
The child wasn’t smiling, but he did have something in his hands. Enji reached out as if on instinct. His gesture was quick, just as rough as he had grown up to be. Pushing the toy closer against the child, so that he would not lose it.
Yet somehow, despite nearly losing his balance, the child remained. Staring at the large man, then down at the doll he cradled within his hands. He had not spoken another word since those first few. Had it even been him, or had the shadows finally started to whisper?
Enji scooted to make room for the child, who plopped down without another moment. Alone together, it seemed, swallowed by the void in a cage that had just grown tinier upon the arrival of another person. Would it suffocate him once more arrivals came through?
No. Enji glanced over to his companion. No one else would come. He didn’t want anyone here, didn’t want others suffocating behind the bars of a cage. Screaming nor dancing nor begging to be set free.
The child was quiet, just like him. Both silent within the void, Enji more so out of awkwardness than anything else. He didn’t know how to talk to children. No one had taught him, and no one would.
It must have gone on for hours. Enji had things to attend to in the real world, he knew he did, but the scream was bubbling up in his throat. A habit, something he did every time he came here. The cage would never break, no matter how many times he fought. No matter how many times he banged or burned.
A soft coo rose up from the child himself, causing Enji to stiffen where he sat. That was all the child had to offer, after hours and hours. The silence came back to eat at him. For the first time since he was 4, it felt like it was mocking him.
When the doll danced its way out of his lap, Enji finally saw it. Making its way across the tally marks with grace almost as pristine as his had been, the doll spun around. Enji was enraptured watching it. He could make out the outfit, the orange flames, the distinct expression on its face.
It was him.
The child looked up. Finally, after hours and hours, he smiled. And he said, “I want to be like you when I grow up.”
And the cage constricted around them both.