Hours before Ryuu got admitted---
"~Hmm-hmm-hmm…"
The smell of miso soup bubbling away filled the cozy kitchen while Yuki Kazama hummed softly to herself, effortlessly stirring the pot.
She had her long black hair pulled up in a bun, which looked like it was her go-to style when she was cooking.
Steam rose from the stovetop, fogging the window that looked out onto their modest neighborhood.
She'd always found cooking therapeutic...the precise measurements, the familiar routines, the way simple ingredients could become something nourishing and warm.
Just like raising Ryuu had been, she mused.
Take one confused, powerful little boy, add equal parts love and structure, season with patience, and somehow you got a hero-in-training who made her heart swell with pride every single day.
The wall-mounted television chattered in the background, some mindless variety show that she wasn't really watching.
It was just noise to fill the silence of the empty house.
She couldn't help but wonder how her kid's doing...
She glanced at the clock.
6:30 PM.
The buses should have returned to UA hours ago.
Maybe he was having dinner with friends? Or studying in the dorms?
She made a mental note to text him later if he didn't check in soon.
He was good about communication, always had been, especially afte—
The variety show cut to a news bulletin without warning, the cheerful music replaced by urgent tones.
"—reaking news this evening. Multiple explosions reported at the National Quirk Research Institute approximately fifty kilometers outside Musutafu. Early reports suggest a coordinated villain attack during what was supposed to be an educational visit by students fro—"
CLINK-CLANK!
The wooden spoon clattered to the floor.
"—UA High School. We're receiving unconfirmed reports of casualties among both staff and students. Pro heroes are currently on scene, but the situation remains—"
Yuki's world tilted sideways.
The kitchen seemed to spin around her as she gripped the counter, her knuckles white against the faux marble surface.
UA students.
Field trip.
Research facility.
'Ryuu.'
Her phone was in her hand before she consciously decided to grab it, fingers shaking as she pulled up his contact.
"Hey, this is Ryuu! Sorry I missed your call. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
The call went straight to voicemail...his cheerful voice asking her to leave a message, promising to call back soon.
She tried again.
"Hey it—" Voicemail.
Again.
"He—" Voicemail.
The news anchor was still talking, something about emergency response protocols and ongoing investigations, but Yuki couldn't focus on the words.
All she could see was Ryuu's face that morning as he'd kissed her cheek goodbye, excited about some new equipment they were going to observe.
His quirk had been stable lately, stronger than ever, and he'd been so happy...
DING-DONG!
The doorbell rang.
Yuki froze, her phone halfway to her ear for another attempted call.
DING-DONG!
The bell rang again, followed by a firm knock.
She approached the front door on unsteady legs, peering through the peephole.
A man in a cowboy hat and mask stood on her doorstep, his posture professional but grave.
She recognized him immediately....Snipe, one of UA's faculty members.
A pro hero.
Her heart stopped.
Heroes only came to your door with news.
And heroes only came to mothers' doors with one kind of news.
With trembling hands, she unlocked the door.
"Mrs. Kazama." Snipe's voice was carefully controlled, professional. "May I come in?"
"Is..." The words stuck in her throat. She tried again. "Is my son alive?"
Something in Snipe's expression softened slightly. "He's alive. He's stable. But there are things we need to discuss."
Relief flooded through her so completely that she nearly collapsed.
Alive. Stable. Everything else could be dealt with, could be fixed, could be survived as long as he was alive.
She led Snipe to the living room, turning off the television with shaking hands.
The sudden silence was deafening.
"How badly is he hurt?" she asked, sinking into the couch.
"Physical injuries are minor. Exhaustion, some bruising. But..." Snipe removed his hat, running a hand through his hair. "His quirk has suffered complete burnout. He pushed it past safe limits during the attack to coordinate his classmates' abilities."
Yuki closed her eyes.
She'd feared this day might come ever since Ryuu's quirk had manifested so early and so powerfully.
The doctors had warned them that empathic abilities could be particularly susceptible to overuse, especially in high-stress situations.
"Will it come back?"
"Recovery Girl believes so, given time and rest. But Mrs. Kazama, there's more." Snipe leaned forward, his expression grave. "During the attack, one of the villains made specific references to your son. And to your husband."
The blood drained from Yuki's face.
"He called Ryuu's father 'Commander Yamamoto.' Claimed he'd been part of some government research division investigating quirk evolution." Snipe's eyes were sharp, studying her reaction. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
...
The question hung in the air between them....
Yuki's mind raced, memories flooding back with painful clarity.
Eight years ago.
Kenji coming home from work looking pale and shaken, pacing their small living room like a caged animal.
The hushed phone conversations that stopped whenever she entered the room.
The way he'd started watching Ryuu with something that looked almost like fear.
"They're asking too many questions about him, Yuki. About how early his quirk manifested, how strong it is. They want to run tests."
"What kind of tests?"
"The kind that turn children into weapons."
She'd pushed him for details, but he'd refused to explain.
Just kept saying he had to protect them, had to find a way to keep Ryuu safe from people who would use his abilities for darker purposes.
And then one morning, she'd woken up to find a note on the kitchen table and her husband gone forever.
"Mrs. Kazama?" Snipe's voice pulled her back to the present.
"I..." She took a shuddering breath. "I knew Kenji worked for the government. Enhanced Research Division, he said. But he never talked about work, never brought it home. Said it was classified."
It wasn't exactly a lie. Just not the whole truth.
Snipe nodded slowly. "The villain who attacked specifically targeted your son. Used information that suggests he has detailed knowledge of Ryuu's capabilities and background. We need to consider the possibility that your husband's former colleagues might be involved."
"Involved how?" But even as she asked, Yuki's heart was sinking. She already knew the answer.
"We think they're using Ryuu to study quirk evolution. The way his Resonance ability allows him to amplify others' quirks....it's unprecedented. If someone wanted to understand how to artificially enhance quirk abilities..." Snipe didn't need to finish the sentence.
They would need Ryuu.
"I want to see him," Yuki said, standing abruptly. "Now. Tonight."
"Of course. I'll drive you to UA. But Mrs. Kazama..." Snipe stood as well, his expression sympathetic but firm. "When we get there, when you see your son, he's going to ask questions. About his father, about what the villain said. He deserves to know the truth."
Yuki nodded, though her throat felt tight.
The truth.
The partial truth she'd been carrying for years, and the larger truth she'd never fully understood herself.
Twenty minutes later, she sat in the passenger seat of Snipe's vehicle as they drove through the night toward UA.
The city lights blurred past the window, but all she could think about was the last conversation she'd had with her husband.
---
*Years ago...*
Yuki had watched her husband pace their small living room for twenty minutes, too anxious to sit down, too terrified to speak clearly.
She'd seen Kenji upset before...stressed about work, worried about money, frustrated with the bureaucracy of government employment...but never like this.
Never this kind of fear...
"Start from the beginning," she'd said, keeping her voice level despite her own rising panic. "Slowly. What happened at work?"
Kenji had stopped pacing, turning to face her with wild eyes. "They know about Ryuu. Really know about him."
"What do you mean? His quirk is registered, it's all documente—"
"No." Kenji ran both hands through his hair. "You don't understand. I work in the Enhanced Research Division. Our entire purpose is studying quirk development, quirk evolution, quirk... potential."
The way he'd said that last word made ice form in Yuki's stomach.
"They've been monitoring all quirk manifestations across Japan," he continued, words tumbling out faster now. "Especially early manifestations, powerful manifestations. Ryuu appeared on their radar three years ago when he first showed signs of Resonance at age four."
"That's normal for research," Yuki had protested weakly. "They monitor lots of qu—"
"Not like this." Kenji pulled out a file folder from his briefcase, spreading documents across their coffee table. "Look. This is Ryuu's official quirk assessment. Empathic abilities, emotional sensing, minor amplification potential. Standard rating, nothing unusual."
He pulled out another folder, this one marked with security classifications Yuki didn't recognize.
"This is his 'real' assessment. The one they don't show parents." His finger stabbed at highlighted sections. "Ryuu's Resonance doesn't just sense emotions, Yuki. When he amplifies someone's quirk, he's temporarily altering their biological processes at a molecular level. He's touching their genetic code and 'improving' it."
The words hadn't made sense.
Yuki had stared at the jargon, the charts and graphs, trying to comprehend what her husband was telling her.
"That's... that's not possible. He just makes quirks a little stronger, like a batte—"
"It's not like a battery," Kenji had said urgently. "Batteries provide external power. Ryuu is reaching into people's bodies and 'changing' how their quirks function. Making them more efficient, more powerful, more refined. Do you understand what that means?"
Yuki had shaken her head, still lost.
"It means his quirk isn't empathic. It's some form of biological manipulation disguised as emotion-sensing. And if that's true..." He'd slumped onto the couch, head in his hands. "If they confirm that theory, they'll never let him go."
"What are you talking about?"
"There are programs, Yuki. Black budget programs. They take children with potentially dangerous or valuable quirks and train them. Except 'train' is putting it mildly." His voice had dropped to barely a whisper. "I've seen the files. Seen what they do to kids who can manipulate biology, who can alter quirks, who can potentially create weapons out of ordinary people."
Yuki had felt the room spin around her.
"They want to take Ryuu?"
"Not yet. Right now, he's just on a watch list. But I've been ordered to perform covert assessments whenever I visit. Report on his quirk development, his emotional stability, his potential for... recruitment."
The word had hung between them like a death sentence.
"And if you don't?"
"Then they'll send someone else. Someone who won't care that he's my son." Kenji had looked up at her with eyes full of anguish and determination. "I can stall them. Buy time. Make reports that downplay his abilities, convince them he's interesting but not valuable enough for the programs. But eventually, someone will get suspicious. Someone will want a direct assessment."
"So what do we do?"
That's when Kenji had laid out his plan.
The terrible, heartbreaking plan that would tear their family apart.
"I have to leave. Make it look like I abandoned you both. A failed husband, couldn't handle having a quirked kid, walked away from responsibility." His voice had cracked. "If I'm gone, if our family is 'broken,' they'll lose interest. I become unreliable, my reports become questionable, and Ryuu becomes just another kid from a single-parent household. No longer connected to government research."
"No." Yuki had stood abruptly. "Absolutely not. We'll run, we'll hide, we'll—"
"They'll find us. They have resources we can't imagine. Tracking quirks, monitoring databases, surveillance networks..." He'd grabbed her hands. "This is the only way, Yuki. I've thought about every alternative. This is the only one where Ryuu gets to have a normal childhood."
"What about Ryuu? What do I tell him when his father vanishes?"
The pain in Kenji's eyes had been answer enough.
They'd argued for hours.
Yuki had cried, raged, begged for another solution.
But deep down, she'd known Kenji was right.
She'd seen enough news stories about kids with powerful quirks being recruited into hero programs at young ages, seen the debates about government oversight of quirk development.
If there were secret programs, programs that targeted children...
She couldn't risk it.
Couldn't risk her baby boy becoming a tool for people who saw quirks as weapons instead of gifts.
So at dawn, with tears streaming down both their faces, they'd agreed.
Kenji would leave.
Yuki would tell Ryuu his father had abandoned them.
They would rebuild their lives as a broken family, and maybe...just maybe...the people watching would lose interest in a little boy with an empathic quirk who no longer had a government researcher for a father.
"How long?" she'd asked as they'd stood at the door.
"I don't know. Years. Maybe forever." Kenji had cupped her face in his hands. "I'm so sorry. For all of this. But Ryuu...he's special, Yuki. And not just because of his quirk. He has your kindness, your strength. He's going to do amazing things. I just need to make sure he gets the chance to choose those things for himself."
Those had been his last words to her.
Then he'd walked out the door, leaving behind everything...his family, his identity, his life...to protect a four-year-old boy who wouldn't understand for years why his father had left.
---
Present day.
UA Academy approached through the windshield, its imposing structure lit against the night sky.
Somewhere in that building, her son was lying in a hospital bed, probably wondering why his father's name had come up during a villain attack.
"Mrs. Kazama?" Snipe glanced at her as they pulled through the security gates. "Are you ready for this?"
Yuki straightened her shoulders, drawing on reserves of strength she'd cultivated through years of single parenthood.
"I've been ready for years," she said quietly. "I just didn't know it."
As they walked through UA's corridors toward the medical wing, Yuki found herself thinking about the little boy who used to climb into her bed during thunderstorms, who'd cry when he accidentally felt too much of other people's pain, who'd ask her almost daily when Daddy was coming home.
That little boy was gone, replaced by a young man who'd pushed his quirk to complete burnout to protect his friends.
A hero-in-training who deserved to know why his father had really left.
Even if the truth broke both their hearts.
The medical wing doors loomed ahead, and Yuki Kazama prepared to have the hardest conversation of her life.
---
Author's Note: sorry for rushing the chapter 💔