Three years had passed.
Three years since Japan searched for a barefoot, blood-soaked twelve-year-old boy who vanished into the night. Three years since the headlines called him a monster, and the heroes called him a threat. Three years since darkness had wrapped around a frightened child and whispered that it would never let him go.
The world moved on. But Hikaru Amano did not.
He survived. He endured. He changed.
Life beneath the surface—abandoned metro tunnels, maintenance shafts, and sewer lines—had shaped him into something thin, pale, and ghostlike. Hikaru was fifteen now, but he didn't look fifteen. He didn't look entirely human anymore.
His hair was long and uneven, hacked precisely when it got in the way. His skin was pale from years without sunlight. His eyes, dark-ringed and hollow, occasionally flickered with faint silver sparks whenever fear surged.
And the shadows followed him.
Always.
They clung to his ankles like smoke. They crawled along his spine, whispering secrets into his bones. They pulsed with his heartbeat, breathed with him, trembled with him. Sometimes they shaped themselves into hands to steady him when he stumbled. Sometimes they rose like knives.
He could hear them clearly, constantly.
"You survived.""We kept you alive.""You don't need them… only us."
He didn't speak aloud anymore. The voices were louder when he did. But inside his head, he answered them with terse, deliberate thoughts.
"We don't need you to kill anyone.""Control yourself."
The quirk—Fear Manifestation—had evolved like a wound, growing stronger and deeper each year. What once erupted only in panic now formed intentionally, though never fully under his control. The hallucinations were sharper: eyes blinking from the walls, hands clawing from the ground, corpses crawling silently behind him. His parents' faces, twisted in agony, sometimes appeared.
Sometimes, even when he didn't call it, the darkness answered.
"We can protect you.""We can eliminate them for you.""Let us out."
"No." Hikaru whispered, clenching his fists, voice tight. "I decide. Not you."
But the shadows didn't relent. They pulsed, twitching around him like an impatient predator.
Above ground, people believed the tunnels were haunted. Civilians told tales of ghostly screams, villains muttered about the "shadow reaper" dragging trespassers away, and heroes spoke of a "dangerous quirk user" they hadn't seen but feared.
Japan had forgotten Hikaru Amano the child. But they feared the creature he had become.
Meanwhile, the world above moved on. Izuku Midoriya studied for the U.A. entrance exam. Katsuki Bakugou bragged about his victories. Aizawa graded papers in quiet exhaustion. All Might maintained his cheerful mask while hiding his wounds. The canon timeline continued. And Hikaru, deep underground, drifted toward it.
One cold evening, hunger forced him to the surface. He climbed through a rusted sewer grate into a quiet alley. The smell of wet asphalt and garbage stung. His stomach twisted, urging him toward a dumpster.
He kept low, shadows swirling around him like a living cloak.
Then—a siren.
Two officers ran past the alley entrance, radios crackling:
"Shadow anomaly detected near Musutafu Station! Requesting hero support—possible Amano sighting!"
Hikaru froze.
Pulse spiking.
They found me. Again.
The shadows reacted instantly, rising like enraged animals.
"Run.""Hide.""We will protect you."
"No," Hikaru hissed, his tone cold and controlled. "I said no—don't touch anyone."
The shadows shivered, writhing like restrained predators, testing him.
"Let us kill them."
"No."
He bolted.
Bare feet slapped against wet asphalt, crates flew by as he vaulted over them. He slid behind dumpsters, darted toward the nearest sewer grate, and dropped into darkness. The shadows enveloped him, lowering him gently, perfectly obedient, like extensions of his body.
He landed silently. Darkness swallowed him. Safe, for now.
The next morning, screens across Musutafu blazed:
"Shadow Monster Child Sighting Confirmed — Lost Fugitive Amano Reappears After 3 Years."
A blurry silhouette appeared: thin, warped by shadows, eyes flickering with faint silver light. Izuku froze, Bakugou unusually silent, Aizawa's eyes widened in dread, and All Might gripped the arms of his chair.
"Hikaru… Not again…"
Far underground, All For One watched the report, expression unreadable.
"At last. Resurfacing. How timely," he murmured."The boy returns to the board."
And Hikaru?
He had seen the report. His own shape, his own eyes flickering in the dark, projected for the world to fear.
He remained still, tense, every muscle ready.
"I am not a monster," he whispered into his mind. "I didn't choose this… I don't want to hurt anyone."
A shadow hand traced along his back, cold and precise.
"But you could be," it murmured.
The shadows coiled tighter, surrounding him.
"Let them fear you. It is all you have left."
Hikaru clenched his fists. His eyes flickered silver, hard and determined.
Once, he had wanted to be a hero.
Now, he would survive. And the darkness would remember him.
"Welcome back, Hikaru. The world will remember you."