A four-year-old's world is a universe bounded by the limits of their own perception. For Arashi Tanaka, that universe on this day consisted of his father's warm, reassuring hand gripping his small fingers, and the promise of the latest episode of Adventures of Captain Hero on the way home. The air was filled with the appetizing aromas wafting from the bakery across the street, and the sun gently warmed his back through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. An ordinary, perfect day.
The "Neighbor's Smile" shop was as cozy and cramped as always. Shelves stacked with jars of exotic spices and sauces, a display case of homemade sweets the old owner was famous for. Arashi's father, still holding his hand, was discussing the freshness of tofu with his mother, Miyuki. She, meanwhile, browsed the tea shelf, searching for her favorite jasmine blend.
Arashi himself was mesmerized by the candy counter. His gaze was drawn to a box of chocolate coins wrapped in golden foil. He was already imagining unwrapping one, the sweet crunch as he bit into it… when something else crunched. Something enormous, harsh, and alien.
The sound was unlike anything Arashi had ever heard. Not thunder. Not a falling cabinet. It was the sound of a violent invasion — brutal and merciless. The shop window, gleaming in the sunlight a moment ago, exploded inward, shattering into a billion razor-edged fragments. A rain of diamond shards sprayed across the store, eliciting a sharp scream from Mrs. Tanaka.
Instead of sunlight, a flood of dust and three dark, menacing figures poured through the gap.
"Nobody move!" roared a gravelly, smoke-burned voice. "Wallets, phones, the cash — NOW!"
Everything happened so fast that Arashi's mind couldn't keep up. He saw his father spin around, shielding him with his body. Saw his mother lunge toward them, her face twisted not in fear, but in fierce, maternal determination. Saw one of the intruders' arms distort grotesquely and transform into a massive, spinning drill that screamed as it tore into the counter, forcing Mr. Tanaka to recoil with a startled cry.
Chaos consumed the store. Screams, sobs, barked commands. One of the robbers was scooping bills from the register; another jabbed a gun at Arashi's father, demanding his wallet.
At that moment, Arashi's mother, tears in her eyes, crouched sharply, grabbed him, and almost threw him into the narrow space beneath the far counter, cluttered with boxes.
"Hush, sweetheart," her whisper was searing hot and ragged with choked sobs. "Freeze. Close your eyes. Pretend you're not here. Like hide-and-seek. You're not here."
And then she let go, to return to her husband, to shield him, to be a family. Arashi was left alone. In darkness. It smelled of dust, old cardboard, and something sour long since spilled. Outside, explosions thundered — the second villain, with a quirk of explosive orbs, was tearing through shelves for intimidation. The floor trembled beneath him.
He squeezed his eyes shut as his mother had told him. With all his strength. He pressed himself against the cold floor, trying to make himself as small as possible, to pull his head in like a turtle. He tried to pretend he wasn't there. But he was. And he was terrified — nauseatingly, freezing-cold, gut-knotting terrified.
His heart pounded so loud it seemed to echo through the whole shop, betraying his hiding place. Tears streamed down his cheeks unchecked — hot, salty, soaking into his jacket sleeve. He heard the villains' cruel, triumphant laughter, his father's stifled groan, his mother's trembling voice as she tried to speak, to plead.
Fear wasn't just an emotion anymore. It was a physical thing. It clamped around his throat, choking his breath. It froze his limbs, turning them to lead. It flooded every fiber of his being, washing away every thought, every hope, leaving only one primal, feral plea: "I don't want to die. I don't want them to die. Make them disappear. Make them gone."
A child's prayer, hurled into a void, not knowing who — if anyone — would hear.
And the Universe — or something buried deep in his genes, in the core of his soul — answered.
A click. Not audible, but inward. As if the final cog in an ancient, slumbering machine shifted into place after millennia of stillness. In his mind, overloaded by terror, something tore loose. The darkness beneath the counter, once mere absence of light, stirred. It thickened. Grew heavy. Tangible.
Before his eyes, from that pulsing, living darkness, something began to rise.
At first it was just a shadow — but a shadow that obeyed no laws of physics. It didn't mimic shapes; it defied them. It radiated cold so sharp it froze his breath and turned his tears to ice on his cheeks. The air filled with scents no cozy shop could hold: the dust of forgotten tombs, the bite of cold steel, the stench… of despair. Boundless, suffocating despair.
The shadow was taking form. A long, flowing cloak, woven from smoke and sorrow. An empty hood that nonetheless pulsed with a hateful, ravenous gaze. Two pale, flickering points like fireflies adrift in a swamp of madness glowed in that void, fixing on Arashi.
It was his fear. His panic. His silent scream for salvation, given shape in the most dreadful form the human collective unconscious could conjure.
A Nazgûl.
The wraith hovered, feet never touching the floor. Slowly, it turned its faceless head away from Arashi toward the source of the din—the villains ransacking the store. As if the darkness itself paused to observe the chaos of petty, crawling insects.
The drill-armed thug, finished wrecking the counter, turned smugly to admire his handiwork. His eyes slid to the far corner—and snagged on the floating figure. The smirk drained from his face.
"The hell is that?" he muttered, bravado leaking from his voice, leaving only the raw edge of instinctive dread. "Some kinda hologram? A joke?"
The shadow replied. Not with sound the ear could grasp, but with a whisper that slid straight into the marrow of his soul. The creak of rusted gates in a forgotten crypt. The rustle of burial shrouds across stone. A murmur steeped in such ancient, fathomless hatred and grief that the mind recoiled, translating it only as terror — pure, crystalline terror that sliced through every nerve.
The drill-thug went white. His eyes bulged, pupils blown wide. His quirk — a weapon that could chew through concrete—suddenly felt like a child's toy. Because this… this thing was beyond physics. Beyond reason. It spoke to him in the language of nightmares buried since childhood.
"Stay away!" he shrieked, his voice cracking high, shrill with ungovernable panic. He lunged forward, drill spinning with a banshee wail —
— and passed through the wraith as if through smoke.
The Nazgûl didn't flinch. It simply raised a hand — long, bone-pale, half-transparent, taloned. It didn't slash. It didn't strike. It merely touched his chest.
He froze. The scream died in his throat. The whirling drill faltered, stuttered, and folded back into a useless arm. His face contorted: rage and fear dissolving first into bewilderment, then apathy, then a deep, obliterating sorrow. Color drained from him, leaving a gray husk, hollow-eyed and slack. He sagged to the floor, staring at nothing, his will, his fury, his strength — siphoned away, swallowed whole by the wraith. And the Nazgûl… grew denser. More real. The pale pinpoints in its hood burned brighter.
Under the counter, Arashi curled tight, sobbing. His skull felt like it was splitting from the inside. Nausea churned. He felt a cold vacancy yawning within his own soul, as if part of him had flowed into that shadow. He didn't understand. He didn't want this. He wanted it to stop. This was a living nightmare — his nightmare — brought to life.
The others opened fire, snapping from shock to frenzy. Explosive orbs detonated, bullets ripped the air—but they passed through the phantom harmlessly. Their fury crashed against an abyss of soul-crushing calm and only deepened it. One by one, the Nazgûl brushed them. And they broke. Their strength, their rage melted like wax before a flame — feeding their tormentor.
By the time the heroes stormed in on the distress call, the scene was surreal. Three robbers, untouched by wounds, offered no resistance. They simply… existed. One sat clutching his head, babbling of "black ghosts" and "eternal cold." Two others lay sprawled, eyes glassy, staring through the ceiling, emptied of life, leaving only shells. The air hung heavy and cold, reeking of smoke — and something unspeakably ancient and mournful.
And from under the shattered counter, a hero clad in fire-emblazoned armor gently hauled out a little boy. Deathly pale, trembling so hard his teeth chattered, unresponsive to words. Dust smeared his clothes, dried tears streaked his cheeks. When the flames on the hero's shoulder flared, the boy screamed — wild, feral — and scrambled backward, eyes screwed shut, as if fire were the worst horror in all the world.
They took him to the hospital. Then to quirk specialists. He barely spoke, lost in shock. The only word he repeated, when pressed, was strange, alien — ripped from some primordial nightmare:
"Nazgûl…" he whispered, and a fresh shudder ran through him.
From that day, Arashi Tanaka's life split into Before and After. His parents loved him without measure — but behind their eyes lurked a shadow of dread, for what their son had endured… and what he could do. Doctors threw up their hands. His quirk was registered as unique — and lethally dangerous, to him and everyone else. They gave it a provisional name: Phantom: Devourer of Will.
Arashi learned to live with fear. But the fiercest battle raged not outside, but within. Because at night, in the hush of his room, no dreams came to him. They came. Nine shadows. Unlike the first, panic-born — these were older. Wiser. Infinitely stronger. And they whispered. Their voices soft, insidious, coiling through his mind.
They whispered of power. Of a life without fear. That all he had to do was let go. Accept them. And no one would ever dare hurt him or those he loved again. They were his shield. His legacy. His true family.
And a four-year-old boy, face buried in his pillow, practiced the most vital skill he would ever learn: the art of not listening. Of resisting. Of holding the door of his mind shut with everything he had — even as Nine shadows battered it from the other side.