When we returned to the compound, a servant was already waiting at the entrance. She bowed to my father, took his coat, and stepped aside without looking directly at me. At the time, I thought nothing of it. Servants were trained to make themselves invisible around members of the head family. Only later did I realize that the medical office must have called ahead. The news had reached the estate before we did.
My father walked through the main residence without speaking, his pace steady and unhurried. I followed several steps behind him, struggling to match the length of his stride. The corridors seemed longer than they had that morning. Sunlight filtered through the paper screens and stretched across the polished floors, dividing the hallway into alternating bands of light and shadow. Servants lowered their heads as we passed. None of them spoke.
He stopped outside his study and rested one hand on the door.
"Toji. Inside."
There was nothing unusual in his tone, but something in the stillness around him made my stomach tighten. I stepped past him into the room, and he slid the door shut behind us.
My father's study was designed to make visitors feel small. Dark wooden shelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling, filled with old records, family histories, and books bound in leather. A massive desk occupied the center of the room, its surface almost entirely bare except for a brass nameplate, a telephone, and a crystal decanter of whiskey. The high-backed chair behind it faced the entrance like a throne.
Jinya Zen'in, Main Branch.
I could barely see the full inscription from where I stood.
My father crossed the room and placed the medical folder on his desk. He took his seat without offering me one and spent several moments looking through the documents, even though the doctor had already explained everything. I remained near the door with my hands at my sides, uncertain whether I was allowed to move.
At last, he closed the folder.
"Do you understand what happened today?"
I shook my head. "No, sir."
His fingers rested on the cover of the medical report. "The examination confirmed that you are quirkless."
I waited for him to explain. The word itself was familiar, but only in the distant way children understand misfortune that belongs to other people. Quirkless people existed. Everyone knew that. They were rare, and most of them lived ordinary lives far away from families like ours.
I had never considered that I might become one of them.
"Do you know what that means?" he asked.
"No, sir."
My father studied me as if deciding how much effort the answer deserved. "It means every expectation I had for you was misplaced."
His voice remained calm. He did not shout or strike the desk. There was no visible grief in his expression, only a controlled disappointment that seemed more permanent than anger.
"You were born into the main branch," he continued. "You carry the Zen'in name and the blood of generations of heroes. From the moment you were born, resources were set aside for your education, your training, and your eventual position within the agency. Your future was prepared before you were old enough to understand it."
I looked toward the folder beneath his hand. "Can I still train?"
For the first time, something shifted in his face. Not sympathy. Almost disbelief.
"For what?"
I did not know how to answer. Until that morning, training had simply been part of life. Jin'ichi trained. My cousins trained. Every child in the compound who was old enough to hold a wooden sword trained. I had assumed that one day I would join them.
"To become a hero," I said quietly.
My father leaned back in his chair. "Heroes possess power."
"I can learn to fight."
"Anyone can learn to fight." His gaze hardened. "That does not make them worthy of representing this family."
The words confused me more than they hurt. Worth had always seemed like something determined by behavior. Good children obeyed. They worked hard, spoke politely, and made their parents proud. I had believed that if I did those things long enough, whatever disappointment my father carried would eventually disappear.
I had not yet learned that some families decided a child's value before the child had done anything at all.
My father rose from his chair and walked toward the window behind the desk. For several seconds, he stood with his back to me, looking out over the inner garden. The late afternoon sun cut his reflection into the glass.
"Your brother inherited a powerful quirk," he said. "He will continue the main line and eventually take his place within the agency. You were supposed to stand beside him. Even if your ability had been modest, your position could have strengthened the family."
He turned to face me.
"Instead, you have nothing."
I lowered my eyes. "I'm sorry."
The apology came automatically. When children do not understand what is wrong, they apologize for everything and hope one of the words reaches the right wound.
My father's expression changed.
"Sorry?"
I looked up.
"You are apologizing for being born defective?"
"I didn't mean to—"
"Of course you didn't." His voice sharpened for the first time. "You have never meant to do anything. You did not mean to take your mother's life. You did not mean to shame this family. You did not mean to waste every expectation placed upon you."
My throat tightened. I knew my mother had died when I was born, but no one had ever spoken of it as something I had done. Death belonged to adults, hospitals, and distant ceremonies. It had never occurred to me that a newborn could be guilty of it.
"I didn't kill her," I whispered.
The words escaped before I could stop them.
My father went still.
For one brief moment, fear overcame confusion. I understood that I had said something dangerous, though I could not have explained why.
He walked around the desk slowly. "What did you say?"
I stared at the floor. "Nothing."
"No. Look at me."
I forced myself to raise my head.
His face was composed, but the control in it had become strained. There was grief beneath the surface, old and carefully buried, and for the first time I understood that my existence was tied to it. When he looked at me, he did not see only a quirkless child. He saw the room where his wife had died. He saw the life he believed had been exchanged for mine.
"You were the reason she was on that table," he said. "You were the reason she never left that room."
My eyes burned. "I'm sorry, Father."
"And what did you give in return?"
I did not understand the question.
He stopped in front of me. "Your brother gave this family strength. You gave it a corpse and an embarrassment."
I never saw the first strike.
His palm caught the side of my head with enough force to send me stumbling. The room tilted sharply, and I hit the tatami on one shoulder. For a moment, there was no pain, only a high ringing in my ear and the strange sensation that the floor had moved beneath me.
"Stand."
I looked up at him.
He waited.
I pushed myself upright, using one hand against the floor for balance. Before I had fully straightened, the back of his hand struck my cheek. My head snapped to the side, and my teeth cut into my tongue. The taste of blood filled my mouth.
I fell again.
"Stand."
This time, I understood.
My father did not raise his voice. He did not lose control or strike wildly. Each movement was deliberate, measured with the precision of someone who knew exactly how much force he could use without leaving damage that required any explanation further than training. He avoided my eyes, my nose, and anywhere a bruise might remain visible for long. An open palm against the side of the head. A backhand across the cheek. A blow to the shoulder that knocked me down without breaking bone.
It was not rage in the way children imagine rage. There were no overturned tables or shattered glasses. The room remained orderly. The medical folder stayed perfectly aligned with the edge of his desk.
That calmness frightened me more than shouting would have.
Every time I fell, he told me to stand. Every time, I obeyed.
At first, I cried openly. I called him Father and apologized until the words stopped sounding like language. When that failed, I tried to remain silent. I pressed my lips together and swallowed the noises that rose in my throat, because each sob seemed to make the room colder.
"Strength determines worth," he said after another strike sent me to my knees. "That is the first truth you will learn."
I tried to stand but slipped, my palm scraping against the tatami.
"Get up."
My legs trembled beneath me. I managed to rise.
"Power determines position. Those who possess it lead. Those who lack it serve."
His hand struck the opposite side of my face.
I fell hard enough that the edge of the desk blurred in front of me.
"You possess neither strength nor power. Do you understand?"
I nodded from the floor.
He stepped closer. "Answer me."
"Yes, sir."
My voice barely carried.
He waited until I stood again. By then, the left side of my face had gone numb, and the room seemed to sway whenever I moved my head. Tears ran down my cheeks, though I had stopped making noise.
"You are still a Zen'in," he said. "Unfortunately, blood cannot be undone. That means your failure belongs to this family, and this family will decide how it is used."
I did not understand what he meant. I only knew that the beating had stopped.
My father returned to his desk, straightened the medical folder, and sat down as though our conversation had reached its natural conclusion. He opened one of the drawers and removed a handkerchief, which he placed on the edge of the desk without looking at me.
"Clean yourself."
I wiped the blood from my mouth. The white cloth came away red at one corner.
"You will not speak of what occurred here," he said. "Tomorrow, the family will be informed of your condition. You will behave with dignity and accept whatever decision is made regarding your future. You have embarrassed this household enough."
"Yes, sir."
"You may leave."
I turned toward the door, moving carefully because my balance had not returned. My fingers shook as I reached for the wooden frame.
"Toji."
I stopped.
"When someone tells you to stand, you stand immediately. You will not be told twice again."
I nodded without turning around and left the study.
The hallway outside was empty. Evening light had faded from the paper screens, leaving the corridor dim and cool. I stood there for several seconds, listening for footsteps, terrified that someone might see my face and ask what had happened. No one came.
Eventually, I made my way back to my room. I avoided the central corridors and took the servants' passage behind the kitchen, keeping my head down whenever voices approached. Once inside, I shut the door and sat beside my bed because climbing onto it felt too difficult.
I was five years old. My cheek throbbed, my tongue was swollen, and one ear continued to ring. I remember staring at the bloodstained handkerchief in my hands and thinking that I must have apologized incorrectly. Perhaps there had been better words I could have used, something that would have made my father understand that I had not chosen any of it.
Children search for logic even inside cruelty. If the pain has a reason, then perhaps it can be avoided next time.
For years, I believed that afternoon was the moment my father began to hate me. Age gave me a different understanding. His hatred had not begun in the doctor's office, and it had never truly been about my lack of a quirk. Grief had hollowed him out long before I was old enough to recognize it. I simply became the nearest place for him to put everything he could not bear to carry himself.
Understanding that did not absolve him.
Explanation and forgiveness are not the same thing, no matter how often people confuse them.
I stopped hating my father eventually, but not because he deserved mercy. Hatred required attention, and I had already given him too much of my life.
That first beating taught me many things he never intended.
It taught me that adults could hurt a child and still believe themselves righteous. It taught me that family could turn cruelty into duty with the right words. Most importantly, it taught me that no one was coming through the door to save me.
If I wanted to stand, I would have to do it on my own.
...
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