Today's chapter.....
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PS:-
This chapter will show what the MC truely felt after the incident. Please let me know how I did. As I am not that good with chapters like these.
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The heavy soundproof door of the gymnasium stood before them like the entrance to a vault.
Honoka stopped. She pressed her ear against the door, closing her eyes to listen. She wasn't spying — well, maybe a little — but mostly, she was checking the "weather." If she heard explosions, it was a bad time. If she heard silence, it was either a good time or a terrible one.
Beside her, Nia watched with wide, curious yellow eyes. The small cat tilted her head, mimicking Honoka perfectly. She pressed her furry ear against the bottom of the door. She didn't know what they were listening to, but if Miss Honoka was doing it, it must be an important thing to do.
Honoka opened one eye and looked down. She saw the tiny ball of fluff trying to be a spy.
A laugh bubbled up in her throat, breaking the tension.
"What are you doing, honey?" she whispered, kneeling down.
Nia looked up innocently. "I'm doing what you are doing, Miss Honoka. Are we listening for bugs?"
Honoka laughed again, unable to help herself. She scooped the cat up and squeezed her tightly.
"YOU ARE SOOOOOOO CUTE!" she squealed, burying her face in the soft fur. "How are you real? You're a plushie come to life."
Nia giggled giddily, her purr vibrating through Honoka's arms. "Hehehehe! Stop! That tickles! I am a predator! I have dignity!"
Honoka smiled, her heart lightening just a fraction. "Right, right. Predator. Let's go meet your Daddy. The big predator... That sounded sooo wrong."
"Hehehehe!" Nia giggled.
Honoka pushed the door open.
The gym was vast as always. The lights had been dimmed, leaving only the ambient track lighting that cast long pools of illumination across the equipment.
Honoka looked around, sighing internally at the sight of the scratched floor plates and the dented training dummy in the corner.
We spent a fortune on this room, she thought. Between the repairs, the upgrades, and the electricity bill for the combat droids, I could have bought a second beach.
But then she softened.
It's the best way we spent the money. Every yen spent here is an investment in his survival. If he breaks a million-yen robot, it means he's getting strong enough not to hurt himself.
She scanned the room. The combat droid was powered down in its dock, steam still rising from its vents. The katanas were racked.
"Akira?" she called out softly.
Silence.
She walked deeper into the gym, past the weight racks and the sparring mats, toward the far corner, which smelled like acrylics and oil paints.
She stopped.
Akira was there.
He was standing in front of the massive canvas, his back to her. He was shirtless, his lean muscles defined by the shadows. He had his headphones on, and his eyes were locked onto the painting.
Honoka opened her mouth to call him again, but the words died in her throat.
Her eyes locked onto the painting.
It rattled her to her very core.
Akira's art was usually abstract. It was how he processed the trauma in his head.
But this... this was different.
It was realism. It was a memory given form.
The painting depicted a family. Three people standing in a field of wildflowers, bathed in warm, golden sunlight that seemed to radiate from the canvas itself.
The father was a tall man with dark hair and a stoic, gentle expression, his hand resting protectively on the mother's shoulder. Shino Izumi.
The mother was a vibrant woman with wild curly hair and a smile so bright it hurt to look at. She looked like she was about to laugh, or shout, or hug someone. Sasha Izumi.
And between them, holding both their hands, was a small boy with a red hat that had golden horns. Kota. He was smiling — a pure, innocent smile that he hadn't worn since he was three years old.
It was a masterpiece. The detail was excruciating. The light in Sasha's eyes, the texture of Shino's jacket, the way the grass bent under their feet. It was beautiful.
And it was devastating.
Because it was a lie. It was a picture of a future that had been stolen.
Nia went quiet in Honoka's arms. She stared at the painting.
"Who is that?" She asked innocently.
Honoka felt tears welling in her eyes instantly. The grief she thought she had buried rose up, sharp and stinging.
She looked at her son. He hadn't moved. He was just staring at the faces of the people he thought he couldn't save.
She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him from behind, burying her face between his shoulder blades.
Akira stiffened. His muscles locked up instantly, a reflex honed by combat, before he realized who it was. He didn't turn.
"Why?" Honoka whispered into his back, her voice thick with emotion.
She squeezed him tighter, as if she could physically squeeze the pain out of him.
"Why do you have to keep everything to yourself? Why do you do this to yourself? I AM YOUR MOTHER, GODDAMMIT! YOU CAN SHARE YOUR BURDEN WITH ME! You don't have to carry their ghosts alone!"
Akira didn't move. He reached up slowly and slid the headphones off his ears, letting them hang around his neck. The faint sound of piano music bled into the air.
But his eyes didn't leave the canvas. They were fixed on Shino's face.
"Because it's on me," he said softly.
His voice was terrifyingly calm. It wasn't the voice of a child. It was the voice of a judge delivering a sentence upon himself.
"If only I hadn't run away," he whispered. "If only I hadn't followed the order. If I had stayed... maybe I could have awakened earlier. Maybe I could have saved them."
"Akira, no..."
"I was a coward," he stated.
Then, a sound bubbled up from his chest.
"Hah..."
It was a laugh. But it was broken.
"Hahahaha..."
His shoulders began to shake. The laughter grew louder, bordering on hysterical, but there was no humor in it. It was the sound of something snapping.
"For the first few days after the incident," Akira said, his voice cracking, "I didn't feel a thing. Did you know that? When we were in the hospital... when we went to the funeral... I felt numb."
He lowered his head.
"I think it was the Red Side. The transformation changed my brain chemistry. It burned away the grief so I could function. It made me cold. It made me efficient."
He turned around slowly in her arms.
Honoka looked up at his face.
What she saw broke her heart into a thousand pieces.
Akira — her cynical, strong, "mature" son — was crying. Heavy tears were streaming down his face, cutting tracks through the paint smudges on his cheeks. His eyes were red, not from his quirk, but from pain.
"But after a week," he choked out, "the effects of Red faded. And the nightmares started."
He gripped his own arms, his nails digging into his skin.
"Every single night, Mom. Every single night I see them. I see Shino broken on the rock. I see Sasha torn in half. And they look at me. They ask me why I'm alive, and they aren't."
He looked at the painting again, then back at her.
"I think I deserve it," he whispered. "All those nightmares. The panic attacks. The guilt. I think I deserve every single second of it."
His breath hitched.
"I... I am the killer. I — "
SLAP.
The sound echoed through the gym like a gunshot.
Akira's head snapped to the side. His eyes went wide with shock. He touched his cheek, staring at his mother.
Honoka stood there, her hand still raised, her chest heaving. Tears were streaming down her own face, but her eyes were fierce.
"Don't you dare," she hissed.
She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into a crushing hug, holding him so tight it probably hurt.
"Don't you dare say that word. Don't you dare call yourself that."
"Mom..."
"You were a KID, baby!" she cried into his chest. "You were thirteen years old! You were a child facing a monster that kills Heroes! You saved the village! You saved the children! You saved ME!"
She pulled back, framing his face with her hands, forcing him to look at her.
"If you had stayed, you would be dead. And if you were dead... I would have died too. Because I wouldn't have survived losing you and your father."
She wiped his tears away with her thumbs.
"It is not your fault. It was never your fault. It was the villain's fault. It was the world's fault."
Akira trembled under her hands. The wall he had built — the wall of "Blade," the wall of the "Symbol of Fear" — crumbled. He wasn't a vigilante right now. He was just a boy who missed his friends he barely knew for a day.
"If you want to do something," Honoka said, her voice steeling, "then make sure to keep your promise. The promise you made in their name. The promise you made to us. The promise you made to Kota."
She pressed her forehead against his.
"Be the hero they believed you could be. Not the martyr. The Victor."
"And most importantly," she whispered, "I am always with you, honey. I know you can take things. I know you're strong. But you don't have to carry the sky by yourself. That's what a family is for. Understood?"
She kissed his forehead, right on the feather mark.
"Understood?" she repeated.
Akira looked at her. He saw the strength in her eyes. The same strength that had raised him alone.
He nodded weakly. "Understood."
He wrapped his arms around her. He buried his face in her shoulder.
And finally, the dam broke.
The grief he had held back for two years — hidden behind cynicism, behind training, behind the dry jokes — came pouring out.
He cried. He cried like a baby. He cried like the fifteen-year-old boy he was supposed to be.
"I miss them," he sobbed. "I miss them so much."
"I know," Honoka wept with him, stroking his hair. "I know."
And in the corner of the gym, watching the mother and son hold each other under the painted gaze of the fallen family, Nia quietly walked over and curled up against Akira's leg, offering the only comfort a cat knew how to give.
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So yeah. That.... was something, no?
Did I overdid it, or was it was okay? Let me know.
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