Hello, it's been around 6 months since I last posted on here, my absence was due to a multitude of reasons. Two of them being school and work, this last semester was the most difficult time i've had so far since I started college. Another reason was the lack of motivation and interest in continuing the story, hitting a writer's block is something unexpected and comes out nowhere. Another reason was the criticism I was receiving on some of my chapters and it affected my motivation to write a lot. But seeing some of you guys still wanting the story to be continued inspired me to continue. So here is my first chapter of Volume 2. I'll be posting chapters Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from now to the end of Volume 2. Lend me your support and enjoy!
...
I've been thinking about the beginning lately.
Not because it matters anymore, and not because I'm searching for answers I haven't already found. The past stopped asking anything from me a long time ago. Still, when you reach the end of something, you start looking backward whether you mean to or not. You begin to see the shape of the life you've been living, not as a collection of isolated memories, but as a path, each decision leading to the next, every wound leaving behind something that mattered later.
Twenty-eight years is a long time to carry anything. Long enough for pain to lose its sharp edges and settle into the bones. Long enough for what once felt like a burden to become indistinguishable from the foundation beneath your feet. Eventually, you stop noticing the weight. You simply learn how to stand with it.
Maybe that is why the beginning has been on my mind. For the first time, I can look back without anger clouding the view. I can remember those years for what they were, not for what I wished they had been.
And, finally, I can let them go.
...
The Zen'in compound stood on the outskirts of Kyoto like a monument to old money and even older pride. Traditional wooden buildings stretched across acres of carefully maintained land, their dark roofs rising above stone walls that had protected the family for centuries. Wars had passed. Governments had fallen and rebuilt themselves. Quirks had transformed society almost beyond recognition. Through all of it, the estate remained, preserved with the stubbornness of a family that believed change was something meant for other people.
The gardens were immaculate in a way that never felt natural. Every stone had been selected and placed with intention, every branch trimmed into a shape someone had decided was perfect. Servants swept the paths before sunrise, leaving the gravel untouched except for the marks left by sandals moving between the residences and training halls. Even the koi pond seemed arranged for appearances, its brightly colored fish gliding beneath water so clear that the bottom remained visible from the wooden bridge.
Modern technology existed throughout the estate, though the clan did its best to pretend otherwise. Security cameras were hidden inside carved lanterns and beneath the eaves of traditional buildings. Motion sensors had been fitted beneath stone paths. Reinforced doors were disguised behind polished wood and painted paper. Nothing was allowed to disturb the illusion that the Zen'in had remained untouched by the modern world, even when they had quietly adopted every advantage it offered.
The compound was beautiful. That was the part outsiders always noticed.
They saw morning sunlight reflecting across the pond, listened to the rhythmic clacking of wooden swords from the training yards, and breathed in the expensive incense drifting from the family shrine. They admired the architecture, the history, the sense of permanence. Guests often spoke of the estate with the kind of reverence usually reserved for temples.
I remembered it differently.
It is strange how clearly the places that break you remain in your mind. I cannot remember most birthdays from my childhood, or the meals served during family celebrations, or the faces of half the relatives who passed through those halls. Yet I remember the rough weave of tatami beneath my knees when I was forced to kneel in shame. I remember the cold draft that slipped through the paper doors of my father's study during winter. I remember the exact shade of disappointment in his eyes whenever he looked at me.
Most of all, I remember the sound of laughter when it wasn't meant to include me.
For generations, the Zen'in clan had produced some of Japan's most celebrated heroes. Their names appeared in newspapers, on agency rankings, and across advertisements large enough to cover the sides of buildings. Politicians sought their endorsements. Corporations competed for their support. When a disaster occurred, government officials called the Zen'in before the public had even learned what had happened.
Power was not merely respected inside the compound. It was treated as proof of virtue.
Blood determined where you began. Your quirk determined how high you were permitted to rise. Everything else, intelligence, loyalty, effort, kindness, mattered only when it supported the hierarchy the clan had already chosen. A strong child could be forgiven almost anything. A weak one could spend a lifetime serving faithfully and still be treated as an embarrassment.
The family liked to describe this system as tradition. Tradition sounded noble. It allowed cruelty to wear ceremonial robes and call itself duty.
The Zen'in Agency served as the clan's public face. Its heroes appeared on television with practiced smiles, signing autographs and kneeling beside children after rescue operations. They attended charity events, accepted corporate sponsorships, and stood behind government officials during carefully staged press conferences. To the public, they represented honor, discipline, and generations of service.
Beneath them operated the Hei Unit. Its members possessed quirks the clan considered useful but unremarkable, which made them suitable for work that brought neither fame nor significant influence. They served as sidekicks, patrolled ordinary districts, assisted civilians, completed administrative tasks, and supported the heroes whose names appeared on billboards. Their position was lower, but it was still respectable. They existed within the official structure of the agency and could at least claim that their work mattered.
Then there was the Kukuru Unit.
We did not exist. Not officially.
There were no public records of our membership, no agency photographs, and no uniforms bearing the Zen'in crest. Our names did not appear on payroll documents that auditors could see. Orders were delivered privately, usually through intermediaries who knew better than to ask questions, and completed missions disappeared into sealed archives or were attributed to people who had never been there.
The Kukuru Unit was staffed by the relatives the clan considered useless: those born without quirks, those who were too weak to carry the family name, and those who had disgraced themselves badly enough that even the Hei Unit would not accept them. The elders called it service. In practice, it was a place where unwanted members of the family were taught to become useful before they died.
We handled whatever could not be connected to the agency. Black-market exchanges involving illegal support equipment. Quirk-enhancing drugs that disappeared from evidence rooms before reaching trial. Classified information purchased from frightened officials. Heroes with bounties on their heads. Villains the Hero Public Safety Commission wanted eliminated without the inconvenience of an arrest or investigation.
Sometimes the work was simple: transportation, surveillance, cleanup. Other times, it involved assassinations arranged to resemble villain attacks, accidents, or failed rescue operations. Evidence vanished. Witnesses changed their stories. Reports were rewritten until the official version bore no resemblance to what had actually happened.
Respectable heroes protected society in daylight. We dealt with the things they needed buried before morning.
For years, I wondered why the clan kept the quirkless instead of casting us out. It would have been easier, I thought, to erase the embarrassment completely. A family as wealthy as ours could have sent unwanted children away, paid other people to raise them, and pretended they had never existed.
I eventually understood that the Zen'in were not sentimental enough to waste a resource.
A person without a quirk was worthless in the hierarchy, but that did not mean they were entirely without value. We could be trained. We could follow orders. We could enter places where known heroes would attract attention, and if an operation failed, nobody outside the estate knew enough to ask why one of us had disappeared. The clan trusted us with its dirtiest work precisely because it considered us expendable.
We were useless enough to sacrifice and valuable enough to prepare properly.
That was the price of being born without power in a family that worshipped it.
I understand that now.
Back then, I understood nothing.