Chapter Text
The first thing [Name] remembered wasn't his own name. It wasn't his home. It wasn't even his parents' faces. It was his mother's voice.
"Don't become like us."
The words echoed through his mind as clearly as they had that day. He had only been five years old. Old enough to understand that something terrible was happening. Too young to understand why. He remembered clinging to his mother's leg while sirens wailed in the distance. He remembered his father's unusually gentle hand resting on his head, ruffling his hair one last time. They weren't smiling—not really—but they looked at him with the same warmth they always had. His mother knelt in front of him, brushing a strand of [h/c] hair from his face. Her hands trembled.
"[Name]," she whispered, "listen to me." He nodded, though tears blurred his vision. "No matter what people tell you... no matter what they call us..." She swallowed hard before placing both hands on his shoulders.
"Don't become like us."
A moment later, everything became chaos. The walls shook and dust filled the air. His father stepped in front of them, activating his quirk. An eerie silence swallowed the room, cutting off every sound until [Name] could hear nothing—not the explosions, not the shouting, not even his own cries. Then came the light, a brilliant flash. The silence shattered and there stood The Symbol of Peace. All Might.
The battle itself became a blur in [Name]'s memory. He remembered flashes of yellow. Chunks of concrete flying through the air. His mother's desperate voice calling his name. His father's Silence Field collapsing. Then… handcuffs, heroes, and police. His mother looked back only once as the both of them were led away. She smiled through her tears and his father gave him a single nod. Neither of them resisted nor begged. They simply disappeared into waiting police vehicles, leaving five-year-old [Name] standing alone among the rubble. That was the last time he ever saw them.
People always assumed Bloodhound and Mute were monsters. To [Name], they had simply been Mom and Dad. His mother, known across Japan as the villain Bloodhound, possessed a quirk that allowed her to track people through the scent of their blood and the rhythm of their heartbeat. Criminals whispered that once Bloodhound found your trail, there was nowhere left to run. His father, the villain Mute, could create zones where every sound vanished completely. Screams, alarms, footsteps—even explosions—were swallowed by absolute silence, making him one of the underground world's most feared infiltrators.
Together, they had been infamous. Together, they had terrified hero society. But at home… his father cooked dinner, his mother tucked him into bed. They read him stories, celebrated his birthdays, and held his hand whenever he was scared. Maybe they had broken the law, maybe they had fought heroes, but they had never stopped loving their son. That was why his mother's final words stayed with him. She hadn't wanted him to inherit their life. She wanted him to choose his own.
After their arrest, [Name] entered the foster care system. At first, he thought it would only be for a little while. Then weeks became months. Months became years. Each new facility looked different, but they all felt the same. New room, new caretakers, new children, new whispers. He stopped unpacking his belongings after the third move. There wasn't much point. Prospective parents would arrive every few weeks. Children would line up, smiling as brightly as they could. [Name] stopped trying after the first year.
Families would read his file. Their expressions would soften, then they'd reach the section labeled Parents. Bloodhound. Mute. The smiles disappeared. Sometimes they would glance toward him, sometimes they wouldn't even do that. They always left without speaking to him. As if he'd already inherited every crime his parents had ever committed.
His own Quirk manifested unusually early. The social workers weren't surprised. Children of powerful quirk users often developed theirs young. When it first awakened, every room around him fell unnaturally quiet. The other children panicked. Caretakers rushed in. Standing in the center of the room, [Name] instinctively sensed every heartbeat around him. Each one appeared in his mind as a distinct pulse. Slow. Fast. Calm. Afraid. Even with his eyes closed, he knew exactly where everyone stood.
Doctors later explained that his quirk was a fusion of both his parents' abilities. Within a spherical area around him, sound faded into silence. Inside that field, he perceived living beings through the subtle rhythm of their heartbeat, breathing, and body movements. As he grew older, the range expanded. His senses sharpened. The adults praised his control. The other children feared it.
"Why do we have to stay with that freak?" One boy muttered the words loud enough for everyone to hear.
"He can probably hear our hearts." Another laughed nervously.
"That's creepy."
"At least nobody wants him."
"What do you mean?"
"If he's here... we've got better chances of getting adopted."
Silence. Then laughter. [Name] simply turned the page of the book he was reading. They wanted him to react. He never did. Eventually they stopped insulting him to his face. They just whispered instead. He heard every word and ignored every one.
When he turned fourteen, everything changed. A volunteer hero visited the center to talk about career paths. Most of the children only listened because it got them out of chores. [Name] listened because, for the first time in years, someone spoke about heroes without mentioning his parents. The hero talked about U.A. High School. The entrance exam, the training, the responsibility of saving lives. That night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, [Name] stood alone in the courtyard. He stared at the stars overhead.
"...A hero."
The word felt strange. He hated All Might. He always would. Not because All Might had been wrong. But because the man had taken away the only family he'd ever known. Even now, seeing his smiling face on television left something bitter twisting inside his chest. Still… his hatred had never been enough to make him hate heroes. Especially not after remembering his mother's final wish.
"Don't become like us."
Those words had never meant, Hate heroes. They had meant...
Be better than we were.
From that night onward, every spare moment belonged to training. He woke before sunrise, ran until his legs gave out, and practiced controlling his quirk in abandoned fields. He learned to distinguish individual heartbeats, expanded the range of his silent field, and built strength through bodyweight exercises because he couldn't afford proper equipment. He trained alone, he always had. The whispers returned.
"He's actually trying to get into U.A."
"No way."
"They'll reject him before he even gets through the gate."
"He's from an adoption center."
"And he's the son of Bloodhound and Mute."
"Maybe that's why they're letting him apply."
"The staff have probably wanted him gone for years."
[Name] zipped up his worn training bag and walked past them without a word. He wasn't trying to prove them wrong, to earn their approval, or to redeem his parents' names. He had one goal. To become the kind of person his parents had wanted him to be. A hero. Not because All Might inspired him. But because the last thing his mother ever asked of him…
...was to become someone better than they had been.