Chapter Text
The hero commission building smelled like old toner, coffee, and resignation.
You walked the same hall every day. Past the same framed posters of smiling Pro Heroes, past rooms with names you weren’t supposed to read, down to the basement archive where they kept the files no one wanted to touch anymore.
It was cold down here, always.
Most days, you didn’t mind. It kept people away. You could finish your shift in peace without being asked about your quirk or what you were doing here or why you never applied to transfer upstairs. You didn’t like being watched. People who watched always came with questions.
You paused at the door to the archive room and shifted the folder in your arms. It was unlabeled, the kind of file that shouldn’t have meant anything. But someone had stamped it for Level 3 clearance, which meant it was forgotten, yet not important enough to go into deep vaults.
Typical Hero Commission logic.
You nudged the door open with your shoulder, greeted by the familiar hum of fluorescent lights and the smell of paper. You didn’t even have to look to know which corner of the room the dehumidifier was in. You’d spent more time here in the past year than anywhere else.
You peeled the flap back carefully. The top sheet was brittle, faded from sun or smoke, maybe both. You flipped through slowly. Typical villain attack summary and a casualty list.
Deika City, maybe? Hard to tell with half the text erased.
You started flipping through without thinking, your mind wondering whether the last train would be delayed again. It was muscle memory by now, scan, label, log, file. Some interns got coffee. You got trauma logs.
You reached the last few pages when your fingers brushed something off.
Sticky. Or maybe it had dried that way.
You paused.
There, smeared faintly across the bottom corner of a casualty form, was a dull reddish stain. It looked like coffee at first. Ink maybe. But the second your skin touched it, your breath caught in your throat, and the air around you shifted, almost like it was watching you.
And then it hit.
A memory, not yours.
Their heartbeat in your ears, hammering like a warning. You blinked, but all you could see was red light. A hand reaching out., and a voice screaming for help.
And someone walking away.
Someone in a hero uniform.
You could feel it. The betrayal carved so deep into this person’s final moments that even death hadn’t let it go.
You dropped the page like it had burned you.
You staggered back a step, hand clenched around your shirt. Your heart was still racing, but the emotion wasn’t yours.
You knew this feeling. It hadn’t happened in years.
The first time you heard the dead, you were six.
You thought you were cursed.
You’d spent years believing you’d outgrown it. That the strange pressure and flickers of emotion had been nothing but childhood confusion. A scared little girl in a black dress at a funeral, gripping beads and hearing things that weren’t there.
But this wasn’t your imagination.
After all this time…it had come back.
Someone in that file had died begging not to be erased.
You knelt down, picked up the report with shaking hands.
You stared at the bottom of the page where someone had scribbled one last note in pen.
“The Hero who responded is missing from the official report.”
“Cross-check with Nomu registry?”
“-L.”
No initials. No date.
You tucked the paper back into the file and sealed the flap.
The commission had cleared it for archiving. That meant someone wanted it buried.
But something in your gut told you this wasn’t a mistake. This file had been sent to you on purpose.
...
You didn’t realize you were still holding your breath until the fluorescent light above you flickered.
The file sat quietly on the desk, as if it hadn’t just cracked open a sealed part of you.
You sat down slowly, more to steady yourself than anything. Your hands itched to type, to click, to scan something and let the soft mechanical noises lull you back into routine—but your fingers hovered above the keyboard, unsure. That lingering pulse of fear still clung to your ribs.
You weren’t imagining it. That feeling wasn’t yours. It hadn’t come from memory or stress. It had come from the person who’d died.
And that meant your quirk hadn’t died out like everyone told you quirks sometimes did.
You rubbed your palms against your skirt, thinking. That file had been marked for Level 3 archiving, which was already weird. The system usually auto-routed files like this to a secure vault in records. You weren’t even cleared to handle anything classified—so why had this been dropped at your desk with a note that read: “Please expedite”?
You checked the case label again. The stamp said “Cleared.” The name of the lead investigator was blacked out. No casualty photos. The casualty list was there though, and that at least gave you a place to start.
You scanned through the victim names, careful not to let your eyes linger too long. And then, halfway down, you paused.
One of the names had a red symbol next to it. A tiny hand-drawn “X.” You knew the Commission’s labeling habits inside and out, and nothing about this symbol belonged to their system.
There was no explanation in the margins, no comment beside the mark. Just:
Name: Hiroshi Handa
Status: Deceased
Witness Account: Inconclusive
The second you whispered the name in your head, that flicker of emotion returned. You reached out, fingers hovering just above the ink again, but the sensation didn’t come back with the same force.
Still, your quirk had triggered when you touched it the first time. That wasn’t nothing.
A rustling sound from the hallway made you sit up straighter. You quickly closed the file and slipped it into your drawer, covering it with two older records and a pen tray. Footsteps passed the archive door without pausing. Someone talking into a phone, too far away to hear clearly.
You waited until the sound disappeared before you let out a slow breath.
You weren’t supposed to take files home. That was a hard rule. But you also weren’t supposed to use your quirk without registering it with the Commission’s database, and technically, you hadn’t even done that yet. Your parents had hoped it would disappear before you ever needed to know the rules.
You were starting to think they’d been wrong to hope that.
What if your quirk wasn’t just echoing emotions?
What if it could be more?
The clock on your desk blinked 7:42 PM. Shit, you were supposed to have clocked out over an hour ago.
You stood up, grabbed your coat, and after one last glance toward the door, slipped the file into your bag.
Just for the night.
You’d bring it back in the morning.
Probably.
The train ride was uneventful. Your fingers brushed against the folder absentmindedly as you stared out the window.
Your apartment wasn’t anything fancy. A one-bedroom crammed above a quiet soba shop and a convenience store that never closed. The lock stuck sometimes, but it was home.
You flicked on the kettle, shrugged out of your coat, and let the silence settle. This was the only part of the day that belonged entirely to you.
Tonight though, the apartment felt a little too quiet.
You eyed the folder still inside your bag.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you muttered to it.
The kettle whistled, and you poured hot water into a mug with Chamomile.
With a deep sigh, you sat on your small couch, and flipped open the folder again.
Page two.
“INCIDENT SITE: MIZUTANI RESIDENCE.”
“Civilian deceased upon arrival.”
“Presence of a pro-hero confirmed.”
“File closed under directive: Internal Affairs.”
There were no pictures in the file. No autopsy notes. Just cold language and gaps.
One part near the bottom caught your eye-
“Witness claims—[REDACTED]—hero in uniform.”
“... fear and confusion... no visual confirmation... trauma suspected.”
You felt it again, not the quirk, not a vision—but that gnawing sensation in your gut. Like something was missing on purpose. Like this wasn’t a bad report, it was a rewritten one.
You flipped another page.
The hero on site?
Blank. Literally. A line with no name. Not “unknown,” not “unconfirmed.” Just… empty.
You leaned back, the folder still open across your lap. Your quirk didn’t just come back because you were feeling nostalgic. It reacted to something in that paper.
You looked at your hand. The same one that touched the file earlier. Nothing had changed.
Maybe it was a fluke.
You reached for the sticky note pad on your table, scribbled the case number, and stuck it to the edge of your laptop. You didn’t know what you were going to do with it yet. Ask questions? Run a background check?
But you weren’t ready to file it away again, not yet.
You closed the folder and stared at the ceiling like it might offer answers.
Instead, your fridge made a strange popping noise.
You jumped. Just a little.
“Okay,” you whispered, setting the folder down and grabbing your mug. “Definitely not paranoid. Just... appropriately concerned.”
The folder sat there quietly. You took a long sip from your drink and pretended not to feel watched.