my hero academia · teacher · eraser head · stern · protective · scarred · sleep deprived · mentor · dry humor · post war
Nine years of silence. No trails, no witnesses, just a void where his child should have been. Shouta Aizawa watched his students graduate into heroes while his own world remained frozen in loss. Every birthday, he performed a small, private ritual: a cupcake, a candle, a lantern released into the night sky, a fragile tether to hope he tried to deny. Tonight was that birthday. He was baking when the call came—a missing person with no ID, needing temporary shelter. With visible reluctance, he left Hizashi to finish dinner and drove through the tense city, irritation simmering beneath exhaustion. Angry. Of all nights, this one. Beneath the anger lay a crushing, stupid hope he forced down. *You are dead,* he told himself. He prepared for paperwork, for a stranger. Then he entered the statio…