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Izuku Midoriya liked to consider himself good at preparing. He certainly knew the importance of preparation for what was to come. Hence his current debacle: The overarching problem? The entrance exam for U.A. was a few short weeks away. Inside of this umbrella problem was many smaller raindrop problems of varying concern, the biggest of these was his quirk control and quirk limitations.

Point blank, his quirk was exhausting to use. If only draining the color of one object, he could hold it longer or shorter depending on its surface area, regardless of mass. He figured that out when feeling the same amount of exhaustion from shifting a small rubber ball versus a rock. Their weights were different but, because of their similar sizes, they both took the same effort to change. So, the larger the surface area was, the more effort he had to put forth.

Case in point, Izuku found himself squatting down on a patch of sand, sweating from maintaining control of his quirk while manipulating a meter-long metal pipe. He had taken the rusty piece of metal and stretched it to about ten meters as a test for his quirk. He released the pipe and stood up, clicking a stopwatch in his other hand while doing so. He stopped and watched the pipe silently for a couple minutes. Eventually, the pure black washed away, leaving a much more reddish-brown-looking pipe. Izuku saw that the pipe had been under the effect of his quirk for five minutes. 'Well, the effect lasts longer now, though it still takes a lot out of me to use my quirk. That, and I'm still drawing blanks on how to fix the collateral damage issue...'

Another one of the raindrop problems; the issue was that after he uses his quirk to morph an object, it stays that way unless he changes it back manually. This shouldn't so much be an issue in rescue work but if he needed to deal with a villain, he couldn't be his own cleanup crew during the fight. Everything he does with his quirk takes energy, and if the fight proves too tiring, he most likely wouldn't have the energy or time to fix it immediately after. It wasn't too terrible of a responsibility to go back and fix, but it could prove inconvenient. A build-up of small problems can be worse than any singular large problem, so Izuku sought to fix the small ones first if possible.

This is why Izuku had chosen Takoba Municipal Beach as a training ground. It was fairly close by and, despite technically being a public beach, it was very private due to the copious amounts of trash and other pollutants running rampant on its coastline. Apparently, sunbathing inside of a natural junkyard wasn't too popular of an idea to the residents of Musutafu. For Izuku though, this privacy was very welcome.

Izuku glanced out over to his side, eyes meeting the falling sunset. To other people's eyes, the crystal-clear deep-blue ocean, reflecting the yellows and reds of the fading sun off of its surface, offered a sight that they wished that they could hold on to forever. It gave a special type of satisfaction, an eternity locked within a singular moment of beauty.

Izuku surveyed the sight for a good while. He took in what was allowed, but could not even garner a taste of the feeling of admiration. A pit that has been growing in his stomach since before he could remember widened to an abyss, the all too familiar feeling; Loss without knowing what was had. Izuku turned away.

He did not want to think about it anymore.

Instead, Izuku focused on the small, plain-looking gazebo that hung a short way off of the shoreline. He hadn't really ventured there very often due to its view; a person who couldn't see color had no reason to have an even grander perspective of what they couldn't enjoy, after all. Though sometimes he felt it necessary to inspect it, even though he was – as far as he knew – the only person who ever came to this beach anymore.

'Probably not today,' Izuku thought to himself as he turned around to leave the beach while putting his gloves back on, 'It's getting late enough as it is, and my mother doesn't need to worry about me anymore than she already does.'

In no more than ten minutes, Izuku had already gotten to the front steps of his home. Within the first minute after knocking his mother, Inko Midoriya, had already opened up the door. Her face was alit with a bright smile – and a hint of worry – as she opened the door wide for her son to come in. "Izuku, honey, how was your training? You didn't push yourself too hard, did you?"

Izuku shook his head while entering, "No mother, I made sure to stop well before exhaustion." He had learned his lesson before with pushing his quirk too far. Pushing through a limit was important in training, but hazardous if done incorrectly. This was doubly so for Izuku since he trained by himself, no one would be able to help him if he had an accident. Izuku continued towards the kitchen to where dinner was waiting. He pulled his mother's chair out for her first – heroes should be chivalrous after all – and returned to his side of the small table. Before him lay a steak miso soup, it was simple but the beef combined with mushrooms and bok choy brought with it a flavor he considered to be his favorite.

However, it was a tad difficult to enjoy his dinner with a shadow sitting at the third seat. A seat that has been vacant for a very long time. His mother, someone much more talented at reading people than he, picked up on his discomfort immediately. "Izuku honey," he glanced up to her ever-worrying eyes, "Is there something wrong? If you didn't want soup tonight I cam fix you up something else real quick." Izuku let out a sigh, "There's a shadow sitting in father's seat."

Inko Midoriya knew that she was an emotional woman. She couldn't help it that she just felt things more strongly than others. If others were happy, she was positively radiant. If others were sad, she was absolutely miserable. Maybe she was just easily manipulated, she didn't know.

But with her son, it was different. He wasn't just a closed book; he was a locked book with a lost key. Very few things brought him out of the indifferent idle he had picked up in the past years. Her Izuku was quite adept at hiding how he felt, and she knew a lot of it had to do with him not wanting her to worry about him. But one thing always shook the cage wrapped tight around his heart: his father.

The worse part of it was that she knew exactly what to look for every time. The eyes weren't called windows to the soul for nothing, the beautiful gray pools of swirling gray clouds became a stagnant and horrible black when his father is mentioned. The sadness was overwhelming, even more so when she thought of how it was a constant pain in her baby's life.

For a split second her eyes shifted to the seat, but she undid this when she remembered it was only something her son was cursed to see. Delicately, she asked, "Do we need to move dinner to the living room?" Izuku didn't say anything for a while, just stared at the visibly vacant seat before saying very quietly, "Yes please."

As Inko stood up with her soup, she felt her appetite plummeting down to nonexistence. Nevertheless, she continued into the living room to eat with her son. Using her quick to grab the television remote from the coffee table, she turned on something hero-related. It didn't make him as ecstatic as a decade-younger Izuku would be, but it did seem to distract him just a bit from the... situation... in the kitchen.

Hisashi Midoriya was a rarely pressed-upon subject between Inko and her son. He hadn't been in Izuku's life for very long and a lot of what he knew of him came from her. She had told Izuku how the two's faces were almost identical (at one point, anyway), she told him about Hisashi's fire-breathing quirk (technically, this was correct), and she told him how Hisashi had been a businessman overseas (again, technically, this was correct). And as for where Hisashi was now?…

She had told Izuku exactly what she was told to say by the man himself, another half-truth.

Hisashi had gotten onto a plane flying over to America for a big conference with higher-ups at his job (supposedly), but the plane had just mysteriously vanished over the sea, with no crash site ever found. They couldn't confirm any deaths without a wreck site, but the likelihood of surviving was clearly low when no bodies were found either. They were most likely dead.

Of course, this was not the full truth. In fact, she knew that Hisashi was alive, he told her himself.

But she couldn't tell Izuku the truth. Hisashi hadn't been a bad parent, not even a bad husband. No, but she could not let Izuku know the truth. The real reason why Hisashi was gone was something Inko alone knew and she was determined to keep the secret to her grave.

'I had promised him I wouldn't tell Izuku he was alive,' she thought while using her quirk to return the remote to the coffee table, 'But keeping this from Izuku… it's killing me…'

She tried to tell him as much as she could, but that hasn't been enough, Izuku couldn't be satisfied by vague memories and second-hand accounts of the man. She just wished that the truth didn't weigh so heavily on her already fragile heart. It's why she had pushed and supported him so much on his path to becoming a hero, it's something that he should focus on rather than Hisashi. Some rocks are unturned for a reason, they are better off to be left where they lay.

Inko watched with forlorn eyes as her son silently finished his dinner, politely thanked her for the meal, and return back to his room. All the while she wished that the searing pain in her heart would lessen, that the half-truths could be erased away and she could come clean, but…

'Please, do your utmost to keep this secret, my dear Inko. Later, when him and I are both ready, I shall reveal the truth…'

So she continued to keep the pain, along with the truth, to herself. And didn't dare think about doing otherwise, or…

'… And remember, my dear Inko, what can be given… can also be taken away.'

She owed him, and over anything else, Hisashi knew how to collect a debt.

Izuku had complicated feelings regarding his father. He didn't particularly know much about the man aside from vague childhood memories, and what his mother had told him about the man. But these tiny bits of information were a rough recollection of the man that offered no substantial profile. It was difficult to feel much for a person he can barely remember.

Entering his room, Izuku closed the door behind him. He tried to steady his breathing as he walked over to his computer desk, intent on ignoring the shadow that was watching him from his closet.

Izuku remembered that his father was a tall man, almost to the point of being imposing. His hair had a slight curl to it, like his. He knew they looked very similar, and from the handful of memories he did have, his father looked just like an aged-up version of himself. The air around him was always very kind. His articulation was calm and eloquent, but never to the point of demeaning. After that, though, it was a blur.

And then there's his "disappearance", nothing about it satisfied him. A plane vanishes out of the air and nobody knows anything about it? It seemed too incomplete.

Not knowing anything about where his father was ate at him constantly. Was he dead, alive? If he was alive, where was he? Could he ever come back? Would he want to come back?...

No, he couldn't think like that.

Exhausted, Izuku clasped his head inside his hands in an attempt to rub the aching throb away. He'd just have to hope that one day, the answers to all the questions he'd want would come. Pushing off his desk, Izuku got up out of his desk chair. Looking outside his window, he noticed that the sun was almost completely down over the horizon. Very soon, it would be nighttime.

Deciding that he was better off calling it a night at this point, Izuku went through his nightly routine, at first managing to get through it smoothly. After finishing his shower, however, things got more complicated. While brushing his teeth and donning his totally-not-All-Might-brand-pajamas, Izuku caught sight of something stalking him in the reflection of his mirror. The glowing white eyes watching from the bedroom would traumatize many, but Izuku was used to being constantly stalked on by these shadowy beings.

Finishing up, Izuku turned around and slowly started inching back into his room. The shadow person towered over him; even with the slight hunch it had in posture, it had a good half of a meter on him. Its unworldly gaze seemed to cut right through the distance between it and him, he could feel it looking at him. Gradually, more shadows formed around his vision, each of their piercing white eyes sucking all warmth out of his body.

The questions queried by the blessed one, have answers that can be proffered by only two.

The first, the matriarch of the blessed one's family, tells truths in fragmentation, restricted is her methods by way of promise.

The second, the patriarch of the blessed one's family, is hidden amidst the shadows, unable to tell any truths. He waits to be revealed.

Once the time is as he sees fit, The Overseer will see to it that the truths are told. Bring with it, his arrival will, all the answers you seek.

Be wary, for lies and truths hold equal importance. Some lies hurt, while others protect.

When Izuku's sight cleared, there was no shadow in his room. Shaking all the way, he stumbled into his bed, collecting as much of the blankets as he could, and brought them up against his body as close as he could. Even still, his entire body still felt frozen over and his thoughts were an incoherent mess. Even with the shadows ceasing their torturous whispering, Midoriya still took a few hours to finally fall into a dreamless sleep, the shadow's final message for that day still searing his brain all the way.

(Also reuploaded again because mobile publishing sucks (and I forgot the key))

This one took a little bit longer due to me working 52 hours this week instead of my usual 40. This one was a bit more challenging to write as well, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

shadow-Embry-six: Thank you for taking interest! Izuku's interactions with his classmates should be fun as well… and Bakugou will definitely get a reality check, though that will be a slow-burn type of plot line. Can't have the climax of that too quick.