Creation began on 08-09-21

Creation ended on 08-29-21

Neon Genesis Evangelion

My Hero, Shinji Ikari: Similar Quirks, Similar Problems

The rest of the week went by without much difficulty for Shinji, Rumiko, Shado and Toya, and the suspension on Bakugo had ceased, but he still had the warning of not to cause trouble like he did the previous time, otherwise he would face expulsion from U.A., something he really didn't want to have happen. In addition, today was the day that the quartet were to meet the little girl that had been in similar circumstances as they had been along with the student from Class 1-B, this Eri and Neito Monoma, respectively.

"The guy that can copy other people's Quirks?" Shado asked her father as she held her primary teddy bear in her arms as they stood outside the dorm house assigned to the third-year students of U.A. that they were told to come by.

"Yeah," he explained to her, "but he's been informed about the reason he has to see us all. He also knows not to misbehave."

"You really think someone like this is going to play nice?" Toya questions as he put his left foot on the bottom step of the dorm house.

"Toya," said Rumiko to her son, "I think we all know that the guy has no choice but to behave himself if he wishes to become a hero in his future. Plus, he's not the only person we're seeing today. I look forward to meeting this Eri."

The door to the house opened and they saw a blond-haired boy with blue eyes.

"Hello!" He greeted, and Shado hid behind Shinji. "Oh? I'm sorry. Too cheerful?"

"Cautious, actually," Shinji responded. "She's not open with meeting new people yet."

"Yes, so I've been told. You four are from Hokkaido. You needn't fear me. I don't have my Quirk right now."

Shado stuck her head out from behind Shinji and looked at the boy that was older and taller than her father, wondering what he meant by not having his Quirk right now.

"Your Quirk is…gone?" She asked him.

"For the time being. Yes. I was told that you are cautious of people with Quirks that require the use of their hands. Rest assured, my Quirk doesn't revolve around my hands, so I'm not going to harm anyone around here. Mirio Togata of Class 3-B."

With that said, Shado stepped out from behind Shinji and looked at the man again. He didn't seem like he was dangerous or unpleasant to be around, just slightly upbeat, more so than expected of most people. The girl bowed her head to him, but still felt like she needed to keep her distance from him.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Togata," Rumiko greeted him.

Mirio led them inside and they saw another little girl with flowing, grayish hair, red eyes and a small horn on the right side of her forehead, wearing a red, frilly dress. If Shinji and Rumiko had to guess, she was a little older than their own children, by probably two years or so.

Toya looked at the girl and felt she could've passed for entirely normal-looking were it not for her horn.

"Hello, there," he greeted her.

"Hello," she greeted back. "I'm Eri."

"Toya. This is Shado."

"Sister?"

"No, but…she's kind of like a sister to me."

Shado bowed her head to Eri and wondered what her Quirk was like for her. All she really understood was that it was similar to her own, but there was very little understanding about how it functioned, only that it related to her horn.

Rewind, she thought. From the name alone, it sounds like it rewinds things…and it sounds better than my Quirk's name. But that's only because nobody understands what it can really do.

"Oh, no!" Eri gasped, pointing to the front of the room. "It's the bad guy."

Shado quickly turned around, expecting to see her grandfather…but it was just some boy that also had blond hair and blue eyes, but was younger than the other one that they met today, dressed in the school uniform like her father and Rumiko. She got tense and stayed close to her father in case something happened.

"I'm the bad guy?" The boy asked, confused.

"My fault," Mirio explained. "I was teaching Eri how there were students here that have a villainous feel to them and that Neito Monoma here is among those that give U.A. a bad name."

"Now, that's not fair," said Neito to Mirio. "I can be friendly to people. Are these the two students that come all the way from Hokkaido (he gestures to Shinji and Rumiko)?"

"I'm surprised we've not met before, and we've been here for more than a week now," Rumiko stated. "Are you the boy we were informed about that is to try and help us understand some of our Quirk issues here?"

"He is," went Aizawa as he and All Might arrived. "Who is first?"

This was a pickle. One of them was to have their Quirk copied by Monoma, but none of them were feeling very upbeat about it. They could've let Eri go first due to her being around longer, but she probably didn't like the guy already. If they had Shado go first, she could have a panic attack or do something that unintentionally caused harm to one of them. As a parent, Shinji should've gone first by example, but he feared for Shado's safety if something did go wrong.

"Uh, maybe we should get a demonstration of how his Quirk works," Rumiko suggested. "We've just met Monoma, so we don't really know him at all."

"Um…your hand, ma'am?" Monoma requested from Rumiko, and she offered her right hand to him. "Huh? Why am I seeing people glowing different colors?"

"That's how my Quirk functions for me. Maternal Devotion enables me to find people I have a relationship with, depending on how well I know them."

"Oh, a tracker-type? Still needs work."

"So I've been told."

"Who is next?" Monoma asked them.

If all Monoma needed to do was just touch someone, skin-to-skin contact, that is, to make his Copy Quirk imitate someone else's Quirk, then he was, more or less, harmless. So, Shinji sighed and raised his left hand up.

"Don't let yourself get caught up in how my Quirk operates," he warned him as Monoma touched his hand.

"Hmm?" Monoma reacted after removing his hand from Shinji's. "That's odd. Your Quirk's like a blank, Ikari."

"A blank? What do you mean?"

"I mean, I copied your Quirk, but nothing's happening. There's no power in it. It's like there's something, like a battery, missing in it. May I try holding your daughter's hand?"

"Uh, maybe you're better off with a gentle caress of her cheek…if you can be gentle, that is."

"Right."

Shado came over and stood in front of Monoma, and the teen slowly, gently, caressed her right cheek with two of his fingers. So far, she didn't feel threatened by him yet. She hoped nothing would happen.

"That's odd," he went. "Her Quirk is also a blank."

"What?" She gasped; did her Quirk not work well for him. "What do you mean?"

"Your Quirk is like your father's; there doesn't seem to be any power in it right now."

"No power?"

"Think of yourself as a cup or box. You're empty, waiting to be filled with something to occupy space. Your father is the same. I copy the base of the Quirk, but not the energy required to use it if part of the way the Quirk functions is gathering energy or something else that powers it."

"Like Fat Gum's Quirk?" Rumiko asked him.

"Yeah. I can copy his Quirk, but not his stockpiled body fat. You hit Fat Gum with something hard and fast, and he won't move an inch. You hit me with something hard and fast, and I'll be moved off my feet and worse."

The teen mother could imagine that and shuddered at the fantasy; she doubt she could like this guy, but he was another person she wouldn't wish any ill will upon.

"So," she heard him say, "you two are really parents?"

That was a question that carried a lot of weight for Shinji and Rumiko; any that didn't know them personally would come to ask them and be either surprised or bothered by the truth. It was also the question that would be the most bothersome if people had to ask it multiple times.

"Yeah," she answered, uncomfortable with saying it to him. "Is there a problem?"

"No, but you two are the oddest ones here. I mean, really, the oddest ones here; nobody else in the whole school has kids at our age."

"That just means we have one more reason than most others to want to be heroes one day," went Shinji. "Why do you want to be a hero, Monoma? What is your motivation for being here?"

"To be among the best. What is your reason?"

"To protect those that matter above all others from whoever becomes a threat to them."

Monoma found this Shinji Ikari to be quite an unusual person. It wasn't just his Quirk, but the fact that he had a daughter. His battle against his own father was still something to be talked about, but there was something else about how he would glow whenever he used his Quirk. Some would say that he looked like some sort of angel without wings or an ethereal ghost walking among them, but to Monoma, Ikari seemed like an unusual person with an unusual power that was inaccessible to him.

And then, there was Shado Ikari, his daughter. He touched her cheek, copying her Quirk, but it was just like her father's in the sense that it held no power for it to affect anyone, and yet he heard that she was the reason that Class 1-A had a student that used to be invisible all the time being seen all the time now.

"Maybe your Quirks are powered by your emotions," he suggested to them.

"If that's the case, it shouldn't be difficult to use mine," Shinji told them. "I just think about protecting people from villains or people that refuse to sit and talk out their problems."

Monoma tried to duplicate that requirement, but nothing happened for him. His theory was that the Guardian Quirk only responded to genuine emotions and when the teen father was in genuine danger. If this was so, then this was a Quirk that was next to useless unless the danger was real. He then asked to examine Eri's Quirk, and found that, just like Guardian and Regression, Rewind was also a blank, meaning that it required something to fuel its actions.

"So, all three of them have Quirks that require something to power them?" Toya questioned, seeing the horn on Monoma's head similar to Eri's. "This might get problematic if we don't know what is needed to use them."

"They've been having problems with my Quirk, too," Eri told him.

"It's only a problem if people don't exercise patience," went Shado. "People that can't or won't show self-control in the pursuit of understanding something and making sure that others understand, too, are those that won't be able to do much."

"So…what do you do when your…parents are in school?" Eri asked her.

"We're looked after by Ms. Recovery Girl. The adults try to understand my Quirk a little when and if I'm up to it, but without the poking and prodding."

"You've been hurt by people, too?"

"Mostly one person. He's in prison now, but what he did for so long has affected me."

"What did he do to hurt you?"

Shado thought about Gendo, despite not wanting to, and shuddered at the memory of him using his Quirk on her.

"Nothing good," she told her.

Eri had to guess that whoever harmed Shado was exactly as rotten as the man that hurt her before Midoriya and Mirio came and rescued her. Probably gave her a warped perception of the world that was slowly being changed by being here.

"Some of the students keep watching the recorded footage of your escape from your father in the city that night," Mirio told Shinji as he, Rumiko, Monoma and Aizawa sat down while the three children were conversing amongst themselves.

"Oh, really?" Shinji asked.

"You were very impressive. You were getting your daughter away from a terrible person and then defeated him. Not that many heroes have been that impressive since…well, since Kamino."

"I doubt I was that impressive. My focus was on my daughter. Everything else that transpired that night…was just what transpired because of my father's inability to let be what had been nothing more than an accident."

"Your old man caused y'all trouble over an accident?" Monoma questioned, confused. "What kind of accident makes a man…do what he did to you for years?"

"Unexpected Quirk activation," Rumiko answered. "That and the fact that he is not a morale-ruled individual. He who cannot forgive and forget is he who will make others suffer as he tries for the impossible outcome that is, in his mind, to even the would-be score against someone that doesn't even have it out for him or anyone else."

"I'm sorry, but that sounds," went Mirio, "well, it sounds like your father is a real…"

"Whatever the word is that you want to say, but can't say, yes, he is that," Shinji told him; whatever the word Mirio wanted to say, whether it was "monster", "psychopath", "bastard", "villain", Gendo was every one of those terms and more.

"It's hard to believe you're related to him," said Monoma.

"How many people related to each other end up on opposing sides or have conflicting beliefs?" Rumiko asked.

"Not that many," Aizawa stated.

"What do you suppose they're talking about?" Toya asked Shado and Eri as they were away from the teens, the teacher and their parents to give them their privacy.

"They could be talking about anything," Shado stated, holding her teddy in her lap. "I hope they're not talking about that man, though."

"You mean…him?" Toya questioned.

"Yes."

"You…really don't like that bad guy that is locked away at all?" Eri asked.

"In a word, no. He's the worst. A nightmare you want to wake up from. I don't ever want to see him again. Ever."

Eri could currently sympathize with Shado over never wanting to see someone that caused them some measure of pain that took time to recover from. But if she could recover from her trauma with the help of Mirio and Deku, there was hope for this little girl, too.

"…So, you really got your arm blown off?" Monoma asked Shinji when it was revealed that Bakugo had attacked Shinji with unnecessary violence during a training session. "Did it hurt?"

"Did it hurt?" Shinji responded. "Did it… Yeah… Yeah, it did hurt. Anyone that thinks that people with superpowers can't feel pain are wrong to think that."

"And you can regenerate," said Mirio. "That is an incredible power to have."

"Not all that incredible. I have to break down matter to help speed up regeneration, and I've gotten my clothes damaged several times."

-x-

"…Ungh…ugh…urgh…graugh…" Gendo panted as he did another round of sit-ups to strengthen his upper and lower body. Stupid brat! Stupid girl! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

He dropped to the ground and looked at his prosthetic left hand. Every time he had to look at his artificial hands, he was reminded of who he blamed for having them in place of his real ones that he hoped to regain once he was strong enough…and elevated, physically and mentally. With every passing hour he retrained his body, he felt more conviction in getting his revenge. It took a while for him to notice a little muscle growth in his legs, but it was there. This was bitter work, but he wouldn't be accepting this defeat forever.

I'm not done. I will not be denied my revenge against you two.

-x-

"…So, Monoma couldn't make use of their Quirks at all?" Nezu questioned Aizawa as he and All Might were present to inform the principal of the recent events.

"No," Aizawa explained. "Rewind, Regression and Guardian…all require something to charge them before they can be used. He could copy the base power of each Quirk, but not the power that's either stored or has to be stored. So, studying the girls' Quirks further will be difficult."

"But on the positive side, little Shado and Toya have met with Eri," Nezu decided to accept this as a win. "How well did they get along?"

"There doesn't seem to be any problems from what I saw."

"And their reaction to Monoma and Mirio?" All Might asked him.

"Only the girls had a minor negative reaction to Monoma. Shado's still fearful of anyone she doesn't know or trust touching her."

"Well, she's only been here for less than a month. We can't expect her to be open like little Eri is or Toya has become." Nezu understood.

"Their parents are adjusted," All Might stated.

"Yeah, for the most part," Aizawa replied; while it was true that Shinji and Rumiko had adjusted to living at the school with their children, he still had his doubts about them being able to function in society after being trapped underground by the boy's father for over two years.

"Something you wish to share, Aizawa?" Nezu asked him.

"I understand that Shinji is different from his father and willing to do all that he can to do right by his daughter, but we can't say for certain that he will do well in society when he's all grown up and out in the world on his own," Aizawa explained his doubts. "He still has unpredictability on his side."

"If he does what he does to protect himself and those around him," went All Might, "that's not so unpredictable. He doesn't even seem like he has a bad bone in his body. Too friendly and everything, like the worst is behind him now, except for the training session that went wrong."

"Though, even the after school training sessions tend to go slightly wrong when he gets injured and ends up tearing pieces of an environment up."

"Unpredictability occurs in any field, which is why we have training sessions."

But that didn't change the fact that Shinji, unlike the other students in U.A., was the son of a man that had so much potential to be a hero that squandered his future as he turned into a villain, and this made his own future questionable; would he turn out better than his old man…or would he succumb to corruption? Though, for Aizawa, this also stemmed from the fact that his Erasure Quirk wouldn't work on Shinji if he did go down the villain side.

-x-

It was a question that didn't get asked much of the time, but when it was asked, it made Rumiko uncomfortable because it related to her a little. The question regarding her son when Monoma uttered it earlier that day.

"Does your son have the same Quirk as you do, Ms. Gaidoku?" He asked her, and it was a difficult question to answer due to her familial ties.

But the question was further difficult to answer due to one other fact: Despite the time he's been alive, along with his medical evaluations and confirmations, Toya Gaidoku's Quirk had yet to manifest for him to experience. Even as Rumiko was trying to relax in the shower right now, she couldn't find a proper answer for such a question. Since they were related, it was likely that Toya would develop a Quirk similar to the tracker-types the other members of their family possessed, but when she considered the fact that her son was the result of incest between herself, her father or her brother, it was anyone's guess as to what measure of power he would come to have when his Quirk manifested.

Of course, his Quirk will manifest in its own time, she thought as she let the hot water pour down her face and back. I just don't know when it will.

She turned the water off and stepped out of the stall of her bathroom, grabbed her towel and wrapped it around herself.

But even if his Quirk is exactly as my own, it will be up to Toya to develop it and do good with it like the hero he can be if he chooses that path, she thought some more as she stepped into her room. If he chooses the path of a hero. I'd be content if he was interested in being a…plumber or soccer player or…pizza guy.

Grabbing her clothes for when her shower was done, she redressed as Shinji, down in the kitchen, was putting the finishing touches on their dinner.

"What do you think are the chances that you two will become great heroes in the future?" Monoma had asked him earlier this afternoon, replaying in his mind as he reached for the soy sauce on the countertop.

"I don't want to be a great hero, Monona," he had told him. "There are those that want to be great heroes, those that want to be superheroes…and those that just want to be heroes to people that motivate them to do better."

"Heh-heh-heh. You didn't take the bait. You don't have an overinflated ego. That's a good thing. You'll go far."

"Do you always try to test others, Monoma?" Rumiko questioned him.

"I like to challenge people's convictions and motivations," he had explained. "People are only as strong as their convictions."

Yeah, people draw strength from their convictions, just as they draw strength from whatever their other beliefs are, Shinji thought as he set the rice balls down on the table. Whatever one's convictions are, they tend to be only as strong as the people that follow them, for better or for worse. It all depends on what the conviction is that they believe in.

"Daddy?" He heard Shado speak to him, and turned to his left to see her standing beside the counter, looking like something was wrong; she had taken a nap when they got back from their time at the main building while he got started on dinner.

"Yes, sweetie?" He asked her.

"I saw that man again," she told him, referring to Gendo, "except this time, he called me something and I don't know what it means."

"What did he say to you?" He wanted to know.

"I don't know what it meant, but he kept saying it to me. What is a…bastard?"

"That's a…a…" Shinji tried to answer her, but a feeling of grief had taken over as he lowered to meet her height and hold her in his arms. "I'm sorry, Shado. I am so…so sorry."

He had been reminded of how Gendo had tormented his daughter and she was still being victimized by him, even after he was incarcerated and rendered incapable of using his Quirk. If he could have prevented all of this from ever happening, stop his father's abuse of his daughter, Rumiko and Toya, he would've, no matter what he had to do to stop him. How could he explain to his daughter that she was child born to two parents that were never married? Or how could she come to understand that every time her grandfather put her down with his physical, verbal and emotional abuse towards her, he was just constantly reminding himself that he didn't view the little girl as family, just a parasite that was forced upon them by a deranged woman that kidnapped and attacked his son? He wasn't sure that she could understand just yet…and that she needed to focus more on the present instead of the past, just as he did.

Shado wasn't sure why, but she could assume that whatever Gendo had called her…wasn't something one usually heard a child her age being called. That meant it was one of those…cruel words one was never supposed to say to others. If this was the case, then it was just something she wasn't meant to know yet. She just let her father hug her in that moment.

Unbeknownst to the pair, Rumiko, who had finished putting on her clothes after her shower, had heard Shado ask the question while hiding behind a corner and was reminded of Gendo treated Shado one night two years ago, making her watch so that she understood that he could do the same to her and Toya if they tried to escape or call for help.

"Aaahh!" She remembers screaming at the sight of Shado being torn to pieces by him and reduced to a bloody pulp on the wall.

Once he made it clear that he was the one in charge, he restored to her previous state and left Shado laying on the floor in the room, reeling from the pain he had inflicted upon her with his Wrath Quirk.

He was just crazy and beyond any capacity for redemption, she thought.

-x-

Rei awoke in the dead of night, seeing something that made no sense to her at all from a logical point of view. But having seen Shinji in it, she had to wonder why she saw it happen at all. He was in a room, a kitchen, with a little girl that looked similar to himself…and she had asked him something that made him lower to his knees and hold her in a hug. She never heard what either one said, but judging from the look on Shinji's face, what the child had asked him was very personal…and full of pain.

The next thing she knew, she was seeing…Commander Ikari…inside some sort of box, his arms covered in strange gloves that reached up to his wrists, and he was exercising. There was something not right about him, as well; it was the way he looked. It was as though something was bothering him and he didn't let go of the matter, even when he should've. It made Rei wonder if…the guy was not safe to be around.

Was that a dream? She wondered.

-x-

At around the same time, Asuka awoke from her own dream about Shinji, seeing him get his hide handed to himself several times by strange people around their age, including a guy with a bird face and a dark cape and some alien girl that could shoot a strange substance from her hands to eat things. But what seemed odd in each sense was that Shinji kept getting back up after parts of the ground broke around him and whatever injuries he had were removed. There was even a scene where a guy with a burn mark on his face caused him to become frozen for a moment and then thawed him out in another moment…along with a situation where Shinji was facing a boy with grenade-like arms and a bad attitude…and had his arm blown off by him. If this was some sort of Hell meant for him, it was the strangest one she had ever dreamt of, as it seemed as though he was not being completely tortured or humiliated in front of people. It looked more like…he were being trained, educated, and he had a strange power that he didn't possess before.

What in the Hölle is going on? She wondered as she got up to go to the bathroom. Why am I seeing that idiot in situations that look like they belong to some crazy film or a comic book? What, did he go to a screwed-up version of Heaven or something?

To be continued…

A/N: And here we are with another chapter. I hope you were pleased with the introduction of Eri and how it was discovered that Monoma couldn't copy hers, Shinji or Shado's Quirks. There's still some stigma over the fact that Shinji and Rumiko are the only teens in U.A. that have children, since the society they live in doesn't normally have a percentage of underage individuals being in the family way, but that won't go away any time soon. Once the Attack on Titan poll I have receives a few more votes, I'll put up a new poll for this story that will decide what readers would like to see happen in the chapter, which will take place some time in the future, going over a month or two, an adjustment period that will be good for everyone.

By the way, the scene where Shinji holds Shado is the pretty much the third or fourth time this has been echoed because the girl asks him a question that he can't answer her at the time because it was so hurtful that she didn't understand it yet. You gotta give credit to the anime episode of Inuyasha that inspires this powerful moment between father and daughter. It further shows how Shinji is devoted to Shado, despite the measure of grief that it seems to create because he knows it's not either of their faults that their lives are the way they are, just victims of circumstances outside their control. The additional scene with Rumiko was new to show that she was equally devoted to making sure that Shado didn't suffer any further because of Gendo.