Just as my brush traced the last loop of the seal, I flung it aside and let out a grunt.

I rolled my shoulders to get rid of the stiffness in my muscles, grunting as I felt the beginnings of soreness.

That'll teach you to not hunch over your desk for hours like an old man with a crooked back.

I stretched my arms back and stood up, pacing around to get the blood circulating in my body.

I shook my legs and arms and cracked my neck several times.

I stifled a yawn and rubbed my eyes with two fingers.

An owl leapt from its perch, wings wide open, and swooped down on a mouse. Its talons dug into the mouse's furry skin, and the owl flew away, while the mouse let out a small cry that faded into the darkness.

How long ago has the night fallen ?

I blinked, my attention returning to my desk.

Dozens and dozens of incomplete, crossed out, or torn matrices covered my desk from one side to the other.

Even though most of my clones were focused on the 'final' project, I'd still got quite a large team working here.

But the prospect of eating Genjutsu all evening didn't appeal to me, so I preferred to work on it myself.

My life has become so pathetic that I have to choose between something I don't want to do and something I want to do even less.

I smiled and pushed my hair back.

I really need to cut it before it starts falling in front of my eyes.

I sit back down at my desk and took a few sips from my water bottle before putting it back on the floor.

Clearing my throat, I took the ultimate fruit of my labor and studied the matrice one last time, trying to find any problems.

Three concentric circles inside each other, the entry key and the exit key, the instructions didn't drool...

I reread the various kanji that made up the circles to make sure none of them had smudged on the others and compromised the seal.

I blew a lukewarm breeze over the sheet to dry the last of the glossy ink stains, then made the Ram handsign with my right hand.

From the outer edges to the center, the circles began to glow.

My heart raced and I leaned forward, my mouth open.

Don't tell me I-

Then a puff of black smoke exploded in my face.

I dropped the sheet and coughed, pulling my chair back as ash fell on my desk and knees.

I grabbed the first book I could find in my open drawer and it instantly transformed, a fluorescent bluish light enveloping it, the words on the pages running in all directions before stabilizing.

With my left hand, I took my bottle and drank a few sips to soothe my irritated throat, reading the lines that appeared in my Chakra Encyclopedia.

'It is impossible to reproduce the Mokuton without the genetic mutation of Hashirama Senju. It is impossible to reproduce any hereditary bloodline without being a descendant of this line. It is highly unadvised to place unstable seals on individuals at the risk of their premature death'.

I clicked my tongue against my palate in displeasure.

I licked the tip of my thumb, then flipped backwards through the pages at high speed, sharingan activated for faster reading.

The encyclopedia had said the same about the Sharingan, but I'd still managed to reverse-engineer it from the insect with the best reflexes in the world...

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

I'd managed to recreate the tenfold perception of the Sharingan, which gave me the impression of seeing everything in slow motion, as well as the best visual abilities possible without a proper Quirk.

However, there was no Mangekyo Sharingan or Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan: I couldn't recreate the illogicality of these two evolutions because I didn't understand how to do it in the first place.

Seals are complex products, where each kanji must be written and connected to the others with meticulous precision: to miss even the smallest loop is to ruin the whole thing...

Wasn't that my problem? Did my inability to understand how they worked make it impossible for me to recreate them?

Is it even possible to reproduce it ?

Recreating the Mokuton from a seal was only my second option - the first had been a silly theory that by injecting the exact ratio of Suiton, Doton and Chakra, I, too, could make entire forests sprout from the ground.

But this possibility required two things:

- Exceptional control of one's chakra, which I had
- Exceptional mastery of Suiton and Doton.

While Suiton was as easy as breathing, my control of Doton was abysmal.

And when I say abysmal, I mean that I hadn't been able to learn more than one E-rank jutsu in almost eleven years.

Be positive, Shoto. The things you can do with Raiton are just unreal - and I'm not even talking about Katon and Suiton.

I couldn’t be too stingy.

But it still pissed me off.

I lifted the sheet with the Mokuton matrice up to my face, looking at my hours of hard work from a new angle, hoping that the solution would jump out at me.

Shit... I think I'm going to have to give up on this project.

I hated giving up - it was like telling myself that I was a coward unable to carry out my own will.

But the recent events in Nagano had shown me that All for One would soon be leaving its hideout, and that I had to be ready for any eventuality: I couldn't decently waste my time on a project that would surely never bear fruit.

If reproducing the Sharingan in its entirety is impossible because all of its abilities are illogical, if trying to recreate the Mokuton is impossible because Senju Hashirama had a mutation that defied the laws of reality, then I'm not even talking about trying to recreate something like the Edo Tensei...

If only I had data to fall back on...

The essence of Mokuton was its ability to drain chakra from Bijuus.

Once I'd succeeded in recreating it, I could have looked into Aizawa's case, understodd exactly how his Quirk canceled out others', and then try to modify the Mokuton to suit the inhabitants of this world.

I'd cover the planet with lush forests that would drain the energy from everyone's Quirk.

I would have succeeded in rendering humanity impotent and would have made meta-human society a parenthesis in history.

Three generations later, people would believe that their grandparents, who told them stories of flying heroes and fire-breathing villains, were the victims of a collective hallucination.

I could have made all my problems disappear with the snap of my fingers...

It sounds so quixotic now that I know I can't.

I looked up at the moon.

It shone coldly, stretching the world's shadows ominously.

Let's call it a night.

I got up, hands in my pockets, and shuffled through the house.

The creaking hardwood floors made no sound under the lightness of my ninja steps.

The door next to mine was ajar.

I stopped in front of it.

I tilted my head to one side and listened intently.

Steady breathing.

Suddenly there was movement and the purr of a hibernating bear.

I smiled and quietly closed the door.

He's still snoring like a chainsaw.

I left again, mechanically extending my senses to the entire Todoroki estate.

I could feel my father sleeping in his room, my two clones watching over him day and night, the servants in the outhouse, Rei and the other two in the east wing and Teka's two henchmen, who were as much responsible for watching over Touya as they were for protecting my father if he tried to kill him.

Of course he's the only one not sleep.

Touya had trouble sleeping, it seemed. He was always awake at odd hours and slept very little during the day.

My theory was that he was afraid that I would kill him in his sleep.

It was, of course, a tempting idea. Although I'd managed to control myself so far, it would have been harder if I'd been forced to see his horrible rat face every day.

I guess that's why Dad refused Rei's suggestion that everyone move in with us in the west wing.

I took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank, leaning against the sink.

When my thirst was quenched, I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve and put my mask back on before dipping my head into the refrigerator.

I'm so damn hungry.

I had a very strict diet, adapted to my daily training level, from which I was not allowed to deviate.

My eyes fell on a chocolate cake under a dome, only one slice missing.

....we're all going to die one day anyway.

Dying of a chocolate overdose seemed enviable, considering my current prospects.

I grabbed a fork, pulled a chair from the kitchen island, and sat down with my improvised meal facing the porch.

The edge of the forest rustled under the caress of the wind, the leaves crumpling like paper rolled into a ball.

Soon winter would come, and with it the snow.

And the rainy season will soon give way to the biting cold, but everyone knows it's easier to hide a body when it's raining...

I thought of Nagano and the rivers of pink water that had carried the evidence of my murder into the city's sewers. I thought again of Hawks with a burned back and of Fulgenzio telling me that I had to confide in someone.

This time I had narrowly escaped the social earthquake.

Even if I had participated in the rescue of Nagano, the consequences of killing a man - even a terrorist - after my grand speeches about my "lack of choice" would have been tragic.

No matter how much I thought I was in control, there was always something or someone - me - that would betray me in the end.

I made mistake after mistake, I didn't care about the consequences, and if someone other than a PAN's fanatic farmer had found that head, I don't know how I would have gotten out of it.

My fork hit the plate with a shrill sound.

I strained my ear, motionless.

He's still asleep.

My shoulders relaxed.

I took another bite of cake.

I had decapitated a man who stood in my way, and I wasn't sorry I had done it, only that I had been caught.

I killed a defenseless old man because he begged me to end his suffering, and I felt more guilty about that than anything else, even though he'd guided my hand.

Try to find the logic in that.

In my mind, it all made sense.

Rationally, I wondered if I wasn't just talking nonsense to justify all my bullshit.

'Murder is a crime against humanity'.

I ran a hand over my face, feeling the icy chill in my dark circles that meant I needed at least a good ten hours of sleep to make up for all this.

But since I don’t have the time, I'll just sleep four hours and pat myself on the back for another excellent night of sleep.

What could I do now that my 'Mokuton: The Quirks Devourer' project was gone?

Shit, if Edo Tensei was impossible, this means I can’t reverse-engineer Izuku's Quirk to automatically resurrect me if I ever hit the bucket prematurely.

I had to find a way to drastically increase my power: the 'Capitals' project couldn't be the only trick I had up my sleeve.

That would only scare the officials. What I need to do is find a way to make sure that no criminal ever comes after me...

And then there was All for One and his Nomus and who knows what else trying to take over the world behind him.

Why had I decided to be the 'protagonist' again?

Maybe it’s time for me to withdraw from everything.

My father had paid enough because of my lack of brains, and the more days passed, the more I risked getting a one way ticket to Tartarus.

But the old man will kill himself if - when - All for One decides to blow it all up.

My Hero Academia was originally supposed to be a Shonen - and in Shonen, the heroes always win in the end.

Does this mean that Dek- that Izuku is the key to all my problems?

If he wins back the One for All, he'll be able to deal with All for One and all the other villains lurking in the shadows, and all will be well that ends well.

All I have to do is get All Might to give him his power, and everything will be alright.

But All Might hate my guts and he probably thinks Izuku is a whiner...

And then there was the problem with Touya.

If I really decided to get out of the whole thing, work for the Special Forces or become the Don or whatever, I refused to move on until he was six feet under.

I had to find a way to kill him that was natural, logical, and that I couldn't be blamed for.

I thought of Hawks and his burns.

...I'd be a really shitty person if I did that.

And yet...

I hesitated, weighing the pros and cons.

At that moment, the clock struck four.

I blinked, chasing away the jelly that had clouded my thoughts.

Forget it, we'll think about it tomorrow.

I finished the cake in a few bites and stood up.

I put the bowl in the sink and walked away with my hands in my pockets.

Someone will clean it...

I stopped on the threshold of the room and hesitated for a second.

Then I turned abruptly, picked up the plate and cutlery and put everything in the dishwasher before walking away just as abruptly.

If I do one last bad deed to save myself from thousands of others... isn't that a good deed ?

I didn't have to submit my reasoning to general objectivity to know that I was clearly persuading myself to do something stupid.

And yet...

If my father's life is at stake, I'm capable of anything.

*

Author's note :

I have been told that the cover of the story and the description were not very readers attractive.

I want to know if it's a common sentiment shared by many among you (if you skipped the story many times before starting it because the cover was not nice or the description too boring).

Cover.

Description.

Both.

Everything's good.

Either way, see you in the next update everyone !