I'd always believed that tiredness was a state of mind, a laziness of the soul that anyone could fight by sheer force of will.

But as the days went by, it seemed less and less likely that my mind would ever be able to separate itself from the heaviness that weighed on my muscles and clouded my vision of the world.

Sleep had become a rare delicacy, one I rarely indulged in, and only when the lines of my seals became loops before my eyes and the loops started oscillating like savages jumping around a bustum.

Chakra was supposed to be the source of all life, the vitality of a body, yet I was depleting my reserves so quickly that even eating like an ogre wasn't enough to replenish me.

My physical abilities hadn't diminished, but mentally I was at the end of my rope.

A few months. It was only a matter of a few months.

The idea of diving back into one of my old projects - that of storing Chakra in case of a major emergency - was tempting but dangerous.

Chakra needed a living being to exist: locking it away in an inert container was impossible.

Tsunade had managed to store it in her forehead, something I still couldn't explain.

Cells were made to produce a certain amount of chakra in a given period of time: perhaps she had managed to recover the excess produced by her body from a 'threshold' she had set herself, but I couldn't see how she had locked it inside her without her skull exploding.

The answer seemed to be thanks to Fuinjutsu, but I had no idea why.

The fact that I'd managed to synthesise a Sharingan out of Fuin alone - and without a real Uchiha to explain how a Sharingan really worked - led me to believe that I was excellent at it.

However, I was barely passable at iryoninjutsu and was incapable of revolutionising the field like Tsunade or Orochimaru: research was neither my favourite area nor my strong point.

I regretted having only a dusty old book to explain things to me: having a real teacher would have made such a difference.

If I'd had someone as competent as Jiraiya or Minato to teach me Fuinjutsu...

I pushed my bitter thoughts aside to drive away the beginning of my bad mood.

But still, if I'd had a teacher...

Anyway, even if I wanted to, I didn't have the time to concentrate on all that.

I have to end All for One in the next few months : I can't afford to let him play the 'long' game.

But before I could do that, I had to deal with a more pressing problem.

My eyes easily found Hawks among the glittering gowns and chiffon skirts.

Hawks was laughing, head thrown back, mouth wide open.

Halfway between us, two men toasted, their flutes of golden champagne glittering like crystal.

The moment their glasses touched, Hawks' face appeared to me behind a curtain of bubbles, distorted and malevolent, the hand he ran through his hair giving the impression of running into horns.

I didn't know if it was fatigue gone madness or the paranoia that sometimes distorted the shadows and faces at the periphery of my vision, but either way I was fine with it.

As long as the chaos in my brain managed to drown out my guilt, who was I to ask questions ?

My psychiatrist would have told me it wasn't healthy, but I didn't have time for something as trivial as 'mental health'.

I had too many worries, too many adversaries and too little time.

You'll be seventeen in a few weeks...

If I ever made it to eighteen, I'll be grateful to whoever manages the mess of my life.

- Let's have a drink, Mr Hawks. To the saviour of Nagano !

The big laugh, punctuated by a diamond wristwatch shining under the light, drew my attention to the crowd around my oh-so-respectable mentor.

Hawks had asked us to arrive late because 'it's better to arrive late at a party so you don't look like you've been waiting for it' and also because 'everyone's already lost the stick up their ass', whereas I'd hoped we'd arrive early so I could get home relatively early.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Someone shoved a glass under his nose.

Red-cheeked, almost drunk, he seemed hesitant, uncomfortable, a smile frozen on his lips.

I wondered if he was afraid of drinking too much, knowing that he tended to talk too much at times like this.

He met my eyes and then gave me a pleading look over the crowd of his followers, surely wanting me to use my aura of acquitted murderer to scare away his groupies.

I looked at him boredly, scratched my cheek with my middle finger for his benefit, and then looked away, disinterested.

He has been happy to ignore me for a full hour and leave me to my own devices : let him stir in his shit.

Even without looking at him, I knew he was outraged by my vulgarity.

At least he won't be able to threaten to make me work at the construct-

My head turned towards the main door so quickly that I heard my neck creak with tiredness.

I could feel him before he'd even finished climbing the stairs, I could see him perfectly before he even entered my field of vision.

After all, there's only one man with the aura of the sun.

My father and All Might entered the place as if they owned it and, for a second, all chatter ceased.

A shiver of excitement ran through the guests.

The mayor, standing by the urns where the money was collected, looked as if he were about to have a heart attack out of happiness.

The two heroes looked around the room, the first with a blasé air, the second with good humour. Their diametrically opposed personalities should have been a detriment to their duo, but instead had cemented them together as that unlikely and 'refreshing' combination that the general public 'loved'.

His blue eyes swept the room just above my head, lingering a moment longer on Hawks, his face even, and I knew he knew I was there even if he couldn't see me, slumped against the wall as I was.

I saw the nervous, over-excited glances he was getting, and the neutral - almost bored - expression on his face.

A passing waiter looked at him wide-eyed and stumbled at his feet, knocking over a tray of glasses.

He crouched down hastily, head down, lips moving as he apologised. Even from where I was standing I could see the young man's hands trembling and the back of his neck redder than blood.

My father's face darkened and his scowl amused me.

The fact that anyone could find him intimidating had always seemed surreal to me.

It reminided me of the time we went to the Heroes Awards when I was ten.

I watched him stand next to All Might, politely answering the plebs' questions, trying to keep his irritation to himself, until he lost patience and decided to turn and walk away, splitting the crowd in his path towards the balcony.

I watched him go, realising distractedly that even if I'd been blind I'd still have been able to follow the trail of heat left by the sun in his wake.

Without a second thought, he opened the French window and slipped out. One of the long white curtains fluttered in the cool breeze, billowing like a sail.

Guests with little cloth and much jewellery shivered and walked away with furrowed brows.

I took a small cake from a passing tray and popped it into my mouth as I made my way to the balcony.

He was leaning against the railing, his head raised to the sky.

I paused for a moment on the threshold, hesitant, one hand on the door behind me.

The door creaked and he turned his head towards me.

- Shoto

No anger, no disappointment.

- Hi

He nodded, then looked out at the city.

The night was dark and the lights shone in front of him like fireflies.

I approached slowly, my shoes thumping loudly on the ground. He remained motionless, shoulders slumped, indifferent to my presence or absence.

I stopped not far behind him, to his left. He didn't ask me to leave.

So I went and leaned against the balcony, not very far from him, and looked out at the city for a moment without really seeing it. My chakra-covered fingers brushed the underside of the marble balustrade, a seal of silence sprouting from the tip of my forefinger.

He didn't turn his head towards me.

I pretended to scratch my elbow, then my shoulder, looking for a way to start the conversation.

Silence had never been a problem between us, yet I felt uncomfortable.

- Stop fidgeting, he muttered.

I looked up at him.

His face was calm, his iridescent eyes lighting up his face like beacons in the middle of a storm.

- It's making me nervous, I said

Saying it out loud only made me more nervous. My throat tightened and my palms grew sweaty.

I put my clenched hands on the railing to stop myself from rubbing them against my jeans.

- Since when do I make you nervous ?

I shrugged, even though he wasn't looking at me.

- Don't be nervous, he finally said quietly. I'm still your father.

I nodded slowly, swallowing the lump of stress that had formed in my throat.

I felt ashamed, too emotional, but I knew that if there was one person who would never use my weaknesses against me, it was him.

- I-

I cleared my throat to calm my voice.

- I've been thinking a lot about what happened at the hospital, I said. When you asked me to tell you exactly what my Quirk is, and-

He raised his hand and I shut up.

- Do you really think that's the point ?

He looked me straight in the eye, his eyebrows furrowed in disapproval.

- I don't care what your Quirk is, he said coldly. You could bring the dead back to life that I still wouldn't care

I fucking know it.

- I know that's not the problem, I know I should have told you before, it's just...

A lot of my reasoning was wrong, a lot of my actions were wrong, but I always had the best of intentions.

Yet you know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

- Just what ?

Finally I exploded.

- I was scared !, I said, Scared that someone would come after me again- before I was able to protect myself !

A dull, inexplicable anger burned in my chest, and suddenly I thought it was unfair that he should be angry with me for putting my safety first.

- I could have protected you-

- Yet you weren't able to !

*

Author's note :

Sorry about the disgusting cut in the middle everyone, but the chapter was way too long for me to publish it fully.

Also random info but I have been told that the 'terrorist' of the story may have shadow banned it on webnovel, and I decided to (at least) temporarily change it there to see what happens.

The title is now 'Modern-Day Villain' which is, in my opinion, quite misleading and not true but meh, let's see how it goes.

If you want to support the story AND read up to 27 chapters ahead of schedule, go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you friday for the next update everyone !