Chapter Text
The Gojo estate felt suffocating in the late evening quiet. Naoru lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling as the events of the day replayed in her mind like a broken record. Bakugo seeing through her facade, the lies she'd told about her quirk, the weight of everyone's expectations pressing down on her shoulders, it all felt too familiar, too much like the life she'd tried to leave behind.
But it was Shinsou's messages that truly haunted her. The hurt in his words, the way she'd managed to damage one of the few genuine connections she'd made in this life. Her phone sat on her nightstand, screen dark, but she could feel its presence like a physical weight.
You made my quirk sound villainous when you know damn well that's not how you experienced it.
He was right. The peace she'd felt under his influence had been real, the first time in decades where her mind had truly quieted. No overwhelming sensory input, no constant awareness of every detail around her, no crushing weight of being the strongest. Just... silence. Beautiful, merciful silence.
And she'd repaid that gift by throwing him under the bus in a moment of panic.
Naoru sat up, running her hands through her white hair. The Six Eyes caught every detail of her dimly lit room, always seeing, always aware, never able to simply exist without the universe pressing its infinite details into her consciousness.
She picked up her phone.
Can we meet? I need to explain properly.
The response came faster than she'd expected.
Where?
The park near the old shrine. Twenty minutes?
I'll be there.
ฅ^>⩊<^ ฅ
The park was empty at this hour, streetlights casting long shadows across the playground equipment. Naoru arrived first, settling on one of the swings with her hands wrapped around the chains. The metal was cool against her palms, grounding her in a way that felt almost nostalgic. How long had it been since she'd sat on a swing? In either life?
Footsteps approached across the grass, and she looked up to see Shinsou emerging from the shadows. His purple hair caught the light as he walked toward her, his expression carefully neutral but his posture tense.
"Hey," he said quietly, taking the swing beside her.
"Hey." Naoru pushed herself gently back and forth, the soft creak of the swing filling the silence between them.
"So why did you call me here?" Shinsou asked, his voice carefully controlled but she could hear the underlying wariness.
"I've made a severe, and continuous lapse in my judgement. And I don't expect to be forgiven, I'm simply here to apologize," she started, her hands gripping the swing chains tighter. "I'm sorry. For what I said in that interview. For lying about your quirk. For... everything."
Shinsou was quiet for a long moment, his own swing swaying slightly. "Why did you do it? The real reason."
Naoru took a shaky breath. This was it, the moment where she either continued the careful facade she'd built or finally trusted someone with the truth. The Six Eyes showed her every micro-expression on his face, the way his fingers gripped the swing chains, the subtle tension in his shoulders. He was hurt, but he was also here, willing to listen.
And suddenly, the weight of carrying this secret alone felt unbearable.
"Because when those reporters cornered me after the Sports Festival, I was exhausted and frustrated and I just wanted them to leave me alone," she began, her voice barely above a whisper. "So when they asked about withdrawing, I said the first thing that came to mind to make them stop asking questions. I made you out to be the villain, said I was your puppet... I made your quirk sound like some kind of violation when I knew that wasn't true."
"Why would you do that?" Shinsou's voice was quiet, but she could hear the underlying hurt. "You know what people already think about my quirk. You know how they look at me."
Naoru stood up abruptly, pacing away from the swings. Her chest felt tight, like she couldn't get enough air. "Because I know what it's like when people only see you for your power. When they look at you and all they see is a weapon to be used, a solution to problems that aren't yours to solve."
"Your enhanced perception quirk?" Shinsou asked, confusion coloring his tone.
Naoru laughed, but there was no humor in it, only the bitter edge of decades of isolation. "That's not even scratching the surface of what I can do. The Six Eyes, the thing they registered as my quirk? It's just... it's just the tip of the iceberg."
She turned back to face him, and in the moonlight, her eyes seemed to glow with their own inner light. "I can manipulate space itself, Shinsou. I can create voids that crush anything in their path, explosions that level city blocks, barriers that make me essentially untouchable. I can teleport across vast distances, expand my own domain." Her voice cracked slightly. "I'm not just strong, I'm what this world would call the ultimate weapon."
Shinsou had gone very still, his dark eyes fixed on her face. "How do you know all this? How do you know what you're capable of if you've never used it?"
The question she'd been dreading. The one that would force her to reveal the truth that made her sound completely insane. Naoru closed her uncovered eyes, feeling the weight of centuries pressing against her chest, the accumulated loneliness of two lifetimes threatening to crush her.
When she opened her eyes again, there were tears streaming down her face, real tears, not the careful manipulations she sometimes used to deflect attention.
"Because I've done it all before," she whispered, her voice breaking. "In another life. Literally."
The words hung in the air between them like a confession at an altar. Naoru felt something fundamental shift inside her chest, as if speaking the truth aloud had unlocked a door she'd kept bolted shut since the day she'd been reborn.
"I died, Shinsou," she continued, her voice gaining strength even as the tears continued to fall. "I lived an entire lifetime as the strongest person in a world full of monsters and curses. I had students I loved, colleagues I respected, a duty I never questioned. And I died fighting something too powerful even for me, died alone while everyone else was somewhere safe because that's what I was supposed to do, be the shield, be the sacrifice, be the one who handles everything so no one else has to."
She sank back down onto the swing, her legs suddenly too shaky to support her. "And then I woke up as a baby in this world, with all my memories intact. Every battle, every loss, every moment of carrying the weight of being responsible for everyone's safety. I remember my death, Shinsou. I remember the exact moment when I realized I wasn't strong enough, when I understood that for all my power, I was still just human."
The silence stretched between them, and Naoru braced herself for him to laugh, to call her crazy, to stand up and walk away from the girl who claimed to be reincarnated. Instead, she heard the soft creak of his swing as he moved closer.
"What was it like?" he asked quietly. "Your other life?"
The question broke something open in her chest. No one had ever asked her that, about the life she'd lost, the person she'd been before. Even her parents in this world only knew the child she'd become, not the adult she'd once been.
"Lonely," she answered without hesitation, the word carrying the weight of decades. "Everyone either feared me or wanted to use me. I had students I cared about deeply, god, I loved those kids so much it physically hurt sometimes, but even they... they saw me as their sensei first, their protector, their last resort when everything went wrong. Never just as a person with my own fears and doubts and needs."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, surprised by how cathartic it felt to finally speak these words aloud. "I spent my entire adult life being the strongest, being the one everyone turned to when the world was ending. And you know what the worst part was? I was good at it. I saved people, I protected the ones I loved, I made the hard choices no one else could make. But I was so tired, Shinsou. So incredibly tired of never being allowed to be weak, or scared, or just... human."
"And then you came to this world," Shinsou said softly, understanding beginning to dawn in his voice.
"And I thought maybe I could be different here. Maybe I could just be a normal girl with a normal life, make friends who liked me for who I am instead of what I can do for them." She laughed bitterly. "But the power followed me. It always follows me. And slowly, inevitably, people started looking at me the same way again. Like a solution to their problems, like someone who exists to make their lives easier."
She met his eyes directly, and he could see the exhaustion there, not just physical tiredness, but the bone-deep weariness of someone who had carried the world on their shoulders for far too long.
"When you used your quirk on me during the Sports Festival," she continued, her voice growing softer, more vulnerable, "for the first time in literally decades, I felt... quiet. The Six Eyes stopped overwhelming me with every microscopic detail of the world around me. My mind stopped racing through a thousand different scenarios and threat assessments. The crushing weight of being responsible for everyone's safety just... disappeared. I could breathe, Shinsou. I could just exist without the universe pressing its infinite complexity into my consciousness every single second."
Shinsou stood up from his swing, walking over to where she sat. "It was peaceful," he said, not a question but a statement of understanding.
"It was the most peaceful I've felt since I was reborn," she confirmed, fresh tears starting to fall. "You didn't make me less human, you made me feel more human than I have in years. You gave me a moment where I wasn't the strongest, wasn't responsible for saving everyone, wasn't carrying the weight of all this power I never asked for in the first place."
Her voice broke completely then, the words coming out in a rush. "And I repaid that by making it sound like you violated my agency when the truth is so much more complicated. I used the worst possible words to describe what you did because I was scared and overwhelmed and I just wanted those reporters to stop asking questions I couldn't answer without revealing everything."
Shinsou knelt down in front of her swing, his hands covering hers where they gripped the chains. "You were protecting yourself," he said gently.
"I was being a coward," Naoru corrected, her voice thick with self-recrimination. "I was so desperate to maintain this facade of normalcy that I threw you under the bus. I made your quirk sound villainous when I knew better, when I'd experienced firsthand how gentle and careful you were with it. I called myself your puppet when the truth is..." She took a shuddering breath. "The truth is it was a gift. A moment of peace I didn't know I desperately needed until you gave it to me."
The park was quiet around them, the night air cool against her tear-stained cheeks. Naoru felt raw, exposed, like she'd just performed surgery on her own soul and laid all the wounded parts bare. But underneath the vulnerability was something she hadn't felt in years, relief. The truth was finally out, shared with someone who might actually understand.
"You know," Shinsou said quietly, his thumbs brushing over her knuckles, "for someone who claims to see everything, you missed something pretty important."
"What's that?"
"I don't care what other people think about my quirk. I've been dealing with their fear and suspicion my whole life." His voice grew softer, more vulnerable. "But I care what you think. What hurt wasn't that you lied about it publicly. What hurt was that you felt like you had to lie to me. That after everything we'd shared, after the way you looked at me like I was someone worth knowing instead of someone to be afraid of, you still couldn't trust me with the truth."
He paused, his own eyes growing suspiciously bright. "And hearing you call yourself my puppet... do you know what that did to me? I spend every day wondering if I'm actually hero material or just someone with a villain's quirk pretending to be good. And then the one person who seemed to understand, who made me feel like maybe my power could be something beautiful instead of something terrifying, used that word."
Naoru felt her heart break all over again, but this time for him instead of herself. "Shinsou, I'm so sorry. I'm so tired of being strong, of people looking at me and seeing solutions instead of a person. I just wanted to be normal, to have friends who like me for who I am, not what I can do for them. But I never should have hurt you in pursuit of that."
"Then be normal," he said simply, standing up and extending his hand to her. "With me, at least. I know the truth now, all of it. The power, the reincarnation, the loneliness, the fear. There's no point in pretending anymore."
Naoru stared at his outstretched hand, this simple gesture that somehow felt more monumental than any technique she'd ever mastered. Slowly, she reached out and took it, letting him pull her to her feet.
Before she could fully process what was happening, Shinsou wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a gentle embrace. Naoru stiffened for a moment, physical affection had been rare in her previous life, and she'd kept her distance from others in this one. But then she melted into the hug, her face pressed against his shoulder, her arms coming up to clutch at his back like he was an anchor in a storm.
It was the first hug she'd received in this life that wasn't from her parents, the first touch that came without expectation or agenda. Shinsou held her like she was precious instead of powerful, like she was someone worth protecting instead of someone expected to do all the protecting. There was no fear in his embrace, no calculation of what she could do for him, just genuine care for the person she was underneath all the cosmic power and inherited responsibility.
"Thank you," she whispered against his shoulder, her voice muffled by fabric and overwhelming emotion.
"For what?"
"For listening. For not running away when I told you I'm literally a reincarnated weapon of mass destruction." She pulled back just enough to look at his face, her eyes still bright with tears but no longer exclusively sad. "For seeing me. Not the Six Eyes, not the power, not even the fact that I've lived before. Just... me. Whoever that is underneath it all."
His arms tightened around her slightly. "Naoru Gojo is pretty amazing even without all the cosmic powers and past-life trauma, you know."
She let out a watery laugh, the first genuine laughter she'd felt in days. "Think we can keep that between us? At least for now?"
"Your secret's safe with me," Shinsou promised, his voice solemn like he was making a vow. "All of your secrets. Besides, I think I like being the only one who knows the real you."
They stood there in the quiet park, surrounded by the peaceful darkness, and for the first time since her reincarnation, Naoru felt truly seen. Not worshipped, not feared, not used, just seen and accepted for exactly who she was, in all her complicated, wounded, powerful glory.
The Six Eyes still showed her every detail of the world around them, the way Shinsou's heartbeat had settled into a steady, calming rhythm, the gentle rise and fall of his breathing, the way his fingers traced small, soothing patterns against her back. But instead of being overwhelmed by the sensory input, she found herself grateful for it. These details weren't a burden right now, they were proof that this moment was real, that someone finally knew her completely and chose to stay anyway.
"We should probably head back," she said eventually, though she made no move to step away from him.
"Probably," he agreed, but his arms remained around her. "One more minute?"
Naoru smiled, closing her eyes and letting herself exist in this moment of perfect, simple peace. For once, the weight of her secrets wasn't crushing her. Someone else knew, someone else understood, and the world hadn't ended.
"One more minute," she agreed.
In the distance, the city hummed with its usual nighttime energy, full of heroes and villains, quirks and conflicts. But here in this small pocket of tranquility, Naoru Gojo was just a girl being held by someone who knew exactly who she was and cared about her anyway.
And that was more than she'd ever dared to hope for.