Waking from a coma...

He did not know whether it was light or dark, nor whether it was big or small.

He did not know whether there was an end to the space here, nor whether time flowed through it.

In any case, in that bizarre, strange, indescribable and unfathomable space, Uraraka Shige felt himself drifting about when he suddenly saw a ray of light blooming at its center.

He paid no mind to why he knew that was the center of the space, nor did he care why he knew it was a ray of light. He even completely ignored the question of how he was supposed to reach it.

Uraraka Shige had only one thought at that moment...

I have to! I have to get into that light!

With that thought, Uraraka Shige began to drift slowly, floating into the ray of light.

Then...

Lying on a hospital bed, Uraraka Shige's eyelids trembled slightly before finally opening, though he looked somewhat dazed.

"Where am I... Why is it so bright here... And what's all this white stuff in front of me?"

Uraraka Shige felt utterly lost. He lay there on the hospital bed in a daze until he heard several voices coming from beside him.

"Shige, Shige, you worried Mommy to death."

"Shige, how are you feeling now?"

"Shige, Shige, where did you run off to? Please get better soon, okay?"

The mature woman's voice, gentle and full of love and concern—this was his mother in this life.

The mature man's resonant, commanding voice was also full of worry—this was his father in this life.

The last voice, a young girl's, belonged to his older sister, Ochaco Uraraka.

His family had all gathered around him. It seemed the doctor must have calculated roughly when he would wake up in advance, so his parents and sister had temporarily set aside the things and schoolwork they should have been busy with and come especially to wait at his side for him to wake up.

"Ah... Dad, Mom. Sorry I worried you. I'm feeling much better now."

His voice had come out a little hoarse when he first spoke, so Uraraka Shige adjusted it slightly before speaking properly.

By now, his mind had begun to stir. He smiled and responded appropriately before looking at his sister.

"About earlier..."

He thought back to everything he had encountered before losing consciousness.

"I went somewhere really interesting, and I'll definitely get better soon."

Uraraka Shige smiled as he said this to his sister Ochaco. Her eyes full of worry, she nodded, apparently taking him at his word.

"Then you have to get better really soon!"

Beside them, Uraraka Shige's mother saw that he was not crying and fussing like other children but was instead facing them with a thoughtful smile. Her eyes immediately grew misty. She forced a smile and stroked his sister's little head, then asked Uraraka Shige:

"Shige, is there anything you'd like to eat? Mommy will go buy it for you."

Uraraka Shige keenly noticed the tears in his mother's eyes, and the stirring of their blood bond within his body also let him share in what his birth mother was feeling at that moment, moving him deeply. He also knew that his mother simply wanted to keep from losing control of her emotions and bursting into tears in front of him and his sister, so she was taking the opportunity to go out and compose herself while buying him something to eat.

So Uraraka Shige immediately smiled and nodded at his mother.

"Yeah, I'm a little hungry. I'd like some ice cream and some plain congee."

His mother nodded and turned to leave. After only a few steps, she secretly raised a hand to her eyes and began wiping away her tears, but since her back was to them, neither Uraraka Shige nor his sister noticed.

"Ochaco, go with your mother."

Uraraka Shige's father suddenly spoke to his sister.

Ochaco Uraraka did not quite understand, but she did not argue with her father. She nodded and ran after their mother, her short hair bouncing with every step, making her look quite adorable.

Uraraka Shige watched Ochaco leave the private hospital room before turning back to his father. He saw that his father was looking at him with a serious expression, which made him inexplicably uncomfortable all over, as if his parent had caught him doing something bad.

That heart-quaking feeling.

So he asked cautiously, looking rather apprehensive.

"Um... Father, I'm sorry?"

In other words, although I don't know why you look so serious right now, I'll apologize first anyway, and if you have something to say, please just say it. Don't scare your precious son's precious little heart.

His father did not keep him waiting.

"It's not me you should be sorry to. It's yourself."

His father fell silent for a moment, and a trace of hesitation and heartache unwittingly appeared on his face.

"Why couldn't you attend your classes and stay at school like you were supposed to? Why did you have to run off to the scene of a disaster and play the hero?"

Hearing this, Uraraka Shige fell silent for a moment, just as his father had. Then the expression gradually faded from his face, leaving it utterly blank and lifeless. His eyelids gently closed, and he looked somewhat tired, as though hesitating over how to explain it to his father.

In the end, though, after thinking it over, he decided that since this was his birth father in this life, there should not be anything a father and son could not speak of openly. So he simply said what he thought.

"Actually... I only noticed that something was happening over there and planned to go watch. If I happened to come across a fight between a 'hero' and a 'villain,' I could take the opportunity to observe and see whether it gave me any good ideas for developing my Quirk. After all, with my Quirk, as long as I kept enough distance, I could actually keep myself safe..."

As he spoke, Uraraka Shige suddenly sighed.

"Unfortunately, when I got there, I found that there were only three 'heroes' on the scene, and they were all at a disadvantage. On top of that, I didn't know any of them and couldn't even name them. So I wondered how I could learn what I wanted from them. Then I imagined I was one of the 'heroes' there and thought about how I could turn the situation around."

At this point, Uraraka Shige's father suddenly spoke.

"Then why were you held hostage by a 'villain' and so badly injured that you even lost an arm? Do you realize that if All Might hadn't arrived in time, you might have lost your life there?!"

Hearing his father, Uraraka Shige froze. He instinctively pushed himself upright with both hands and asked in astonishment:

"All Might?"

Then his left arm suddenly gave way, and he collapsed back onto the hospital bed. His expression grew even more astonished as he stared at his left arm in complete bewilderment.

"This... Shouldn't my left hand..."

Uraraka Shige turned his gaze to his father, seemingly waiting for him to clear up his confusion, or perhaps simply finding this surprise hard to believe.