Chapter Text
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
That sound again. Slow. Rhythmic. Mechanical.
It clawed at the edges of his mind, tugging him upward through layers of thick, suffocating fog. His limbs felt heavy. His tongue was dry. Every part of his body buzzed faintly with a prickle that told him something was wrong.
Killua’s nose wrinkled at the sterile scent. Bleach. Plastic. The sharp tang of metal.
Then his eyes opened.
The lights above him were painfully bright, white and sterile. A smooth ceiling. Fluorescent panels. Not home. Not the woods. Not a battlefield.
Hospital.
His entire body went rigid.
It hit him all at once—panic like a punch to the gut. That smell, that sterile stench of control, of drugs, of vulnerability—it wrapped around his chest like a vice. His breath caught in his throat.
He looked down.
Thin cotton sheets. A pale blue hospital gown. Tubes snaking into his arms. Electrodes stuck to his chest. A heart monitor chirping nearby.
He didn’t remember how he got here.
He didn’t know where “here” even was.
His heart rate jumped. The machine tracking it squealed in response. He sat bolt upright, adrenaline flooding his system. A searing ache shot through his spine, but he ignored it, ripping the IV from his arm in a single, practiced motion. Blood spattered across the floor as the alarm blared.
“No no no—” he hissed, stumbling to his feet.
He reached for his yo-yos, but—nothing. His gear was gone. His shoes. His jacket. Even his jewelry. He felt naked.
He was already pressing himself into the far corner of the room when the door slid open.
A nurse appeared—middle-aged, short hair, mask, blue scrubs. She stopped short when she saw the blood, the torn IV, and the crouching child in the corner with murder in his eyes.
She said something sharp and urgent in Japanese.
Killua understood her. Sort of.
Not enough to get every word. Just the gist—"Calm down,” “It's okay,” “You're safe."
It made him more tense.
He growled low in his throat. “Stay back.”
She froze. Her hands went up, fingers splayed in a placating gesture.
He hated this. The walls were too white. The room was too quiet. Everything was too clean. There were no shadows. Nowhere to run.
Two more nurses appeared behind her. One held a clipboard, the other a device that looked like a phone. They exchanged quiet words. One tapped at a screen.
Killua’s eyes darted between them. Watching. Measuring. Planning.
“I said don’t come any closer,” he barked.
The lights in the room flickered. A static hum crawled across his skin. Sparks arced between his fingertips—harmless for now, but a warning.
They backed off.
The nurse spoke into the device again, quickly, then all three retreated, the door sliding shut behind them.
Killua exhaled sharply, still trembling. His nails dug into his palms. Blood dripped quietly onto the linoleum.
He stood there, listening. Waiting.
Ten minutes passed. Maybe more. Then the door opened again.
Just one man this time.
Dark, shoulder-length hair. Tired eyes. Dressed in black with a strange scarf that wrapped around him like a second skin. He didn’t carry himself like a doctor. Too steady. Too still.
He closed the door behind him, deliberately slow, and took a seat on the floor near the wall—far enough away not to feel threatening.
He didn’t say anything at first.
Just watched.
Killua stayed pressed to the corner. Silent. Coiled like a spring.
Finally, the man spoke, voice low and quiet.
“You don’t have to be afraid. No one’s going to hurt you.”
Killua’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah? You say that, but you’re all talking weird and sticking needles in people.”
The man tilted his head slightly. “You speak Japanese.”
Killua hesitated. “…Sort of. Not this kind.”
That caught the man’s interest. His eyes sharpened, just a bit.
“I’m Aizawa Shouta,” he said slowly. “I work with the Hero Commission. You were brought in after a villain attack. Found unconscious in an alleyway.”
Killua frowned.
“…What city?” he asked.
“Hosu.”
Killua shook his head. “That’s not real.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that city doesn’t exist. Not where I’m from.”
Aizawa didn’t react. Not visibly.
“You weren’t carrying any ID,” he continued after a moment. “No registration, no comms. No Quirk listed in the system. You had nothing on you except your clothes and these.”
He reached into his pocket—not fast—and pulled out a photograph. He slid it across the floor.
It was a photo of two circular weapons—thick silver yo-yos. Bloodstained. One had a cracked hinge.
Killua’s eyes locked onto it. His hands twitched.
“You didn’t have these with you,” Aizawa added. “They were found at the scene. Hidden near the alley.”
Killua said nothing.
A long silence settled between them. Then Aizawa leaned back slightly.
“You’re trained,” he said. “I can tell.”
Killua didn’t deny it.
“Combat, stealth, weapons use. You move like someone with experience. But you reacted to the hospital like… someone who’s been hurt in places like this.”
Still no response.
Aizawa kept his voice calm. “You're not the first runaway I’ve met, kid. You’ve got the look—scar tissue, hypersensitivity, distrust of touch. You don’t trust adults. You don’t flinch from violence, but you do flinch from kindness.”
Killua’s fingers twitched again. His breath was quieter now, but his posture hadn’t relaxed.
“You think I’m some poor abused kid?” he asked, voice dry.
Aizawa shrugged. “That’s how it looks.”
Killua stared at him for a long time.
Then, finally, he spoke. “…I’m not.”
“Alright.”
“I wasn’t abused. I was trained. Raised to kill. Conditioned. Poisoned.”
Aizawa blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Since I was a baby,” Killua said bluntly. “My family wanted me immune to everything. So they tested things on me. Needles. Injections. Doses. Pain tolerance. I survived.”
The door slid open again before Aizawa could respond.
A doctor entered, tablet in hand. He hesitated when he saw Killua, but relaxed slightly upon seeing Aizawa seated calmly.
“He’s stable?” the doctor asked in Japanese.
Aizawa nodded once. “For now.”
The doctor approached slowly, careful not to make sudden movements.
“We need to talk.” he said, eyes flicking toward the monitor.
Aizawa stood.
Killua remained seated in the corner, arms crossed, guarded.
The doctor cleared his throat and brought up the screen.
“This boy’s blood is saturated with compounds we don’t fully understand,” he began. “Neurotoxins. Muscle inhibitors. Corrosive agents. Hallucinogens. Paralytics. His blood chemistry is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. He should be dead several times over.”
Killua gave a tired shrug. “Guess I’m not.”
Aizawa frowned. He had heard about this earlier, but he didn’t think that this boy could actually tolerate it as if it was water. “You’re saying he’s… immune?”
“He’s beyond immune,” the doctor said. “His body’s learned to not just survive, but adapt. It treats poison like oxygen. It’s not natural. No known Quirk would result in this.”
Killua rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how a quirk could lead to me being immune to poison. At this point I’m starting to figure out that you guys aren’t talking about the dictionary classification of a quirk. So what the hell is it? Hobo brought it up earlier that I ‘didn’t have one’, or something….”
The doctor looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
Aizawa, though, was watching more carefully now. “That lines up with some of the confusion. But there’s something else, isn’t there?”
Killua didn’t speak.
“Your accent,” Aizawa continued. “The way you talk. The map confusion. The city names you’ve never heard of. Even your Japanese is… off. Not wrong, but outdated. Mismatched.”
Killua clenched his jaw.
“…I haven’t seen any maps,” he said slowly. “But I bet if I were to look at one, none of them would match mine. Your country’s shaped wrong. Your cities are wrong. Your tech is too new. Like—futuristic. But not.”
Aizawa didn’t respond right away.
When he did, his voice was gentler. “What’s your name?”
Killua hesitated.
Then, finally—“…Killua. Killua Zoldyck.”
Aizawa nodded.
“Alright, Killua. We’ll figure this out. You’re not in trouble. You’re not under arrest. But you’re not safe out there alone, either. Not in this world.”
Killua’s eyes narrowed. “…I don’t trust you.”
“That’s fair,” Aizawa said calmly. “But I’ve got no reason to hurt you. And I’ve got every reason to make sure you don’t get hurt again.”
.˳˳✧.⋅ॱ ᩙ
The room was dark now.
Dim light glowed from the monitors still attached to the walls, casting soft green and blue glimmers across the tiles. A camera in the top corner blinked lazily every few seconds.
Killua lay on the hospital bed, still in the same thin gown. His legs were curled up against his chest, his arms wrapped around them, silver hair shadowing his eyes.
He hadn’t spoken since the doctor left.
He wasn’t sleeping.
The heart monitor beside him ticked at a steady pace, a slow, deceptive rhythm—faked, because Killua had figured out how to mask his pulse with years of training. It wasn’t hard. Not after what the Zoldycks had put him through.
He’d been quiet for almost an hour.
Silent enough that the night staff believed he was calm.
That was their mistake.
He moved the moment the hall lights dimmed to “night mode.” Like flipping a switch, he was off the bed and on the floor in a crouch, silent and deliberate.
The first thing he did was strip the sensors from his chest and arm, disabling the monitor. That would trigger a silent alert, but he had maybe fifteen seconds before someone checked on him.
Plenty of time.
The second thing he did was creep to the cabinet, pull open the drawers, and scavenge. Bandages. A spare mask. Paper-thin slippers. A long black coat folded in a lower drawer, possibly belonging to a staff member.
He threw it on.
The coat drowned his small frame, but it would do.
Third: the window. No external view—just reinforced glass facing an inner courtyard.
Still, the room’s design gave him an idea.
He moved to the door and waited.
When the nurse finally arrived, Killua was gone.
At least, that's what she thought.
She stepped inside cautiously, scanning the room—then screamed as he dropped down silently behind her from the ceiling, using the frame above the doorway as a perch.
He didn’t hurt her. Just stunned her with a flick of lightning to the nerves in her back. She crumpled silently.
He slipped out into the hallway without looking back.
Navigating the hospital was harder.
Not because it was complex—but because it was different.
Signs made no sense. The lettering wasn’t anything like hunters language. The hallways twisted strangely. Every room had unfamiliar tech—strange scanners, floating screens, even robots delivering supplies.
This wasn’t just a hospital in a city he didn’t know.
It was a hospital in a different world.
Killua gritted his teeth as the realization dug deeper.
But there was no time to panic.
He moved fast and quiet, hugging the shadows, ducking under cameras, memorizing patrol patterns and staff rotations. He passed a glass observation window and caught a glimpse of himself—bare feet, oversized coat, white hair wild, eyes glowing faintly in the dark like a feral cat.
He didn’t recognize the boy in the reflection.
He found the service stairwell behind a maintenance door.
Unlocked.
Two flights down.
Then—
“Going somewhere?”
Killua froze.
The voice came from below, calm, dry, and unimpressed.
A man stepped into view from the shadows of the stairwell landing—Aizawa, scarf coiled loosely around his neck like a waiting serpent.
Killua didn’t say anything. He didn’t move.
Aizawa sighed. “You’re quiet. But not that quiet.”
Killua’s fists clenched. “I’m not staying here.”
“I figured.” Aizawa stepped up another stair, slowly. “Want to tell me why?”
“You already know why,” Killua said flatly. “I hate hospitals. I don’t trust people. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You’re not being babysat,” Aizawa said, voice level. “You were hurt. You were brought here to recover.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
A beat of silence.
“No,” Aizawa said. “You didn’t.”
Killua narrowed his eyes. “So move.”
“No.”
They stood there for several seconds. Neither blinked.
Then Aizawa sat down on the stair.
Killua blinked.
“…What are you doing?”
“Waiting,” Aizawa replied.
“For what?”
“For you to decide what kind of person you want to be in this world.”
Killua’s lip curled. “I didn’t choose to be in this world.”
“No. But you’re still here.”
Killua’s hands sparked faintly again. His breathing was tight. “I don’t want your help.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you still talking to me?”
Aizawa looked at him for a long moment. “Because I’ve seen too many kids try to fight the world alone. Most of them don’t make it.”
Killua’s mouth twitched.
“I’m not ‘most kids.’”
“I know that, too,” Aizawa said.
Another silence.
The tension in Killua’s frame shifted, just slightly. Not relaxed—never relaxed—but... questioning.
Finally, he asked, “…You think I’m dangerous?”
“Yes,” Aizawa said simply.
Killua blinked.
“But I don’t think you want to be.”
That stopped Killua cold.
Aizawa stood again, slowly, carefully. “If you run, you’ll get caught. Best-case scenario? Someone panics and tries to neutralize you. Worst-case? You kill someone and make enemies you didn’t need.”
“I’ve killed people before.”
“I know. But not here.”
That sentence hung heavy in the air.
Killua swallowed.
He glanced down the stairwell, then back at Aizawa.
“…You’re not going to lock me up?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to sedate me? Tie me down?”
“No.”
Killua’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Why not?”
Aizawa’s reply came without hesitation.
“Because you don’t need punishment. You need a safe place to land.”
Killua stood there frozen. His expression blank. But something in his eyes wavered.
Then, without another word, he turned—and walked back up the stairs.
Aizawa followed a few steps behind, silent.
They returned to the hospital room in silence. No one had noticed the nurse on the floor—Killua had made sure she was safe. Just unconscious.
The moment the door closed behind them, Killua sat on the edge of the bed and curled his knees to his chest again, staring at the floor.
“I don’t know how to be here,” he said quietly.
Aizawa sat beside him, a few feet away.
“You don’t have to figure it out alone.”
Killua didn’t respond.
But when the nurse woke up and came to check the room ten minutes later—confused, muttering apologies—Killua stayed on the bed.
He didn’t fight.
.˳˳✧.⋅ॱ ᩙ
Killua had never liked cars.
Too fast, too enclosed. Glass everywhere. Nowhere to escape. He could run faster than most of them anyway.
But as he sat in the back seat of the strange, over complicated car, he realized something else:
He really didn’t like being in a car in a world that made no sense.
He watched the unfamiliar city roll by through the window. Towering buildings, neon lights. Floating signs in blocky, stylized Japanese he couldn’t read. People walking down the street with wings, tails, scales.
“Are those… normal here?” Killua asked.
Aizawa didn’t look away from the window. “More or less.”
The silence that followed felt heavy. Killua pressed his forehead against the glass, lips tight, hands tucked into the sleeves of the oversized coat he still hadn’t taken off. He hadn’t said much since the failed escape.
But he hadn’t tried to run again either.
When the car pulled to a stop in front of a quiet building on the edge of the city, Killua looked up. The house was nothing like the Zoldyck estate. Not looming. Not armored. Just… quiet. Safe-looking.
“Where are we?”
“My home,” Aizawa said, stepping out of the car.
Killua didn’t move.
“You’re not being forced to stay here,” Aizawa added. “But the hospital’s not a good place for you. And I’d rather keep an eye on you than send you into protective custody. This place has security. And it's got space.”
Killua hesitated. Then slipped out of the car, landing light on his bare feet.
The front door opened before they reached it.
A tall, blond man with a ridiculous hairstyle poked his head out, bright orange glasses glinting even though the sun was nearly gone. He grinned.
“Shoooooouta~!” the man sang, practically bouncing. “You’re home early—wait, is that the mysterious ninja kid?!”
Killua blinked.
Aizawa exhaled like he’d already regretted his decision. “Killua, meet my husband—Yamada Hizashi. Hero name: Present Mic.”
“Yamada works fine too!” Hizashi beamed. “You must be the kid that punched out a nurse and disappeared through a wall vent!”
“I didn’t punch her, and none of that is even true” Killua muttered.
“Even better! Stealth! I like it.”
Killua’s eyes narrowed. He was still deciding whether this man was annoying or just insane.
Then Hizashi stepped aside, waving them in.
“Come on! Everyone’s inside. Eri just finished her bath and Shinsou’s pretending he doesn’t like TV dramas.”
The house was warm. Lived in. Smelled faintly like tea, fabric softener, and grilled vegetables. Killua didn’t know what to do with the warmth.
He stood stiffly just inside the entryway while Aizawa pulled off his boots. Hizashi waved Killua toward the genkan, but when Killua didn’t move, Aizawa wordlessly crouched and handed him a pair of slippers—cat-themed.
Killua stared at them.
“I’m not wearing those,” he muttered.
Aizawa shrugged. “They’re all we had in your size.”
He wore them anyway.
The first person Killua met inside the house was Shinsou.
He sat on the couch, one arm thrown over the back, violet eyes following a TV show with obvious boredom. His messy purple hair stuck out in every direction. He looked up as Killua entered, one eyebrow arching.
“You’re the kid my dad brought home from the hospital?”
Killua tilted his head. “You look like Aizawa.”
Shinsou smirked faintly. “I’m adopted.”
That earned a pause. Shinsou stood, offering a hand.
“Shinsou Hitoshi.”
Killua looked at it for a moment, then shook. “Killua.”
“Nice scar,” Shinsou said casually, nodding at Killua’s cheek.
“Nice dead eyes,” Killua returned.
Shinsou grinned. “We’re gonna get along great.”
Eri was more complicated.
She came toddling down the hallway in socks and pajamas, her long white hair still damp from her bath. She froze when she saw Killua.
Killua froze too.
Their eyes locked—red meeting blue. Wariness. Caution. Not fear.
“…Hi,” Eri whispered.
Killua blinked. “Hi.”
She stepped closer. “Are you sick?”
“…No.”
“You look sick.”
Killua wasn’t sure how to answer that.
Aizawa appeared behind her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. “This is Killua. He’s going to stay with us for a little while.”
Eri nodded. “Okay.”
Then she reached into her sleeve and handed Killua something.
A sticker.
It was shaped like a cat.
“…Why?” Killua asked.
Eri just said, “You looked like you needed it.”
Then she walked off toward the kitchen.
Dinner was quiet.
Killua sat stiffly at the edge of the table, unsure what to do with chopsticks, confused by the food, and only half-trusting the grilled salmon on his plate. Hizashi talked the entire time, filling every pause with jokes, loud stories, and deliberately bad puns.
Shinsou replied with sarcastic one-liners.
Eri doodled in a coloring book while nibbling on rice.
And Aizawa watched Killua.
Not with judgment.
Just… observation.
Killua barely touched the food, but didn’t complain. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of this. He wasn’t used to families eating together. He wasn’t used to warmth.
He wasn’t used to people smiling and meaning it.
After dinner, Aizawa offered him the guest room. Killua accepted but didn’t sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, jacket still on, arms wrapped around his legs.
The cat sticker was still stuck to his sleeve.
He stared at the wall, listening to the faint sounds of the house around him. The water running. Eri laughing faintly. Shinsou tapping something in the next room. Hizashi humming through his teeth.
He didn’t understand this world.
He didn’t trust it.
But for the first time in a long, long time… the silence didn’t feel like it was going to crush him.