The steam from the shower had done nothing to wash away the echoes of Natsuo's voice.
(Y/N) stood in the center of the master bedroom, wrapped in a silk robe, her damp hair clinging to her shoulders. Across the hall, she could hear the faint sound of the guest shower running.
She looked at her reflection in the vanity mirror. She looked like the woman Shoto had just kissed-a woman who was loved. But her hands were shaking.
The doubt wasn't a flame she could blow out; it was a poison. If she stayed in this bed and let Shoto hold her tonight without knowing the truth, she would be a ghost in her own life.
*I need to know. Not because I don't trust him... but because I need to know what he's fighting for.*
Steeling her nerves, she slipped out of the bedroom. The hallway was dark, illuminated only by the pale moonlight filtering through the high windows. Every floorboard creak felt like a scream.
She reached the door of the study-the room that had always felt like Shoto's private sanctuary, a place where the "Hero" lived, separate from the "Husband."
The door wasn't locked. Whether it was the exhaustion of the Level 4 emergency or the distraction of their kiss, Shoto had left it ajar.
(Y/N) stepped inside. The room smelled of old paper and the faint, crisp scent of ozone that always followed Shoto. She walked toward the heavy mahogany desk. Her heart was hammering against her ribs so hard it was painful.
She began to search.
She felt like a criminal. She opened the top drawers-nothing but pens, agency letterheads, and maps of the city. She moved to the middle drawers-tax documents, insurance for the villa.
Finally, she reached the bottom drawer. It was locked.
Her breath hitched. She looked around the desk and spotted Shoto's hero belt discarded on the leather chair. Tucked into one of the small utility pouches was a silver key.
With trembling fingers, she took the key and inserted it into the drawer. It turned with a heavy, final *click*.
She pulled the drawer open. There, hidden beneath a stack of mundane patrol reports, was the black leather portfolio her father had brought a week ago.
(Y/N) pulled it out and set it on the desk. She opened the cover. Her eyes skipped past the financial figures, the "Rehabilitation Funding" for Endeavor's atonement projects, and the property deeds. She searched for the words Natsuo had used.
And then she saw it.
**"Addendum B: Succession and Stability Clause."**
Her eyes raced across the legal jargon, her breath hitching as the reality set in.
> *...The union shall be deemed a successful merger upon the production of a biological heir within a five-year window (60 months) from the date of signing...*
> *...Failure to produce an heir with a stabilized dual-Quirk manifestation shall trigger the dissolution of the marriage...*
> *...In the event of dissolution, the Hakamada Estate shall revoke all funding for the Todoroki Atonement Foundation and reclaim the villa...*
The paper felt like ice in her hands. It wasn't just a marriage. It was a countdown. Shoto hadn't just been "cowardly" on their wedding night; he had been staring at a deadline.
He had been looking at her not just as a woman, but as a biological requirement to save his father's legacy.
A hot, stinging tear fell onto the page, blurring the ink of her own father's signature.
The silence in the study was broken only by the sound of (Y/N)'s ragged breathing. The black leather portfolio felt like it was burning her fingertips, the words on the page blurring together into a singular, horrifying truth.
She didn't hear the door click. She didn't hear Shoto's footsteps. She only felt the sudden shift in the air, the smell of woodsmoke and rain that meant he was standing behind her.
"I can explain that," Shoto said, his voice low and devoid of its usual steady calm.
(Y/N) didn't turn around. She couldn't. She stared at the bolded text of the Succession Clause, her vision swimming. "The deadline... five years. That's not the part that makes me sick, Shoto."
She finally turned to face him, the paper crumpled in her fist. Her eyes weren't just wet with tears; they were burning with a white-hot, jagged anger she had spent her entire life suppressing.
"I thought I was a wife," she whispered, her voice cracking before it rose into a sharp, hysterical edge. "I thought I was a partner. But look at this! Look at the way they write about me! *'Production of a biological heir.'* *'Stabilized dual-Quirk manifestation.'*"
" (Y/N), listen to me-"
"No! Don't you dare!" she snapped, stepping back as if his touch would poison her. "I'm not a person to them! I'm a high-end incubator! I'm a genetic lottery ticket they bought and paid for so your father could play at being a 'good man' again! My father didn't give me away to a hero-he sold a piece of equipment to a rebranding firm!"
She laughed, a hollow, jagged sound that made Shoto flinch. She began pacing the small room, her movements frantic, her hands gesturing wildly at herself.
"And you! You spent three months looking at me, and what did you see? Did you see a woman you loved, or did you see a biological obligation? Was every 'sweet' moment just you trying to figure out how to fulfill the 'terms' of your father's atonement? Am I just a factory to produce heirs, Shoto? Is that all I am?"
"That's not true," Shoto rasped, his own eyes filling with a desperate pain.
"Why wouldn't it be?" she spat, the self-loathing pouring out like venom. "It makes sense now. Why would anyone actually want *me*? I'm just a Hakamada asset. I'm a piece of meat with a nice dress and a bank account. I'm nothing but a placeholder for a child that doesn't even exist yet! I'm a failure if I don't produce a 'stabilized hybrid,' right? That's my only worth!"
"I understand now. Why our wedding night was such a nightmare. I spent my whole life saving myself for the man I would marry, thinking it would be special... and what did I get?"
She laughed, a jagged, broken sound. "I got a man who drank himself into a stupor. You were so drunk you could barely stand, Shoto. You smelled like a distillery because you couldn't bear the thought of being near me sober. You had to numb yourself just to fulfill the 'terms' of the deal."
She shoved the paper toward his chest. "And you've never even kissed me on the mouth. Not once in three months. You'll kiss my forehead or my hand like I'm some distant relative, but you won't touch my lips. Because that's too personal, isn't it? You can use my body for the 'succession clause' while you're drunk, but you can't bring yourself to kiss a woman you were forced to keep."
Shoto winced as if she had struck him, his face ghostly pale. " (Y/N), the alcohol... it wasn't because I couldn't stand you."
"Then why?" she screamed. "Why drink yourself into a coma on the night you were supposed to...? Because you hated me... Don't you dare try to deny that, Shoto! I'm just a womb with a name tag! If I didn't have this Quirk, you wouldn't even be in this room!"
"(Y/N), look at me!" Shoto lunged forward, grabbing her hands. "I drank because I was a coward! I looked at you-so innocent, so beautiful-and I knew you were only there because of my father's sins. I did not hate you, I hated the situation, I hated myself so much for being part of your cage that I couldn't face you. I didn't kiss you on the mouth because I felt I hadn't earned it. I felt like a monster taking advantage of a girl who deserved a real husband!"
The words she said were cruel, meant to hurt him as much as she was hurting, but they were mostly hurting her.
She was tearing herself apart, devaluing every inch of her soul because that was how the paper made her feel-disposable.
Shoto stood there, taking every hit, his heart shattering at the way she was talking about herself. He saw her as the sun, and she was currently convinced she was nothing but a cold, industrial lightbulb.
"Please believe me!" Shoto's voice cracked through the room, raw and agonizingly loud.
But (Y/N) couldn't stop. The dam had burst, and years of being the "perfect daughter" and the "perfect asset" were drowning her. She clutched at her own stomach, her nails digging into the silk of her robe, her eyes wide and unfocused.
"Is that all I am to you?" she choked out, a sob racking her frame. "A body? A vessel? Am I not a human? Why does everyone act like I don't have a heart that can break? My feelings... they mean nothing to my father. They meant nothing to your father. And apparently, they meant nothing to you."
She looked at her hands, shaking violently. "Everyone hates me. Your brother looks at me like I'm a virus. Your sister looks at me with pity, like I'm a stray dog you were forced to adopt. And you... you look at me like a debt you have to pay off."
She let out a sharp, hysterical breath, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than any scream. "Only my womb is worth something. Not my mind. Not my hero work. Not the way I feel about you. Just my biology. I'm just a human incubator with a name tag, aren't I? If I didn't have this Quirk, if I couldn't 'produce' for you, you wouldn't even know my name!"
"(Y/N), look at me!" Shoto lunged forward. He didn't grab her arms; he grabbed her hands, forcing them away from where she was clutching herself, holding them tightly between his own.
His left side was radiating an intense, desperate heat, while his right was trembling with a cold shiver.
"Let go of me!" she cried, trying to pull away. "Go find a better model! Go find a factory that doesn't cry!"
"I don't want a factory!" Shoto roared, his eyes flashing with a fierce, protective light. He didn't care about the contract anymore. He didn't care about the secrecy.
He pulled her forward until her forehead bumped against his chest, forcing her to feel the frantic, terrified thud of his heart.
"Listen to it," he commanded, his voice shaking. "Does that sound like a man fulfilling a debt? Does that sound like a businessman? I am terrified, (Y/N). I have been terrified since the day I met you because I knew the moment I saw you that I was going to love you. And I knew that if I loved you, this paper would become a weapon used against us both."
He tilted her chin up, his thumbs wiping away the tears that wouldn't stop falling. "You are the only person who looked at me and didn't see 'Endeavor's Son' or 'The Number One Hero's Successor.' You saw Shoto. You brought light into a house that was built on ash and silence. If you think for one second that I value a single word on that paper over the way you smile at me in the morning, then I have failed you more than our fathers ever did."
(Y/N) shook her head, her breath coming in short, jagged hitches. The heat from Shoto's hands, once a source of comfort, now felt like it was suffocating her.
Her mind was a storm of static, replaying Natsuo's pitying looks and the cold, ink-black lines of the succession clause. She felt raw, exposed, and utterly disgusted by the version of herself she saw in those papers.
"No," she choked out, pulling her hands back from his grip. "No, Shoto. Don't... don't touch me right now."
"I'm not letting you walk away thinking those things about yourself," Shoto said, his voice thick with a desperate urgency. He moved to step toward her again, his hand reaching out.
"Please!" she cried, the word tearing from her throat. She stepped back, her heels hitting the edge of the mahogany desk. "Just... stay there. Please."
Shoto froze. He had seen her in battle, and he had seen her exhausted, but he had never seen her look at him with such a fragile, broken kind of fear.
It wasn't that she was afraid of him-she was afraid of the version of them that existed in this room.
"I need to be alone," she whispered, her voice trembling as she wiped a stray tear with the back of her hand. "If I stay here... if I look at you right now, all I see is that paper. All I hear is my father's voice telling me to be 'useful.' I'm saying things I don't mean, and I'm saying things I do mean, and I just... I can't breathe."
She looked at the door, her exit, and then back at him. Her anger was beginning to cave into a hollow, aching exhaustion.
"I don't want to hurt you, Shoto. I know you're hurting too. But I can't fix us, and I can't fix me, while I'm standing in the middle of this lie. I need to think. I need to remember who I am when I'm not a 'Hakamada' or a 'Todoroki bride.'"
Shoto's jaw tightened, his gray and blue eyes shimmering with an unspoken plea for her to stay. He wanted to pull her back, to burn the study to the ground, to prove that he was hers and she was his.
But he saw the way her hands were still clawing at the fabric of her robe, the way she was trying to hold her soul together.
He took a slow, painful step back, creating the distance she asked for.
"The guest room," he said, his voice barely audible. "Or the balcony. Go wherever you need. I won't follow you. I'll be right here... or I'll be in the bedroom. Just... don't leave the house. Not like this."
(Y/N) didn't answer. She couldn't. She turned and fled the study, her bare feet silent on the hardwood floors. She didn't go to the guest room.
She bypassed their bedroom entirely and headed for the far end of the villa, locking herself in the small, sun-drenched library she had spent weeks decorating.
She sank to the floor behind the door, pulling her knees to her chest.
In the silence of the room, away from the contract and away from Shoto's intense, loving gaze, she finally let the real sobs come-not out of anger, but out of a mourning for the girl she was only yesterday, who thought her life was a fairy tale.