MHA: Echoes of the Breach

An: Got my first actual review for fanfiction, and thank you for it. On another note, sorry for the short chapter, as I've progressed with my writing I try to do 6k or so words minimum, but I genuinely could not think of any other way to write this without it sounding too repetitive. Other than that review and enjoy

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Shinji sat there, staring at nothing, the weight of everything pressing down on him like a phantom hand at the back of his skull. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since the doctor had left. Minutes? Hours? He couldn't bring himself to care. Time felt wrong here—off-kilter, slipping through his fingers like sand, refusing to hold its shape.

The steady beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room, its rhythm too loud in the silence, an intrusive reminder that he was here, that he was alive.

He didn't know what to do with that.

Every so often, a nurse would come in to check on him. They moved with quiet efficiency, adjusting his IV, monitoring his vitals, replacing the wires he had torn free in his panic. He didn't fight them. Didn't react at all, really. He just let them work, staring blankly past them as they murmured reassurances he barely registered.

It didn't matter.

None of it felt real.

The hospital room still flickered at the edges of his vision, like if he looked too long in the wrong place, the walls would warp and shift, revealing something else underneath. Something deeper.

Something waiting.

The Breach wasn't gone. It was still there, lingering like an afterimage burned into his mind. He could feel it, its presence lurking just outside of reach, pressing against the corners of his awareness like an animal circling its prey.

And the worst part?

A small, traitorous part of him still wasn't convinced he had ever left.

The IV in his arm itched. The restraints had been loosened now, but the faint ache around his wrists was a reminder of how violently he had fought them before. His body remembered the panic, the raw desperation to move, to run, to fight.

But now?

Now, he couldn't bring himself to do anything at all.

The exhaustion sat heavy in his bones, but it wasn't the kind that sleep could fix. It was something deeper, something fundamental, like he had been stretched too thin for too long, like there was nothing left in him to give.

His mind wouldn't settle.

Every time he closed his eyes, the Breach was there waiting for him—waiting in the dark spaces of his thoughts, coiling around the memories he couldn't untangle.

Had it really only been three days?

How could that be possible?

His fingers twitched against the sheets, the only movement he had made in what felt like forever.

The faces still hovered at the edges of his mind.

Familiar.

Unfamiliar.

He couldn't place them, but they meant something, didn't they?

Yu.

His sister.

He knew that name. Knew it in the same way he knew how to breathe.

But the others? The blurred-out figures standing just beyond reach?

His chest tightened.

What if he had forgotten something important? What if something had been taken from him?

The heart monitor beeped a little faster.

Shinji exhaled slowly, forcing his hands to relax. He needed to think. He needed to figure out what was real.

His memories… had settled.

That was the only way he could describe it. They weren't whole—not by any means—but they had stopped shifting, stopped slipping through his fingers like something alive, something trying to escape. The doctor had called it normal, said the gaps—particularly the recent one, the ones from just before he'd entered school—should return with time.

That didn't make him feel any better.

He remembered enough.

Enough to know that this wasn't the first time. That he had been here before—not in this hospital, not in this bed, but in this state.

The uncertainty. The paranoia. The gnawing, unshakable feeling that something was lurking just outside his vision, just beyond his reach, waiting for the moment he let his guard down.

Shinji had done this before.

Every shadow felt wrong. Every creak of movement outside his door made his stomach twist. Every distant murmur of voices sent his body tensing on instinct, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the attack.

Was that really a nurse?

Was that really the sound of footsteps?

Was he really awake, really here?

Or was this just another layer of the same dream?

He hated it.

He hated the way his body still reacted like he was back in the Breach, hated the way his brain screamed at him to move, to run, to fight.

Hated the way he couldn't stop looking at the corners of the room, half-expecting something massive to rise up from the darkness, something too large, too wrong, too real.

Why couldn't he just leave it behind?

His hands clenched against the sheets, the slow, steady beeping of the heart monitor betraying his frustration.

He was out.

He should be relieved. He should be grateful. He should be focused on recovering, on figuring out what had actually happened to him, on filling in the missing gaps.

But he couldn't.

Because no matter how many times he reminded himself that he was safe, that the hospital wasn't a battlefield, that there were no Kaiju waiting just outside—

Some part of him didn't believe it.

Some part of him still felt like the moment he closed his eyes, the Breach would pull him back under.

His breathing was shallow, too controlled, too measured—like his body was trying to stop itself from spiraling again. His muscles ached, stiff from too much tension, from too many days of unconsciousness, but he couldn't relax.

He didn't trust this place.

Didn't trust the silence. Didn't trust the way the fluorescent lights hummed overhead, too sharp, too sterile, too much like a simulation of reality instead of reality itself.

Because if this was real, then he had to accept something far worse than the idea that he was still trapped in the Breach.

He had to accept that everything he had been through—the endless days of fighting, of survival, of pushing forward even when there was nothing left to push for—had happened inside his own head.

Hadn't been real at all.

His stomach twisted violently.

No.

No, there was no way.

He remembered it too clearly. The weight of the Jaeger's cockpit, the feel of the damp ground beneath his fingers, the way exhaustion had sunk into his bones like a second skin. He had lived it.

How could that not be real?

How could all of that—days, weeks of suffering—be condensed into three missing days?

It wasn't possible.

It wasn't.

But if it wasn't real…

Then what had happened to him?

His fingers twitched, nails pressing half-moons into the fabric of the sheets.

What was worse?

Being trapped in the Breach forever, forced to fight, forced to survive?

Or waking up here, knowing that no one else would ever truly understand what he had gone through?

Shinji closed his eyes.

For just a moment, he let himself drift.

Let himself listen—not to the hospital, not to the steady beep of machines, but to the hum of something else, something just beneath his awareness, something he wasn't supposed to notice.

The space between.

The static that hadn't fully left him.

He had been through this before.

The confusion. The disorientation. The gnawing sense of wrongness that refused to fade, even when he knew, logically, that he wasn't in the Breach anymore.

And despite all that, despite the reality in front of him—the steady beep of the heart monitor, the stiff hospital sheets, the IV still trailing into his arm—he still couldn't fully not believe it.

It was a maddening contradiction.

His mind knew where he was. He had pieced together enough to understand that this was real, that he had woken up, that he wasn't standing knee-deep in the ruins of an empty world with nothing but Striker's silent presence to keep him company.

But it didn't help.

His body still felt like he was there. His instincts were still wired for survival, still primed for the next attack, the next movement in the dark. The world around him was too still, too silent. No distant Kaiju calls. No constant need to look over his shoulder. No exhaustion deep in his bones dragging him down.

Just a hospital room.

Just—

The door opened.

Shinji flinched.

The reaction was instant, muscle memory overriding logic, his body tensing, ready to fight—

And then he saw her.

His breath caught, the sharp edge of panic giving way to something equally overwhelming but softer, something he couldn't name.

Yu stood in the doorway, her expression carefully controlled, but he could see it—the way her fingers twitched at her sides, the way she bit the inside of her cheek, like she was physically holding herself back.

Like if she let go for even a second, she'd throw herself at him and never let go.

The sight of her nearly undid him.

The static in his head wavered, flickering for just a moment as the weight of everything hit all over again.

His sister.

His sister.

He should say something.

He should—

"Hey," Yu said, her voice tight, almost too casual. "Took you long enough."

It was such a normal thing to say, but he could hear it, thick beneath her words—the barely-restrained emotion, the raw relief she was trying to hide.

Shinji swallowed hard, his throat suddenly tighter than before.

He wasn't sure if he could speak.

Didn't know what to say.

Yu shifted, still lingering in the doorway, still holding herself back. He could see the effort it was taking—the way she wanted to move, to close the distance, but was waiting.

Waiting for him.

Because she knew.

She knew him. Knew how hard this must be, knew he was barely keeping himself together.

And instead of overwhelming him, instead of forcing him into something he wasn't ready for, she was waiting.

Giving him the choice.

That realization hit something deep inside his chest, a pressure he hadn't even realized was there.

Slowly, stiffly, he forced his fingers to move, curling just slightly before uncurling again. A movement barely even there, but enough.

Yu saw it.

Understood it.

And that was all it took.

She stepped forward. Not too fast, not too forceful. Just there, filling the space that had felt so empty just seconds before.

And for the first time since waking up, the Breach felt just a little bit further away.

Yu stopped at the edge of his bed, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, the motion restless, uncertain. She was still holding back, still giving him space, but Shinji could see the effort it took—like every muscle in her body was screaming at her to pull him into a hug and never let go.

His throat tightened.

He hadn't seen her in—

How long had it actually been?

Three days, according to the doctor. But to him, it had been so much longer.

It had been weeks of isolation. Of fighting. Of clawing his way through the dark, struggling to survive with no one at his back.

And now she was here. Real. Not a half-formed memory. Not a voice lost in the static.

Shinji exhaled, his body sinking a fraction deeper into the bed, tension bleeding from his muscles just slightly. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because, for the first time since waking up, he wasn't alone with the mess in his head.

Yu noticed. Of course, she did. Her expression softened, some of the restraint in her posture easing, though her eyes were still sharp—still watching him carefully, like she was trying to figure out just how much of him had made it back.

"…I thought you weren't gonna wake up," she admitted, voice quieter now, like saying it too loud might make it real again.

Shinji swallowed hard. He wanted to tell her he was fine. Wanted to say something normal, something reassuring.

But he wasn't fine.

And lying to Yu—who had spent her entire life knowing when he was full of shit—wasn't worth the energy.

So, instead, all that came out was:

"…I'm here."

Yu exhaled sharply, like something inside her had just snapped, and then, finally—finally—she moved.

The hesitation was gone.

She closed the last bit of space between them, reaching out, gripping his arm—not rough, not forceful, but firm. Anchoring.

"Yeah," she muttered, her fingers tightening just a fraction. "You are."

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Yu's grip was steady, grounding, and Shinji let himself focus on that. On the weight of her hand, the warmth of it, the proof that he wasn't alone anymore.

That he had made it out.

That this—whatever this was—was real.

Even if it still didn't feel like it.

Yu shifted, glancing at the monitors beside him, the wires still trailing down his arms, the faint bruising from where the IVs had been yanked free. Her expression darkened.

"…They said you took a beating," she muttered.

Shinji huffed a quiet breath, something that was almost a laugh. "Yeah."

That was an understatement.

Yu's fingers twitched against his skin. "They said you protected your class."

He blinked. "That's what they keep telling me."

Something about his tone made her frown, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You don't remember?"

Shinji hesitated.

Not because he didn't want to answer.

But because he didn't know how.

He did remember. But he remembered the Breach. He remembered fighting, but not here. Not against a villain, not with his classmates behind him.

The memories were at war with each other.

Both felt real.

Both couldn't be.

"…I don't know," he admitted.

Yu's hand tightened around his arm.

She didn't push, didn't press him for details, but she knew something wasn't right. He could see it in her eyes.

Another silence stretched between them.

Then, softer—barely more than a whisper:

"I thought I lost you."

"again"

Something inside him cracked.

Slowly, carefully, like he wasn't sure if his body would even listen, Shinji turned his hand over beneath hers.

And squeezed back.

"How do you feel"

Shinji barely registered the question at first. His mind was still caught in the lingering haze of exhaustion, the weight of everything pressing down on him like a slow, suffocating tide.

Yu was still standing there, watching him carefully, waiting for an answer.

"How do you feel?" she asked again, softer this time.

Shinji blinked, the words settling in his head, but they didn't click. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, jaw tightening.

How did he feel?

What kind of question was that?

He felt wrong.

He felt off, like a piece of him had been left behind in the Breach, like his body had returned but his mind was still catching up.

He felt empty.

Like he should be hungry, aching, barely holding himself together—but he wasn't. His body remembered exhaustion, remembered starvation, remembered pushing past his limits until there was nothing left to give.

But now?

Now, he just felt… nothing.

Like something vital had been stripped away, and he hadn't even noticed when it happened.

"…I don't know," he finally admitted, voice hoarse.

Yu's brows furrowed slightly. "Physically, I mean."

Shinji flexed his fingers, testing his grip. His body moved fine, sore but functional. His injuries should have made everything worse—the doctor had said as much—but he barely felt them. Like his body had already adjusted, already worked around the damage before he even woke up.

"…Fine," he muttered.

Yu's frown deepened. "Shinji, you—"

"I know how it sounds," he cut her off, his voice clipped, sharp. "The doctor already gave me a basic rundown." His fingers curled against the sheets, his grip tightening. "I feel fine."

The words came out too quick, too defensive.

Yu narrowed her eyes. "That's not—"

"I don't need a lecture." His voice was flat, final. "I know what happened. I know how bad it should be. But I'm telling you—I feel fine."

Yu didn't react right away, just watching him with that careful, unreadable expression. Like she was weighing his words, testing them.

Testing him.

"Fine?" she repeated, skeptical. "You barely woke up and you're telling me you're fine?"

Shinji clenched his jaw. "That's what I said."

Yu exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair. "Shinji—"

"What do you want me to say?" His voice was rising now, frustration bubbling just beneath the surface. "That I feel terrible. That I'm struggling to believe any of this is real? That I don't even know if I came back all the way?"

Yu's expression didn't waver, but her hands clenched at her sides.

"That would be a start," she said, voice low.

Shinji sucked in a breath, but the words he wanted to snap back with caught in his throat.

Because she was right.

They both knew it.

Yu sighed, shaking her head. "Look, I'm not asking you to have some big emotional breakdown, alright? I know you. I know you're not just gonna spill your guts about this." She hesitated, expression softening just slightly. "But don't bullshit me, Shinji. Not me."

The fight in him faltered. Just a little.

His shoulders slumped, tension bleeding from his muscles as the frustration dulled, leaving something heavier in its place.

"…I don't know what you want me to say," he admitted, voice quieter this time.

"I don't have it," Shinji muttered, his voice hollow.

He exhaled sharply, his fingers gripping the sheets like they were the only thing keeping him tethered. "I've been out of the Breach for nearly half a year now, and I still feel like I'm there," he admitted, his jaw tightening. His voice was steady, but there was something raw beneath it, something frayed. "It's where I was when I was in that coma. I remember that clearer than anything. The cold, the quiet, the weight of everything pressing down on me. But when I try to remember this—" he gestured vaguely around the hospital room, frustration bleeding into his tone, "—it's nothing."

Yu didn't interrupt. She didn't push. She just listened.

Shinji swallowed, shaking his head. "I vaguely remember voices. Faces I should know. People they say I go to school with. But I don't even remember school in the first place. It's all just... blank." He exhaled sharply, his hands clenching into fists. "And all I keep hearing are the nurses whispering about how I'm alive, let alone awake. How my body should have shut down, how I shouldn't even be talking right now." His breath hitched slightly before he forced it back under control. "So yeah. I don't know the truth. I don't know anything right now."

The words hung between them, heavy and unshakable.

Yu's expression didn't change at first, but something in her eyes did. A flicker of something—understanding, frustration, maybe even guilt. Like she wanted to fix this, to give him the answers he didn't have, but knew she couldn't.

She inhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over her face before meeting his gaze again.

"…Then we figure it out," she said simply.

Shinji blinked. "What?"

Yu shrugged, but the movement was stiff. Controlled. "You don't have the truth? Fine. Then we find it. We take this one step at a time, and we figure out what's real."

Shinji stared at her. The certainty in her voice, the sheer stubbornness—it was so Yu.

And for the first time since waking up, something in his chest loosened.

He wasn't alone in this.

Not completely.

"…Alright," he muttered.

Yu nodded. "Alright."

And just like that, for the first time in months, Shinji felt like maybe—just maybe—he wasn't completely lost.

—

Yu stayed with him until he fell asleep. It didn't take long—despite everything, exhaustion still had its grip on him, dragging him under faster than he expected. But it helped. Even if he didn't say it out loud, even if he wasn't entirely sure why, having her there made it easier to let go.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he didn't dream.

No shifting shadows, no echoes of the Breach, no phantom hands dragging him back down.

Just nothing.

When he woke, the sun had reached its peak, streaming through the window in golden slants. For a brief, disorienting moment, he wasn't sure where he was. The hospital felt too normal, too far removed from everything he had been through.

Then, slowly, reality settled back in. The steady beep of the heart monitor. The stiffness in his limbs. The IV still taped against his arm.

And Yu, stretched out in a chair beside his bed, scrolling through her phone with the kind of deep-set boredom that only came from waiting too long in a hospital room.

She noticed him shift before he even made a sound, her sharp eyes flicking up to his.

"Morning," she muttered. "Or, I guess, afternoon."

Shinji sighed, running a tired hand down his face. "How long was I out?"

"Not long enough." She gave him a once-over. "How do you feel?"

He hesitated.

Better? Worse? He wasn't sure. His body didn't ache the way it should have after everything the doctor had told him. His mind, on the other hand, still felt frayed. Like the edges of his thoughts didn't quite fit together.

But Yu was waiting for an answer.

"…Fine."

She gave him a flat look.

He ignored it.

A nurse came in not long after, starting the routine he was already getting tired of. Checking his vitals, adjusting his IV, running a few standard neurological tests. Yu sat back, watching with a vaguely impatient expression, like she was ready to fight someone if they gave her the chance.

Shinji mostly just let it happen. He didn't fight them, but he wasn't particularly cooperative either. He wanted to get up, to move, but that wasn't an option yet.

Not until someone cleared him.

Which, judging by the way the nurse kept glancing at the monitors, wasn't happening anytime soon.

The nurse finished her checkup, muttering a few last notes under her breath before stepping back. "If you need anything, use the call button." She gave Yu a slightly wary glance, as if she wasn't entirely sure whether she counted as 'medical supervision' or 'potential troublemaker,' then nodded politely and left the room.

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving the two of them in silence.

Shinji let his head fall back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling.

"…This is weird, right?" he muttered.

Yu didn't immediately respond.

Then, finally—"Yeah."

Shinji exhaled slowly.

He wanted to believe it was just good luck. That his body was just stubborn. That whatever had happened in the Breach, whatever lingered from that place, hadn't followed him back.

But he wasn't sure he believed that.

And from the look in Yu's eyes, neither was she.

Yu didn't hesitate. As soon as Shinji started down that train of thought, she shut it down.

"Don't dwell on it," she said firmly.

Shinji frowned. "Yu, that's not—"

"I mean it," she interrupted, crossing her arms. "Thinking about it too much isn't going to help you."

He narrowed his eyes. "So you know why my results are off."

Yu's jaw tensed. "…It's complicated."

That wasn't an answer. Not really.

Shinji clenched his fists against the sheets. "Then explain it."

Yu exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples. "It's not that simple, Shinji."

"It is that simple," he shot back. "My body is healing faster than it should, I feel like something's wrong, and the doctors don't have an answer." His voice dropped lower, teeth gritting. "But you do."

Yu's lips pressed into a thin line.

Shinji waited.

Finally, she sighed. "…Shinji. You survived something that no one else has. You were in the Breach alone for—what, a week? And that was after nearly getting killed before you even got there."

He flinched.

She continued, voice gentler now. "You're not the same as before. You can't be."

That sent an uneasy shiver through him. "So what, I'm just different now? And we don't question it?"

Yu held his gaze. "We move forward."

Shinji's hands tightened. "That's not an answer."

Yu leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. "Look. I know you're frustrated. I know this doesn't feel right—"

"That's an understatement."

"—but focusing on it isn't going to fix anything." She exhaled, running a hand through her hair. "You're here. You're alive. And yeah, maybe your blood work is weird, maybe things aren't adding up, but the only thing that matters is you keep going."

Shinji stared at her.

She was holding something back.

He knew she was.

But she wasn't going to budge.

And right now, after everything, after waking up feeling like a stranger in his own body, after realizing there were people he was supposed to know who felt like strangers to him—

He didn't have the energy to fight her on it.

"…Fine," he muttered.

Yu nodded, satisfied.

Before Shinji could say anything else, there was a knock at the door.

Both siblings turned as it cracked open.

"Takeyama?"

The voice was familiar, but distant. Like an echo of something he was supposed to remember.

Then, as the door swung open, they stepped inside.

Pink skin. Black ponytail. Green hair. Brown bob cut. Spiked red hair.

Five faces. Five people who were looking at him like he mattered to them.

And yet, all he could feel was the weight of the unknown pressing down on him all over again.