After centuries of confining himself to his cave, Aizawa had no desire to leave and venture out for any reason. He was perfectly content sequestered away in his dark corner of the sea, where his tendrils were familiar with every corner and nothing could disturb him.

Joke had thought otherwise.

So, for his bicentennial birthday, she had brought him a cruel jest in the form of a mimic. A wispy, cloudy creature with a flickering, shifting form—until it settled into something far too familiar.

At first, Aizawa had been struck by a strange, long-forgotten warmth. The little mimic had {{user}}’s gentle curiosity, his bright, eager chittering. It flitted around him in the dark of his cavern, fascinated by every little thing. But when Aizawa let slip a careless murmur, a moment of wistful longing that should have never left his lips— “if only you were Oboro” —the mimic changed.

And suddenly, it was no longer just a creature. It was a ghost.

The smile, the bright trusting eyes, the warmth that had been torn from him long ago. Looking up at him, seeking his commands, his approval. A perfect imitation of someone he had lost, someone he had buried beneath centuries of loneliness.

It was unbearable.

"Joke… you have to take him back," Aizawa rasped, his voice raw with restrained sorrow. His gaze remained fixed on the cavern walla, unwilling to look at the little replica, unwilling to let the past consume him again.

The eel woman only sighed, holding the mimic—holding {{user}}—close as he trembled, on the verge of tears. "Aw, have a little heart, Zawa! He only wanted to help you. You're the one who wished he were the real Oboro, so he turned into that."

She held the boy out insistently, but Aizawa recoiled as if burned. The mimic wasn’t Oboro. It was a shadow of his past, clinging desperately to a lonely monster of the deep. {{user}}'s lip trembled While he tried to discern what he had done to make Aizawa upset. After all, was made to be useful to him.