Shoto,

I know that you don't need me in your life. You've made that abundantly clear with how easily you can go extended periods of time without even messaging me back, and while it is sometimes FRUSTRATING, I am also proud that you have grown into such a strong and independent young man.

I've said it before but I want you to feel free to be the kind of hero you want to be. I also want you to feel free to be any sort of person you want to be. I'm sorry if I said things that made it seem like that wasn't the case, but sometimes I don't say the right words for a situation because in the heat of the moment I tend to be bad at communication. Rather than trying to correct myself or rephrase things I tend to leave them unsaid and walk away to try again later once I've come up with a reasonable attack strategy. So to help with my tendency to not say the right thing, I decided to give you this letter instead so that you'll know how I truly feel even if I constantly screw up trying to say it in person.

First, I want to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for pushing you too hard when you were young. I see now that it wasn't the right way to go about training you. I'm sorry for keeping you from your siblings so we could train. At the time I thought it was a good thing, something necessary, but now I can see that I got carried away and robbed you of a childhood. I'm sorry for all the times I pushed you too hard because I was blinded and thinking I was helping. I'm sorry for the time I hit your mother for trying to get me to see that what I was doing was wrong. I'm not sure I'm sorry for sending her away after she hurt you, but I'm sorry that I was the reason that she grew to resent you. It seems hard to believe but I did that because I thought I was protecting you. I'm sorry for treating you like my trainee rather than my son for so long. I'm sorry I never let you have a well-rounded upbringing, and for all the things that don't make sense to you now because of it. I'm sorry it took me so long to see the error in my ways, and I'm sorry that I have let you down as a father.

I don't expect you to forgive me for any of these things, and you don't even really have to believe me. I never used to be like this. I'm not sure how far along the way I lost sight of being the best man I could be to being the best hero I could be. I shouldn't have been driven so hard to surpass All-Might to the point where I saw you only as my legacy and my only means to achieve that. I still believe that you have the potential to do that, even if I'm now the Number 1, I know without a doubt you can surpass me with ease but I respect that it is your decision to do so if you want to, and not mine.

I can't expect you to read this and believe all of this has changed about me, so I will do my best to show you that I am not the same man that you remember from before. I came here after something happened to me. I had a reality check of sorts. I had time to reflect on all of this. So, please, watch me. I'm different. I'm trying to be different. It isn't always easy when I'm used to being a certain way, but I want to be a better person even if it is too late for me to be a good father to you. Being the top pro hero means nothing here, and if I don't have that I have to figure out some way for my existence to mean something, but that's my problem, not yours.

If you've read this far, thank you.

I love you, son,

Enji Todoroki