Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shoto glanced up from his breakfast as his twin entered the room with a handful of textbooks. Kiyo Todoroki was that annoying level of perfection that made other people wonder if she were human or robot. Sometimes even Shoto, who’d been born only three minutes ahead of her and had spent nearly every waking moment with her in childhood, wondered if his twin were a robot. She’d always been perfect, at everything. Her grade point average was perfect, she’d never gotten anything wrong, ever. She excelled at athletics and her control over her quirk was amazing. Even when their father had put them through hellish training, Kiyo had always excelled. 

Shoto watched as she spread the textbooks out on the table in front of her and began reading. It was the first day of school and it appeared she was already halfway through her textbooks.  They hadn’t even had a class yet for homework to have been assigned, she was just that prepared. Shoto ate in silence. Occasionally glancing up at Kiyo to see if she’d acknowledge him. She didn’t, she hadn’t for some time now. He didn’t remember when it had happened, but one day everything had changed. If he thought about it hard enough, it was probably around the time he stopped training with his father and had started to rebel. 

“Did you have your uniform pressed?” Shoto asked, shocked, as he realized her uniform appeared to be in pristine condition as if it had been freshly pressed. Her hair was in a tight polished ponytail, it looked so tight he had no idea how it wasn’t giving her a headache.

Without looking up from her reading, Kiyo shoved a book at him, the UA code of conduct book. He assumed that meant there was some rule within it, that she no doubt already memorized about the condition uniforms should be worn in.  Shoto shoved the book back at her without opening it. It was worth a try. They’d both been recommended to UA, as was to be expected given their father was the number two hero. Shoto had done well enough to get accepted, Kiyo , as she often did, completely decimated both the written and practical tests and got the highest score, setting some kind of record, as she did.

Their father stepped into the dining room and surveyed the breakfast table curiously. Kiyo looked up from her book and looked at their father attentively. Shoto shoved away from the table to exit the room. He had no idea how Kiyo could stand to be in the same room as him. Though again, he wasn’t so sure his twin wasn’t actually a robot. Could she even bleed? He thought back on an awkward memory from a few years ago, their first year of middle school.

“Kiyo, I was picking up trash earlier and saw something in your bathroom...did you start your period?” Fuyumi asked as the siblings were eating dinner together.

“Ah! Not something I need to hear about!” Natsuo choked on his food and threw a look of disgust at Fuyumi.

“It’s an important part of a young girl’s life, Natsuo.” Fuyumi scolded him before looking at Kiyo as she quietly ate her dinner, “Kiyo?”

“Yes.” She replied in a bored tone.

“Why didn’t you say anything? I could have talked to you about i-.”

“It's menstruation, not rocket science, I didn’t think it warranted such.” Kiyo shrugged.

“I figured with Mom not here you might come to me about it.” Fuyumi piped up quietly.

Kiyo finally looked up from her food and turned to their older sister, “I’m finished.” She pushed away from the table, “I’ve got training.”

“Given the circumstances, maybe you should take a break tonight.” Fuyumi suggested, but Kiyo walked away without a word.

Shoto frowned, maybe she really was a robot. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her cry before, either. His musings finally started to worry him and he stopped pondering whether or not his twin was a robot as all evidence was starting to point toward robot. He went to wait by the car until it was time for them to leave. Kiyo soon joined him, still buried in a text book and got into the car without a word.

The ride to UA was quiet.

As the car came to a stop. Shoto let out a sigh as Kiyo hopped out of the car without a word. He assumed this would be where they went their separate ways since she was in Class 1B and he in Class 1A. He watched his twin walk away.

“Probably a robot.” He murmured to himself as he watched her ascend the stairs. She walked with such poise, grace and confidence.

He took his time heading to class since they’d arrived ridiculously early as Kiyo insisted on being half an hour early everywhere they went. When he got to class, two of his new classmates immediately bombarded him with questions about his twin. The first was a very short boy with lumpy hair, the second a boy of average height with blonde hair with a single black streak that somewhat resembled a lightningbolt in the front. 

Shoto half listened to their hasty introductions and quickly grew annoyed as they asked about his sister.  For the briefest of moments he considered answering their questions just to watch as they tried to approach his twin and got horribly rejected, but he decided against it. That would just annoy Kiyo , and though they weren’t really close, she was still his little sister.  Instead, he ignored them and went to his seat. 

While the rest of the UA first years went to orientation, Shoto’s class underwent a quirk assessment test, under threat of the lowest ranking student getting expelled. It was an interesting morning. At lunchtime, he went to the cafeteria with the rest of his classmates and spotted Kiyo, sitting at a table alone. 

Her lunch was untouched in front of her and she was busy writing what appeared to be some kind of essay. Though it was only the first day of school, from the amount of work in front of her, it looked as if she was in the middle of completing a month’s worth of assignments. Shoto got his lunch and went to sit with her.

She didn’t look away from her work as he sat down. He was used to her not acknowledging his presence. Shoto looked up as he noticed the two boys from earlier approaching their table.  He let out a sigh. Kiyo paused in her work and her heterochromatic eyes flicked upward in his direction. He was looking behind her. She turned as two boys from Class 1A approached.

“Hey, Kiyo, mind if we sit with yo-?” The short one began.

“Yes, I do mind.” Kiyo replied coolly. “And as we’re not friends, please do not address me so casually.”

“We could become friend-.”

“I didn’t come here to make friends.” Kiyo responded crisply as she picked up her things, pushed away from the table and walked away leaving her lunch completely untouched.

“Still hot.” The blonde sighed dreamily as he watched her walk away. 

Shoto shot them a scowl and they quickly walked away.  He didn’t see his twin again until they were getting in the car to take them home. Once again she was buried in a textbook, occasionally she’d jot down some notes in her notebook. It was freakishly organized. Her handwriting was neat and her notes appeared to be color coordinated.

When they got home Kiyo disappeared to finish with whatever schoolwork it was she’d been working on all day. They had a quiet dinner with Fuyumi and Natsuo. After dinner, Kiyo went to train, as she did every night for as long as anyone could remember. 

“Do you guys ever think our little sister might be a robot?” Natsuo pondered after Kiyo had left for training. 

Shoto smirked and nodded his agreement.

Fuyumi shot them both a scolding look, “don’t be rude.”

The three of them dispersed back to their rooms before their father returned home. Shoto glanced out his open window to the courtyard below. Kiyo was practicing combat techniques. He watched his twin, in awe of her combat prowess. For as long as he could remember she’d always been amazing, though watching her now, he realized it was because of how much time and effort she put into her studies and her training. Thinking back, she’d never made friends, she’d never set aside time for anything other than training or studying. 

While Shoto hadn’t made many friends throughout his academic career he’d at least been able to carry a conversation on with his peers from time to time, Kiyo never showed interest, or always had her nose stuck in a book. Shoto noticed Kiyo begin to focus harder and push herself more in her training. A sleek black car pulled up to the house and Shoto scowled as he spotted his father exit the car. His scowl grew as he saw his father take one look at Kiyo, say nothing and continue into the house. If Shoto hadn’t been paying such close attention, he would have missed the heart wrenching look of discouragement on his twin’s face as she watched her father walk away from her without a word.

Chapter Text

“Dad!” Kiyo raced to her father’s office excitedly. She paused outside the door and knocked politely.

“What?!” Her father’s gruff voice sounded from within.

Kiyo pushed open the door, smiling brightly, “Dad! I got a hundred percent on my paper! We were asked to write about our favorite heroes. I wrote about you.” She beamed as she skipped into her father’s office and extended her essay to him. She held her breath as she waited, hoping beyond all hope that he’d be proud of her.

“And who did Shoto write about?” He asked as he set her paper aside on his desk in the pile where all the junk mail ended up.

Kiyo tried her best not to look discouraged. Her father always did this, anytime she wanted to show him one of her achievements, he always asked about Shoto. “I’m not sure.” She lied,  her brother had written about All Might and if she said that out loud her father would be furious.

“Very well. Anything else?” Her father asked with a sigh.

“I-I can activate both quirks at once now!” She blurted and watched him carefully.

“Has Shoto been able to do that?” He asked.

Kiyo maintained her composure, “no...he’s still not using his left side.”

Enji frowned. “I’m tired of this rebellion of his. He’s supposed to be my masterpiece.” 

Kiyo bowed her head, “what about me?” She asked softly.

“What about you?” Her father asked.

“I promise, I’ll train even harder. I won’t ever miss an answer on any test. I’ll do whatever it takes.” Kiyo looked up at her father hopefully, maybe, just maybe he’d acknowledge her.

“Shoto is my masterpiece, you’re supposed to be his sparring partner to whip him into shape.” Her father growled insinuating that she was somehow lacking.

Kiyo felt her composure start to slip. She bowed her head and took her leave.

Kiyo woke before the sun had risen and changed into her training attire before taking off for her daily ten mile run. Normally it only took her about an hour to complete, but she was feeling contemplative today, so it would probably take twice as long.

As she ran she thought back on every time she’d struggled to get her father’s approval, her heart hurt at every rejection, though she was always careful to never show it. It didn’t matter that she was faster, stronger and had more control over her quirk than Shoto. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever be good enough in her father’s eyes. What was it that was so special about Shoto? Why wasn’t she good enough? She’d always been more attentive during training and had grasped things so much more quickly. Shoto had always whined about training and tried to avoid it as much as possible. Kiyo was constantly putting in extra training hours, pushing herself to her limits. Why couldn’t she be enough?

Kiyo was surprised as the timer she’d set on her watch went off. She’d run eight miles out without turning back. “Damn.” She cursed under her breath, her ten mile run had turned into a sixteen mile run. She’d have to run as fast as she could to make it home in time to get ready for school.

She turned to run back the way she’d come, back down the country road leading back to the city but paused as she noticed a white van had pulled off the road behind her. Three men wearing masks jumped out of the car. Her heterochromatic orbs,her left a dark grey, her right a bright teal, narrowed as the men approached her. These morons were seriously trying to abduct her?

“Get on the ground.” One of them pointed a firearm at her as another, whose quirk apparently allowed him to turn his limbs into ropes, sent his ropelike fingers in her direction.

“I don’t have time for this.” Kiyo scowled, “you idiots are not going to make me late for school.”

“Huh?” The man with the gun in his hands looked at the suddenly frightening looking teen in awe. “H-hey kid, read the roo-.” His words fell away and the gun slipped from his fingers as the teen suddenly cast her hands out to the side. A massive plume of flame shot from her right hand and a wickedly sharp mountain of ice shot from her left.

“You assholes are not making me late for school! I suggest you rethink your life choices.” Kiyo snarled.

“Y-yeah, g-good idea.” The guy with the rope hands suddenly deactivated his quirk and the three men slowly backed away.

“H-have a good day.” The third guy squeaked as he raced for the van.

The man who’d dropped the gun turned to run.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Kiyo snapped, “it’s irresponsible to leave a firearm out in the open!”

The man let out a squeal of terror and dropped to the ground to pick up the gun.

Kiyo extended her right hand while shooting him a deathly glare. “Hand it over.”

“Y-yes! R-right away!” The man squealed and dropped the gun into her open hand.

She gripped it tightly in her hand and concentrated. The flames erupting from her palm suddenly turned bright blinding blue, and the firearm turned to ash. She blew the ash out of the palm of her hand into the face of the still cowering man.

“If you morons try a stunt like this again, I will find you, and I will incinerate you, do you understand?” She shot coolly causing all three men to piss themselves. They frantically nodded and all began stammering about how they were going to reform themselves.

She looked to her watch and threw one final glare at the soiled idiots before taking off at a full sprint back to the city. Running as fast as she could, she managed to make it home with just enough time to take a record breaking speed shower and change. Luckily she’d had her uniform pressed the night before.

Her twin, Shoto, was sitting on the front porch and looked surprised to see her race into the courtyard. Like her, he had heterochromatic eyes, though his left eye was a bright teal and his right dark grey, whereas her’s were the opposite. The biggest difference in appearance between them (besides the obvious girlish figure and waist length long hair on Kiyo), was Shoto had a bright angry red scar over his left eye and Kiyo did not.

“You’re back late.” Shoto remarked.

Kiyo ran past him, without a word so she could take a speedy shower and change. She heard her brother let out a sigh as she ran by. Once she finished her shower, in under two minutes, she hurriedly combed out her hair and pulled it into a fiercely tight bun atop her head. After her hair was under control, she changed quickly, double checked her appearance to make sure everything was in proper order before picking up her school bag and calmly exiting her room as if she hadn’t just been speeding around her room like an insane person to make it on time.

Shoto was still waiting on the porch and looked impressed as she returned in perfect order, ready to go. Kiyo got into the awaiting car without a word and buried herself in one of her textbooks. She’d nearly finished reading through all of them. She was sure to get all the required textbooks a week ahead of time so she had time to study up. Unlike her brother who didn’t have to try in the slightest to get decent grades. Kiyo had to study till late hours of the night to maintain her perfect grade point average.

She heard the crinkling of some kind of wrapping and looked up as Shoto got in the car after her and extended a protein bar to her. She turned her gaze away from the protein bar and looked to her brother curiously.

“You’ve been skipping a lot of meals.” He pointed.

Kiyo hesitated. She’d thought about smacking it out of his hand but realized she was hungry since her run had taken much longer than she’d anticipated she didn’t have time to make herself breakfast. Reluctantly she accepted it. 

“...thanks…” She murmured softly before unwrapping it and nibbling at it as she continued reading over her textbook.

Shoto smiled faintly in her direction, “you’re welcome.”

Once the car came to a stop, Kiyo abruptly exited and headed off on her own to her classroom.  Some of her classmates were already in the classroom, gathered in various groups. Everyone looked up as she entered the room but after her declaration the day before that she had no time nor interest in being friends, no one said a word to her.

Good, she thought bitterly to herself. At least they listened. She took her seat and immediately buried herself in her textbook. As the two girls behind her, Itsuka Kendo who had long bright orange hair and teal eyes, and Setsuna Tokage who had wavy dark moss green hair and dark dusky green eyes, laughed about something one of the boys had said, Kiyo felt somewhat lonely. It happened from time to time when she saw her peers interacting and having fun.

She often had to remind herself that friends were a hindrance and something she didn’t have time for. She’d tried once, in her earlier primary school years. A boy in her class who admired her father, tried to befriend her and asked her to get him an autograph from her father. Unable to bother her father with something so trivial for fear he’d be cross with her and disappointed in her for wasting his time, she told the boy she couldn’t do it. He told her she was a terrible friend and that no one would ever want to be friends with her. Though it had happened when she was quite young, she still believed his words. She would be a terrible friend, it was easier on her own. 

Chapter Text

After a particularly rough day of training, Shoto had started to cry. Kiyo wished he wouldn’t, whenever he cried, their mother got involved, and always ended up hurt. As usual, their mother tried to plead with their father that they were too young for such intense training. Just like every other time, their father got angry and told her it was no concern of hers. Kiyo looked to her twin as he cried and she felt irritation bubbling up inside of her.

If he wouldn’t cry and complain so much, their parents wouldn’t fight. The training wasn’t that hard and they’d get to be heroes one day, strong heroes, like their father.  More than anything else, what irked her most about her twin, was that no matter what, he was always the favorite. Their mother coddled him and doted on him far more than Kiyo. Their father always called him his masterpiece and was convinced he’d become the greatest. Kiyo was just here to make sure Shoto could achieve their father’s dream. She’d always be second best.

Kiyo looked to the shocked faces of her classmates as she returned to the group after she froze the entire building they were using for their hero training. It happened so fast and everyone in the building had become frozen to the ground allowing Kiyo’s partner to easily get to the missile the other team was supposed to be hiding. Their match had been over in seconds.

“That was amazing, Kiyo.” Kendo commended her with a smile.

Kiyo looked to the orange haired girl curiously. Why was she being nice to her? Usually after she told her new classmates of the year that she didn’t have time nor interest in being friends with anyone, they left her alone. Normally she’d have told the girl off for being so informal with her but as she looked at Kendo, smiling brightly at her with sincere admiration, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she said nothing, merely nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement and went to stand at the back of the room.

After their hero lesson, class 1B went to change out of their hero costumes and were dismissed for lunch. Kiyo stripped out of her costume which consisted of a skin tight black bodysuit that really accentuated her athletic figure. It was reminiscent of her father’s costume that had flames running throughout it, though only the right side of her costume had flames running throughout it, the left side had ice.

The other girls of class 1B giggled and chatted about hero class, how cool All Might was, and some of the most impressive moves they’d seen of the day. Kiyo tried to tune out of their conversation, but found herself listening so she could feel like she was part of it.

“I still can’t believe how awesome Kiyo was, she froze everyone, in like the blink of an eye, it was insane.” 

Kiyo didn’t catch who’d said it and now that the topic had turned to her she decided she didn’t want to hear what they had to say and would leave so they could discuss whatever they wanted to their heart’s content without worrying about hurting her feelings. She stepped out of the locker room back in her perfectly pressed uniform and headed toward her homeroom classroom to drop off her costume and pick up one of her textbooks.

After returning her costume and grabbing a textbook, she went to the cafeteria. As was becoming her routine, she got a tray of food, though probably wouldn’t touch it and found a table to herself to sit at. She set her tray off to the side and opened her text book and her notebook and quickly began scribbling down notes. No matter what, she had to make sure she understood all of the material they’d go over in class, she couldn't afford to miss a single question.

Though it hadn’t happened yet, she kept holding out hope that one day, her father would recognize all of her hard work. And in order for that to happen, she had to be the absolute best. Nothing less than absolute perfection would be tolerated. And then, maybe, one day, her father would realize she was the one meant to be his masterpiece all along, and she would be the one to see his dreams come true.

Kiyo paused in her writing as she heard not one, but seven, lunch trays drop onto her table. It wasn’t Shoto, unless he’d brought friends with him. Her heterochromatic orbs flicked upward and she was surprised to see all of the girls from her class joining her at her table.

“What are you doing?” She asked warily.

“Joining you for lunch.” Kendo smiled but her smile fell as she noticed the tray of untouched food in front of the serious girl with the heterochromatic eyes and half a head of long crimson hair and half a head of long white hair.

“I believe I already expressed to you all that I don’t have time, nor am I interested in having friends.” Kiyo frowned.

“And if that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is.” Kendo said with a warm smile. “So, we’re here.”

Kiyo stared at her for a long moment before looking to the other girls who all smiled and nodded their agreement. “Do as you wish.” She grumbled and returned her attention back to her notes. Despite her cool tone and harsh words, the others noticed she seemed to relax a little and realized Kendo had been right, their classmate needed help, desperately.

Her classmates engaged in conversation around her. Occasionally they’d address her to try and pull her into the conversation, but she ignored them. As they continued talking, they noticed the speed in which she had been taking notes had drastically begun to decline. 

“Who would win in a fight between Endeavor or Kamui Woods?” Kendo asked the table suddenly.

There was a pause as if a silent exchange had taken place before Tokage responded, “Kamui Woods-.”

“That’s completely asinine.” Kiyo blurted before she could stop herself, “his quirk is horribly ill suited against Endeavor-.” Kiyo shut her mouth as she realized her classmates had been testing her to see if she was listening to them.

All of the girls of Class 1B were trying to fight off laughter.

Kiyo shot them a scowl and returned to her notes, sending all of the girls into a fit of giggles as she began furiously scribbling in her notebook. Her cheeks reddened at their teasing which only made them laugh more. 

As she was surrounded by their warm laughter, she felt strangely happy, though she’d likely never admit it to anyone. Was this what it was like to have friends, perhaps it wasn’t so bad.  It wasn’t nearly as lonely. 

“How come you’re not eating lunch, Kiyo?” Pony Tsunotori, the petite blonde sitting to the left of Kiyo, asked timidly. She was a foreign exchange student from the states.

Kiyo sighed and closed her notebook. She wasn’t going to be able to accomplish anything with their chatting anyway. She pulled her tray toward her and took a bite of food.

Her classmates looked pleased with the progress they’d already made. 

“The Todoroki, in Class 1A, Shoto, you two are twins, right?” Tokage pondered.

Kiyo nodded.

“Do you guys have like a twin sense?” Tokage asked.

Kiyo shook her head and took another bite of her lunch. It had been awhile since she’d actually sat down and eaten lunch. She was so used to skipping lunch as she’d been doing it every school year for as long as she could remember. Lunch had always been a good time for her to get ahead in her classes and when she looked busy with schoolwork during lunch, no one bothered her, until now that is. 

“Really?” Tokage frowned, “that would have been cool.”

“We’re not that close.” Kiyo replied coolly, her tone implying the topic was now finished.

Chapter Text

The girls of Class 1B had given her a lot to think about. They’d all continued acting strangely throughout the day and stuck to her like glue. They forced her into conversation between classes and when the day had ended she found them, along with some of the boys, crowding around her desk wanting to talk to her. It was unsettling…but she didn’t necessarily dislike it. Though they were all, most certainly, annoying, she didn’t mind their presence or their pestering behaviour. 

The cast iron kettle in front of her began to squeal and spit steam. Oblivious to the steaming kettle, Kiyo continued analyzing her classmates' actions throughout their interactions during the day. Why were they all so determined to force their friendship on her? What exactly did Kendo mean her words had been a cry for help?

“Kiyo? I think the water is done.” Fuyumi called to her as she stepped into the kitchen to see why the kettle was screaming for so long.

Startled from her thoughts, Kiyo reached forward and gripped the cast iron handle with her bare right hand.

“KIYO!” Fuyumi panicked and picked up a towel as she raced to her youngest sibling's aid. She wrenched the kettle from her hand, nearly dropping it as it burned her through the towel, it was so scalding. She dropped it atop a hot plate and grabbed Kiyo’s pale wrist in her hand.

Kiyo stared at her older sister in awe. Why did she do that?

“Let me see, how bad is it?” Fuyumi panicked.

Kiyo unclenched her fist exposing her unscathed hand.

Fuyumi breathed a sigh of relief, “thank heavens you’re not hurt.”

Kiyo frowned. Why would it matter if she had been? She wasn’t their father’s masterpiece, it didn’t matter if any of them got hurt. Shoto was the only one who mattered...the only one who would ever matter.

Her heterochromatic orbs fell on the red mark forming on Fuyumi’s palm as she dropped the towel. “You burned yourself.” She noted absently.

Kiyo frowned once more. Fuyumi burned herself because she thought she was in danger and rushed to her aid. Feeling somewhat guilty for worrying her older sister, Kiyo left the kitchen. Fuyumi stared after her, not sure why she’d suddenly taken off. She finished making the tea for dinner and was surprised when Kiyo returned and set a small jar of burn cream and a bandage on the counter before taking the finished tea out to the dining room.

Fuyumi smiled as she picked up the burn cream. Her brothers often liked to joke that Kiyo was a robot, and while the youngest Todoroki could often appear unfeeling, Fuyumi knew it wasn’t true. If anything, Kiyo felt more than any of them did. She applied the burn cream to the burn on her palm and covered it with a bandage before joining her siblings in the dining room for dinner.

“Everything okay?” Natsuo asked their elder sister as she took her seat. He threw a wary look at Kiyo wondering why Fuyumi had yelled at her before.

“Everything’s fine.” Fuyumi smiled.

They all grew tense as they heard the front door open. Their father had returned home unexpectedly early. He stepped into the dining room noting the scowls his sons were shooting in his direction. 

“You’re home early, we weren’t expecting you.” Fuyumi said softly. Despite her words, there was an extra setting laid out for him. Kiyo always prepared a place setting for him, though most nights it went untouched, it didn’t deter her.

Kiyo quickly poured her father some tea as he took a seat at the table.

“I wanted to discuss the upcoming Sports Festival-.” Enji began.

Kiyo perked up a little, though no one other than Shoto had noticed it.

“-with Shoto.” 

Kiyo felt the cold knife of rejection slip between her ribs and into her heart. She busied herself with dishing food onto their father’s plate trying not to look hurt or rejected.

“I don’t have anything to discuss with you.” Shoto replied coolly, earning a dark look from his twin. 

Enji suddenly glanced around as an all too familiar scent reached his nostrils. It was the smell of burn cream, had Shoto gotten hurt? “Who got burned?” He asked his children, his gaze fixed on Shoto. If one of the other’s had hurt his masterpiece- he didn’t finish his thought as Fuyumi slowly raised her hand.

“I did.”

Enji relaxed, but asked nothing more.

“What? When?” Natsuo looked to Fuyumi’s bandaged hand.

“Earlier, Kiyo grabbed the kettle with her hand. I thought she had hurt herself and grabbed a towel to pick it up, but it burned me through the towel.” Fuyumi explained.

Shoto glanced up from his plate and shot his twin a look of concern, “are you hurt?”

Kiyo’s gut reaction was to tell him she wasn’t as weak as he was, but she immediately felt guilty as the thought crossed her mind when she looked at the scar on his face. Instead, she quietly held up her hand to show him that she was unscathed.

“It didn’t burn you?” Shoto asked.

Kiyo shook her head. Unlike her elder brothers and even her father, she’d never been burned before.

“I knew you were a robot.” Natsuo grumbled under his breath. 

Kiyo ignored him and looked to her father, “you wanted to talk about the Sports Festival?”

“With Shoto.” Her father turned away from her. He hadn’t shown an ounce of concern that she might have been burned.

Shoto scowled at their father. “What?” His voice was dripping with disdain.

“I think it’s time you stop your childish rebellion, you should have no trouble taking first place in the Sports Festival if you’d stop being stubborn and use your left side.” Enji growled at his youngest son.

Kiyo forced herself to sit quietly and strained with all her might to keep her face a perfect mask. On the outside, she was composed...on the inside her heart was breaking. Fuyumi threw a worried look at the youngest Todoroki child as she pretended nothing was wrong and kept her perfect unaffected mask in place. 

“...we’ll be rooting for you too, Kiyo…” Fuyumi piped up softly hoping their father would realize what he’d said had been very insensitive to Kiyo.

“For what reason? Shoto will win, as he should.” Enji huffed.

An icy knife of rejection stabbed into Kiyo’s back. She didn’t react. She wouldn’t show weakness. Without touching her food, she politely bowed her head to her family. “If you’ll excuse me, I have more training to do.” She said softly as she pushed away from the table.

Her father said nothing, barely acknowledging her presence.

Shoto watched his twin walk away and felt his heart seize up in his chest as he saw, for the first time in his life, a single frozen tear slip from Kiyo’s left eye. She wiped it away without anyone else noticing and exited the room. 

Natsuo shot a scowl in their father’s direction before grabbing his plate and leaving the table.  “You’re a real piece of work.” He grumbled angrily as he left the room.

Fuyumi quietly excused herself from the table and raced to the training hall after Kiyo. She hesitated at the door to the training hall and her breath caught in her throat as a blinding blue light glowed from under the door. A gasp escaped her as the handle of the door suddenly glowed hot, the temperature inside the room must be insane.

“K-Kiyo?!” Fuyumi called in concern.

The blue light faded away and a moment later the door swung open. Fuyumi paled as she saw Kiyo gripping a glowing hot door handle. “Yes?” She asked in her quiet composed voice.

“Are you alright?” Fuyumi stared at the glowing handle warily.

“I’m fine.” Kiyo offered her a curt nod.

Fuyumi began to wonder if her youngest sibling had ever truly been fine. She was starting to think this perfect routine of Kiyo’s was just an act. “...it’s okay if you’re not fine, you always have your big sister to talk to.”

“I’m fine.” Kiyo repeated coolly. Her gaze fell on the bandage on Fuyumi’s hand and she was overcome with guilt. It was her fault Fuyumi had been injured. “Is your hand alright?” Her voice came out no louder than a whisper.

Fuyumi smiled, she detected a faint hint of concern in Kiyo’s voice, “it’s much better now, thank you for the burn cream.”

Kiyo nodded but said nothing more. She slowly closed the door and went back to her training. Fuyumi let out a sigh as the blue light returned and the handle began to glow hot once more. 

“I wish you’d open up to me.” Fuyumi sighed softly, not sure if her voice had reached the teen or not. 

Chapter Text

Kiyo bit back a cry of pain as she felt something in her shoulder give with a loud ‘pop’. If her father noticed he paid no mind and pushed her to continue fighting. Shoto wouldn’t improve if his sparring partner was subpar. Somehow Shoto’s lack of improvement was her fault. She was trying her best, but she didn’t like beating up her twin. It was obvious Shoto didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to train like this and he especially didn’t want to fight his twin.

After their training was over, their father dismissed them. Shoto, as he so often did, ran straight to their mother to cry. Kiyo found herself alone in the hall outside the training room unsure of where to go or who to turn to for comfort. She bit her lip to keep from crying as she glanced at her shoulder. It didn’t look right. Her instinct was to run to her mother and tell her she was hurting, but Shoto was already there and whenever Shoto was involved, Kiyo was always everyone’s second choice.

“What’s wrong with you?” The voice of her eldest brother startled her.

Kiyo glanced up as she felt a hand fall atop her head. Toya, who she had always thought despised her and Shoto looked down at her with concern in his teal eyes. His hair was a striking unruly white. She’d seen pictures of Toya when he was her age and his hair had been red like their fathers, but it changed. Her gaze fell on some fresh bandages on his wrists.

“Did you burn yourself?” She asked quietly.

Toya ruffled her hair, “we were talking about you.”

Kiyo couldn’t help but feel happy as he gently ruffled her hair in a comforting manner. She’d often wished she could interact like this with her father. She quietly pointed to her shoulder.

Toya offered her a sympathetic look. Even when his father had trained him, he wasn’t that rough. Perhaps he was getting desperate, he felt like he was running out of time, Shoto was his last hope and Kiyo suffered the abuse because rather than be a man and own up to his mistakes, he blamed Kiyo for Shoto not excelling like he wanted him to. Toya clenched his fists, as he looked down at his timid baby sister. If only their fool of a father could see the masterpiece he had hoped for was right here, it was Kiyo.

“It’s going to hurt.” Toya noted as he placed a hand atop her shoulder and his other around her thin upper arm.

Kiyo knew it would, “I won’t make a peep.” She promised.

Toya looked down at her warily, “it's okay if you do.”

Kiyo shook her head.

“Suit yourself.” Toya sighed and quickly fixed her shoulder. He winced at the sickening crack as it popped back into place. 

Kiyo bit her lip, but didn’t make a sound. Despite being in a lot of pain, she forced herself to look up at her eldest brother and offer him a smile, “thank you.”

Toya gently wrapped his arms around her. He felt her tremble faintly and knew she was putting on a brave face when she was really in a great deal of pain. 

Kiyo suddenly noticed her brother was wearing shoes indoors and looked as if he were going to leave the house as he was dressed for the weather, “where are you going?”

“Sekoto Peak. I want to show Endeavor something.” He replied as he released her from his hold.

“Can I come?” Kiyo asked hopefully.

Toya offered her a smile and ruffled her hair once more, “no, the best thing for you to do right now is sleep.”

Kiyo tried not to look rejected and nodded. He was probably right, she was still in a lot of pain. Sleep did sound good. 

“I’ll check on you later.” He ruffled her hair once more. “Go sleep.”

Kiyo smiled, gave him a quick hug and scampered back to her room. 

Kiyo felt a pain in her chest as she thought of her eldest brother. Toya never returned to check on her. Whatever he wanted to show their father resulted in a roaring wildfire with insane temperatures and Toya was lost to the blaze. Because her father forbade her elder siblings from being near Shoto and she was Shoto’s partner, she didn’t have many interactions with her siblings growing up as they had to stay away from her whenever she was with Shoto, and she was almost always with Shoto. She wished she’d gotten to spend more time with Toya, he’d been kind and comforting.

“Everyone stay in this room till I return!” Mr. Kan, Class 1B’s teacher, addressed them all urgently before taking off out the door.

Kiyo looked around the room at her classmates' worried faces. Monoma, a boy with blonde hair and periwinkle eyes who would probably be cute if it weren’t for his horrendous personality, threw a scowl out the window, “whatever it is, I bet that annoying class 1A is involved.” He grumbled.

Class 1A was supposed to be at the USJ for their rescue training. Class 1B had completed theirs before lunch. Kiyo thought about her teacher’s exit from the room, it seemed urgent. Had something gone wrong? A dark thought crept across her mind, if something happened to Shoto, her father would be forced to recognize her, she was all he’d have left. She nearly gasped at the thought that had crossed her mind and hurriedly shoved it to the back of her mind. How could she let herself think something like that? Sure, she and Shoto weren’t exactly close but she wouldn’t wish harm on him.

Her stomach twisted guiltily. What if something happened to him? She’d feel awful. He was her twin, even if they didn’t have a ‘freaky twin sense’ like other twins, even if they rarely spoke (though that was entirely on her), he was her twin brother and the few times she’d let him get close to her, he seemed to care, at least a little.

“Kiyo?” Kendo approached the quiet girl with the heterochromatic orbs that everyone else was convinced was a robot.

Kiyo pulled herself from her racing thoughts and glanced up to find Kendo looking down at her. Her teal eyes were filled with warmth and compassion as she reached down and placed a hand on the cold girl’s shoulder. She offered her a reassuring smile.

“I’m sure your brother is alright. You’re amazingly strong so I’m sure he is too.” Kendo tried to offer her encouragement, not realizing her words were hurtful.

Of course everyone would assume her brother was stronger than her. She nodded, to appease Kendo but said nothing. 

Monoma scoffed at this, “good riddance, Class 1A is so annoy-.”

“MONOMA!” Kendo swiveled on him with a growl and her hands suddenly enlarged.

Kiyo watched as Kendo slapped Monoma out of his seat as easily as one might swat a bug. She glanced down at Monoma, flattened on the ground before turning back to Kendo not sure why she had done that.

Chapter Text

Mr. Kan returned late in the afternoon and informed them there’d been an attack on the USJ. Classes ended and they had the rest of the week off. Kiyo left the moment they were dismissed and headed to Class 1A. The door opened before her and a tall boy with unruly dusty blonde hair and angry red eyes nearly smacked into her. He shot her a glare.

She threw an even fiercer glare back at him, “move.” The temperature around her plummeted along with her icy tone.

The boy seemed taken aback by her fierce gaze and the hostility he saw beneath her poised mask. A flicker of blue flame sparked at the corner of her right eye as she glowered at him waiting for him to move. He shot her a dark look and stepped aside. Kiyo stepped into classroom 1A, receiving quite a few stares from everyone at what they’d just witnessed. Her gaze fell on Shoto as he was gathering his things. He was alright.

As if he could sense her gaze, Shoto straightened up and turned to the doorway. He threw his twin a curious look as he spotted her waiting near the door as an irate Bakugo stormed out. For a brief moment he thought she looked tense but seemed to relax as he met her gaze.

“The car is waiting.” Kiyo said in a cool unaffected voice though her first instinct was to run and hug her twin, she fought back the urge.

Shoto resisted the urge to tell her it was always waiting, as was its job but decided against it. This was a rare moment for her to speak to him, especially in front of other people. He gathered his things quietly and met her at the door. They left together. It seemed like quite a few students were sticking around.

The twins walked in silence to the awaiting car. Once outside and away from everyone else, Kiyo threw her arms around her brother, crushing him in the quickest hug in the history of hugs before releasing him and rushing on ahead to the car as if nothing had happened. Shoto smiled faintly to himself and followed her to the car. Though Kiyo wasn’t going to say anything, he knew from her hug that she’d been worried about him and was glad he was fine.

“Want to study together?” Shoto asked as they arrived back home.

“I already have all the material memorized, studying would be detrimental at this juncture.” Kiyo replied matter of factly. 

Shoto shook his head, he knew his delivery wasn’t always the best but his little sister was absolutely horrible at it at times. He knew she wasn’t trying to be mean and offered her a smile. “Alright.”

“I’m going for a run.” Kiyo said dismissively and headed in the direction of her room, across the hall from his.

Shoto frowned, the sun was starting to set. She usually ran in the morning when it was safer, “are you sure you should go running so late?”

Kiyo paused and turned to him. She threw him a questioning look.

“It’s dangerous?” Shoto shrugged.

Kiyo frowned. It was only dangerous for anyone who dared to disturb her. 

“I could come with yo-.” Shoto offered as he realized she didn’t understand the danger in a teenage girl running in the evening.

“You’ll slow me down.” Kiyo said bluntly before ducking into her bedroom to change.

Shoto sighed and retreated to his room. 

Kiyo dropped her bag on her bed and quickly changed out of her uniform and into a pair of black form fitting running pants, a plain white tank top and a grey zip up jacket. She took off before Shoto even had a chance to get changed and try to tag along. Fuyumi tried to call after her to let her know dinner would be ready soon, but she pretended not to hear and slipped out the front door.

She nearly smacked into a large hulking figure and froze as she spotted her father at the door. He looked surprised to see her but addressed her, “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Me?” Kiyo asked in a daze, forgetting herself. She straightened up quickly and looked at him attentively.

Her father frowned. “About the Sports Festival.”

Kiyo tried not to perk up, was he going to apologize for yesterday? She thought to tell him he didn’t need to apologize but didn’t get the chance as he continued.

“Make sure all eyes are on Shoto-.” He continued talking but Kiyo suddenly lost the ability to hear anything other than the sound of the blood rushing through her veins and her heartbeat seeming to slow to nothing.

Kiyo suddenly blinked and realized her father was still talking.

“-...You’ll be able to get him to stop his childish rebellion.”  Enji looked down at his youngest child as she stared up at him, poised and perfect as always, but she didn’t respond. He’d heard the other children tease her about being a robot and he was starting to see why, it was like she was processing the information he’d just given her to analyze it, digest it fully and formulate a response. “Kiyo?”

“I’m going for a run.” Kiyo said softly, there was the faintest bit of a hitch to her voice.

“Alright?” Enji stepped out of her way. The smell of Fuyumi’s cooking reached all the way to the door, “I think dinner is almost ready.” He noted.

“I’m not hungry.” Kiyo replied, her voice still as poised and collected as ever.

“Alright.” Enji watched her for a moment as she stood frozen in place before suddenly taking off at an impressive sprint. She’d completely vanished from his line of sight by the time he’d blinked. He shrugged and headed into the house deciding it wasn’t worth his concern that she hadn’t responded to his request, she was dependable, she always had been, he had nothing to worry about.

Kiyo raced through the city, running blindly due to the tears blurring her vision, tears she refused to let fall. She ran blindly for an hour before she nearly barreled into someone and decided she needed to collect herself. She ducked into an alley and moved away from the busy sidewalk, deeper into the alley before slowing to a stop. She took a few deep breaths, shook out her arms and stretched a little trying to calm herself down. 

Further down the alley, a figure skulked in the shadows. Toya, though he was going by Dabi now, looked to the figure that had just run down the alley in his direction. He’d recognize that hair anywhere. The right half a striking crimson the left a blinding white currently pulled into a tight ponytail that trailed down to the small of her back. At one time in his life, he cared a great deal for his family, for all of them, except maybe Shoto, he’d almost always resented him though he knew it was through no fault of his own and his rage at Shoto should be directed at his parents. Things had changed, since the day he’d lost control of his quirk and the world presumed him dead. His feelings toward his other siblings, who he’d once held love for, had changed as well. He held no one in the Todoroki in very high esteem, well perhaps everyone save for little Kiyo. She reminded him of himself, she was always so eager to please their father, she wanted nothing more than to make him proud.

He glanced at his little sister as she came to a stop in the middle of the alley. It looked like she was battling with her emotions, trying to keep calm, cool and collected. It had to be difficult being the perfect child all the time. Dabi thought about approaching her, but he wasn’t quite ready for anyone to know he was alive yet, and while he looked very different from before, if anyone could figure it out, it was Kiyo. 

Her stretches apparently weren’t cutting it as she doubled over wrapping her arms around her middle as if she were trying to hug herself in an attempt to calm down. Dabi knew, from experience, hugs weren’t commonplace in the Todoroki household, he’d wondered by how surprised she’d reacted when he’d hugged her the day he’d ‘died’ if that was the first hug she’d received. Their mother had been nurturing but Shoto had always come first, so perhaps little Kiyo really had missed out on the few hugs that were given. 

Deciding he couldn’t watch her suffer any longer, he sighed and made a move to leave his spot, but paused and let out a groan of annoyance as a couple of delinquents stumbled into the alley behind his baby sister. He hesitated as she straightened up and turned to them. If she needed his help, he’d cremate them. Until then, he’d stay put.

“Hey baby, you lost?” One of the creeps guffawed and the delinquents began to fan out as they approached her to block off her exit.

Kiyo took one last calming breath, it wasn’t working, she was still a mess. “I have no interest in any of you, please leave me alone.” She said coolly as she continued trying to calm herself down.

“No need to be so cold-.”

Kiyo shot him a glare, a spark of blinding blue flames flicked at the corner of her right eye, “I’m not playing with you degenerate assholes, get lost!”

Dabi smiled.

“Listen babe-.”

Dabi’s smile turned to a look of awe as the entire alley was suddenly engulfed in ice, it stretched from behind her, snaking out on either side of her toward the creeps like a snarling maw of razor sharp icy teeth. Kiyo clenched her fists and blinding blue flames sparked to life around both her left and right fists. “What the hell?” Dabi gasped in shock. She could activate both her quirks from either side?!

“Holy shit!” The delinquents screamed in terror at the snarling icy fangs lunging toward them. They turned and ran for it and Dabi was fairly certain they’d think twice before trying to prey on another young woman alone in an alley.

Kiyo struggled to calm down once the assholes had run away. She shook out her hands and the flames dispersed. She stomped her left foot on the ground and all the ice that had appeared disappeared with a crunch into a flurry of snow that got swept away in a breeze.

Once she finally regained her cool composure, she lightly patted the flames on the sleeves of her jacket out before scowling as she realized it was too singed to hide. She tossed it into a nearby dumpster, smoothed out her already perfect hair and resumed her run.

Dabi watched her go, his teal eyes filled with concern, “you’re a ticking time bomb baby sister.” He sighed as he ran a hand through his unruly raven dyed hair. 

Chapter Text

Enji sat in the front room. The news quietly played on the TV in the background as he kept checking his phone and looking at every clock in the room and back to the door. It was unlike Kiyo to be this late. It was unlike Kiyo to leave the house for any reason after dinner, she usually did her running in the mornings. All of his other children had left dinner early, as seemed to be the custom anytime he joined them for dinner, and they’d all locked themselves in their rooms.

He looked up from his phone as the front door opened. Kiyo stepped out of her running shoes and Enji noticed her grey jacket was missing and there were blackened scorch marks on her arms. “Kiyo, what happened to your jacket?”

She paused, “...I lost it…”

“You lost it?” He repeated with a frown.

“...yes…”

“As in, it just disappeared off your person and walked away?” His frown deepened.

Kiyo didn’t respond.

“You’ve never lost anything a day in your life.” Enji pointed.

“...I’m sorry…” She bowed her head and attempted to scurry away, which was very unlike her. Out of all of his children, Kiyo had always been the one who seemed to enjoy being in his company.

“We’re not done talking.” Enji reprimanded her, stopping her dead in her tracks.

Kiyo tensed and turned to him. She could feel her calm cool composure starting to slip, there were cracks forming in her perfect mask. Cracks she couldn't afford for her father to see. He’d think her weak, she’d just be proving to him she was second best if she couldn’t keep herself composed. 

“What are those from?” He indicated the black scorch marks as he got up from his seat and came to a stop before her.

“My jacket.”

“The one you lost?” Enji frowned.

Kiyo nodded.

“It self combusted before walking away?” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, towering over his petite daughter.

Kiyo hesitated.

“Well?” Enji scowled down at her menacingly. Why on earth was she being so difficult? She was never this difficult.

Kiyo unconsciously wrapped her arms around herself. She was making him angry. She’d messed up. She didn’t know how to fix it.

“Kiyo!” Enji snapped, losing his patience as she seemed to withdraw into herself. Was she rebooting?! What the hell was wrong with his child.

Kiyo jumped at his raised voice. “...I’m sorry…” She said in the tiniest of voices.

“For what?!” Enji snapped again before trying to take a deep breath to calm himself. 

“For losing my jacket.” Kiyo piped up softly.

“That’s not the issue we’re discussing right now.” Enji growled.

“...I’m sorry…” Kiyo repeated quietly.

“For what, now?” Enji nearly flew into a rage, it was taking everything he had to remain calm, he had no idea what had gotten into her or why she was acting so peculiarly. 

“...I don’t know...I’m just sorry…” Kiyo hugged herself tightly. Her stomach let out what she could only imagine was the equivalent of a whimper and she realized she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before and had used her quirk quite a bit earlier in the day at school and then again on her run. Her stomach protested again, violently. She suddenly felt light headed and faint.

“Kiyo?” Enji’s anger dissipated as her eyes fluttered shut and she suddenly fell toward the floor. He caught her in his arms and stared down at her unconscious form in bewilderment, “what the hell is going on?” He growled as he swept her off her feet. 

Kiyo’s stomach let out the weakest, most pathetic of grumbles and he scowled down at his youngest child. At least there wasn’t anything wrong with her other than her own negligence. He let out a sigh of annoyance as he carried her to the sofa. She’d worried him over something so trivial. He set her down on the sofa and draped a blanket over her before going to the kitchen.

He struggled to remember how to make rice porridge, the way Rei used to whenever the twins were feeling under the weather. It took him longer than he’d remembered it taking to prepare it before bringing the bowl into the front room where he’d left Kiyo. She was still unconscious.

He set the bowl on the end table next to her and gently shook her until she stirred awake. Kiyo looked up in surprise to see her father looming over her. He pulled her upright into a sitting position, waited a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to fall over and pointed to the table. 

Kiyo stared blankly at the bowl of rice porridge.

“Eat then go straight to bed.” Enji growled.

Kiyo nervously picked up the bowl. “I’m sor-.”

“Just eat.” Her father cut her off.

She took a bite and resisted the urge to grimace, her father was a terrible cook. This was most definitely punishment and not a show of affection as she had hoped. Deciding she’d take her punishment gracefully, she finished the bowl without making a single face of disgust, for which she was pretty proud of.

“Go to bed.” Enji grumbled once he realized she’d finished the bowl. 

Kiyo jumped to her feet and looked down at the bowl in her hands. She hesitated and looked to the kitchen not sure if it was considered to be breaking his orders if she took the bowl to the kitchen and washed it first. 

Noticing his youngest child was currently malfunctioning and going into some kind of overload over a bowl, Enji rubbed his temples with a sigh, “leave it and go to bed.”

Kiyo stared at her father in awe, did he even know how to do dishes? She set the bowl on the table and opened her mouth to thank him but he cut her off with a sharp look and pointed in the direction of her room. She shut her mouth, bowed her head and scrambled to her room.

Chapter Text

Kiyo took off in the morning, for her usual morning run. She played some music on her phone in a case that was strapped to her arm and had a pair of wireless earbuds in her ear. She hoped the music would help keep her calm as she’d noticed her emotions were a little unstable after her run in with her father. She made it out onto a country road being sure to focus on her breathing and her heart rate and thinking of anything other than her family. She started reciting various hero laws in her head in an attempt to keep her mind away from her family. It wasn’t working. She just kept hearing her father’s voice play over and over again, ‘make sure all eyes are on Shoto’.

A familiar van swerved in front of her and came to a stop. “You have got to be kidding me.” Kiyo hissed under her breath.

“Ah! Wait!” The driver called as he saw her slide to a stop and clench her fists in anger.

The doors flew open and the three morons jumped out of the van. Instead of guns and threatening her with their quirks they had what looked like a handful of vouchers and coupons. She threw them a curious look.

“So...uh… we weren’t in a good place…” The guy who’d pulled the gun on her before began in a small voice, “...last time…I didn’t think anyone would hire me with how I look.” He indicated his edgy appearance that most people would probably find frightening.

“and because of my quirk, girls found me creepy.” Rope fingers piped up softly. Instead of coupons he seemed to be holding a picture in his hand.

“...and my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I was desperate for money to help with medical bills.” The driver spoke up.

Kiyo tapped her foot, annoyed that they’d interrupted her run a second time in a single week. “And?” She growled.

“After running into you, and realizing anyone we tried to abduct for profit could be a horrifying monster, a job interview didn’t seem so scary.” Gun guy laughed nervously.

Kiyo shot him a dark look. “Do get to the point.”

“I got a job!” He held up the coupons, they were for free drinks at a coffee bar in the city.

“I did too!” The driver beamed and held up the coupons for a ritzy day spa, “and they’re letting my mom come in for free massages whenever she wants to make her more comfortable and they offered to help with her bills to keep us afloat.” He extended vouchers to her for a free massage.

Kiyo looked at rope hands.

“I got a girlfriend, who’s into bondage.” He grinned.

“I didn’t need to know that.” Kiyo glared at him. She reluctantly accepted the coupons and vouchers from the other two. “Why are you giving me these?”

“Well, after our horrifying encounter-.” Gun guy began.

Kiyo shot him a scowl that chilled the blood in his veins.

He cleared his throat, “-not that it was a bad thing, I mean I’m in support of a boss bitch-.”

“Get to the point.” Kiyo repeated.

“...uh, well, we realized we’d either run into more scary people or heroes and end up in jail, and that this way was better. So we wanted to say thanks for giving us a chance to redeem ourselves and keep us out of jail.” He stammered.

“You morons couldn’t come up with that conclusion BEFORE you thought you’d try and abduct me?” Kiyo scoffed.

“Y-yeah, we’re not that bright.” The driver laughed nervously.

“Clearly.” Kiyo rolled her eyes. Though she had to admit, she did feel a little happy that they were on the up and up.

They all looked at one another before exclaiming loudly in an obnoxious harmony, “thanks scary girl!”

Kiyo scowled at them, “if I say you’re welcome, can I go back to my run?”

They all nodded enthusiastically. 

“You’re welcome.” Kiyo grumbled.

They all rushed toward her to hug her and she froze them with a single fierce look.

“If you touch me, I will incinerate all of you.” She scowled.

“Yep, noted. Consent, very important.” Rope hands nodded and the three idiots began inching toward their van.

“See ya around scary girl!” Gun guy called.

“I certainly hope not.” Kiyo scowled as they drove away.

Sighing, she started her music once more and took off at a run. She didn’t make it more than a few feet before her phone started to vibrate. She glanced at her arm, she had a new message from an unknown number. 

The message contained an address in the city with the accompanying text ‘meet here for a good time’ . She glowered at the screen. “It’s not going to be a good time for you, creep.” She grumbled aloud and headed for the address determined to beat whoever thought they could creep on her into a bloody pulp. 

Dabi sat in a corner booth at an arcade bar and grill, keeping to himself and enjoying his relatively peaceful meal. His meal was disturbed by the arrival of a giant group of highschoolers who were seated at a plethora of tables pulled together. There were nineteen of them in total with an empty seat for one more. He was tempted to walk out then and there, until he picked up on a bit of their conversation.

“You think Kiyo will join us?” A timid blonde with what looked like horns atop her head asked curiously.

“Oh, she’ll be here.” A cocky boy with blonde hair and periwinkle eyes smirked.

“Monoma, what did you say to her?” A tall girl with long bright orange hair and teal eyes asked the boy with a maternal scolding tone to her voice.

“Don’t worry about it.” The boy waved her away.

“If you sent her something perverse, you’re going to regret it.” The orange haired girl glowered at him.

“What do you take me for?” The boy feigned being hurt by her words.

Dabi watched them for a moment before he spotted his baby sister step through the door. Her heterochromatic orbs scanned the place as if she were looking for a target to direct whatever rage she was feeling at. Her gaze fell on the table filled with highschoolers and her expression shifted to one of confusion.

“Kiyo! You’re here!” The blonde girl with the horns cheered happily.

“Who sent me the message?” Kiyo asked coolly.

The blonde boy sank lower into his chair.

“What did it say?” The orange haired girl asked warily.

Kiyo tossed the girl her phone.

The orange haired girl glanced down at her phone before turning on the blonde attempting to hide, “MONOMA, YOU CREEP!” She smacked him so hard he toppled to the floor.

Kiyo watched curiously while the blonde girl with the horns inched over to her. She grabbed Kiyo by the wrist and pulled her over to the empty chair next to hers. Kiyo looked as if she were going to snap at the girl but held it back and reluctantly dropped into the chair.

“What did you guys want?” Kiyo asked in a bored tone as the orange haired girl claimed the seat opposite her as the boy she’d called Monoma got up off the floor and returned to his seat.

“Before we get to that...uh, what’s with the coupons coming out of your cleavage?” A girl with dark moss green hair pointed to Kiyo with a laugh. Dabi noticed there were bits of paper sticking out of her form fitting tank top.

Kiyo sighed, “this day is proving to be quite annoying.” Was the only response she gave which caused her classmates to laugh.

“Oh, are those ones for a free massage?” The girl with the dark moss green hair asked.

“Girls spa day!” The blonde with the horns cheered.

Kiyo sighed and set the coupons on the table for her classmates to take, “do as you wish.”

“You’re coming too.” The orange haired girl draped an arm across Kiyo’s shoulders.

“If I must.” Kiyo sighed once more, giving up on fighting them. 

“You must.” All the girls giggled.

“I think we should be more worried that she showed up in response to that message.” A boy with beige colored hair and a very skeletal face pointed as he glanced at the message on Monoma’s phone.

“I was going to incinerate whoever it was.” Kiyo replied in a deadly serious voice.

A few of her classmates laughed.

Dabi quietly made his exit without anyone taking notice, smiling faintly to himself. Perhaps if his baby sister had a decent support system, he didn’t need to worry about her so much. 

Chapter Text

Kiyo reluctantly agreed and stayed to help her classmates as they planned for The Sports Festival.  So many of them wanted her opinion and even her help with training for the event. She’d never felt this visible before. Everyone had always fawned over Shoto, even at school, he was always the one everyone wanted to impress and be close to.

She somehow was talked into staying late after school every night with her classmates so they could train together. Rather than calling a car to come get her, she took public transportation with some of her fellow classmates.  Kendo didn’t live too far away, so they walked most of the way together. Though Kiyo wasn’t likely to ever admit to it, she liked having classmates who forced friendship on her. It was annoying at times, but it was nice to feel like someone liked her, for her and not because of her father and brother.

As Class 1B was staying late after school to train the night before The Sports Festival. Monoma had made the not so bright suggestion they all train atop a large plateau in one of the training gyms that Cementoss had helped create.

“What if someone falls?” Kendo frowned as she looked over the edge, they were pretty high up.

“Don’t fall.” Monoma said with a shrug.

“Brilliant.” Kendo grimaced.

They broke off into pairs for sparring, Kiyo agreed not to use her quirk so she could help those who needed it with hand to hand combat. She was working with Kendo when she heard a panicked shout at the other end of the plateau as Pony slipped off the edge.

Before anyone had a moment to do anything, Kiyo jumped into action and sprinted to the other side. She flipped off the edge as Pony fell. Fire flared from the bottoms of her feet and she was able to reach her as the force of the flames helped rocket her closer to Pony.  Kiyo caught her in her arms and maneuvered in the air so that her feet were facing the fast approaching ground before blasting an immense amount of fire from the bottoms of her feet so they were in a controlled fall. It was something she’d seen her father do many times.

Once she’d landed safely, Kiyo glanced down at Pony to see her staring up at her with wide eyes. She hesitated and started to ask if she was okay but her words fell away as Pony suddenly threw her arms around her neck with a squeal.

“Thank you for saving me, Kiyo!” Pony squeezed her tight.

“...sure…” Kiyo waited for the timid girl to release her before gently setting her on her feet.

“Are you guys okay?!” Kendo called down to them worriedly as everyone began rapidly climbing down to check on them.

Kiyo managed a silent nod.

“Nice save, that was a crazy reaction time.” Tetsutetsu gave the cool girl a pat on the back.

Kiyo felt strange as they all praised her and swarmed around her. She wasn’t used to this kind of attention, no one ever praised her before, she didn’t know what to do or how to respond. Rather than respond, she stood there quietly feeling very out of place as her classmates commended her skills.

Realizing Kiyo was having trouble with all of the attention, Pony linked her arm through Kiyo’s and offered her a warm smile. Her classmates were very strange. She accepted Pony’s reassurance and the praise from the others in silence.

They decided to finish their training on the ground after that, and once everyone felt sufficiently ready for their plan for the Sports Festival, they decided to call it a night. Everyone walked to the station together, the guys were still talking about strategy and how they were excited to see the look of shock on Class 1A’s faces when they realized their brilliant plan.

Kiyo realized as she was walking arm in arm with Pony, listening to the excited babble of her forced friends, that she had finally relaxed. It wasn’t something she did very often. She was a little startled by the realization.

“Kiyo? You okay?” Kendo asked as she noticed the quiet girl with a perplexed expression.

Kiyo nodded. Though her classmates were still concerned.

“What is it?” Honenuki, a tall pale boy with beige hair and a face that somewhat cryptically resembled a skeleton, asked her curiously.

Kiyo hesitated, “...this is nice…” her voice was hardly more than a whisper.

“Aw!” All of the girls swarmed her and glomped her in a big hug.

Kiyo accepted the hug in stunned silence, freezing up as her classmates swarmed her.  “...that was unnecessary…” She mumbled feeling a little embarrassed once they finally released her causing the girls to giggle.

Everyone soon went their separate ways, one by one until Kiyo and Kendo were all that was left, exiting the station together. Kiyo was pensive, contemplating what she would do during the Sports Festival. Part of her wanted to try her best to win, another part of her wanted to do as her father wished thinking maybe if she did he might finally tell her he was proud of her.

Kendo looked at the pensive girl and tried to make conversation hoping to pull her away from whatever was making her expression look so hopeless, “your family must be in such a tough spot figuring out who to cheer for tomorrow.”

“...not really…” Kiyo’s voice was laced with bitterness.

Kendo paused, “what do you mean?”

Kiyo shrugged as they reached the corner where they would part ways, “it doesn’t matter...have a good night…” She said softly and turned in the direction of her home leaving Kendo staring after her worriedly. “...I don’t matter…” She murmured under her breath once she’d gotten a few blocks away.

“Well that’s a sad thing to hear.” A voice that sounded vaguely familiar sounded from behind her. “I think you matter quite a bit.”

Kiyo turned to see a young man she did not recognize. He had unruly raven hair, his skin had patches of dark scarred flesh outlined with medical staples in various spots. He was wearing dark pants, a white t-shirt and a dark jacket that was long like a trench coat but open in the front. The strangest thing about him was the pair of sunglasses he was wearing, despite it being dark outside.

She studied him for a moment, though she was certain she’d never seen such a person in her life, his voice had sounded familiar. “Who are you?”

“You can call me Dabi.” He extended a hand to her in greeting, there were more medical staples and scarred flesh starting just below his wrist and stretching up into the sleeves of his jacket.

Kiyo didn’t know why, but she accepted the hand he offered her and replied, “Kiyo.”

His lips twitched and curled into a pleasant smile. It too seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. “You go to UA.” It wasn’t a question, though she was in uniform so it was a fair assumption to make.

She nodded as she released his hand.

“The Sports Festival is tomorrow, right?”

Another nod as she continued to study him trying to figure out how she knew this stranger. 

Dabi smirked, “I’ll be rooting for you, Kiyo.”

When he said her name, there was another spark of familiarity. He said it as if he’d known it all along as if it was something he was familiar with.

Kiyo frowned up at him, “Dabi isn’t your real name, is it?”

He shook his head.

“What is it, then?” Kiyo asked, starting to feel frustrated with herself for not recognizing this person who very clearly seemed to recognize her. 

Dabi held back a sigh, he knew it would be hard to fool her, but he didn’t think she’d quite figured it out. He offered her a smile and gently ruffled her hair, “perhaps another time, I’ll tell you. Good luck tomorrow.” 

Kiyo froze up at his touch. It was gentle and filled with warmth, and she knew in that moment she had felt it before. He was gone before she had the chance to respond. She placed a hand to the top of her head where his hand had rested moments ago. Only one person had ever done that. “...Toya?...” Her voice hitched.

That was impossible. Toya was dead.

Chapter Text

After a very restless night of sleep, her dreams filled with Toya, as she remembered him, going up in flames and emerging as the scarred up stranger she’d seen the night before. Kiyo startled awake as she heard someone knock at her door. Sitting bolt upright, she glanced at her phone. She was late!

Kiyo scrambled from bed, threw on her UA gym uniform and bolted out the door past a concerned Fuyumi. If Fuyumi was the one waking her, that meant her father and twin left without her. Trying not to feel hurt by that thought, Kiyo sprinted outside and let out a sigh of relief as she realized there was a car waiting for her.

Fuyumi stared after her younger sister in awe, her hand still frozen in the air mid-knock. “...good luck…” she called softly, though Kiyo was already too far gone. 

The car came to a stop with only a few minutes to spare. Kiyo sprinted to the stadium as fast as she could and slid into the locker room for Class 1B, crashing into a startled Monoma in the process.

“AH!” Monoma yelped as the pair of them went sprawling to the ground, “...found her…” He grumbled.

“Kiyo!” Her classmates called worriedly.

“Thanks for the concern guys, I was just wiped out, but no big deal.” Monoma groaned.

“...sorry…” Kiyo apologized quietly as she picked herself up off the ground and offered Monoma a hand.

He accepted it and threw her a curious look, “you look...not okay.” 

“I woke up late.” Kiyo admitted.

Everyone threw her a worried look, though they hadn’t known her long, they all knew that was very unusual. Kiyo was notoriously early for everything; she woke up  before the sun took morning jogs and trained at all hours of the day. They had no idea how she did all that and still maintained a perfect grade point average.

“Miss Perfect woke up late?” Monoma frowned.

“...I’m not perfect…” Kiyo said quietly, if she were perfect her father would have recognized her by now, he’d have at least chosen her as his masterpiece.

Realizing her mood was darkening, Pony squeezed through the crowd of worried students to reach Kiyo. She offered her a warm smile and held up a cute hairbrush with little horseshoes on it, “I’ll fix your hair for you.”

Kiyo then realized since she had literally rolled out of bed and into clothes her hair was a complete mess. She nodded and accepted Pony’s offer with a timid, “...thanks…”

Pony brushed out the tangles from Kiyo’s restless sleep until Present Mic’s loud voice rang through all the speakers around the stadium announcing the Sports Festival was about to begin. Kiyo felt somewhat nervous, she never wore her hair down. Pony offered her a bright smile as she set her brush aside.

“Your hair is so pretty Kiyo.” Pony beamed as she looked at Kiyo’s long smooth tresses, half striking white the other a deep crimson.

Kiyo felt strange at her words, her face felt a little hot. “...thanks…” She mumbled somewhat awkwardly as she followed the rest of her classmates out the door as they were announced to enter the field. 

Kiyo looked over in the direction of class 1A and noticed her twin seemed to be in an even more serious and edgy mood than usual. She and her twin were both fairly serious, usually she was more serious than Shoto, it was odd to see him so tense. She noticed him throw a few glances at one of his classmates, a boy with a spattering of freckles across his very childlike face, a head of unruly dark green hair and bright green eyes. Perhaps Shoto saw this boy as a rival somehow.

Kiyo glanced into the stands and felt her stomach twist into nervous knots as she spotted her father standing at the back of the middle section with his arms folded across his chest. He wore a menacing expression, as always, it usually kept his fans at bay. His eyes were glued to Shoto, not even sparing a glance for her. She was going to wave to him if he had looked her way, but he didn’t.

She was even more nervous now. She wanted to make her father proud, she wanted to please him and that meant making Shoto stand out...but she also wanted to prove to everyone, once and for all, that she was stronger than her twin. 

“You okay over there?” Honenuki glanced her way, she had to have turned an unhealthy shade of green from all her anxiousness.

She managed a nod.

A few of her other classmates offered her encouraging smiles.

“Hey, if anyone here can show those class 1A jerks who’s boss, it’s you, so get a hold of yourself.” Monoma declared being sure to emphasise the ‘class 1A jerks’ part loud enough for said class 1A jerks to hear. 

“I think what Monoma meant to say,” Kendo shot him a scowl, “is that we all believe in you Kiyo.” She smiled at the anxious girl.

All the girls agreed and the boys reluctantly joined in, a little more quietly. 

Kiyo felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and glanced around curiously to see what had caused it. Her gaze fell on one of Shoto’s classmates, a boy with dusty blonde hair and a pair of piercing crimson eyes. He was scowling right at her. She vaguely remembered running into him the day of the USJ incident when she’d been worried about Shoto. She looked past the scowling blonde, her gaze finding her twin once more, he was stuck in his own head, not sparing a glance for her.

Midnight stepped onto the small stage in the center of the field for the introductory speech before calling on the blonde boy that was still occasionally shooting a scowl in Kiyo’s direction. “And for the student pledge, we have Katsuki Bakugo.” 

He shot another dark look at Kiyo before trudging up to the stage like he didn’t have a care in the world with his hands shoved into his pockets. Her classmates threw her a curious look as many of them had picked up on Bakugo’s scathing looks being shot in her direction.

“Do you know him, Kiyo?” Kendo asked.

Kiyo shrugged, “I ran into him once.” She didn’t really remember the interaction all too well, she’d been worried about Shoto.

Bakugo stepped up to the microphone on stage, hands still in his pockets, “I just wanna say...I’m gonna win.” Was all he said before turning to exit the stage as the majority of the students in the field began to boo at him.

Another boy in Shoto’s class, a tall boy with dark hair and glasses began yelling at him, “why would you be so disrespectful?! You’re representing us all.” He was chopping the air with his arm as he yelled at Bakugo.

Bakugo turned to the crowd of booing students, “not my fault the rest of you are just stepping stones to my victory.” He scowled at everyone in a bored manner. His gaze fell on Kiyo and lingered for a moment as his bored scowl turned into a threatening one.

Kiyo frowned, she had no idea what she’d done to earn his ire, but she didn’t care. He wasn’t worth her time, she had more important matters to deal with, like whether she was going to do what her father wanted or say damn it all and try her best. 

Midnight announced the first game of the festival was going to be an obstacle race. A set of large doors opened in the stadium leading to said obstacle race, it circled the stadium. They were all sent to start by the door. Kiyo stood with Pony and Kendo near the back of the group, the thin tunnel-like exit was going to get congested quickly.

“BEGIN!” Midnight called.

Kiyo felt a shift in the air and a chill swept through the tunnel and spread out across the crowd of students. Shoto had activated his quirk. She shifted her left foot a fraction and a small crescent moon shaped barrier of ice shot up around her, Pony and Kendo, shielding them from the ice Shoto had sent everywhere. It wasn’t focused or controlled, not like hers.

Pony looked to Kiyo with a smile, “thanks, Kiyo.” 

Kiyo had intended to go running after her twin, but paused as she looked at her friends. Still unsure of whether or not she wanted to try and make her father proud she realized above all else she felt most at ease with them and decided to match their pace. They made it through the still somewhat congested tunnel on a bridge of ice Kiyo had constructed with a subtle shift of her left foot.

They caught up to the group that had managed to avoid Shoto’s attack or broke through quickly, just as they were headed off by a bunch of giant robots. Kiyo noticed Shoto standing ahead of the rest of the group. Shoto was certainly standing out well enough on his own and had all eyes on him, even though he was only using half of his quirk. 

Shoto sloppily hurled a blast of ice at a giant robot teetering toward him. Even with the one quirk he would use, he lacked the control that she had achieved through her years of pushing the limits training. Kiyo clenched her fists at her sides. Why was her father so convinced that Shoto was the one who was going to surpass All Might? She could do everything he did in her sleep, without lifting a finger. He didn’t have her level of control yet.

“Kiyo?” Kendo looked at the girl with the heterochromatic eyes, she was shaking with rage.

Kiyo watched as Shoto ran past the robot, but he’d frozen it unsteadily, it would fall and hurt someone. She took a few steps forward as Present Mic’s commentary began to fill her ears. “That’s Shoto Todoroki from Class 1A pulling ahead to an early lead with a devastating display. Amazing! He’s one we should watch. It almost seems unfair-” Kiyo tuned him out as she felt rage bubble up inside of her. Of course he was, that’s all anyone ever thought about was how ‘amazing’ her twin was.

Clenching her fists tightly, Kiyo stepped forward toward the towering robots as the one her brother had frozen began to topple.

“Kiyo!” Her classmates yelled in concern as it fell toward her.

“...watch this…” She hissed under her breath. Her right hand extended forward and a blast of flames shot forth, turning into blinding blue hellfire as it engulfed the robot falling toward her. Due to the extreme heat from her flames parts of the robot melted and evaporated while other parts turned completely to ash. 

Once her flames subsided, ash fluttered in the breeze, drifting away as a hush fell on the stadium. Still on edge and shaking with rage, Kiyo looked at the remaining robots, she could incinerate them all with hardly any effort, would her father recognize her then?

“Go Kiyo!” Pony cheered from behind her.

Kiyo’s rage began to dissipate as she turned to the blonde girl with the bright prussian blue eyes and warm welcoming smile. She returned to her friend’s side, “shall we?”

“I thought we weren’t going all out just yet?” Monoma pointed.

“It was going to fall and hurt someone.” Kiyo replied softly, though Kendo wasn’t quite sure that was the whole reason since Kiyo had been shaking with rage beforehand. She seemed fine now, so Kendo thought nothing of it. 

The second obstacle was a massive canyon with a questionable drop. There were various plateaus within all connected by rope. Kiyo had no trouble getting across with her ice and helped her friends out too. 

They reached the final obstacle, a massive minefield. Kiyo noticed her brother near the end of the mine field appearing to be fighting as he ran against the blonde who’d been scowling at her earlier. She thought about using her ice and getting ahead of her twin, but realized she would rather just walk with her friends. She stepped lightly around the mines occasionally offering Pony or Kendo a hand to steady them as they followed her.

“You could easily take first place in this, especially while those two are fighting each other up there.” Kendo pointed as she looked at Kiyo.

Kiyo shrugged, “...but this is more fun…”

Kendo smiled.

Pony giggled, “it is fun.” She agreed and looped her arm through Kiyo’s as she nearly lost her balance.

There was a massive explosion behind them as if quite a few of the landmines had gone off at once. Kiyo steadied her friends as a screaming projectile flew overhead straight toward her twin and the angry blonde boy. Kiyo realized the screaming and possibly crying projectile was the boy from Shoto’s class with the boyish face, freckles and unruly green hair. She watched as he slammed whatever he was holding onto the ground in front of Shoto and Bakugo, setting off more landmines. He went soaring further and took off at a run toward the finish line.

Kiyo saw her brother shoot a dark look at the boy before taking off after him with Bakugo at his heels. She continued on at a leisurely pace with her friends. They finished in 35th, 36th and 37th. Despite not being in first place, Kiyo felt content with her friends. Perhaps it was time for her to stop caring so much what her father wanted and just do her own thing, be the kind of hero she wanted to be.

Chapter Text

The second game was announced to be a cavalry battle with only the top 42 students from the first round.  Each student was given a point value depending on where they placed in the first game. The freckle faced boy, Midoriya, was worth a ridiculous ten million points.  Because of that, many people were shying away from him thinking they’d rather target him than be on his team.

Kiyo noticed her twin shoot him another dark look as people began to form teams. She thought for a moment weighing her options. She could join her friends and have fun, or she could team up with this boy who’d somehow irked her brother. She glanced up at her father, he was still watching Shoto, not sparing a single glance for her. She clenched her firsts at her sides, her mind was made up.

“Kiyo?” Kendo looked at the quiet girl as she moved away without a word, her fists clenched tightly at her sides. She threw a worried look after her.

Kiyo approached the boy with the spattering of freckles across his boyish face. Shoto would be targeting him, and playing keep the crybaby away from her twin could be fun. She stopped before him just as he’d started to look defeated after asking several of his classmates to join him.

He stared at her with wide eyes, “u-um you want to be on my team?” He stammered.

Kiyo nodded.

“Whoa, really?!” He asked in awe.

Kiyo nodded once more.

“Why?” He asked bewildered.

“Does it matter?” She frowned.

“Ah...no, I guess not.” He stammered before thinking to himself and muttering under his breath, “your quirk is like Todoroki’s, except reverse.”

Her heterochromatic orbs narrowed, her quirk was MUCH stronger than her brothers and she could activate it from both sides, it was way more exhausting that way but she could still do it and he couldn’t. 

“Oh, whoa. Sorry.” The boy yelped when he saw her glaring at him. “...I didn’t mean anythi-.”

“It’s fine.” Kiyo grumbled bitterly, it was anything but fine.

The boy shyly extended his hand to her in greeting, “Izuku Midoriya.”

Kiyo stared at his hand but didn’t take it. “Kiyo Todoroki.”

Midoriya let  his hand hang for a moment but after realizing she wasn’t going to accept it, he let it fall limply at his side. “Th-thanks for wanting to team up with me, I was getting a little worried no one would-.” He was rambling again.

Kiyo sighed. “You shouldn’t thank me, I joined you for purely selfish reasons.”

“Huh?” He looked up at her with big bright green eyes.

“My brother will most likely be targeting you, and I have something to prove to someone, this works in my favor, that’s all. So save your thanks.” She didn’t like all his grateful rambling, it made her uncomfortable, she didn’t deserve his thanks.

“O-oh.” Midoriya threw a look in her twin’s direction before looking back at the icy girl. The Todoroki twins were pretty intense and at first they seemed cold and standoffish, but perhaps they weren’t. Even though she was trying to wave away his thanks, he had a feeling she wasn’t trying to be mean to him, more like she was being hard on herself.

“Not that I’m not confident that I could carry you alone the whole round, but should we perhaps find more teammates?” Kiyo asked him in a bored tone.

Midoriya was about to respond with surprise at her thinking she could carry him for the whole round but paused as he took another look at her. Though she seemed petite, there was very obvious muscle definition on her revealed arms and he had a feeling she very well could carry him and wouldn’t be the slightest bit hindered by it. “R-right. Um, I have a few people in mind-...” he trailed off and hesitated to move wondering if she’d come with him or not.

Kiyo waved ahead of her, “well, lead the way.”

Midoriya nodded and began his search. As Kiyo followed Midoriya, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, someone was watching her. She quickly glanced in her father’s direction, nope not him, he was still focused solely on Shoto. She looked to her twin, not him either; he was too busy formulating a plan with his teammates. Frowning, she glanced around and her gaze fell on Bakugo, his fierce crimson eyes were glaring intently at her and Midoriya.

She ignored him and followed Midoriya as he went off in search of more teammates. Kiyo noticed a girl with a bob of chestnut hair approach Midoriya with a smile. “Hey Deku! Let’s team up!”

“URARAKA!” Midoriya broke down sobbing.

Kiyo took a step back to avoid getting soaked and threw a wary look at the crybaby. “That was completely unnecessary.” She grumbled.

Uraraka looked at the cool girl curiously, “you’re on Deku’s team too?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Kiyo resisted the urge to rub her temples. Perhaps she should have stuck with her classmates, they were all annoying but they didn’t give her a headache anymore. 

“I know just who we need.” Midoriya suddenly declared before marching off leaving Kiyo and Uraraka staring after him confused.

“Why did you join, Deku?” Uraraka asked.

“I can get you through to the next round, shouldn’t that be all that matters?” Kiyo pondered.

Uraraka frowned, “you sound confident.”

Kiyo looked around at the other teams forming, many people here were impressive and had impressive quirks, but none of them had ever trained with her father. “I am.”

Midoriya returned with a boy from class 1A with the face of a raven and some dark shadow bird-like entity hovering around him. He introduced himself as Fumikage Tokoyami. Kiyo introduced herself coolly and scanned the stadium for her father as the others began talking strategy. She wasn’t interested and she didn’t really need to know, her quirk was strong enough she could handle anything anyone here was capable of throwing at her. Her father was still standing with his back against the wall in the middle section. His piercing gaze was still latched on Shoto. Did he even know she was competing today? Had he known when they left without her? Was she really that insignificant to him?

‘Good luck tomorrow’ The voice of the young man she’d met the night before who gave her an alias of Dabi as a name, echoed through her mind. She thought of him and his resemblance to her deceased eldest brother.

“You guys ready?” Midoriya’s voice shook her from her thoughts and she went to join her teammates as the other teams got into position. Kiyo took the left side, Uraraka the right and Tokoyami at the front. 

Once they got into position and Izuku secured his headband with their teams total score on it, Present Mic started the countdown. Kiyo saw Shoto glance in Midoriya’s direction, his gaze fell on her and his eyes grew wide. It irritated her that it had taken him this long to notice her. Had he even realized he’d left her behind in the morning? She shot him a dark look which really seemed to unsettle him.

“BEGIN!” Midnight cried.

All the other teams raced toward them. Kiyo looked up at Midoriya, bored, “wall of fire or wall of ice?” She asked.

“H-Huh?!” The others gaped at her.

“I can keep them all at bay. Would you like me to do so with a wall of fire or a wall of ice?” Kiyo repeated herself.

“Ice, fire isn’t good for Dark Shadow.” Tokoyami piped up.

“Noted.” Kiyo shifted her left foot just the tiniest bit and a giant wall of ice shot up around them before spreading outward, freezing the entire arena immobilizing most teams in an instant.

“H-Holy Smokes.” Midoriya stared at the menacing wall of ice with it’s sharp piercing edges and jutting out spikes.

She could sense Shoto trying to combat her ice with his own and smirked. With another shift of her foot more layers began to grow, replacing each spot he managed to chisel away at almost instantaneously. If he wanted to see which of them had more stamina, he was going to be sorely disappointed. He stopped attacking her ice and came to the same realization. Kiyo trained endlessly, he couldn’t out last her.

There was a series of loud blasts from the opposite end of the wall from where Shoto had been attacking. Her ice began to crack and suddenly an angry Bakugo exploded through with a yell. “Don’t think for a second that you’re safe!” He roared. 

“Ah! Kacchan!” Midoriya squeaked, sounding terrified.

Kiyo sighed in annoyance and shifted her left foot a fraction. A massive perfectly cylindrical column of ice shot up in front of him. Bakugo comically smacked face first into the massive column as it literally sprang up practically out of nowhere before him without enough time for him to react.

“OO that had to hurt.” Present Mic’s voice sounded throughout the stadium.

Bakugo was wrenched back to his teammates by a boy with tape shooting out of his elbows.  He threw a dark look at Kiyo but she ignored him and the wall he’d blasted through replaced itself even sturdier and stronger than before. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, something was coming. 

“Hey shadow bird, watch yourself, fire incoming.” Kiyo said coolly.

Her teammates looked to her curiously before jumping in surprise as there was another explosion and her ice broke apart where Shoto was. There was a blur of movement and Kiyo realized quickly one of his teammates had insane speed. She reflexively shifted her right foot and fire leapt up from the ground at her feet before swirling around them in a blazing inferno. 

Her brother wouldn’t be able to reach through the flames for the headband. Unlike Kiyo, Shoto could get burned. She saw through the flames a brief moment where he considered reaching through, she concentrated on the flames swirling around them and they grew hotter shifting to a blinding blue color. Her teammates cringed at the sudden heat but soon realized her control over her quirk was great as the flames never came close enough to any of them to cause them real damage, just mild discomfort. 

“Kiyo, you’re amazing!” Midoriya exclaimed as he looked at the raging inferno of hellish blue fire around them.

“H-Huh?!” Kiyo yelped, feeling momentarily flustered by his praise.

Sensing the threat was over, Kiyo dropped the flames around them so Dark Shadow could stop hiding under Midoriya. She glanced over at her twin who was staring at her wide eyed. He shot a scowl at Midoriya before looking back at her.

“Why are you helping him?” He asked.

Kiyo glanced into the stands, had her display impressed her father? Once again he wasn’t even acknowledging her existence, his eyes solely on Shoto. “Reasons.” She said coolly.

It appeared the boy who’d rocketed toward them needed a moment to cooldown after using his quirk in such a fashion, leaving them completely open.

“Alright, let’s run.” Midoriya said.

Kiyo shrugged and followed their lead.  As they ran she realized Uraraka was using her quirk to make them all lighter so they could move easier while Tokoyami was using his Dark Shadow to keep an eye on their blind spots. She’d joined a pretty capable team. 

Kiyo noticed her classmates, who weren’t stuck in her ice, starting to move up in the ranks. She smiled faintly as she saw Monoma swipe the headband from Bakugo. She’d been tempted to cheer which she found very strange and began to wonder if she was ill. Perhaps her annoying classmates were rubbing off on her.

“You okay?” Uraraka asked her curiously.

Kiyo nodded but said nothing.

“Are you able to do another wall of ice?” Midoriya asked her, unsure. “I don’t want to wear you out.”

“This is nothing.” Kiyo sighed and shifted her left foot, ice flooded the arena once more capturing more teams and recapturing some that had just managed to break free from her first wave. Another wall of ice, larger and stronger than the last encircled them.

“Isn’t that exhausting?” Uraraka asked the cool girl in awe, she didn’t look the slightest bit hindered.

“Not when she trains seven hours a day.” Shoto’s voice sounded from the other side of the wall.

“Whoa, that's dedication.” Midoriya noted.

“That’s only on school days.” Kiyo shrugged.

Her barrier of ice continued to grow, fortifying itself and expanding into an impenetrable force. No one could break through it, anytime they tried, more ice would replace the ice they chiseled away and no one was about to win a war of stamina against her. 

Once Present Mic called that time was up, Kiyo let go of the others, dropping Midoriya to the ground. He managed to catch himself and turned to her with a grin. 

“Thanks for wanting to team up.” 

“I told you not to do that.” Kiyo grumbled and walked away to join her classmates as they were released for lunch.

“KIYO!” Pony squealed and attacked her with a hug once she got halfway across the field.

Kiyo managed to catch the bubbly girl in her arms and keep them both upright.  “Yes?” She asked nonchalantly as Pony hugged her.

“You should have teamed up with me.” Pony pouted.

“It certainly would have been more fun.” Kiyo replied earnestly.

The blonde’s cheeks turned pink.

“You okay?” Kiyo asked her curiously.

Pony grinned and squeezed her tighter.

“Have fun playing with Class 1A?” Monoma grumbled as Kiyo half dragged Pony over to the rest of their classmates.

Kiyo frowned at the bitterness in his voice and realized a lot of her classmates had probably gotten stuck in her ice. “...sorry...if I hindered any of you…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Honenuki gave her a pat on the back, though found it slightly difficult as Pony was still clinging to her. “Pony, are you going to let her go?” 

Kiyo shrugged, “It's fine, I don’t mind.”

She had lunch with her classmates and reluctantly joined them for the lunchtime activities. Near the end of the lunchtime activities, she spotted her father near one of the entrances to the field where all the locker rooms were. He was looking at her for the first time that day. He motioned her toward him.

Kiyo felt a bead of hope well up inside of her. Was he finally going to acknowledge her? Would he say he was proud of her and hadn’t realized how strong she was? She was almost smiling as she raced after him. Her happiness crumbled as he turned to face her, angrier than she’d seen him in a long time.

“What’s wro-?” She began but he cut her off, furious.

“What are you doing?!” He snarled, “you’re making your brother look weak.”

Kiyo stared up at him in terror. A part of her wanted to scream in his face and tell him that her brother WAS weak, that she was the one he should have been focused on all along. But for some reason, she was still scared of him.

“I told you to make sure all eyes were on him, not make him into an embarrassment!” He was livid.

“B-but-.” Kiyo attempted to stick up for herself, attempted to make a case for herself and tell him she was stronger but he wasn’t giving her a chance to talk.

“Quit making my masterpiece look bad.” He grabbed her by the front of her shirt lifting her off her feet. Though his eyes were technically on her, he saw right through her and it was then, in that moment that Kiyo realized, no matter what she did, no matter how strong she was or how much she trained, he would NEVER choose her. She would always be the lesser child. Her purpose was nothing more than to help Shoto be the best. She was never meant to be the best.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she felt herself begin to crumble.

Her father dropped her from his hold as Present Mic announced that they were ready to start the finals. Kiyo hit the ground, staring blankly before her as she thought of every grueling minute she’d endured his hellish training, every time she’d practically begged for his attention, every time he’d continued to let her down. Her father walked away without a word.

Chapter Text

Kiyo wasn’t quite sure how she returned to the field, she didn’t really remember getting up off the ground where her father had left her. Several of her classmates seemed to ask her if she was alright but it was as if she couldn’t hear them. At some point there was a collective gasp from everyone around her and she managed to look to the brackets for the matchups in the finals. The first match was Shoto Todoroki vs. Kiyo Todoroki.

Her classmates looked to her worriedly, noting the change in her behavior. Normally she was a little cold and unfeeling but now it was as if she wasn’t really here at all. 

“Kiyo?” Kendo tried to shake the suddenly comatose girl from her dark twisted thoughts, but she just kept staring blankly ahead.

Monoma placed a hand on her shoulder, “hey, you in there?” he leaned toward her looking deep into her blank heterochromatic eyes. He shook her gently, “Earth to Kiyo!”

Nothing.

She gently swiped his hand away from her and went to the waiting room to wait for her match to begin.

Her classmates stared after her worriedly. Something was very wrong with Kiyo.

Kiyo soon found herself in a waiting room, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten there or how long she’d been waiting. Her father’s words kept echoing through her mind. She thought of every time she’d ever tried to get attention from either of her parents and how every single time, Shoto won. He was everyone’s favorite and she was just an afterthought. 

Present Mic’s loud voice echoed through the stadium shaking her out of her stupor as he announced it was time for the first match of the finals to begin. Kiyo got to her feet and slowly made her way to the door. She exited the tunnel to see the arena in the center of the field now had a large platform of cement in its place.

Shoto stepped into the ring at the same moment she did. He looked angry. He always looked angry when their father spoke to him and of course their father would speak to him because he was actually rooting for him. Kiyo felt rage bubble up inside of her, a dark rage that terrified her.

“Kiyo-.” Shoto began.

“Save it.” Kiyo hissed. 

“BEGIN!” Present Mic’s voice echoed through the stadium.

Shoto attacked first with a massive mountain of ice that stretched up and out of the stadium. When the dust settled, the entire crowd was shocked by the mountain of ice. Shoto stared stunned at his twin, all the ice he’d sent her way seemed to move around her as if she’d stolen control of the ice he had created.

“Such a weakling.” Kiyo seethed with rage as she looked at his sloppy display. He didn’t have the control to shape it and he’d nearly hit people in the stands, if she hadn’t moved it at the last possible second it very well could have crushed someone.

She lunged at her twin as the rage burning inside of her began to eat away at her insides. Shoto tensed as she raced toward him, he didn’t stand a chance against her in hand to hand combat. His body reacted on instinct as she charged him and he activated his left side hurling a massive ball of fire at her.

“THAT’S IT! GO SHOTO!” Endeavor’s voice rang out from the stands as Kiyo was engulfed with flames.

“KIYO!” Her classmates shrieked in terror thinking she’d just been incinerated.

Kiyo stood in the fire shaking uncontrollably as her father yelled for her brother once more in triumph. She held out her hands to her twin’s flames engulfing her as she felt herself start to shatter. The fire began to swirl as she extended her hands at her sides and concentrated. The flames began to part and swirl around her hands, now under her control.

“Unlike you, weakling, I can’t be burned.” She hissed. The flames encircling her hands turned a blinding blue.

Shoto launched another wave of fire at her but the flames just absorbed into the blinding blue flames around her hands. Kiyo ran at him and swung her flaming fists at his head. Shoto barely avoided her attack and was stunned by the enraged shriek that escaped her, his usually composed twin. It startled him enough he forgot his own anger at his run in with his father just before the match had begun.

“Kiyo?” He called out to her as he dodged another swing, there were tears in her eyes.

She launched the fire around her fists at him and he had barely enough time to get a wall of ice up to keep from being burned alive. The ice melted in a flash and he still received a few minor burns on his arms as he threw them up to protect himself. He didn’t get a chance to recover as Kiyo kicked him in the gut with enough force that he went flying backward and hit the ground several meters away.

Shoto rolled to his feet and narrowly avoided another kick. 

“SHOTO!” Their father yelled. “Stop messing around and end this!”

Rage, broiling, unfettered rage burned inside of her. Why? Even now, when she was WINNING, was he still yelling at Shoto to win?! She grabbed Shoto by the neck and lifted him off his feet as over a decades worth of abuse and bottled up hatred finally began to shatter her. “I hate you. You’re so weak, why, even now, when you are powerless to stop me are you still everyone’s favorite?” Tears rolled down her cheeks, the left side becoming frozen, the right sizzling and turning to steam. “Why?” Her voice cracked. “Why can’t I be someone’s favorite? Why am I not worthy? What did I do wrong?”

Shoto’s heart broke as he watched his little sister completely shatter before him, lost in her fury, and consumed in heartache. He wanted to tell her she was his favorite, mostly he wanted to tell her he was sorry for never realizing how much pain she was in but her grip was too tight and he couldn’t find his voice.

“SHOTO! STOP ACTING DISGRACEFULLY! YOU CAN’T LOSE TO YOUR SISTER!” Their father’s words were the last straw.

Kiyo dropped her twin from her hold and turned to face her father yelling from the stands. “You chose wrong!” She screamed and cast her hands up to the heavens.

The stadium erupted into panicked cries as blazing blue fire shot from Kiyo’s palms creating a massive sphere of blue hellfire over the stadium. Simultaneously, ice shot from her feet encasing every surface in a thick layer of ice. She pushed herself to her breaking point for this last display of might.

Kiyo locked eyes with her father and saw the shock and awe on his face. She released her hold on her quirk and the ball of fire exploded in the sky like a supernova creating a blinding light. The ice melted away and a hush fell on the stadium as Kiyo stepped out of the ring. “There, your precious masterpiece won, I hope you’re proud.” Kiyo said in a dark voice before exiting the field. 

She retreated to Class 1B’s locker room and dropped into an empty chair before breaking down. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugged her legs and sobbed, allowing herself to finally let out all of the pain, heartache and rejection she’d buried deep down inside.

The door to the locker room opened and suddenly she felt multiple arms wrap around her. “You’re our favorite!” All of her classmates cried and she suddenly realized her whole class had shown up to console her.

Kiyo choked on a sob and embraced her classmates. For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to cry in front of them. She cried for what felt like hours though she knew it couldn’t have been nearly that long as some of her classmates also had matches to attend and they were all still there when she’d finally cried herself out of tears.

“Jeez, you’re a mess.” Monoma sighed as he mopped up her face with a handkerchief. “You shouldn’t have thrown that match. You were winning, your stupid brother couldn’t touch you.” He grumbled.

Kiyo looked up at him, her eyes red and swollen from all her crying.

“I told you if anyone here could show those 1A jerks whose boss it was you. You were supposed to win the whole thing.” Monoma lightly flicked her atop the head.

“Monoma! Don’t be a jerk.” Kendo warned him with a scowl.

“I’m being nice!” Monoma snapped.

“Are you?” Several of their classmates asked, confused and Kiyo cracked a small ghost of a smile.

“Thank you.” She hugged Monoma causing him to freeze up.

“Ah! Hey! I wasn’t being that nice!” He grumbled before hugging her back.

“Alright now that the crying is out of the way, can we talk about how INSANELY AWESOME that last move was though! For a second, I kinda thought we were all gonna die, but that was amazing!” Tetstetsu exclaimed and clapped her on the back.

“Yeah it was like a legit power move, are you okay?” Kendo asked Kiyo curiously.

Kiyo nodded, “just very very tired.” She felt weak and exhausted after her final move, not only had she activated both quirks from both sides she’d done it simultaneously which took a lot out of her. She felt like she could sleep for a week and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“Your dad’s kind of a jerk, huh?” Monoma noted.

Kiyo nodded.

“His loss.” Monoma shrugged and gently tousled her hair.

“We should head back.” Kendo attempted to rally the others.

“You guys go on ahead, I’m going to take a minute.” Kiyo murmured.

“You can’t move, can you?” Honenuki asked with a chuckle.

Kiyo felt her cheeks redden, she’d exhausted too much energy. She shook her head and her classmates chuckled.

“Well there’s an easy solution, dummy.” Monoma sighed.

Kiyo looked at her classmates curiously.

“Rely on us.” Jurota Shishida, a boy who looked kinda werebeast like with hair all over his body, fangs protruding from his mouth and a mop of unruly shaggy brown hair,  said as if it were obvious as he lifted her into his arms.

Kiyo smiled at her classmates, “thanks everyone.” She slumped into Shishida’s arms, “...I might need a nap…” Her heterochromatic eyes fluttered closed.

“Kiyo!” Class 1B panicked before they realized she had just drifted to sleep exhausted from her match and all of the crying.

Chapter Text

Kiyo awoke to someone gently shaking her. Her heterochromatic orbs fluttered open and she saw several of her classmates looking down at her in concern. “Is it time for Tetsutetsu’s match?” She asked as she sat up before frowning as she spotted Tetsutetsu among her classmates. 

“The Sports Festival is over.” Kendo offered her a small worried smile. “Are you feeling okay?” She asked.

Her classmates watched her in concern, her sleep hadn’t been very restful and she looked even more tired than she had before. There were unhealthy dark circles beneath her heterochromatic orbs, a faint blue hue to her lips and a sickly pallor to her skin. Kiyo nodded.

“You sure, because you look like hell?” Monoma pointed only to let out a yelp as Kendo smacked him with a massive hand that nearly sent him falling down the bleachers.

“Just tired.” Kiyo reassured them. 

Honenuki and Pony helped her to her feet and supported her between them. The majority of the spectators had already left, her classmates had tried to give her as much time as possible to rest. She smiled faintly, touched by their thoughtfulness.

She looked at them all and smiled, “...thank you, everyone…”

“No thanks necessary.” Tetsutetsu grinned.

“Yeah, we’re just glad you’re okay.” Kinoko Komori, a short girl with a large brown mushroom shaped bob of hair that obscured her eyes, piped up softly.

Class 1B exited the stadium together but paused as they were cut off by their homeroom teacher, Mr. Kan. They all paused and looked at their teacher as he looked them all over, his gaze falling on Kiyo.

“You alright?” He asked.

Kiyo nodded.

“Nothing we can’t handle.” Monoma smirked.

Mr. Kan smiled at his students, though many people hadn’t gotten a chance to really see what they could do, everyone got to see how well they all worked together and supported one another. “I’m glad. You all did well, I’m proud of you.”

“Way to be embarrassing Mr. Kan.” Monoma grumbled.

Everyone rolled their eyes at him.

Mr. Kan looked at the sickly pallor to Kiyo’s skin and the dark circles beneath her eyes, “you should take it easy for a while. I’m not approving any after hours training for you for at least the next week.”

Kiyo nodded.

“Which means you have time for karaoke after school!” Pony cheered and all the other girls joined in with cheers of their own.

“Karaoke?” Kiyo frowned.

“You can’t use training as an excuse to avoid us this week.”  Tokage grinned.

“Ugh. Fine.” Kiyo mumbled, not really putting up much of a fight.

Mr. Kan chuckled at his students, they’d forced the icy girl out of her cold hard shell. She was in good hands. He bid them all farewell and Class 1B headed for the station.

Kiyo was surprised that her father and twin weren’t lying in wait for her. She’d said some cruel things to Shoto, she wasn’t sure she’d really meant them all she’d just been upset. She didn’t think she really hated him.

Slowly Class 1B began to separate as everyone got off at their own stops and soon it was just Kiyo and Kendo exiting the station. Kiyo was still exhausted but now walking without assistance. Kendo had offered but she politely declined.

“...if you didn’t want to go home, you could come have dinner at my place…” Kendo offered.

Kiyo smiled, “thanks, but I think I’ll be okay.” She didn’t intend on going home, she wanted to find Dabi.

“Alright.” Kendo tried not to look dejected by her refusal, “you have my number if you need anything, well technically you now have everyone’s number if you need anything.” 

Kiyo threw her a curious look.

“While you were sleeping, everyone put their numbers into your phone.” Kendo admitted bashfully. “I was going to stop them, but I thought it was a good thing.”

Kiyo smiled. “It’s alright.”

They parted ways and Kiyo avoided her home and scoured the city in search of Dabi. She checked various alleys, poked her head in a few bars, and searched several convenience stores. As night fell and she was about to give up her search, she felt a warm strong yet gentle hand fall atop her head. A sense of familiarity washed over her. 

She looked up into a pair of very familiar teal eyes. Tears welled in her heterochromatic orbs and she launched herself into his arms with a cry, “Toya!”

Dabi caught his baby sister in his arms, surprised she had enough energy to move at all after her display earlier. She was trembling slightly from the effort of lugging herself around the city. “It’s Dabi now.” He corrected her with a smile as he lifted her off her feet. “Should have known you’d figure it out.”

Kiyo squeezed him tight, afraid if she let go she’d wake up and it would all have been a dream and he’d be dead all over again. Tears streamed down her pallid cheeks.

“Sorry.” He said softly as she cried against him. “You were the only one I didn’t want to leave behind.” Dabi gently rubbed her back in an effort to console her. 

Realizing she wasn’t going to stop anytime soon now that the floodgates had been broken, Dabi carried her to a nearby fire escape. He managed to get her up onto the rooftop and went to sit next to an abandoned maintenance shed that he’d turned into a makeshift home. He dropped into a tattered beanbag chair and waited until Kiyo had cried herself out.

Once Kiyo had recovered from her second complete breakdown that day she didn’t think she had the strength to stand and stayed in her eldest brother’s warm embrace. Ever since her match with Shoto, she felt cold and weak.

Dabi looked down as he realized she’d stopped crying and was now shivering in his arms. “You went overboard today.” He noted with a faint smile as he activated his quirk. He winced at the slight burn but smiled as Kiyo leaned into the warmth.

“...I know…” Kiyo murmured softly, “I’m so-.” 

“I’m proud of you.” His words cut off her apology.

She looked up at him in awe. Mr. Kan had said the same thing to everyone in class 1B earlier, it had been nice but it was different hearing it from her eldest brother. A smile curled onto her lips. Her smile fell as she noticed the flames on his wrists were creating more burns on his scarred flesh. She placed her hand over the flames snuffing them out.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself just to keep me warm.” She frowned.

“I don’t mind, if it’s for you.” Dabi pointed.

Kiyo frowned once more and shook her head.

“I wish I could have seen the look on his face.” Dabi said with a somewhat sinister smile as he thought back on the Sports Festival. He’d watched it at a bar earlier in the day and had been so happy to see Kiyo finally show everyone just how powerful she really was.

Kiyo made an attempt to mimic her father’s shocked expression, causing Dabi to laugh. She smiled, it had been so long since she’d heard that pleasant sound. “...I missed you…”

He gently tousled her hair, “I missed you too.”

Kiyo jumped as her phone started vibrating. The screen lit up, her father was calling. It was nearly midnight. She scowled at the phone and ignored the call.

“You should head back.” Dabi slowly got to his feet and set her down. He held his arms out around her to catch her if she was still too unstable to stand.

Kiyo managed to keep herself upright, she felt tired but a little more stable than she’d been before. She was still freezing cold and had a feeling her lips were still blue. She didn’t want to leave, not when she’d just been reunited with the one person in her family who’d ever seemed to give a damn about her.

“Can we hang out again, soon?” She pleaded.

Dabi nodded, “on one condition.”

Kiyo looked at him curiously.

“Keep my secret?” He asked.

Kiyo nodded.

“Then I guess I’ll see ya around soon.” Dabi smiled.

Kiyo grinned feeling giddy for the first time in her life.

“Can you make it home okay?” Dabi asked, concerned as he noticed the dark circles beneath her eyes hadn’t faded and there was still a blue hue to her lips.

Kiyo nodded.

Dabi waved farewell to his baby sister with a smile. His heart felt lighter after their reunion.

Kiyo reluctantly headed home. Her stomach began to churn unpleasantly with anxiousness as she thought of how her father was going to react. He was already livid before the match, he was sure to be apoplectic now. She paused at the front door, why did that matter? So what if he was angry? She was angry too… and he couldn’t burn her. Her hand hovered in front of the door, why had she been so afraid of him for so long? Sure he was strong, but she was quicker, her quirk was more powerful...what did she have to be afraid of? He couldn’t do what she had done earlier.

Steeling herself for whatever may come, she opened the door. Her father was lying in wait, his phone was in his hands no doubt calling her again since she’d ignored all of his calls. He took note of the sickly pallor of her skin, the blue hue to her lips and her shivering frame.

“Kiyo, let’s talk.” He sounded as if he were trying to keep himself calm.

“I have no interest in hearing anything you have to say and I don’t have anything to say to you.” Kiyo said coolly and sidestepped him.

He reached out to catch her by the arm but drew his hand back as a burst of blinding blue flame leapt up from her arm and lunged at him. “Kiyo!” He snarled as he narrowly avoided the flames that lashed out at him.

She turned her head slightly casting him a cold sideways glance, “...I’m not afraid of you anymore…”

Chapter Text

Shoto poked his head out of his room as he heard his father pounding on Kiyo’s door. “Kiyo!” His voice carried and anyone who had been trying to sleep in was no longer going to have that luxury.

He spotted his father angrily knocking on Kiyo’s door. Kiyo didn’t respond.

“OPEN THIS DOOR!” Endeavor roared.

Ice suddenly encased the door and threatening spikes shot out of it. One of them sliced Endeavor’s fist and he withdrew with a growl of rage as blood gushed from the wound. Shoto’s jaw dropped, Kiyo had never defied their father before. Though after yesterday...he realized he’d been blind to how much pain she’d been in all along. He should have seen this coming, he should have been there for her, she was his little sister and he’d let her down.

Endeavor let out one final roar of rage before kicking the ice covered door down. Shoto exited his room hoping to intervene before their father could beat Kiyo senseless, but froze as he looked into her room, it was empty. The window was flung wide open. She must have jumped out and taken off.

“KIYO!” Endeavor snarled in rage as he realized she’d slipped away and left her phone behind so he couldn’t contact her.

…

Dabi woke with a start as something solid, slightly squishy and very cold dropped on top of him. His eyes snapped open and he paused as he looked at the girl who’d jumped on him in his sleep. “Kiyo?” He asked unsure as the girl sitting atop him did not look like the little sister who’d come to visit him the night before. All of her hair was a striking snow white, her lips were a vibrant icy blue and her right eye that used to be teal glowed bright blinding blue like the color of her hellfire. Her left eye was a little more subtle but had a faint silver glow beneath the usual steel grey. “What the hell happened?” He caught her now stark white hair in his hands.

Kiyo shrugged, “I’m not sure, I woke up like this.”

Dabi frowned, his hair had changed when he’d pushed himself to his breaking point too. “Do you feel okay?”

Kiyo nodded.

“Are you sure I feel like there’s a human sized ice cube sitting on me.” Dabi pressed a hand to her forehead, she was cold as ice.

“I feel better than ever.” Kiyo grinned and leapt to her feet. “I snuck out the window, it was kind of exhilarating.”

“What happened when you got home last night?” Dabi asked as he sat up and attempted to warm up the parts of his body she’d come into contact with as they were now quite cold.

Kiyo smiled, “Dad was pissed but I realized something.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Dabi draped his blanket over top of her still not reassured that she was alright no matter how lively she seemed to be.

“What do I have to be scared of? He can’t burn me, I’m faster than him so it would be hard for him to hurt me and my quirk is stronger than his.” Kiyo smiled. “So, I told him I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.”

Dabi watched her for a moment as she shrugged out of the blanket he’d wrapped her in. “Damn, I wish I could have seen that.” He chuckled, “hey, I want to test something, sorry if it hurts.” He beckoned her toward him.

Kiyo approached him curiously as he activated his quirk and blue flames sprang around his wrist. He touched them to her bare arm but nothing happened. “I told you I can’t be burned.” She pointed.

“Just wanted to make sure that didn’t change when all this happened.”He motioned to her change in appearance.

Kiyo nodded, “I guess that’s fair.” She felt so much more alive than she ever had she wanted to do something rebellious. “Can we do something fun?”

Dabi threw her a curious look wondering what she thought of as fun. He knew of several abandoned buildings they could set ablaze but he wasn’t sure whatever this little rebellious streak of hers was was up to arson just yet. “What kind of fun?”

Kiyo strained to think for a moment about all the stupid strict rules at the Todoroki House, “like eat a bunch of junk food, see an R rated movie and get tattoos or piercings.” She prattled off a list.

Dabi chuckled. “Sure, why not.”

“Really?!” Kiyo asked with a grin.

Dabi hooked his arm around her and led her toward the fire escape, “really.” 

Kiyo ate sweets and junkfood until her stomach hurt, then they saw a ridiculously gory movie before stepping into a tattoo parlor. Dabi watched her carefully throughout their adventures, her lips stayed a vibrant blue color and her skin remained cold to the touch but she acted as if she had boundless energy and seemed functional, a tad manic (though that was probably some form of self preservation from all the recent emotional trauma that had broken her) but mostly herself.

The alternative girl behind the booking counter looked up and her lips quirked into a smile as she spotted them, “how can I help you?”

Dabi placed a hand atop Kiyo’s head and gently steered her forward. “Whatever she wants.”

The girl behind the counter chuckled, “uptight parent?” She asked Kiyo with a smile.

“Very.” Kiyo responded coolly.

The girl chuckled, “I’ll tell them you're old enough.” She winked, “have fun with your teenage rebellion.” She hopped off her stool and went to speak with one of the artists. He was tall and covered in ink and had a plethora of facial piercings and some decorative piercings in the curved ram’s horns atop his head. The receptionist returned after a bit and waved them on back.

“We doing ink or piercings?” The guy with the horns asked them curiously.

Since it was sort of a spur of the moment decision, Kiyo couldn’t think of any ideas she’d want for a tattoo. It had been tempting to tell him she wanted an All Might tattoo just to see the look on her father’s face but as nice as All Might was as a teacher, she didn’t really admire him enough for that. 

“Piercings.” Kiyo replied suddenly feeling nervous.

Dabi chuckled as he noticed she was getting nervous. “I’ll get some too.”

“Really?” Kiyo asked excitedly.

“Want me to go first?” He pondered.

Kiyo nodded.

Dabi sat in the comfy black chair while the guy with the  horns set to work sterilizing everything. He took his time with his task as Dabi told him what he wanted. Kiyo watched as he got several piercings  around the curve of his ear and fashioned them with some plain silver cuffs. He made it look easy and it helped quell her nervousness.

“How about you?” The horned guy asked her with a smile as she flipped through a small pamphlet on different types of facial piercings. 

Kiyo pointed to two of them.

“Septum and spider bites. Nice choice.” He patted the comfy black chair Dabi had vacated and she nervously took a seat. She didn’t know why she was suddenly scared, she’d experienced all kinds of pain before. “Alright, the septum is gonna be a bit uncomfortable, you’ll feel a lot of pressure.” He warned her.

Kiyo nodded her understanding and braced herself. She felt the poke of the needle and a bit of pressure but it wasn’t enough for her to react.

The young man currently holding a needle through her septum chuckled softly, “damn, I’ve seen grown ass men cry when I do that. You took that like a champ.” His smile started to falter, “is it too cold in here?” He asked worriedly as he felt the iciness of her skin through his gloves.

“No.” Kiyo replied simply as he replaced the needle with a cute hoop with a small crystal bat on the end.

She hardly felt the other needles as he made quick work of the spider bites and gave her two small crystal studs that matched the crystal on the bat. He held up a mirror for her to see and she smiled. She didn’t look like her twin anymore, she was just Kiyo now. Her strangely glowing eyes flicked to Dabi and he offered her a smile.

“Next time, let’s get tattoos.” Kiyo beamed, causing the guy with the horns to laugh.

Dabi chuckled, “sure.”

They paid at the front desk and left a tip before taking their leave.

Kiyo headed home well after dark not caring that she had school the next day or how angry her father would be. She stepped through the front door to find her father and Shoto sitting in the front room in an uncomfortable silence, waiting for her.

Their eyes widened as she stepped through the door. She didn’t acknowledge either of them and headed for her room without a word. Shoto got up and followed after her. 

“Kiyo!” He caught up to her as she reached her room.

She noticed her bedroom door was missing and there were now bars on her windows to keep her from escaping. A smirk twisted onto her lips, as if that was enough to stop her. Shoto caught her wrist in his hand and drew back with a gasp as he realized she was ice cold.

“Kiyo? Are you alright?” He asked in awe.

“I’m fine.” Kiyo replied coolly.

“What happened?” He asked.

“Guess my hair finally caught on that I was tired of being compared to you.” She said with a shrug.

Shoto looked at the vibrant blue hue of her lips, the glow in her eyes and the crystal piercings adorning her face. That wasn’t all that had changed. He stayed in the hall as she disappeared into her room.

Chapter Text

Kiyo slept in for the first time in a very long time and headed to the kitchen for breakfast. Nastuo choked on his cereal the moment he spotted her. Her long striking white hair hung loosely down her back, her eyes held a strange glow, her lips were a vibrant blue and there were new piercings adorning her face.

“What..the..hell..happened...to you?!” He asked between coughs as he tried desperately to get his breathing back under control. Cereal in the lungs did not bode well for breathing. 

“Try chewing your food not inhaling it.” Kiyo quipped, causing him to choke once more.

“D-did you just sass me?” Natsuo asked in awe, not sure if he should be concerned or proud that his robotic little sister seemed to find a personality. 

Kiyo went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. Her father had told them before they weren’t allowed to drink it. Fuyumi’s eyes grew wide as she spotted Kiyo’s new look.

“Kiyo?” Fuyumi asked softly as Kiyo made herself a cup of coffee, “you’re not supposed to drink that.”

Kiyo shrugged and lifted the mug to her lips.

“Enough.” Her father’s voice sounded behind her in a snarl of rage. “I’ve had it with whatever this is.” He growled.

Kiyo turned around and looked right through him as she sipped at the dark hot liquid in her mug.

“Kiyo.” Her father growled, “that’s enough.”

Kiyo smirked, and continued sipping at the bitter drink.

Endeavor had no idea what to do, she’d never defied him before. All of this was new. He looked at the piercings on her face and the bright blue lipstick across her lips. “Take those piercings out and wipe that crap off your face.” 

Kiyo looked confused and finally acknowledged him. “What crap?”

Fuyumi sighed and approached her with a damp paper towel, she rubbed it across Kiyo’s lips and gasped as the paper towel froze in her hands. She stared at Kiyo, worriedly. “...it’s not makeup…” She placed a hand to Kiyo’s forehead. “Kiyo, I think you should lay down.”

Kiyo shrugged away from her and set the coffee mug on the counter, “I'm fine.” 

Fuyumi picked up the mug and turned it over the sink. A frozen chunk of coffee fell into the sink with a loud clunk. She threw a concerned look after Kiyo as she sidestepped her father and exited the kitchen. 

Endeavor looked to his youngest child worriedly as he realized she hadn’t dyed her hair, it had changed on its own, like Toya’s did. “Kiyo?” He reached out and caught her by the wrist. There was a sizzling sound and suddenly steam rose off her skin where he’d made contact due to the heat from his hand making contact with her frozen flesh. 

Kiyo wrenched her wrist from his grip and shot him a dark look. Endeavor felt a twinge of numbness on his palm and looked down at his hand where he’d gripped her, it looked like he’d gotten frostbite. He stared after Kiyo as fear and panic gripped his heart. He couldn’t let it happen again, he couldn’t lose another child.

“Kiyo!” He raced after her but when he got outside the car to take Kiyo and Shoto to school was exiting the driveway. 

The car came to a stop outside of UA High School, Kiyo exited the back seat without a word to her twin. Several students stopped and stared as she made her way up the front steps. Some of the boys from Shoto’s class fell against one another as they swooned dramatically. She ignored them and headed straight for Classroom 1B.

She pushed the door open and a hush fell on the room before everyone present shouted all at once.

“KIYO?!” Everyone exclaimed.

“Whoa, what happened to your hair?” Komori asked.

“And your eyes?” Honenuki gasped.

“Your lips are still blue, are you okay?” Kendo worried.

“Can we talk about how awesome the piercings are?” Tetsutetsu remarked.

“The whole look is hot.” Tokage grinned, a few others nodded their agreement.

Kiyo headed toward her seat feeling somewhat flustered by the attention. The door to the classroom violently swung open causing everyone to jump. Bakugo barreled into the room and scowled at everyone.

“Where is she?!” He growled.

“Who?!” Kendo asked curiously.

“The Icy Hot Bastard’s sister, the one I should have fought in the final!” Bakugo snarled.

Everyone pointed at Kiyo and he looked at her as if noticing her for the first time. His crimson eyes widened a fraction at her changed appearance. His words made her breath hitch in her throat. He said she should have been the one in the final.

“I won’t be satisfied with winning until I beat you, fight me.”

Kiyo rolled her eyes, “not interested.” She dropped into her seat behind Pony. Pony turned to her and offered her a bright smile.

“You look so pretty, Kiyo.” Pony beamed, “this feels more like you.”

Kiyo felt her heart skip a beat at this.

“H-Hey!” Bakugo growled, not liking that everyone was now ignoring him. “I want the final match I was supposed to get!”

“You can want for it all you want, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” Kiyo shrugged.

Bakugo shot her one last glare before taking his leave bumping into Monoma on his way in.

“How’s that medal feel?” Monoma poked at him, “you know, when you struggled to defeat the weak Todoroki and our Todoroki mopped the floor with him. We all know who the real winner should have been!”

“Monoma!” Kendo reprimanded him and used her quirk to drag him into the room before he could anger Bakugo further.

“What? It’s true!” Monoma yelped as Kendo squeezed him in her giant hand. His periwinkle gaze fell on Kiyo and his eyes grew wide. “K-Kiyo?!” There was a faint splash of color staining his cheeks as he stared at her in awe of her new look.

“Looks hot right?” Tokage grinned.

Monoma opened his mouth to reply but no sound came out.

“That’s a first.” Honenuki snickered, “he’s finally quiet.”

Mr. Kan stepped into the room as the bell rang, “Monoma why aren’t you in your sea-?” He paused as his gaze fell on Kiyo and the vibrant blue of her lips, “Kiyo? Are you alright?”

Kiyo nodded.

He pointed to his own lips and then hair to ask her about hers without asking aloud.

Kiyo let out a soft sigh, “I just woke up like this yesterday.”

“Why don’t you go see Recovery Girl, just to be safe.” He suggested.

“Alright.” Kiyo got up from her seat and headed to Recovery Girl's office.

Upon discovering she was cold as ice, her body temperature at an alarming negative two degrees celsius, the school called her father to come pick her up insisting she go to the hospital. Despite her protests and assurances that she felt fine, Recovery Girl wrapped her in blankets and wouldn’t let her out of her sight until her father arrived.

Chapter Text

Endeavor arrived at UA his mind lingering on what had happened to Toya. His heart was heavy as he finally reached Recovery Girl’s office afraid of what state he’d find his youngest child in. He arrived to see Kiyo sitting on the edge of one of the beds wrapped in a blanket. She threw a fierce look at him the moment he opened the door. He felt a little relieved, if she had enough energy to look at him like that she probably wasn’t in any immediate danger.

“Let’s go.” His voice came out much harsher than he had intended and he saw a flash of blue fire spark from the corner of her glowing right eye. “Kiyo.” He was trying to keep himself calm but there was an edge to his voice and it came out as a warning.

Kiyo angrily shrugged the blanket off of her and exited through the door brushing past her father.

“Kiyo, you should keep that on.” Recovery GIrl called after her. 

Endeavor sighed and picked up the blanket as Kiyo stormed down the hall. “Thanks, Recovery Girl.” He nodded his head politely to the older woman before going after his youngest child. “Kiyo, stop this nonsense.” He called after her only to leap back as a flurry of blue fire and razor sharp spikes of ice shot toward him seemingly from all around him. 

Kiyo didn’t even spare a glance in his direction as she was overcome with rage. Her father began to wonder if she’d even been aware her quirk had lashed out at him or if it was unconscious.  She silently made her way to the awaiting car and got into the backseat before folding her arms across her chest.

Endeavor struggled to maintain his composure as he got into the car after her. He reached out to drape the blanket over her only for her to slap it away and shoot him a scathing look. “You don’t get to play the concerned parent role, you can drop the act.” She seethed.

“Like it or not, I am a concerned parent, something is wrong with you.” He tried to keep his voice in check but it came out in a growl.

“Yeah, I stopped giving a damn about what you think, it’s been quite liberating.” Kiyo retorted. “Perhaps, I’m just becoming more me and you think it’s wrong because I won’t be that pathetic naive little girl you can manipulate and walk all over.”

Endeavor frowned. He had taken advantage of that in the past. He’d always expected Kiyo to be eager to please and to always be there to welcome him home and make sure he had a place at the dinner table. It had made him happy to see her training in the courtyard when he’d come home on late nights and see the bright look in her eyes as he returned from a long day. Now all he saw in her strangely glowing heterochromatic eyes was ice cold hatred.

He picked up the blanket and dropped it over top of her without a word. He’d failed her, he knew that, he knew it the moment she’d stopped fighting and screamed at him during her match with Shoto. It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice at him. And in that moment he knew, it was too late, there was no turning back. He’d had no idea how strong she really was, how much she’d trained and honed her quirk. She could do it, she could surpass All Might, but it was too late now, she despised him and wanted nothing to do with him.

Kiyo gripped the blanket in her hands tightly and was about to hurl it away from her when her father placed his hand over top of hers. There was a sizzling sound as he made contact and she knew it was probably causing frostbite to his hand but he kept it there. 

“Leave it.” He said quietly.

Kiyo threw him a dark look but reluctantly left the blanket on. There was guilt in his teal eyes and she suspected he was thinking of what had happened with Toya. Her expression darkened. “Oh. I see. You’re not even concerned about me at all are you?” She clenched her fists, “you’re just feeling guilty because you’re afraid what happened to Toya is going to happen again.”

“Kiyo, don’t talk about that.” Endeavor said with a pained expression.

“Guilty conscience?” Kiyo asked bitterly. “Seems odd to feel guilty about it, aren’t the rest of us expendable? You’re the one that said I was just a sparring partner for Shoto, to help him achieve his goal. Why would it matter if something happened to me?” Her voice was laced with venom.

“Enough!” Endeavor snapped, his hand raising automatically.

Rather than flinch as he had expected her to, he saw a hostile glint in her eyes daring him to strike her. He struggled to compose himself. He wasn’t so sure he’d be able to subdue her if she used her quirk to its fullest capacity. Slowly, he lowered his hand.

Her words echoed through his mind, like poison. She was right, he did have a guilty conscience, he felt immense guilt for what had happened with Toya and what was happening now with Kiyo. He knew he only had himself to blame and it scared him to think he might have to go through that pain again if Kiyo were to deteriorate further and lose control of her quirk like Toya did.

The car came to a stop outside of the hospital and Endeavor swept his youngest child into his arms ignoring her protests. He carried her into the hospital and they were shown to an exam room immediately. 

Kiyo found herself sitting on an examination table, her father pacing nearby as they waited for a doctor. She wasn’t sure if her father was pensive or brooding. She sat uncomfortably, wishing he wasn’t with her.

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door and a doctor stepped into the room. “Good morning, what seems to be the problem today?” He asked.

“I’m fine.” Kiyo grumbled.

“Check her temperature.” Her father pointed.

The doctor noticed the tension in the room right away and frowned. He reached for a thermometer and rolled it across Kiyo’s forehead. His jaw dropped as he looked at the reading, negative 2 degrees celsius. “That can’t be right.” He stared at it in disbelief before placing a hand to her forehead only to draw back with a hiss as her skin practically burned him with cold. “Uh...we’re going to need to run some tests and I’m going to consult with one of our resident quirk specialists.” He jumped to his feet and went to call for whatever tests he was planning on running.

Kiyo let out a sigh.  “This is a waste of time, I feel fine.”

“Obviously, you’re not fine, so stay put.” Her father ordered as he thought of simpler times, when Kiyo was a little girl who loved and admired him and used to draw him pictures and write reports about him, her favorite hero. He knew it, even then, he didn’t give her what she needed, he took her seemingly endless love and admiration for granted. Despite knowing that he was failing her then, he hadn’t changed his behavior, he just expected Kiyo to forever be the same Kiyo who would always be there with a smile.

The doctor returned with a nurse and they drew several vials of blood from her to take off for some kind of testing. The tests were run and came back with absolutely nothing. The doctor returned and suggested a bunch of uncomfortable tests that Kiyo wanted no part in. Her father agreed to them all much to her displeasure and for the rest of the day she was poked, prodded and attached to various machines until she was tired and achy all over. 

Endeavor stayed by her side for every test. There were a few times where it looked as if she were in pain and he’d tried to grab her hand but she withdrew from him.

By dinnertime the doctor returned with a frown, none of the tests had come back with anything unusual, aside from her alarming body temperature she was completely fine. The quirk specialist had run their own tests and found nothing wrong with her or her quirk. They released Kiyo and told them to return if anything changed.

Exhausted from the endless testing, Kiyo passed out in the car. Endeavor wrapped her in a blanket and watched her as she slept. Everytime she exhaled softly in her sleep he could see her breath. His worried frown deepened. How could nothing be wrong with her? She was freezing.

The car came to a stop outside the Todoroki estate. Endeavor exited the car with a sleeping Kiyo in his arms. He carried her inside to find Fuyumi, Natsuo and Shoto sitting worriedly in the front room. They all looked up as he stepped into the room.

“How is she?” Fuyumi asked as she ran to greet them.

“I’m not sure, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her other than her body temperature.” Endeavor frowned. He carried her to her room and gently set her atop her bed. 

She didn’t stir as he took off her shoes and draped several blankets over top of her. He looked down at his youngest child and tenderly swept her now solid white hair out of her face. He thought of all the times she used to run to him with a big smile on her face and realized he’d never see that smile directed at him ever again. It was too late, he’d pushed her too far.

“...I’m sorry, Kiyo…” He said softly as he looked down at her sleeping face, “you are strong enough to be my masterpiece...I wish I would have allowed myself to see it before it was too late…”

Chapter Text

Since the hospital had cleared her, Endeavor had no reason to force her to stay home and so Kiyo returned to UA. Her classmates were all relieved to see her and informed her that she had received the most offers out of anyone else from pro hero agencies wanting her to intern with them. Mr. Kan gave her a list where all her offers had come from. Almost every agency in Japan, and even a few in other countries had made her an offer.  She immediately scorched her father’s agency off the paper before her gaze fell on the current 3rd ranked hero’s name. Best Jeanist, would make for a suitable mentor.  It also might irritate her father to be passed over, since All Might’s agency wasn’t an option, which would have really pissed him off.

After making her decision she headed to the teacher’s lounge after school to let Mr. Kan know. Several other teachers were at their desks working on various things. There were a handful of students speaking with various teachers. She spotted the hot headed blonde at Mr. Aizawa’s desk. He shot her a glare which she ignored as she headed to Mr. Kan’s desk. He was eating a bowl of ramen at his desk while looking through stacks of papers. His dark red eyes flicked upward as she came to a stop at his desk and he offered her a warm smile.

“Everything alright, Kiyo?” He asked.

She nodded, “I decided on an agency I’d like to intern with.”

“Already? You had so many, are you sure you had enough time to consider them all?” He asked wanting to be sure she wasn’t rushing into anything since she was still out of sorts.

“I’m sure.” She replied confidently.

“Alright, where did you decide?”

“Best Jeanist’s Agency.” Kiyo replied.

“What?!” Bakugo roared from the other side of the room causing the teachers who had been focused on their work to jump. Present Mic ended up spilling his drink all over himself when he’d jumped.

Kiyo turned to the irate blonde as he stomped in her direction.

“Like hell you are! That’s where I’m going.” Bakugo growled at her.

Kiyo shrugged and ignored him.

“H-Hey!” Bakugo snapped.

“Is there anything else I need to do?” She asked Mr. Kan who was looking at the angry blonde warily.

“Nope, I’ll handle it.” Mr. Kan replied.

“Thank you, Mr. Kan.” She bowed her head politely and turned to walk away.

Bakugo grabbed her by the arm before withdrawing with a hiss at the burning cold. “The hell?” He shot her a dark look, “we still have a score to settle.”

“Since when?” Kiyo frowned.

“Since the Sports Festival!” Bakugo glowered.

“Who are you again?” Kiyo asked with a smirk knowing it would get a rise out of him.

Mr. Kan watched the pair of them not sure if he should step in or let Kiyo handle it on her own. He was worried for the girl, she’d seemed so broken and vulnerable at the festival, but now she was blazing with confidence. He wasn’t sure if it was a preservation tactic but he was worried she’d burn out.

Bakugo bristled with rage. “Katsuki. Bakugo.” He hissed.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.” Kiyo shrugged and walked away.

Present Mic snickered, “ouch.”

Bakugo shot him a glare and stormed after her, “hold on a minute.”

Kiyo paused and turned to him, her patience wearing thin, “what?” Her tone was icy.

“I want to know who would win in a fight between the two of us.” He growled.

Kiyo smirked, “I already know the answer to that, stop wasting my time.” She turned sharply, the tips of her frosty white hair slapping him in the face before she exited the teachers lounge.

Present Mic was in stitches. Mr. Kan appeared to be struggling not to laugh though he very much wanted to cheer on Kiyo at that moment for being so bold. Mr. Aizawa frowned as he watched Bakugo storm out of the room after her. He sighed and got to his feet.

“I feel like one of us should intervene.” Mr. Aizawa looked in Mr. Kan’s direction.

“I have faith in my student, she can handle herself and I don’t think that boy poses any threat to her.” Mr. Kan shrugged.

Mr. Aizawa sighed but let it go and returned to his desk waiting for the inevitable sound of something exploding to come from the direction they’d gone.

“Hey! We’re not done!” Bakugo snarled.

“We are.” Kiyo turned on him with a glare.

“If you’re so confident you’d win, why won’t you fight me?” He glared back at her.

“Do you gain any satisfaction from fighting weaklings?” Kiyo asked him curiously.

“No.”

“Then what do I have to gain from indulging you in your pitiful request?” Kiyo poked him in the chest, sending him stumbling back a few steps. “Goodbye, whatever your name was.” She smirked and walked away.

Bakugo watched her walk away, seething with rage.

Kiyo headed for the exit and paused as she felt a hand drop onto her shoulder. She spun around ready to tell Bakugo off but paused as she spotted Pony smiling brightly at her. “Yes?” She asked softly.

“Karaoke time!” Pony beamed.

“Y-you were being serious about that?” Kiyo blanched as the rest of the girls from class 1B surrounded them.

“Absolutely we were, you’re not getting out of it.” Tokage hooked her arm through Kiyo’s. She shivered a little at the cold but didn’t release her from her hold. 

Pony quickly scrambled to loop her arm through Kiyo’s free arm and grinned brightly.

Kiyo smiled, “fine.”

Pony giggled, “yay!”

She let herself be dragged away from school by her friends and soon found herself at an overly cute arcade/cafe tucked in a private karaoke room with the girls from her class. It was a pastel nightmare, they were in a pastel pink room on a comfy pastel pink sofa littered with pastel green and purple pillows.

Reluctantly she ordered some ridiculously cute latte and pastry at her friends’ insistence and found herself trapped on the sofa between Pony and Tokage. The girls all took pictures of their cute drinks and pastries on their phones and chatted about how cute they were. Kiyo watched her friends with a small smile before picking up her cute pastry. She raised it to her lips but froze as everyone turned to stare at her wide eyed.

“W-what?!” She asked nervously as they all raised their phones.

“So cute!” They all squealed.

Kiyo resisted the urge to roll her eyes, endured their picture taking and quietly nibbled at her pastry. Kendo pulled up the song list on the TV screen and flipped through them all. The rest of the girls excitedly pointed out various songs occasionally erupting into giggles as they talked about some of the movies or shows the songs had been in. Kiyo was quiet. The Todoroki Estate had always been a little cold and unfeeling, her older siblings were allowed TV and movie time and even playtime but growing up Kiyo was always told to focus on her training, to help Shoto.

“What’s your favorite one, Kiyo?” Reiko Yanagi, a shy and quiet girl with short pale grey hair, blue eyes with bags under them and usually wore a tired expression, asked her curiously. She pointed to the list, it was a list of movie songs.

Kiyo shrugged, “I’ve never seen any of them.”

“WHAT?!” Everyone gasped.

“Not even Totoro?” Pony pouted.

Kiyo shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

“Alright, it’s official, we start with all the Ghibli songs then I vote we have a sleepover at someone’s house and watch ALL of the movies this weekend!” Tokage cried dramatically.

“Agreed!” All the girls practically tackled Kiyo with a hug.

Kiyo couldn’t help but laugh at her rambunctious friends, “fine.”

They all giggled as the icy girl conceded to them. Kiyo sang along with her friends, struggling to catch up with some of the songs as she wasn’t familiar with them and was unsure of the tempo and inflections. Everyone of them ended each song by bursting into giggles and Kiyo joined in too. 

Once they were all tired of singing and breaking into fits of hysterical laughter at all of their not so in key singing, they left the room and headed to the main cutesy arcade. Pony dragged Kiyo to a pony racing game, then to some cute Hello Kitty cafe game and a plethora of other disgustingly adorable games. Kiyo smiled and allowed herself to be dragged around, not minding in the least.

“We finally found something she’s not good at.” Tokage cackled as Kiyo lost her fifth time in a row at a Hello Kitty racing game.

“Everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road and no one is abiding by traffic laws of any kind.” Kiyo grumbled as she forced her car to stop at a stop sign causing all of her classmates to burst into a fit of laughter.

“It’s a race! Don’t stop!” Tokage howled with laughter.

“...but there’s a stop sign…” Kiyo frowned, sending them all into hysterics. 

Chapter Text

“W-wait! Kiyo!” Fuyumi called after her youngest sibling as Kiyo left the house with a small neatly packed overnight bag in hand. “Y-you should run this by Dad first.” She tried to reason with her younger sister.

Kiyo shrugged and headed for the door.

Natsuo blocked her path, “hey, I’m glad you’re less robotic now but Fuyumi’s right. You don’t get to just do whatever you want now you have to at least let us know where you’re going if you’re not running it by Endeavor.”

“A sleepover.” Kiyo sighed.

“What?!” Fuyumi and Natsuo gaped.

Shoto glanced up from his homework at the table and looked to his twin curiously. Did she say sleepover? When did that word even become a part of her vocabulary?

“Really?” Fuyumi asked with a maternal smile, “you made friends?”

Kiyo nodded.

“Like genuinely or did you threaten to make their electronics rise up against them in a robot overthrow?” Natsuo pondered, causing Shoto to chuckle softly.

“Natsuo!” Fuyumi snapped at him.

Kiyo frowned. “Can I go now?” 

Natsuo stepped out of her way and the three of them watched in awe as Kiyo exited through the front door. Kiyo didn’t make it more than a few steps across the porch before she spotted her father, he wasn’t usually home on weekends, he tended to spend a lot of the weekend at his Hero Agency, but he’d been stopping by the house more frequently since her visit to the hospital, to check in on her. 

Endeavor frowned as he spotted the overnight bag in her hands. “Where are you going?”

“A sleepover.” Kiyo muttered.

Endeavor’s frown deepened. “I don’t recall saying you could.”

“So stop me.” Kiyo challenged him. “...if you can.”

Endeavor let out a sigh, he wasn’t so sure he could. She was quick, he didn’t think he could outrun her, his quirk would do nothing to her and from what he saw during the Sports Festival it was likely she could use his own flames against him. “Very well, you can go. You should ask me about these things first.” He frowned.

Kiyo smirked, recognizing he’d agreed because he couldn’t stop her, as she had suspected. 

“I received Shoto’s acceptance to intern at my agency, I didn’t receive yours.” Endeavor began, watching her carefully, worried she’d start deteriorating before his eyes at any moment.

“I had a better offer.” Kiyo shrugged.

“What?!” Endeavor snarled, losing his temper for a moment. He quickly straightened up and tried to keep his temper in check, “...from who?”

“Best Jeanist.” Kiyo shrugged.

“He’s ranked lower than me.” Endeavor frowned.

“Overall, perhaps, but his approval rating is certainly higher.” Kiyo shot at him as she hopped off the porch and continued on her way without casting a single glance in her father’s direction.

Endeavor watched her go with a small somber frown on his lips. 

Kiyo arrived at Kendo’s house and hesitated at the front door. This was the first time she’d ever been to someone else’s home. What was an appropriate knocking level? What if she knocked too loudly or too softly. As she stared at the door pondering how much pressure she should apply to her knock, she heard someone call out her name behind her.

“Kiyo!” A pair of arms encircled her and she managed to move her head out of the way just in time to avoid Pony’s horns. “Oops!” Pony giggled as she realized she’d almost hit Kiyo with her horns in her excitement.

“Pony.” Kiyo nodded her head to her in greeting with a small smile.

Pony’s cheeks flushed, “hi.” She beamed.

Kiyo smiled, they’d already greeted each other, “hi.”

Pony giggled, “are you excited for your first sleepover?”

Kiyo thought for a moment before nodding. “I think so. I’m a bit nervous though, how loud is one supposed to knock to announce their arrival at someone’s home?” She looked back at the door with a frown.

Pony giggled and unhooked one of her arms from around Kiyo and reached forward to knock on the door, “like that.” 

Kiyo nodded. “Noted.”

They both jumped as they heard a chorus of shouts from behind the door. It sounded like there was a zoo inside. Children were screaming and hollering and there was a loud thunderous sound as if a stampede were barreling right for the front door. Kiyo shifted her stance, keeping Pony behind her and braced herself for whatever was going to come flying out of the door.

The door flew open and three young children dove at them with shouts. Kiyo managed to catch all three of them with ease and had one dangling from each arm and the other now clinging to her from the front.

“H-hey, how come we didn’t knock her over?” One of the boys dangling from her arm pouted.

“Because Kiyo’s really strong.” Pony giggled from behind her.

“No fair!” The other boy dangling from her other arm whined.

“We get a do over!” The boy around her neck growled before all three of them hopped down and ran back inside yelling for reinforcements before slamming the door in their faces.

Pony was beside herself giggling.

Kiyo looked at the door confused as she heard another roar and what sounded like more small feet making a thunderous stampeding sound. She sighed as the door was flung open again and now five small children attempted to tackle her. Once again she deflected all of them with ease and now found a child dangling from each arm, one dangling from her neck and two trying to cling to her legs.

“We still didn’t knock her over.” The oldest, around her neck, mumbled.

Kiyo was going to ask if they had the wrong house but upon realizing all the small children had the same bright orange hair as Kendo she knew that couldn’t be the case, they were most likely her younger siblings, which explained her big sister vibe. She was used to dealing with children. 

“Need backup?” Pony asked her with a smile.

“I think I can manage.” Kiyo smiled back, “do we go inside?”

“I think so, maybe Kendo and the others were not so lucky since they didn’t have a Kiyo to protect them.” Pony laughed.

“It’s possible.” Kiyo nodded and followed Pony inside, not the slightest bit hindered by the children trying to weigh her down.

“H-hey! You weren’t supposed to be able to break through our defenses!” The kids yelled and clung to her tighter trying to make themselves as heavy as possible.

“What defenses?” Kiyo asked curiously as she followed Pony.

All five of the boys clinging to her let out dejected groans. “She’s too strong!”

Pony laughed.

They stepped into a living room to find the rest of the girls from Class 1B sitting in what looked like a makeshift jail being held captive by more small children.

“Alright you brats, this has gone on long enough!” Kendo finally snapped as she spotted the five boys clinging to Kiyo.

“I know what might make them behave.” Tokage suddenly smiled mischievously before pointing in Pony’s direction, “hey kiddos, if you capture the princess over there, the final boss will be revealed.”

“Final Boss!” The kids yelled and ran toward Pony.

Kiyo quickly shook off the children clinging to her causing them to tumble onto the sofa with a chorus of giggles before she darted to Pony’s rescue. She swept Pony off her feet and into her arms causing the blonde’s cheeks to flush with heat. 

“Hot.” Tokage snickered. “Anyone else totally want to be rescued by Kiyo right now?”

The others raised their hands before bursting into a giggle fit.

“I’m very confused.” Kiyo frowned slightly as she shifted her grip on Pony so she could get one arm free.

Each time one of the children tried to attack her she would pick them up with ease and toss them gently onto the sofa. They’d let out a giggle and a ‘wee’ before running back at her to do it again as if it had suddenly turned into a ride.

After ten minutes, the children were all worn out and laying on the ground in defeat. Kiyo gently set Pony on her feet and the other girls laughed and exited their prison. 

“Sorry about the monsters, some of my cousins are staying with us for the weekend and when the younger kids all get together, things get a bit crazy.” Kendo apologized, “thanks for playing along with them.” She smiled at her friends.

“It was fun.” Tokage beamed.

Pony nodded.

“My parents and Aunt and Uncle are taking them to a theme park a bit later so we’ll have the house to ourselves for the evening.” Kendo assured them all.

Kiyo smiled faintly as she looked at Kendo, she was a good big sister, she didn’t discourage her younger siblings from their games even if it ended up dragging her friends into the midst. Kiyo hadn’t really gotten to play with her older siblings as a kid...or at all really...playing wasn’t something she or Shoto were allowed to do, if they had time to play they had time to train. 

Kendo’s family was warm, everyone talked to each other and genuinely seemed to like one another. After her family had made introductions they rounded up the younger kids and headed off to the theme park. Kiyo felt somewhat embarrassed as Kendo’s parents thanked her for tiring the kids out since it would make them more manageable at the park.

Once the house was cleared out, they headed to Kendo’s room which it appeared she shared with one of her younger siblings. “No wonder you’re so good at handling Monoma, you get lots of practice with the little monsters.” Tokage cackled as they all settled into Kendo’s room on a floor of blankets and pillows.

Kendo laughed, “honestly, the monsters are easier to handle sometimes.”

Everyone else burst into a fit of laughter.

Kiyo looked at her laughing friends with a smile and relaxed as she sat between Pony and Tokage on the pillow pile. 

“Do you have any younger siblings, Kiyo? You handled the monsters well.” Kendo smiled.

Kiyo shook her head, “I’m the youngest.” 

“Oh, did your older siblings play with you a lot?” Komori asked.

Kiyo shook her head but said nothing more. 

The others frowned but took that as a cue to move on. Kendo started up My Neighbor Totoro on the big TV in the corner of the room and they all settled in for a night of Studio Ghibli movies. 

Chapter Text

Kiyo rubbed her temples as her head began to throb. She hadn’t been at Best Jeanist’s agency for more than 5 minutes and the annoying hot head was already giving her a headache with his shouting. They were asked to wait in the main lobby of the agency upon their arrival. 

“What is taking so long?” Bakugo growled.

Having had enough Kiyo turned on him with a scowl, “I imagine this is a test of patience as I’m quite certain he saw the Sports Festival and realized you possess none. Now if you would please cease with your temper tantrum everyone in the lobby would appreciate it.” She said in a strained voice, trying hard to stay composed, calm and collected. Bakugo made that very difficult.

“We’re the only two people here.” Bakugo retorted with a scowl.

“Yes and if you shut up I’ll be happy and you won’t be unconscious.” Kiyo replied coolly.

“That a threat?” Bakugo hissed.

“No, it’s a fact.” Kiyo shot him a dark look, fire sparked at the corner of her eye.

Bakugo clenched his fists. He moved a step toward her but suddenly found himself immobile as dozens of miniscule threads wrapped around him. Kiyo turned and bowed her head politely to the Pro Hero that had joined them in the lobby and was watching things unfold with a concealed frown. Best Jeanist was a tall slender man cloaked head to toe in denim with only his dark heavily lashed eyes and the top of his combed over blonde hair revealed.

“Sorry, Sir.” Kiyo apologized politely, her ever poised mask back in place.

Best Jeanist watched her for a moment before turning to the irate blonde who was currently struggling to get free of the threads. He let out a sigh. He had his work cut out for him, but he saw potential in both of them, if they could only get their temperaments in check. Kiyo was too composed...until she wasn’t and when it got to that point she was a ticking time bomb. Bakugo, on the other hand, seemed to not have the word composure within his vocabulary.  His goal was for them to learn from one another so Kiyo could learn to let go more and Bakugo could learn to reign himself in. Perhaps it was a long shot.

“Come along you two.” Best Jeanist turned and walked in the direction of the stairwell.

Kiyo followed quickly. Bakugo grumbled something under his breath about the frustrating girl before reluctantly following along. As they climbed the stairs, Kiyo wondered if this was another test of patience as Bakugo only seemed to be growing more irritated by the second. There had been an elevator in the lobby and it didn’t have an ‘out of order’ sign on it.

Once they reached the fourth floor,  Best Jeanist sent them to their separate quarters to change into their hero attire. He mentioned to Bakugo that he had a minor alteration to make to his. Kiyo retreated to her room and quickly changed into her hero costume. It was a solid black bodysuit that had blue flames accenting the left side and ice accenting the left side. She pulled her hair into a tight high ponytail and headed back out to meet up with Bakugo and Best Jeanist. 

Best Jeanist looked her over and nodded approvingly, she looked like a polished professional. He didn’t have much to teach her when it came to manners or how to conduct herself, she already seemed like a pro in that regard. His main goal was to get her to let go and loosen up a little. They only waited a few moments before Bakugo stomped into the room in his hero costume. 

“Go change.” Best Jeanist sighed as he realized the irritable teen hadn’t worn the jeans he’d instructed him to.

“Why the hell doesn’t she have to wear them too?” Bakugo shot a scowl at Kiyo.

“Her body temperature weakens the fabric.” Best Jeanist replied with a sigh.

Kiyo threw him a curious look, how did he know about her lowered body temperature?

Bakugo let out a growl before turning and stomping away. He returned a few minutes later, his baggy black pants replaced with a pair of blue denim jeans, that honestly looked a tad ridiculous with the rest of his hero attire. Kiyo struggled to keep herself composed. Bakugo shot her a sharp look as he noticed the corner of her mouth twitch slightly as she caught herself and forced herself not to smirk. 

“You should present yourself more professionally.” Best Jeanist sighed and approached Bakugo with a comb in hand. 

Kiyo concealed a laugh with a fake cough as Best Jeanist proceeded to comb over the irate boy’s usually spiky hair. She bit her lip to keep from laughing again once she saw the finished product. Bakugo blinked in disbelief as if he couldn’t understand what had just transpired before letting out a roar of rage, causing his hair to puff back up. Kiyo covered her mouth to keep from laughing aloud. 

Best Jeanist certainly had his work cut out for him, but he’d dealt with difficult youths before, he was confident he could help these two. After tackling Bakugo’s hair, again, and then a third time, a fourth time and finally got it to stay put on the fifth time though Kiyo nearly lost it by this point, Best Jeanist began his instruction with a lecture. Though the lecture, about how to act professionally as a hero and what manners were, was directed at Bakugo, Kiyo seemed to be paying more attention and he got the sense the stoic girl was committing every word to memory. He almost sighed as he realized Bakugo was only half paying attention, tuning out at things he didn’t think suited him, which was the entire lecture on manners, this approach wasn’t helping. Kiyo didn’t need a lecture on how to act professionally or about manners, she was quite capable of both.

Realizing this approach wasn’t working, he asked some of his sidekicks for help and tried partnering both of the students with a sidekick they could benefit from. He assigned Kiyo to one that could help teach her how to loosen up and Bakugo to one that could help him with his manners and to keep his temper in check. Not even ten minutes in, Kiyo looked annoyed with the lively sidekick and Bakugo’s hair was poofed out again. They were dismissed for lunch while Best Jeanist tried to formulate a better plan to make the pair more approachable as a whole. 

“What a joke.” Bakugo grumbled as they made their way to the cafeteria.

Kiyo hated to admit it, but she agreed with the irritating blonde. As much as she hated her father, she’d probably be getting more hands-on experience at his agency and improving her skills. She checked her phone once she got her lunch and took a seat at one of the stylish tables. There was a message from Pony. Her lips pulled into a smile as she opened the message and saw a picture of Pony in her hero costume posing adorably in front of a mirror. 

P: Good luck Kiyo! I know you’ll do great!

“You can smile?” Bakugo scoffed as he took a seat across from her.

Kiyo glanced at the plethora of empty tables, “just because we’re interning together doesn’t mean we’re friends, feel free to sit at another table.” She said icily before returning her attention to her phone.

She tried typing a response several times but kept changing her mind and erasing it and rewriting it before erasing it all over again. 

K: Thank you. Good luck to you as well.

Kiyo frowned as her message was sent. She opened up her camera preparing to take a selfie to send back but paused as she realized Bakugo was still at her table and watching her with an intense glare. Had he been yelling at her? She had been so absorbed in responding to Pony she must not have heard him.

“You’re still here?” She frowned.

She noticed a vein on his neck starting to bulge. He clenched his fists and opened his mouth ready to explode but cut off as she swiftly kicked the leg of his chair at the perfect angle to cause it to tip and dump him on the floor.

Bakugo let out a roar of rage, “you’re dead!” He leapt to his feet ready to lunge at her but found a solid wall of ice dividing the room.

Kiyo rolled her eyes at the hot head before snapping a quick selfie and sending it back to Pony. She nearly jumped as Pony responded immediately. 

P: You look so cute!

Kiyo’s cheeks felt strangely warm as she looked at the new message and she quickly put her phone down on the table feeling embarrassed. Her lips pulled into a smile and she nibbled at her lunch in a daze oblivious to Bakugo’s screams of rage as he tried to blast through the thick wall of ice. With each blast the ice reformed almost immediately and Kiyo was able to eat her lunch in peaceful solitude.

Chapter Text

The first few days of the internship were uneventful and boring. Best Jeanist spent most of the time trying to instruct Bakugo on how to conduct himself professionally. While uneventful, Kiyo found it was entertaining watching the hot head try to keep his temper in check. As they were out on a routine patrol Kiyo cringed as people constantly called out to Best Jeanist. Girls squealed, kids yelled in excitement and she began to wonder if her father had the right idea to just be as unapproachable as possible to cut down on annoyances like this.

“It’s possible some villains were inspired by what happened in Hosu. That means they could be feeling bolder.” Best Jeanist spoke as he led the patrol with Kiyo and Bakugo trailing along behind him both zoning out, growing tired of his constant lectures. “This may just be a patrol, but keep your guard up, you two.”

Kiyo resisted the urge to sigh. Her guard was always up; she didn’t need reminding. She felt frustrated. Her father had been involved in the Hosu incident which meant if she’d interned with him she’d actually have gotten to do something interesting. She could feel Bakugo quietly seething beside her and had a feeling he was also regretting his decision. This entire internship felt more like etiquette training than hero training. She glanced in the angry blonde’s direction and felt her lips quirk slightly at his ridiculous appearance with his hair smoothed down. 

“Here’s a question for you two.” Best Jeanist prompted, “patrols are mainly meant to deter villains from committing any crimes, but they also have a secondary purpose. What is it?”

Before Kiyo could respond Bakugo spoke up with a malicious tone, “if we see some bad guys we can beat them up on the spot.” He looked far too pleased about that prospect.

“Are you a child?” Kiyo rolled her eyes.

Best Jeanist sighed, “incorrect,” and looked to Kiyo for her response.

Kiyo shook her head at Bakugo as he shot her a scowl before responding in a matter of fact tone, “to increase presence within the community and put civilians at ease.”

“Nicely put.” Best Jeanist nodded to her.

Bakugo glowered at her angrily as she threw him a quick smug look. 

“It’s Best Jeanist!” A group of middle school girls squealed and waved over at them, “thank you for keeping us safe!”

Best Jeanist calmly waved back and indulged them with a pose so they could snap a picture. Kiyo rolled her eyes, this was the biggest waste of time.

Kiyo turned as a few children approached them one of them pointed to Bakugo, “hey I’ve seen that blonde guy on TV before!”

Kiyo looked at Bakugo waiting for him to explode. It was going to be any moment now.

“An ooze villain caught him and he almost cried like a baby!” The kid informed his friends, causing Kiyo to choke on a laugh.

Bakugo’s hair puffed up and he turned on the kids with a snarl of rage, “what did you say?!” He clenched his fists aggressively causing all three of the children to burst into tears.

Kiyo tensed preparing to incapacitate Bakugo if he tried to hurt the children. 

“Have you really forgotten everything I’ve taught you?” Best Jeanist groaned. “Talk with them, like a pro.”

“Yeah, fine.” Bakugo grumbled bitterly before stepping closer to address the crying children. “Listen up, I wasn’t helpless. I was just coming up with ways to fight him. Sometimes a hero has to pretend he’s been caught. You really think I would lose? You’ll eat those words when I’m the new number one hero! You dumb kids will never laugh at me again if you know what’s good for you!” He snapped.

Kiyo threw him a sardonic look having had enough of his holier than thou attitude, “that’ll be the day...also I don’t recall any of them saying the word helpless, it’s interesting that you would offer it, are you realizing you’re not as great as you think you are?” 

Best Jeanist stared at her in awe.

Bakugo let out a roar of rage and lunged for her. “You’re dead meat!”

Kiyo easily caught his wrist as he prepared to launch an attack and directed his hand away from her with ease, “goodnight.” She swiftly struck a pressure point on his neck and watched with a smirk as the light faded from his crimson eyes and he fell to the sidewalk. She didn’t bother catching him, not caring if he took damage from the fall.

Best Jeanist rubbed his temples as Bakugo hit the asphalt. His plan for them to learn from one another had completely backfired, all they seemed to do was fight. It was mostly just Bakugo yelling and threatening her constantly but on occasion she’d snap back when he finally got her to break her composure. Bakugo must have struck her last nerve as it was the first time she’d shut him down so violently and to the point of rendering him unconscious.

“Whoa!” The children gasped, “she defeated that mean guy like it was nothing.”

Best Jeanist looked Bakugo over to make sure he was alright before picking him up off the ground with a sigh, “let’s go, Kiyo.”

They returned to the agency and the few sidekicks in the lobby panicked when they saw Bakugo unconscious.

“What happened? We didn’t get any calls about any disturbances?” One of the sidekicks asked while someone else took Bakugo to his room upon realizing he wasn’t hurt.

Best Jeanist looked to Kiyo.

“Sorry.” She bowed her head apologetically. She knew she shouldn’t have done it, but the irritating blonde had been grating on her nerves for the past few days.

Best Jeanist frowned she was back to her composed somewhat robotic self, “it’s alright, he certainly has been pushing your buttons all week. Though in the future if you could refrain from lashing out in the public eye, that would probably be better for your image.”

Kiyo wanted to retort that she didn’t particularly give a damn about her image but held her tongue. If she’d wanted to worry about her image or appeasing fans she would have interned with Hawks or Mt. Lady, but that wasn’t something she cared for.  “Understood, Sir.”

Best Jeanist sighed, “you could lighten up a little, you know.”

Kiyo looked at him curiously but said nothing. 

“Why don’t you go grab some lunch, we can resume our patrol later, when Bakugo wakes up.” He dismissed her with a sigh. These two were the most difficult youths he’d ever tried to reform.

Kiyo headed to the cafeteria with a sigh. She shouldn’t have let Bakugo get under her skin, it was unprofessional. He really irritated her but she still shouldn’t have provoked him like she did. She sat at one of the empty tables and retrieved her phone from her pocket and turned it on. She had gotten various messages from most of her classmates throughout the week asking her about her internship and sharing their own boring or even a few exciting stories about their own internships.

She jumped as her phone started ringing, Pony’s contact picture flashed across the screen and she fumbled to answer the phone. “Pony, is everything alright?” She asked worriedly.

“Kiyo!” Pony cheered on the other end of the line, “everything’s fine, I was just hoping I could catch you on your lunch break.”

Kiyo smiled, relieved that she was alright, “you did.”

“Yay!” Pony giggled, “how is your internship going?”

“Uneventful and boring.” Kiyo sighed.

“It would be more fun if we interned somewhere together.” Pony pointed.

Kiyo smiled again, she could just imagine Pony excitedly hopping around as she spoke, “you’re right, it would be more fun. Perhaps we can do that next time.”  She heard something move behind her and leaned swiftly to the side just in time to avoid a sneak attack from Bakugo. 

Her eyes narrowed into a glare as she swiveled around to face him, “I’m  on the phone, get lost.” She struck him in the chest, hard. Her glowing eyes grew wide as she saw ice branch out across his chest from where she’d struck him. His lips instantly turned blue and he dropped to the ground, his breathing shaky and shallow. 

Kiyo gasped as she saw Bakugo hit the floor, his breath visible as if he were encased in cold. “Bakugo?” 

“Kiyo, what’s wrong?” Pony asked worriedly.

“I’ll call you back.” Kiyo hung up the phone and dropped to her knees beside Bakugo, he was shivering now. “Damn it, you idiot, this is why you should have left me alone!” She growled as she scrambled over to a cabinet along the wall that had some first aid supplies. She found a crisis blanket and hurriedly threw it over Bakugo. “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you after this, you brought this on yourself.” She grumbled as she tucked the crisis blanket around him and waited to see if his condition improved. 

His lips slowly returned to a normal color and he stopped shivering.

Kiyo breathed a sigh of relief before picking up her phone, “I hope that was enough of a reality check and you’ll leave me alone.” She huffed and exited the cafeteria to call Pony back. 

Chapter Text

Kiyo exited the station, ignoring an irate Bakugo in the process as he glared after her as they parted ways. Their internship had been uneventful and Bakugo seemed to have learned his lesson and backed off after Kiyo had nearly frozen him to death. She didn’t make it far before she heard a car horn blare at her.

Turning her glowing heterochromatic orbs in the direction the sound had come from she let out a loud sigh as she spotted a familiar van. It belonged to one of the nuisances who’d tried to abduct her. Kiyo let out an audible groan and began rubbing her temples. She looked at the van again and was surprised to see an older woman in the passenger seat smiling at her brightly. Her expression softened as she remembered he’d told her before his mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

“Hey Scary Girl!” The driver waved over at her with a grin.

“Hello.” Kiyo replied tonelessly.

“Need a lift?” He asked.

“No.” She answered bluntly.

His mother rolled her window down and waved over to her, “I heard so much about you, thank you young lady, for setting my boy and his friends on the right path. They’re good kids, honestly, they just get lost sometimes.”

Kiyo nodded and offered her a polite smile. “No thanks necessary.”

“What a sweet girl.” The older woman smiled fondly.

Kiyo offered her a polite bow of her head, “have a good day.” She bid them farewell and headed for home.

On her way, a window display caught her eye. The display belonged to a cute little shop with all sorts of odds and ends. The front window display had a bunch of My Neighbor Totoro merchandise. There were plushies, bento boxes, chopsticks, stationary and so many other things with Totoro and Catbus. She thought of Pony and how excited she was when they got to watch Totoro at Kendo’s house. Glancing around, almost as if she were afraid to be seen, she ducked into the store. There was a shelf with all the merchandise from the window display right at the front of the store.

Kiyo picked up a Totoro bento box, chopsticks and lunch wrap. She thought of bringing Pony lunch and gifting her the Totoro supplies knowing the bubbly girl would be overjoyed. Just thinking of her reaction brought a smile to Kiyo’s face. As she was about to head to the counter to pay for her purchases, she spotted a cute squashy Totoro plush and sighed before tucking it under her arm, adding it to her purchases. 

The cashier smiled knowingly at the nervous expression on the teen’s face, “oh, shopping for a crush?” She asked.

Kiyo felt her cheeks redden. “Uh-...” She stammered uselessly as she fumbled with her wallet and handed the cashier some money. “...I guess…”

“How cute.” The cashier smiled and handed her the change before carefully bagging everything up. “I hope they like them. Have a good day dear.”

“Th-thank you. You too.” Kiyo murmured nervously as she accepted her change and the carefully packaged bag before scurrying out of the store.

As she arrived at the Todoroki estate, she saw her father and her twin seeming to have ended a rather tense discussion. They both turned to look at her as she stepped through the front door. Kiyo inclined one perfectly manicured frosty brow at them in return. Her glowing eyes flicked to her twin, taking note of fresh bandages wrapped around his left forearm and a small bandage beneath his left eye.

“It’s fine.” Her father remarked in response to her inclined brow thinking she was inquiring about the tense atmosphere.

“I didn’t ask.” Kiyo shrugged as she kicked off her shoes and headed for the laundry room to wash the clothes she’d brought with her.

“You really should have interned at my agency.” Her father halted her.

“Your precious masterpiece definitely wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I had.” Kiyo quipped back icily, tossing her long frosty hair over her shoulder as she left the room. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a little.

Shoto frowned and followed his twin to the laundry room. He stood in the doorway, giving her space since she seemed more prone to lashing out at others. “How did your internship go?” He asked curiously before glancing at the shopping bag she was very obviously trying to stuff in her backpack once her clothes were out of it so it was out of view. He decided against commenting on it at that exact moment as she seemed very much to want to hide whatever it was.

“Uneventful.” Kiyo replied in a bored tone as she finished stuffing her purchase into her backpack and turned to begin a load of laundry, “do you have anything that needs thrown in?” She asked.

“I’ll get it later.” He replied, though he hadn’t done the laundry before, one of his siblings usually took care of it.

Kiyo smirked, “that ought to be amusing.”

Shoto frowned.

Kiyo sighed, she was misplacing her aggression again, “go get it, I’ll do it.”

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Shoto’s lips, “show me how?”

“As long as it doesn’t take all day, hurry up.” She waved him away with a huff.

Shoto nodded and went to get his laundry feeling oddly happy that his twin was willing to spend some time with him. Since she’d always been fairly robotic and closed off he’d never really known how much she’d been hurting deep down. Now that he knew, he wanted to try to mend their relationship.

“Did you learn anything useful during your internship?” Her father’s voice sounded from the doorway once her twin had left.

Kiyo didn’t bother casting a glance in his direction as she got out the detergent and fabric softener. She wanted to throw a snappy retort at him, along the lines of ‘more than I would have at your agency’ but it wasn’t true so she wouldn’t say it. “...no…” Was all the response she gave.

“I could have told you that.” Her father huffed, “you should have interned with your brother at my agency.”

“So I could have gotten hurt instead?” Kiyo pondered stealing a glance in her father’s direction, curious to see if he’d wished that were the case.

“If you’d have been there perhaps no one would have gotten injured.” He responded, his face revealed nothing, no deceit, no manipulation, he was being sincere.

Kiyo tore her gaze away, ignoring him.

Realizing she was done responding to him, Endeavor let out an aggravated sigh but managed to keep his temper in check. He’d talked to his secretary who had a teenager of her own, and asked for some advice. He didn’t remember any of his other children giving him this much trouble, though he’d been absent for most of their upbringing. She told him to try giving Kiyo some space, he knew it was probably the best thing to do as he only seemed to anger her when he was in her presence of late. 

He cleared his throat, “I’m glad you’re home safe.” He grumbled awkwardly before taking his leave. As he walked away a bittersweet memory drifted across his mind’s eye of little Kiyo running into his office with a big grin holding a picture she’d drawn in crayon. It had been quite good for a six year old. He could clearly tell what everything was supposed to be in the picture.  It was a picture of the two of them fighting a villain. As the memory faded his heart constricted in his chest, he’d let that little girl down, so many times.

Kiyo watched her father as he retreated, looking a little forlorn. She didn’t have much time to ponder it as Shoto returned and threw her a curious look. He’d seen their father making his exit and expected Kiyo to be livid, but she seemed oddly pensive.

“Everything okay?” He asked.

Kiyo nodded and reached out to stop him from dumping everything into the washing machine. “You need to separate some things, you can’t just throw everything in all at once or you’ll end up with pink socks.”

They spent about ten minutes going over how to do laundry. Kiyo was oddly thorough in her explanation and included exact measurements for detergent and fabric softener per load depending on how many garments were in each load. Shoto listened to her extremely scientific and mathematical explanation with a small smile and nodded along. Once the lesson was over, Kiyo carefully picked up her backpack and turned to go.

Shoto stopped her, “what’s in the bag?”

“What bag?” Kiyo frowned.

“The bag you seemed really desperate to hide in your backpack.” Shoto noted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kiyo grumbled, her cheeks flushing with color before quickly taking her leave. 

Chapter Text

“What is she doing?” Natsuo whispered, quite loudly to Fuyumi and Shoto as they peered into the kitchen, finding Kiyo hard at work preparing a picture perfect bento lunch.

“It looks like she’s preparing a bento.” Fuyumi replied quietly.

“Oh? She have a crush?” Natsuo turned to Shoto. Fuyumi looked at him curiously too. Not that Kiyo would talk to them about it if she had but the elder Todoroki siblings still believed the twins had some kind of twin sense even if there had been no evidence of it in the past.

Shoto shrugged, “I don’t know. She didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?” Fuyumi pondered.

“The bag she was trying to hide yesterday.” Shoto shrugged.

“Definitely a crush.” Natsuo smirked as Kiyo neatly arranged the bento. She made Totoro shaped rice balls and cut carrots into cute little flowers. It looked like it was something one would see in a magazine.

“I’m starting to think so too.” Fuyumi smiled, happy her youngest sibling had found someone she liked as she watched Kiyo neatly wrap the Totoro bento box and a pair of sealed Totoro chopsticks in a Totoro wrap.

“Alright, your mission is to find out who it is.” Natsuo placed a hand on Shoto’s shoulder and fixed him with a serious look.

Shoto frowned, spying on Kiyo didn’t sound very safe.

“What’s going on?” Endeavor’s voice made the three of them jump as he stepped out of the hall and paused as he spotted three of his children acting suspiciously as they all hovered outside the entrance to the kitchen whispering to one another.

Natsuo grumbled something under his breath and ducked away not wanting to be anywhere near their father for longer than was necessary. Shoto remained quiet but stayed in place watching his twin. Fuyumi offered their father a polite smile, “we think Kiyo might have found herself a crush.”

“What?” Endeavor frowned and looked into the kitchen. His frown deepened as he noticed Kiyo packing up a bento. She’d never done such a thing before. Finished with her task, she removed the apron she’d been wearing and spent a moment touching up her hair, making sure it was perfect. Did she really have a crush on someone? “Who is it?” He demanded.

“No idea.” Fuyumi shrugged.

He looked at Shoto.

Shoto shrugged in response but said nothing.

“Find out.” Endeavor fixed Shoto with a serious look.

Shoto frowned but said nothing.

“What’s everyone doing?” Kiyo’s voice startled the three of them as she found her way blocked by her twin, elder sister and father.

“Nothing.” Endeavor said quickly.

“About to make breakfast.” Fuyumi replied simultaneously.

“Spying on you.” Shoto blurted honestly, causing his father and eldest sister to shoot him dark looks.

Kiyo frowned at her family, “...right…” She squeezed past them and headed for the awaiting car to take her and Shoto to school.

Shoto followed his twin to the car. He kept throwing curious glances her way but she remained ever poised and quiet, staring out the window paying him absolutely no mind. Her phone vibrated and he noticed a small smile spread across her lips as she looked at whatever message she’d gotten. She responded quickly and tucked her phone away, wiping the smile off her face and resuming her staring out the window.

Deciding he wasn’t going to get anywhere without inquiring, he spoke up, “who did you make the lunch for?”

“No one.” Kiyo replied bluntly, refusing to look in his direction.

“And who were you messaging?” He asked.

“No one.” Kiyo replied, her voice taking on a slightly aggressive tone.

Shoto noticed the subtle way her body had grown tense at his question and how rigidly she was sitting. She was lying and it was undoubtedly the same person. “I see.”

Kiyo shot him a glare, “what does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Shoto shrugged.

Kiyo shot him another scowl and hopped out of the car as it slowed to a stop outside of UA. “It’s really none of your business.” She huffed, shutting the door in his face.

Shoto sighed and pushed open the door only to frown as he realized Kiyo was already long gone. She was quick and she was definitely acting strangely. He exited the car and slowly made his way to school. 

Throughout the day it seemed like Kiyo was avoiding him. Bakugo seemed to be in a horrendous mood. Did something happen during his internship with Kiyo? Shoto thought about it for a long moment, was he the one she had a crush on? He blanched at the thought of Kiyo and Bakugo as a couple, that just seemed like a recipe for disaster.

At lunch he searched the cafeteria desperately for his twin but realized she was missing. It was a nice day out, perhaps she had gone outside. He exited the cafeteria and walked around the grounds in search of his twin. He found her after a ten minute search sitting beneath a tree with one of the girls from her class. She was a petite blonde with tall pointed horns atop her head, and prussian blue eyes.

Kiyo handed over the perfectly wrapped bento, seeming almost shy and a little bit nervous as she did so. There was the faintest splash of pink staining her cheeks. The blonde girl she was sitting with let out a cute squeal and threw her arms around his ever stoic twin. “Thank you Kiyo, it’s perfect!”

“Y-you’re welcome.” Kiyo blushed and hugged the girl back.

Shoto watched wide eyed, Kiyo was blushing! Was that possible?  He’d never seen her act so human before. He quickly retreated to give them their privacy. He couldn’t believe his twin actually had a crush on someone.

Chapter Text

All of Class 1B, save for Kiyo, was worried about the final exam and had several class study sessions before and after school. Kiyo joined in to help her classmates and even helped with quirk and combat training.  Mr. Kan announced the pairs and Kiyo found herself tackled by a squealing Pony when she realized they were paired together. Pony's squealing cut off immediately as Mr. Kan announced their opponent was All Might.

Kiyo felt something stir within her as she spotted fear in Pony's prussian blue eyes. “I’ll protect you.” She assured the blonde.

Pony's cheeks flushed with heat. 

“Hot.” Tokage swooned and several of her other classmates quickly nodded in agreement.

Kiyo frowned and threw them a curious look before brushing it off.  They were up first and didn't have a lot of time to make a plan. Kiyo and Pony quickly changed into their costumes before meeting up outside the training ground where their exam was going to be held. 

Kiyo noticed Pony nervously fidgeting with the skirt of her costume that somewhat reminded her of a creamsicle as it was orangish-pink and cream colored. “Do you have a plan in mind?” She asked Pony to draw her from her fretting.

Pony jumped and looked at Kiyo in awe, she had an amazingly analytical mind and she was asking Pony if she had a plan? Her heart stuttered in her chest. Kiyo was giving her a chance to show her own analytical skills off.  “If I use Horn Surf I can move myself pretty fast…but that would leave you to distract All Might…” She hesitated.

Kiyo pondered it for a moment working through the possible scenarios in her head. “It's a good plan and showcases both of our skills. Let's do it.”

Pony grinned. “We got this!”

Kiyo offered her a small smile, “I'm counting on you, partner.”

Pony’s face flushed scarlet. 

“Such wonderful teamwork.” A loud voice sounded before a massive weight hit the ground behind them.

Pony let out a squeal of panic that cut short as she was immediately swept into Kiyo's arms and Kiyo leapt away reflexively. She relaxed once she realized it was just All Might and set Pony down gently. Stiffly she offered him a polite bow. “All Might.”

All Might looked at the stoic girl. She was as rigid as her father though appeared to have better control over her temper. He'd seen her lash out before, nearly the whole world had, there was definitely some deep seated rage in there but she hid it well beneath a poised mask.

“We'll begin soon, best of luck young Todoroki and young Tsunotori. I won't be going easy on you, so give it your all.”

“Plus Ultra!” Pony cheered with a grin, looping her arm through Kiyo's.

Kiyo felt herself begin to relax. She offered Pony a smile, “plus ultra.” She said quietly, causing Pony's grin to grow.

All Might headed into the training grounds to get set up for the exam. The teachers all had to wear weights that were half their body weight to help make it more fair for the students, but only a fool would think that was actually any help at all to the students. It wouldn't hinder them enough to make much of a difference. 

A moment later an alarm sounded, signaling the start of their exam. They stepped through the massive gate leading to the cityscape training ground. Once inside Kiyo immediately activated her quirk sending massive mountains of ice down several roads in various directions so All Might would have a harder time predicting their route.

Pony launched her horns and hopped atop them using her quirk to control them. She looked to Kiyo for reassurance. Kiyo offered her a smile, “get going. I'll  clear your path and watch your back. Nothing will get in your way.”

Pony nodded. “Be safe.” She focused on the horns she was standing on and sent them hurtling toward the exit gate.

Kiyo created a thick tunnel of ice guiding her path. 

All Might launched an attack on the tunnel, only managing to get it to crack and stared in awe as it immediately repaired itself. “Impressive, young Todoroki.” He prepared to launch a second attack but leapt back as a wave of blinding blue flames lashed out at him. A black and white blur whizzed past him. He'd revealed his location when he attacked and Kiyo moved in to distract him so Pony could escape.

Pony stared in awe at the massive tunnel Kiyo had created to shield her. Her prussian blue eyes fell on a blast of fire through the ice and she felt her heart stutter in her chest as she saw Kiyo facing off against All Might. She was amazing!

Kiyo narrowly dodged a punch that would have surely knocked her out cold. While struggling to dodge his attacks she focused on her quirk. All Might watched the girl carefully as he swung at her, she seemed distracted.

“You can't afford to be distracted right now, young Todoroki. You should be focusing on the task at hand.” He chided.

Kiyo smirked, he hadn't noticed. “I am.” She expelled a burst of blue flames from her body using the blast as cover and darted into a nearby alley.

All Might heard the sound of crackling ice behind him and turned to see what looked like a massive dragon made of ice falling toward him. That's what she'd been focusing on, using her quirk to craft the massive terrifying sculpture.

Pony crossed through the gate and an alarm sounded signaling the end of the exam. 

Kiyo grinned and sprinted toward the exit. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Pony jumping and cheering for joy. As soon as she saw Kiyo, Pony ran to her and caught her in a hug. 

“We did it!” Pony cheered.

Kiyo smiled, “thanks for being quick, I wasn't sure I was gonna last much longer as a distraction.” 

“Thanks for clearing the way for me!” Pony beamed brightly.

Chapter Text

Kiyo couldn't help but smile as Pony excitedly talked about a new manga she was reading and an anime she was excited about that was going to be released soon. They'd been on a bus for a few hours on their way to a training camp they were going to be attending with class 1A.

“HAHAHA! Those class 1A losers had five students fail the final exam. Five!” Monoma cackled from the seat behind Pony and Kiyo.

“You failed too, moron.” Kendo smacked him over the back of the head causing the rest of their classmates to laugh.

Completely unphased by Monoma's antics, Pony continued on unhindered. “The heroine's love interest reminds me of you, he’s so strong and chivalrous.” Pony gushed.

Kiyo felt her face begin to burn with heat and she quickly looked out the window. Her frozen body felt entirely too warm. Tokage knelt on her seat in front of them and turned to look over the back of the seat overhearing their conversation.

“Ya know, if more love interests were written like Kiyo I think there’d be a lot more fangirls in the genre.” Tokage smirked. 

“Definitely.” Komori piped up from beside her. 

“She does have prince charming vibes.” Shiozaki piped up thoughtfully.

Kiyo covered her face with her hands as subtly as she could and continued staring intently out the window feeling embarrassed by her friends gushing. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glance at the mirror at the front of the bus and saw Mr. Kan smiling from his seat as he looked at his students proudly. That made her feel even more embarrassed and she pretended she was going to take a nap.

“You’re not fooling anyone over there, Prince Charming.” Tokage snickered.

“You’re all being obnoxious.” Kiyo grumbled, while trying to keep her face hidden.

“Are you blushing?!” Monoma gaped from behind her as he pressed his face to the glass to peek through the gap between their seats. 

“Aw!” All the girls chorused.

After a few more minutes of torture her friends lightened up and left her alone realizing she was uncomfortable with all the attention. Pony cleared her throat a little loudly, “before we were so rudely interrupted.” She huffed in a teasing manner causing everyone around them to break into stitches, she dove back into her gushing about the new anime and Kiyo’s likeness to the love interest in the storyline.

As the sun began to set the bus pulled off on a dirt road that led to a nice clearing next to a small lake sheltered next to a mountain, it looked like the perfect spot for a campsite.Mr. Kan got to his feet as the bus came to a stop. 

“Listen up everyone, tomorrow morning bright and early is when the real training begins, but for tonight, I wanted you all to get a small break to yourselves before we join class 1A.” Mr. Kan looked at his students, he knew many of them felt discouraged when they were constantly being compared to 1A and it wasn’t through any fault of their own, 1A just got more experiences and more chances to be in the spotlight. All of his students were capable and all deserved their own chance in the spotlight.

“And you thought caveman camping was the way to go?” Monoma scoffed though his tone betrayed him, he was happy with the night away from class 1A.

“Monoma!” Kendo snapped.

Kiyo smiled softly at her friends.

Pony turned and felt her heart stutter in her chest as she spotted a small serene smile  dance across Kiyo’s lips. It was rare to see her look so at peace and even rarer to see her looking happy, though Pony had noticed it did happen much more often in her presence than anyone else's. She slipped her hand in Kiyo’s and her heart skipped as Kiyo turned to her with an unhindered smile.

“I can set up the girl’s tent.” Pony offered, her family had gone camping a handful of times back in the states. 

“I’ll help.” Kiyo reassured her.

“Actually, Kiyo, would you mind starting a fire for us?” Mr. Kan asked as he patted his pockets, “I forgot matches.”

Kiyo nodded and everyone exited the bus and went to their respective tasks. The girls tent was constructed neatly in a matter of minutes while the boys seemed to be struggling. Kiyo threw a wary look in the boys’ direction as she heard a plethora of screams as the tent came crashing down on Tetsutetsu, Honenuki and Awase. Monoma looked to be responsible and sheepishly tossed the support pole he’d accidentally dislodged behind him while Tsuburaba nearly doubled over laughing.

“They’re hopeless.” Kendo sighed.

All the girls nodded in agreement.

“Hey! Don’t just stand there, help us get them out!” Kaibara grumbled as he and the others outside of the tent struggled to find the opening to get their friends free.

Kiyo sighed and shifted her left foot a little causing pillars of ice to shoot up around the tent hoisting it into an upright position giving Honenuki, Tetsutetsu and Awase a way out.

“I’m starting to see the Prince Charming thing,” Honenuki chuckled.

Once the tent was no longer collapsing the boys were able to secure it while the girls gathered firewood. After neatly arranging the wood in the firepit, Kiyo shot a single spark of blue flame into it and in no time they had a nice cozy fire.

“Aw, I wish we had marshmallows, we used to roast them over the fire when we went camping back in the states.” Pony sighed morosely.

“Good thing, I brought these.” Mr. Kan beamed as he withdrew a grocery bag he’d been hiding behind him. It was filled with marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars and peanut butter cups. 

Kiyo couldn’t help but smile as she watched all her friends get excited over marshmallows and even found herself giggling when Monoma nearly caught the boys tent on fire after flinging a flaming marshmallow. She used her quirk to pull the flames away from the tent and sent them back to the firepit saving the tent in the process. She laughed quietly as everyone scolded Monoma and everyone paused after a moment and turned to her in awe as they realized she was laughing freely.

Honenuki grinned and clapped Monoma on the back, “good going Monoma.”

Mr. Kan smiled as he watched the usually cold and stoic girl lower her guard and let loose with her friends.

Chapter Text

Class 1B woke up before the sun had risen and groggily made their way to the training camp to meet up with Class 1A. They followed Mr. Kan and stepped into an open clearing in the woods to see Class 1A already fast at work practicing with their quirks. According to Mr. Kan the goal was for them all to break themselves, by pushing their quirks to their breaking point. Kiyo spotted Shoto in a barrel of water rapidly using his left and right sides to work on both. He still hadn’t been able to use both sides at once. Kiyo frowned as Mr. Aizawa approached them; he looked from her to Shoto.

She tensed, expecting him to ask her to help her brother but was surprised when he asked her to move further from the rest of the group so she could really let her quirk run wild without worrying about harming anyone.

Shoto looked up as his twin headed toward a plateau far away from everyone else. He jumped as Bakugo suddenly stopped his training exercise to scowl at Kiyo.

“HEY! You still owe me a fight!” Bakugo snapped.

“Since when?” Kiyo threw him a dark look.

“Since I got cheated out of it at the Sports Festival and had to fight the weak Icy Hot!” Bakugo growled.

“We’re not doing sparring matches.” Mr. Aizawa interrupted them before Bakugo could lunge for the girl.

Kiyo smirked at this, “that means they don’t have anyone to bring you back from the brink of death when I decimate you.” She turned on her heel and continued on her way to her training spot.

Shoto couldn’t help but feel a little proud of his twin as she stood up for herself.

Mr. Aizawa sighed as Bakugo let out a roar of rage.

“What the hell did you say?!” Bakugo snarled.

“Get back to training.” Mr. Aizawa rubbed his temples watching the younger Todoroki twin warily. After the Sports Festival many of the faculty became worried the girl was a ticking time bomb.

Kiyo reached her spot and activated both her quirks at once. A large mountain of ice ripped up from beneath her, rocketing her into the air as she expelled a massive ball of fire in the air above her. Similar to her move during the Sports Festival. Everyone paused their training to stare in wonder at her display. She launched the massive ball of fire into the air where it seemed to explode like a supernova. This time, her ice didn’t melt from it and she maintained her position.

Shoto watched his twin for a moment, the last time she’d pulled that stunt, she’d nearly fainted. Now, she seemed unphased and was able to do it a second, third, fourth and fifth time before she started to look tired. 

“Looks like you Class 1A losers need to catch up.” Monoma goaded Bakugo and Shoto with a grin.

After a long day of grueling training they made it back to camp and were instructed to make curry.  Kiyo and Shoto assisted everyone with getting the fires lit. Kiyo ended up next to Bakugo while prepping food and the two of them chopped vegetables rapidly. Bakugo seemed to be in competition with her while Kiyo was just lost in thought. 

Shoto held back a chuckle as he realized his very robotic twin was spacing out and still able to chop vegetables in uniform pieces quicker than Bakugo. After a while, Bakugo realized Kiyo wasn't competing with him as he thought and he exploded with rage.

Kiyo turned to the hothead oblivious to why he was raging. “What?”

Bakugo clenched his fists, ready to snap.

“Kiyo!” Pony cheered as she skipped toward her with a plate full of carrots cut into cute flower petals. “I tried to make them how you did for that bento.” She blushed as she extended the plate to Kiyo for inspection.

A small smile twisted onto Kiyo's lips, “they're perfect.”

Bakugo paused as he noticed the smile on the usually stoic girls’ lips. He'd never seen her make such an expression. 

After a surprisingly good dinner with Bakugo and Kiyo taking charge of the food preparation, the girls all retreated to the hot spring. The class 1A girls mentioned one of their classmates had tried to creep on them the night before to which all of the class 1B girls laughed and said it wouldn’t be a problem and looked to Kiyo who erected a massive wall of ice that stretched high up into the sky, blocking the boys bath from the girls bath. The ice was cloudy and impossible to see through causing all the girls to cheer. 

“Are you feeling alright, Kiyo?” Kendo asked her curiously as Kiyo sat on the edge of the hot spring wrapped in a towel letting her feet dip into the steaming water. “Last time you did that power move, it took a lot out of you. You did it quite a few times today.”

Kiyo frowned, “I feel fine.”

Pony sat beside her with a smile, her hair wrapped in a cute familiar totoro printed wrap, the one Kiyo had bought her and used to wrap their bento. She reached out and touched Kiyo’s cheek causing the stoic girl to gasp and tense up, why was she so close to her? “You don’t feel as cold as before.” Pony noted.

“Oh. That’s good, I was kind of worried I’d hurt you when you hugged me.” Kiyo admitted softly.

Pony beamed and threw her arms around her, “nope!”

Kiyo tensed and hugged her back hesitantly, a small smile ghosting her lips, “I’m glad.”

“Hot.” Tokage grinned and a few other girls nodded.

Kiyo rolled her eyes at her friends.

After everyone had soaked enough and began to head back inside, Kiyo dispersed her wall of ice and followed her classmates back inside. They retreated to the room they were to be sharing with the Class 1A girls and everyone went to their respective futons exhausted from their day of training. 

Kiyo reached into her bag and retrieved the Totoro plush she’d gotten for Pony and handed it to her before retreating to her own futon feeling somewhat flustered. Pony let out a cute squeal and hugged the plush tightly before practically tackling Kiyo with a hug. Her foot hit the edge of the futon and she went careening toward the floor only to gasp as Kiyo caught her and swiftly swept her into her arms, away from harm.

“All in favor of being rescued by Kiyo?” Tokage snickered.

All of the girls raised their hands before erupting into a fit of giggles.

Kiyo sighed at her friends before meeting Pony’s prussian blue eyes, “are you alright?”

Pony nodded. “Thank you for saving me and thank you for Totoro.”

Kiyo smiled and gently set her on her feet, “you’re welcome.” She noticed Pony’s hair had become a little mussed and reached out to fix it, “goodnight, Pony.”

Pony’s cheeks flushed scarlet, “g-goodnight.” She grinned and dropped onto the futon next to Kiyo’s. 

The next day of training, the Wild Pussycats informed them they’d be hosting a test of courage for the two classes to compete with each other.  After another grueling day of training everyone looked forward to the test of courage and when the time came, they were all excited.

“You class 1A losers are going down!” Monoma declared with a laugh.

“Remedial class students won’t be participating.” Mr. Aizawa sighed and dragged all the remedial class students away. 

Class B was to be the scarers first and went to take their places. Pony giggled excitedly as she looped her arm with Kiyo’s, “we get to be scary.”

Kiyo smiled, she didn’t have the heart to tell Pony she wasn’t capable of being scary. “Let’s do our best.”

“Kiyo, could you make some scary ice sculptures?” Kendo asked.

“Sure.” Kiyo cast out her hands and everyone shivered as jagged ice began to spring up all around them turning the forest into a haunted frozen wasteland. There were creepy frozen hands reaching out as if they were going to drag people into the frozen wasteland. There were eerie looking humanoid ice sculptures that were too tall or lanky and always seemed to be looking at anyone who could see them. There were frozen monsters with wicked sharp teeth and razor sharp claws, their toothy maws frozen in a silent snarl.

Pony shivered and took a step closer to Kiyo.

“Okay, I think that’s plenty scary.” Komori yelped.

Everyone spread out to take their places to try and scare class 1A as they made their way down the path. Pony looped her arm through Kiyo’s with a smile as they found a good spot to hide. Once they found a suitable location, Pony released her from her hold and went to hide behind a tree.

“Can you make my horns look scary?” Pony asked with a smile.

Kiyo smiled and reached up to place her hands on Pony’s horns causing ice to branch out looking almost like spider webs clinging to her horns. Pony grinned and resumed her hiding ready to jump out. Kiyo hid behind another tree a few paces away deciding she’d wait for Pony’s lead.

A twig snapped behind them and Pony let out a gasp. “Who are yo-?” She began but cut off as Kiyo appeared before her with a jagged ice blade in hand to face off against the intruder.

Kiyo tensed as she recognized her older brother, standing before her. “What are you doing here?”

Dabi smiled as he saw how fiercely his baby sister was protecting the blonde girl. He wanted to offer her some reassurance but he couldn’t as he wasn’t alone. Pony let out a gasp and Kiyo turned with her blades at the ready, slashing at the man before her as she saw the light fade from Pony’s eyes. Her ice blade slashed the man’s shoulder tearing through his bright yellow coat and meeting resistance as it cut into the flesh of his shoulder.

“Pardon the intrusion, young lady, but we’d like you to come with us.” The man in the long yellow coat, wearing a top hat with his face entirely concealed by a mask bowed politely as he gently set Pony on the ground after she’d fallen from consciousness. His voice sounded strained from the pain of her attack.

Kiyo stared at Pony’s unconscious form, her heart racing sporadically in her chest, her blood rushing, pounding loudly in her ears. “Get your filthy hands off her!” She snarled and lunged, slashing fiercely with her blades. 

The man in the yellow coat stumbled back, he brought up the cane he was holding to try and block her swings only to gasp as her blades of ice easily sliced right through his cane. “Dabi!” He panicked.

Dabi lunged forward grabbing Kiyo by the waist and pulled her into him so he could try to immobilize her. His heart stilled as she turned her glowing orbs in his direction, a rage unlike any he’d seen before clouding her gaze. “Calm down.” He breathed against her ear. “She’s not dead.”

Kiyo’s body shook with rage. “No, but he will be.” She snarled and blinding blue hell fire lunged for the man in the yellow coat.

The man in the coat let out a panicked yelp and leapt away from the fire. “Knock her out!” He hopped away once more as the flames followed him.

Dabi swore under his breath, “sorry, baby sister. You’re going to have to trust me.” He breathed softly before striking a pressure point at the base of her neck.

Kiyo stubbornly fought to stay conscious as she continued lashing out at the man in the yellow jacket who’d hit Pony. “You’re dead!”

“EEP!” The man in the yellow jacket. “Dabi! Do something!”

“I’m trying!” Dabi snapped and struck another pressure point.

Kiyo’s flames began to falter as her vision slowly began to fade.  “No.” She struggled to cling to consciousness, “Pony.” Her hand reached out for the unconscious blonde.

“She won’t be hurt.” Dabi breathed softly so only she could hear.

Kiyo slipped from consciousness sagging into her eldest brother’s arms.

The man with the cane now in two pieces, Mr. Compress as Dabi knew him,  landed at his side with a sigh of relief, “he’s sure he wants this one too? She’s kind of scary.” He brushed some dust off of himself.

Dabi sighed, Shigaraki had seen her display at the Sports Festival, most of the world did. It had brought up a lot of questions about Endeavor’s character, not that anything would come of it. After the Hosu incident everyone else seemed to completely forget about it.  After seeing her rage and her power, Shigaraki was determined to try and get her onto his side along with the hot headed blonde from Shoto’s class, Katsuki Bakugo. “He’s sure. Use your quirk.” Dabi swept Kiyo into his arms and waited.

Mr. Compress gently pressed a hand to her forehead and Kiyo’s form vanished, replaced by a tiny aquamarine marble that she was currently trapped inside of. Dabi caught the marble and tucked it into his pocket, “I’ll keep hold of this one, you get the other one.”

Chapter Text

Bakugo struggled against his restraints, the moment he’d been released from the strange spherical prison he’d been trapped in he’d been apprehended and his hands locked in some kind of restraint that kept his hands immobilized and made it impossible for him to use his quirk. He scowled at the villains surrounding him. He couldn’t get that idiot Deku's stupid crying face out of his mind.

“We should hurry and release the other one before she wakes up and becomes unable to be subdued.” The villain who’d captured him in his spherical prison piped up, sounding almost scared. They captured someone else? He scrambled to remember what that idiot Deku had said when he’d caught up to them. The villains main target had been him but they were also targeting Icy Hot’s annoying twin from Class 1B, the twin he should have fought in the final at the Sports Festival, but she’d thrown her fight with her brother after wiping the floor with him.

Dabi retrieved the teal sphere from his pocket and extended it outward. He looked tense. Mr. Compress snapped his fingers and the sphere exploded. Blinding blue flames surged around the bar and Bakugo felt his heart stutter in his chest as he heard Kiyo let out a shriek of rage. She exploded out of the fire and lunged for the man in the yellow jacket.

“EEP! The man in the yellow jacket yelped and tried to flee.

“You’re dead!” Kiyo snarled, livid.

“KIYO!” Bakugo yelled as several of the villains rushed her. He couldn’t do a damn thing other than struggle against his restraints.

Kiyo turned at the sound of Bakugo’s voice, her heterochromatic eyes growing wide, “Bakugo?”

“Move!” Bakugo snarled as he saw Dabi reach for her.

Kiyo caught Dabi’s gaze and saw the pleading look he threw her way. He was begging her not to resist. She tensed, if she acted quickly she and Bakugo could escape but her love for her eldest brother made her hesitate. He grabbed her gently and restrained her before she could resist. She found herself bound next to Bakugo and scowled at the room full of villains. 

“Why don’t you two just relax and try to get some sleep for now. We can talk in the morning.” The villain with the pale hair sitting at the bar with a severed pale hand attached to the front of his face spoke softly as he got up from the bar.

“I’ll babysit.” Dabi offered and dropped into a chair across from the two scowling teens. Once the other villains had taken their leave. Dabi looked at his younger sister with a sigh. “If I untie you, do you promise not to try and escape or hurt anyone?”

“No.” Kiyo tapped her foot impatiently, already managing to loosen her restraints on her feet.

Dabi smirked, he couldn’t help but be proud of her, “then I guess you’re staying like this.”

Bakugo looked between the pair of them curiously, “why’d you let him apprehend you?” He asked Kiyo, knowing she should have easily been able to outmaneuver him and get away. 

Kiyo ignored him, “more secrets you want me to keep for you?” She asked her brother coolly.

“If you could, I’d appreciate it.” Dabi smiled, his gaze flicked down to her ankles, she’d completely slipped the restraints on her ankles. “I don’t want to fight you, Kiyo.” He sighed as he grabbed some more restraints.

“Because you’d lose.” Kiyo pointed. “If I’m not afraid of him, I’m sure as hell not afraid of you. If he can’t hurt me, you can’t either.” She growled.

Bakugo threw her a curious look and glanced over realizing she was actively freeing herself from her restraints. She was amazing. How the hell did these idiots manage to catch her in the first place?

“I don’t want to hurt you and I won’t but my friends may not be as kind if you try to foil their plans.” Dabi spoke softly as he fixed the restraints around her ankles, securing them tighter than before.

“Your friends can go to hell.” Kiyo hissed and struggled against the tightened restraints only to let out a gasp as they got tighter the more she struggled. This only angered her further.

“Kiyo?” Bakugo’s voice sounded oddly concerned at the sound of her gasp. He glanced over at the irate girl, his heart stuttering in his chest. She was livid and her anger was only growing more out of control. He thought of her fight at the Sports Festival a mix of rage, heartbreak and sorrow, this was just pure rage. This side of Kiyo was terrifying.

Dabi frowned, “I’d prefer we talk in private.” He stood up and made a move toward Bakugo.

“If you hurt him, I’ll burn this place to the ground.” Kiyo growled. Fire sparked at the corner of her eyes and leapt toward her eldest brother.

Dabi stared at her in awe as he evaded her flames. His little sister was much more powerful than he’d first thought. He held his hands up for peace and dropped back down into the chair across from them. “No one is going to hurt him.”

Kiyo relaxed a little at this but she couldn’t get her anger under control. She needed to know Pony was alright. She needed to know her friends were okay. She even needed the idiot restrained beside her to be okay. 

Bakugo looked over at her curiously. “What the hell is going on here?”

Dabi didn’t even cast him a glance, keeping his gaze trained on his little sister. She was fuming. Her rage was spiraling out of control and she was going to explode any moment. They’d taken her away from her support system, her friends who kept her grounded and had made the mistake of harming someone she cared for. The restraints wouldn’t hold her for long.

“You can relax, no one is going to hurt either of you.” Dabi attempted to calm her down.

“I can’t say the same for you and your friends.” Kiyo hissed, her body trembling with rage. She kept seeing Pony fall unconscious over and over again in her mind’s eye. The fear in her prussian blue eyes. That was enough to push her over the edge. 

The metal restraints keeping her hands bound began to glow hot. Bakugo watched in awe as the metal began to melt dripping onto her revealed legs and the chair she was bound to, the chair burned but her skin was completely unscathed. His eyes widened.

Dabi jumped to his feet with a muttered curse, “damn it. Kiyo, calm down.” He reached for a fire extinguisher to put out the fire of her now burning chair.

Bakugo looked between the pair of them curiously. They were clearly familiar with one another but right now it seemed like Kiyo was a little unhinged and wanted every villain here to die. There was a wild look in her glowing heterochromatic eyes. Something made her snap. He thought of the blonde girl from class 1B that she was protective of, they must have been together during the test of courage. Did the villains do something to her?

He had to think fast to get her back into her right state of mind, what the hell was her name? He scrambled to remember, thinking back to when he and Kiyo had been prepping dinner next to each other and chopping vegetables, the blonde had shown up. “Pony would be worried if you did something stupid and got yourself hurt as a result.” He blurted as Kiyo managed to free herself from her restraints and prepared to fight her older brother.

Kiyo turned to Bakugo, staring at him blankly for a minute. “What?” 

“You heard me.” He growled.

Dabi watched the pair of them for a moment, he wasn’t a match for his baby sister. She trained endlessly. He wouldn’t be able to best her with quirks or hand to hand combat. 

Kiyo looked back at her brother, “...your friend hurt her…”

“Only rendered her unconscious, she’ll be fine.” Dabi attempted to reassure her. He reached toward her, Bakugo tensed and was about to call out to tell her to watch out but stared in awe as Dabi pulled her into a tight embrace, cradling her gently in his arms, “you’re a ticking time bomb, baby sister.”

Sister?! Bakugo stared at the pair of them wide eyed. 

Kiyo couldn’t entirely let go of her anger. She was still shaking with rage, but she no longer felt like her quirk was going to go insane and incinerate them all. After a tense moment she relaxed and hugged Toya back. He was right, she was a ticking time bomb, she could feel it. “...sorry…”

Dabi chuckled, “it’s not a bad thing, we could use a ticking time bomb on our side.” He held her at an arm’s length away. “Join me. We’ll take down that asshole for all the hell he put us all through, together.”

Kiyo didn’t think of her father at that moment, she thought of her friends, she thought of Pony and how distraught they’d all be if she became a villain. The thought of Pony crying because of her nearly shattered all the pieces of herself her friends had helped pick back up all over again. “Pass.” She hissed and caught her older brother by the neck, “you’re coming home by choice or I’m kicking your ass and dragging you back by force. Decide now.” Fire sparked on the backs of her fingers not near enough to burn him but near enough he could feel the heat and the threat behind it. 

“Kiyo.” Dabi gasped as he saw movement behind her. His eyes grew wide.

Kiyo roughly shoved her brother backward and spun to intercept her attacker. It was the pale haired man who’d been sitting at the bar when she arrived, Shigaraki. Being sure not to catch Bakugo in her attack she lashed out with a burst of blue flames and a slew of ice needles.

“I thought you were babysitting?” The pale man hissed as several ice needles pierced him in the shoulder. He reached for the teen and his eyes grew wide as she evaded his reach, spun into him, catching him by the wrist and flung him over her shoulder and into Dabi with a strength he did not expect from her. 

“I can manage.” Dabi grumbled as they both scrambled to their feet as Kiyo lunged again.

“Looks like it.” Shigaraki growled sarcastically and looked down at two ice needles sticking out of his chest, they hadn’t gone deep enough to do any serious damage but they hurt a hell of a lot and he was now bleeding. 

“Stop fighting and run!” Bakugo roared in panic as she dove at the two villains. One of them was apparently her brother and didn’t seem to want to hurt her but if he’d learned anything about the Todoroki family it was that they were dysfunctional at best. 

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Kiyo snarled at him and easily kicked her eldest brother away and dodged another swipe from Shigaraki. She attempted to grapple Shigaraki but he managed to hook his free arm around her waist, his hand pressing firmly into her abdomen as his other caught her by the neck. She was blinded by pain as he activated his quirk.

“KIYO!” Bakugo fought against his restraints.

Dabi stared in awe as the skin across Kiyo’s neck and her abdomen where Shigaraki was making contact began to crack and break apart leaving a mess of blood and sinew behind. “Shigaraki!” He snarled and lunged.

Kiyo didn’t make a peep, she endured the pain, “this is nothing.” She hissed and blinding hot flames erupted all around her.

“She’s fucking crazy!” Shigaraki yelped and leapt back to avoid the flames. “Kurogiri!”

The flames exploded around Kiyo, lunging toward Shigaraki. Bakugo watched with a mix of awe and horror as it seemed like her flames were consuming her like her quirk was turning against her, it seemed too unstable. A black mist appeared at her feet and suddenly, Kiyo and her raging inferno were gone.

“KIYO!” Bakugo panicked, had her quirk destroyed her? Where did they send her? She was gravely injured and extremely volatile. 

Shigaraki stared at the scorch marks across the floor where Kiyo had exploded with a grimace. The girl was too unstable. If he couldn’t control her, it would never work out. He hadn’t heard their conversation but it had sounded like Dabi asked her to join and her refusal had been very violent. They wouldn’t be able to sway her to their side. He glanced at Bakugo and saw the rage on his face. He was less likely to join them now. 

…

Kiyo felt herself fall. The mist opened up somewhere unfamiliar above a river in a forest. She fell with a scream and plummeted into the river with a splash. She surfaced a moment later, her wounds screaming in protest. The current dragged her under and pulled her further down stream. Her body slammed into several jutting rocks as she went and she desperately tried to cling to them and stop herself from getting dragged further downstream and get out of the river. Water filled her lungs as she gasped in pain as one of the rocks sliced into her tender abdomen. She was going to drown here and Bakugo was still in the custody of villains!

Ropes coiled around her and she felt herself being pulled to the surface. She spit up a mouthful of water and tried to drink in big gulping gasps of sweet oxygen as she broke the water’s surface. The ropes coiled around her as if they had a mind of their own, wrapping her in a way that she was no longer exposed since her clothes had disintegrated in her flames. 

“Scary Girl! Hang on!” A voice she recognized sounded from the shore she was being pulled to.

“You have got to be kidding me! If you idiots are my rescuers I’m as good as dead.” She growled as she was dragged to safety. She coughed up more water and looked up at her rescuers to find three very familiar worried faces.

“Shit, what the hell happened to you?” The ring leader who now managed the coffee bar in town asked the teen in awe as he looked at the blood pooling around her from her neck and abdomen. It looked like layers of her skin had been ripped off.

“One of you idiots give me your shirt and let go of me. I have other idiots to fry.” Kiyo hissed.

“Hey, kid. Normally we’d totally do whatever you said because you’re super scary, but you’re losing a lot of blood.” The ring leader knelt beside her on the ground and placed a hand to her head. “Be mad at me later, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep fighting right now.” He closed his eyes and Kiyo felt a strange tickling sensation in the back of her skull before her vision blurred and she slipped from consciousness.

Chapter Text

A high pitched beeping sound and a slew of muffled voices were the first things Kiyo heard as she started to regain consciousness. Her body felt heavy and numb and she didn’t think she’d be able to get up if she tried. She felt sluggish and slow, she was still under some kind of sedation. Her eyes fluttered open and she winced at the blindingly bright lights glaring overhead.

“Kiyo?” A large hand brushed across her forehead sweeping her pale frosty white hair back and she squinted trying to focus her vision as a large shadow swept over her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and she tensed as she saw her father. He looked relieved. There were indents in his crimson hair as if he’d run his hand through his hair nervously thousands of times as he waited for her to come to consciousness.

She looked around frantically, this didn’t make sense, she’d been in a river with the three useless idiots she kept running into. How did she get here? How long had she been unconscious? Was Bakugo still in danger? The beeping sound began to pick up in pace and more beeps soon joined. It sounded like some kind of alarm was going off.

“Kiyo.” Her father gently placed his hand against her cheek, halting her frantic scanning of the room, “you’re alright.” He placed his free hand in her hand and squeezed gently. 

“Where’s Bakugo?” She asked, her voice somewhat scratchy probably a result from nearly drowning and the damage to her neck from Shigaraki’s quirk. 

“He’s fine. We rescued him.” He squeezed her hand once more and she had a feeling he was doing it for himself to make sure she was there, “imagine my surprise when I stormed the building trying to find my daughter and she wasn’t there. Bakugo said they’d sent you away when you lost your temper. He thought you were dead. What happened?”

“I need to talk to Bakugo.” Kiyo tried to sit up but her body didn’t listen. He knew about Toya, and that couldn’t get out. 

“You need to rest.” Her father corrected her. “Your mother wanted to see you when you woke up.” He got up to head to the door.

“I don’t want to see her." Kiyo shot reflexively. Her mother had never cared about her, Shoto was the only thing either of them had ever cared about. Kiyo had never been anyone’s first choice. Shoto had been such a crybaby he took all of their mother’s attention, leaving nothing for her. 

Her father paused. 

“Don’t pretend like either of you gave a damn about anything other than Shoto.” Kiyo snapped at him.

Her father frowned but didn’t argue, “I’m sorry we made you feel that way, Kiyo.”

Kiyo felt the sting of tears in her eyes and blinked them back, “too late.” She stared intently at the ceiling above not risking looking in his direction at the broken expression on his face.

“Get some rest.” Her father quietly left the room. 

Kiyo drifted in and out of consciousness for most of the morning and came to again as the sun began to set. When she woke in the evening she noticed various bouquets of flowers around her room and a few plushies and get well cards. Her gaze was drawn to a Catbus plushie next to a bouquet of sunflowers with a note in Pony’s handwriting. A calm washed over her as she realized Pony was alright.

She jumped as the door to her room swung open. Her twin stood in the doorway with one of her overnight bags in hand. Shoto slowly approached the bed as he realized his twin was awake. He dropped into the chair abandoned by their father earlier.

“Are you alright?” Shoto asked softly.

“I’m fine. I need to talk to Bakugo.” She sat up wincing at the twinge of pain from her abdomen. 

Shoto didn’t try to stop her. He watched her curiously. “He was worried you were dead.”

Kiyo looked to her twin curiously, “you spoke to him?”

“Briefly, the night we rescued him.” Shoto set the bag on the bed beside her. He’d brought her some of her own clothes and a book so she had something to distract herself with while she was stuck in the hospital. 

“What all did he say?” Kiyo asked intently.

Shoto frowned, “just that he thought your quirk went haywire and he was worried you’d died.”

“That’s it?” She pondered.

Shoto looked to her curiously, “did something else happen?”

Kiyo shook her head and opened the bag, “no, it’s nothing,” She grimaced at the clothing choice, he’d brought her a dress though it was probably the best option as it was loose and light enough it wouldn’t bother any of the bandages all over her body.

Shoto frowned again as Kiyo got out of bed and removed the various monitoring devices and IV’s before heading to her attached bathroom. “Kiyo?”

“I’m fine.” She shut the bathroom door behind her and ripped off the hospital gown. She paused as she caught her reflection in the mirror above the sink. There were bandages all over her body, her neck, chest, torso, arms and legs from the battering she’d taken in the river. She had a black eye and a thick strip of gauze over her right cheek.  Hurriedly she changed into the undergarments and the dress her twin had brought her and stepped out of the bathroom.

Shoto stood before her frowning, “you should stay here.”

Kiyo sighed, “I need to talk to Bakugo.”

“So, call him.” Shoto blocked her as she tried to sidestep him.

“I need to see him!” Kiyo snapped. A loud cracking sound drew their attention to the windows. Ice covered the windows and had begun to crack and fracture.

Shoto looked at the cracked jagged ice warily before returning his gaze to his twin, something had snapped within her. He reached out and placed a hand to her cheek. Her body temperature wasn’t ice cold like it had been before. “I’ll ask him to come here, please stay in bed.” He pleaded.

Kiyo hesitated, her gaze flicking back to the window, she hadn’t done that consciously. “...fine…” She returned to the bed and dropped back down on top of it.

Shoto pulled out his phone and sent a text to Bakugo with Kiyo’s room number asking him to come see her. He dropped into the chair at her bedside once more. A moment later there was a knock at the door. The twins exchanged a curious glance. It was much too soon for Bakugo to have arrived unless he’d been waiting in the lobby.  Shoto went to open the door and looked curiously at the three young men crowded together in the hall.

“There’s two of them!” One of the men cried dramatically as he spotted Shoto.

“Will you idiots leave me alone?!” Kiyo snarled as she recognized the voices in the hall.

“Scary Girl!” The three idiots cried and rushed into the room.

Shoto stared after them blankly. How did these men know his sister? He followed them back into the room in confusion as they all began talking at once. His gaze flicked to Kiyo who was rubbing her temples in annoyance. His eyes widened as the three men hugged his very livid sister and managed to survive the hug.

Kiyo glowered at the three sobbing idiots as they hugged her, “if you don’t want to be barbecued, let me go.” She hissed. The three idiots released her with yelps and began talking all at once again. Kiyo rubbed her temples in frustration before snapping. “One at a time!”

The man who seemed to be the ringleader, a young man in his early twenties who looked like a new goth convert who was trying a little too hard to maintain an edgy image spoke up, “you gave us a scare, Scary Girl.”

Kiyo rubbed her temples again, “what the hell happened? Also if any of you assholes changed my clothes at any point, I will end your existence.”

“Nope! My girlfriend wrapped you in a blanket and we got you to the hospital but we saw nothing, I assure you.” The tallest of the group who had a very lanky spindly form and long dirty blonde hair that he had pulled back in a ponytail spoke up quickly.

Shoto took a seat at her bedside watching the trio warily. Kiyo seemed to know them and despite her violent words she didn’t appear to mind their presence. 

“After I knocked you out,” the ringleader began and Shoto tensed looking to Kiyo for her reaction, she didn’t seem surprised or angry just annoyed so he relaxed, “we got you to our cabin and Musubime’s girlfriend got you covered up then we loaded you in the van and drove as fast as we could to the nearest hospital. Apparently your name isn’t Scary Girl so that caused some problems since we had no idea who to contact to let them know. It wasn’t until this morning one of the medical staff recognized you from The Sports Festival and knew your name and you were moved here.”

The other two idiots nodded to corroborate the story. 

Kiyo looked to her twin, “when was Bakugo rescued?”

“Last night.” Shoto responded.

“Your Old Man is super scary.” Musubime piped up softly.

Kiyo shot him a scowl.

“Not as scary as you.” The goth laughed uneasily.

Kiyo sighed, “thank you idiots, for saving me.”

“Aw!” The trio cooed and swarmed toward her wrapping her in another hug. “You’re welcome, Scary Girl.”

Kiyo rolled her eyes, “just call me Kiyo.” She sighed once more, “what do I call you idiots since fate keeps throwing you in my way.”

“Musubime.” Rope fingers grinned.

“Gosu.” The goth beamed.

“Po.” The kind young man with the warm brown eyes who had driven them all here offered her a bright smile, “those are from my mom.” He pointed to a small pale pink vase filled with daisies sitting on the side table, “she was worried when I told her what had happened.”

Kiyo sighed, his mother was kind and she didn’t want her to worry unnecessarily, “tell her I said thank you and I’m fine.”

Shoto was quiet. Just what kind of double life was his twin leading? How did she meet these questionable people? The trio gave her one last hug before taking their leave.

Shoto looked at Kiyo curiously, she seemed to be feeling better after seeing them, “how do you know those men?”

“They tried to abduct me while I was running.” She shrugged.

Shoto frowned, that didn’t explain anything. “What?”

“It’s fine. They changed their minds and changed their ways. They’re harmless.” Kiyo shrugged and sat back in her bed feeling exhausted and achy.

A moment later there was another knock at the door, this one was much louder and more violent sounding. Shoto frowned, not sure it was a good idea for Kiyo and Bakugo to be alone in a room together. He went to open the door and stepped aside so Bakugo could enter the room. 

Bakugo stepped into the room and paused as he saw Kiyo sitting in the hospital bed covered in bandages. The most startling thing of all was the pale grayish blue dress hanging off her. “What the hell are you wearing?” He scoffed.

Kiyo shot him a dark look, “I didn’t pick it out.” She turned to her twin, “can we have a moment alone?”

Shoto frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Kiyo and Bakugo both threw him matching scathing looks. He frowned and reluctantly took his leave. 

Once the door closed behind her twin, Kiyo waited a moment to make sure he wasn’t listening at the door before turning her attention to Bakugo. The relief she’d felt the moment she saw him surprised her. They were both quiet for a moment as Bakugo slowly approached the bed. 

“You’re not dead.” He noted quietly as he dropped into the chair Shoto had abandoned.

“I’m not.” Kiyo sat up and made a move to swing her legs over to get out of bed but paused as Bakugo placed a hand atop her bandaged leg.

“Stay put.” He grumbled.

She shot him a scowl but stayed on the bed. Her heart stuttered unsteadily as she realized he hadn’t removed his hand from her leg. “What did you tell everyone?”

“About what?” He asked.

Kiyo threw him a dark look, “about my brother.”

“Nothing.” Bakugo replied.

“Why?” She demanded.

Bakugo looked conflicted, “I don’t know.”

“What are you planning to tell people?” She asked.

Bakugo shrugged, “nothing.”

Kiyo eyed him suspiciously, “nothing?”

“That’s right.” 

“And why would you do that?” She pondered.

“Because you’re going to give me the fight I deserved.” Bakugo smirked.

Kiyo rolled her eyes at this. “Your funeral.”

“And you seem capable enough of stopping him. I’ll leave it to you, no one else needs to know.” He shrugged before glancing down at his hand resting on her leg, “you’re no longer an ice cube.”

Kiyo was quiet.

“Why didn’t you run?” Bakugo asked after a moment.

“I wasn’t going to abandon you.” Kiyo said softly.

“No, you just threw yourself into danger and made me think you died.” He scoffed.

“I wasn’t going to willingly leave without you with me.” Kiyo pointed.

Bakugo looked her over, to the heavy bandages lining her body, “I wish you would have.”