Chapter Text
They failed.
Endeavour stood in a room awash with the orange light of the fading sun, an old woman with lank grey hair staring him down. Shouto stood beside his father, a war of stoicism and despair playing on his face as he held up his dead communication device in his palm, holding it in front of his eyes like he was considering crushing it. It was the same teetering-on-the-edge numbness he had shown since Tomura Shigaraki had slammed Izuku Midoriya to the ground and crushed his throat until the life left his eyes. A desperate strategy that succeeded – Shigaraki had been weakened and distracted enough for the rest of class 1-A (children, when did they let children onto a battlefield?) to land their finishing blows. All For One’s successor lay dead in the dirt alongside All Might’s successor – such a waste, a miserable, pointless waste that they never should have had to resort to.
But it wasn’t enough.
Too much damage had been wrought. The country was in shambles, criminals running rampant, All For One still plotting, Dabi razing the ground wherever he went, their forces dwindled to the bare bones, waging a constant war of attrition, the last man standing a pyrrhic victor. It was too late to salvage this – they had one recourse left.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking for,” the lady said, her voice raspy with age, her eyes set with a cynical weariness mirrored in the Number One Hero’s (is this all it had been for?) gaze, “You think you’ll just go back, fix a few mistakes and everything will be fine? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve gone back over my own life – and others – in feeble attempts to fix what never can be? Problems aren’t always of circumstance, they can be of character,” she gave Endeavour a cutting look at this (You saw Dabi’s broadcast too, huh?), “And in those cases, you can be doomed to screw it up all over again, just in slightly different ways.”
“I understand why you don’t want to do this,” Endeavour said gravely, “If we had any other option, I wouldn’t pick myself either – but there is no other option. All Might is dead – Best Jeanist is dead – Hawks would be too young and have no power when he arrived, same with most others who stuck it out until the bitter end.”
“You do not understand,” she said grimly, setting her lips in a firm line, “I don’t want to send you back because it would be futile. What you need to accomplish is simply not a one-man job and I’ve only never been able to send more than one. You think time is a line? A certain sequence of events? A linear set of problems to be crossed off your check-list? It’s not – it’s an ever warping, ever-changing landscape painting, a brushstroke too far in one direction ruins the whole picture, not going far enough on the other side leaves it out of balance and sometimes you end up with colours you never wanted to use. Say you stop the League of Villains from ever forming – something else will just spring up in it’s place! I can’t say I believe in fate – but some things will just happen again and again and again no matter what you do – it’ll come at a different time, a different place, in a different way to how you expect, but it’ll happen nonetheless. You’ll drive yourself mad trying to stop it.”
Endeavour gritted his teeth, trying to get a rein on his temper (when had it ever done him any good?) when the tiniest scrape of a boot on the wood-floored corridor behind him caught his attention. With the reflexes honed from over twenty years on this job, he seized both Shouto and the woman, shielding them with his body as searing heat exploded through the wall in a dizzying array of blue light. The woman screamed and Shouto’s right side erupted into ice, trying to protect her as well as himself, flinching as the blue flames ran so hot his ice instantly melted to steam, broiling his skin.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Dabi drawled, casually kicking some debris out of his way to step into the charred room, heedless of the small fires licking at his coat and shoes, a grin pulled so wide it was ripping at the staples holding his cheeks together, a bead of blood trickling down his scarred jaw, “Trying to cheat-code your way to victory, huh?”
“Touya –!”
Flashes of red, a much larger flash of blue. Endeavour, Shouto and the woman were yanked out of the hole in the roof, narrowly avoiding the still-smouldering wood as they soared high up through the air. Hawks didn’t look at them, pain on his face as he lost a multitude of feathers to Dabi once again.
“Take Shouto and Mrs. Yukimura to U.A.!” Endeavour shouted at the Number Two Hero, feeling dread curdle in his gut, “I’ll face him!”
“You can’t -!” Shouto cut himself off in a piercing scream.
“SHOUTO!”
Hawks dived to catch the boy as a spear of blue flame cut straight through his back, cauterising the wound instantly and incinerating the large primary feather holding him up in the air. Endeavour watched in horror as Dabi blasted himself with fire from his boots to the roof of the house, grinning even wider as he readied a second spear, aiming at Hawks. The young Pro Hero twisted himself to the side but prioritized catching Shouto – as Dabi knew he would. The Villain had accounted for that accordingly – Endeavour could only watch as his youngest child and comrade plunged to the ground, their skin searing, their screams cutting through the night. Time slowed to near crawl and then wound up all at once as adrenaline and muscle memory kicked in. Endeavour blasted himself like a rocket, seizing Mrs. Yukimura and arching through the air, depositing her more roughly than he should of in a thick pile of shrubbery beside some trees, wincing as the setting sun hit his eyes. He cursed the summer for prolonging its rays, less shadows for their one and only lifeline to shelter in.
“Stay down and stay quiet,” he instructed her, then sprinted to find his children.
Shouto lay motionless on the ground, a hole through his upper abdomen, his insides burnt black and dark red with the smallest trickles of sluggish blood, the strain of weeks worth of battle wounds on top of the grievous injury taking him out of commission. Hawks was in a similar state, his wings curled underneath Shouto as he lay on top of the teenager, trying to bodily shield him even as he struggled to move, in too much pain to even speak, half his remaining feathers burnt to a crisp, his bodysuit melted against his back, his young body covered in too many scars.
Endeavour screamed as fire erupted along his own back, the force of the blast knocking him face-down into the dirt, just about twisting himself so he didn’t land on top of Shouto and Hawks. Blistering heat sent a wave of panic through him as the whole world turned blue – Dabi had repeated his trick from the previous year, sending out his blue flame into a massive wall to surround them, no way out, no other choice but to fight.
“Reflexes are getting slow,” Dabi said in an almost sing-song voice, his eyes alight with malicious glee as he sauntered forwards with his hands in his pockets like he had all the time in the world, “Or are you too distracted at the thought of what’s about to happen to poor little Shouto? Not to mention your biggest fan over there . . .”
“Touya,” Endeavour grunted, struggling to stand up – he had used his Quirk too much today – he could feel the heat from Dabi’s inferno even here in the center, the hairs on the back of his neck getting singed, “Please, listen to me – I can save you –”
Dabi burst into derisive laughter, his hands whipping out so fast Endeavour didn’t have time to react before he was blasted off his feet once more, landing heavily on his back. He wheezed in pain, too overwhelmed even to cry out as he felt his eldest child’s flames eat at his skin – prolonged fighting had compromised his suit.
This is how it ends, he thought numbly, staring up at a slowly darkening sky just visible through the flickering blue flames and smoke, too weak even to turn his head and look at Shouto one last time, Is this how it was for you on Sekoto?
He could hear Dabi’s cackles, a rusty sound, as broken as the rest of his body. He could sense him drawing closer, smell the rot as he flesh burned away on flames Endeavour never taught him how to put out.
I did this, he wanted to say, wanted to scream, I’m sorry Touya . . .
The warped monster his son had become appeared in his vision, bending over to peer down at his prone form, a twisted, vicious expression of mutilated joy on his face. “Nothing to say? Hmm? . . . No. You never did have anything to say to me, did you? Never had to the guts to look me in the eyes. Look at me now, Enji Todoroki. I’m the last thing you’ll ever see.”
He raised his fist, already aflame; what water was left in Endeavour bubbled up through his eyes, forcing him to blink as it stung. There was a thump, the sound of something hitting bone, a voice crying out and then another thump. When Endeavour opened his eyes, Dabi was gone.
Pained gasps broke what little silence prevailed around the crackling of Dabi’s flames. I have to look, Endeavour thought almost hysterically, I have to look at him – Touya!
He hissed as he forced his crumbling body to sit up, bracing himself on his elbows. He froze, his blue eyes widened in shock.
Dabi was on his knees, staring at Endeavour wide-eyed over Hawks’ shoulder. The winged Hero had summoned what remained of his strength to throw himself bodily on top of Dabi, his arms wrapped tight around the Villain, almost like a hug. Every single feather he still possessed had gone sharper than any blade as he telekinetically rammed them through his own body and into Dabi’s. The pair of them knelt in a steadily-growing pool of blood, staining the grass beneath them. Dabi wheezed, the sound oddly wet – his lung had been pierced. Hawks slumped against him as he died, all of his feathers going soft and falling out of Dabi's stab wounds; his limp weight sending the Villain toppling to the ground, trapping him.
Endeavour stared at their prone forms, unable to move, listening to his eldest son’s breaths get weaker, rattle and finally cease altogether. His flames vanished, fading out as if they had never been, leaving a trail of scorched, black earth in their wake. Endeavour didn’t realise he was crying until the water sizzled off his too-hot skin, stinging his eyes twice.
Numb and hollow, he fell back, staring up at the sky, burning from something much worse than flames. The tiniest thread of resolve ran through him, a desperate need. He forced himself to roll onto his side, dug his bare, burned fingers into the earth, clawing and crawling the measly ten yards that separated him and Shouto, each inch feeling like an insurmountable chasm – wasn’t that the story of his life?
His strength gave out and he flopped heavily on the ground. His arms felt like lead – he wouldn’t be able to haul himself any further, nor pull Shouto to him. Shaking, he reached out with his left hand, his fingers grazing Shouto’s face. Limp and lifeless, his youngest child’s head lolled to the side, mismatched eyes open and staring at nothing. No breath fanned across Enji’s fingers, no warmth seeped into his skin.
Shouto was dead. Touya was dead. Hawks was dead. Enji would soon join them – he had no way of summoning medical attention and no inclination to do so. He lay still, staring at Shouto’s lifeless face, wanting to keep his eyes open as long as possible, wanting the last thing he saw to be the only thing in his life that wasn't a failure.
I’m sorry, he thought desperately, uselessly, I’m sorry, all of you, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry . . .
Time stopped – or maybe it sped it up. Enji had no idea how long he lay there, waiting to die. It wasn’t until black spots began to dance across his vision and every breath felt like a knife in his lungs, that a hand lay on his brow. He wanted to protest as he head was turned against his will, taking his eyes off of Shouto and to Mrs Yukimura leaning over him, a furrow on her brow, but his mouth wouldn’t co-operate.
Her fingers shook on his forehead, fear in her eyes.
“. . . Don’t screw it up this time,” she whispered, “Think of the time you need to go to, the time when everything could still be made right.”
Thank you, he thought, as the woman’s grip tightened and her eyes glowed, feeling her Quirk as if it were a physical entity. But like so many other times in Enji’s life, he never got to say what he should have.
***
Enji opened his eyes to an intact wooden ceiling. It took a few moments for his lungs to remember how to work; he drew in a breath so deep it shuddered through his whole body. He smelled cedarwood and sweat – no smoke. He stretched out his hands and felt tatami under his palms, not dirt and grass. His head, his arms, his legs, they all responded easily to a mere thought with only the slightest ache of strained muscles, not pinned to the ground by the culmination of months of wounds. The light in the room was yellow, artificial; he sat up and turned, looking at the bare walls until he found the window – it was dark outside.
With nothing but the sound of his own breathing, Enji took stock of where he was. Weights and other gym equipment, a shoji door dominating one wall, a sword mounted on another, a familiar crack the third from where he had once put his fist in a fit of rage – his dojo.
He looked down at his legs, still splayed out from where he sat on the floor – grey sweatpants. He pulled at the black tank-top covering his chest, worn but not to the point it had to be thrown away. His bare arms were coiled with thick muscle, as they had been for the majority of his life, but he was lacking some scars – one, a long thin line coiling through the underside of his wrist to mid-forearm, that he knew would go white with age, was only a few days old, the vibrant red calmed, the bruising around it yellow.
It worked? He thought with disbelief, his mind feeling oddly sluggish as it struggled to process the magnitude of the situation.
The door slid open. Someone stepped into the room, shut the door, stepped further and stopped.
Enji’s heart beat wildly in his chest, his lungs seizing. It took him half a minute to get it under control, somehow schooling his expression into neutrality and standing up to buy himself a few precious extra seconds. Then he turned.
Shouto knelt where he always had in the dojo, as far away from his father as he could possibly get, his back against the his face blank apart from a pinched expression around the eyes, his two-toned hair hanging over his face. All the breath was knocked out of Enji’s lungs in an instant, staring at this tiny version of his teenage son staring numbly at the floor.
The silence dragged on. Enji couldn’t have broken it even if he wanted it. Eventually, Shouto risked a glance upwards, dropping his gaze the moment they made eye-contact, nothing like the determined glare he would turn on his father in his later years. Enji’s stomach dropped and he was across the dojo before he even knew what he was doing. Shouto flinched as his father knelt on the ground heavily right in front of him, the noise oddly loud in the total silence, before freezing in place as one of Enji’s hands – bigger than Shouto’s entire face, he was so small – reached out to the left side of his face.
If Enji could spare a thought for himself, it would be concern that his heart might give out soon with how hard it was pummeling his chest. As it was, he could focus on nothing but the smooth, unblemished white skin surrounding Shouto’s blue eye – no scar. His fingers shook as he brushed the red half of Shouto’s hair aside, absentmindedly tucking it behind his ear to get a closer look. His thumb traced the skin under Shouto’s blue eye, felt for himself that it was no different to the skin on the rest of his face, feeling like he was drowning under emotions he couldn’t even begin to process. He couldn’t feel any breath.
Panic seized him, a thought that this was some kind of cruel, dying dream seizing him. The impulse to grab Shouto’s chin and make him look him in the eyes turned into an action before he processed having it. A startled noise, a huff of breath – this is real, it’s real, it’s all really happening . . .
Joy began to fill his gut, pulling at his lips – and then a cold wash down his spine as he looked at Shouto, really looked and saw terror staring back at him. He froze, his fingers still forcing Shouto’s head back so they were looking each other in the eyes. Fear and confusion danced in Shouto’s, his body locked into place as if he were afraid to move – afraid to spark Enji’s anger in anyway.
Don’t be afraid, he wanted to say, I’m not going to hurt you . . .
He opened his mouth but nothing came out, a tiny strangle noise fighting its way out of his closed throat. Alarm flickered in Shouto’s eyes again and once more impulse turned to action, Enji letting go of Shouto’s face to scoop him up into his arms so he was pressed against his father’s chest. His little hands flattened out on reflex against Enji’s pectorals, stopping his face from getting crushed, his forehead coming to rest on Enji’s collarbone. His temperature was odd, slightly cool to the touch on the right side, warm on the left. Enji had never noticed that before.
Have I ever held you like this before? He wondered and immediately knew the answer was no. He never touched Shouto to show affection, only to pull him where he wanted to go, to train him – the thought of it made him want to vomit now – only to stop him from walking away. By the time he had wanted to extend a gentle hand, Shouto had rejected it.
He wasn’t moving now. Enji would have expected him to squirm, to try to wriggle free, but instead Shouto was completely, utterly still. Too afraid to move.
Enji’s hand came up to cradle to the back of his son’s head, gently – oh please God be gentle – pressing him further into his father’s embrace. He still didn’t relax, though his fingers curled into Enji’s shirt, likely out a reflex.
His knees were starting to ache from kneeling on the floor. It was an odd, irrelevant thought that finally broke his reverie. He should get up, he couldn’t stay here, in this moment forever, no matter how much he wanted to. Time waited for no man, after all. Still, he couldn’t find the strength to let go of Shouto now that he had him in his arms.
A tiny, sharp inhale fanned on his chest as Enji sprung himself fluidly into a standing position, taking Shouto with him. His legs kicked for a second, then automatically came up to wrap around Enji’s ribs, holding himself up. Enji lowered his left hand from Shouto’s head to his back, his right arm reaching under his bottom to balance him properly – muscle memory, he hadn’t done this with Shouto, but he had done it at one point with his other children.
His other . . .
Enji swallowed; Shouto’s hand twitched, he must’ve felt the action. Clutching his youngest child, he walked to the shoji door, using his left hand to open it and then kicking it shut on the other side. He stood for a moment, looking around the corridor of the house he had lived in for over twenty years. The lights were on and he could, very distantly, make out of the sounds of movement, of talking – of life, other people. It had been a while since they all moved out, since he distanced himself to begin his atonement.
They’re all still here, he thought, joy and fear warring in the pit of his gut.
He couldn’t face them just yet.
Enji carried Shouto down the corridor towards his bedroom, opening the door silently and slipping it mostly closed behind him, flicking on the light automatically. It was a spartan space, nothing unnecessary within. His desk and laptop were in one corner, his phone on charge – his emergency ringtone was so loud he would hear it in the dojo, just one door down. Swallowing again, he tapped on the screen, feeling a mixture of relief and dread settling in his gut as he had the date confirmed. Winter, ten years ago.
This was real. It was happening.
I have another chance, he thought, squeezing Shouto tight, relishing the way his torso – he was so tiny – moved in Enji’s grasp, growing and shrinking with each wonderful breath. His son didn’t react, still and silent, allowing himself to be held like a teddy bear, confused but unwilling to risk asking what was going on. Enji rubbed his back in a would-be soothing manner, like he had to Fuyumi as a baby, standing silently in his room, wondering where on earth he even began.
With his family, he supposed, was the only real answer. He had Hero work to do – in every sense of the term – but . . . he owed it to them, to finally give them priority. Apprehension took hold of him almost immediately. His memory of this part of his life could be – a little hazy. He hadn’t paid much attention the first time around and afterwards, the last thing he wanted to do was think of it, lest the guilt and misery eat him alive. It had been easier to shove it down where he wouldn’t look at it and walk away. Yet another one of his innumerable mistakes, he supposed.
But he had a job to do. And Endeavour had never shied away from something just because it was hard. Except for –
Don’t. Don’t think about him. He’s still here, you’ve got time, Enji reminded himself firmly as he exited his bedroom, turned off the light and closed the door, walking to the end of the corridor where he stopped. He had two choices – literally. He could take a left and head up the stairs to the children’s bedrooms – to Touya – or he could go right and head towards the kitchen, from which he could hear a faint bustling and smell cooking.
It felt like cowardice to choose the latter. It probably was.
It was another shock to open the kitchen door and not see Fuyumi standing there. Enji’s breath caught in his throat at the sight waist-length white hair with no red in it, the woman standing at the counter with an apron tied over her simple T-shirt and jeans, her socks muffling her steps as she took a moment to stir whatever was bubbling in the pot to her left before picking up a knife and continuing to chop the vegetables.
“Rei,” he croaked, sounding like he hadn’t spoken in years.
He regretted it as soon as he did – Rei’s back went ramrod straight, her shoulders hunching up. Her knuckles were white around the knife as she put it down, visibly reluctant as she turned around to face him. Her grey eyes widened in shock – he felt the same way as he saw how much younger she looked from when he had seen her in the hospital – until he realised it was because of him, standing in the doorway, still filthy from the dojo and cradling their son like spun glass.
There was a bruise on her cheek.
“Mommy?” Shouto said, high-pitched and plaintive, as if he were asking for help.
Rei’s eyes flickered from her husband to their son and back again rapidly, confusion, fear and indecision in her eyes. She rubbed her hands over her apron, a nervous tick, swallowing before she plucked up the courage to say, “Din – dinner won’t be ready for another, um, fifteen minutes,” she said, trying not to let her voice shake.
Pain, far worse than Touya’s flames, rippled across his skin. How had he gotten used to this? How did he ever think it was okay to see his wife look at him like that? Like his mere presence was a source of great terror? He hadn’t even done anything and she was already shrinking away from him, staring at Shouto like she was fighting the urge to rip him from Enji’s arms – how had he pushed her to the point where she felt she had to protect their children from him?
“. . . What are we having?” he croaked.
Rei jolted, “Mapo tofu,” she replied, sounding almost like a question.
A jolt in his gut, the memory of a dinner that had gone disastrously wrong when all Fuyumi wanted was for it to go right. Annoyance surge through him, making Enji frown – this double-vision sensation was already starting to get on his nerves, how was he supposed to fix things if he kept getting so distracted?!
“I can make something else.”
Enji’s eyes flicked back to his wife, saw her repress a flinch, realised that she thought he was frowning at her. I’m not, it’s . . .
“No, it sounds good,” he blurted out, more forcefully than he should have. Rei twitched, some of her fear slipping away to be replaced by bewilderment.
Shouto began to squirm. Enji looked down at him in surprise. He was staring at his mother, his expression nakedly pleading, reaching out to her with one hand. Rei was creeping closer, her arms twitching, seconds away from just snatching Shouto clean out of his arms.
Resentment coursed through Enji, ugly and raw – he was just holding him! Which, he belatedly realised, was probably the problem. He wasn’t acting like himself. Himself, as she knew it, as Shouto knew it, was barely short of a monster, a towering figure of anger and flame whose mere presence meant something bad was about to happen. Of course they were scared, what else would they feel?
All at once, his annoyance drained out of him, leaving him feeling oddly hollow. He took a step towards her, his stomach sinking as she shrank back from him, if only for a moment, and held out Shouto in a silent invitation. His child threw himself at his mother, winding his arms around her neck and craning his head over his shoulder to stare at his father. Rei squeezed him tight, trying to give him a reassuring smile that didn’t meet her eyes.
“. . . Fifteen minutes, you said?” Enji mumbled, wondering how much time he had spent in the dojo and then his bedroom in a daze – he had instructed her to always leave at least forty-five minutes in between the beginning of his training sessions with Shouto and dinner, to make the most of the time.
Rei nodded mutely. They settled into an odd sort of silence, each waiting for the other to break it and neither knowing how. Shouto clung to his mother, pulling himself closer to her.
“I should tell the children . . .”
“I’ll do it,” Enji immediately offered, trying to smile and failing.
Rei opened her mouth, confused again, perhaps wanting to protest, but thought better of it, nodding instead. Enji nodded back, put a hand on the door. He hesitated, turned back. Rei waited, her fingers clenching in the back of Shouto’s shirt. Enji left without another word.
He walked back down the corridor and got halfway up the stairs before he paused, clutching the hand-railing tight enough to make it creak in his grasp. He put a hand over his face, rubbing at the skin around his eyes as he realised he had landed himself into another war of attrition. He took a breath, squaring his shoulders as he continued to climb the staircase. It was no more than he deserved, after all – there was no one else to blame for the state of their family but him. If he could accept that in the first lifetime, when the situation was beyond all salvaging, he had no excuse for not doing the same when there was still a chance.
At least he wouldn’t come home to an empty house again.
It was that thought which allowed him to steel himself enough to knock on Fuyumi’s bedroom door.
“Come in!”
Enji opened the door, this time prepared for his mental image to clash against what he saw. Fuyumi barely came up to his waist, her hair as long as her mother’s and no glasses on her face. She blinked in surprise at the sight of him in her doorway but didn’t recoil.
“Hi Dad,” she said.
“Hi Fuyumi,” he answered, feeling the tension in his shoulders beginning to slack. It had always been easiest with her. A shuffling noise drew his eyes to the corner of her bedroom and all at once the tension came back, “. . . Hi Natsuo.”
“Hi?” his second son asked. He was curled up in the corner of his sister’s bedroom, books and papers spread out around him in a little nest. Homework, Enji realised. Had he often come to Fuyumi with help for that?
Enji’s mouth felt very dry as he watched Natsuo mark his place, put his book down and slowly pull himself upright. He was taller than Fuyumi but still slim, his eyes meeting his father’s briefly before dropping down. A far cry from the young man who squared his broad shoulders and glowered at Endeavour defiantly, letting all his anger wash out of him in a righteous fury. That might actually have been easier to deal with.
“Your mother says dinner will be ready soon,” Enji finally said, “You should help her set the table.”
“Sure thing,” Fuyumi smiled. It dimmed a little when Natsuo didn’t move or even look up. She watched him for a second, then took his hand, leading him towards the doorway. Natsuo let himself be tugged, keeping his eyes to ground.
For the third time tonight, Enji reacted without thinking, just wanting his most outspoken child to actually look at him. Natsuo froze in place, bringing Fuyumi to an abrupt halt, as he felt his father’s hand on his head. Fuyumi looked from Natsuo to Enji, just as surprised. Enji rubbed at Natsuo’s white hair, more flat than Touya’s but less than Shouto’s, feeling the texture in between his fingers, wondering, like with Shouto, when was the last time he had reached out to his child with an affectionate touch, as opposed to a violent one? From Natsuo’s stunned silence, probably not often, if at all.
He let go. Natsuo finally looked at him, openly confused. Enji gave him a strained smile; it felt more natural when he turned to Fuyumi who did an admirable job of smiling back. Her expression turned absolutely beaming as her father reached out to tuck a few stray strands of white-and-red hair off of her forehead.
Is that all takes, all it would’ve taken, to make you happy? Enji thought, marveling at his daughter’s low standards and hating himself for giving her – for giving all of them – scraps throughout the years, when he bothered to feed their need for affection at all. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m going to do better, I promise.
Fuyumi, still smiling, broken eye-contact and marched away with more enthusiasm, tugging Natsuo behind her. His second son glanced at him, visibly unnerved, before hurrying in his sister’s wake. Enji stepped out of the doorways, watching them go.
Now came the hardest part. Enji’s hands clenched into fists at his sides as he turned, looking towards the farthest door at the end of the hall. He walked towards it, raised his fist to knock and froze in place. Images of a landscape consumed in blue fire, of Dabi dancing wildly on Gigantomachia's back as he hollered his hate and pain for all to hear while cackling in glee, of his malicious grin as he leant over his father, savouring his victory before he landed the decisive blow. Of Touya, even younger than he would be now, begging his father to look at him and turning to attack Shouto.
“Listen Dad, the next time you get a day off . . .”
Enji grit his teeth and knocked. He waited with baited breath. There was no response, nor the sound of footsteps coming to open the door. He frowned and knocked again, waited ten seconds before he pushed the door open.
The first thing he saw was that there was no shrine in the corner. It's absence filled him with relief until he realised that there was no Touya in the room either. He looked at the empty futon, the sheet pulled up haphazardly, the chair still half-pulled from the desk, a light flicking on the computer to show it was asleep rather than turned off. Relished these signs of life.
A shiver ran down his back as a draught blew into the room. He turned and saw the window was open. He raised an eyebrow even as he closed it properly. Did Touya often leave a window open in winter? Did he prefer cold weather, like Natsuo? Enji had never really paid attention to any ramifications of Touya’s ice-resistance, beyond what it meant for his dreams of a successor.
Shame coiled in his blood. So many things, details, parts of them, that he had ignored or simply never noticed.
“When, at long last, you could stare your kids in the eye, didja finally start to feel the warm and fuzzy bonds of family?!”
He was going to look every single one of them in the eye from this day forward. Even if it came to nothing and he lost everything once again, he had to try, he owed it to them all.
It was that thought that made him steel himself to walk out of Touya’s bedroom and down the stairs, towards the kitchen. Natsuo was sat on one side of the table, kicking his heels as he waited, Fuyumi fussed over Shouto, the two of them sat on the opposite side, Rei bustling around with the last of the food. There were three empty seats left, one at either end of the table and one next to Natsuo. All of them looked up as he entered the kitchen. A frown pinched his brow as he looked around the room.
“Natsuo,” he said, turning back to his second son, who held his gaze this time, “Where’s Touya?”
“In his room,” Natsuo mumbled, making an effort to maintain eye-contact.
“No he’s not,” Enji said slowly, his frown getting more severe, “I just went in there.”
“He said he was busy with homework when Natsu went to ask him for help,” Fuyumi interjected, “He said he needed to be on the computer by himself.”
Enji turned on his heel and left the room, heading to the dining room and living room, opening the backdoors and stepping out into the courtyard, throwing a handful of fire into the air to illuminate the darkness, calling “Touya?”
No answer, no one in sight. Confused, he went to Rei’s bedroom, knocking without thinking before sliding it open. No luck. Pin-prickles of alarm began to run along his back. He hurried to the ground-floor bathroom, knocking harder than he usually would, “Touya! Are you in there?”
There was no reply. Usually, he would just walk away but now he swung the door open. The bathroom was empty and clearly hadn’t been used in a while. He darted out and went to his bedroom – Touya had never been in there to his knowledge and his still wasn’t now. He shoved open the door to the dojo so violently he nearly tore it off the runner, “Touya?!”
Rei was in the doorway to the kitchen, watching him with wide eyes as he came down the corridor and turned, taking the stairs at a sprint, running into each of the children’s bedrooms in turn, “Touya – where are you?!” He all but hammered the upstairs bathroom door down with the force of his knocks, barely waiting three seconds before barging in. No one was in there. He even yanked the shower curtain aside to be absolutely certain.
Touya was gone.
Winter, not-quite eleven years go.
That meant that Shouto was five, Natsuo was eight, Fuyumi was twelve - and Touya was thirteen.
No, Enji thought numbly, even as he rushed down the stairs again and into the kitchen, barely reacting as all his family lurched back from him, alarmed by his behaviour. He ran to the window, yanking the curtains aside to squint up into the distance. The lights from the city illuminated the shadow of Sekoto Peak, looming over it like a malevolent god, No, it can’t be tonight – not tonight!
“Enji?” Rei asked shakily from behind him.
“Get my phone – call my agency!” Enji shouted to Rei as he ran from the room, “Tell them to bring medics to Sekoto Peak now!”
“Enji?! What's wrong with -?!”
The front door slammed shut before Rei could round the corner properly. She looked at the glass rattling in the pane from the force of the blow, dread pooling in her chest as she recalled a conversation she had had with Touya a few days ago. Her hand came up to touch the bruise on the left side of her face as she wondered what would happen when Enji caught up to him.
“. . . Dad left his shoes,” Fuyumi muttered behind her, tugging on her apron, a worried frown on her brow.
That sent a shock of life through Rei and she hurried to her husband’s bedroom, grabbing his phone, hoping against all hope that he was overreacting – or at least that he got there in time to stop Touya from doing something really bad.