Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Before Ghost was Ghost, he was Shouto.

When he was a kid, Shouto would not admit to having any favorite pastimes. If he suggested to his father that he had enough downtime to curate a hobby, his father would fill it with another training regime. He’d pull Shouto into the dojo, not bothered if he dislocated his son’s shoulder, and turn inferno before Shouto got his feet underneath him.

Therefore, Shouto did not catalog the things he enjoyed. He found he couldn’t name what he liked as his classmates overshared at game nights but that was okay. Shouto was learning to like things again. 

He liked the sunset. No two were the same. Some, violent gripping orange, with white inferno centers, blazing as all fires do. Others played with the clouds, turning blue skies pink and lavender. Not over-encompassing. They shared the nighttime sky with bursts of starlight as they woke.

It was the sunset on the eve of capturing Touya. Shouto allowed himself to believe that it was an ode to something better. A new age of heroism. A new chance for the Todoroki family.

Izuku sat beside him. He hadn’t asked if he could. He simply followed Shouto out when he left. That was okay. Shouto liked Izuku. Izuku shared the same qualities as the sun, breathtaking. A bright place to look when they were unsure. But Shouto hadn’t felt unsure around Izuku in months. A comfortable warmth that unfurled one petal at a time. 

He loved Izuku.

Loved.

Before UA, Shouto hadn’t thought he’d ever be allowed something so trivial. Something unnecessary to being a hero. But now Shouto didn’t think he’d survive if they’d ever have to part, which was scary. Terrifying. 

Overdramatic. He smiled to himself.

Izuku caught it. He caught everything Shouto did. There was liberty in being seen. In being known.

“You should smile more,” Izuku said. “I like knowing when you’re happy.”

Shouto almost admitted that Izuku’s presence made him happy. Izuku made him happy. Made him love. But they were sixteen on the eve of war. He told himself to wait. 

Told Izuku, “When we’re done with this, I have something I want to tell you.”

Izuku looked at him like he already knew, but he didn’t say. Patient for Shouto. In love too, if Shouto believed it—he did.

“Okay, Shouto-kun.” Izuku said, grabbing his hand, “I’ll wait.”

The sun set. 

Shouto’s shoes slapped against wet concrete. He slipped when he turned. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop to catch his breath. Every thundering heartbeat in his ears, brought ringing taunts, the sound of a body falling and not getting back up again. His father was a large man. Unstoppable. The Number One hero. Dead. Abandoned in the night because the son he saw as strong was weak; the weak one, strong. Shouto didn’t stop, kept going until he reached a river, daring to look behind him. Thunder clapped. Lightning flashed. 

He was alone.

“Get a move on kid,” a gruff voice said behind him, “you’re not the only one hungry in this place.”

Shouto didn’t respond, deciding on an apple from the assortment ahead of him. 

Food banks were not neutral ground, especially in the aftermath of war. They were the most logical place people would go if they weren’t in one of the designated safe areas. For villains who were becoming antsy, they were getting targeted pretty frequently. Shouto had no fear for himself, really. But it did just as well to get his meal and go before things turned to shit. 

Shouto moved through the small room, finding a chair and table in the corner. There were a lot more children at this one than the one he was at a few days ago. They sat in front of an electric outlet, taking turns sharing a video game, and eating cookies that were freshly made just for today. Their families looked on with terse expressions. 

There were rumors—misplaced hope perhaps—that All for One was returning to the shadows. He would await the heroes instead of striking now, most likely to amass more strength, and the heroes would wait to strike because they already failed twice in moving first. Because of this, funds were being allocated to rebuild damaged parts of society. However, herodem would not heal so fast. In a place like this, people would just as likely spit on All Might’s shoes than offer him any type of thanks. But it was changing. Shouto could attest to that. There were more people outside. More shops open to customers. Less blatant crime in the daylight.

But just because things were on the precipice of going back to normal, did not mean society was healed. Houses and homes were not to be replaced overnight. Schools did not simply reopen with known villains nearby. People didn’t just wake up one day, deciding that they didn’t need to mourn. They were aching. They were lost. Shouto could relate. 

Shouto wasn’t an idiot. He knew he couldn’t stay in Musutafu, so he didn’t. He had slowly made his way to Tokyo, where he hoped the population of the city would conceal him for good. Like many people here, he did not directly pay attention to the news, playing high in one corner. It was much the same. All of society's success stories with none of the stress of decay. Only at the end did the warnings go out, reminding people of curfews. There was no mention of him and that was all Shouto cared about.

He slipped out of the building, keeping his hood high and his face down. He itched his nose through the black surgical mask he wore and didn’t take it too personally when anyone regarded him with lingering distrust for wearing large sunglasses inside or at night. As far as a disguise went, it was abysmal. But Shouto didn’t have the funds or resources to upgrade it now. 

Right now, all he cared about was verifying that his trail was lost, that he wouldn’t wake up one day to an unwelcome visitor. 

He didn’t know where Touya went. It was for the best. He had shown leniency once. Shouto wasn’t sure if he would the next time he encountered him. Shouto didn’t trust himself not to give up and give in if Touya did decide murder was the best way to deal with the last Todoroki ever stupid enough to claim he wanted to be a hero. Not that Shouto needed his brother to remind him what he was. Shouto already knew that. He did.

Yet for someone dead set on disappearing into a life of bleary mediocrity, he sure had a penchant for getting himself into trouble.

“Help!” 

It was followed by a crash, items toppling over. The same voice began to plead until their voice turned to strangled terror, forcing Shouto to stop at the mouth of an alley. Crime was rampant. Heroes and police far. A normal person would keep walking, run in the opposite direction, maybe call the police. Very few would investigate further. No one with his past would breach the space between street lights and total darkness. 

“Please, help me! Please!” 

Yet, Shouto was moving before the second plea. He didn’t have much on him, save a small bag, which he pulled off his shoulder and threw as soon as he could make out a large man, stalking toward a woman, cornered into a wall. Garbage cans and stray boxes were scattered on the drying cement from where she bumped into them as she was forced to back away from her pursuer.

The man stopped when the bag hit his head. It fell straight to the ground. 

He turned. Smiled. “What's this? Dessert’s found its way here too?”

“Get away from her.” 

“You’re going to have to try harder than that, sonny.”

The fire, always within reach, thrummed beneath Shouto’s left knuckles. He lifted both his hands in front of his face, cautioning his quirk to remain silent. 

Shouto knew he had weak spots in his technique. He knew he was better at distance fighting than he was at close combat. But just because it wasn’t as honed as what once might have been his hero technique, it did not mean he wasn’t prepared to trade blows with a man twice his side with jeering taunts whenever Shouto misstepped or fumbled, earning him punch to his side that he was lucky didn’t fracture his ribs. 

The man kicked him, sending him tumbling and rolling toward the area opposite of the woman. She called for the man to stop. She called for help again. Shouto gritted his teeth, pushing himself back up on his hands while his opponent laughed. 

The woman slid to her knees, holding her hands over her mouth. It was stupid. With the man distracted, she should have been running. He wanted to tell her just that. Go. Go. Go. Didn’t she want to be free? But she was scared, and Shouto understood. He knew how paralyzing it was to stand and observe the worst possible fear breathe life and not be able to turn away from it. How it strangled them and forced them to watch until their dying breath. It almost poisoned Shouto too now, reorienting on the shadow of the man and seeing someone else, someone dead. 

“Don’t worry boy, I’ll break that defiance yet.” 

He blinked, and his father’s ghost was gone. A stranger in his place, who only wanted to hurt this woman. She must have taken this alleyway every night as a shortcut to get home or maybe she saw a cat run this way off the main road and followed it to give it some treats. Whatever the case, she didn’t deserve to be attacked.

Shouto found the man’s face and leveled him the meanest glare he could behind his darkened disguise. The man only smiled, “what is this? You think you’re some sort of hero?”

No, Shouto was nothing. No one. He said, “I don’t want to fight you.” 

“Should’ve thought about that before you came sticking your nose in places where it don’t belong.”

Shouto would need to remember that in the future. Heroes rushed into fights for the sake of others. Shouto wasn’t a hero. He was a runaway. His only allegiance was to himself. It wasn’t his fault if people got hurt because heroes weren’t near.

The woman was crying. He couldn’t see her very well from where he was kneeling, letting pools of water soak his pants. Her tears were silent, ruining her makeup in dark streaks down her face. Perhaps someone had told her it was safe enough now to go out. Perhaps they were right, just not tonight. 

Shouto couldn’t help what he had already done. He was already here. It did no one any good to stay down and let this man take him out, and then take this woman while he was unconscious. There was nothing he had to bargain. No way to get out of this without injury. 

In the future, he would be better. 

He would be. 

Shouto warmed his hand to the hottest it could go before it erupted. He was pulled to his knees as the man gripped his head, pulling the hat off his head while he lifted him further, but before he could do more, Shouto punched the man’s gut. His opponent might have been expecting the force of it, but he couldn’t have prepared for the heat. It caused him to fumble and allowed Shouto to fully stand and bring his knee to the underside of his chin. There was a bad crack followed by a thud as the man fell toward Shouto, then fell over, unmoving below him, blood beginning to pool around his head and staining his hair red, and Shouto saw. He saw. 

Shouto had only enough time to rip off the mask, the sunglasses tattering to the ground, before he was vomiting the small portion of the meal he had earlier. He coughed and gagged on it until it was all out, and he couldn’t see past the burning blur in his vision. Every time they refocused, he would see red, his heart echoing in his ears. Another memory to resurface.

You wanted this , he thought, how many times did you wish it? 

But childhood hopes born out of spite were not without consequence. His father was dead, and Shouto, he—

“Are you okay?”

Shouto jumped when a hand fell on his shoulder. The woman snatched it back as fast, holding it to her chest. She was shaking. Still scared but freed from her shackles to come to him, now that the threat was seemingly past—unconscious and down below him. Shouto had done that. He had. 

Still, the woman swallowed around her own unsteadiness to say, “that was a brave thing you did just now.” 

Shouto didn’t feel brave. He felt small. He felt rain, though the night was dry, and he saw the eyes of someone else who could never have thought a night would end such as it did. There was no victory in it. Certainly, no pride.

He backed away from the guy, with the full intent to run back out into the street and find the small quiet place he had been sleeping the last few days. Not that he would sleep now after this. He would shake, and he would burn to make sure no frigid temperatures accidentally took root. 

But in his haste to go, he forgot the woman, still thanking him for coming to her rescue when no one else had. She had her purse in her hands. She was digging through it, pulling out crumpled yens, but when she looked back up at him her figure froze. Shouto mirrored it. Recognition was a pitiful thing. It made people feel like they knew when they did not.

“You’re him,” she stuttered as if his face would change as she said it. It didn’t, though Shouto wished that it would. He shook his head. “You are. The one UA’s looking for. Todoroki. ”

If Shouto had more in his stomach, he might have gotten sick again over just hearing that name. Shouto was bad enough. But Todoroki was a tattoo on his soul that ensured to everyone that he was not an untethered, that his story was connected to two others in this twisted game.

“I’m not,” he tried. “I don’t know anything about.” He shut his mouth and squeezed his lips together. He thought about falling to his knees and begging. He thought about wrestling her purse away from her to find her phone and slam it against the ground to prevent her from calling the police. 

He thought about Touya saying, “you’re like me now. There will be no place for you to truly go in this terrible place.”

The woman breathed. In the barest whisper, she said, “you’re just a kid. Your mom was on TV, so I knew, but just, you’re so young.” 

And Shouto was. Sixteen and shivering because his body always resorted to ice when he was scared, no matter how much he told himself he wasn’t. Because this woman knew, and if she told anyone, the police force that had conveniently avoided this area thus far, wouldn’t anymore. They would come in masses. They would have their victory without cost. The heroes soon after them. There might have been a war, All for One’s forces scattered and preparing, but if Shouto was easy to find, made himself easy to find, then what was one night to bring a lost boy back home?

He couldn’t have that.

“Where are you staying?” She was soft-spoken when she asked it but more sure in her words. Later, he would wonder what she saw in his face. In his stance. She called him a kid but did she really see one? Had anyone ever looked at him and thought weak? In need of protecting? 

But she wasn’t calling the police, yet. She had removed her hands fully from her purse, both hands bare and empty. She was asking instead, “if you want, you can come home with me. I have food. A shower. My son isn’t quite your size, but the clothes might be more comfortable. I’m not asking you to stay, only for the night if you’d like, but it would be safe. I would never say a word.”

Shouto was never taught the kindness of strangers. He didn’t know if it helped him or hurt him that night. He shook his head, taking further steps away from her. Disappointment flashed quickly and silently behind her eyes.

In time, he would not know if he would have been better off going with her. If she was telling the truth and only wanted what was best for him. She was a mother. Maybe like his own mother, she would understand the horrors he had gone through. The obvious reason why boys with forced destinies ran away from such things. It might have been just enough to get back on his feet and create a new plan for his newfound life. He might have been satisfied under her care and relearn what it meant to be human, existing truly as a civilian proper, hiding, but never lost. 

However, had Shouto left with her that night, he would have woken in the morning to police sirens and demands. To her hiding in the corner of the room, repeating the phrase, just a boy. 

Children needed their parents to protect them. Shouto’s father was dead. He could protect him no more now than he ever tried to do then. 

In truth, when she walked back out of the alley, he did not think it would be long before she was calling the police. He wasn’t keen on the logistics of finding DNA in puke, or any of the other ways they could tie it back to him. The man might have been unconscious, but he wouldn’t be forever. Would it be enough for them to place him here? They would contact the heroes. It would leak to the villains. Shouto would have to run again. He would have to go. 

He spun, ready to sprint in the opposite direction, leave this prefecture, and go somewhere else. Become someone else. He had no place in mind, save for get away. Go far away and don’t look back. Don’t miss it. Don’t wish for things to be different because they would not be. Could not. He made it this way. He did. He was alone, born to be apart. 

“Mighty nice thing you did there,” someone said. Sparks flared from his fingertips, littering the pavement. Bad. He pulled his hand to his chest, gripped it, and silently begged for his quirk to stop. Wide eyes searched the darkness to find a person, leaning against the wall near the overturned dumpster. 

“I don’t want trouble,” he said, trying to sound brave, failing in the cadence of his voice. “Just let me go. No one has to get hurt.” 

“Someone already got hurt,” they said, stepping forward and indicating the criminal. Shouto didn’t know what to say. No way to know how long the person had been watching and waiting for the woman to leave. He debated on following her out to take his chances on the busy street with no mask or glasses, only a hood to protect him. If the police were already on their way—“Including my pocket,” the person continued, “Ratchet here hasn’t lost a fight in six weeks. He was supposed to make me thousands.”

"If you’re a criminal—"

The person cut off his shaky response with a laugh. “You’ll what? Call the police. Seems unlikely to me. Wouldn’t want to attract any unwanted attention, now would you?”

“—I’ll fight you. Just like him,” Shouto finished. He managed to keep his head up. Defiant. Years of training under—He took a deep breath and continued, “that lady is going to call the cops, and by the time they get here, I’ll be long gone. You can be too—or join your friend here on the ground.”

In lieu of responding, the person stepped forward into the light and pulled down their hood. Two horns sat curled in red hair. Matching red eyes met him. Disconcerting. But Shouto would not back down. He clenched both of his fists and shifted his stance into one proper for fighting.

“You got some balls on ya kid,” the person said, “that’s good. You need that kind of thing out here.” They took another step forward. “So, I’m going to offer you a preposition. I don’t expect you to recognize me—my sort of business isn’t something they’re keen on teaching those in that fancy school of yours. But it’s a simple facet of life, our society if you will. 

“See, I’ve got some powerful friends that I don’t call on often because I’m pretty powerful myself—but they’re heroes and villains alike. You get what I’m saying? Anyone who needs to know about you, will know, and even those who haven’t given it a thought, will be thinking about it. In under an hour, you’ll be back in your shackles, the heroes left celebrating another victory.”

“Or,” Shouto risked. 

They smiled. “Or you pay me back what you owe. Like I said, Ratchet was my star fighter. He was on his way to one of my arenas when you ruined his fun.” 

“He attacked someone.”

“He’s a petty thug,” they shrugged off, “Here’s the deal. You come with me. You fight in his place. If you don’t make up what he would have brought in tonight—you stay until you do.”

“And if I don’t?” Shouto asked, eyeing freedom just beyond them. Besides the horns and their statement, there was nothing for Shouto to gauge what their quirk was. Fighting and running were a possibility. But still, there were too many variables. Too many what-ifs.

They lifted their phone. Shouto made out the number. “Police inbound: one minute. You think you can fight me, and get away before they get here, be my guest.”

Shouto’s stance wavered. 

“Okay,” he said.

“Perfect,” they replied.

Yuki’s fight ring was in a secluded part of town. No cover. Open to what it was. Mostly villains and gang members, looking for a brawl, some quick cash. Every fighter masked, to not cause grudges in the stands. Shouto’s own was a wooden demon with an unruly tongue. He donned it, barely able to see out of the eyes, but that didn’t matter. He was unanimous.

Across from him was a man wearing a clown mask. He laughed, twirling a knife between his fingers, staring Shouto down. Shouto had been given weapons too. He had no idea what to do with them. They sat awkwardly in his palm. When the horn blared, signaling the start, he was lucky for the solidity of wood, causing the knife to glance off his head instead of getting embedded in it. 

Luck, however, was a word Shouto never associated with himself, forced to be on the back pedal as his opponent attacked with sure-footed movements. He knocked Shouto's weapon out onto the dirt and kept coming for more, forcing Shouto back. However, no matter how many times he jabbed and attacked, the movements, while confident, were easy to predict. The clown was not so overly skilled. Shouto wished that they were, that they could manage to trip him up and take him out as they pushed him this way and that. The only thing that kept him from botching the fight altogether and taking a proper hit down was knowing that Yuki had said he was earning back the money from the street thug. If Shouto lost, he’d be back in. He’d have to do this again.

So, for one of the obvious punches to his head, Shouto didn’t just raise his arm to parry it, he shot his left hand up and grabbed the person’s naked wrist. He couldn’t risk a lot, given where he was and how eager bloodhounds were once they caught a scent, but he could burn. The man screamed, and Shouto dropped his arm, distantly watching blisters form along hastening red skin. A contact quirk no more. The man fell to his knees, cursing and yelling, and Shouto backed up and searched for the entrance he had come in while the stadium bellowed for him to finish him. The door was closed. The man he could see through the bars had his arms crossed unmoving. Yuki, with their red horns and eyes, stared down upon him from their elevated box in the makeshift stands and waited. 

Injury was not death. He had watched what ended the fight before his. He had twisted over his stomach to avoid any more unnecessary pain. 

Was Shouto a fighter? He did not know.

The cheering grew around him as the clown man struggled to stand. They wanted him to put this stranger in his place. It was either be hunted or hunt, any moral quarrels he had after the fact didn’t matter as much compared to him surviving here tonight. Besides, the onlookers didn’t know. Under the mask, he was any broken man. He was not Shouto, UA alumni, lost. He was a player. A pawn. The jester for the onlookers to jeer at. They wanted a show, and for the second time that night, Shouto turned someone else’s world dark. 

He won. 

It took Shouto seven straight nights of fighting to earn back what the other man would have made. It took him an additional three weeks to pay off his room and board—something about how he wasn’t trusted to not disappear as soon as he was let out of the fight club. Not that Shouto had places to go, and if this was a prison, it was a quiet one. It was easy to forget about himself there. It was easy to wear a mask and fight who he was told to fight.

The fights got easier too. Not in the sense that his opponents were of poorer quality. There was a hierarchy to who fought who. It reminded him of the video games Bakugou would sometimes play in the car during their remedial courses. He’d defeat one enemy only to be scaled to the next and so forth. 

What was easier, then, was that he didn’t get sick after every person he took down. If he didn’t look at the body underneath him once it was over, he could walk away on steady feet. If no one knew it was Shouto in the middle of the ring fighting, it was almost like it wasn’t him. Anonymity was freeing as it was dangerous. While no one died within the arena, death hung around it in back alleyways and rooftops. Deals went from bad to worse. Very rarely did the police come, however. Never once a hero. Maybe that was why the minute he paid off his dues, he didn’t run away. It wasn’t a home, but it was somewhere warm and that was all that would end up mattering. 

Shouto didn’t use his quirk after the first battle. He knew weapons, only he hadn’t had much of a use for them when his quirk was proven just as volatile. But whereas his quirk could hide his shame of injury, a blade, staff, or otherwise, was a metal extension of him. The injuries he bestowed were concrete with evidence pointing only in one direction. No one could deny what it was he did. He did it well, born out of desperation to not be discovered by falling unconscious and having someone remove his mask and know. And because maybe, maybe, pushing himself to the brink of ruin was the only way Shouto ever knew how to act. There might not have been grand accolades for his wins, but there was reward.

“We’re moving you to the Northside. Better fights, which means you’ll be making more money," Yuki said one day after they were done handing him his cash. The translation of which meant Yuki would be making more money. Shouto only saw a small cut of his earnings, and it had been modest. Enough to get by without falling victim to the street. However, there was no place for him to speak in this arrangement. It was how he wanted it. It was harder to listen to the voice in the back of his head that told him he was doing something wrong, was wrong, when it was others that were pushing him to do it. It didn’t assuage any lingering guilt but what choice did he have? Yuki knew his identity. They could have called the police, heroes, weeks ago, but they didn’t. All because Shouto did a good job. 

So, he moved on. He fought and stumbled out of various arenas while people chanted a name after him. They called him  Yokai, which might have had something to do with the mask he wore, but it wasn’t like he cared or was overly fond of it, just as long as they didn’t call him by his real name. It was fine. 

Graduating to the more notorious fight clubs allowed him to find and afford a miserable apartment, overlooking neighbors that got in a fight every night, which he ignored, and a perpetual leak that colored the ceiling yellow in spots. It was there that he first attempted dyeing his hair. But dark brown or all red, had him reflecting the face of men that were not him in a cracked mirror. It caused the bathroom to spiral and taunts and pleads to perforate the small place. He stopped trying after the second time. His roots grew in too fast to maintain anyways, and Shouto wouldn’t leave anywhere without a hat on his head regardless of the color of his hair. 

The only issue with gaining a repertoire in these connected fight clubs was that the fights progressed outside of thugs and street urchins. People talked and judged. They made up their mind about him based solely on how he acted and kept to himself. If anyone was ever too curious about what face sat under the mask, Shouto knew it wouldn’t be too hard for them to prove themselves right. All it took was someone brave enough, desperate enough. Their were many in places like this. 

A vigilante, for instance, with the right information could be calculating. However, they were always easy to spot. Cocky. A bit bold. Secretive. They looked out for themselves, which was fine, so as long as they didn’t bother him. Fighting against them was a learning experience. Whereas others fought like they were on TV, using only the semblance of form and thought, vigilantes fought with grit. They fought dirty. They winded Shouto and kept coming, so Shouto adapted. He became better. 

But worrying about whether or not a vigilante would recognize him and cash in the reward for information that was currently on his head, was nothing compared to the first time Shouto saw a hero in the stands. 

They were buff. They weren’t in their hero costume, and only a broken memory of a magazine Midoriya used to read whenever they took breaks from their studies alerted him to who they were as they walked away from the stands to enter the arena. The whispers and glares filled in the rest of Shouto’s broken memory of the man. His quirk specialized in binding. It was ethereal. Almost like Midoriya’s Blackwhip. He stood atop victory after victory, loosening cheers from those wary enough to bet on him. He wasn’t the first hero Shouto knew to frequent places like this to get cash, just the first one Shouto saw, and consequently the first one to know him. 

Well. 

This version of him. 

“ Yokai!” He demanded with another defeat at his boots. The hero wanted this arena’s best, and Shouto was not so conceited as to think that was him. He hadn’t lost, but he hadn’t won enough to warrant special treatment. Shouto didn’t know if the shadows spoke of him. He didn’t listen. But the crowd had sat tense, awaiting Yuki’s decision. Shouto knew before it was settled. This type of thing was imminent. It didn’t matter if he declared he didn’t fight heroes. It didn’t matter what he said. He was a mask with no voice. No actions that would be considered their own. At the mercy of the game master, who had none: fight. 

Shouto did not know why this hero had come here. He did not pay attention to the happenings of the world outside this neighborhood. He didn’t even know, really, if people were still out there searching for him. He hoped not. But he did not know the state of his missing person case. He did not care to. 

If Shouto was to lose a fight, it should have been against that hero. Until then, he could exist as unassuming as the many other fighters that came and went out the clubs and bars, looking for quick cash, fun, and alcohol. Only a few made themselves regulars in the business. Put themselves above everyone else as the undisputed picture of victory. There was no ranking system here, this wasn’t as stringent as heroics after all, but there was gossip. There were those who went far and fell harder once they were defeated. Shouto’s risk in avoiding ever having to lose.

In the end, the man’s quirk was like Midoriya’s. It did the strange hero no aid in being less than him, but then again, every hero was less than Midoriya. There was no comparing. It did the other man no good to be up against someone who knew how to circumvent it and get its caster to overshoot him, so he could quickly close the distance between them. 

Midoriya mentioned once or twice that he always forgot that Shouto was skilled in close combat, mostly because Shouto’s style wasn’t inherent to it. Shouto wondered if Midoriya would be able to recognize him like this. If he’d ever show up in the dingiest of these clubs and see him for what he was and could never be. A Midoriya who stood surrounded by bloodthirsty cheers in shock by the errant violence he was seeing and could not stop, finding him in the center with blossoming disappointment in knowing Shouto had caused it.

It did no good to focus on that possibility. 

So, he kept winning. 

He didn’t think as he fought, only did as he was told. In a way it was nostalgic. It reminded him of a house. He was tense and scared back then too. Still, puny, weak Shouto, taking the first opportunity he could find to run back to a ratty mattress and heave. In and out. A stolen police radar rattling off local crime, while he squeezed his eyes shut and begged.

More often than not he woke up cold with a stale t-shirt, sticking to his back, as he lay overtop the blanket. He had dreams he could not recall, but maybe that was for the better. No need to dwell on the past kept locked away at a distance.

Shouto thought himself well-disciplined, not getting into any business that could be contrived as saving the day. A life. He did not dwell in dark streets, did not keep his ears peeled for screams, muffled by a hand. He fought, only when contained to an arena, making sure to keep away from things that would get him caught. He thought he’d been doing well, remaining unseen, on the periphery, until a group of five approached him. Not heroes nor villains.

Vigilantes. 

They were ragtag, easy to get around the first time. One of them could control blades, which Shouto only knew because he got cut across his arm during one of their matches. Two girls and three guys, all of which he fought and defeated, making himself scarce when they tried to approach him again. 

But vigilantes were persistent and unlike heroes, they did not fear staying within the boundaries of the law. The next time he saw them they were lounging on his sofa, eating his ramen, and ignoring the shattered glass that littered the floor. 

“You’re a hard kid to track down.”

“Get out.”

The tallest one—the one who spoke—gave him a leveled look. 

“Leave,” he tried again.

“Ah, don’t be like that,” one of the girls called, “you don’t even know what it is we want.”

“I don’t have money.”

“We’re not stupid kiddo.”

“Neither am I.”

Shouto indeed was. Everything he had was in a small safe he kept under the sink at the bottom of a rather empty first aid kit. He wouldn’t give up what was rightfully his. Five-on-one was not a fair fight, but Shouto figured his odds for success were rather high, considering they didn’t open with beating him up. Granted, that could have just been because they hadn’t found his savings yet, or what it was exactly they were looking for in him. He shifted on his feet.

“Now, now,” another said. He was muscular and had talons in the place of fingers, which he tapped along his arm. “Why doesn’t everyone take a deep breath, and we discuss things here rationally. We’re not after your winning’s kid.”

Shouto was not entertaining them when he asked, “then what exactly are you after?” What he was doing was stalling for time, formulating a plan that involved only pepper spray and the knife he kept on him at all times.

“Do you know Ito Daiki?” The talon man asked. Shouto shook his head. “White collar guy, makes a fortune selling high end fashion for an affordable price.” Shouto knew next to nothing about apparel, but he wasn’t going to say that. “He’s corrupt in the way most millionaires are. Too many to go around and with the fall of society and everything, not many ways to stop them—conventionally.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Hold on, boy, let Lazarus finish,” the first guy said. His eyes were purple. They glowed.

“Eight days ago, his wife posted a hit. Now, generally, my friends and I don’t bother dealing with marital disputes where the spouse wants insurance money or the company; however, Ms. Ito’s case does deal with something we actually are concerned about—

“He hits her,” one of the girls interrupted, scowling, “doesn’t let her leave their swanky apartment for weeks on end if he catches her along the jaw.”

The rest of the vigilantes wore matching frowns.

“Silver is right. Ms. Ito has a baby on the way, and she fears what will happen to them once they are born. She asked us to take care of her husband to alleviate that stress.”

“And by take care of,” Shouto asked.

“Hand him over to the police wrapped up in a bow with all the evidence of his abuse stapled to his chest,” the purple-eyed man said.

“Only problem is,” Lazarus continued, “we can’t get close. Ito already knows our group. We took out one of the leaders of his friends for money laundering three months ago, and since then he’s more than doubled his security. We need someone who can blend in with his detail, capture video of the abuse, and then take him out. We’ll handle the rest.”

Shouto laughed, covering it with his fully gloved hand. “You’re not serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

Shouto shook his head. They were asking him to be a spy like one of those old movies Kaminari was fond of in his efforts to impress Shinsou. Shouto didn’t have the slightest clue what it meant to infiltrate a place, let alone blend into a security detail. He’d be outed as soon as he entered the place, put in a squad car with no way out.

“Look buddy,” the tall one said, “I know helping others isn’t really your thing, but you ain’t no villain looking for cheap cash. More often than not, you’ll stop someone before they get too far with the women Yuki keeps around the club.”

Because no one else was. Because it was easier for him to take a punch than a mom, trying to make ends meet for her child back home. Because he couldn’t stand by and watch someone with power get abused by someone with none.

But he wasn’t a hero. Helping the women around the clubs was different than helping someone out of an abusive marriage. He couldn't even save his mom. Even now, without his father in her life, the Hero Commission used her as their puppet, speaking on shows, begging for him to come home. He doubted that if she knew all that had happened with Touya, she would beg so ardently. Shouto was made to be apart from them. So he was. 

“I’m not a spy,” Shouto said, “I’ll be a liability rather than any help.” 

“Says the man in the mask, who disappears before anyone can ask him something,” Silver said. “For someone who doesn’t think he belongs to the shadows, they certainly favor you.”

“It’s not as simple as hiding in the shadows. You want me to pretend I’m someone I’m not and then sit while I watch a man beat his wife, surrounded by enemies, the minute it goes wrong—

“We’ll come in as back up,” Lazarus shrugged, “we’re not asking you to do this on your own, we’re asking you for help. We are a team. We don’t leave anyone behind, including rookies with nothing to lose. Look boy, not many have the grit to fight to make a difference in this world, preferring to watch life pass them by. If that’s the type of man you are, then so be it, we’ll never talk to you again. But if you have the itch, the need to save someone who would otherwise be ignored, forgotten, then this is the opportunity for you.”

Shouto told himself he never wanted to be a hero. He lay wide awake after each nightmare and stared at the water stains on his ceiling, repeating, it’s what he wanted. Endeavor wanted Shouto to be his successor. The hero he could never be. Shouto only wanted peace. A family unbroken.

He would never get it. 

He told the vigilantes he would think about it. They gave him two days. 

Shouto didn’t go to the club the next day. He wasn’t scared of the group. He knew compared to some of the others, they had a moral code. A deal was a deal. They would not approach him there. But for the first time since he started, Shouto could not will himself into doing what had been his routine up until this point. His sleep was fitful as if he was still on the street, and the very idea of eating filled him with such disgust, he knew he wouldn’t even be strong enough to stand on the arena floor. 

For the first time in weeks, Shouto was re-newly conflicted. He had been so blinded by just fighting, surviving the fights, he forgot that people could perceive him even with a mask. They weren’t heroes, though. It was probably the only thing that kept him spiraling further, that, and the fact that they hadn't leverage his identity against him. Having just come home when they had appeared and this apartment having no personal effects, he could only assume that his identity was still a mystery to them. If it wasn’t, was it worth risking everything to help them? He could just go. There was nothing holding him to Tokyo, and with the amount he had been winning, he could afford to at least leave the city. It wouldn’t get him out of the country but further away would always be better. 

The reason he gave himself for walking out the door early that morning was that his neighbor’s continued argument was louder with the window open, and he needed time and peace to think. 

The excuse did not get him far as to why he got on a train. Why, in leaving Tokyo, he didn’t take it north. 

It was a nice day. Somehow, Shouto had missed most of Spring. He had barely been aware of the rain last night and would have completely missed it if it hadn’t puddled on his floor. Now it reflected in dark pools on the road where children called out dares as they hopped between them, trying to get the biggest splash.

Musutafu was once his home. It missed all the nostalgia that should be associated with a place he had spent his childhood in. Shouto didn’t press on the issue any further than that. 

He got off a bus in front of the cafe Iida once brought him to, checking his appearance in the window of a shop. He was nearly all in black, save for the deep red of his turtleneck, tucked under a jacket, and his shoes, which looked obnoxious with the outfit, too pale, but when he found them, he couldn’t pass them up. Otherwise, he had a baseball cap over the butchering that had happened to his hair last night in a fit of panic—all red and terribly short—and a face mask and sunglasses to cover the rest of his face. He was no prodigy with makeup. It was absurd that this would be his first outing to test it over his scar, as if he wanted to be caught. 

He did not. 

He just. 

He needed this. 

For all their boasting about security, UA had failed to fix the one spot in the fence where the electrical current was faulty. Six months ago, he used it to break out of UA, run and run and run until he could not feel his legs, and then come back just as the sun was breaking through the horizon. No one had to know about him breaking into the school. And no one did. All eyes were on the arenas in the center of campus, on the one hosting the second years. Japan's so-called last hope. 

Shouto found his way to the stadium rather easily, dodging teachers randomly checking tickets. It wasn’t as busy as it had been a year ago, but maybe that was to be expected. Civilians were uneasy about sacrificing themselves if All for One was to attack. Shouto assumed he wouldn’t. He’d want to build up the children he had declared as enemies, and then laugh when he destroyed them—Not Shouto’s problem. There was a different villain more menacing than anything All for One could do against him, whose potential Shouto feared more. 

He chose a seat up high, on a bench, near a pillar, which caused a shadow to cross over him. He splayed his hands against his knees, forcing his legs to remain still, to remain calm. He did not remember the first event of the Sports Festival. He only noticed Bakugou explode in the center of the arena during the second event. 

Around Shouto, most others were on their feet, screaming and cheering. They waved homemade flags and chanted when their favorite heroes made an appearance. It made him sick, but Shouto could not go. He had to stay. Had to see.

Midoriya Izuku was an easy boy to find in a stadium of thousands. Unlike the rest of the students, he was kept apart. Rather that was on purpose or because the President of the Hero Commission and her entourage were behind him, Shouto did not know. Midoriya did not react to most of the fights during the third round. No pulling at his lip, contemplating quirks and battle strategies. 

A blank stare once he was in the center of the arena. The winner. The crowd sang. Midoriya walked away.

In the process of setting up the winner’s podium, Shouto found himself taking the stairs two at a time, accidentally running into a man selling peanuts, which he apologized profusely to before running again. The halls of the stadium were near empty. The odds of him meeting another hero, high, but for the first time in his life, Shouto might have been lucky, sneaking all the way down to the student quarters

A year ago, he had hid in a room, not wanting to face the fury of his father for failing. He cowered in the corner of darkness, watching the door and waiting for the fire hero to burst through. If Shouto had known the strength of ice, then, would he have countered it? 

Who had come instead, was All Might. No question for the boy with everything, hiding in the shadows. 

Midoriya had caught him while he was led to the stage he said—

“I’m proud of you,” Toshinori’s voice was quiet now. Shouto slid to a stop at the corner. “It’s okay to accept this as a win.”

Shouto glanced toward the round mirror kept high in the opposite corner. He could make out Toshinori, the silhouette of Midoriya, who said nothing, nodding to his mentor instead. Toshinori bowed and someone further down the hall called, catching his attention. Midoriya did not immediately follow his footsteps, staying by the door, holding the handle behind him as if he wanted to stash himself away inside.

Shouto had his opportunity. One step out and they’d be alone. Izuku and Shouto. At one time, Shouto thought that was all he needed. Whatever tribulations came before him, as long as he had Izuku with him, he could figure it out. He made Shouto brave, and Shouto needed to be brave now if he was going to take the final step around the corner.  Izuku's ideologies weren’t so stringent that they couldn’t bend. At his core, he wanted to save people. Shouto thought that was his same core once too. He thought that was what made a person deserving of being a hero. But he had acted carelessly, and his father was dead. He needed Izuku to tell him that he had been wrong. 

He needed Izuku to tell him that he was right. 

A scream shook him from his thoughts. The hall raced with green lightning followed by a thick smoke to fill it. It swirled through the air, whispering between Shouto’s legs. At the center, Midoriya clutched his head, sliding to the ground, Shouto got three steps toward him before another voice filled the space to pull him back again. 

“What the fuck is this about nerd?” Bakugou’s voice rang. Shouto grappled with the wall. Midoriya’s smoke screen waned. “You upset you couldn’t show off all of your quirks, so now you’re having a hissy fit here?”

“Go away, Kacchan.”

“Tough chance,” Bakugou said, crouching by him. “Fuckers are going to start looking for you soon, and then where will you be? They’ll start questioning if you can do this.”

“Maybe I can’t,” Midoriya said. His voice broke Shouto’s heart, causing him to hesitate when he reached another unlocked door. It wouldn’t be long now before the pair was able to see down the hall and question the man in the mask, clinging to the last dredges of shadow like it was his only lifeline. “Maybe I’m not meant to be a pillar. Maybe I am supposed to be just Deku, no one else.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bakugou’s tone was short, reminiscent of the time before, though not as drastic. “I’m not here to ease a guilty conscience and humbly accept my medal. I’m not going to let you back down now. This is what we are—there’s no running from it. You can’t keep blaming yourself for something you didn’t choose.”

“Yeah, but maybe I did,” Midoriya said, “if I hadn’t urged him to forgive someone he shouldn’t have, none of this would have happened. Todoroki-kun would still be here, and I can’t, Kacchan,” Midoriya fell forward, only saved from further collapse, by Bakugou’s arm across his chest. “I can’t go out there. I can’t accept this. I’m a fraud. I’m a—”

“Well, it ain’t about you,” Bakugou interrupted. He knelt ahead of Midoriya to finish. “You need to go out there because they need it, okay? Eijirou. Cheeks. Glasses. Pikachu. The rest of the class. They need it. Save the people you can now, and we can worry about him another day. I can’t hold us together without you.”

It was an admittance that no one should have heard out loud, gifted only to Midoriya but stolen by Shouto too. 

He had come here searching for absolution. He had only found more of his crimes in its wake.

He wasn’t good for him. He wasn’t good for any of them. 

Run from it. Hide from it. Pretend. It doesn’t change what we are. What we were always born to be. 

The Todorokis were cursed. Shouto most of all. It leached from him. A poison that endangered others. Led them to ruin. 

Shouto missed what made Midoriya stand up. He pushed Bakugou away as soon as he was on his feet, starting toward the opposite tunnel. Bakugou shouldered his way next to him. The pair to disappear into blinding white light. 

Shouto was careful in his steps through depleted, graying fog. He made sure not to accidentally stumble upon any other students. There was no one. Everyone outside under a spring-green sun, clapping for the victors.

His world spun without thought or purchase. He caught sight of Midoriya after being given the golden metal. He raised his hand above his head. In honor of two heroes now dead. The crowd accepted it as truth. Shouto burned. He mourned for a boy who could never finish being one because of a weight Shouto was supposed to alleviate but had only worsened in his haste.

Shouto should have left then. 

It was the only natural thing to do. 

He had seen his despair. 

He had watched his destruction. 

He had witnessed whatever could come from confronting Midoriya in that hall. 

Midoriya would have blamed himself fully, more than he already did, and Shouto would have let him, wouldn’t he? If that was all coming here was for—telling Midoriya the full story of why, so he could possibly be welcomed back home—then his brother was right. There were only villains in their blood.

Shouto was not a hero. 

Yet, he stayed and watched and listened to all the things restless wandering ghosts should no longer care to hear. 

He stood in the middle of the room, so crowded he had nowhere else to go, with his baseball hat and mask, hiding any lies on his face that might suggest he was not the eager onlooker or fan that stood poised all around him. Ahead of him were cameras and reporters, ready for their assault of questions, and beyond them a long table with many chairs, though only a few in the center captured his attention. 

Aizawa sat just to the right of the center. The moment Midoriya sat down next to him, his hand went to reassure him. If Midoriya was calmed by the gesture, he didn’t show it. The hero of the day kept his attention only slightly above the table while the other members that made up the table, faculty and those new ranked heroes Shouto did not know, fielded all the questions the reporters threw. Despite UA using this event as a harbinger of safer times, there was still distrust there. Discontent. Being able to see the heroes of tomorrow was supposed to change that and maybe it did help. After all, how was Shouto to know, he himself had never truly believed in the hope of heroes. 

Regardless out of all the questions pushed to that table, what did earn Midoriya’s attention, past whatever drabble the Hero Commission told him to say, was a question aimed at Aizawa, or rather any of the faculty up there. 

“What are UA’s plans about the recent dropout rate amongst students enrolled in the heroics program?”

Someone answered easily. They noted how UA had gained hero students in the last year, though they could not speak on other schools. Their focus was, and would always be, on their students. While heads nodded and voiced a sentence or few in their agreement, Midoriya swallowed.

He said, “I think it’s okay if kids are realizing they don’t want to be heroes. Most do when they reach the age seven, but a few hold out. To treat kids in hero programs as the last hope, the only ones withholding all villainy,” Midoriya smiled. It was one for grief. “Well that’s a tad silly now, isn’t it? Any other profession wouldn’t ask that of a child.”

There was a murmuring throughout the crowd. A push and pull that threatened to unground Shouto from where he stood. Today was a day of celebration. They needed the victor to confirm it.

“I’m not complaining,” Midoriya continued, “It’s a great honor to be here and be given the the trust to be able to save the day, but we shouldn’t disparage those who realizes that death, dying, isn’t what they hope to achieve before they’re twenty, eighteen, sixteen.” Midoriya’s voice wavered, but he squared his shoulders. “If dropping out and leaving school only saves on life, their own, then maybe it’s worth it.” 

Shouto knew then that if he left, Midoriya would be okay. It might not have been the complete truth, or anything worthy of the truth, but it was a serviceable lie. 

Why did you leave?

I was scared. 

Why did you leave?

I am not this. 

Why did you leave?

I want to be no one. Forgotten. 

Why did you leave?

I am no hero. 

“However,” Midoriya continued. In the upcoming days, Midoriya would be called naive. A little kid, sitting at a table meant for grownups, not realizing the irony of who put him in that spot, who pushed him to tackle the ultimate form of evil, a little over a year later. They wanted Midoriya to already be All Might, save for this speech, a year of mistakes, he stood ahead of them like he already was. A hero beyond the rest. 

“I don’t think that means everyone who is leaving hero schools, aren’t meant to be heroes. I think, if they find themselves holding back, not knowing what to do next. If they’re doubting themselves but still run into danger, still try to protect someone who needs saving, What other word would you call them save hero? The world needs heroes, not large, imposing one's, but everyday heroes, willing to fight for what’s right, despite what goes on day by day, only then will we come out on top. As long as we all work together, it will be okay.” 

Shouto didn’t hear the next question. The next five. Many targeted Midoriya, who answered them, doubling down on what he believed. Anyone could be a hero, not just those walking UA halls. Yes, he meant anyone. Anyone who started running the moment they heard a cry for help. The moment they stepped between a bully and a victim. The moment they couldn’t sleep at night, trying to tell themselves that their choice was already made, hands tied.

Shouto wasn’t a hero. It wasn’t in his blood. But he had made a promise. One of many to Midoriya Izuku, and while most of them turned to white ash, listless on the breeze, he could still do his part here. A burden halved, no more. It would not absolve him from any past crimes. It did not make rain-soaked rooftops easier to bear or an apology easier to remember and accept. 

The Number One Hero, Endeavor, was dead, and it was Shouto’s fault.

There was nothing, nothing, Shouto could do to make that right again. He wouldn’t pretend that he was trying to. He didn’t convince himself that any act done now would have as much consequence on the world then what he had already done. But that did not give him the right to cower. It did not give him the right to flee. He could never exist as Shouto, a civilian with an at-home job that paid well and allowed him to do his part in the community. It was never in his future. Nor was a home, a family, friends. It was all okay. Shouto never had much time to hope for such a life either. 

Between the shouting and the cameras, Shouto found Midoriya again. He would never see him again, at least not in person. If Shouto was smart, which he needed to be better at, coming here was a risk, too high a risk, he would maintain that they stay separated. Imbued with the light of a Pro Hero that already burned so bright he was hard to look at sometimes. Midoriya would understand. He had said so himself. People left because they were scared, and Shouto was, ultimately, very scared. He didn’t know when he would stop being such. 

Midoriya searched the people ahead of him too. After his speech, he faced the issues of the crowd head-on, taking in them all, only to slow and pause the moment he reached Shouto’s section of the room. He didn’t move beyond his position. He stayed attuned to him as Shouto swallowed, once, twice, willing Midoriya to be looking beyond him, in front of him, anywhere but at him. He itched his face out of habit, reaffirming the face mask was in place, that his scar was still tacky with foundation, and watched as Midoriya responded. His chair scraped along the floor, the sound deafening though no one commented on it.

Shouto didn’t wait to stick around to see how far Midoriya would go with it. He turned, pushing through the bodies that tried to keep him contained. They were distracted by the commotion in the front of the room. At their hero moving away from his chair, past backs of heroes, wise and old, who did not see. Despite their distraction, they made room for him, collapsing behind him just as well, hiding his retreat with each step. 

A murmur went through the crowd when Midoriya hit grown level. Shouto did not turn. He could not. 

There were students in the back of the room. People he had missed when he was aimless. Uraraka clung to Iida’s bicep, and Bakugou scowled next to them. At his arm, Kirishima held him back. All of their attention forward.

“What is he doing?”

If Midoriya could not be the world pillar, at least, he needed to be strong for the class. Bakugou’s one ardent request. In their faces, Shouto could see the valor in that. They needed Midoriya. They always had. It was why it was so important that they get him back, and why, now, Shouto needed to go before he caught up to him.

Shouto ducked into the first empty hall he found. As soon as the door was closed, he sprinted. He did not look back when he pulled the second door open, and the first door slammed into the wall. 

Shouto darted around familiar corners and classrooms. A campus empty with the festivities. Nowhere to go to hide or get lost. If he stayed, he’d be caught. He would not be. He took the stairs two at a time. He could not hear if someone called. If someone screamed.

Midoriya was faster than him. Shouto knew this to be absolute when warm air hit his face, and the escape of a green pasture and a distant fence was all he had left. 

Midoriya knew the home beyond the barbed wire. If Shouto made himself easy to find—

Footsteps shouted behind him. Shouto made a decision. A terrible choice that left him in the perfect position to watch as Midoriya stumbled out of the building. He got to the edge of the grass and stopped so abruptly that his body pitched forward, causing him to fall. Shouto knew what Midoriya saw ahead of him. Emptiness. No one. 

 Shouto settled against the trunk of the tree, pulling his knees to his chest, and biting his tongue to keep himself from crying out.

Midoriya was slow to move from the grass stains at his knees. He did. He searched right and then left. He searched his hands, left gripping the dirt below him. Shouto almost expected him to call out. He wished that he did. 

Todoroki Shouto was a cruel, vile man, already stained black because certainly, if he was better, if he was kind or good or whatever else said to ease a conscience about the state of his birth, he would not be up where he was now. A kind boy would free the breath from his lungs, ignore his own consequences of wronged actions, and give to Midoriya what he hoped to find by chasing him out here. A kind boy would apologize and might even leave a note. Shouto was not. 

And the only detriment to his charred soul was watching Midoriya curl over himself in too-perfect green grass. He did not scream. He did not cry. Agony in perfect silence. Pain. Another hero for Shouto to hurt and damage. To leave without the trial of trying to save.

“I don’t know who I am if I’m not this,” Shouto had told his brother, refusing to look down, because down was death, and down was awful, terrible, and jarring. Unreal. 

“If you don’t know what you are yet, then focus on what you are not,” Touya said. “It will sort itself out in the end.” 

Shouto already knew what he was not.

Shouto’s neighbors fought. They might have thought that they were successful in containing it to their home, but their colors bled out of lines, staining the small narrow alley of space between his apartment and theirs. It was always the loudest at night. Shouto’s window was already broken when glass crashed, and a person shrieked, followed closely by tears. What was another window made to break? 

Abusers were always comfortable in knowing they were the strongest in the room. They could not fathom another hand coming against them. It made them sloppy. In the end, their surprise over this change was what always did them in.

The ski mask might have been difficult to see out of with the ski goggles, which were shaded for unencumbered sunlight, not the tragedy of a house, more comfortable in the dark. However, the man didn’t get up below him. Any moral quandaries about Shouto’s worth did not threaten to dispel into the black fabric at the sight of a bruise forming on the side of the man’s face. Behind him, whimpers. 

He turned, rubbing his knuckles. It hadn’t hurt as much as it ought to, and while he had been fist fighting for weeks, it would be practical to get more protective gear. He was useless if he couldn’t use his hands. 

“Please,” the only other person in the room started. She was maybe his age. A bit older. The man behind him was very much his elder. Shouto had ignored too much in his haste to disremember. 

“I don’t. I don’t have any money. You can take the TV. I have a ring, but it’s fake silver. It’s not worth anything. I swear. You can take anything here. Anything at all. Just don’t. Please don’t hurt me.” 

Shouto took another step away from the man. The girl whispered please again. Shouto was careful when he knelt a meter or so away from her, not to frighten her more. 

“I’m not here for money.” 

“Then, what?” 

She was crying, scared, but she didn’t shy away from looking at him. His father used to hit his mother whenever she looked at him the same way. He declared she needed discipline. All she had ever wanted was a chance at love and home. 

“You are hurt,” Shouto said, indicating her arm, and how she held it. It had been slammed into the doorframe. Other prominent bruises spoke to more. “I could help.”

In time, Shouto would learn that this type of help was not always wanted or accepted. Plenty of occasions where he got a glass bottle thrown against his chest or mauled for stepping in where he was not welcomed. He never blamed anyone for those attacks. It was hard. It had always been so hard for him too. But no one had ever offered to save him when he could still be saved; it would never cause him to heed and not try.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the girl said. “No one does anything without something in return, and I don’t have what you’re looking for, so just get out. Leave me alone.” 

“I don’t want anything,” Shouto said, then amended, “I’d like for you to be safe.” 

The girl scoffed, shaking her head. She peeked over at the man, who was still unconscious and would stay that way if Shouto had any confidence in his abilities. He did. 

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

“What do you think?”

No, of course not. No one came to this part of the city on purpose. They were forced to it, and when society failed, more came. Discontent and disharmony. Shouto might not have been there very long, but he knew the signs that led to villainy and crime all the same. People who thought they had no options. Cornered ones with nothing to lose. Any help from those who might have brought it, far, far, away, protecting others. Those, which were easier. Those not so embroiled in society's misfortunes.

However, Shouto had thought far enough ahead on tonight’s adventures. He tossed rolled bills on the floor between them. Enough to get to Okinawa and start over if she so wished. She didn’t immediately take it. Shouto didn’t blame her. 

“It’s yours if you want,” he said. “No one should be forced into a life they don’t want because they don’t have the means to escape.” 

He leaned back on his heels before he stood up. He stepped around the man. He’d have to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t try this again or send a clearer message if it came to that. 

At the window, the girl called, “wait!” He did. She was still on the ground, but her right hand was wrapped around the money, apparently satisfied that it was real, that he wouldn’t try to take her chance at freedom away once offered. She swallowed, finding her voice again to ask, “who are you?”

Shouto bowed his head, “I’m no one.” 

“We gave you all night,” Lazarus said as Shouto unwrapped the tape from his knuckles. He had a cut on his shoulder that had dried with his shirt and one of his shins were tender. “The guys wanted to jump you the moment you got here, but I can only hold them off so long. So what do you say? Are you in?”

Shouto dropped the tape into his open bag and then zipped it up. It was too dangerous to think about taking off any other part of the fighter persona here. Besides, people were already used to Yokai, roaming the back halls before and after matches. There was no need to confuse that person now. The fewer people knew of him, the better.

“I work alone,” he said. He slung the bag over his uninjured shoulder. There was only one exit out of the locker room. Nothing about the vigilante would ever be imposing enough for him to hesitate in passing him. 

“That’s it then? You’re going to let that son of a bitch get off terrorizing his family for years to come?”

“I didn’t say that.” 

Security details, many people, and an unfamiliar territory all led to a bad hand. There were better ways to do things. Ways in which he didn’t have to rely on the help of others, least of all the questionable quality of a group of morally white vigilantes—if vigilantes could even be classified as such.

“You steal our hit from under us, you’re going to end up with a problem.”

“I don’t care about your money.”

Lazarus studied him further. Whatever he found didn’t warrant more scolding from an aging man. He took a step back, giving Shouto the perfect opening to go forward. Shouto was fine with it. The less he had to speak with a potential threat, the better. However, Lazarus wasn’t done with his words just yet. 

“This isn’t a job most people walk away from unscathed,” he said, “It will break you if you let it.”

Maybe if Shouto thought himself still able to break, he would have listened to the man’s warning. However, heroes hesitated when they were scared. They had things to lose and themselves to protect. 

This part of the city couldn’t afford hesitation. It needed action, sure-footedness, and results. It might not needed him, but it was who they got, so it would have to do.

Two weeks later, Shouto got shot. A graze that caught the bottom portion of his ear. The shock of it gave the person who did it time to escape. It gave them three more nights to terrorize and feed off helpless worry. When they were face to face the second time, Shouto didn’t give them time to see him, dropping from the fire escape while the other took a smoke break. The force of the landing broke one of their legs. Shouto ignored their curses when it happened, beating them all the same. He dragged them to the streets. He left them there to rot while the rest of the shadows looked on and whispered. 

Ideally, running on fumes to take on bad case after bad case would have been just as easy and mind-numbing as taking up work at the fight club. However, whereas losing in a ring cost a person nothing more than their pride, losing out here could be death. It could be something worse than death too, and for all Shouto wanted to be, he was not good at it. He was brash where he needed to be cunning. He was cruel where it might have served him better to be kind. He was no one, but the city streets couldn’t have an unknowable force taking out their men, so he was known, just without a name. 

So he came home one night to gunfire and an eviction notice. He lost a molar while he was being held down by another, so the man above him could punch and taunt and taunt and taunt. They didn’t care what lay underneath his mask, that person wasn’t doing a thing, but the caricature of a shadow man, who took the same criminal’s hand later, that person, he was becoming fear. 

It suited him, Shouto thought, nursing a bruised rib. His whole life had been pain better now for him to be the one to sow it. He might have gotten a glass bottle to his side and had to spend hours over a porcelain sink, painting it red in his efforts to get every piece out. He might have had to learn how to better dodge bullets, learn how to better listen to banter that told them they would shoot him. He might be dying, a slow marching death, but he never had feared death, and while he was alive, he would do much. All that he could. 

The fight clubs continued to serve their purpose. Where there were drinks, people spoke more freely. It was neutral ground that bartered deals. Shouto had already given a wide berth to those men in smart black suits, whose winning bets didn’t win them thousands but rather soldiers for a battle that continued to press on despite Shouto’s isolation from it. The yakuza leaders or fledgling villain bosses, he did not so easily avoid. Getting involved with them further his goal, and the Hero Commission, whatever their ultimate plans were in being in backwater alleys and clubs, had always existed outside of him and his family. Panopticons who were no good at intervening for all they could see. 

All of which led him to where he was forced to pivot again. A warehouse. Empty. Glass had long since littered the floor from high above windows and while the door had once been locked and chained, it was cut long before Shouto came, pushing it open so he could see what lay inside. Networking was not a foreign concept to him. Most other vigilantes seemed to work in a system that catered to others, meaning they got paid by someone else to do their dirty work. Shouto didn’t need the extra money. He was making do as he was, so consider it curiosity that pulled him to the center of dust and forgotten wood pallets. An anonymous donor who wanted to meet with him. 

“You’ve made quite a name for yourself.” 

Shouto frowned. He did not back away from where he had stopped, watching the darkness ahead of him drift away and reveal this new arrival. He dug his hands in his pocket, leveling a covered glare. 

“I have done nothing to you,” he said. “I stayed away.” 

Touya’s scars were broader than when he had last seen him. They took up much of his face, all of his hands, and presumably much more, kept under his street clothes. He dug into his jacket, producing a file, which he threw in between them. Pictures and other artifacts littered the area. Black and white.

“You’ve been busy.” 

“What do you want?”

“You’re not an easy man to get in contact with.”

“That’s the point.”

“Is it?”

Shouto’s glower deepened. He did take a step back. He started to turn, “I’m wasting my time here. Take your advice and leave me alone. I’m no threat to you.” 

Shouto got far in his retreat, closing almost half the distance between him and the door. He knew Touya wouldn’t chase after him. He had made a promise to him, after all, words bound in blood. Touya’s gaze toward him had changed ever since that day. It wasn’t anguish and angry. It wasn’t upset. It was a mystery, part not. Concern on any of his family member’s faces always was. 

“Crime’s down 11% in this sector this last month. Did you know that?” 

Shouto hated that he slowed. Hadn’t they already proven that any close proximity between the two would only ever end in disaster? Shouto could not hate his brother, but he was not keen on being subjected to a rant or criticism of his actions. Shouto already knew he was a flawed actor, there was no need to press the issue. “They say there is a new hero, come to vanquish in this hell.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Are they?”

Heroes had to operate within the confines of the law. Shouto was decidedly not. He could just as easily be arrested as any of the people he charged toward and attacked. At no point in time had vigilante justice been allowed in Japan. 

“You told me you didn’t care what I did,” Shouto said, “as long as I stayed out of your way.” 

“Maybe I changed my mind.” 

Shouto’s fingers flexed. The biggest obstacle with Touya had always been that he knew too much. He had information that would eradicate civilians’ trust in the system, and he had used it gleefully. He had played Hawks at his own game and let his allies perish to fulfill his own goals. Touya was not a good man. Shouto wouldn’t disillusion himself into thinking he had become one in the few months they had been apart. He was simply a powerful one. One who knew just as well as Shouto what happened to their father. 

“So that’s what this is? Extortion? I don’t have much left to take from.” 

“No, no,” Touya shook his head, irritated. It took Shouto seconds to realize it wasn't targeted him, but at himself. Touya was mad at himself. “We’re doing this all wrong. I’m not here to hurt you—I’m trying to help you. I want to help you. I,” Touya frowned, “I made a mistake. I was young and stupid and brash, okay? I should have gotten you out the moment I woke back up, instead of focusing all my energy on dad. You didn’t deserve to grow up in that house anymore than I did.”

Shouto wondered what that might have been like. His dead brother to burn through their home. An avenging angel to take Shouto’s hand and lead him out. Shouto would have gone willingly. While he might have been somewhat aware of his brother’s anger toward him before his death, it was not enough to make him fear him. Between two monsters, Shouto’s choice would have been Touya. 

But if he went to Touya, he would have never gone to UA. He would have never met Midoriya, Bakugou, Iida, or the whole class. He would have never changed and would have held just as much resentment toward his father as he had years prior. 

Would he have become a villain like Touya? 

Maybe that didn’t matter. 

Both roads would have led them to where he was now. Touya’s intervention would have only made it so that he ultimately hurt less people that he cared about now. 

“I never looked for anyone to save me,” Shouto said. Touya’s expression mirrored and replaced one of someone else. He had said the same thing in a room that celebrated the greatest hero, too. Midoriya had said just because he didn’t think he deserved to be saved, didn’t mean no one should have tried. “What is this really about?”

Touya indicated the folder and the pictures strewn across the ground. They were of him. Well, they were of him, fully masked and covered. There was only one that caught sight of his hair, but in black and white and grainy, it was hardly proof of anything, save he had a stalker of a brother, who had told him to go. If Touya had wanted to shelter Shouto, he would have found him beforehand. He wouldn’t have let him leave out of his sight, to begin with.

“I didn’t take these,” Touya said, however, “luckily for you, I still have contacts in the commission. I told you it was only a matter of time before they came after you.”

He did. Shouto expected them to. Maybe a bit more upfront with it, instead of taking photos from afar.

“Maybe I don’t care if they find me,” Shouto said. He didn’t want to go back to UA. There would be no risk in that with the Hero Commission. If they wanted to speak to him, it meant they knew, and if they knew, they were simply working him to his most tired state before interfering. 

“I care,” Touya said. “The commission is the last group you want to get messed up with in this life. One way or another, they’ll ruin you.” 

Shouto didn’t say that maybe he was already ruined, so what did it matter if the Hero Commission got to him?

“I’ll keep an eye out then,” Shouto said. If Touya wanted appeasement, so be it. He wanted to protect his self-interests, and Shouto was a liability. Shouto knew that. 

Only Touya wasn’t agreeing to that statement nor was he demanding more from Shouto, yet. Instead, he was surprising Shouto with a possibility he never considered from his once supposedly deranged elder brother. 

“I spoke with mom." Touya said, "she’s moving the family out of Japan. She doesn’t know where yet, but it will be soon.”

“What else did you tell her,” Shouto couldn’t stop the tightness in his throat. He had watched his mother ask strangers kindly for any information on her kind lost son. She had seem more tired as of late. Was it this?

“Only what she already assumed to know. She didn’t ask about him. She only wanted to know about you. How we could protect you.” 

Had Shouto always seemed so fragile to others? Did people really look at him and think weak, frail, in need of protecting? A child. It had been the other way for so long, he didn’t know what to say when it presented itself to him, from his family no less. 

“There’s a ship, waiting a few blocks from here that is willing to smuggle us aboard,” Touya said. “To Korea. We’ll be out. Japan has too many other things to worry about then us, and once we’re gone, we can be whoever we want to be. You don’t have to keep resorting back to what you know in order to survive. You can live. We can all live. Happily. Like a family is supposed to.” 

Perhaps it shouldn’t have caught Shouto so off guard. Perhaps it should have. If Touya could escape tonight, he could have escaped whenever. He waited until he found the time to speak with him. He planned and talked to their mother, so they could go together and eventually all reconnect somewhere else with new identities under false pretenses. It was as Touya said, a chance for them to be a family. A real one. 

A boy once saw glimmers of a future like that. A small home, surrounded by gardens with no office or training room, but a large family room, filled with plush cushions and laughter. A house to grow old in with many generations of relations and joy. A place where Shouto could stop pretending and live the life he wanted to for so long. 

And never, not once, would Fuyumi, Natsuo, or their mom ever bring up questions as to what happened between the two of them and their father. It would be like it never even happened, and Shouto could move on.

But could he?

If anything, he had since learned that he attracted trouble, and if it didn’t come to him, he went searching for it. In that perfect home, he would have his mom, sister, and brothers, all waiting at a dinner table, waiting for him to come home, restless at heart, getting in trouble. Being discovered in another country was still discovery. Only worse, they would know he had help, and they would search them down too, punish them for not doing as they should, for not knowing. 

“I can’t go with you.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Shouto. You have to. You won’t survive otherwise.” 

Shouto shook his head, dropping his brother's gaze. “You’re not responsible for me. Whatever happens, it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you.” 

“You should.” 

“I don’t.”

“Don’t be a brat,” he said, marching toward Shouto and for a brief moment, he could picture him grabbing his arm and dragging him to his boat. Shouto wouldn’t go without a fight. He would do so kicking and screaming until Touya let him go or fought as well. He didn’t want to fight his family again, not so soon afterward, not with just as much to lose.

And for his pleas, his prayers were answered. Touya stopped short of him. Not without proper cause. Touya raised his palm to his face, stretching out his fingers, one by one to study each of them, and Shouto tensed. He felt it too. His quirk, which he had gone through so much trouble to ignore and keep quiet, was gone. It left him cold.

“You need to go.” 

“Shouto.” 

Shouto already had his back to him. But the way he had come was still just empty. The door closed. His eyes darted to the walls, back to where Touya came in, but Touya’s eyes were up. He was staring at the rafters of the ceiling, and Shouto followed it too. Red eyes met him in the dark.

“I should have come for you sooner,” Touya said.

“Get out,” Shouto said, “I’ll take care of it.”

“You can’t beat him.”

Maybe not. Shouto certainly didn’t have the years of hand-to-hand combat that Eraserhead did. But Shouto didn’t need to beat the underground hero in a fight, he just needed to escape. He couldn’t do that if Touya was still a piece in play.

“He’s after me,” Shouto said. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” 

Touya pursed his lips, but he didn’t argue further as Eraserhead took a step forward, falling from where he had been perched.

“I’ll come back for you,” Touya said, backing up. One last reminder on his tongue. “They don’t control you.”

Shouto didn’t watch his brother’s retreating form through the back of the warehouse. He kept his attention on the hero ahead of him now. Shouto’s quirk was still not in play. He wouldn’t use it even if he could. Fighting a hero in the open like this wasn’t a path Shouto wanted to embark on. All he needed was the confirmation that Aizawa wasn’t going to chase after Touya and that his real target was indeed Shouto. He was proven true once Touya’s footsteps had long since faded into peripheral background noise, and they were still staring at each other unmoving.

“You let him go.” Aizawa’s first words to him. 

“He’s my brother.”

“He’s wanted for far more than your father’s death.”

Shouto had already paid for making the wrong choice. He would continue to pay for it, only it didn’t feel wrong at the time. It didn’t now. Touya had never had a choice. It felt cruel to cast judgment on him for that. But since it was Shouto’s choice, he was accountable for his actions. He knew that. 

“Are you here to arrest me," he asked. Aizawa gave himself away the moment his hair started to drop, and Shouto felt that which he wished he couldn’t. “I wouldn’t be upset if you were, just there are people who need help still around here, so I hope you can find them for me if I have to go.”

There were too many to count, all spread far with disparaging hope. Everyday people chose sides. Very few chose heroes, but it didn’t matter because the heroes held all the power. Many more chose to align themselves with villains. To become villains themselves because the world had been cruel to them, so why not be cruel back? Shouto understood. He wanted to help alleviate that stress. All gone now because of this. 

“I’m not here to arrest you, kid.” 

“Then, why?”

Touya’s photos were still on the ground trampled beneath them. The only other reason the Hero Commission would want him was for him to be their fodder. So easily would they look away to make their perfect hero. They would rewrite all of Shouto’s wrongs and make him better. Let him live in fantasy as the world crumbled at his feet. Shouto took an uneasy half-step back.

“Because you are my student, and I vowed to all of my class that I wouldn’t leave anyone behind.” 

Shouto shook his head. “I don’t go to UA anymore.” 

“I don’t recall expelling you.” 

“I,” Shouto bit his tongue. “I’m not good. I’m not like them.”

“You’re a kid.” Aizawa said. “You’re allowed to be forgiven for mistakes.” 

If only Shouto’s crime was as simple as that. It wasn’t like he miscalculated a move and got hurt in the process for it, forcing training to be over all too fast. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t wished for this reality to be true, long ago when he was small and the house was so large, and only one man had ever come to his room with blazing fists, demanding more and more and more, that child wanted his father dead, and the Number One Hero was, left to rot in the streets for anyone to discover and desecrate. It was not a simple mistake. Shouto had made a decision. Of two monsters, he chose one, and it costed a man his life. 

“I don’t want to go back.”

“I know.” 

Shouto swallowed. He should have stayed home. He should have been prowling the streets, not looking for a lead or a way to make more money. He should have been satisfied with what he had. What he had fought for thus far and nothing more. Another stupid mistake and miscalculation. For all he had tried to avoid, it stared ahead of him now in his old teacher's face. He didn’t deserve forgiveness or understanding. He didn’t want to put this burden on anyone other than himself. It was his to bear, so he would bear it. He would make do. 

Aizawa’s quirk still wasn’t activated, he was waiting for Shouto to make his move. Fire whispered in his blood. Ice mourned as a coffin that spread just below his skin and up his arm. Great men pushed past their limitations and became better. Shouto never wanted to be great. It was an ideal placed on him, thinking him altruistic, worthy of a title that should never been bestowed upon a Todoroki. 

In the end, Shouto didn’t need to contemplate the usefulness of his quirks against a man who could take them all away nor did he have to wonder if his learned skills in the fight clubs would prove beneficial against an actual hero through and through, because an explosion sounded in the night, directly behind him, blistering blue. A fire that consumed all in this dry, barren place of wooden match sticks. Weakened by the strain of being forgotten. Touya’s favor to him. 

They cannot protect you. 

They have always been too weak too. 

They will fall back on their laurels. 

They will brand you, shape you into the beings they fear so much. 

And then. 

They will kill you. 

That is their way. There is no understanding gray. 

So, run, Shouto. Run away far and don’t look back. 

Don’t wonder. 

Don’t pray.

Don’t wish for things to be different.

They won’t be, not anymore. 

Shouto had no fear of smoke and ember. He had long since been assimilated to the itch in his throat and the heat on the back of his neck. There were exits all around. In popping broken windows and dwindling walls. Any of which he could dive through and escape further. All of which he should have. 

Aizawa was calculating through the smoke. He was speaking, shouting. All words were lost between them. He paralleled him, walking left. Aizawa would have to hesitate before he walked through fire. Shouto wouldn't need to. What was walking through fire, really, for man who could yield it?

Through the buzz of errant adrenaline, a crack broke through the smog, falling beams that rained and crushed dusted cement, stirring up smoke, concealing all else. Shouto took his chance at a short sprint, reaching his target and using a clothed fist to punch through thin walls, which disintegrated into ash and fell apart further. He could hear sirens in the distance. It was only time before he saw the lights. Aizawa didn’t bring backup, it wasn’t in his character, but help would come regardless. Shouto had to move. He had to go. Was ready to do so, saw freedom in the shadows that drifted on as naked riverbeds, reaching out with their dark hands, asking for him back, asking him to come and be safe. There was no harbor in light. Only, his senses were not completely numb, and a groan was almost as loud as the thundering of his heart in his ears. 

Don’t turn. 

Don’t look back. 

Don’t. 

Gray smoke swirled and settled against the backdrop of cooling orange flames and overtop darkening black beams of which Aizawa laid underneath. It was burning. If Aizawa could push it off, it would only injure him further. The place was would go quickly. It was disinterested in the state of bodies left in its wake. While Touya’s opinion of Shouto might have changed, he still didn’t like heroes. He still didn’t care if they died to further his own goals, even if that goal was Shouto’s safety. His protection.

Shouto left the wall. He didn’t hesitate, moving through the destruction to look for the safest path. Falling ash ate away black fabric and melted parts of his shoes. The ground beneath his knees when he fell burned, but it did not wholly consume the skin. Aizawa didn’t tell him to go, which was good. Shouto was terrible at listening to the advice, but he knew his former teacher couldn’t ignore how he lifted the beam. The unsaid question as to why he so easily thought to use his hands in place of anything else. In place of what could suffocate the fire all at once if he had the power to do so. 

Instead, Shouto burned his hands. He got his legs underneath him and pushed up, allowing a bit of room, which let Aizawa crawl out further underneath. The man’s left leg was damaged. While Aizawa was strong and could do almost anything, he would not be able to walk out of the burning building without help. So Shouto ignored the pressing panic in his chest and looped the man’s arm around his neck. He did not take a deep breath. He could not. But he took one step at a time, heading to the door not far from them and refusing to collapse when it was opened for them.

Firefighters and police for him but not for the others that needed them just as much. Flashing bright lights that caused him to wince. They rushed to them, to Aizawa’s aid. Shouting questions and demands that went around Shouto in his effort to keep going, keep marching, keep standing. When one of them came to pull Shouto and Aizawa apart to lead them to an ambulance, Aizawa's grip on him tightened. His silent demand. 

Shouto assumed this part of his life was over. 

It was not.