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The first thing Izumi notices about the boy is not the two-tone hair split perfectly down the middle. It’s not the heterochromic eyes that observe his surroundings with cold, affected detachment. It’s not even the scar that envelopes his left eye in a patch of pain that has only physically healed.
No. The first thing Izumi notices about the boy as he walks past the park where she plays is the noose around his neck.
Where the soul string leads, Izumi can’t tell—the other anchor not close enough for her to see—but she knows it isn’t good. It isn’t safe. Whoever is at the other end of that bond is hurting the boy and she wants to make it stop , before the noose tightens and it’s too late.
“Michan!”
The shove to her shoulder demands her attention, but Izumi can’t look away. She has to focus now, before she loses her chance.
“Give me a minute, Kacchan.” Izumi tries to placate the blonde by putting her hand on his arm, letting him know she knows he’s there, but her eyes don’t leave the other boy.
Kacchan is seven, though, and too used to getting what he wants. “What are you staring at, nerd? Come on, we’re playing heroes.”
With as much focus as she can manage, Izumi creates a new string with her quirk. Fine and insubstantial as spidersilk, she anchors it between herself and the boy. It’s a new trick she’s only just learned this week, but she should be able to follow the new string to the boy later. She hopes so anyway.
As the boy rounds the corner and disappears, she turns to her friend and smiles. “Sorry Kacchan, I’m ready.”
“Tch.” Kacchan scoffs. “You’re playing the villain this time for making me wait.”
~*~*~
Following the string to the boy is hard. Izumi lives near the park and she thought the boy would too, but he doesn’t.
That night, after she has had dinner and helped her mom with the dishes, washed up, and changed into her All Might jammies she sits on her bed and holds the new string gently in her tiny hands and concentrates. The bond is false, a construction of her quirk rather than a genuine connection, and that makes it harder, but she remembers the noose and buckles down. After an hour and the pulsing, pounding ache between her brows makes her nauseous, she finds the boy.
He lives on the other side of the city, but she found him.
Tomorrow is Saturday and her mom will work a shift at both of her jobs, so Izumi will be free to go to the boy and help. She has a train pass and a little money for lunch, so it should be fine. That settled, Izumi buries herself under her comforter and falls asleep.
In the morning, her mom wakes her for breakfast, which is good because Izumi is starving! She may have overworked her quirk last night, but the headache and nausea are already gone so Izumi tells herself she’ll be more careful next time and continues to eat with gusto.
Izumi hugs her mom goodbye, promises she’ll be good, and waits until she can no longer hear her mother’s footsteps before racing to her room and getting changed. She puts her All Might jammies in the laundry bin and pulls on a pair of tights, a skirt, a long-sleeved shirt, and then a t-shirt on top. It’s getting colder and she knows she’ll be walking a lot. By the door, she stuffs her feet into her red shoes and her yellow backpack goes over her shoulders. It’s only packed with her most recent notebook, her wallet, a jacket, and a few All Might plushies today.
It’s silly, as Kacchan occasionally reminds her, but she feels better carrying All Might with her when she goes somewhere new or scary. Whoever is hurting the boy is probably really scary. Izumi wouldn’t mind sharing All Might if it would make the boy less scared.
Izumi locks the door behind her and walks to the train station, determined. A few people give her concerned looks at the train station, because she is young and she is small and she is by herself, but she makes sure she smiles and looks calm and people leave her alone. A few do stop to ask if she is lost or needs help, but she tells them cheerfully that she is fine and is visiting a friend and her quirk helps her not get lost.
This last piece of information is enough to reassure every concerned adult she has ever met that she does not need their help.
After looking at the routes, Izumi memorizes where she will need to get on and off and heads to her first train with a bounce in her step. She is going to see the boy and she is going to help him, just like a hero does!
Kacchan wants to be a hero, wants her to be a hero too so she can be his sidekick when they’re older. Izumi loves heroes, but her quirk isn’t helpful in a fight, not like Kacchan’s. Instead, she is going to be a support hero. She’s really good at finding people as long as there’s a string to follow, so she imagines she’ll do the tracking and then Kacchan can take care of the bad guys while she helps civilians. Kacchan likes her plan because it means he gets to fight villains and leave all the ‘soft stuff’ to her. Izumi likes it because she’ll be helping, and that’s all she wants to do. Help.
An hour later, Izumi is standing in front of a large gate. Beyond the gate is an enormous house. Inside the house is the boy.
This is a problem.
There isn’t a bell or intercom or anything to open the gate. If she can’t get past the gate, she can’t get to the house, and if she can’t get to the house, then she can’t help the boy.
The string she created isn’t strong enough for her to pull on to try to coax him out to her and she can’t risk snapping it. She still needs it to find the boy when he isn’t behind the gate and imposing walls, but she doesn’t know when that will be.
Izumi thinks the problem over. According to her string, the boy is in the house on the side furthest from the gate. A backyard maybe? The walls around the house are stone, sturdy, and topped with wrought iron fencing pointy enough to discourage climbing. A tree would be better, and she can see a big one near the back of the house. Hopefully it isn’t also behind the gate.
It takes a little while, but she manages to find the tree and climb up high enough to see over the wall. She is glad the branches are so thick. They make a solid perch and the leaves allow her to stay hidden as she peers into the yard behind the house.
The boy is there. He is reading on the porch stretched across the second story of the house. Now that she can see him, she relaxes a little. She worried she wouldn’t ever be able to see him again, and wouldn't be able to help.
She’s here for a reason though. No time to relax.
Looking at the boy, she finds his various soul strings. The most obvious is the noose, and it still sends fear and worry clawing at her chest, but there are others too. In total, she counts only five soul strings—other than her own—anchored to the boy. It’s a very small number. They are not as big, not as strong, and none of them look healthy. That makes her sad. The noose is the only dangerous string, but the others look like they’ve been damaged by something.
Three of the strings move enough that she knows the other anchors are nearby, probably within the house. The noose is one of them.
This is also a problem.
Part of her knew whoever had anchored that soul string would be close to the boy; it wouldn’t be nearly so big or nearly so dangerous otherwise. The other part of her hoped that wouldn’t be the case though since it would make fixing the string harder.
Izumi is going to have to reinforce the artificial string.
~*~*~
It takes a week, spending an hour every night before bed pouring thoughts of safety and protection and friendship into the string she’d tethered between herself and the boy before she thinks it’s stable enough. Izumi can’t risk quirk exhaustion because she still has to go to school and she doesn’t want her mom to worry.
In that week, she also practices pulling someone to her. Izumi doesn’t want to hurt the boy accidentally and she needs to know the limitations of this aspect of her quirk. So, at lunch and recess, she hides and tugs on Kacchan’s string in an attempt to get him to find her.
He does!
“Michan? What’re you doing?” Kacchan squints his red eyes at her as he pulls her out of a bush.
“Practicing! You found me! Did you feel the tug? What was it like? Did you know exactly where I was or just a general direction? Did you know it was me?” Izumi asks eagerly.
Kacchan rolls his eyes, but he answers her questions begrudgingly. He wants her to improve so she can be his sidekick, so he tolerates her quirk experiments. Mostly. His temper is always a little worse afterwards, but it’s worth it.
“Thank you, Kacchan!”
“Tch.” He crosses his arms over his chest and glowers at her. “You’re the villain this time for making me put up with your nerd shit.”
Izumi is always the villain when they play heroes, but it’s better than being the hostage or damsel in distress. Kacchan only makes her do that when he’s really mad at her.
~*~*~
Saturday, Izumi is ready.
Like last week, she waits for her mom to go to work and then gets dressed and heads for the train station. Izumi spends almost the whole trip bouncing with energy. She’s going to help the boy. She’s going to actually meet him, talk to him. With luck, the artificial string can be replaced with a genuine one. If she can make a real connection with him, she’ll be able to help him even easier, and they can be friends!
Filled with optimism, Izumi makes her way to the gate and smiles at it smugly. She’ll show that gate who’s boss.
Just in case, she walks a little further from the house. There’s a smaller tree than the one she was in last week across the street from the gate. It’s not big enough to climb, but it provides a grassy spot to sit in the shade.
Once she’s seated, she gives the artificial string a few gentle tugs. Izumi doesn’t want to worry the boy, and Kacchan had said the harder she pulled the more insistent the urge to find her was. He’d told her not to do it again unless she was dying, so gentle tugs it was.
Three tugs, followed by fifteen minutes of waiting. Three more tugs, fifteen more minutes of waiting. Three tugs every fifteen minutes. Izumi was patient, she would wait at least a few hours.
Happily, her patience is rewarded only one hour later.
The boy closes the gate behind him and looks around in confusion before spotting her under the tree. Izumi waves and invites him over. Slowly, cautiously, the boy crosses the street. She stands and brushes the grass off her skirt before giving him a smile.
“Hi! My name is Izumi Midoriya, and I want to help you.”
The boy frowns. “With what?”
“My quirk lets me see the ties that bind people together; I call them soul strings. One of your strings looks really dangerous and I want to help.”
“Why?”
Izumi blinks, surprised. “Because I can? Because you’re in danger and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Do heroes only save people they know?” Izumi counters with a small smile.
It is the boy’s turn to blink in surprise. “You want to be a hero?”
Izumi nods. “My quirk isn’t great for fighting or taking out villains, but I can still help in other ways. I can find people with my quirk now, or draw them to me, and who knows what else I can do when I get stronger!”
“Draw them… that was your quirk? You brought me out here?” The boy asks.
“Mhmm. I tried to be gentle, I didn’t want to worry you, but I needed to talk to you and I couldn’t get past the gate.” Izumi admits, scuffing her shoe on the ground. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.”
“Good, I’m glad.” She smiles before looking down and chewing on her lip. “Though that might have to do with the soul string I made.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Normally, a soul string only forms between people who know each other. Family and friends mostly. When I saw you walking by the park, I saw your string—the dangerous one—and I wanted to help, but you were walking away and Kacchan was trying to get me to play heroes so I couldn’t go running after you. Instead I created a soul string between you and me and used it to find you. When I saw I couldn’t get past the gate, I spent a week making the string stronger so I could use it to draw you out without it breaking, but to make a string strong, you have to give it emotions. I gave the artificial string feelings of safety and friendship and stuff to make it strong, so it’s possible what you’re feeling isn’t… really real? Like it’s real because I meant what I felt, I want you to feel safe and I want us to be friends, but we didn’t really get the chance to build that organically I suppose? I’m sorry, this is actually the first time I’ve tried something like this—making an artificial string stronger, I mean—so I don’t know how that would affect how you feel…” When Izumi finally stopped talking to take a breath, she blushed brightly and hid her face behind her hands. “Sorry! I ramble when I’m nervous or thinking too hard; Kacchan usually stops me, why didn’t you tell me to stop talking?”
“I was listening.” The boy says.
Izumi peaks one green eye between her fingers. “You were?”
“I wanted to understand and you were explaining. Why wouldn’t I listen?”
“Oh.” Izumi lowers her hands. “I guess… I’m just used to Kacchan telling me to shut up.”
The boy frowns. “I’m not Kacchan.”
“I know,” Izumi smiles, “you’re the boy.”
“The boy?”
She shrugs. “It’s what I’ve been calling you since I don’t know your name.”
“You don’t- you don’t know my name?” The boy looks genuinely surprised. Izumi isn’t sure why considering they’d already covered this before she started rambling about heroes.
“No? You didn’t introduce yourself.”
The boy still looks a little unsure, like the fact that she hadn’t already known his name is an uncommon occurrence for him. It takes a moment more of silence, of each of them looking like the other was the weird one for their reaction, but eventually, the boy introduces himself.
“Shouto Todoroki.”
“Nice to meet you.” Izumi smiles again. “Now that we’ve met, I should probably break the string I made–”
“Don’t.” He says, eyes a little wide. “I mean… do you have to?”
Izumi considers, muttering quietly to herself. “I suppose it depends on whether or not you consider the bond genuine since it didn’t form organically. It wasn’t entirely a lie, I put real emotions into it to make it stronger, but it was only receiving my emotions. Would a new string, forged together, be better? Stronger probably. But who’s to say if Shouchan starts to add to it too it wouldn’t be just as good? Then again, there’s the question of whether or not anything Shouchan feels about me at this point is true or just an effect of the string, and if that’s the case we should definitely break it and start new. I don’t want to force him to feel anything he wouldn’t otherwise.”
“Shouchan?”
“Hm?” Izumi looks up and meets blue and grey eyes.
“You called me Shouchan.”
“Is that not okay? I’m sorry, if you don’t want me to call you that–”
“No one’s called me that before.”
Izumi waits for him to say if she should stop or not, but when he doesn’t say anything else for a moment, she offers, “You can call me a nickname too if you want to. Kacchan calls me Michan.”
“Can I call you Izuchan?”
Izumi nods happily. She doesn’t mind if Shouchan uses a different nickname; she actually likes it, though she doesn’t know why.
“Ok Shouchan. I’m going to break the string I created. I want what you feel to come from you. A real string should form easily and quickly since we’re both right here and we can play together—I brought a few All Might toys, or we can do something else if you want—and that way the string will have a strong anchor at both ends and we can both make it stronger. Okay?”
Shouchan hesitates but finally nods. When Izumi holds out her hands, he takes them. She marvels briefly at the temperature difference between his hands, wondering if it was part of his quirk, but she doesn’t comment. Instead, Izumi concentrates on her quirk and the string she’d created. Gently, she unravels the anchor points and lets the string fall away. It’s easy with both of them right here and because the string was never meant to be permanent.
“Close your eyes,” she whispers. “Think about me; what you feel, what you think of me, what you want… it doesn’t have to be much, we’ve only just met, but doing this will create the new string and we can go from there.”
“Ok.” Shouchan agrees.
Izumi gives the two of them a few moments to think as she’d instructed, watching as a new string formed between the two of them. “There. Any time you think about me, the string will grow with whatever emotion you feel. That’s how it works. Good emotions will make a string stronger, healthier. Bad emotions can either weaken or cut a string, or turn it into something painful, unhealthy, or even dangerous.”
“You said one of mine is dangerous.”
“Right. It’s going to take time to unravel it. I can’t sever it outright, it’s too strong, and if they live with you, a new string would probably regrow anyway.” Izumi chews on her lip as she thinks about what to do. She just doesn’t have a lot of experience yet, mostly going on instinct at this point. She doesn’t want to mess up and make things worse.
Watching the noose as she considers what to do next, Izumi notices when it starts to move, following the other anchor as whoever it was gets closer. Her eyes follow the string and see a car approaching from down the street.
“They’re coming.” Izumi says, worry filling her chest. Will Shouchan have to leave? They haven’t even started unraveling the noose.
Shouchan turns to look over his shoulder and then pulls Izumi behind the tree they stood under, hiding from whoever was in the car. “My father. He can’t see me with you. I’m not allowed to have friends, I shouldn’t be out here.”
“I don’t want you to be in trouble. I can come back when he’s gone again.”
“I don’t know when that will be. He’s home most weekends.” Shouchan says.
“That won’t stop me.”
“No, if he catches you–”
“He can’t really stop you from having friends.”
“You don’t know him like I do.” Shouchan shakes his head. “He takes everything away or hurts people if they get too close. You have to go. He’s going to come looking for me, I’m in trouble as it is for not being there when he came home.”
“Then run away.” Izumi grabs his wrists. “Come home with me and we can tell my mom what he’s doing and you won’t have to go back.”
“I can’t.” Shouchan refuses. “He’s too powerful, Izuchan. You have to go.”
Shouchan steps back, gives her one last look of regret and desperation, turns, and sprints across the street. The gate opens as the car nears and he goes through without a backwards glance. From her hiding spot behind the tree, she watches as the gate closes, locking her new friend away.
~*~*~
Izumi isn’t sure what to do, so she did what she does best. She analyzes the problem and thinks it through until she has a solution.
The problem: Shouchan’s soul string anchored to his father is dangerous. Left as it is, the noose the string resembles will tighten until it strangles him. Not literally, thankfully. Soul strings can’t cause physical harm—not that Izumi knows of, anyway—but it could damage him in other ways. It could prevent him from being able to form new soul strings, it could twist his emotions so all he can feel is that fear and pain and hate that the string was built on, it could make him like his father, or it could even make him worse.
Izumi wants to prevent all of those possibilities.
To do that, the soul string will need to be unraveled and, ideally, a new string will need to be kept from forming. If she can’t prevent a new string—which is likely given that it’s Shouchan’s father—then the new string will need to be watched and tended to in order to make sure it isn’t dangerous.
There are a few things standing in her way from achieving her ideal solution.
First was access. Unravelling a string can’t be done from a distance, but she can’t get to Shouchan all that often because of his father. After that, her main problem is the soul string itself. It’s strong, fed from powerful emotions on both sides, and it is the only soul string of any real strength Shouchan has. Without support from other strings, Shouchan struggles more against the noose, tightening it faster.
So then, what does she need to do to overcome those obstacles?
Making trips to Shouchan’s house every weekend on the off chance that he can slip away is certainly something she’s willing to do, but it will take too long and she runs the risk of getting caught which would get Shouchan in trouble at the very least—something to be avoided at all costs. The easier option, then, is to somehow fix the other soul strings. If the others can be strengthened, or more healthy strings can be created, it could ease the burden on Shouchan. It could buy her time at the very least.
From what she remembers looking at Shouchan’s other strings, there are at least two that lived with him. Unfortunately, getting to those anchors is as impossible as getting to Shouchan himself. The other two haven’t been at the house either weekend though, so there’s a chance she can follow them to their anchors. Following someone else’s soul string isn’t impossible so long as she has a string connecting her to one of the anchors. It is also one of the tricks she is most interested in developing since it would help in search and rescue situations.
So that’s the plan. Follow one of the other two soul strings to the anchor and tell them Shouchan needs their help. Strengthen the strings to ease the burden on the noose, then spend every opportunity to unravel it until Shouchan is no longer in danger.
Simple.
~*~*~
Not so simple.
Izumi starts with the stronger of the two strings leading away from Shouchan’s home. Given the emotions she feels along the string as she follows it, Izumi guesses this one belongs to his mother. It is full of love and care but it has also been damaged by fear and pain. The hate that suffuses the noose is absent though, so she hopes that’s a good sign.
Standing outside of the hospital, looking at the doctors and nurses wandering beyond the doors, Izumi considers. Mrs. Todoroki is either an employee or a patient. Normally, Izumi would guess she’s an employee given the fact she was here both weekends, but two things tell her she’s wrong. First, the anchor seems to lead to a room on the third floor and hasn’t left in the hour Izumi has been debating her next move. Second, the hospital sign says it’s a long term care hospital. Mrs. Todoroki is probably a patient, which means there is no way Izumi can get close.
Frustrated, Izumi goes home. The trip to the hospital has taken most of her available time; her mom only works one shift on Sunday’s so Izumi will have to get back before her mom does in order to stay out of trouble. Even if she tells her mom why she was wandering off to places unknown to meet complete strangers, she doubts her mom will let her do it again. It is dangerous, Izumi isn’t stupid, she knows that, but it’s important too. Too important to let potential danger stop her.
Once she gets home, Izumi spends the rest of her free time focusing on her own string with Shouchan. Friendship, safety, protection. She adds it to her nightly routine to feed Shouchan’s string every night. Just her string won’t be enough, of course, but it’s better than nothing, and she isn’t about to give up.
~*~*~
The other string proves to be a challenge of another sort.
Whoever the other anchor is, they are not close. It had taken her an hour to find Shouchan’s house the first time, and he lives on the other side of the district. This anchor is further out, and it is a much bigger strain to find. Finally getting a location costs her a nosebleed, a migraine, and her lunch.
Groaning, Izumi wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and takes a careful drink of water from the sink to get the rest of the bile taste out. She crawls back to her bed and passes out; she’ll take a short nap and then figure out where to go when she wakes up.
She sleeps until dinnertime and feels like a failure. She can’t risk going tomorrow since her mom only has the one shift on Sunday’s, so that means she’ll have to wait until next Saturday.
Instead, Kacchan drags her out to the park on Sunday. She doesn’t feel great, still has a headache from straining her quirk the day before, but Kacchan is insistent and she hasn’t spent time with him outside of school like she normally does.
Kacchan makes her play the villain for ditching him last weekend.
~*~*~
When Saturday finally comes back around, Izumi is ready. She dresses quickly when her mom leaves, and her backpack has been ready to go since the night before. Notebook, light jacket, All Might plush, and her wallet all tucked securely in the bag. She shoves her feet into her shoes and then flings the door open, ready to find the other anchor.
Except Kacchan is standing outside her front door.
“Kacchan!”
“You were gonna ditch me again, weren’t you.” He accuses.
Izumi pleads with him to make him understand. “I have to do this. I have to find the other anchor so I can help Shouchan.”
“Who the hell is Shouchan?” Kacchan growls.
“The boy.” Izumi clarifies. She told Kacchan about the boy with the dangerous string when she had him help with her quirk before. “I talked to him, but his dad won’t let him have friends, so I can’t go see him to unravel the dangerous string.”
“So where are you going?”
“To find the other anchor to one of Shouchan’s soul strings. It’s weak but he only has a couple of them. I can’t get to two of them because they’re at his house, and I tried to get to another one Sunday before last, but she was in a long term care hospital and I couldn’t get in to see her, so this is my only other choice. I have to find this person and tell them Shouchan needs their help.”
Kacchan crosses his arms angrily and glares at her. “Don’t be an idiot, Michan. You can’t go up to a random stranger and ask them to help someone they probably don’t care about anymore.”
“I can try!” Izumi protests. “If I could unravel the dangerous string quickly I would, but the next best thing is to strengthen his other strings to lessen the strain to give me more time.”
“Tch.” The blonde scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Why does this matter so much?”
“Because he needs help.” Izumi replies easily.
Kacchan sighs heavily and starts to walk away. “Fine. Let’s go.”
“Wh-what?” Izumi hurries to follow after locking her door.
“You won’t drop this, so I’m going with you to make sure your stupid butt doesn’t get into trouble.” He grumbles.
She smiles a small pleased smile down at her shoes so Kacchan won’t see it. Izumi is happy Kacchan’s joining her; she feels safer with him at her side, and it’s almost like they’re practicing for when they’re pros. Working together to find and help people with Kacchan ready to kick the butt of any villains they run across.
Tracking the anchor takes a long time. Izumi follows the string as far as she comfortably can and leads them in that direction, then she repeats the process once they reach that point. This causes a couple instances of them getting off the train only to immediately jump back on, which Kacchan complains about, but eventually they get close enough that she confidently leads them away from the train station.
They’re in a district neither one of them have been to before, and Izumi is so glad Kacchan is with her because otherwise she would be really scared. As it is, she grabs onto his hand and doesn’t let go.
He rolls his eyes, “I’m only letting you do that because it’ll make my hand sweat more.”
Izumi doesn’t care if that’s the only reason or not, as long as he doesn’t make her let go.
The anchor is close now, but it’s harder to track among the buildings and alleys. Izumi leads them down one side street after another until they suddenly meet a chain link fence blocking their path. Izumi is certain the anchor is just on the other side, but she doesn’t know how far they’ll have to back track in order to find the path around. They could climb it, but it’s a tall fence and she isn’t sure they should risk falling.
“Well?” Kacchan demands.
“We’re close, we just need to get to the other side.”
The sound of empty bottles clinking and trash shifting from behind them has them turning around quickly. A man they didn’t see before is standing up from behind a dumpster and staring at the two of them. When the man steps toward them, Kacchan shoves Izumi behind him and lets go of her hand.
“Buzz off.” The blond snaps.
The man laughs at Kacchan’s warning and takes a few more steps forward. Izumi gets a better look at him as he moves forward and shudders involuntarily. He’s got some kind of mutation quirk that makes his top canine teeth extra long and pointy, like fangs, and he licks his lips as he stares at them.
“What have we here? Looks like lunch found me today.” The man taunts.
Kacchan releases a few explosions from his palms and bares his teeth, but the man doesn’t seem impressed.
“Child, I’m sure one day, your little pops will be very scary. Today is not that day,” he smiles, running his tongue over one fang. In the next moment, Kacchan is no longer in front of her. Instead, the man is looming over her and Kacchan is struggling to pull himself out of the pile of trash bags the man—the villain—threw him into.
“Kacchan!”
“Get away from her!” Kacchan roars, still fighting to get his feet under him.
“Just a taste; sugar, spice, and everything nice. Little girls are ever so sweet.” The villain croons and brushes some of Izumi’s hair behind her ear.
“Leave me alone.” She shoves his hand away, but she’s shaking in fear.
Kacchan launches himself at the villain with a yell, but he’s caught by a single hand around his face. The villain looks at him with disdain as he holds Kacchan easily. “Don’t interrupt. You’ll get your turn.”
The fiery blond snarls something incoherent from behind the villain’s palm and grabs the bare wrist attached to the hand on his face with both hands, releasing a rapid fire series of explosions. With a hiss, the villain releases Kacchan, throwing him face down onto the ground and keeping him there with a boot on his back.
Izumi can see the burns on the villain’s wrist. Kacchan hurt him, but he can’t get a good angle to do it again. Lashing out, Izumi throws a punch just like Kacchan taught her, hitting the villain’s back.
If she aimed correctly, she should have hit his kidney, a painful hit, but the villain just turns to her with a raised eyebrow. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
The chain link fence rattles violently a few times just before she hears someone land heavily behind her and she can feel a presence at her back. “Time to find a new meal plan, Drac.” The newcomer drawls.
“Dabi.” The villain eyes the newcomer and sneers, “Are you offering yourself instead?”
“Only thing I was offering was a chance for you to run away.” Sudden, intense heat steals her breath away and the alley is lit in a blue glow from the newcomer—Dabi?—behind her.
The villain moves faster than she can blink, and suddenly Izumi’s back is pressed against the villain’s chest as he holds her close. It’s terrifying how fast he moves, and she swallows a whimper. She can still hear Kacchan struggling to get the villain’s boot off his back, but she can’t see him anymore. Instead, she gets her first look at the newcomer.
The first thing Izumi notices about the newcomer is not the intense scarring over his face, neck, chest, and arms. It’s not the crude staples that show wherever scarred flesh meets healthy skin, almost as if they’re holding him together. It’s not even the piercing blue eyes that so perfectly match Shouchan’s left eye.
No. The first thing Izumi notices about the newcomer as he rolls a ball of blue flame between his hands is the noose around his neck.
The newcomer is without a doubt the anchor she’s looking for. If the noose wasn’t enough of a giveaway, she can see his soul string—the same one she’s been following all day—connecting him to Shouchan. It’s weak, and no wonder. The noose around his neck is so tight, she doubts he can feed his other soul strings anything.
This is what she’s trying to save Shouchan from becoming.
He’s also her only hope of doing so.
The anchor takes a leisurely step forward, then another, and then he smirks when the villain doesn’t move away. “Gotta keep the fiery one pinned, right? Looks like he fucked up your wrist, so I don’t blame you. Now, the girl… did you think she’d be a human shield? How’s that working for you?”
He’s close enough now that Izumi could reach out and touch him if she dared. The fire in his hands keeps her hands at her sides though. The last thing she wants is to get in his way.
“You’re no hero; why risk what’s left of your neck for a couple snacks?” The villain asks.
“I got a problem seeing kids pushed around. Call it a flaw.” The anchor shrugs and moves almost as fast as the villain had. He shoves his left hand with the ball of fire into the villain’s face, and then grabs Izumi as the villain instinctively reaches for his face. He pulls her close, shoving her head against his chest so she can’t see anything, and then the heat skyrockets and she can hear the villain’s screams.
It’s over in less than five seconds, and the anchor lets her go.
“Kacchan?” Izumi calls, reaching behind her. She doesn’t want to look at what’s left of the villain, and she doesn’t want to let the anchor out of her sight. Thankfully, Kacchan’s hand finds her own and he tries to pull her further away from the anchor.
“I suggest you two get going. Find your parents or whatever.” The anchor says, turning to leave.
“Wait!” Izumi shots her hand out and grabs hold of his overshirt. “Please, we came here looking for you.”
“This guy? Seriously?” Kacchan mutters.
“I don’t know what you think you’re looking for, but it ain’t me.” The anchor tugs his shirt free and starts to leave again.
“Shouto needs your help! Please !”
That gets him to pause, but only briefly. “Never heard of him. You got the wrong person, kid.”
“I don’t! My quirk lets me see the strings that connect people together. I know you’re the right person; I followed Shouchan’s string to you, I can see it. Just like I can see the noose around your neck. It’s the same one that’s around his. I want to help you both get rid of it.”
One hand on the fence, the anchor stops and turns back to look at her. “What noose?”
~*~*~
It isn’t easy.
Over the course of that afternoon, Izumi explains her quirk and how she wants to save Shouchan from his father. It takes nearly the whole afternoon, but the anchor eventually confesses that he’s Shouchan’s brother, Touya.
As they talk, Izumi works the knotted mess around Touya’s neck loose. She was right in her guess that it was preventing him from nurturing his other soul strings. He has just as few as Shouchan, in even worse condition, but she tells him there’s nothing beyond repair.
In addition to stifling his other bonds, Touya also became warped by the noose around his neck. He explains how their father, the number two hero, Endeavor, wants to create a hero capable of surpassing All Might. He was in Shouchan’s position when he was a kid until he was tossed aside, deemed a flawed creation. The training Endeavor put Touya through, is now putting Shouchan through, is beyond brutal and is nothing less than abuse. Touya couldn’t stop Endeavor; tried and failed and left for dead, it became his goal to one day get strong enough to kill the bastard.
Over the course of several months, Izumi meets with Touya every weekend to completely unravel the noose around his neck. Eventually, as the soul string releases its grip, Touya starts to actively feed his other bonds, even managing to grow a new one between himself and Izumi. She considers it great progress, but the true victory is when he admits that he’s no longer consumed by the idea of killing his father.
He still wants revenge, but Izumi convinces him there’s a better way of going about it.
Because as much as she managed to help Touya, Shouchan is still in danger. Izumi has only successfully visited him a handful of times. She tells him of Touya, tells him to feed the bonds on his end, and does what she can to give him even a stolen hour of normalcy. If she ever wants to unravel Shouchan’s noose like she has Touya’s, though, Shouchan needs to be out from under his father’s control. Izumi explains this to Touya and together, they come up with a plan.
Over the course of the next couple of years, Touya works hard to get his life on track. He finds a steady job, a good apartment, and keeps his nose clean. Getting to the point where he could conceivably convince a court to grant him guardianship of his siblings takes a while, but they know it will be worth it.
When Izumi shares the plan with Shouchan, he hugs her and cries, but he promises to get her the evidence they need. This part hurts Izumi the most. Seeing pictures of Shouchan’s injuries on her phone makes her sick, but she dutifully documents every injury with date, time, and how they were received.
At the end of Izumi and Shouto’s second year of junior high, they finally have enough evidence to come forward. Touya brings Izumi’s meticulously documented evidence to the police and an investigation is launched. With the testimony of all four Todoroki siblings and Mrs. Todoroki, the charges of child and spousal abuse stick and Enji Todoroki, formerly number two hero Endeavor, is arrested and custody of Shouto—the only sibling still under the age of eighteen—is granted to Touya.
Izumi nearly tackles the brothers on the steps of the courthouse in celebration. Touya crushes her in a hug, releasing her only to ruffle her already untamable hair and shove her at Shouto. The boy catches her easily and holds her close as Izumi finally, after seven years, unravels the last of the noose around his neck.
“You’re free Shouchan.” She whispers, tears of joy and relief pouring down her cheeks.
He smiles as he wipes the tears away. “My hero.”