Chapter Text
Todoroki Shouto started his training at three years old. A full year before his quirk was to manifest.
“You have to be ready if you want any hope of being the best,” his father growled as he dragged the youngest Todoroki to the training area. Each day they trained, and each day Shouto grew more accustomed to the dark bruises that bloomed across his skin. He fell into his bed after every night sore and exhausted. He tried not to cry, but the tears always found a way to slip past his still developing defenses. At least his mother was there to gently lull him to sleep with her kind words.
Everyone thought that the dual tone of his hair was a sure sign that Enji finally got the successor he needed to surpass the likes of All Might. So on the boy’s fourth birthday, he began his patient wait for Shouto’s fire and ice to reveal itself.
But the months ticked by.
And Shouto’s fifth birthday was fast approaching.
With only a week left, Shouto sat in the doctor office with his mother. The bright white walls were tall and imposing to the young boy, but the natural chill of the room was a pleasant contrast.
His mother had explained long ago that his father was very important and could often have lengthy processes speed up with only a mention of his name. In most cases his presence was enough. Such as now when the doctor walked and pinned two x-rays to the box on the wall, as the light shone through they could clearly see the bones of Shouto’s feet.
“We thought it better if we took a look at both feet…” The doctor said, nervously glancing to Shouto before returning his gaze to his father.
“And?” The man said expectantly.
The doctor swallowed, he turned to the x-ray and pointed to the left pinky toe with a pen. “As you can see… in both feet, he has two joints on the last toe. With recent studies and the fact that his fifth birthday is so close. I can confidently say that he will not be developing a quirk.”
The room was quiet for a long moment, not even the doctor wanted to move and Shouto’s mother tightened her arm around his shoulder.
Father took in a deep dangerous breath before releasing it. The only thing he said was “We’re done here,” before leading the Todoroki family out of the clinic.
After that, he rarely saw his father, but he was surprisingly ok with that. Even at the cost of his birthday slipping by on the calendar without much notice. At least his sister told him happy birthday and now he got to spend more time with his mother. He tried to ignore that fact that each day she wilted a little more, like a neglected flower torn from its home.
When she told him he would be a big brother there was a complicated look in her eyes that Shouto couldn’t decipher. Father started being around the house more after that. The mention of hero work increased because of it. Which brought up the topic of Shouto becoming a hero. He was quirkless, he knew that, even though his father refused to train him, even though he was pushed down and ridiculed. Shouto still wanted to be a hero.
The idea was planned by his father, but the passion for that dream stemmed from an entirely different place.
He could never remember where they came from, it was just something he’s always had, but under his bed he hid the comics of an era long since past. A day and age where superheroes were only fiction, but to a young boy who lived in a world where Hero was a legitimate profession, it was easy to think that they were real.
One hero in particular stood out to him. A man with no quirk, no powers of any sorts, yet he faced off against the likes of demons and gods with only his skills, wit, and will power. He was ready for anything, he could solve any problems, and protect those in need as he fought villains. He didn’t need a quirk to be a hero.
It was hard not to be inspired.
Even with that fictional hero to look up to, Shouto was too scared to ask his father to continue training.
It wasn’t until the drastic shift in the household that Shouto would take his training into his own hands.
Barely six months after his fifth birthday, his mother got sick. Shouto was told very bluntly that his mother has a miscarriage.
The baby died… but at least his mother was ok, right?
Physically she healed, but mentally she was shattered. With the stress from Enji already wanting to move on and no time to recover, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she snapped.
It wasn’t just Shouto’s left side she hated but in her own twisted sense it was his whole quirkless existence that caused the loss of her child. She didn’t aim for a specific side when she poured the scalding water on him. She immediately expressed her regret as she tried to heal the poor boy with her ice, but there was no use. The damage was done.
Burns stretched across the upper half of his face, it was a wonder he didn’t lose his eyesight but he still had to bandage for weeks as the sensitive skin healed.
His mother was taken away, leaving him in the dark with his father.
Quirkless
Worthless
A useless boy with an impossible dream to be a hero.
But it wasn’t impossible. Shouto has seen it. A hero who stood on top of the world with allies and friends that held the same unmovable beliefs. A hero who stood for true justice, but recognized when a corruption system needed interference. A hero who stood firm in the belief that all life was important, no matter civilian, hero, or villain, that he would risk his own life to save them.
That hero had no power… save one:
He never gave up.
That’s what a true hero was.
Not whatever the hell his father claimed to be.
Shouto was quick to connect a horrifying fact. If a man like his father lived in this world, then there were no doubted many more.
It was decided then.
In the darkness, Todoroki Shouto forged his resolve. When the bandages were removed and the light finally poured over him, he made a promise.
The world had lost its way from the path of the Old Heroes. He was just going to have to remind them of what a hero was supposed to be.
To hell with the fact that he was quirkless.
And so it began.
Shouto, at 5 years old, began training to become the change he wanted to see in the world.
The boy understood that he was at a disadvantage without a quirk. So even though he physically trained himself harder than even Endeavor dared, he also had to train his mind.
Even though he was young his schooling was already advanced, yet he requested his tutors to push that to the extreme. He dove into languages, math, science, history, even psychology.
Knowledge was power in a world where you lacked strength, and if you were clever enough, you could use tools and tricks to make up for it. Training himself to get accustomed to tactical thinking was part of it but the next was learning the advanced mechanics needed to make his own support items. He was looking into some of the rules at UA and creating his own items was an absolute necessity. He didn’t need to just pass, he needed to excel .
Unfortunately all of this stuffy and training his schedule was literally hell. It allowed no free time as he pushed his limits. He had to be ready for UA so it was easily seen as a necessity. The school was highly regarded as the best Hero school in the country, thus making it the toughest. If a quirkless hero could survive a school like that then who would dare question him as a hero?
Until then he refused to let his motivations wane when people told him his dreams were impossible. He would simply look them in the eye and say “watch me.”
Like the Old Heroes once said: Everything’s impossible until someone does it.