Work Text:
“Another one here…” Iida yells.
Uraraka touches the large piece of debris activating her quirk, but almost immediately falls on her knees and starts throwing up. Shouto moves just in time to encase the falling block of concrete into an iceberg. He’s numb from the cold, but he’s grateful for the lack of sensation that masks the sharp pain of his many burns.
Offering a handful of ice-cubes to Uraraka, he asks her, “Are you ok?”
She crunches on the ice-cubes and nods, “I’ll go as long as there are people out there.”
“Kouda says this area is clear now, ribbit,” Tsuyu appears, carrying a civilian in her arms. The woman seems quite badly injured; three of her fingers cut from her right hand. Shouto encases the severed appendages in ice as taught in first aid class and takes the woman from Froppy.
“I’ll take her to the first aid station.”
“We are done here,” Iida appears next to him. “We’ll move to section D and see if the heroes there need help. You should have your injuries looked at Todoroki-kun.”
“I’m fine. I’ll catch up with you later,” Todoroki nods to the class president and starts moving towards the mobile first aid station. He can’t stop now. As long as he’s moving his mind is fully focused on the action. But as soon as he stops, there’ll be no hiding from the thoughts swirling in his brain.
“Please, I need to make a phone call. I need to call my mother…” the woman whimpers in his hold. Shouto stops and fishes his mobile phone out of his pocket, only now noticing that the case is melted. Considering that it’s a fire resistant model and his hero costume was upgraded to withstand even higher temperatures, it is shocking to see the damage, but the screen still works. He briefly wonders if someone tried to contact him. Maybe Fuyumi.
“Here,” he hands over the phone and picks up the pace until he reaches the first aid station.
An exhausted-looking nurse takes a look at the woman and the three digits encased in ice. “I need more light here,” she says. Shouto obliges, lighting a small flame in his palm.
The nurse nods towards him, and shouts orders to get the injured woman on a stretcher. Her eyes fall onto Shouto’s exposed forearm where the frost has started to evaporate, revealing a map of burns.
“Sit down, we’ll need to take care of that,” she orders. She has the confidence of someone who is used to ordering people around on a daily basis.
“I need to go back out there,” Shouto shakes his head. He can still save people.
“Honey, you won’t help anyone with getting that infected. Those are some vicious burns,” she says like she doesn’t take no for an answer.
“I’m pretty fire-resistant,” shrugs Shouto.
“They still need cleaning, nevertheless,” the nurse insists. After a brief staredown Shouto sighs and extends his right arm, clumsily pushing the buttons on his phone with his left.
There are several missed calls from Fuyumi. It’s not a discussion he’s ready to have, but on the other hand she must be worried. Shouto has no idea what the news channels would have shown.
Determined, he pushes the call button. Fuyumi picks it up on a single ring - she must have had it in her hands.
“Nee-san, it’s me,” he says.
“Shouto,” Fuyumi’s voice trembles. “Natsuo, it’s Shouto… Hold on, I’ll put you on speaker… How are you? The news - it looks awful.”
“I’m OK. Please don’t worry about it. I only have minor bruises,” Shouto says ignoring the nurse rolling her eyes.
“Oh, thanks goodness. We were so worried,” she says with genuine relief. After a moment of silence, she asks. “Dad?”
“He’s alive,” Shouto says quietly, because that’s all he knows. “They took him to the hospital - I’m still helping with search and rescue in Jakku and I have to go help my friends.”
He hears loud whispers on the other side and Natsuo’s voice comes through strangely muffled. “Touya?”
Shouto closes his eyes and exhales slowly. This is why he didn’t want to call.
“He’s alive too as far as I know. We… he wasn’t captured,” Shouto says in a monotone. “I have to go now.”
Without waiting for a reply he hangs up. He turns his head back in time to see the nurse stabbing a needle in his arms. Then the world goes black.
***
The first day in the hospital is a blur of white bandages, strong-smelling salves, skin stretched with a familiar pain, and the IV-fluid dripping from the bag in a steady rhythm. Shouto eats vitamin jelly and watches the shadows play on the window-shade; his mind is mercifully blank from all the painkillers. He wonders how many days his mother spent in this kind of existence, like being suspended in nothingness.
The second day, he gets his phone back, and Shouto clutches it for what feels like an hour before he takes a deep breath and starts scrolling through the news. He forces himself to look at the destroyed cities, pictures of the victims, the fallen heroes. His heart sinks when he recognizes Midnight sensei among them and briefly wonders who will take care of it now. Maybe Aizawa sensei.
Dab.. Touya’s video-stream is next. Shouto stares at the thumbnail, the photo of him half-naked, horrible stitches around his neck and arms like a grotesque ragdoll that got stitched up clumsily after being torn apart by a careless child. He feels slightly nauseous, but pushes the play-button and watches those cold eyes, as his ears are filled with his brother’s still unfamiliar voice. Touya sounds calmer on the video than he did on the battlefield, as he lays everything out in the open about their family. He calls Shouto a puppet masterpiece several times and each time it feels like a punch to the gut. No matter how he wants to be free, invisible strings tie him to his father, to his brother yanking him around in a grotesque dance for the whole country to see. He darkens the phone again and closes his eyes, his mind firing with images of the fight, of the news, of the video.
This is how Fuyumi and Natsuo find him. Shouto slurps soba that Fuyumi brought and it tastes like ash even though Shouto knows that it’s objectively good, because his sister is a good cook. He gives short answers to Fuyumi’s worried questions.
Yes, he’s OK. (No, he’s not.)
The pain is not so bad. (It is, but it gives him something to focus on).
He asks after mom and learns that the hospital delayed indefinitely her release, wanting to monitor her. (He doesn’t dare to ask how she holds up.)
When Fuyumi leaves to visit Endeavor who apparently is in a stable condition, Natsuo stays. The silence sets in, thick and uncomfortable. Natsuo looks away and takes out a bubble-tea from his bag. He unscrews the top and hands it to Shouto.
“Thanks.”
“I know the tea in hospitals is usually bad.”
“I’m ok, Nii-san. Don’t worry about me,” Shouto says again. He’s caused already too much trouble for his family, to his siblings just by existing. It’s a depressing thought.
Natsuo fidgets with the zipper of his backpack uncomfortably. Shouto watches him hoping that he doesn’t ask the question that’s clearly on his mind.
“Do you think...was that really him?”
Shouto pauses. “I think so. The way he talked, the way he fought... I don’t really know who else he could be, Natsuo.”
Natsuo’s fist slams against the nightstand, “I can’t believe it. All this time he was out there and we never knew. Something must have happened. After that bastard… he did this. It’s all his fault... “
Shouto takes a long sip. He doesn’t know what to say. They have all been hurt by Endeavor, but the one that embraced Shouto in murderous flames was Touya. Did he really not have a choice? He wants to ask Natsuo if he knew how much Touya resented him. He wants to ask if Natsuo hated him too. But he doesn’t, because it’s too awful a thought to voice. Maybe he’s too afraid of the answer. Maybe because deep down he already knows the truth.
“If only I could talk to him…” Natsuo says.
Shouto thinks whether he should tell Natsuo about Ending, but it would just cause more pain. Why shatter the memories Natsuo holds onto? There is already so much poison to go around in his family. Or maybe Shouto was the poison.
“I wish I could remember him from back then. More than just a blurry picture…” Shouto says instead. It could help to know if there was ever anything other than hatred in Touya’s eyes when he looked at Shouto.
Natsuo regards him considering and starts haltingly, “There was a time when Endeavor was called away on an emergency and mom was out shopping with Fuyumi...You wandered into the kitchen and you had been crying because Endeavor was rough with you during training. You were saying how much you hated fire, that it was good for nothing. Touya then said that fire was cool, you just had to know how to use it... Mom had made dora-yaki batter before leaving and Touya tried to teach you how to bake it in your palm. You kept burning them, but after a while you got a hang of it. The kitchen was a disaster when mom came back and there was no batter left and we got all told off. But I remember how much you were giggling by the end, face all sticky from all the cookies you ate. Touya lost it too - he just couldn’t stop laughing.”
Shouto listens carefully, his eyes fixed on his left palm. He can almost smell burnt sugar instead of smoke and ash, he can almost hear the echoes of wild laughter. “I think I remember…” he whispers. “Thank you...”
“It’s nothing,” Natsuo replies sadly as he takes the empty bottle to a recycling bin.
“Do you need anything else?” he asks. Shouto just shakes his head.
After that they sit mostly in silence, each fiddling with their phones until Fuyumi comes back. Apparently Endeavor’s condition is unchanged. She awkwardly pats Shouto’s head. Natsuo settles for a light squeeze of his shoulder. Shouto watches his siblings leave and wonders if there is a chance for them to ever laugh like that again.
On the third day, he’s allowed to get up and walk around.
The hospital is full of injured heroes, like a grotesque award ceremony. He sees Mirko pushed around in a wheelchair, as she loudly berates the doctors and demands prosthetic legs so she could go out and kick some villain butts. He almost bumps into a gurney, with a heavily bandaged figure taken to post-op. Only the eyes, eyebrows and chin are visible, but the shape of it is so distinctive that Shouto immediately recognizes Hawks. Even though his signature red wings are nowhere to be seen, only two swollen bumps under the white wrapping. An uncomfortable fear lodges in Shouto’s guts, remembering Dab… Touya taunting Endeavor with Hawks. The thought feels unbearable that the young rebel who gave Endeavor his wings when he really needed them now lost his feathers to Endeavor’s sins. Another young life burnt in fire. Touya’s fire. Which is like Endeavor’s fire. Which is like Shouto’s fire. Fire blurs together, it destroys without boundaries.
Hawks’ eyes flutter open, and he groans in pain. “Shouto-kun,” his voice is a whisper only.
“I’m sorry,” Shouto says. For bumping into your gurney, for my murderous brother, for my disappointment of a father, he doesn’t add. Hawks can take his pick.
He passes by Aizawa sensei’s room where Present Mic is sitting in a chair, grim expression on his face. He finds out that Bakugou is still unconscious but Midoriya is awake. When he asks a passing-by nurse if he can visit, all he gets is a hurried shrug. Shouto takes that as a yes.
When he opens the door, Midoriya is in bed. Both of his arms are in casts and his face is still full of bruises. Shouto is relieved to see no burn marks on him. His nightstand has a basket of fruits and some get-well cards, some of them scribbled with childish characters.
A faint smile appears on his face when he notices Shouto. “Todoroki-kun…”
“Midoriya,” Shouto answers and he panics because he came on a whim and didn’t really think through what he was going to say. Because it’s a whole other can of worms that maybe he shouldn’t open right now.
They exchange medical diagnoses. Shouto explains about the burns. He’s not sure yet if he’ll end up with new permanent scars. Midoriya fared worse because his arms suffered multiple fractures and the doctors are not optimistic if he’ll ever use them again. Then they talk about the news and the casualties.
“Kacchan is still unconscious,” Midoriya stared out the window, his voice is wet.
“I know.”
“They are not letting me in his room....Thanks for saving him. For saving both of us,” the green eyes shine on Shouto with gratitude.
“It’s nothing. You saved me too,” Shouto braces himself. “That’s what we do right?” We are a team, he almost says, but swallows it back. A thought pokes at his mind violently and before he can stop himself, he blurts out. “I wish I could have helped more. I wish you let me.”
Midoriya sucks in a sharp breath before he replies. “I can’t take people getting hurt for me, Todoroki-kun. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Well, the same goes for me,” Shouto’s reply comes out sharper than he intended. Then he fixes his eyes on his friend. “Don’t you think I could have helped?”
The green eyes go wide in shock. “Of course, I know you could have. I know you are strong and a good hero. It’s just…”
“It’s just you don’t trust me....” Shouto says flatly. Of course not. Who would trust a guy with a mass murderer for a brother and a disgraced No. 1 . asshole for a father. “I don’t know what’s going on, Midoriya. But I’m not blind. You left in the middle of the battle just like that, from one moment to the other. And Shigaraki was after you… Why you? And I’ve never seen you in the air for that long before,” he sees the panic in Midoriya’s eyes, but still he pushes on. “I was right before, wasn’t I? You have another quirk?”
There is a long beat of silence as Midoriya looks away. Shouto lets out a long sigh prepared to walk out because he can’t bear to hear another lie. But the next moment, Midoirya’s reply comes, silent as a whisper.
“Two. I’ve got two more quirks and I think I have ruined everything… But you are my friend and I trust you,” Misoriya breaks out in a sob.
Shouto doesn’t know what to do. He’s not good at comforting people, but he sits next to Midoriya and encourages him silently to talk.
Midoriya nods and starts. “I was born quirkless…”
When he finishes his story, Shouto feels the inappropriate urge to laugh hysterically at the irony. Because it turns out that Endeavor tortured his family for nothing. It was always a fool’s errand. All Might’s godlike power was never in reach for greedy and jealous mortals.
“Are you mad?”
Midoriya’s question pulls him back into the present and he realizes that he never said anything to him. Where to even start?
“Thanks for telling me…” he begins. He wants to tell Midoriya that yes he is mad. He’s mad that he didn’t know and couldn’t be there to have his back earlier. And he’s scared because this power seems too much for one person to hold, But he also feels hope because if anyone, Midoriya will make it work.
He’s saved from expressing any of this by the knock on the door that opens to reveal Izuku’s mother. She embraces her son in a crushing hug, and Shouto suddenly feels hollow. Because it’s something he can’t have. He mutters a quick goodbye as he slips out of the room, mother and son barely noticing.
His phone rings just as soon as he gets to his room. It’s a number he doesn’t recognize and his first instinct is to reject the call.
“Shouto?”
At first he thinks he’s hallucinating because Rei never called him.
“Mom…”
He closes his eyes and imagines her. White hair, soft smile.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you,” Rei continues and she sounds mildly irked, but also totally normal and somehow confident. “The doctor wouldn’t let me. But I insisted they let me at least call.”
“It’s fine mom. I’m ok. Please do not worry about me,” hurries to reassure her.
“Of course I worry about you, Shouto. I worry about all my children…” she says it like he’s still five years old and she is correcting him for saying something unreasonable.
Shouto’s heart sinks. One of Rei’s children is out there, destroying himself and everything in his way like a shooting star. “Mom, I couldn’t stop him… I’m so sorry...”
Rei cuts him off. “But you tried. You tried your best, Shouto, I know that. Because that’s who you are.”
“I feel so lost, so unsure about everything...”
“It’s ok to feel that way, Shouto. But I’m here for you and you can talk to me about anything. Anything. I hope you know that. I’ll be there for you always if you let me.”
Shouto’s eyes then start to itch with tears. Because it’s like that. As much as he wants to save her, she wants to save him too. Maybe that’s what it means to be a family - to hold each other through times like this.
“Thanks, mom.”
-0-
On the fourth day, they take off his bandages. Before he opens his eyes, he remembers staring at his new reflection as a five year-old, realizing that he’d be carrying a scar for the rest of his life. He opens his eyes, and his fingers ghost over his right cheek where the new burn mark is a violent contrast against the white of his hair.
“It’s healing nicely,” the nurse encourages him. “It will fade away.”
Shouto thinks maybe it’s better if it doesn’t because it’s another reminder what he’s up against. Any weakness will be punished.
He gathers parts of his hero equipment that are still usable into a sports bag and changes into the sweatpants, T-shirt and hoodie that Natsuo brought for him. They are Natsuo’s clothes because all of Shouto’s stuff is back in the dorm, so it is a bit too big on him, but they feel comfy. Almost like he can disappear inside them if only he makes himself small enough.
His steps falter for a moment when in the lobby he spots the wiry shape of All Might, waiting patiently as he did, every time he and Bakugou went to the remedial class. It was only a few months ago, but now it feels like a different lifetime. He’s not sure if he can look his hero in the eye, after being revealed to the world as a monster, bred to be an usurper of the Symbol of Peace.
His fears are cut away as a single tired, but warm smile appears on All Might’s face.
“Young Todoroki! Are you ready?”
He’ll never be ready, but he nods anyways and follows his teacher through the hospital gates. He didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not the multitude of cameras and microphones pointed at his way. He blinks as the flashing lights shine into his eyes.
“A statement!” “Is it true what Dabi the criminal said?” “Can you confirm?”
Shouto swallows and stares at the cameras, his face arranged carefully into a blank expression. “I don’t have anything to say,” he manages.
“The public has a right to know.” “What about your mother? Is it true that she’s in a mental hospital? What other secrets does your family hide?” Another guy shouts angrily and rage wells up in Shouto as he feels his hands curling into a fist. The guy has a most punchable face.
“Enough,” booms All Might with a voice that seems impossible for his shrivelled body. “I ask you all to leave my student alone.”
“Do you think he still has a future after everything?” The cameras point at All Might.
“Young Todoroki is one of my finest students, he has great promise, and I’m absolutely certain that he’ll have a brilliant future,” All Might says with the confidence of someone who handled the press his whole life. The reporters fall silent. All Might loosely puts his arm around Shouto’s shoulder and leads him away. Shouto goes numbly, trying hard not to do something embarrassing, like lean into the oh-so-comforting touch or to break down crying.
***
Criminal activity and civil unrest are on the rise, and hero students around the country are immediately sent back on the streets to cover for the injured and dead heroes. Shouto is grateful for the hard work and the fatigue as it keeps the noise in his head at bay. He tries to focus on each rescue, each robbery, and to shut out the incessant chewing by the media of every juicy detail of the Todoroki family scandal. He keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the victims, it helps ignoring the whispers and the stares. He pretends not to notice when parents yank their children away from him.
But every patrol ends eventually, which means Shouto has to go back to his dorm room, tossing and turning on the futon as his mind keeps telling him, it’s not enough. Touya is out there, together with Shigaraki and All For One. Nothing is over and what he is now, what he can do - it’s not enough. Not compared to what Touya has. If they meet again, Shouto needs something different. Something more.
The next day after patrol with Yaoyorozou, he slips away with an excuse about needing to go shopping. If Yaoyorozou notices something is strange, she’s polite enough not to mention it.
The shadow of Sekoto peak has loomed in Shouto’s mind for days now, because that’s where it all started for Touya. Something must have happened there on the day Touya supposedly died. It sounds foolish, but still it feels like a trip he has to take.
It turns out to be a short train-ride and he takes an Uber from the station to the foothill, checking his phone for directions.
There is a marked path and the climb doesn’t look too difficult. As he puts one foot after the other he can’t help imagining Touya walking the same path a decade ago. What did he feel? Was he angry? Was he sad? Did he feel as empty as Shouto does these days?
The trees are in that delicate state of early spring when the first fragile green shoots appear. The hillside is covered with wildflowers: he recognizes wild orchids, daylilies and Baby Blue Eyes because his mother likes to talk about flowers during his visits and in her letters, sometimes even drawing pictures. Shouto snaps a photo with his phone. Maybe once he’s allowed to visit again, he can show them to her.
The spring colours end abruptly as the smell of ash fills his nostrils once more and the fairy garden gives way to charred skeletons of trees, sticking up like abandoned, burned bones. Shouto swallows and makes his way through the wasteland.
It’s eerily silent. No birds or bees seem to frequent this part of the mountain. Another piece of the world destroyed by the Todoroki family. Shouto is frankly sick of counting the wounds.
The center of the destruction is just where the path ends, in the shadow of the looming peak. Shouto leans down to pick up a handful of ash, a monument to the past that never dies. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with this, with any of this. The day that his brother died here - something else was born. A vengeful spirit. Born out of pain and suffering and hatred. For Shouto, specifically. It’s not something he asked for or ever wanted, yet he was given this role just by existing. Puppet masterpiece, the voice mocks him.
He’s not sure he has enough power inside him to win over it. Maybe walking here, he could summon up the same rage that turned his brother’s fire blue. He focuses on his anger about this whole shitty situation. Fuyumi’s tears, Natsuo’s frown, their mother locked in her room once more, cut off from her children. Shouto releases his fire. It looks as it always does. Bright orange and sun-yellow with streaks of red.
He imagines his father’s shadow yelling “More” and “Forget about All Might” and the fire burns brighter, hotter - a pale yellow turning almost white.
He remembers Nejire’s scar, Hawks’ missing wings, Endings’ cruel laughter as he yanked Natsuo in front of the car. He remembers “How sad, little Todoroki Shouto” as Dabi pulled Bakugou into a swirling black portal and he releases more until the fire is blinding white and Shouto is dizzy with the heat that swallows him inside the sun or maybe a burning star.
Just a bit more.
Hotter.
More…
…
He wakes up to a gentle touch he doesn’t recognize. He only remembers his mother touching him like he was precious, but her hand was always cool like a crisp spring day, not warm like this. His first instinct is to lean into it, but once he opens his eyes, the dark silhouette of so many nightmares is unmistakable. He pulls away instinctively.
“Shouto,” Endeavor withdraws his hand immediately. There is an unspoken dread in his eyes.
Shouto licks his chapped lips. “I’m fine.”
“You didn’t go back to school. Everyone was worried, so they called me. Your Uber is linked to my credit card, so I still get your receipts,” his father explains. “When I saw it, I thought…” he bites his lips. Shouto realizes what it seems like - him coming to his brother’s place of death. He doesn’t have it in himself to feel regret about frightening Endeavor like that.
“I just wanted to see this place with my own eyes. Maybe get a quirk upgrade,” he jokes mirthlessly.
Endeavor looks away. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you. I froze and left you to deal with all of it…”
Shouto sits up and wraps his arms around his knees, his eyes fixed into the distance. He’s been avoiding Endeavor, because he had no idea what to say to him. He still doesn’t know, but the words he’s been holding back pour out.
“You know those things Touya said, on the video...and out there, I recognized all of it. Every feeling he had, I’ve felt them all too,” he begins. “Hating you, wishing I was never born. You know, I even fantasized about killing you. Breaking mom out of the hospital and running away.” It’s somehow freeing to say it out aloud.
His father listens intently - there is no anger on his face, only a broken kind of sadness.
“What stopped you?”
“I don’t know,” admits Shouto. He’s been thinking about it, and he can’t really pin it on one thing. Maybe he never had what it takes to do it.
“I do,” Endeavor says. “You’ve always had a good heart. I didn’t realise what strength it takes to be kind through everything, Shouto. But you were born with that strength and it’s greater than any quirk. And I know it probably means nothing, but I’m sorry for everything I’ve taken from you. I never wanted any of this. I was hoping to make you proud one day.”
Shouto thinks back to the day when Endeavor came to his remedial class and promised to become a hero Shouto could be proud of. How he hated that small part of himself that still wished for it to be true.
“You know, it was never about the rankings. If you only did the right thing, for the right reasons, you could have been No. 2 or No. 102, we would have been so proud of you. Touya, Fuyumi, Natsuo, me. We could have had it all…” his voice almost breaks at the end.
“I realized it too late, I know that,” his father sighs heavily. “The doctors weren’t able to fix my lungs, so I won’t be able to fight anymore like I did before. I’m so sorry to leave this mess to you kids.”
“You and everyone, you gave us the chance to fight another day and that is sometimes good enough,” Shouto says because he knows that all the heroes there gave everything they had. Including Endeavor. That was never his problem. “All these years, I’ve never understood why you wanted to beat All Might. It never motivated me to be better. But now I found my own reason. I want to be strong enough so I can stand with my friends even against a guy like Shigaraki. And I want to be strong enough to stop Touya.”
Endeavor only nods, so Shouto continues.
“And to do that - I need to find something else. Because this,” he lights a flame in his left “and his” he opens his other palm covered with ice - “these are just two halves. I can’t win if I can’t draw out all my power whether in the air or on the ground. I have to find something that’s me. All of me. I don’t know what can help me find it, but I know it’s not here, being stuck in the past. And it isn’t rage or hatred. And once I figured it out, Midoriya, Bakugou, and me and everyone… We’ll go out and finish this fight. I’ll fight for the future of this country, of my friends, of our family. And I’ll win this time and break the hold the past has on Touya.”
There is a single tear rolling down Endeavor’s eyes and Shouto can’t remember ever seeing him cry.
“I have a dream, Shouto. Every night it’s the same. It’s you and your mom and siblings around the dinner table, eating and laughing.”
It sounds like a nice dream. For the first time in his life Shouto wants the same thing as his father.
“It’s the only thing I ever wish for these days. You weren’t born to tear this family apart. I did that myself. But you were born to heal it, and I believe you’ll do it,” Endeavor continues and Shouto realizes that it’s the first time he hears those words. Not a demand or an instruction, but a leap of faith.
“I’ll do my best,” Shouto replies, filled with a new clarity. He knows now that he’s free to want this for himself. He’s not his father’s puppet, and he’s not a masterpiece. He’s flawed and he’s weaker than he ever imagined, but he knows what he wants now. And he’s ready to reach for it, no matter what anyone says.
Maybe it’s true that the past never dies, but the future is an open book yet to be written into existence. And Shouto is finally ready to take the pen.