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“It’s your power.”
“Yours, and nobody else’s, you understand?”
“It’ll always be yours.”
Shouto turned over the snowflake pendant in his hands. The tiny, delicate thing was one of the only objects he and his siblings had managed to salvage from Endeavor’s purge after Rei was sent to the center, and it was one of his dearest possessions. Shouto wasn’t a material kind of person, yet whenever he had a moment of weakness, even the slightest desire to give in, use his fire and make all the shouting and punches and the pain go away, he would look to the beautiful diamond-encrusted silver wires for the strength. For the resolve. For the reminder of why he didn’t use his father’ power.
“It’s yours, though.” In Shouto’s mind, he could hear Midoriya’s insistent voice trying to shut down the thought.
If it’s mine… then it’s a part of me that caused Mother to go through all that pain. Mother is broken because of me.
No. It’s Endeavor who broke her.
I loved her. I cared. He didn’t. Doesn’t that make all the difference?
But it was his/my power, the sight of him within me, that led her to that point.
Shouto didn’t know what to make of that.
So he called Midoriya, the only person he could trust and confide in at the moment. As usual, his new friend picks up almost immediately.
“Todoroki?”
He hesitated for half a second. “...I’ve been doing some thinking. Can you meet me at the P.E. Grounds? Just for a short while, and it doesn’t have to be right away–”
But Izuku was already promising to be there in eight minutes.
After he hung up, Shouto quickly changed from his hoodie and sweatpants into a T-shirt and workout shorts that were more suitable for Quirk testing, then hastily grabbed a water bottle before rushing downstairs and out to the field, where he found that Midoriya was waiting for him.
“You’re here!” Midoriya called out, waving.
Shouto inclined his head with a small smile. But he couldn’t seem to hide his inner conflictedness.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Midoriya questioned, and with that, Shouto found his words spilling out without any more prompting.
“I thought about what you said at the Sports Festival…” he started, not entirely sure how best to voice his thoughts but unwilling to hold them in any longer. “And I know… it felt right when I used my fire, that’s for sure, but now it feels almost wrong.”
Midoriya didn’t speak up, didn’t question him or cut him off yet, only nodding for him to continue.
“It hurt my mother,” Shouto said. “He ruined her life in order to create it in me. She was hurt because of it.”
“You see it as a part of you that caused her harm?” Midoriya asks tentatively.
Shouto nods.
“But you don’t have to use it for evil. Right now, your view of it is completely shaped by what your father did, by what his fire did. But this is your fire- part of your power, not his. You can choose to reframe it in a different light by doing something different so you are able to see it differently, too.”
Shouto allowed himself to absorb the words for a long moment before he spoke again. “But… she saw it in me, she saw him in me, and she broke. At that point, it was a part of me that did that to her, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Midoriya replied immediately. “You said it yourself — she saw him, and that’s what made her break. It’s because of Endeavor, not you.”
“I hate that–” Shouto’s voice broke. He swallowed. “I hate that there’s a part of him in me.”
“You can’t change that, though,” Izuku pointed out, and although his voice was kind, there was something almost bitter, an undercurrent to Izuku’s words, as if he understood more than he usually let on. But before Shouto could question it, the other boy was already moving on. “Yet you can always transform it into something better. It’s not a part of him— it’s a part of you, and we don’t have to be defined by our fathers.”
It sparked a thought.
If I won’t be defined by him, will I be defined by my mother?
“Come on, why don’t we spar,” Izuku suggested. “You can start with your ice, while only using your fire to melt any structures you create, before gradually shifting over to using both offensively.”
Start with my ice... it’s always been about my ice. Or is it her ice?
“Good idea,” Shouto agreed.
So they took their positions, facing each other from across the field. The temperature in the air around them began to lower as frost crystallized upon Shouto’s fingers, and he lunged for Midoriya.
He didn’t quite give it his all, but he wasn’t holding back as much as he used to. And as Midoriya, alight with viridian energy, screamed encouragement at him, Shouto, though still slightly hesitant about the idea of fighting with his flames, felt his resolve steadily build.
~
Back in his room, Shouto picked up Rei’s snowflake pendant once more, holding it up in his cupped palm so the light from the sunset shining through his window could catch the silver metal.
For so long, he had shunned his fire and he had embraced only his ice as a way to remember his mother, remember the light and the happiness that she had brought to the household.
It was the decision he’d driven into mind and held inside his heart from the day his family had been officially torn apart for the second time.
That was then. But now…
He’d been hindering himself all along. He’d confined himself within icy walls of his own making by stubbornly insisting on using only what he’d gotten from his mother.
He’d divided his identity into two halves, ice and fire, his mother’s side and his father’s side. Mother’s power and Father’s power.
It’s the same perspective. I view it as their powers, but I accept my mother’s part because I accept her.
If I could use the fire for good, would I accept it too?
But even so, what of himself?
Which part of his identity was his own?
Midoriya’s words from their sparring session earlier that day surfaced in his mind again, along with the feeling of crackling lightning so close to his body that he could feel the intense aura that the other boy is giving off, along with an image of green eyes glaring into his own heterochromatic ones. “You are more than just the sum of your parents— you are your own being, and this is your unique power, you understand? Yours!”
I am fire and ice; I am both of them and neither of them, because I am my own self.
It’s my power, all of it.
~
They stand in the middle of Ground Beta, facing each other from across the field. Then, without warning, Midoriya runs at him, and Shouto feels something flare to life inside of his soul.
They clash, generations upon generations of fire and ice coming together versus hundreds of years of stockpiled energy, legacy against legacy, two students wielding powers that they call their own.