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In history textbooks, some might attribute the alteration of the world to three particular families, and the birth of three particular Heroes. The emphasize on the individualism of Heroism will, despite revisions made by the Heroes themselves, will go largely ignored. Any larger narrative is ignored in favor of the status quo.
No history textbook records the birth of Touya Todoroki. They will record his littlest brother. They will forget his second brother and his sister. There will be no footnotes about the tearful smile on a new mother and the weight of expectation in that hospital room.
Touya knows, as soon as he is old enough to comprehend, that he is not the one history is meant to be about. The world may be going to hell in a handbasket though, as he hears his mother mutter, annoyed and tired, one night.
(P1.) This is where the world begins to burn.
It manifests young. Touya says it because it isn't a Quirk, it isn't a superpower. It burns. And it burns. And it burns. It's cool, though.
It happens in the garden, when he's trying to do something gentle. He's maybe four. The frustration that seeps from his chest into the cold soil makes the soil warm, and that entertains Touya somewhat, digging his hands further and further into the soft earth. It's spring. The air is brisk — not chilly, but not warm. It's the perfect season to start gardening, and his mother already has a basket of seeds she's pre-planned.
All she did was leave to grab him some gloves, because he keeps getting pricked by some of the weeds in the garden. Who knew, such a little frustration could spark the end of the world?
Another weed pricks him. He drops the soil. The frustration bubbles. Touya will describe it as a bubbling, boiling sensation, when he learns the words to do so. He will take a strange joy, this happiness he can't describe, in explaining how it felt, the blistering, pustering of skin, overripe like fruit, sloughing off when it can no longer bubble, until he is told in no uncertain terms that he is making company uncomfortable.
(When he is older, and the world has fully and truly perished, he will find people who find a weird joy in describing their pain, too. They, like him, will have more festering resentment than personality. It will be the end of the world, but the beginning of his.)
He burns.
His mother finds him. She puts out his flames. He will learn to hate that, too.
For now, he toddles into the kitchen after his mother, his skin still warm despite her ice, in a way it never has before, with confusion and curiosity.
When he sees the smile on his father's face, warm in one of the only memories he has of the man, Touya realizes that this is what I am meant for.
He needs no one to tell him. He figures it out all on his own.
He will keep this creed for the rest of his life, but he will twist the meaning.
This is what I am meant for, as he burns.
(P2.) This is where human nature reverts to barbarism.
"He's too young! You can't — it's unreasonable to think —"
"It's inevitable, I told you — Touya can't —"
Touya Todoroki is eleven years old, and he burns. Not with his literal flame, but this burning in his chest.
That's your heartbeat, his mother had laughed when he told her. It doesn't burn. Here, see? Feel mine.
His does, though. It wasn't her fault. She didn't know she was wrong. He's started to think of her as Rei. It's in the same tone his father uses, though he doesn't know why. Rei puts out his flames, a lot. She sits on the sidelines the few times that he wants her to stop him, though.
They're arguing, now. His mother and his father. They're arguing in the kitchen. They do this often.
Touya has younger siblings. They're failures. It isn't an insult — it's just true. Fuyumi doesn't have a fire-ice Quirk; she doesn't have a very powerful quirk at all. Natsuo is all ice. Shouto is too young to know whether he's a failure or not, but there's this pit in the bottom of Touya's stomach that knows Shouto isn't a failure.
He isn't willing to admit that yet, though.
(Shouto will surpass him, because Shouto will be strong where Touya is weak. But Touya has done more, worked harder. Touya can still do it. He can still surpass All Might. It doesn't matter if it burns.)
Fuyumi is asleep on the foot of Touya's bed. Natsuo, too.
He herded them in here when he heard their parents arguing. It's only so long until Enji and Rei Todoroki's resentment for each other, typically well-masked and hidden between platitudes and promises, will start to boil over to them, too.
Touya has burned, but nothing has ever burned him quite as much as the look in Enji's eyes when he stumbled in from training in the courtyard and Enji had realized more of Touya's hair had come in white.
Touya just lays on his bed, staring emptily at the wall across from him. His alarm clock blinks, the time changing by the minute. It's barely sunset out. Fuyumi and Natsuo must've been kept up last night by the arguing, too.
"This is what I was meant for," Touya mutters to himself, always repetitive. One-trick pony, he is. "This is what I was meant for."
The mantra blocks out the arguing, somewhat.
Not enough.
Shouto toddles by. He's the same age Touya was when his Quirk manifested. His hands are small and chubby and he's still got porridge smeared across his cheek; he probably climbed out of his high chair when Rei walked away, because he's big enough to do that, now.
Shouto stops in the doorway. The light from the hallway makes him seem much bigger than he is. Touya stares, and Shouto stares back. Touya sort of hate that they share the same eye color, even if it's only in one eye. As he gets older, he will fixate on this one detail, spiral so far, that he forgets why he hates it in the first place.
He will forget about this moment, but this will be one of the first memories that Shouto has, blurry as a toddler's memory will make it.
"Can I come in too?" Shouto asks shyly, his words strung together too-quickly, because that's what toddlers do. That's what toddlers do when they have older siblings.
Maybe this will be one of the first memories Shouto has because it's one of the last times he will be allowed to exist in the same plane, same level, and same life as his siblings.
Touya contemplates this. Shouto's cheeks are chubby, and cute, and he's shy when he talks. Rei is a stickler for etiquette, even if she tries not to be.
Touya nods, slowly, but the motion agitates the semi-burned skin behind his ear as his hair ruffles against the pillow. "Sure," Touya says, and his voice sounds flat even to his own ears.
"He isn't a —"
"What would you know? You've never had to —"
The arguing continues. Touya tunes it out with his mantra.
Shouto walks over, slow and unsteady, like he's waiting for Touya to kick him out.
Still, against his better judgment — he's just a child, after all — Touya lets Shouto onto his bed, and he even helps the kid when he struggles, pulling at the thin sheet. (It's always too hot for Touya to sleep with blankets, nowadays.)
Touya gathers Shouto up into his arms, because that seems to make him the most comfortable. Shouto doesn't say much.
He can talk well, but he doesn't choose too often. Touya thinks kids aren't supposed to be so quiet, but it's always been that quiet in his house.
Touya doesn't know it'll only get quieter over the years.
"Why are they fightin'?" Shouto asks, eventually. His voice reverberates against Touya's chest, and it agitates some of the bandages. Touya doesn't adjust him, even though he should.
He considers this.
Why are Enji and Rei fighting? Last night it was about Touya, and it was about how he's been training too hard, even though he really hasn't been training hard enough The morning it was about Natsuo, and how he needs a tutor to get his grades up, but should apparently just figure it out on his own. This afternoon it was about Fuyumi, and how she's too boy-ish, even though Fuyumi just acts like them. It's only fitting that, tonight, it's about Shouto.
You, Touya wants to mutter, sweet and sick on his tongue. They're arguing about whether you're a failure or not. Because Rei says it doesn't matter, but that isn't true. Dad says it does matter, and he can't handle another disappointment.
Instead, Touya says, "don't worry about it," and Shouto doesn't.
They sit and listen to the argument in the kitchen. Shouto falls asleep long before Touya does.
Touya only awakens because Rei is quietly, frantically waking Natsuo and Fuyumi, telling them in a whisper that she's grabbed them a bag and they'll be leaving.
She leaves Touya and Shouto, and Touya says nothing about the matter when the three are back in the morning. They act like one big happy family for the day. Rei bakes cookies. Dad watches movies with them. It's nice.
It gets far worse after this.
(P3.) This is where the desire for revenge overtakes the desire for love in the fabric of a human soul.
This is what I was meant for, what happened, this is what I was meant for, is the first thought across Touya's mind when he awakens for the first time after a three-year coma.
This is what I was meant for, is what he thinks when he resigns himself to the lifetime of medical treatment and the new scars around his body, the lack of family around him, and the white sterility of a hospital setting.
Yeah, he's gotten familiar with those. Part of him hates Enji for it. Or maybe Touya has white room syndrome — who's to know?
This is what I was meant for, he thinks as he discharges himself from the place, because the nature of private-practice Quirk-related specialists is that morality is out of their scope of practice, and tries to return home for the first time.
In the history books, they will say this is where Touya died. When he returns home, he will see that nothing has changed, and Shouto has surpassed him in his father's eyes, and his world had ended. Touya will die, and something different — something bright, something demonic, something — will take his place.
In another world, the death of Touya Todoroki is imminent and inevitable.
In this one, Touya's train is delayed by two minutes.
Two minutes is all it takes to alter the fabric of the world. This won't be in these history textbooks, either. It doesn't need to be.
Still, when the train is two minutes late, Touya's frustration and desire to his family — to see his purpose, again, to find the reassurance now that he burns so hot he's clammy and uncomfortable in his skin, and it's nothing to do with the uncomfortably thick gifted hospital clothes — pushes him to walk to a nearby bus stop.
When he emerges from the underground train platform, sees the burning sun on his already burning skin, it feels like a mistake.
When Touya sits at the bus stop, restless, tapping his leg incessantly despite the ache in the muscles — how is he even walking, really, he doesn't try to think about that too much —, he runs into a Hero-hopeful out on a walk.
Touya can recognize a Hero-hopeful from a mile away. He'd be one of them, if he didn't spend so much time unconscious when he should've been training. If he didn't spend so much time wasting what he has.
If Touya didn't burn so much.
This Hero-hopeful, though, is made ever-more apparent by the bright red wings on his back, even though they're stuffed as far as they'll go into a jacket. The attempt to hide them makes them all the more apparent; this is a big city, weird Quirk users often don't get a second glance. (Though Touya's new scars have attracted more attention than he'd like to admit.)
And this Hero-hopeful is waiting for the bus, too.
It's like a bad joke. The failed son of the second-best Hero in the world, and a Hero-hopeful who seems larger-than-life wait for a bus.
The Hero-hopeful sizes him up, this glance out of the corner of his eye, slitted pupils more suspicious than they're likely meant to convey. There's this relaxed posture, though, and Touya of all people can see it completely faked.
"You okay?" the Hero-hopeful asks, eventually, when Touya doesn't stop bouncing his leg. It's awkward now, in the throes of growing pains, but that's a voice that is going to sound buttery-smooth in some years' time. It's far less scratchy than Touya's own.
Then again, few people have gone through all the burning he has. Forgive him if his voice is a little scratchy.
"Yeah," Touya says, slowly, gauging how wary he should be. Touya is unaware of the thread of fate surrounding him like a noose.
It loosens, just slightly. Coincidence makes a far softer mistress.
They sit in silence longer, but there's this — this bubbling in Touya's chest, and he can't — it doesn't —
"You sure? You look pretty banged-up," the Hero-hopeful says. He's offering an out. Touya can see it: and he's glad he can't see himself, because he caught a glimpse of his reflection as he was leaving.
He understands why the doctors avoided eye contact. Perhaps it's best if he doesn't understand the damage, right now, but eventually his scars will be so etched into his sense of being that the idea of a Touya without scars will seem like watered-down wine; unwanted and unwelcome to be palpable.
"Happens," Touya answers. This guy must think he's a delinquent. Touya catches a glimpse of silvery scars across the Hero-hopeful's knuckles as he shifts, before those hands are hidden in pockets again. "I'm not getting into street-fights, if that's what you're concerned about."
The Hero-hopeful gives a laugh; it's more of a snort, and it's far less eloquent than a Hero-hopeful is meant to be. "Hey, I wasn't going to bring it up if you weren't."
"Where are you off too?" Touya asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. He's got all the time in the world, waiting for this bus, and if the world ends when he gets home, that's neither here nor there. Here, his curiosity can be exposed, the seams pressed open, and Touya doesn't have to put up a front. "Thought you Heroes had curfews, or something."
The Hero-hopeful stiffens. It's a small movement, so small that one might miss it. That anyone, really, would miss it, if they didn't grow up with Endeavor for a trainer.
"Nah. What can I say, I'm just special like that." It's a persona. It's a good one, but it isn't perfect.
Touya figures those kinks will work themselves out with time, but maybe this Hero-hopeful, too, thinks they have all the time in the world at this bus stop.
"Besides," the Hero-hopeful continues, "My Pa certainly isn't that worried."
The slightest hint of a rural accent slips out, but it's gone again by the time Touya recognizes it. "You headed back home, then?" Touya asks.
The Hero-hopeful shrugs. There's that same stiffness again. "Something like that, yeah. It's Ha — Keigo, by the way. What about you? Headed back home?"
I think we have the same home, Touya thinks, irrationally, quickly. The thought is gone as soon as it forms. Touya will not understand what he meant by that for years. "Touya. Yeah. Headed home. It's been a while since I've been."
His voice is shaky, and raspy, and it makes him seem a lot older than he is. Then again — he's sixteen, isn't he?
"I wish," Keigo says, this wistfulness in his voice that no persona could hide.
The silence returns. It's thick, this time, but Touya can't say why. The city is bustling around them, but time seems stationary.
Touya doesn't know it yet, but this, too, will be a memory that flashes through a mind not his own: when the news plays, and Touya Todoroki is dead, and Keigo Takami is dead, Hawks will see Dabi; the bus stop where time waited will be the first fleeting memory he listens to in a long time.
Touya Todoroki still dies a violent death.
Touya burns, and burns, and burns.
Touya burns until there is nothing other than a monster to rise from his ashes, and Dabi will be born in the resentment of the failure son and the rage of the father.
This is what I am meant to do, Touya thinks, burnt and bloody and so, so enraged. This is what I am meant to do. I am meant to make it right. To fix it. I am meant to kill the monster of Endeavor.
There is a story: of how Touya Todoroki is reborn; of how the kingdom of Hawks crumbles; of how the world is crushed beneath the shockwaves of society reborn. This is not that story.
This is how Touya Todoroki's world ended.
This is how the world ends.