Chapter Text
Rei's screams reverberated through the opulent yet stifling confines of the Todoroki estate.
The thick, soundproofed walls of the private birthing room absorbed some of the sound, creating a muffled echo that did little to soothe the atmosphere. Enji stood rigidly to one side, his powerful arms crossed over his broad chest. His jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles along his temples twitched. His posture betrayed not a hint of concern for the woman laboring to bring his child into the world, but rather a hard, almost predatory anticipation.
This was the culmination of years of relentless pursuit, the potential fulfillment of his burning ambition. He had endured three previous births: Toya, Natsuo, and Fuyumi, each resulting in children who, in his critical eyes, had fallen short of his high expectations. They possessed quirks, yes, but not the precise combination, the raw power he craved to surpass All Might. This child, however, felt different. A certainty pulsed within him. This child would be the one. The masterpiece. The tool he would forge into the next Symbol of Peace.
The attending midwife barely had time to offer a word of encouragement before the baby unexpectedly and swiftly slipped into the world. The infant emerged slick with amniotic fluid and blood, its tiny lungs immediately filling with air in a robust cry. A vibrant patch of color caught the harsh glare of the overhead surgical lights. Red, a fiery crimson that spoke of Enji's own quirk. But then, a startling contrast, an equally distinct swathe of pure, snow-white hair lay adjacent to the red. Half red, half white. An impossible division.
Enji's crimson eyes, usually blazing with intense heat, widened in stunned disbelief. A low, guttural sound escaped his throat.
"Its hair..." he muttered, his voice thick with a mixture of shock and something akin to awe. He took a hesitant step closer to the birthing table, his imposing shadow falling over the tiny, squirming form. "It's—"
"Half and half," the midwife whispered, her voice hushed with a reverence she rarely felt. With practiced movements, she gently swaddled the newborn in a soft, heated blanket. "It's... both."
Rei, pale and drenched in sweat, could barely manage to lift her heavy head from the pillow. Exhaustion, bone-deep and all-consuming, threatened to pull her under. Yet, driven by an instinct more powerful than her weariness, she strained to see her child. Her eyes, usually filled with a gentle warmth, now brimmed with tears. Not tears of unadulterated joy, not yet. Instead, a profound sense of relief washed over her, a fleeting respite from the agonizing ordeal.
Shoto. The name echoed softly in her mind. They named him Shoto, a name that felt right, a name that held the delicate balance she herself often struggled to maintain.
Then, just as the exhausted relief began to settle, Rei's body convulsed again, another piercing scream tearing from her throat.
"No, it's not over!" Rei cried out, her back arching violently against the white sheets as another wave of intense pain gripped her. Confusion flickered across the weary face of the attending doctor. He had meticulously reviewed Rei's scans; there had been no indication of multiple births.
"You're... having twins?" he asked breathlessly, his professional composure momentarily fractured by surprise.
Rei offered no response, her focus entirely consumed by the relentless contractions that wracked her body. Another surge of agony, another desperate push, and moments later, a second child emerged into the environment.
Silence descended upon the room. For a long, drawn-out second, no one spoke. The usual chorus of congratulatory murmurs and cooing over a newborn was absent. This child was different. The air itself seemed to shift, a subtle coolness permeating the space around the second infant.
His hair was stark white, a shade purer than fresh snow, devoid of any trace of red. Delicate blue markings, intricate and vein-like, stretched faintly across his scalp beneath the translucent baby-fine hair, resembling veins made of frozen ink. His eyes fluttered open, revealing irises the color of glacial ice, piercingly blue and unsettlingly still. Unlike his brother, this child did not cry. There was no indignant wail, no instinctive protest at being thrust into the unfamiliar world.
Enji instinctively recoiled, taking a sharp step backward. "What...?" he stammered.
"He's... breathing," the attending nurse confirmed, though her voice wavered with hesitation. She glanced nervously at the unmoving infant. "But..."
The boy lay utterly still, displaying none of the jerky, reflexive movements common to newborns. He didn't flinch under the bright lights, didn't wail in complaint, didn't even so much as twitch a finger. His gaze was fixed upward, but it didn't seem to register the faces peering down at him, the sterile ceiling, the reality of the room. His blue eyes seemed to look beyond, into a realm unseen, a void untouched by the living world.
Rei's hand trembled uncontrollably as she weakly reached out towards the silent infant, her strength utterly depleted. "K-Kojima..." she murmured, the name barely a breath.
Enji's brow furrowed, a dark scowl twisting his features. "You named him?" His tone held a sharp edge of disapproval, a possessiveness that extended even to the naming of his children.
"Kojima," she whispered again, a name that meant little island, a final, fading affirmation for the child who seemed already separate from the world. She hoped his stillness might shield him from the chaos she knew lay ahead, before her head lolled back against the pillow, her eyes fluttering shut in utter exhaustion.
The room fell quiet once more, the only sounds were the soft, rhythmic breathing of the two newborns, one radiating heat, a vibrant spark of life, the other emanating a strange, almost chilling stillness.
Enji turned abruptly, his broad shoulders stiff with an unreadable emotion. Without a word, without a backward glance at the mother who had just endured hours of agonizing labor, or at the silent child who lay unnervingly still, he walked out of the birthing room. The heavy door swung shut behind him with a soft click, severing the connection to the chaotic scene within.
Two infants lay nestled side-by-side. The first one, Shoto, announced his arrival with a piercing cry that seemed to tear the very air. Beside him, his twin, Kojima, remained silent. His wide eyes held a gaze both profoundly deep and unnervingly still. They were two halves of a whole, it seemed, embodying opposing forces: fire and ice, laid out in perfect, unsettling symmetry.
The attending midwife carefully lifted Shoto. She presented him first to Enji.
"He's the one," Enji breathed, the words a low tremor that betrayed a deep-seated pride. "Finally." The single word hung in the air.
Only then, with a shift in his demeanor, did Enji turn his attention to the second child. He reached out hesitantly, his large hand dwarfing Kojima's fragile form. The quiet infant's skin possessed a delicate pallor, pulsed with a barely perceptible energy. His gaze narrowed as he observed this unusual display.
"There's something different about this one..." he murmured, his brow furrowed in contemplation. A flicker of something akin to surprise, perhaps even intrigue, danced in his intense eyes.
He gathered both boys into his arms, his powerful frame cradling them with an unexpected tenderness. "Maybe..." he mused, his voice softening slightly, "Maybe even more potential." The thought seemed to spark a new intensity in his gaze, a dawning realization that these two children, so different on the surface, might both hold the key to his lifelong aspirations.
Across the room, Rei watched him with a weary apprehension. She understood all too well the calculations that flickered behind her husband's gaze. She knew what he saw in Shoto: the raw, explosive power, the continuation of a formidable legacy, a weapon honed for a specific purpose. But Kojima? He was an enigma, a silent question mark. Even she, his own mother, couldn't yet decipher the depths of his stillness. He didn't flinch at loud noises, didn't reach for her touch, didn't respond to the soothing cadence of her voice. It was as if a veil separated him from the world.
Enji's days were largely consumed by the rigorous training of their eldest son, Toya, a boy already exhibiting a volatile and dangerous quirk. But his attention was increasingly drawn to the arrival of the twins. He became an obsessive observer, charting their every minute development, constantly probing the nascent edges of their abilities, pushing their fragile limits. Shoto manifested early bursts of his dual-natured quirk, uncontrolled flares of fire and frost that would erupt seemingly at random. Kojima, in stark contrast, displayed no outward signs of a quirk for the longest time. He remained the quiet observer. Then, around the age of three, it happened.
The familiar hum of the living room lights flickered erratically, plunging the room into momentary darkness before sputtering back to life. A visible frost began to creep across the walls, intricate patterns of ice crystals blooming without warning on the normally warm plaster. In the very center of this sudden, localized cold snap, Kojima stood unmoving in Rei's arms. His small body was limp, his eyes wide but unfocused, glassy with an inward focus. It was like watching a child sleepwalk, his physical presence detached from whatever internal process was unfolding. But the air itself had shifted, the temperature plummeting twenty degrees in a matter of seconds.
Enji took it as a sign, a definitive answer to his earlier musings. "His quirk is internalized," he murmured, his voice low with a mixture of awe and intellectual curiosity. "More complex. But he has potential." The pronouncement hung in the air, a judgment passed, a future silently mapped.
For a brief season, a fragile window of possibility, Kojima was included in Enji's burgeoning plans. His father even began to formulate elaborate theories, envisioning intricate ways to combine Kojima's mysterious, internalized abilities with Shoto's more outwardly destructive powers. Twins, working in perfect synchronization. Balance. Fire and Ice, finally achieving true symmetry, a harmonious and devastating force.
But not everyone shared Enji's nascent vision. Not everyone saw potential where he saw a puzzle to be solved.
Toya noticed the shift, the fleeting attention directed at his younger siblings, the subtle changes in his father's focus. He felt the ground beneath his small feet begin to tilt, the unwavering spotlight that had once been solely his now flickering towards these silent newcomers.
He was seven years old when the incident occurred. Shoto had only just celebrated his first birthday, a milestone Kojima had quietly mirrored not long after. Rei left them momentarily in their shared crib while she went to tend to Natsuo, their middle child. She was gone for no more than three minutes.
It only took one. One moment of unchecked fury, one desperate act of a child feeling himself eclipsed.
Toya burst into the nursery, his young face contorted with rage and a raw, heartbreaking desperation. His eyes were wide and frantic, and trails of blistered tears, hot and angry, streaked down his soot-stained cheeks. "He's not better than me!" he screamed, his voice cracking with anguish and resentment, as he launched a torrent of uncontrolled flames towards the defenseless crib.
Shoto stirred at the sudden heat and noise, a small whimper escaping his lips. Kojima, however, remained still. His wide, blue eyes fixed on his older brother, an unreadable expression in their depths. He simply watched as the deadly flames hurtled towards them.
But the flames didn't land. Not this time.
Enji had arrived in time. He moved with lightning speed, his powerful hand gripping Toya by the collar of his small shirt, yanking him backwards with a force that made the boy gasp. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Enji's voice, usually a controlled baritone, was a low, dangerous growl.
Toya kicked and flailed, his small body wracked with sobs, the flames that still flickered around his hands now fueled by pure despair. "You don't see me anymore! You don't even care!" The words were a raw cry of a child feeling abandoned, his desperate plea echoing in the sudden silence that had fallen over the room.
"You're dangerous," Enji said through gritted teeth, his grip tightening on Toya's collar. His gaze, hard and unforgiving, flickered between his eldest son and the two infants in the crib. "To them. To yourself." The judgment was swift, absolute.
That night, the house shifted on its axis. Toya was relocated to the far end of the sprawling estate, effectively exiled from the central hub of the family. The nursery door, once left ajar, was now locked. Shoto and Kojima, the objects of this sudden and dramatic division, were no longer allowed near their older siblings. The fragile unity of the family shattered into irreparable fragments.
From then on, everything shifted. The unspoken tension in the air thickened, and the dynamics within the household irrevocably altered.