Todoroki Sora is five when the hatred unfurls inside her chest like a flame, like the roaring fire her father spills out of his hands like a gift. It's the ugliest gift she's ever received and the sight of red makes her throat burn and her hands curl into claws.
Sora hates fire more than she hates anything.
.
Todoroki Sora is there when Shouto is born, the youngest child in the family. He's so small and so fragile and his eyes glimmer like polished stones. Sora forgets to hate red when he's there, pats his head soft and careful. Her mother smiles at her and puts him in her arms, tells her to be very gentle, as gentle as she can.
She doesn't look at Sora's hair when she says this.
Sora learns gentle faster than she learns anything else because soon her mother stops telling her anything and Shouto is a heavy but precious weight in her arms.
She makes sure he never falls.
.
Todoroki Sora's quirk is late.
When it comes Father is angry because she was so close to being a success. So close to having what he wanted but close is not enough-never enough-and Sora spits blood from her mouth again and stands up when she's told to. Again and again and again, until she is more bruise than body and her legs shudder and give out when the next blow comes. The punishment is fast and brutal.
Sora stands up when she's told to.
.
Father hates her more than the others because she was close. He teaches her just the same. He teaches her like he would've taught the weapon he wanted and Sora learns. She learns.
When she's seven Sora loses her temper for the first time, spits fire and lets ice spike through her veins so she won't burn herself bloody and her hair turns to crackling heat. She rips through the training machinery and leaves the metal twisted and melted and as ugly as she feels inside.
Father sees.
She spends the next week crawling, barely escaping being bed bound because no one wants to be near her and she has to get up for food and water. Father comes to check on her, to make sure she's not permanently damaged and everything turns to glass in her throat because for a moment, Father looks at her and she sees the pride. He had been proud. He is proud.
A feeling rises wild and heavy and Sora feels sick with it, wretched. She wants to reach inside her chest and burn it out like — like some sort of infection but she can't. A part of her, the part of her that's always hungry and crying for someone to look at her and care, it hurts the most. Her heart is a heavy tangle of he sees me now and no no no no.
She doesn't want this.
She doesn't want Father to look at her.
She just — she wants — she
.
Sora is eleven when the coals in her heart turn into a bonfire because Mother is gone.
Mother is gone and Shouto has a bandage over his eye and sobs when he's touched. He cringes away from Sora's hands because they always run hot so she breathes and breathes and pulls the cold in from somewhere cracked and broken inside of her.
Shouto stops flinching. He has to because Father will have nothing but perfection from his weapon, his tool, his perfect leverage for everything. Shouto is the culmination of his efforts, everything he's ever wanted and he learns to stop flinching because the blows will come anyway.
Sora learns to keep her hands cold when he comes to her at night, silent like a ghost. She holds him tightly and breathes out cold, cold, cold. Shouto sleeps easily and Sora carries him back to bed. Smooths his hair out like she used to when he was small enough to hold in her arms.
When she goes back to her room her hands are hot again and she holds them against her body, tests how much she'll take before she burns to nothing. In a second her body is covered in a thin layer of ice and slow rising steam hits the air because she's not strong enough to break through her body's protections.
She's not strong enough for anything.
.
Father stops training her so Sora learns on her own. Fuyumi watches her tear herself apart and tries to make her stop, to slow down.
"You don't have to," she whispers and her hands shake when Sora's hair flares out. Sora can't put it out but she can't ask Fuyumi to either so she stays quiet.
Fuyumi bandages her wounds and says, "You'll hurt yourself like Sora. You'll die."
Sora turns away and watches her hair move in the bathroom mirror. It's red and burning and she tries to see Shouto in it. Shouto and his glimmering eyes and his strong heart and his wish to be a hero, a real hero like All Might and anyone who isn't Father.
All she can see is Father's eyes staring out of her face and Father's hair burning red and Father's expression when he watches the news and reads the rankings and snarls when someone calls him Number 2 even though he's much worse than that, even though he doesn't deserve the title anyways. All she can see in the mirror is herself burning out. All she can see is Father turning to wax and melting and melting and soon when it's over there will be another piece of him gone.
Sora slides down and pads out of the room.
She doesn't say, "Finally."
She doesn't say, "Good riddance."
Todoroki Sora doesn't say anything because her throat is shiny skin pulled taut, red and ragged like it's still on fire.
Fuyumi wasn't expecting an answer anyway.
.
Todoroki Sora is thirteen when her brother smiles at her crooked and sly, like he's planning a prank and wants her help. His hand never shakes when she hands him a razor and the blade is smooth and delicate against her head.
Her hair falls in clumps, flames dead when they leave her and Sora has never been able to breath this well. Her hands are hot when they meet his skin and Sora doesn't falter when he shivers, doesn't blink even as the air is filled with the smell of burning bodies and ash. He doesn't have the cold like she does. It's easier to burn parts of him away.
Her brother rubs his hand across her fuzzy head and smiles when it's over, runs his hands across his new face and laughs. It sounds sharp, like it was punched out of him but his eyes are glowing still. Sora knows that fire because it glows in her too, hatred and fury and family underneath it all. Father will hate this but he can't hurt Shouto anymore. A broken tool is useless to him but even broken and bleeding Sora is a threat. She's the glass edges of a smashed bottle jammed under his throat, waiting for the skin to break, for him to finally bleed.
Sora has been broken long enough that she's sharpened, shattered and put clumsily back together so she's more stained glass spider cracks than person but it doesn't matter now. She'll grind glass beneath her molars she has to, crush it between her teeth, split her lips and slice her tongue on the sharpness of it all because this is what she's been waiting for.
"Let's go with Dabi," says her brother and doesn't wait for her to say anything.
Instead, she butts her head against his side and makes a low croaking noise when he tweaks her nose.
"Shut up," says Dabi, even though the happiness is rising off of him like heavy smoke. "It's not that funny."
Sora laughs again and looks up at him, mouth twisted into a smile that is more threat than anything else.
"You pick a name then," he says. "And see how easy it is."
Sora looks in the mirror and sees herself, burning. Father's eyes are still there but it's not him staring out. Her throat is a beacon, a red slash against her pale skin. It's a statement of power, that she can burn through anything now and cannot be stopped, not even by herself. Her limits are gone. She wonders if she'll scare him when he sees her next, if he will leap clear of her fire, if he will run from her cold, if he will fear her and decides.
A good fire leaves nothing behind, not even a beacon to mark its job well done. A good fire erases everything but Sora has never been good and she has never burned proper and even her cold is black and cutting.
Sora dies in a back alley hotel with a smile on her face. Kemuri is born the same night and her eyes are always molten with heat that promise anything but an easy death.
Kemuri always keeps her promises.
Kemuri always keeps her promises because Sora wasn't strong enough to keep hers.
.
.