Transition chapter! UP NEXT: Baby Todorokis, Quirk science, and Touya trying not to rip her hair out.
She didn't consider herself a pessimist - or an optimist, for that matter - but it was more difficult to believe in hope for the best, prepare for the worst, when you knew exactly how bad it could get.
Now, one would think that knowing the future would be a much more pressing issue, but as Touya stared at herself in the mirror, her thoughts were probably something like - oh my god, why - because, yes, All for One was a walking tragedy, but so was her hair.
It didn't grow evenly - or fast - and if you gave a toddler two buckets of paint and told them to throw it, it'd probably end up looking something like her mottled disaster of a head: something stuck between a vibrant crimson and a brilliant white. That didn't even include the eyebrows (polka dots, humiliating), and she had to meet at least ten different tutors later in the week.
It was nearly six in the morning, and she did not need to be frustrated with an eternal bad-hair-day before training. Cremation (and her mother's Quirk, for that matter) were very temperamental, and it'd be nothing short of self-destruction to go into specialized training while angry.
Touya slid her door open, danced around a couple of frazzled housemaids, and made her way down to the dining room for morning tea. It was a nice thing to do with her mother before Enji woke her up at the crack of dawn to train, even if it meant getting up slightly earlier. Sure enough, she was already waiting.
"Morning," Rei greeted, pouring her, judging by the smell, black tea. The caffeine appealed to her definite night-owl persona, unlike the early-riser freaks of nature she called parents. "You're pouting."
"I am not," Touya grumbled into her cup, knowing that she probably was. Then, because that was kind of mean: "Good morning, Okaa-san." When she learns English (for the second time, because Enji was fluent, and she'll pry it from him somehow) and has an excuse for speaking it, she's going to forget the hideous mouthful of formal parent address.
"Your Otou-san had to leave for an agency emergency," Rei hummed, and she took a careful sip of tea. "I think you'll have a few more hours until he's home."
Touya nodded.
...
Rei had just lied.
She had managed to get a desktop computer in her room after Rei announced her pregnancy, which was probably her parents' greatest mistake so far. While the technology around was futuristic, her parents were not, and she had a prior lifetime of experience to her advantage. Touya had to factory reset her brain multiple times to catch up on the decades of missed history, and it'd only been a couple of weeks since she'd gained internet access, but it was leverage all the same.
Taking down the (minimal) restrictions to her computer had been disturbingly easy, and accessing the home security feeds had been even more so. It made her wonder if her parents had wanted her to see them because her computer skills weren't that good.
The HPSC had protections placed around the families and homes of top-ranking heroes; Touya didn't doubt that she only got through to the cameras because of internal access. The Commission snooping around the estate made her uneasy, yet those same protections stopped her from being mobbed. Logically, she couldn't be too mad about it.
Or, maybe, she's dramatic and paranoid. (That won't stop her from promising to be an eternal pain-in-the-ass when she gets her license.)
The feed from the front door (just before 5 A.M.) had shown a man in a suit knocking, flashing something - a badge, most likely, judging by the way he had casually flicked it out of his blazer pocket - to the doorman, and Enji walking out a few minutes later. Agency emergencies happened with a phone call, a hero costume, and a blast-off out the nearest window. Whatever happened wasn't an agency affair, so why was Rei lying to cover it up?
Rei was lying, Enji was avoiding her, and her siblings (too early to call them Fuyumi, or Natsuo, or Shouto) were on the way; she was very desperately clinging to the remaining tatters of her sanity because no matter how determined you were, a father could not reasonably tell their four-year-old to wave around Quirk fire that was thousands-of-degrees hot.
Not her Enji, at least. She wasn't sure what changed - or what exactly changed it - but he was different this time around, and she didn't know if that was good or bad just yet.
Touya let the caffeine and anxiety sink into her bones. And, because she needed to say something: "Is he doing alright?"
"He will be," Rei promised, placing a hand on her stomach. "All of us will be. You're not the only one who's worried, Touya."
It's not about him, then. A hand over the stomach meant that a mother was feeling protective, and the way she worded it implied -
Enji was meeting with the Commission in private, avoided her, and had avoided giving her one-on-one training for a week. His CAP scores (Civilian Approval Ratings) had been skyrocketing recently, so she really couldn't believe that it was work-related.
It's about me, and it's something he doesn't want me to know.
"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" Touya asked, clenching a fist under the table. There was nothing she could do about that particular problem - and nothing she could do about this one, either - but she'd rather know things. Knowledge would always be her greatest strength, Daughter of Endeavor be damned.
Rei smiled, mischief pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Both," she admits.
And, since this family (and herself, not that she'd ever admitted it) had a habit of saying canon-breaking, world-shattering things with the sort of concern one would have over a hangnail, Touya was learning to nod along to canon-breaking, world-shattering things, and then scream in her head for an appropriate period afterward.
"You mean -?"
"Twins!"
This family was going to be the (second) death of her.
꧁꧂
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TODOROKI TOUYA_
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:)
The accompanying story to BTF has been posted! "starlight, staples and ash" is under my profile!
There's going to be a lot of Hawks, probably, because this is tagged DabiHawks, and he won't be showing up for a long time. Feel free to drop requests, but there are some things I can't write yet because of the plot.
Infinite love!