A/N: Hello, all! I'm happy to say that the next chapter is going to be quite long. Some new fucked up stuff is going to happen. Aiden is even more of a jerk than usual, and he's only gonna get worse as time goes on. But hey, the thing is that in my other fanfic, we explore an AU of what would happen if Aiden wasn't a dick (surprising thing, really) and, instead, was nice and actually treated Touya like a person. I should be working on it soon.
Anyway, I always wondered why it is that SIs can treat people however they want. They seem to lack a sense of care for the world. Hey, Shouto will be born in this chapter. We are not following canon with regard to how Touya sees his siblings.
Also, please review my story. It takes me months to come up with these chapters and I put a lot of hard work into it, normally I just spontaneously shoot out chapters without planning. I feel really happy and my mood is boosted by people reviewing my fanfics. So please review my story. I need to know how you guys feel about my work.
Do you like how I characterize Touya? What do you like? What do you dislike? If I don't know what my audience thinks, I can't become a better writer and continue to improve my fanfics for you all. It makes me so happy when I see reviews in my email. Also, bnha is my new special interest and I want to see what you all think. So please, do review my story. I might not be able to continue having ideas if I don't have audience feedback. I don't mind if it's a simple "update soon," "I like this", or even more indepth. All I care about is that my readers are enjoying my work. I'd love to hear what you all think of this story!
Anyway, enough of that, on to the story. Also, I'm not following canon Dabi much, but he's still gonna be a villain.
A few questions that I leave with you as you read the story: what right do you have to take the place of someone else? What right do you have to automatically delete another's soul and just expect them to be okay with it? Is this not an evil thing to do, if done intentionally? Doesn't that sort of make sis seem like Dementors? Why does the past matter more than the present?
Chapter Four: Conflagration
Aiden's POV
Lonely.
He was lonely. He was lonely. He was lonely. He was lonely.
The word bounced around his head.
It was all that defined him now. It was all that was part of him now.
That was the way he was in this world, if he could even call it a world, more like some big, cruel joke.
After all, how could he not be alone?
In this place, he was always alone. He only spoke to himself.
That was the only real being in this place, after all.
The figure, one Aiden Brooks, formerly alive and now a ghost, had plenty of reasons to be miffed.
"I mean, it's not like anyone can hear me." He complained scathingly. "Or care."
He'd discovered that he had some ability, the ability to control dreams, he and the child could meet in them, he and the simulation, at least, could meet in it. Although, even thinking about it made him feel angry these days. He preferred to just sit and talk to himself, rather than to talk to something that was convinced it was real when it really wasn't. Besides, the more he talked to the doll that pretended to be a fictional character known as Touya Todoroki, the more irritated he got. (Fictional characters weren't fucking real, he knew this to be a fact).
If he tried to interact with Touya, those shadows would attack sometimes. Those annoying ass purple ones that would always act defensively when he tried to destroy what shouldn't be there, yet was. Those things prevented him from doing anything and left him weak.
He should be the one in control. This should not be happening.
"Maybe I'm overthinking things. Maybe I'm just too angry and should think about other things, like how I died."
It hadn't been fair that he'd died at such a young age, either. He'd nearly been nineteen when it had happened!
He'd had his own dreams and passions and he had drunken a lot of spirits, and he hadn't exactly been the kindest to his first girlfriend, named Marissa.
Had that been her name?
He wasn't sure if he remembered these things well, anymore.
He regretted how he'd snuck behind his parents' backs to get beer, and wasted time in college just for drink.
"If I could go back...I wouldn't have wasted my studies. I would have actually taken it seriously."
He'd had a lot of regrets, mainly his second girlfriend, Lizzie. They'd had good chemistry and hadn't worked out.
Again, looking back on it, he could see his flaws.
This space at least gave him time to think about things.
When his parents or his girlfriend or his friends had chewed him out about his bad habits, he had to admit that they'd been in the right. Why had he ignored their words and disregarded their warnings?
"What a fool I was." He muttered. "If only I could see them again."
There was so much he wanted to tell them; but most of all, he wanted to apologize for dying in such a stupid, shallow, drunken way. He remembered his mother, her kind smile, and how much she had encouraged and approved of his dreams.
He felt a sense of shame well up inside him, feeling ashamed of himself at how he'd disrespected his parents' wishes and gone out of his way to ruin himself.
What had become of his desire for education, to become a chemist?
He'd liked science and math, both of those subjects, and had studied voraciously in classes.
What had happened to that passion?
Oh, at that mention, he withered.
It was the booze, the beer, the college life.
He wondered just how much his mother had actually known about him that he'd never bothered to ask her about.
"I really was a fool there."
He'd lied to his own mother and taken money out of her own account, just so he could keep on drinking.
"What a terrible son I was." He muttered.
It was ironic that he called her his mother, because in reality he was not related to her by blood. He'd never known his birth parents, and these were his adopted parents.
He'd grown up in the foster system most of his life.
They were the ones who'd taken him in from the moment he was a small child and had raised him with love.
Aiden didn't often think of his biological mother, because whoever she had been, she clearly hadn't cared enough about him to check in on him or see how he was doing.
His actual mother...remained unknown to him.
If I had to say one thing to her, it would be sorry.
Sorry for being a terrible son to both of you.
Knowing that he could never see her again broke his heart in two.
His father would have shaken his head in disappointment.
He never had siblings, that much he was aware of.
Of course, the mere fact that they were not biologically related made that possible, but who cared about that now?
As for Lizzie, what would he have said to her?
Maybe that he was sorry that he chose the bottle over her in their relationship?
A new thought hit him, one that made him sit up.
Maybe he could see Lizzie again, someday.
But by that someday, he didn't like that implication.
Aiden Brooks was very prideful about his achievements, especially in math and science, but that had stopped when he just stopped trying, because it got too hard. He kept falling asleep doing his assignments, kept getting poor grades.
So what was the point? If it was too hard, he stopped trying and putting his all into it.
So what if he'd shown up at class smelling of booze?
Who cares?
All that mattered was that he would look better than others while doing it.
After all, his parents had told him he was going to be someone special, right? Although he didn't feel special when he'd gotten average grades on his tests, because then his mother would yell.
She had believed in him.
Then came college, all the temptations and vices and abyss of addiction.
How ironic, the thing he turned to for salvation had instead killed him in a fire.
He hadn't known exactly what had caused the bloody blaze, he had just known that it had happened. Had he left the heater on, the stove? He wasn't sure, he thought he had always turned those things off.
Had he...
Aiden Brooks always thought the worst possible thing about his life was that he wasn't doing enough, if people weren't looking at him and praising him, then it was pointless. He had to have been doing the right thing, right?
Hadn't his drinking been the best decision?
No, it had been the wrong one and he had paid for it terribly.
He wished he could see them all again.
"I wish they were here." He said, as if by wishing them into existence they would appear.
He was still alone, completely and utterly alone.
That was sort of how it was in college.
The kids had thought he was stuck up.
This was confusing as heck.
"You know, when I said I'd be reborn, this isn't what I expected to get."
He'd expected something like Konosuba, being summoned to another world, being a hero.
It all sounded so epic, but he'd rather have been there than experiencing this.
This was so boring that he'd stopped caring.
Why had he even counted things to make himself fall asleep?
What insanity.
"This really sucks." He muttered.
He knew he couldn't change anything.
Because those shadows prevented him from being abke to do thing, because being a ghost meant he couldn't do anything.
He'd shed enough tears.
He was tired of crying.
He was waiting for something.
Whatever that was, he wasn't sure.
He wasn't sure exactly which road he'd go down, but there had to be something, anything he could do.
If he had been summoned here or reborn, then...he'd landed on the same old idea he had been on a dozen times.
The body.
But he came across a strange inconsistency: why the hell was it that he was a mere ghost in this body? In almost every other story, the heroes had had bodies given to them, or been reborn as babies into them. He had to have a physical body somewhere.
"Where's my physical body? Man, this sure is a crappy story if I don't get a body of my own. Maybe I should just make Touya have seances."
No, Endeavor would have never allowed something like that.
Oh, sure, he tried many times to get out.
Maybe this was just purgatory and a waiting period.
"Certainly feels like purgatory." He muttered, "But what can I do?"
That brought him back to the topic of the child and on his role as the main character. What was he supposed to do?
Sit here and count sheep all the time?
He had to have something more substantive than that.
It occurred to him.
Maybe, just maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could escape from here.
He'd tried and it hadn't worked.
"I wanna leave." He muttered.
He was beginning to forget what it was like to eat and drink, and it sucked.
He felt like he was just wasting away.
"But wait..." He muttered.
His mind again came to rest on the anomaly, the abnormality, of Touya's existence.
The stories he'd read never had such a thing as two souls existing in one body. Such a strange concept.
He'd never read anything about it and yet here he was.
"What a bizarre concept. From what I remember, they disappeared or they fused with the other one."
What happened to the original character? Did they just replace them?
That was almost disturbing to him.
Besides, if those heroes and heroines did that, that meant it was right.
"That means that maybe, sometime in the future, Touya will disappear and I can have his body."
It was a vain, useless thought.
Fuck, he just wanted to touch things again.
He was sick and tired of being a goddamn ghost.
He'd do anything to be able to see real people again.
"I've got it!" He cried triumphantly. "Maybe while he's asleep, I can borrow his body, just as a test."
By that, he meant that he would borrow the character's body for a little bit, then return it.
How could he do it?
He didn't have any body switching powers.
He seized upon a wonderful idea!
If he didn't have the ability, he would just have to...ask the unreal thing for permission.
Why couldn't it be just as simple as this was his body, end of question?
"Now, I've just gotta figure out how to talk him into letting me use his body. I should convince him. After all, hadn't this thing been hogging his body for eight years? Who had been hogging his body for so long?
What else could he call it but a presence?
He didn't like sharing the spotlight with this doll.
"Problem is...I can't just make it go away, because if I do, I won't know how to use its quirk."
He couldn't do that until he figured out how this supposed world worked, figured out how to imitate the doll to the point where no one would ever be able to tell the difference between him and it, and figured out how to use the body.
He'd have to wait.
Besides, could he really do something like this?
'Well, it isn't really a child, just a simulation, which is even more evil. How dare it pretend to be a child.' He thought in anger, 'I suppose I'll have to wait on that, too.'
Wait, wait, wait, wait! That's all he fucking did!
He would have been glad if there was a way out of here.
"I just want to eat food." He said in annoyance.
Tasting food, smelling it, touching the leather of a book, touching pages of paper...all of those things were things he deeply missed. Even if he got to touch them here, they were all just fake. He wanted to be real again.
'Even if it's wrong, I want to be real again for a little bit.' He thought.
Then he would return here, he guessed.
He'd probably be satisfied with just that.
"Some hero you are!" His girlfriend's voice said. "You're just gonna give up?"
"Doing the best I can." He muttered.
"Idiot, if it's your story, you should be doing more in it, you should be more proactive. Why are you just sitting here?"
"Hey, it's not my fault I was left here to rot."
He was effectively unaware he was arguing with himself, and even more so just unaware of the fact that his thoughts could be heard.
"Crap, I'd rather be alone than to be stuck with this filthy doll."
"What makes you say it's a doll?"
"Well, obviously fiction can't become reality. That's a delusion."
"So, what do you want to do to escape this hallucination?" She asked him.
"I wanna break out of it, obviously."
"Well, then there's one thing that you have to do."
The hallucination told him what he had to do and he laughed.
"If I do that, I can break free. I can finally see my parents again and be free!"
Anything was better than being here.
And then he was interrupted.
"Aiden-niisan, could you keep it down? I'm trying to sleep." A sleepy voice intervened.
The simulation was indeed taller, though perhaps they'd learned to make holograms look like they could age. It was staring at him again.
'Quit looking so real, it's annoying.'
It almost made him reconsider whether or not he was crazy, but of course, if he believed fictional worlds existed, he was the crazy one.
"Touya," He said in annoyance.
He supposed he was jealous of the doll for being able to have siblings, even if it was fake.
Fuck, Aiden would have given anything to have siblings.
He was jealous of a child simulation?
Well, that was stupid.
At least he could feel something.
"What do you want?" He asked.
"What are you doing? You sounded like you were talking to yourself." Touya said.
Ah, talking to himself. That's almost like what he was doing right now.
"It's none of your business, why don't you go to sleep?"
Then he remembered what he needed Touya for.
"Touya...I need to ask you something."
The boy stared at him with wary eyes.
Their relationship had become strained, mainly because Touya refused to talk to him.
Even when Aiden tried to get Touya to remember things he should remember, Touya refused and fought back.
Mostly, he kept his mouth shut, because what could he do? He was just a ghost...
"Remember how you said before that you wanted to give me a body?"
Touya furrowed his brows, "I sort of remember that, but you're not real, so..."
Well, that stung.
How disgusting, this statement coming from the unreal thing.
"I'm forgetting what it's like to feel things. That's why I...want a body. Touya, I need your help."
"How?" Touya asked.
"Could you lend me your body for a little while? Maybe just five minutes." Aiden tried to wheedle him into it.
"What do you mean?" The red-haired boy looked at him in confusion.
"I guess I would just be in control of your body for a little bit. I promise that's all I would do. I just want to feel things again. I'm starting to forget what it's like to be human and it scares me." Aiden whined.
"I don't know how to do that." Touya said in finality.
"Well, there has to be a way." He said desperately.
"I don't know."
"Well, just try!" Aiden demanded.
"What will you do?"
"I'm just going to be using your body for a little bit, and then you'll have it back..."
At least, until he figured out how to get this body completely to himself.
"Okay..."
"Thanks, Touya, this means a lot."
"You haven't been here, Aiden-niisan." Touya admitted.
"I haven't missed you that much, kid."
Touya looked hurt, before he spoke. "Even Mommy is afraid of me nowadays."
"Well, if it helps, it's not your mother's fault she's afraid of Endeavor. That's scripted."
"What do you mean by scripted?" Touya asked.
God, that was irritating.
Why couldn't he just remember the plot already?
He was eight freaking years old.
Man, at this rate, the kid would never get to UA or become a hero.
He placed his hand in Touya's and for a second, he had control.
Then, he was pushed out with great force by something strong.
He gazed at Touya and then back at the blank space.
Those annoying shadows had pushed him out.
He couldn't even have a body.
"Please don't do that again, Aiden-nii, that hurt!" Touya whimpered.
"It's not like you can be real."
"You're being weird." Touya said in concern.
"I almost got to feel things again, but it's your fault! You just can't do anything, can you?"
He hated it, he hated it, he hated it!
He just wished he could wake up already and have an actual body again.
"You're crying, Aiden-nii." Touya said, stepping towards him.
"You enjoy making me suffer, don't you? You love wearing me down!"
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
"Stop torturing me! If you really cared, you'd just give me your body for a couple of minutes so I could be human again. But I guess that's too much for you to do. Have you remembered anything at all?" Aiden's voice shook.
"No, but I remember you telling me that I'm a doll and I'm fake." Touya said coldly. "So why should I trust anything you say?"
"Remember that dream you had about fire? That's how I died."
"You told me that before." Touya said in disinterest, "Why would I have your dreams?"
The kid was so obtuse.
"Go away, get out of here."
"Aiden-niisan, are you okay?"
Aiden was suddenly on top of him, wondering if he would just vanish.
Whoever was doing this to him was diabolical indeed.
"Just give me my body..." He muttered, "Give me my body, please, Touya, please..."
"No."
The word no sent him over the edge.
"No? What do you mean, no? You can't just say that to me, it's really important!"
"No, Aiden-nii, it's my body, not yours," Touya said, as he pushed him away.
"I'm sorry kid, but it's like you've been forgetting about me lately."
And he couldn't have that, after all.
"Please, Touya, just this once, can't you let me have your body?"
"I don't understand what you mean, but you're making me feel bad, so no. You're manipulating me." Touya said firmly.
At this, he snapped.
"You're the one manipulating me! This whole entire thing is fake! You're the one that's deceiving me, leading me on, trapping me in this place! I don't want to be like this! I hate this! It's your fault, everything's your fault! If only you didn't exist!" Aiden shouted.
"It's not my fault...what are you talking about?" Touya said quizzically.
At that moment, Aiden broke.
The floodgate holding back his emotions broke.
He started to cry, covering his face and falling to the ground.
"I'm so lonely...I'm so lonely. I wish there was an actual person around. I just wanted to live and they took it from me and stuck me here. It wasn't fair, I tried running, but the flames consumed me and I couldn't escape. I couldn't escape them at all, and I died."
Here he was, letting himself show emotion.
"It's okay to cry, you know. But you were just mean to me. Are you trying to make me feel bad for you, just so you can hurt me?" Touya said astutely.
He was just lonely, that's what Aiden used to excuse his behavior.
But Touya was leaving.
"I'm sorry that you died, but you said you were here to help me, so maybe you should act like it." Touya said as a parting gift.
He would have to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike.
"I'll wait until the actual moment he dies and then I'll take his body, that won't be wrong, because he'll be dead. That won't be wrong at all." Aiden said.
Wait, wasn't he supposed to stop this child from dying?
Ha ha, like this simulation could even die! It would just get erased.
'Stop acting like it's real, Aiden. It's not real.'
And yet here he was, feeling upset.
"It's just a drawing, Aiden. It's not real. It's a tool. It's an object. It's not a person. You can't humanize it. It's not a person."
'But it looked real and talked like a real person.' He thought.
Nah, the hallucinations were trying to defeat him, but he wouldn't give in.
Then, he could explore the world of this so-called reality!
"I could test one of the puppets to see whether they're real or not. If they bleed, they're real. If not, then I would know it's fake." He decided to himself.
What would he have done if he was wrong?
Well, then everything he would be working towards would be wrong.
"What am I talking about? I have to be right, there's no way in hell I could be wrong!"
After all, his parents had never told him he was wrong.
"If there's some veil that's hiding this fake world, then I'll be able to break through it and see everyone again!" He cried in joy.
"That'll be so great!"
"I'll break free! Just watch, Lizzie! I'll be back!"
That night, Touya thought he felt another presence watching him; something cold hovering around him, protectively.
Whatever it was would disappear when he got too close, however.
He liked to think he was imagining a new friend, because Aiden was no imaginary friend.
(Touya's POV is in present tense as he is the present version of Aiden, hope that clears stuff up. Mostly, you'll see Touya...)
Touya doesn't see Hawks as much as he would like to anymore.
His father insists that such things are a distraction for him and that he would be better off training alone.
True heroes do not need friends, he says.
His father insists on spending more time with him and training with him again, which of course leads to more bruises and burns.
His mother will heal him as best as she can, and whisper nice words to him.
However, she keeps being afraid of him more and more as he grows taller.
That's why he hates his reflection now.
He looks exactly like that man.
Touya already knows that man will do whatever he wants.
He knows that man wants another child with "dual quirks".
Is that even possible?
How do you have two quirks?
Then again, who is he to talk, considering he can't control his own quirk?
Sure, his control over his fire is getting better, but he keeps burning himself.
He can generate fire from other areas of his body, but his father keeps insisting he do the harder ones.
Then there's the sicknesses he seems to get.
He seems to be more vulnerable to sickness than his siblings.
All he knows is that he stays in bed longer than they do.
He wonders if it's because of his mother's core or whatever.
Natsuo is getting older and becoming more fond of his older brother.
Touya can sense that something is different in the house lately.
'Your mother is going to have another child.' Aiden's voice enters his ears.
It's the first time he has talked to Touya in quite a while.
Usually, Aiden talks to himself in a language Touya can't understand.
'Will it be a boy or a girl?' Touya eagerly thinks.
'It will be a boy.' Aiden answers back dully.
He'll have a baby brother!
Touya's not sure how he feels about it, it's another person for his father to bully and knock around.
But at the same time, he wants to help others, so he's happy that he will have a sibling.
There has to be good in the world, right?
His tutors aren't coming over as much anymore.
His father has instructed them to be much stricter towards Touya.
He tries to tell them about his abuse, but he gets brushed off.
Touya can't help but feel ignored, thrown away like a piece of garbage.
So he tries to help his siblings feel better by encouraging them.
He lets Fuyumi use her quirk when their father's not around.
He lets her make ice castles with it and she's really good at it.
"Maybe you should be a hero."
Fuyumi's eyes fill with tears. "But Daddy says my quirk is weak."
"No way, I'm sure you can become a hero, Fuyumi! You're kind, you've got a good heart, and you're strong."
"Touya can become a hero, too!"
He's not sure he can become a hero.
Maybe he should be a secret hero, like Batman.
But what kind of hero would that be?
Maybe he could do something like that.
It gives him some hope.
Lately, Aiden-niisan has been strangely evasive, indirect and cold.
Whenever Touya tells him he doesn't feel listened to, Aiden brushes him aside.
Sometimes, he's friendly.
Other times, he wants things from him.
More often than not, he's been cold.
Then came the "strange event". He'd been arguing with Aiden and Aiden had been lonely and wanted to use Touya's body for some reason.
Apparently, he thinks he could just borrow Touya's body without any problems.
It begins with little things.
He wakes up to find himself on the floor for no reason one night.
He's not supposed to leave his bed at night, father will get angry; and he does get angry.
Touya gets yelled at for leaving the room.
Dinner has been a quiet affair lately.
The family will eat silently.
His mother will smile at the other children, but otherwise avoid Touya's eyes.
When Touya talks to his mother, he looks at the floor, because he knows his mother hates his eyes.
He gets taller and looks more like father.
He hates the way his father treats his mother.
But more importantly, he has to confront someone about what is happening.
"Aiden, you've been doing something to my body, haven't you?" He accuses.
Aiden denies it, but Touya keeps his eyes open for any more funny business from him.
Being nine doesn't feel much different from being eight, but it's hard because his mother tends to distance herself from him.
He finally has a cake this time because his father is away on a mission and his mother can do things without being afraid that he will hurt her if she steps out of line.
He notices all his parents do is fight.
How can his father get away with things like this?
Society tells him that his father is a good man.
Aiden-niisan says nothing while Touya suffers, day in and day out.
Other times, he looks at him like he's an object meant to be used.
"Aiden, did you use my body?" He presses the subject again.
"It's not like you're real, anyway." Aiden says, without looking at him.
Touya looks at him in anger and decides to never speak to him again.
Sometimes, he hears him calling, but he ignores him.
He knows that what he hears from Aiden is nothing but mean words.
He doesn't need that in his life.
A few months go by and in April, he gets the news that Aiden warned him about: his mother announces that she is pregnant.
He swears to protect this child, because his siblings make life worth it.
There's no moment he treasures more than when his siblings call his name.
It's a bright spot in a life that, so far, has been very dark for Touya.
School would have at least provided him with an escape from Endeavor, but there's no escaping his father in the house.
Just like Aiden, he is everywhere.
"Simply pathetic. I hope this new child will be better than you, Touya. You can't even stand up without being overwhelmed by your flames." Endeavor growls.
"Teach me your most dangerous technique." He says.
His father refuses, stating that a weakling like him cannot expect to inherit his abilities.
"I'm glad you don't look like your worthless mother."
He can keep his blue flames out for longer periods of time, but they hurt his skin.
He just wishes his quirk didn't hurt him so much.
"You're unfit to be a hero, Touya." His father summarily states.
"Daddy, I'm gonna be a hero!" Fuyumi interjects.
"All you have is ice. How are you going to be a hero?" Endeavor sneers.
"I'll be a hero, anyway, Daddy. I wanna go to UA."
Endeavor thinks for a moment, upon seeing the fire burning in her eyes. "We'll see, keep your grades up in school."
"Yes, daddy."
For once, she has her father's approval.
However, that means she's sticking up for Father more often, which means that now they're becoming estranged.
He knows and understands why she's doing this, it's just that he wishes she would see how fake their father is.
"Touya, you okay?" The six year old was almost always near him these days.
"Why'd you tell him you wanted to be a hero?" Touya asks.
"It was to help you. I want to protect everyone." Fuyumi admits.
"I feel like you're sticking up for father."
"I still care about you, Touya."
It feels like she's trying to replace his mother for him.
His mother hasn't been in the best of mental states lately.
Touya wakes up to find himself downstairs in the middle of the night.
Endeavor yells at him and he is punished, because he can't explain why he got there.
"Aiden, did you take my body again?" He snaps.
Aiden coolly reminds him "whose body it is."
Blue flames build around Touya in the mindscape.
"How could you? I didn't let you have permission! You betrayed me and took my body when I said no! I got yelled at!"
"I don't care. I should deal with Endeavor, and I will if you give me your body."
"I can't hurt him. He's my father."
He knows that something is keeping Aiden-niisan at bay.
"Stop possessing my body." He declares.
"Don't think I will. I like it." Aiden sneers.
The next thing he knows, he's suddenly out of the mindscape.
He sees Hawks less and less, and the same hero program that wanted him so badly decides that he's worthless and can't be a hero, either.
The news crushes Touya.
He and Hawks say their sad goodbyes, although he still writes letters to him from time to time.
Then his newest brother is born.
His mother came back from the hospital and she held a little baby boy in her hands, one with hair that is both white and red.
The baby opens his heterochromatic eyes and stares at Touya.
Touya stares at the baby.
"This is Shouto Todoroki."
Shouto reaches out a stubby hand towards Touya.
Touya takes his hand and vows that he will protect Shouto with all his might.
He doesn't like how his father is looking at the infant, though.
"You will not taint my masterpiece with your weakness, Touya." Endeavor sneers.
"Touya can talk to him if he wants. That's his sibling." Mother interjects.
For that, she gets hit.
Touya often leans over the baby's crib and talks to Shouto, who will babble back.
Touya can't help but be excited that their birthdays are so close together.
It's the day before Touya's tenth birthday, after all.
'What an ugly little drawing. Someone should stamp it out.' An unwelcome pest decides to show himself.
"He's my little brother and you can't touch him." Touya says coldly.
'We'll see about that. Now, give me your body.'
"I told you already, the answer is no." Touya says in irritation.'I wanna see this thing for myself.'
The next thing he knows, Touya can't move and can't do anything. What is going on?
Aiden is using his body without his permission!
'What are you doing?' He exclaims inside his mind.
"It feels good to be alive again. Aw man, how dare you mock real babies by looking like that. I bet you're just as ugly on the inside as you are now, you abomination."
Aiden jabs Shouto.
'What are you doing?'
He watches Aiden poke his baby brother.
"Is he real? Is he gonna cry? He's disgusting. I hate him."
Baby Shouto starts to bawl.
'What are you trying to do?'
"I want to see if he's real."
Aiden returns with a sharp kitchen knife and is smiling while holding it. "I want to see whether this drawing will be ripped in half if I cut it."
'What are you talking about, that's my brother!'
"Stand aside, Touya."
His brother's screams get louder, almost like he knows it's not Touya.
'Get out of my body.'
"No way, it's my body. I'm gonna cut this disgusting thing and make it into a papier mache project."
'Go away!'
The next thing he knows, Touya is back in control and Shouto is smiling at him, as if nothing is wrong.
'That thing could see me...' He hears Aiden grumbling.
At least someone else knew he wasn't crazy.
Of course, his father had to come into the room.
(Touya had managed to hide the knife again).
Indeed, baby Shouto seems to really enjoy Touya's company.
"I hope you'll be my masterpiece." Endeavor says, where Touya can hear.
Shouto spends more time with his mother.
Touya is glad because it means less of her mistaking him for Endeavor.
"Mom, it's just me." He says to her one day, when she has shot her quirk at him again.
"Oh god, Touya." She says.
By the time she realizes her mistake, Touya has left the room, rubbing his cold shoulder and neck from where the ice had hit.
She does find him and hug him.
He lets her.
'I wish Dad would go away forever...' He thinks.
'I wish you would go away forever.' Aiden says in his head.
He can't believe Aiden tried to take him over just to kill someone like that.
"How could you do that? You don't have the right to take my body."
"I'm surprised you know such big words." Aiden mocks.
"I'm not gonna let you do what you want."
"Hm, listen here, you exist to do as I say." Aiden says condescendingly.
"Don't ever threaten my little brother again." Touya says.
"Ooh, do you think you're a threat?" Aiden taunts.
"You're just a voice in my head and you're dead. I'm not sorry, because you've never been nice to me. I don't like you." Touya declares.
"I don't like you, either." Aiden agrees for once.
"Then why don't you leave?" Touya asks.
"Because I can't."
"I command you to go away."
"Fine."
Aiden stops interfering for a while, which is nice, because he needs a break from his bullshit.
His tenth birthday is here and gone.
His quirk is getting more powerful.
All seems well with the world.
Shouto seems to be growing bigger and bigger.
Surely Aiden can't have that much malice in his heart.
"I was foiled...I was foiled...I was foiled...I will have his body if it's the last thing I do!" Aiden hisses in Touya's mind.