"Hey, Peppermint Swirl."
When the familiar voice called out to him, Shouto glanced back.
It was Kimura. Standing a little behind him, looking slightly concerned.
"You alright? You look..." She searched for the right word, then sighed and gave up using her mother tongue. "Well, tired."
Shouto turned fully to face her. The black-haired girl still has that Lauren crown braid on her head, which seems utterly unaffected by the competitions, but part if her sleeve was burnt off, which further reminded him of how he used his fire.
"I'm fine." He replied. "And when you see Midoriya, please tell him that I want to talk to him."
The girl looked startled, and the worry on her face deepened. "Todoroki..."
"Accompany him if you wish. I don't care." He added, she already knows that his relationship with that bastard is strained, it wouldn't hurt for her to know why.
"Alright, " the girl replied, and turned around, beginning to walk away. He looked at her back, and recalled the golden light from her quirk, and those from Midoriya, and All Might.
"Kimura—" he called out as a crazy thought crossed his mind, but stopped as the girl turned around with her golden eyes.
"...Nevermind." He shook his head, and the girl smiled, jogging off to find her friends.
He walked towards the backstage, hoping to clear his head. What was he thinking, Kimura as All Might's child? He's already crazy enough to even consider that Midoriya is fathered by All Might, from how often the man finds those two it might just be the case. Not to mention, Kimura's eyes are golden, and having met her mother he knows that her eyes must've come from her father. All Might's eyes are blue, for god's sake.
He stopped near the students and staff's exit, and leaned against the wall.
"Todoroki." He looked up.
It's Midoriya. A little behind him stood Kimura, who nodded and left to give them some privacy.
"So... What is it, that you want to talk about?"
Akemi never left. All she did was turn a corner. She leaned against a wall nearby and listened in.
"Hey, is we don't hurry, the cafeteria will probably be really crowded... Um..."
She gave a quiet chuckle as she heard Izuku gulp, and tilted her head to listen better.
"I was overpowered."
Her smile dropped at Todoroki's tone.
"So much that I broke my pledge."
His pledge? Did he mean... Akemi's mind faced back to the instant he used his flames. The fire.
"Whether it's Iida, Kaminari, Tokoyama, Yaoyorozu or Uraraka, they didn't feel it." Todoroki continued, "At that last instant, I was the only one who was overpowered. Only me, who had experienced All Might's full power up close."
Ohhh boy. He's figuring that out.
"And... What does that... Means?"
Play dumb. Good play.
"It means I felt something similar coming from both of you."
Akemi started.
"Both...?"
Both... Okay. The light. Oh my God. She almost smacked her head against that wall. She'll need to work on that, huh?
"Midoriya, are you and Kimura..."
"All Might's secret love child or something?"
Wot.
Pfffttttt.
Akemi thinks she broke a rib or two while holding in a laugh. But she couldn't have since broken ribs hurt much worse and don't she know it. She took in deep breaths to calm herself as Izuku fretted around at the idea of being All Might's kid and her brother, saying that "that isn't it" and "that's not how it is" oh my God Izu you're so bad at lying.
"But... Let me ask you a question first." Izuku finally calmed down, "why did you think of that? About me and... And Akemi?"
"... Since you said 'that's not how it is', that means there's a connection between you three that you can't talk about, right?"
There was a long silence.
And finally, it was Peppermint who sighed and broke it.
"My father is Endeavor. I'm sure you know that he's been stuck as the no. 2 hero for forever." Todoroki's tone turned darker, "If you have something from the no. 1 hero, then I have even more reason to beat you."
"My old man has a strong desire to rise in the world. And as a hero, he won a name for himself with a crushing force. Because of that, the living legend, All Might, is a great eyesore to him."
"Since he couldn't surpass All Might, he moved onto his next plan."
Akemi trembled.
Geikyō is the same.
He wanted power. He wanted fame and power and respect he couldn't get in the creative industry. He wanted more and so he won over mother with his charisma. Then he wanted even more power. Ones that neither the creative industry nor the trading industry can give him. So she became his next piece. The next vital piece in his living game of chess.
Todoroki's father... She doesn't like how this sounds.
"W...what're you talking about, Todoroki-kun?" Izuku's voice trembled, "please don't tell me... Your father..."
Please don't...
"Quirk Marriages."
No. Akemi slid down against the wall, eyes wide.
"You've heard of them, right?"
Akemi hugged her knees tight.
"That thing that became a problem for the second and third generation after superpowers appeared. To chose a spouse based on strengthening your quirk and passing it onto your children, forcing people into marriage. The old fashioned way of thinking bought about by lack of ethics."
Akemi stifled a sob.
"He is a man of both accomplishment and money."
He is renowned and has decent wealth.
"He won over my mother's relatives and got a hold of my mother's quirk."
He won over mum with his charisma and dedication for his work, and gained the status of one of the heirs to the Hayashi Financial Group.
"He is trying to fulfil his own desire by raising me to be a hero that surpass All Might."
After gaining mum's wealth she was born. And he wanted more power. Power beyond these two industries and Akemi became his tool.
"It's frustrating..."
It hurts.
"I won't become the tool of a scum like that."
She'll never become his marionette.
"In my memories, my mother is always crying."
When her quirk didn't come, father exploded.
"'Your left side is unsightly, ' my mother said as she poured boiling water on me."
He screamed and roared and threw her down the stairs. With a gash from her shoulder down her arm, with broken ribs she was left in the cold, dark basement late in winter, bleeding out.
"Basically, I picked a fight with him to show him what I can do."
She began to climb to become precisely what he wants.
"Without using my damned old man's quirk... no."
She'll become what he ever wanted and more...
"I'll reject him completely by winning first place without using it."
And destroy him completely after becoming that.
Akemi trembled.
Same.
They're... They're basically the same. But... Todoroki never had his mother.
Peppermint never had people to support him.
He never found his 'Hibiki'. Never found a person who can catch him. Who can save him? Like she did. He never did.
A sob wrecked her body as the memories of standing at the edge of the roof came back, memories of bleeding out in the washroom came back and she glanced down at the single white scar on her right wrist, the one Hibiki shared with her on her left one.
She remembered fearing what'll happen if she refused to go down his path, what'll happen to not her, but Kōki.
What'll happen if he feels like Kōki is stronger, and decided to make her into his piece instead?
She turned her head and watched as Todoroki walked out.
"I don't care if you can't tell me how you two are connected to All Might." Akemi's head whipped up and she began to climb to her feet. "No matter what the two of you are to him, I'll rise above you with just my left side." He sighed slightly, and Akemi hesitated. "Sorry for wasting your time."
She can't.
Running out before she knew what she was doing. Akemi reached him and grabbed his arm. Todoroki looked back, surprised to see her, and even more surprised to see her crying.
"I—" her voice closed up, "I'm sorry I never thought- I never thought-"
"I never though you might be the same."
Shouto stopped.
The same?
Kimura, who still laugh and mess with her classmates, the same?
She let go of his sleeve, and looked back towards Midoriya, who looked between them with understanding and nodded.
"We need to talk." She finally spoke, and pulled him along.
Several minutes later Shouto found himself sitting a little behind the treeline, his lunch in his lab as Akemi quietly stirred the rice in her own.
Then she spoke.
She talked quietly and Shouto listened in silence as she told him her life before she met that white-haired friend of hers, Ueno. As she told her the night of terror she faced, laying in the basement, bleeding out and barely breathing from a punctured lung.
And when she finished, Shouto knew she was right.
They really are similar, aren't they? Used and abused for power and glory. Treated as tools and pieces in a chess game.
"... I'm..." He opened his mouth, thinking that he should probably say something but couldn't. "We really are similar, aren't we?"
"I guess." Kimura answers, sniffling a little. She had started crying when she told him about her sister, how that man threatened to lay a hand on Kimura Kōki. She leaned back against the trunk and pushed her lunch off her lap, hugging her knees.
He finally reached out and gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. The girl looked up, and smiled a little, before she grabbed her fork and began stabbing the piece of chicken again.
"... I know it's a rather inappropriate timing. But why are you stabbing the chicken?"
"I'm trying to vent."
"How so?"
"By imagining that the chicken is my 'gene donor's scrotum."
Despite the depressing mood that filled the air just a while ago, Shouto laughed.
Please RnR for more Shouto Akemi bonding moments!
