Four days earlier…
"Shoto! Be careful! The-" Endeavor stopped mid-sentence. Dabi. What was Dabi doing here? Well, these were villains. He knew that. But why did he waltz out in the middle of the fight? Why did he seem so calm and relaxed… so collected but also so intense?
Then came the show. Dabi's smile was the widest they'd ever seen. Tension tugged at his grafts, drawing blood in a few places. This whole fight had been hell anyway, right? Why not go all out. Tell the truth. Bring him down once and for all.
"I'm surprised you haven't recognized me like this." Dabi stood there, just a few feet away from both Shoto and Endeavor. "Oh, Shoto. From this angle, you still look so small."
Todoroki grit his teeth as eyes narrowed and fists clenched. Frost licked his right arm, and flames burned on the left. He was ready to jump at a second's notice. Dabi always called him by his name. Why? Recognize him? Shoto couldn't afford this distraction. His attention was already divided enough. He and his father were trying to save their skin while, seconds ago, he'd witnessed Bakugo go down at Midoriya's defense. Shoto and Endeavor needed to get to them. Another attack like that, and they might die. Of course, this moment was when Dabi chose to make his grand show.
"All this time, you were looking right at me, but you never saw," Dabi began to spin, arms outstretched as fire crawled up them. "You weren't looking." The fire dissipated, and his hand dipped back into his coat.
What he pulled out next appeared to be hair dye remover or some sort of bleach. Why would Dabi need that? What was this all about?
The half-crazed villain stopped when he was facing the father-son pair again. That killer smile on his face shrunk to a wild smirk. "Well, if you can't see it," blue eyes flared, "I'll give you a clue."
Where black hair once was, white began to peek through. Darkness faded from that hair, one section after another as realization began to dawn on Shoto and Enji both. Fire. Scars. Eyes. Fighting style. Face shape. And that hair.
"Watch your step, Shoto." The warm voice of his eldest brother rang between his ears.
Shoto, age four, was already being forced to train at his brother's side. They'd run their drills from sunrise until the point both boys felt like collapsing. In their home, collapsing was worse than continuing; collapsing meant weakness. It wasn't allowed, wasn't tolerated, and the cost far outweighed the benefits.
Today? Today, Shoto collapsed.
Fiery rage had exploded from the so-called father in the corner, orange flashing brightly for a mere second before Toya leaned down to pick him up.
"You have to watch your step."
Positioned between Shoto and Enji, Toya Todoroki stood as a barrier. Though damaged from endless drills with his quirk, one arm was out in front of the younger boy. His eyes were bright. The strength in his stance was undeniable. Toya wasn't letting Enji anywhere near their baby brother.
"He fell. He'll be fine." Sweat beaded at his forehead, but he kept speaking. "Leave him be."
Hatred. It was the hatred in those eyes of a once-beloved champion son turned down for the brighter younger brother that Enji Todoroki recognized in Dabi this day.
They both knew.
"... Toya?" Enji said it first.
Shoto couldn't breathe. His entire world froze as he stared at his older brother. No. No, it couldn't be. How did this happen? How did he never know? Despite pain and swelling from the fight that had already occurred, Blue and grey eyes were wide. No.
Dabi stood there, hands hanging at his sides as flames began to lick their way across skin and scars once more.
"You miss your son, Endeavor? I hear you're trying the good father thing out for a spin. If that's the case, let's go see him in hell together."
Dabi flew at his father, a raging blue inferno, as Endeavor's flames grew to match. Red and blue swirled and hissed as Toya screamed. He screamed in his rage for everything he'd been through.
Shoto knew that pain.
Endeavor dodged and held back in sudden fear of hurting his son.
Shoto wasn't surprised he did. Endeavor was changing. Slowly, but he was.
The budding hero of fire and ice could do nothing but stare. When he should be able to run, he froze in place. The world began to slow silently around him. This moment was the culmination of fear, rage, regret, anguish, and tension. This moment held everything in the balance. Who would live, who would die, and what part would he play in all of this?
KACCHAAAN!"
His friends.
Blue and red raged behind Todoroki as he looked in the direction of his friend's cry. Deku was holding the broken body of Bakugo as the villain swooped in for yet another attack. An attack like that would take both of them out.
In front of him, his friends were on the verge of losing their lives. His brother and father were fighting to the death behind him.
He had one shot; one choice.
Midoriya … "It's YOUR QUIRK"
Endeavor … "I swear I'll be someone you can be proud of, too. Not just as the number one hero, but as the man you call father."
Bakugo … "FIGHT HARDER, DAMMIT!"
Toya … "Poor little Shoto Todoroki."
Shoto.
Shoto was no longer just a name given by his parents upon his birth. This name was, as Midoriya would so often say, the name of a hero. A hero puts others first. Stop a fight between his father and brother or save his friends?
He chose the latter.
Shoto Todoroki set his hand to the ground and shot ice up in a shield around Midoriya and Bakugo. In a flash, he used his flames to project him there, swoop in, force his classmates out of the line of fire.
"Huh?" Izuku looked up at Todoroki as he forced them towards the nearby buildings. "Shoto?"
"Go." He lit his fire on his arms up bright. "Take him to safety, Midoriya."
The young green-haired hero hesitated. He, too, had to make a decision. But there was no time.
A giant hand came crashing through the ice, just grazing past the pair. That was all it took. Izuku gathered Bakugo in his arms and hobbled off, running for cover.
Turning over his shoulder, Todoroki jumped into the fray, fire and ice shooting off in different directions. He wasn't able to take this man alone. There was no way. He needed help, but the only support was that of his father, who was busy trying not to burn into oblivion at the moment. Maybe this was it. Perhaps this was how the tragedy of the Todoroki name came to an end. Wouldn't that be something? His father, Toya, and himself at the end of it all?
A cry of determination erupted from the pits of his soul. Ice slammed into the enemy, but he merely burst through. He'd never give up. He'd never give in. They were his family.
Just then, things began to levitate around him. A force of wind brushed past him. Electricity jolted towards the creature before him— his classmates.
Uraraka, Iida, Kaminari. He wasn't alone.
"Todoroki! GO!" Iida yelled as the group jumped into the fight.
"Yeah, we've got this!"
"Go kick some butt!"
Shoto skidded to a stop on his ice, hair falling around his face. Thanks to his friends, He could return to his family. He might stop this. In a flash of ice and fire, he launched himself back in the direction of his father and brother. He couldn't stand by and watch them die.
What was there, however, was much more blue than orange. Dabi was killing him. He could see the burning flesh and fire in the souls of two men. Endeavor's skin was already turning black in several places. Dabi, even with his burns, was quite literally coming apart at the seams.
No. He wouldn't allow this.
"I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE US ALONE," Dabi screamed as he wrestled with the already exhausted hero. Blue flames shot off his arms into the face of Endeavor.
"Ngh. To- Toya…" Endeavor turned his face away from the flames, doing all he could to resist as his skin began to almost melt under the heat of Dabi's quirk.
"TOYA IS DEAD." He spun around using the entire force of his body and elbowed endeavor in the nose with another burst of blue flame. "You KILLED him."
Endeavor collapsed to the ground, head hanging low with his hands on the broken pavement. He could barely see. One eye seemed to have been burnt so bad it wouldn't open. The other showed him only a mere sliver of the world.
The world he saw was one of flame, flesh, blood, and darkness. The darkness inside of him was now standing over him in the form of his eldest son. If Toya kept this up, they'd both die.
It was what Toya intended.
Dabi's body ached and groaned as flames kicked up again. Brighter. Hotter. Faster than any level of power he'd manifested in his life.
"NOW IT'S YOUR TURN!"
Shoto jumped.
Just as years ago, Toya had jumped in front of him to save him from their father's wrath, Shoto jumped in now.
You see, it was still their father's wrath that caused Toya to burn into a billowing inferno. That wrath had been passed on to him, a torch they all had to bear.
"TOYA NO!"
It happened so quickly.
Toya grabbed his younger brother, hands still blazing hot, and shot him aside with that inferno. Shoto's flames were hot, but Toya's had always been more intense. Not even his own body could handle it. Shoto didn't stand a chance against those fully-fledged flames. He held nothing back. Just as his skin burned, so would Shoto's. Uraraka, Iida, and Kaminari could hear Todorki's cries from miles away as his flesh melted.
Todoroki held onto consciousness for only a few seconds. But those seconds were vital.
He watched, you see.
He lay on the ground in a pile of rubble and watched as his brother grabbed his father's face and burned them both into nothing but ash.