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"..Momo is pregnant", Shouto dropped casually, like he hadn't just said that his wife was pregnant.
Then again, maybe it was casual. They'd been married two years, after all. But Shouto's red cheeks said something else entirely, even as he ate soba with his brother (yes, WITH, there was just an transparent wall separating them, and both of them were eating soba.)
"She is? How far along?", Touya asked, his throat hoarse. He'd gotten better, with the help of some quirks and, well, Endeavour's money. Mechanical arms, skin surgeries and all of that. His psych room-jail was nice enough, but only because he'd behaved himself the last time someone accidently opened the gates and let every manic prisoner out (long story).
He had somehow been proven to be crazy (not to lie, he had been), and gotten this nice room in a dangerous criminal psych ward. He had a bed, a private washroom, food and water; his family visited whenever they could (and Keigo, for some reason) what else could he need, being as burnt out(literally) as he was?
"A month. They said she'll have to take leave by month four, because being a hero is dangerous. Not that I mind.", Shouto mumbled, slurping his soba.
"Why are you here, Shouto? She's pregnant, isn't she?", Touya asked, one eyebrow raised.
"She's with our 1-A female friends.. and also Camie and Mei and Nejire and..others. They're doing a girls' sleepover. They suddenly came over after hearing the pregnancy news."
"And kicked you out.", Touya clarified.
"No-...yes.", he admitted.
Touya sighed. "Good for you, congrats and everything."
He was silent. That was okay. There'd been days where he came over with soba, they ate, and he left without saying a word. That was just Shouto being Shouto, Touya had come to learn. He didn't feel awkwardness, that idiot.
"I'm worried.", he suddenly said. Touya turned to him, waiting for him to say something. When he didn't, he patiently asked "Elaborate, Shouto?".
Shouto put down his empty bowl. "What if.. I end up like him? I don't.. I wouldn't want any child to go through that."
Touya almost choked at the thought and started laughing. Shouto looked at him, confused. When Touya finally stopped, he tried to sound serious.
"Say Shouto, did you marry Yaoyorozu for her quirk?"
"What? No. I love her, that's why I married her.", Shouto said, sounding offended. The guts for him to say 'i love her' out loud.., Touya thought fondly.
"Then, do you want your kid to surpass Dynamight or something?", Touya asked.
"No, not unless they want to. I'd be okay with it if they didn't want to become a hero.. that would be better, actually. But it's their choice in the end."
"Do you think you could bring yourself to force your- no, scratch that-any kid to work out at a young age or isolate them?"
Shouto shivered visibly. "I-I don't think I could ever."
I nodded. "You couldn't. Because you have a heart. And you aren't obsessed with surpassing anyone. You couldn't do that, because you're too kind for your own good."
He tilted his head like a cat.
You're not like me or Enji or even Natsu and Mom. You're like Fuyumi, and you're still kinder, Touya thought. "Someone like you couldn't hurt an innocent kid if they could help it.", he told him, pointing his chopsticks at Touya's nose.
"I'm not that kind, you know?", he muttered.
"So? All I know is that you wouldn't hurt a kid even if they set your house on fire and that's something. So don't be an idiot and doubt yourself.", Touya said through his full mouth. Wow, my hand hurts. I guess this is a lesson: don't burn yourself alive, kids. Hey, maybe I am a good person after all.
Shouto fell silent again. He only spoke again when Touya was on his last bite.
"You know, if I could, I would hug you right now.", he said, also, casually. Touya quietly sent a message through his mind, kid, go ahead and inherit anything from your dad, but don't be as dense or dry as this idiot, okay? .
"Aww, sweet. Last time we hugged I was trying to burn you to death, by the way.", Touya said, licking his lips, though he genuinely felt bad about it.
Shouto just nodded. "We have hugged before. That was nice.", he said.
Touya choked on air. "How was that nice? I was trying to kill you!"
Shouto thought about if for a while. "The thought behind it was nice."
"What thoughts are you talking about??"
-
The phone that Shouto was pointing towards Touya showed a picture of a baby. She, apparently, was looking at something with startling blue eyes- like one of Shouto's, not Touya's- and red hair. She looked adorable.
"Cute, I guess. What are you two naming her?", Touya asked. Shouto was smiling, which was rare even when he was happy.
Shouto looked up at him with an unreadable expression. "We haven't really decided.. but we were thinking of something that means 'wisteria'."
"Yeah? Why specifically wisteria?", Touya asked, curious.
Shouto shrugged. "It's May. Both of us like wisteria flowers. And it's a pretty baby name. I think we're torn between 'Fujiko' or 'Touka'."
"You think..", Touya mumbled, exasperated.
"I don't know. We might change our minds.", Shouto said, just as he finished his bowl- first again.
Touya looked at his face with absolute disbelief. "Sho.. she's twelve days old already. You have to name her before the fourteenth day."
Shouto blinked his eyes. "We do?"
Touya groaned.
(They ended up choosing Touka.)
-
Touya was trying to sleep. It was 3 at night.
"Touya-nii?"
He was trying to sleep. It was 3 at night, for gods' sake! How was Shouto even there legally?
(Was he there legally? Touya was pretty sure he heard the window on the other side of his room open and shut.
"Nii-san?"
Touya sat up with a groan, annoyed, thinking, this better be an emergency if he called me nii-san.
Shouto was crouched down, facing the glass, wearing casual clothes- a button-up grey shirt and what looked like ordinary leggings. His hair was disheveled, and he still looked nice enough.
Just when Touya was about to shoo him away, he noticed that his brother was a bowl of soba, and he'd slid another under the little food tray slot. That one was steaming hot. If Touya had one weakness, it was soba.
"Why are you here at 2 a.m., Shouto?", he asked, going over to pick up the soba. Shouto was wearing his perfect poker face, but Touya was getting better at deciphering it. His eyes were just a little twitchy, he was biting his inner lips, and he was a bit more hesitant in his actions, which meant something was bugging him.
"Tou-chan got her quirk a week ago and I wanted to talk to you about something, but I was busy with work, so I thought I could come at night.", he answered straightforwardly.
"She did?", Touya mumbled. "What is it?", though he had a pretty good guess.
"Fire.", Shouto said.
Touya winced internally, though he didn't exactly get why. Fire was okay. Shouto had fire and ice. (Touya had fire. Enji had fire. Fire was..? okay.)
"Her resistance is high. The doctor said it's higher than mine. She's practically immune."
"That's good.", Touya said, a bit of his relief seeping through his voice.
Shouto nodded. "Yes. A few strands of her hair is turning white now. And today, she used blue flames with normal fire."
Touya turned to Shouto with shock. "Are you serious? Blue flames as in.. like my quirk Blueflame?"
He didn't mention that his own hair had turned full on white from red. It was probably different for Touka. No way it wasn't
Shouto nodded, a bit reluctant. "It's called Prism Fire. Different kinds of flames. Dr. Iyashi said that she's going to develop more kinds of flames."
"Different kinds? Where did that come from?", Touya choked out.
Shouto shrugged. "Iyashi-san said that its like 'creating' more flames. I don't get it though."
Touya tried to relax. He was over the shock. It wasn't that shocking that her quirk was fire, even though Touya had expected ice. Blue flames was shocking though.
Shouto was looking at him like he really wanted to say something. Why he never said anything without being asked to, Touya would never understand. "What are you worried about?"
"Are you dead?", Shouto blurted out.
It was so sudden that after two seconds of shocked silence, Touya burst out laughing.
"What-", he asked, trying to contain his laughing, because his eyes were burning, "What makes you think that? I'm right in front of you, you know?"
Shouto looked confused as to why Touya was laughing (clueless idiot), but he still replied.
"I was talking to nee-san about it. She said that when you were little, you had red hair, which turned white. She said that your fire was normal at first. So I thought, maybe you died and got reincarnated as Tou-chan.. but if you did not die four years ago, it ruins my theory. So maybe you're a fake. And Toga is alive. Maybe she took all your blood-"
"I can assure you," Touya said, smiling and holding up a hand, "that I'm Touya, through and through, okay? It's just genes."
Shouto looked disappointed.
"Is that why you were worried?", Touya asked.
Shouto paused, then nodded. Touya sighed.
"What have you been watching?", he asked.
Shouto flinched. "What makes you think I've been watching something?"
Touya raised an eyebrow.
Shouto gave him a defeated look. "That Time I Got Reincarnated As My Idol's Child... don't give me that look. It's about a girl."
(Touya judged him the whole night, which they spent quietly slurping soda. It was peaceful.)
-
Touya, in contrast to other crazy patients, got a lot of visitors.
Every morning, Enji came to have breakfast with him, just talking about general things.
Fuyumi came on weekends with amazing food and souvenirs that she'd put into a duffel bag right on the other side of the wall ("just a few more years of good behavior and they'll let you take inspected souvenirs, Touya!", she'd say, and her smile was too bright for him to remind her that maybe she was being too forgiving)
Natsuo came whenever he was free- which was always in the evening, and he visited at least twice a week, usually with medical books to have Touya ask him question. It had been years and he still never stopped studying- Touya could never.
Shouto visited whenever he was free, too, and his visits had become lesser since the birth of his second kid, Toki, but he still visited a whole lot.
Keigo Takami or Hawks was another one of Touya's visitors. He'd lost his quirk permanently now, but considering that Touya very clearly remembered burning his wings and feeling extremely gleeful at the time, he had no idea why. He came occasionally- once a month or so, and awkwardly ranted about how his life was going as Touya tried to contemplate why he was there, and then leave.
As for Spinner and Sako-san (formerly Mr. Compress), while Dabi would never admit it, he did miss them a bit, but former villains contacting other former villains is blah blah blah safety politics shit.
A couple times, Uravity visited too, just to give him his 'i dont approve of your actions but.. tell me about toga, pwease blink blink and even though I wasn't here for her im glad u were hehehe' . Touya resented her a little, because if it weren't for her.. well, he knows he shouldn't wish death on people, but if it weren't for her that lunatic would be alive.
(Touya had cried for Himiko, though he'd never admit it. He missed that little maniac, no matter how much he'd deny it.)
Anyways, that was besides the point. The point was.. Touya got a lot of visitors.
But never had he ever been visited by an eight year old girl.
She had straight red hair, (which were loosely tied in a back pony) with a few stands of white, familiar, startling light blue eyes that looked like they carried the stars and a smile that Touya had only ever seen in photos. He recognized her from pictures because this.. this was his nine year old niece, Touka Todoroki.
First thought? She's even more adorable in real life! (the Toga in him squealed)
Second thought? THE FUCK?
Currently, she was carefully setting down a big box on the big white cushion chair for visitors.
"Kid..", Touya said cautiously, once he composed himself a bit, "what the hell are you doing here?"
Touka turned to him with a 'oh' and a big smile.
"Hi, Touya-ojisan! I'm Touka, your brother Shouto and Creati's daughter! My quirk is Prism Fire, which allows me to create-"
"I know all that. Why.. why are you here, alone especially? It can't be legal for you to come in like this-"
"Oh, I used the window. Gosh, I had to pay my little brother Toki 500 yen so he'd make me this grappling hook gun. It's not legal, but as Katsuki-ojisan always says- it doesn't have to be legal so long as its safe for everyone around you.", Touka said, playing with a grappling hook gun as she said it.
Touya stared at her.
"Ohh, you mean how I came here without asking Mom and Dad? Well, Touya-ojisan, I have cooking class after school- which I really love- and just a few days ago, Aunt Fuyu was talking about how me and you are very alike, right? So I asked her if you were dead. And she gasped and said 'no, of course not', and eventually I got her to spill that I have a cool jailer former villain uncle. And I knew which facility she was talking about, because it's five minutes from my school, so I thought 'why not visit him?' , so I told Koharu, who is my best friend and can turn into a puppy, if she could cover for me if I went to visit you when twenty minutes were left- because that's usually the time when Miss Yakiyama tastes our food and stuff. So after two days of planning, I'm here to have you eat my cooking- god, now that I'm looking at you those are some burns, huh?", she mumbled.
Touya could feel her aura change from "success" to "curious", and the fact that she wasn't scared creeped him out . She then casually pulled out a magnifying glass and stuck it against the wall, as if examining his burns, mumbling things.
Well, at least god listened to some things he prayed to him about, because he definitely didn't listen to him on the dense part.
"Kid. Don't you know you're not supposed to be here?", Touya asked after a while. Touka shrugged happily, putting down the magnifying glass.
"Don't be a buzzkill, ojisan. I just wanna know more about you."
"Why?", he deadpanned.
"Because a while ago I asked mom if you're a bad guy and she said that the world isn't black and white, there's a lot of grey in it. I wanna see if you're closer to cloud grey or charcoal grey.", she explained straightforwardly.
He raised his eyebrows. "So I'm your test subject?"
She paused, and then smiled again, nodding. "Possibly."
Touya was starting to like this kid.
(Not that he'd let his niece do illegal things...)
-
Touya told her several times not to come back, but after a week? He just gave up. Why, you may ask?
Firstly, she brought delicious food to him everyday. Secondly, she'd threatened him not to tell anyone, so if anyone found out, he could blame it on the kid.
Today, for one, she brought a fluffy sponge cake covered with chocolate ganache and topped with M&Ms, so he finally dropped the question.
"You want to be a chef when you grow up, kid?", he asked, eating his slice.
She smiled, but shook her head, much to his dismay.
"Nope! It's a hobby. I want to be a hero. I want to be someone people rely on.", she told him. He felt a thread of anxiety in his mind, because the Hero Society wasn't exactly...
Touka was nine, but she was very smart- gifted, even. She skipped a grade, for one. Touya hoped if he told her, she'd change her mind.
"You know, the Hero Society is a bit corrupted. There are heroes and most of them mean well, but the society itself isn't so clean slated. They use you, change you and then throw you away like trash."
Touka looked up at her uncle, thinking.
"Then I will fix the society. Hawks-san is doing that already, isn't he? I'll swoop in there, and fix everything I can one by one.", she replied finally.
Touya turned to her, eyebrows furrowed. "Some things are impossible to fix, Touka."
Her eyes widened a bit, but her smile returned even as she quietly sat eating her cake. He hoped that meant she wouldn't want to be a hero anymore.
"Ojisan", she called, "why did you become a villain?"
"For revenge. Against your grandfather.", he answered simply.
"Yes? You did it for your cause. You did it to teach him a lesson- you did it to teach the world a lesson. That's the true reason why you told the public about him." Someone did her research, he thought.
"I did that to publicly humiliate him. Because I hated him.", Touya stated.
"So you say~", the redhead hummed.
"What are you trying to prove?", he asked irately.
"I'm trying to say that villains aren't born villains, and no villain is completely villain. They do what they think is right, or what they think someone deserves, or what they want to do. They follow their own cause. The Hero Society does what they think will be good for our country. Nobody really thinks what they're doing is wrong, even if outwardly they say that they know they're wrong. To them, they're right."
Touya narrowed his eyes. "That's some philosophically shit talk for a nine year old."
Touka rolled her eyes. "What I mean is that.. if I want to be a hero in the future.. I know what my cause is. It's to save people, to make them feel safe around me. And you bet it's not going to change!", she said enthusiastically, winking an eye.
"There's no changing your mind, huh?", Touya asked, giving in. If there was no chance, he wasn't going to force her. He didn't have the right to push further.
She shook her head gleefully.
The room was silent for a while, which was odd. It was normal with Shouto, but with Touka.. in the past two weeks she came, the longest she went without talking was fifteen seconds. This time, she broke the record to seventeen.
"Didn't you want to be a hero too, Touya-san?", she asked. (Touya-san, he noted, not Touya-ojisan) She didn't hit him with any personal questions, even though he wouldn't mind answering them.
"I did.", he answered, as simply as she asked.
She hummed along, quiet for another few seconds. "And did you ever think of a hero name?"
Touya shrugged. "A bit. I thought of stuff in japanese. Then I realized it should be more western if I want to get popular."
"What was your final decision?"
He chuckled lightly. "I wouldn't call it final, but at the time, I liked the sound of Inferno."
Because it was similar to dad, and yet not exactly like his, so I wasn't taking away his spotlight- even if I could. It sounded like Touya Todoroki, Endeavour's son that he was so proud of., the smaller Touya inside him said.
"Yeah? What do you like now?", she asked.
Touya looked at her, puzzled. She was looking at him with great interest.
"If you could have been a hero and became one, what would you have chosen?", she elaborated.
He thought about it for a moment. "Spectrum, maybe."
"Spectrum? Why?"
Touya smiled his manic smile. "My quirk is beautiful as it is deadly, kid."
"Wow, your villain smile is showing.", she deadpanned.
"I'm not.", he said, suppressing his smile and looking at her, bored.
She rolled her eyes again, but stopped mid. Her eyes went on the wallclock and then back at me.
"I have to go home, or dad will start bawling his eyes out. Bye, Ojisan.", she said, before hopping out of the window. Touya shouted a "be careful" after her.
(When she didn't come as early the next day, he had to admit that he felt a little worried.)
-
"Macaroons!", Touka greeted. She slid a paper plate down with exactly two macarons, and then proceeded to eat the rest herself. Touya didn't mind, honestly. Eating sweet things was nice, but eating solid things felt horrible on his burns. Still, Touka's desserts were worth it.
"Afternoon, kid.", Touya greeted her back and took a bite. The macaroons tasted like chocolate and.. was that peanut butter?
(He liked them.)
-
"Ojisan, what's your favorite colour?", Touka asked, drawing something on a white paper. Art homework, she said.
"Black, I guess. Why ask?", he asked, sipping his smoothie.
She held up a drawing of Touya dressed in full black with black hair. He looked emo.
Touya raised his eyebrows. "Homework, Tou-chan."
Touka rolled her eyes. "Fine, Mom."
(She drew another picture of him with her, except she was a queen in it and Touya was he servant. It was so childish Touya almost died from laughter.)
-
"Happy birthday, kid.", Touya wished, casually eating his cake.
Touka tilted her head. "You remembered?"
"I have nothing to do but remember things."
She didn't say anything snarky or taunting, to his surprise.
"Koharu's grandma died a few days ago, so she forgot. I didn't tell her because it would be insensitive. I didn't want to celebrate without her, so I told mom not to make a big deal of it. She still insisted on cake and gifts, though.", she said instead.
Touya looked over at her, expression unchanging. "You really care about Koharu, huh?"
Touka nodded, her lip quivering. "She's my best friend. Last year, she managed to convince to whole class to throw a surprise party for me. And she's the sweetest. I can miss a birthday to comfort her. She and her grandma were really close, after all."
He sighed. "That doesn't mean you have to be completely okay with it, you know?"
She tilted her head. "What do you mean? I can do her one favor.. she'd do the same."
"You can. It doesn't mean you can't be hurt at all, that she of all people forgot your birthday."
"Her.. her grandmoth-"
"Died. She's grieving. Just because a person is grieving doesn't mean they'd be right in neglecting you. They need time, but you have the right to feel hurt."
Touka was silent. Record broken to forty seconds.
"Thank you, Touya-san."
(That day was silent. Touka left, but not before leaving more of her cake behind.)
-
"I want a hug, Ojisan.", Touka suddenly said, barging in.
Touya was used to a lot of things. This wasn't one of them.
"I'm locked up here? Hello?", he said, waving his hands.
"Well I don't know! Say that you're hugging me or something or I'm going to combust into flames RIGHT HERE.", she shouted.
"Er... I'm hugging you?", he mumbled, a bit unsure.
She sighed and smiled. "Yeah, okay. Mom called me home early today, so bye!"
(Touya never found out what that was about.)
-
"Whose your favorite hero, Touya-ojisan?", Touka asked as she fixed the icing on the cake she made for her mother's birthday.
"No offense to Shouto, but Uravity.", he said.
"Ochako-obasan? Why so? I thought if it wouldn't be dad, it'd be Kamiji-san", she wondered.
"Not answering that.", Touya said. Touka hummed, a little pouty.
"It's because she did the quirk thing for Himiko Toga, isn't it? Toga-san was totally your maniac little sister.", Touka guessed accurately.
"What? No. She was just a subordinate. Villain-",
"Villainous Sibling Duo Which Causes Total Destruction! Vampire and Pheonix! Himiko Toga and Dabi! Tog-abi!", Touka dramatically said, holding up a fake mic.
"Togabi, Touka? Really?", Touya commented.
Touka nodded in agreement. "You're right. That friendship name needs a bit of make up."
"We don't need a friendship name, because we were villains! Villains don't friend people!", he lied, but Touka talked over him.
"Togepi! That's your friendship name!", she blurted out dramatically.
"Togepi like the Pokemon??"
"Aha! Now I know that you watched Pokemon. Gotcha!" , she said, saying the 'gotcha' in english. With her horrible accent, it sounded more like 'gachha'.
"Fuck this, what am I doing with my life? This is absolute rubbish.", Touya muttered, no real bite in his words.
"Oh. My. God. Did you just swear at a eleven year old, ojisan? And called her rubbish right after? Your niece, no less?", she asked, her hand covering her mouth like she was gasping.
He smirked. "No, I called her Trubbish."
She gasped.
-
"Hawk!", Touka pointed to the window. Touya lazily got closer to the window with a groan. There was no hawk outside.
"There's nothing there, kid..", he grumbled. She picked up her binoculars and looked through them.
"Ojisan, are you going blind? On that building over there.", she pointed, then slid the binoculars down.
He looked through them.
"I'm seeing nothing but a couple businessmen and a person whose maybe Keigo.", he stated.
"Er.. Keigo's real, legal name is Hawks? Ojisan, is your memory drooping? I can get you Rei-obaasan's medicines-"
"Shut up."
She burst into giggles.
-
On Touya's birthday, his family stayed with him all day. Cake and cold drink and snacks and gifts that Touya couldn't acquire yet. He pretended not to notice the card that slipped through the flap thing along with the mouth-melting slice of cake.
When everyone left, he opened the card, which had a picture of emo Touya drawn on it-
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OJISAN!
I bet you're so old you don't even remember how old you are..
don't die until I'm a hero at the very top, okay?
which means stop having birthdays, k?
anyways, have cake.
with love,
your 'kid'
(That cake was the best present he got. Well, at least until he could open that duffel bag.)
-
"I just.. I don't want to go to U.A. if it's without Koharu!", Touka cried out. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and for once, Touya felt like he wanted.. to pat her back, maybe.
(Yeah, maybe being locked up was for the best.
"She'll heal up in time, I'm sure. It's just a broken leg..", he tried.
"The entrance exam is in 5 weeks, Ojisan!", she shouted. He sighed. "You'll get caught if you're so loud."
Her sniffling stopped a bit.
Touya thought about any way Koharu could go through the exam with a broken leg. (Touka really cared too much about that girl)
"Didn't you say she can turn into a dog?", Touya asked.
"Yeah, she can turn into.. a dog or a .. puppy.. or get their.. mutations.. on her human.. body.. it's called.. Canine..", she sniffled.
"And Missus Tops-Every-Class-Score.. how long does a puppy take to heal it's leg?"
"Two, in this case.. OH!", Touka gasped.
(Koharu passed the U.A. exam alongside Touka. Touya was the first person she called with the news, and the Todorokis still didn't find out that they knew each other because she did it on a burner phone.)
-
She came a day after calling him with the news. Her hair were slightly bouncy now and.. she was fifteen.
Today her eyes looked a little different, more like sunny day clouds instead of stars. Like she was there to do something final, something she wouldn't get a chance to do again.
Like she would never return from U.A...
"Hey, kid.", he greeted.
(Konnichiwa, ko)
"Hey, ojisan.",
(Ne, ojisan..)
Touka never greeted like that. She usually came in shouting what she baked or cooked, or asking random questions, or pointing out obvious things. In the six years, Touya knew her, she had never once said "hey" or "hello" or even "good morning/afternoon" to him.
Her hands were behind her back, like she was hiding something. Touya had seen her do that before, but it was usually to show him food that she made, and she was never so.. still. She sat down on the floor near Touya, carefully hiding whatever it was on the other side of her skirt.
"How's your day going?", she asked quietly. Touka was never quiet. Touka never asked pointless things like that, made for extending conversation.
"As it went yesterday. Congrats on getting in U.A., by the way.", he replied anyway. She'd tell him eventually, even if he did feel worried.
It was impossible to miss how still she was.. usually she was either fiddling with something or bouncing around, and she never sat so.. politely? She was never embarrassed to sit however she wanted.
She nodded and mumbled a thanks.
It was awkwardly silent, and once again, she broke it. Record broken to 135 seconds.
"Why aren't you talking my ear off already? You're not acting normal.", he asked, attempting to break the silence.
She looked at him and sighed. "I was thinking, ojisan..", she began.
"Once I start U.A... I won't be able to visit you till spring break, because of exams and training. I'll have to learn how to live without ranting to somebody about my day a second later. And you'll have to learn to live without my ranting."
"I know.", Touya said, because he did.
"And.. your siblings have their own lives, and they're even busier than before now. Obaasan and Ojiisan are too old to visit now. But you'll be here forever, until you die."
Touya nodded slightly. He knew that would happen too, of course. No matter how much his family loved him, he was stuck in one place while they kept moving. He'd prepared to die alone as a villain. He was still prepared to die alone, because he'd known it would happen since the day he promised himself never to return to that household.
"And.. and eventually I'll move on too, you know? If I pass U.A, I'll become a hero. I won't come visit you either."
"I know, Touka.", his tone and face unchanging.
Touka looked up at him, biting her lip. Then she pulled out whatever she had been hiding.
It was just a remote with a big red button but it looked somewhat familiar to Touya, like he'd seen something similar. He gave his niece a questioning look
"When I wasn't born yet,", Touka continued, looking at the object. "I heard there was an incident. Somebody pulled the emergency fire alarm, so all the prisoners pulled up their glass-wall gates and ran off. All except you, because you said you were too tired and injured to put that much effort into something."
"True.", Touya said, because he felt like he had to. She looked up at him with knowing eyes.
"Dad got worried that if it were a real alarm, you would have died. So he got the establishment to make this, and since the establishment trusted him, they gave it to him.". Touka's eyes were narrowed, like that one time when she had skipped three classes and convinced Koharu to bunk with her even though she knew it was wrong. "It feels good to do small wrong things. It's not hurting anyone. Koharu and I are smart enough to catch up.", she'd said.
Touya's eyes widened in realization. "You didn't-"
"This isn't the original. I paid Toki to make it, and he let me off easy because he loves me and trusts me. And I trust you. This button.. well, I'll show you what it can do.", she said, standing up.
As soon as she clicked the button, the glass-wall slid up. The prison was open. Touya was free, in a sense, because now he could leave whenever he wanted.
"Touka.. this.."
And yet Touya didn't know what to feel about it. He felt thankful, yes.. but if Touka was really offering..
"You could leave.", she said, "Go start a new life. You're not that old. You could travel around instead of rotting here, ojisan. There's a lot of cases of people who suddenly come up and say they have amnesia. You're not that badly injured anymore, so you could just change your hair colour, put on some lenses, and I could give a bank account ID you could use- one of Ojiisan's older saving accounts that Fuyu-obasan told me about when I was younger."
She dropped to her knees, and it was the first time someone was in front of him and not beside him. "And they'd stop looking so long as there's no proof alive. I could make a set up that you were forced out or killed and no one would doubt it, except maybe our family."
Touka's little warm hands touched Touya's burnt ones, and then her eyes were really teary now.
"Or you could stay here. It's your choice, ojisan, but if you stay here.."
She trailed off, and once again Touya couldn't tell what she was thinking.
She wasn't wrong. He'd always wanted to travel, but he gave up that dream when he became a villain. It had been 26 years since he touched an actual human being's warm, not burning hot hand or seen a monument with his own eyes.
It was a kind gesture. She'd worked hard for it, and.. if no one was going to be by his side..
He wanted to say yes. Say "thank you, touka, ill miss you, you're the best." and take that grappling gun on her waist down the window and change his name and mind, for good this time.
He sighed. "Touka. You're becoming a hero. If you do things like this, you're not following your cause.", he said. She turned her eyes to the floor and chuckled without animation.
He wanted to say yes, and yet it wasn't fair. Fair to all those whose families he'd killed, to his family, which did so much for him in the past 26 years when he'd been meaning to kill them.
It wasn't even fair to Touka, or Himiko, or Uraraka, or Spinner, or Mr. Compress, or Keigo or.. even himself.
"My cause is to save people and make them feel safe. I'm getting you out of this place, so how is it not following my cause?"
If it doesn't hurt anyone, it's okay to do it. If it doesn't harm anyone, it's allowed no matter what society says., she left unsaid.
"It's going to hurt my family. It's going to hurt you. And I'm 50, kid. If I'm going to die anyways, I'd rather do it here, where there are people who care. People who care enough to worry about my safety because I'm injured or people who care enough to let me go even though they'd rather I don't.", Touya said.
..people who care enough to buy me gifts that they're not even sure I'll ever get, people who'd forgive me and care even after I tried to hurt them., he didn't say.
Touka started giggling suddenly. Before Touya could ask, she hugged him, and Touya had to admit- Shouto was right, even though the last time he'd hugged someone (him) had been to kill them, it wasn't so different.
This time, the record broke to 453 seconds.
-
Three years passed. It had been one year since Touka visited, but she'd sent him a chip today. Apparently, it had been inspected, and once Fuyumi's bag full of things was inspected too, Touya would have a million souvenirs he never thought he'd get.
Yesterday, she was supposed to graduate. Touya thought it must be a recording of that. He was partially right.
When he clicked the chip, it projected a blue-tinted screen. It was Touka in her hero costume. She looked like a real hero. She had graduated top of her class and she was valedictorian.
She gave a speech about her parents, her aunt, her uncle Natsu, and an anonymous person who helped her a lot, whom he recognised as himself. She talked about Koharu, who was crying nearby. Touya wondered how the two were still best friends. It was adorable. She talked about her class, and she talked about her sensei- underground hero Dai. She talked about her little brother, and once the speech ended, Touya couldn't be prouder. She had grown so much.
Before Touya knew it, Koharu started a chanting of Touka's hero name, and their classmates followed. Touya took until the fourth chant to process it, and when he did, he couldn't say he'd expected it, but it was just like her to use that.
Later, when Shouto asked him who his favorite hero was, Touya didn't even take a second to think about it before he said "Spectrum".
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