Pearls.

The Himura family were once rich. That’s what Rei’s parents’ tell her atleast. That their family lineage ran back to times before Quirks were only make believe and powers were fantasy. Her grandmother often murmurs of times where she was followed by maids at her beck and call, where she was dressed in new kimonos every other day. Where she didn’t need to sell her jewelry for money.

Rei does not remember a time where they lived in luxury, her brothers maybe, but her? All Rei remembers is the biting cold as she slept in her futon that was still an inch too short for her growing body. All she knows are unbearably cold baths and worn out clothes that lack colour from being washed one too many times. 

The cold was ironically fitting with how their family prided their ice quirks. 

Rei remembers seeing the Heroes once as she walked with her grandmother down the street. It had been many years ago, but she can still feel the deafening power in their grip as they apprehended the villain and the happiness that shone in the civilians faces. The cheers that echoing in their wake.

That night, Rei sat on her futon, watching the ice melt and freeze on the tip of her finger. She’d sat there for, however long she didn’t know, but all she could wonder was if could she too be great like that Hero? It had been the beginning of a quiet dream that would fade in the following years as she grew. One she now looked back on in sorrow.

The next night, sitting on a lumpy cushion around the low table, she’d posed the question of why she couldn’t apply for the Hero course and save her family from their poverty. Her grandmother had immediately scorned the idea, her grey eyes filled with disgust as she spat out that a woman shouldn’t—couldn’t be a Hero. But hadn’t they seen a black haired woman in a hero costume on a billboard earlier that day?

The days of women being left behind in the workforce were gone, or were they not? Her grandmother believed they should stay at home and care for the kids, watch over the grandkids.

And whatever her grandmother says, gos. So fifteen year old Rei watches as time passes agonizingly slow and her opportunity to become a Hero disappears with her youth. 

She’s nineteen before she knows it. The world changing around her and the lines around her grandmother’s mouth have only deepened ever since. The necessity for food has become the households main problem, not money like before because at least back then they’d earned something from their fathers job to sustain their hunger. Now they were on the verge of going more than a few nights without food. 

Her father had tragically died the previous year from sepsis, the doctors concluded. A cut that he’d refused to get checked out saying that the hospital bill would be too high to pay off. He died before they even knew it and they found him hours later, cold and stiff in his futon. 

Her mother had become immobile after that, sitting in the inner courtyard that hadn’t been tended to in decades wasting her days away in grief. She stares into the empty koi pond, looking back at a reflection Rei sometimes sees in the mirror. The hopelessness is so prominent in her expression Rei cannot bear it so she turns, guilt gnawing at her.

Maybe if she’d taken the chance when it was offered she would be scaling the Hero billboards and making more than enough money for her family to live a comfortable life. Her father wouldn’t have died and her mother wouldn’t become a shell of the woman she once was.

Instead, she takes walks around her prefecture to fill her days. She couldn’t get a job if she wanted, her grandmother forbids her from getting one, and she cannot imagine her reaction if she found Rei secretly had one. The disappointment and disgust would be too much for the woman to bear. So instead she tends to the gardens. Yanking the overgrown weeds out and planting new seeds in the soil. One day they will grow into blue-bells and camellias that bloom in spring. One day the koi pond’s will fill with fresh Koi again and her mother wouldn’t stare into a sad reflection all day long. 

One day. 

Now, Rei sits in front a man with red spiky hair and blue eyes that mirror the fresh water in the newly built koi pond. He stares at her with an intensity she shrinks away from. The man in front of her is Todoroki Enji, more formally known as the Flame Hero: Endeavor. Newly placed number two on the Hero rankings Rei dutifully checks every year. A habit she’d grown into ever since she was young. Of course, all under the nose of her grandmother.

She has an inkling why he’s here, but when her brother beside her finally utters the words, she can’t hide the shock and fear off her face. Endeavor looks at her with quickly disguised confusion at her shock, before his burning eyes turn to her brother instead. 

She’d had a feeling that something like this would happen. She was old enough to know the types of things families would do to get money and power, but a small part of her had naïvely believed that she would be an exception.

Foolish of her to think she would be any different, she thinks bitterly as her fingers move the pen across the paper and signing her fate away to a man she’s only seen on the screen. Endeavor looks scarier now than he’s ever looked on the screen, and for the first time, she finds the beginnings of her hatred for Hero’s beginning to grow.

Soon there will be a garden full of it.

The resemblance between Touya and his father is uncanny. From their hair to the glint of their eyes, even to their quirks, their so identical that sometimes Rei wonders if her first son even gained anything from her.

Touya finds his quirk a few months after his fifth birthday. Rei still remembers the day, he sat on the couch watching an old video of Endeavor fighting, his joyous shrieks filling the living room as orange flames licked the side of his arm.

He’d burned the entirety of his left sleeve of his favorite shirt, a piece of Endeavor merchandise but amidst the awakening of his quirk he only spared it a quick glance before he ran to tell his father. 

Maybe, if Rei had been more focused on the wider picture, she could’ve stopped all that happened next. But Touya’s happiness in his first step in becoming a hero was…blinding. So, Rei is at fault, but she stands in that moment, unaware and unknowing as she watches her son walk down a path she can’t save him from.

Fuyumi comes next, her white hair streaked with red. Endeavor hoped that she would have the quirk he desperately desired, but when she revealed to only inherit the ice of her mother’s he turned back to Touya. 

With only a few months between the both of them, Fuyumi and Touya naturally had grown close. Playing together all the time and watching Heroes fight on the screen, (though that was mostly her brother, Fuyumi liked to read more) they did everything together. They even sometimes slept in the same futon.

Rei smiled at the sight as she sat next to the siblings as they argued on which Hero was better. Touya is loud, boisterous and passionate as he argues his case for Endeavor, Fuyumi is the opposite and speaks in a quiet, low voice that reminds Rei all too well of herself.

She pats the small white head next to her, fingers scratching their scalp. Fuyumi looks up, grey—no, blue eyes look up at her and the breath leaves Rei’s lungs. 

When had Touya begun to grow white hair?

Natsuo comes a few years after. If Rei believed before that Touya was the exact copy of Endeavor, she doesn’t think that now as she looks at the bundle wrapped up in her arms. 

There is a tiredness that clings to Rei more days than not. An ache in her bones that she can’t seem to shake as she holds the quiet baby in her arms. Fuyumi is standing on the couch to peer down at the baby, Touya stands off to the side his blue eyes watching, quiet.

Touya had never been a quiet boy. He made his presence known and drew peoples attention to him whenever he stepped into a room, but ever since he’d begun to grow white streaks in his hair, he’s grown quieter as the years pass.

Rei has tried talking to him. Of course she has, she’s only worried for her boy, but he shuts her down as quickly as she came. It’s not long before she begins to cease with the persistence, something she would come to regret in the later years.

But now, as she looks at her eldest child, she finally sees his quietness for what it truly is. What she had thought was maturity finally settling in the boy was in fact unadulterated hatred. It shines in the glint of his turquoise eyes and in the clench of his fists. It’s in the burn scars that litter his hands and mismatch the colour of his skin.

She knows her boy was changed irreparably after the doctors appointment that changed everything. That they found out that Touya’s own quirk hurt him. That he couldn’t use it ever again. Guilt eats Rei alive, and she stays up most nights wondering what would happen if he hadn’t been prematurely born. 

She knows it’s out of her control—but it still doesn’t stop her from whispering sorry to herself as she watches Touya deactivate his quirk, the red flames winking out of existence. 

Endeavor has forbidden from using his quirk, putting their lessons on hold until eventually, they were never a thing and she can see how it crushes her son. She sees the light dim in his eyes. She wants to say something, anything, but what can she say when whenever she looks at her son she can only see her heartbroken fifteen year old self as her grandmother says she cannot be Hero.

Natsuo stirs in her arms, his grey eyes blinking as he comes to taking in the awfully bright world infront of him. Rei’s fingers tighten around him and she knows—knows deep inside her that her poor baby is not what his father wants him to be. Rei wants to shield him away from the inevitable disappointment that she’s seen in both Touya and Fuyumi. 

So, Rei tightens her hold and her baby, smiling as he begins to cry. It will be a few years before the inevitable happens. A few years where she can cherish Natsuo’s innocence. 

The ache still clings onto Rei’s limbs like a second skin.

She awakens to a piercing cry, the room she sleeps in reverberating with the sound. The twins have woken up again, the second night this week and the week has only started. Rei sits up in bed, eyes sheepishly turning to look at the man on the other side of the bed. 

Endeavor sleeps like a rock. His body completely unmoving and still, tense and poised as if ready for something—anyone to attack him. Who could attack him anyway? He was second to All Might, none would dare. So did he think that maybe she would? 

Rei had most definitely thought of it. How easy it would be to just grab the knife and take it through his neck, watch as the piercing blue eyes that haunt her wherever she goes finally feel the fear she endured all the years living with him.

Instead, Rei slips from the cold bed, her feet taking her towards the twin’s room. The newest addition to her long list of regrets, Akane and Shouto are. While Shouto dons half of Rei’s white and Endeavor’s red hair, similarly with his eyes. Akane has snow white hair and the same eyes as her father. Though on closer inspection you could see the grey flecks in them.

Rei enters the nursery, her eyes immediately hooking onto a crying Shouto, his tiny fists flailing in the air as he fights an imaginary monster of the dark. It doesn’t take her long to bring him to her chest and hold him there, his cries subsiding into small hiccups before he momentarily falls asleep. 

It is only when she places the baby back into his crib that she notices Akane’s stare, her turquoise eyes shining in the dimness. Rei feels a familiar chill crawl up her spine, raising goosebumps along her skin. 

A little Akane lies there, eyes watching her mother as she picks her up and rocks her too. Rei can’t shake the image of Touya from her head as she gazes down at the baby. She knows the baby does not understand anything, but she swears that under Akane’s gaze she feels scrutinized more than she’s ever done in her life. 

Rei quickly leaves the room after Akane sleeps, crawling back into her own bed but sleep eludes her so she stares into the fathomless black of the night, piercing blue cutting through.

It is the days where Todoroki Rei finds herself staring out the window of her room in the hospital, the sun casting a glow on her face that she misses the home she has now left.

She misses days of staying out in the sun with Natsuo and Fuyumi versing Akane and Touya sometimes whenever they felt like joining. The absence of Shouto is loud, but they make enough noise that eventually his empty space is forgotten amidst a game of football or chess.

She can hear the distant voices of Fuyumi and Touya arguing over which Hero is better, their faces so similar as they argue back and forth. Born only less than a year apart from each other, the similarities between her two eldest are stark and never ending, but the differences are there too.

Where Touya is brash and hot like the fire of his father, Fuyumi is cold and composed like Rei’s ice.

A fatal flaw, Rei thinks solemnly. A phrase she caught from a book she’d forgotten the name of. It had been the fire that burned within her son that led to his ultimate demise, she heard from the Hospital.

Some days, when Rei looks at the flowers Endeavor sends her, she can still see the bright gaze of Touya’s eyes when he first conceived his quirk. A joyous moment, she remembers. She remembers the way Enji had lifted him in the air, proclaiming him the next number one.

(Other days she sees her second youngest, only by a few minutes, Akane’s judging stare as if she can see through her mother and into the depths of her soul. See everything Rei wishes to say but cannot.)

It had only been a few years later until Natsuo was born that Touya had begun to see. Like maggots slowly crawling into a flesh wound, the realization was slow and daunting, yet hurt all the same.

Rei had has been overcome with sadness then and every day afterwards as she watched her sons decent into his own self-hatred.

It had only gotten worse after Akane stopped speaking to her. Her youngest daughter’s brisk nods and quick words only fee the flames of her sadness. It had reached the breaking point when she’d attacked Shouto. She can still remember the moment vividly. Her soft weeps as she spoke to her mother on the phone.

She can still see Endeavors face in Shouto’s left side and she’d had the idea to wash it all away, wipe her son clean from his taint and filth for everything touched by Endeavor was cursed and rotten.

Now, Rei sits in her Hospital room. The days are slow and calm, but that’s how she likes it. She misses her children the most, but Fuyumi and Natsuo’s and even Shouto’s occasional letters appease her loneliness from time to time.

Akane is the only one who never writes or visits. Last Rei heard from Fuyumi is that Akane had dyed her hair a deep black. A new look for middle school, her sister says. A disguise from who Akane is, Rei thinks, but she doesn’t write that because despite never speaking to her daughter, she can understand her actions like no other.

Rei smiles as she stares out the window, watching the falling snow flakes outside. Winter had always been beautiful. When the world was encased in white and humans and animals alike cuddled together for warmth.

Winter was a time for hearts to be shared and love to be spread. So when the door to her Hospital room reveals a familiar yet unfamiliar face, she’s ready to spread her love too.

Todoroki Akane—no, Himura Akane, walks through the U.A doors on the first day of the new school year and already she misses her bed at home. The school is obnoxiously loud, with students laughing alongside each other as they walk and teachers barking out instructions from across the corridor. Nothing like the private school she went to. Despite hating the place, she misses the quiet of it.

Gritting her teeth, she plays with a strand of her freshly dyed black hair as she walks through the hallway. Everything about the school is…large. From the hallway, to the doors and the people. It’s the type of schools shes read about in her novels late at night. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine herself in the top Hero school of the country—no, the world. 

Did she even have a reason to be a Hero? Other than spite and hatred for her father? But they were definitely not heroic attributes. Or was it because she wanted to prove that she was no longer going to stay in the long shadow of her brother? Hatred churns in her stomach like a furnace..

Akane’s feet stop at the entrance to Class 1-A, the door annoyingly tall. She slides in, and finds the room quiet and empty with no one else but the soft chirping of the birds outside. The view outside is…one of the reasons why so many have a fear of heights. 

Akane slips into a chair, third in the back row and sighs in content. The back had always been her place. Where she wasn’t under the judging gazes of her classmates or the watchful eyes of her teachers. She was an average student, not too high on the class board but not too low. Not something worth chasing or befriending. Maybe that was part of the reason why most turned a blind eye to her if they didn’t find anything appealing about her that they liked. She didn’t blame them. From the outside she looked like any ordinary person. She didn’t excel in certain sports or have a visibly cool quirk, so it was no wonder when people drifted away from her cold persona. 

Akane drops her head onto the desk after glancing at the clock. She’s 10 minutes to class and that means 10 extra minutes of the sleep she so dearly lost last night. Staying up reading on a school night was not great.

Akane wakes to the shrieks of multiple people, her head snapping up as she takes in her surroundings, embarrassingly quick. Brushing her hair away from her face, she takes in the now filled class. She’s thankful no one saw her stunt.

Her attention is quickly diverted as she notices what caused the commotion. At the door stands a tall, lean man in dark clothes with dark eyes and hair and even an even darker look on his face. He looks beyond fed up with the class and it’s only been—8 minutes in to the lesson?

”It took you all 8 minutes to quiet down. If you’re here to make friends, I suggest you pack up and leave.” 

The class effectively shuts up, all eyes on the teacher as he shrugs out of his…portablesleepingbag? Odd. Akane has seen many odd stuff and her teacher now tops that list. 

He pulls out the U.A gym uniform, and thrusts it infront of the first person in his vicinity. A petite brown haired girl with pink cheeks and a furious blush on her face. “Change and head to the gym. We’ll be having a quirk assessment test.”

It takes her a few seconds to feel the pair of eyes staring daggers at the back of her head as she walks out of the class. She turns and see’s a bi-colored head staring at her, a stoic expression on his face as he walks a few meters behind her.   

How had it managed to slip her mind that her brother would be in the same class her? Shouto was bound to be in the top class, in the top school, and yet some part of her had hoped that maybe he didn’t. That he’d taken some initiative and run away from his fathers dream or somehow failed. 

When was the last time she even saw her twin brother? Last week, Akane thinks. When they happened to cross paths walking in the hallway. She to the bathroom and him to wherever. It had been only a mere glance shared between the both of them and nothing more. No hello’s or what are you doing? like normal siblings would have said. Shouto and Akane were anything but normal so the lack of relationship between them had become the familiar and nothing to be questioned in their family. Barely any of them had a relationship with their brother due to their father.

Another reason to hate Endeavor.

No one but Fuyumi had tried to help mend their relationship. It was one thing that two siblings didn’t have a good relationship, but twins? They were meant to be inseparable. Like two peas in a pod, something that couldn’t be taken apart. Birdsofafeather.

Akane and Shouto couldn’t be further than that.

Aizawa Shota stands infront of the newest 1-A class and sighs. His dark rimmed eyes watch as the students gather into a group to await his instructions. 

Akane dutifully stays on the other side of Shouto, finding herself beside a pink skinned girl with raccoon like eyes and a tendency to wave around whenever she spoke. 

“We’ll be doing a basic assessment test to test your capabilities with your quirks.” Aizawa spoke, tossing the soft ball into the air and back.

”Oh, and whoever comes in last will be expelled.” Expelled? Akane internally groaned. If she somehow managed to end up last (which she doubted just from taking a look at her other classmates) she would have to back home to a Endeavor. She could already imagine what he would say, who are you to try stop Shouto in his path to number one?

Because at the end of the day, everything was about Shouto and the thought couldn’t piss her off anymore than it already did. She’s spent her entire life in the shadow of her brother’s potential, she was beyond done from hearing his name. She was sick of seeing Endeavor’s face every time she thought of him. 

“Bakugou, how far did you throw in middle school?” 

It takes Akane a moment to realise who her teacher is talking to, but when she finds the boy she’s met with a cocky grin and crimson eyes that burn with an intensity she’s never seen before. It reminds her of Endeavor in some way. The way both he and this boy clearly have a drive for more. To be more.

”67 meters.” He replies, crossing his arms over his chest. He stands with his back straight and head forward. He’s the type of boy to know when people are looking at him and revel in it.

”Good. Step in the circle and try it with your quirk.” Aizawa orders, and the boy complies, rearing his arm back as he stretches his joints. Akane wonders what his quirk is. It has to be some emitter type with the way he’s stretching his muscles, but—

The ball explodes from his hands with a boom and loud shriek of DIE!! the slight gust of wind hitting the students. Everyone is silent and waiting, watching the smoke trickle from the blonde boys hands. He only moves back to his position, arms crossed and waiting for his score. 

“705.2 meters.”

The boy shot the softball, 705.2 meters into the sky, with only his quirk. U.A was a school meant for future heroes, just how far would they push them to achieve the best? Akane’s stomach did somersaults in excitement as the class moved onto the first test.

The test’s went by with a breeze and before Akane registered, they were all standing informer of Aizawa once again and waiting for the last test.

The ball throw.

Simple and easy. One must use their quirk to get the highest score they can attain. Akane sighed. This was not where she was suited to be at, with her cold manipulation quirk and all.

Akane flexed her fingers, watching Yaoyorozu create a canon from a portion of her belly, effectively landing her the highest throw with 1098.45. Her quirk was disastrously strongly. The ability to create anything from one’s body meant infinite possibilities. There had to be some type of side effect or requirement to use the quirk.

And judging from the slight swagger in her once poised and elegant walk, Yaoyorozu certainly had some backlash from her quirk. What, Akane couldn’t figure out.

Akane watched, turquoise eyes following as Midoriya moved to the front, his hands subtly shaking. Judging from the earlier exercises, he hadn’t used his quirk once and he most likely wouldn’t do it here. Or would he?

“Hah, Aizawa should just kick his ass out already. Quirkless shit won’t be here for long anyway.” The blonde spat out, uncaring to the scandalized gasp coming Iida.

“So rude! I’m sure Midoriya won’t be going home—and quirkless? Midoriya is far from that.”

Bakugou gave him a sidelong glance, eyes narrowing, “What? Elite-fuck he’s been quirkless since nursery.”

The conversation was beyond confusing. While Bakugou said that Midoriya was quirkless, Iida vehemently denied. Which one was Midoriya. Akane turned her eyes to the front once more. Only one way to find out.

Midoriya readied to throw the ball, his hand lighting up with the strength of his quirk. A physical enhancer quirk then. Midoriya let go, the soft ball falling a few meters away with a loud thud. Akane’s dark eyebrows rose. What?

The explanation came soon after once Aizawa spoke up, his dark hair floating with the activation of his quirk. “Midoriya Izuku, with your power, you will never be a hero.”

The pin drop silence that followed was excruciatingly embarrassing. Midoriya was blushing under the gazes of everyone, his teacher especially. Aizawa finally let his quirk go, his hair falling back down but it wasn’t enough to hide the obvious disdain in his eyes.

“But, Sensei—“

“No but’s. This is why I find the U.A entrance exam stupid. It caters to people with quirks like yours in.”

Midoriya’s face fell even further, if that was possible. He looked beyond heartbroken and Akane felt herself feeling a bit sad for him. Their homeroom teacher was being undeniably harsh, and on the first day?

Though, Aizawa’s words didn’t stop Midoriya, instead, once their teacher turned his back on the boy, he picked the soft ball back up and moved to stand inside the circle. He had a new air around him. A determination that Akane hadn’t seen the entire day from him. As if he’d found a new resolve—and so quickly?

He prepared to throw the ball, instead of his entire hand lighting up with the power of his quirk, only a finger did. Clearly Midoriya had gained some last moments revelation to alter his quirk to finish the ball test. But why?

Midoriya threw the ball in a gust of power and strength. And afterwards, once the dust settled and all eyes were on him, he shakily spoke, clutching a purple and most definitely broken finger in his palm, “S-sensei..I can c-control my quirk!”

Akane found herself relieved when Aizawa smiled slightly, showing his score to the class. “709.3.” Just above Bakugou—and Bakugou was fuming at this. How had he gone under the assumption that Midoriya had been quirkless? Maybe he hid his quirk because it hurt him to use it? Akane thought, but he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t used it and Bakugou surely would’ve seen when their quirks first came in. The two of them were beyond confusing.

“What? Have you been lying to me this entire time you little bitch! Deku!” Before Bakugou could take even a step towards the green boy, he was held back by the cloth wrapped around Aizawa’s neck. These boys had serious issues together

“Quit acting like babies and get in line. The scores will be coming up soon.” Bakugou and Midoriya fell back into the crowd of students, though the distance between them held a noticeable difference in space from when they stood at the beginning and now.

Midoriya chose to stand next to Akane, so she took it upon herself to ask, “Are you okay? Your finger looks bad.” She murmured quietly, startling the boy who practically jumped out of his skin. He turned to her with a blush, stammering, “A-Ah, it’s okay! This happens when I use my q-quirk so I’m used to it?”

Wow. So he was used to breaking his bones to use his quirk? That explained his pain tolerance since any other person would be wailing on the floor in pain with their entire finger broken.

Akane nodded, stepping back from the boy and turning her eyes to Aizawa once more as he called for attention. Himura Akane came up in 10th place. Considering that she had no training prior to this, she was proud though she didn’t show it. She couldn’t, not without feeling guilty as she spied Midoriya’s name at the bottom of the list. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Was that even the right gesture? “It’s…um okay? You did your best?”

Was that an insult?Clearly she was insinuating with that phrase that he was so weak he came in last.

Midoriya took no offense, instead stammering out a squeaky yet quiet, “T-Thank you!“ The tears shining in his eyes clearly showed his heartbreak.

“Oh,and did I say that the expulsion thing was a lie?”

“WHAT!!!”

The class collectively all reared up in shock, though Yaoyorozu and Shouto were the only ones with calm faces. Clearly they’d anticipated this to happen. If they had, she should’ve too. Akane found the bitter feeling of envy settle in her stomach once again.

“It was a necessary deception to get you all to do your best.” Aizawa drawled, grabbing his sleeping bag and walking towards the exit of the gym. “Go get changed, class has ended.”

And so they did. Soon enough, Akane found herself walking out of U.A’s entrance, scrolling idly on her phone to pass the time. She didn’t look up as people passed her, her feet taking her on the familiar path to her house. She’d come to U.A multiple times in the holiday. Just to peer up and look at the school that she would soon be going to. Maybe it was a little reassurance for her that tomorrow and the day after that, U.A wouldn’t magically disappear and her dream wouldn’t fade into nothing and it would still be standing the morning after.

She stopped at the call of her voice, lifting her dark head and turning to find Shouto standing behind her. He was waiting beside a sleek, dark car. Probably sent by Endeavor to pick him up. Akane’s grip on her phone only tightened. Everything just seemed to be a reminder that her father couldn’t have given a penny to think about her today. No doubt he knew by now that she was going to U.A.

Shouto called out to her, “Akane…would you like to come with me?” The question was so innocent, so nice, that Akane felt herself feeling even angrier. Couldn’t Shouto see how uncomfortable that would be? With her being in a car alone with the sibling she’s talked to the least.

She politely declined, shaking her, already beginning walking away and towards the train station before a hand grasped her arm. She whirled around to find Shouto even closer. So close she could see that the red and whites of his hair were overlapping in some places. As if he didn’t bother to brush it in the morning. “Akane, when did you change your name? How—“

“I changed it a long time ago Shouto. I didn’t want the same name as Endeavor and mother said I could change it to hers. Endeavor didn’t care.” She replied brusquely, shaking her arm out of his grip.

Shouto’s multi colored eyes widened in shock, realization and understanding. “I see.”

Akane found herself speaking before she could stop herself. He’d probably wished to do it before too, but couldn’t with Endeavors leeching presence hovering over him. Akane found herself feeling guilty for brushing Shouto off so quickly. “You can change it too if you want.”

Shouto pondered on the thought before shaking his head, “Endeavor would never let me. He wants all my achievements tied to him.” They stood like that, in quiet understanding for a few more minutes before Akane began walking, knowing all too well that Shouto was watching her go.

She would’ve turned the corner if Shouto hadn’t called out to her again, “Akane…you’ve visited mom, how is she?”

The question took her aback. She was surprised that Shouto would still ask about their mother considering what she did to him. From this distance their mother and Shouto looked the same, with just different colour palettes. She wondered if she resembled her mother in the slightest. She knew who she looked like though.

“Yeah, I have. She’s…doing better these days.” Akane replied, louder to get her words across, “She misses you Shouto.” With that, Akane turned the corner and left, keeping her gaze forward and up. There was no point in telling him the last bit, but some bit of her that still cared about Shouto had forced it out of her mouth. He was her brotherafter all, and their mother didmiss him.

Akane sighed, dropped her phone into her bag, catching her reflection in the window of a bakery shop. With her white, now dark, hair and blue eyes, she knew exactly who she looked liked. Maybe she had some features from her mother, but ultimately she was the exact copy of Touya, though she loathed to admit. She could tell just from the way Natsuo stared at her a little longer whenever they spoke or the way Fuyumi would smile a little harder when they laughed.

She couldn’t blame them. They’d known Touya the best out of all of them, but that didn’t stop the anger from forming in her chest. Couldn’t they separate her and her eldest brother? They were two different people and he was gone now. All that stood was her in the place of ashes.

Akane sighed, pulling her phone back out and hoping for some sort of distraction. She knew she would find none, but it was best to try regardless, right?