Burnt to Ashes - Kenichi Todoroki

My Thoughts are Scattered

Shinju's POV:

The one brother who helped me cope since Tora's arrest, the one brother who I took the blame for back when I was nine, the one brother who was everything to me...

He was now hanging from a ceiling fan dead in front of me.

My body wouldn't move, my eyes were locked on his pale corpse, I didn't even want to see Kenichi's expression. How did nobody know about this? I should've saw it coming, so many people in this family have committed suicide. But little did they know that doing that put more stress on the others, and Ichirou, Kenji and Saburo couldn't give two shits about what the rest of us were going through.

"Shinju." Kenichi started, but I tried to block his voice out.

"Shinju!" Kenichi yelled louder.

"What? What do you have to say to me that I'm not already thinking?" I snapped. "He had to have done this recently, if you had never came then I would've been able to save him! It's because of you that I was late coming here, and my grandma and Kinan left do go do god knows what! And I couldn't do anything about it because you distracted me and you had me come pick you up and-"

"Don't fucking blame your brother's death on me!" Kenichi snapped. "Look at your family, look at your life! Don't you understand how fucking miserable it is? Of course he would've killed himself, what other choice was there but to sit there and take the stress of your dumbass brothers!"

I could feel my anger growing. "You barely even know how it feels to have a family who loves you. Your brother hates you, your dad's always gone, you and your sister aren't even that close and your mom's fucking dead. So don't you tell me why my brother committed suicide when he's admitted every single thing he's ever thought to me!"

Kenichi turned his arms into lava, which instinctively made me take out two of my shadow hands and pin him against a wall. "No matter what you do to me or this house, my family will come find you and kill you. Amida's death is your fault."

Even after the warning, Kenichi blasted me with lava. But it didn't burn.. I looked down and saw that I was stuck in black molten rock.

"You're a bitch." Kenichi got out of my shadow hands and walked to the door. He opened it, and before he walked out, he turned back to me. "I hate your guts."

After he slammed the door, I just limply stood there. I didn't realize how painful those words must've been for him, being reminded of his mother. God damnit, he's trusted and supported me for all these years and this is how I repay him? Bringing up past trauma and using it against him like it's nothing?

I finally broke out of the molten rock enclosure and fell to my knees, tears running down my face. I didn't know if it was the fact that Amida was dead, or that Kenichi walked out with the final words 'I hate your guts.' It was most likely a mix of the two. I clenched my stomach and felt my shadow hands pull my body upward. I felt like I was going to throw up. I can't show weakness, not now, especially since I know Amida wouldn't want to see me cowering over like this.

Especially when we wouldn't even get to host a proper funeral for him...

I walked over to the window, and didn't see Kenichi. My motorcycle was still in the driveway, so I didn't know how he would get home, but I reminded myself that he could probably blast himself with his quirk. What if all I said was for nothing, and even if I did come back earlier, he would've killed himself another way or he was dead way before?

I slowly took out my phone and called Akuma.

"Akuma Shirokage- oh, it's you." Akuma cleared his throat. "What do you need now, Shinju?"