Colors in the Dark

[57] Drill?!

Ayami felt like she was walking through a dream after she left Recovery Girl's office, and the strange sense that had everything feelings not-quite-real didn't go away after a night's sleep thankfully free of nightmares. She could barely believe that her parents had been Pros, that everything could have been different, that she was no longer alienated from her bloodline.

She, Ayami, once the creepy kid who seemed to appear out of nowhere, had a full name, a family that had departed this life too early, a past. It took all her willpower to not look up every tiny detail about them she could, to not search out who or what dared to take their lives. It took all her willpower to keep herself composed, to not internalize everything as much as she was.

They were Pro Heroes. Rivals of Endeavor. No wonder he looked at me like I was the worst of the worst; I'm the walking legacy of his most bitter enemies, the final traces of foes he thought he defeated, and I've defied all odds by rising from the bottom of society to the top. As the Guardian Angel of Japan, the Heroine to even the Heroes themselves, I've made it so far.

Would they be proud of me?

I walk the same halls they once did. Sat in the same rooms, fought in the same fields and buildings. Hints of their legacy have been all around me from the get-go.

Would they have loved me and raised me properly if they had been there to do so?

What would it have been like if they were still here?

In how many ways would things be different? My worldviews? The lives of all the people I met back at the orphanage, my siblings, and those I knew on the run? What about the Todorokis in a world where there was a benevolent duo to keep the monster of their home in check, a world where they could have been like a second family to me? A world where my quirk wouldn't have caused me to be known as a monster of the darkness, but a future hero in the light? Where the quite-possibly New Number Ones could have raised me?

Thoughts like those bounced around her head non-stop for hours on end, and given the next morning all anyone was doing was raving about Endeavor's battle, she was happy to indulge in them instead of the talk of her least favorite Pro. It was obvious, she made clear, in the way she spoke about him that she still didn't approve of him. Maybe the others didn't understand why. Maybe they did. But they saw him as a cool Pro no matter what terrible sins he'd commit; she simply couldn't view him in the same light.

Hawks worked with him. Hawks was half the reason he even succeeded in that battle in the first place. Hawks was like an older brother, someone she looked up to and respected. Even if he had been forced into the role, Hawks was a good Pro. Ayami believed in him. Hawks worked with Endeavor. For the sake of defeating villains. Because it was his job. Because now he had to play backup for the New Number One who couldn't even handle himself in a fight against a Noumu.

It was all headache-inducing, thinking about Endeavor, in both his many failures and his successes. But with all the buzzing about it, daydreaming about her lost family wasn't an option. Dwelling on an unchangeable past certainly wouldn't fix anything, but it was comforting nonetheless.

When Todoroki entered the room with a group of her other classmates rushing to ask him questions, her head rose, and she kept an ear out, but she did not rise from her seat.

"Hey Todoroki. Is Endeavor doing okay?" He'll live.

"Yeah. Sounds like his condition isn't serious." Years of burning others and he still manages to burn out himself as well. How did this man reach the top? Sheer willpower? Hatred? Spite? Can I hope to counter that using none of the malevolence and destruction his power wrought?