Burnt to Ashes - Kenichi Todoroki

Sasha's Origin

Out of all that's happened in my shit life, I think the worst of it was being blamed for my family falling apart. Feeling guilt I shouldn't even feel because I was not even a day old.

I didn't ask to be here.

I didn't even remember when my mom died, or when my sister left. It's just been me and my dad. Here. In this house. The house where the moisture in the air was pure alcohol. The house where the moment you stepped in was a warzone.

"You're late," My dad snapped at me as soon as I walked into the door.

"Ah, as late as you were to mom's funeral?" I asked him. "Or, perhaps, as late as you were to being a good single father? Some would say they're still waiting, but some other shit parents would say you're right on time."

I heard the remote slam onto the floor and fall over, then his angry footsteps approached me. After all these years of dealing with my father, it's like taming a bull. You have to be calm, you have to be assertive, and never hesitate. I learned the hard way.

Before he could even open his mouth, I said, "I'm sure beating your own child is going to be detrimental to your hero career, don't you think?"

My father never thought ahead. He did things out of his own anger, his own hatred for himself and others, he did things because he wanted to. No second thought. I always wondered how he became a hero because of his personality. Maybe a better question would be how he's still in the profession. You'd think by now they'd kick out some fifty year old bull.

He shoved me into the kitchen wall, and I didn't give much of a reaction. The anger on his face over the truth was amusing. I had a thick skull from all the beating and hitting and kicking and pushing anyways. He was a baby throwing a tantrum, that's what I would describe his outbursts as.

"Go to your fucking room, and I don't want you to come out for SHIT." He told me.

I calmly stood up and walked past him, hitting my shoulder against his arm. Then I started running. He chased me. But the best thing about bulls is that you could easily be one step ahead of them.

I slammed my door right in his face and I could hear him tumble backwards.

The moisture of the air being pure alcohol and the war wrecked house I had to live in wasn't even the worst part. I think the worst part was realizing not everyone had a bull to tame. I didn't even have a trainer.

But I did have a suite of armor. A wall blocking the bull from ramming straight into me. And his name was...

"Draven!" I yelled out my window. A few moments passed and he peeked through his blinds, then lifted them as well as his window.

"Yeah?" He called back. I waved my hand over so he could come over.

Something both of us were pretty proficient in was scaling up and down walls. We did it multiple times a day.

Draven hoisted himself up and out of his window, climbing down his brick house and up mine. He peeked his dreaded head into my window, then hoisted himself over mine, avoiding falling straight on my desk.

A bull trainer isn't too strong just by themself. You need some sort of protection, accidents happen. Draven is like the brother, the sibling I never had. The loving father I deserved. My absolute best friend. My first cousin, but the most important person to me in my life.

"So what'd he do now?" He asked.

"What didn't he do, Draven?" I shot back.

He always listens to me. He gives me hope in humanity.

Some days I feel bad that I wear the armor. I think, my armor must have so much wear and tear from being rammed into so much. But Draven never seems to express any sort of anger, any sort of wear and tear. He just smiles. He takes things for me with a smile. He doesn't break like I would.

My dad is a bull, untamed. He was tamed. But I guess when you switch the colors of the flags, they forget everything they learned from before.

Sorrow changed my father. It shaped him into an unhappy shell of what he once was. But I never got to feel the sorrow he felt. The sorrow my sister felt. So why should I be the one to sit and take the actions caused by it?

Life isn't easy, even with a suit of armor.