Burnt to Ashes - Kenichi Todoroki

Burn Marks on Sunken Pavement

Kenichi's POV:

Ryker picked me up from my after school behavioral classes though I offered to just walk. "It's too dangerous to walk all that way by yourself, Kenichi," is what he said to me.

When we got to my house, we sat on my porch, and I just gazed off into the street.

"How did you like our first day?" He asked me.

I shrugged. "It was fine but I don't know why I'm in those classes. They're very condescending"

"Let me take you for a ride, Kenichi," Ryker stood up off my porch.

"What do you mean?" I questioned. "We already drove here, where are we going now?"

"You'll see," he said.

We got on his motorcycle, and I could see through the mirror that he wasn't too pleased.

We rode. Riding towards Downtown Toronto, I got this weird gut feeling that I tried to urge away. I didn't know what Ryker was going to show me and I didn't know how it was going to apply to me.

He stopped suddenly in the peaks of downtown, right near a graveyard. A large white wall, green and red wreaths, and plates. Plates with names engraved on them. He got off his bike and motioned me to come with him.

There was only one person lingering around the site. "I'd advise you to put your hood up," Ryker told me. I did as he said.

The Great Quirk Accident was the heading. Name plates were attached to the walls, each victim listed. I killed these people. These were the hundreds of people I killed.

"This is why you're in those classes," Ryker told me. "You were in a coma, but it was a big thing for a couple months. You haven't checked the internet? Your dad hasn't told you? You haven't looked for any information about the disaster you caused?"

I shook my head, "No, I didn't know, Ryker. I've been trying to move on, y'know, move past all this? Not my fault some people can't."

"Dude, that's really insensitive," Ryker shot back. "You killed all these kids, ruined all these parent's lives, and you want to blame them for the way they're feeling. Doesn't that sound–"

"They were villains, Ryker," I told him.

"They were kids!" He snapped, then his voice softened, "They were kids. And now they'll never learn from their mistakes because they're dead. They're dead and it's all your fault and you can't blame anyone else."

For a moment, I saw Coda inside Ryker's eyes. The call we had. The call that we never finished.

And for a moment, I could see the first instance of genuine anger inside Ryker.

"I'm going home," he said, "come on."

I gave him his helmet back, "Go by yourself."

Ryker didn't respond, he just silently got on his motorcycle and rode off. Leaving me alone.

I turned around to look at the memorial. I sat against the gates of the graveyard and turned on my phone, searching up The Great Quirk Accident in Toronto Canada.

Articles upon articles flooded my screen. They knew my name, they knew my fathers name, they knew my history. They speculated about me. They speculated about my father. My dad had to put up with all this heat because of the accident. So many people wanted me imprisoned, so many people wanted me dead.

My dad said that Toronto Hero Academy didn't know my history. They didn't know what happened. But they did. How could they not know that the Kenichi Todoroki had joined their school?