Deku goes back in time and becomes Rei Todoroki

Chap #4: A Tipping Point

-- REI --

It had been hard, so hard, to watch Toya go through training, but Toya had been a strong kid. He didn't cry very often when Enji trained him. He always tried his best, and he always kept his own personality when he left the training room. And there had been something she could do to help, a bargain she could strike with Enji, because he didn't have his perfect child, yet. But Enji wasn't twenty-five anymore. Time was running along and Shoto was the ideal mix of their quirks. Even if Rei could get pregnant again, a gamble on another pregnancy had a negligible chance of being an improvement, when Shoto was so close to perfect. And Shoto cried, and tried to cling to her, and he bruised and broke so easily. Then he started acting like Enji, picking up Enji's habits. He used his flames to express himself and would glare when he was in a bad mood and look just like his father. She couldn't handle it.

She couldn't sleep, couldn't stand being in the house, but there was nowhere else to go. The constant anxiety and helplessness were driving her crazy.

*

It takes her a while to get up the nerve and energy to go visit her children in the west wing. How could she face them, when she abandoned them and let them be evicted from the house?

If she had been born a boy...

So many things would have been different. Her father would have raised her to take over his business and taught her to be powerful, rather than marrying her off.

She had a hand in how that played out, but she didn't have a lot of options. She was a woman, and in her family, that meant being weak and powerless. Enji had seemed like a life raft to get her away from her father's control. She'd taken him to her bed and he'd followed without a word about the lack of birth control. Of course, he hadn't, but it wasn't until much later that she found out his motivations for that.

Her father had reacted to finding out she was pregnant the way that she knew he would, summoning Enji for a confrontation. Mr Yamaguchi's reputation was in jeopardy, and that was something she knew her father would disown her rather than allow.

"You'll marry her immediately, or else we'll tell the public about the number two hero's shameful behaviour!"

It had been exactly what she expected him to say.

It was Enji that hadn't reacted the way she thought he would. His career was just getting started and he was all over the media, only twenty years old and already the number two hero, only surpassed by All Might. His reputation was important to his future. He should have been worried.

But he crossed his arms and his lip curled in disdain.

"Tch. I'll tell them myself. Is that all you wanted to say to me?"

When all her father had done was sputter in indignation, Enji had almost walked out until her father got himself together and offered him a deal before he stepped outside the door. She'd sat and watched as Enji squeezed her father for a fortune and made him sign a contract backing Enji as the parent who would retain custody if anything should happen to challenge his guardianship of any children that came from their marriage, by paying for all of his legal fees and never offering themselves as guardians. He even made her father sign that he nor his wife would ever visit the children without Enji's permission and supervision, and he'd legally sealed the deal by making Rei sign as well. To this day, her own mother wasn't allowed to visit the house while the children were present.

She'd known before she married him that Enji didn't love her. He'd been so blunt and reasonable about letting her out of the marriage her father was trying to force her into.

"Whether we marry, or not, the child belongs to me. I can raise the child myself, and you can continue your life as you please if you'd like."

She'd only been eighteen and had no experience that would get her a job or allow her to know how to raise a baby, and she knew the two powerful men sitting at either side of the table were both capable of using that to their advantage to pry custody away from her.